Learning launched. Tables filled. Community in motion.
From the start of new classes to the first moments of TJU, and from a gala prize turning into a Shabbat at home, this week captured what it looks like when Jewish life is lived in real time. Scroll through for a few moments worth lingering on.
Two men are waiting on a train platform late in the afternoon. One is younger, clearly in a hurry. The other is older, calm, and completely unbothered. The younger man glances at his phone, frowns, then turns to the older man and asks politely, “Excuse me, do you have the time?”
The older man says nothing, staring straight ahead.
Although Moshe complained to Hashem that the people were suffering terribly under Pharoah’s enslavement, his concern was that the nation was undergoing pain and agony that was too much. He was reprimanded for his protest and Hashem explained to him the process which they were going through. The original covenant, the pact Hashem had made with Avrohom hundreds of years earlier was now to be fulfilled.
The Torah enumerates the total count of the nation when they arrived in Egypt. Then we are reminded that Yosef was in Egypt. Rashi explains that the Torah is emphasizing that Yosef withstood all the difficulties which the culture presented him with. They were a nation deeply entrenched in immorality. Additionally, we know that the wife of Potiphar went to great lengths to seduce Yosef.
After the nation settled in Goshen Yaakov lived out the remainder of his life there. The parsha is written in such a fashion as to indicate that it is disconnected from the previous parsha. Rashi cites the Midrash that this alludes to the lack of perception that befell the people after Yaakov’s death as the encumbrance of the impending exile began to impact them.