Parshas Shemot: A Promise of Freedom

We begin the book of Exodus with this week’s Torah portion, Shemot (Exodus) 1:1 - 6:1. Through God’s blessings, the Jewish population grows and prospers in Egypt. 

Anti-Life Propaganda and Social Policy Weaponized Against a Holy People

The new Pharaoh views the Jewish God and the amazing success of the Jewish  people as a threat to his political and theocratic power. He attempts to diminish their spiritual power by morally corrupting them. Many Jews, but not all, believe the deliberate government propaganda campaign supporting idolatry and pagan Egyptian practices.

Pharaoh tries to contain and diminish Jewish numbers by working Jewish men to exhaustion and ruling that they sleep in the fields rather than at home with their wives. He embeds spies in Jewish neighborhoods to report on imminent births and orders the midwives to drown all newborn Jewish male babies. He steals Jewish female babies and assimilates them into the pagan Egyptian culture as sex slaves.

These strategies ultimately fail. The men grow stronger, their wives visit them in the fields, the midwives refuse to drown the male babies, Jewish mothers protect their daughters. Even angels appear to protect the newborns from Egypt’s baby police.

The Birth of Moses

Pharaoh learns that a future revolutionary will be born to Jochebed and Amram, leaders in the Jewish community. The spies plan to report Moses’ birth to the baby police at the normal time of delivery, but thankfully he is born three months prematurely. His mother hides her infant son for three months, then to save his life she puts him in a basket and casts him into the river of reeds to be delivered into the hands of Bitya, Pharaoh’s daughter.

Bitya claims the infant boy as her own. She and Miriam, Moses’ sister, are friends, and Miriam offers to provide a nursemaid. She selects Jochebed, insuring that Moses is raised by his loving mother. He grows up to take an interest in the well-being of the Hebrew slaves, one day killing an abusive Egyptian slave master. To avoid capture, Moses flees to Midian. He meets and marries his wife, Zipporah. He becomes a shepherd. God contacts him at the Burning Bush and gives him the task of liberating the Jews from Egyptian enslavement. 

Moses Accepts His Duty as Jewish Liberator

Though lacking the confidence and verbal skills to achieve this undertaking, Moses accepts his duty. He meets his brother, Aaron, and they return to Egypt to enlist the cooperation of the Jewish elders. These righteous men know a revolt will intensify Pharaoh’s wrath and the Jews will suffer worse abuses and indignities. With great faith in the God of Abraham, the elders agree to support the liberation movement which will culminate in the exodus from Egypt. The people remember Jacob’s promise of a future deliverance from slavery and agree to follow Moses.

God Promises a Future Redemption and an Era of Holiness in Jerusalem

Our Haftarah portion, Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 27:6 - 28:13 and 29:22-23, reprises the theme of liberation from slavery and idolatry. The prophet warns of an impending exile brought about by a succession of kings who refuse to stop their wicked ways. The Northern Kingdom of Israel falls and native society absorbs Jewish culture. Isaiah predicts a Final Redemption when God will restore the Jewish homeland in Jerusalem, where the lost and suffering sons and daughters of Abraham will live in peace and holiness.

We learn valuable lessons from the experience of the Jews in Pharaoh’s Egypt and Isaiah’s warnings and predictions resonate with us. While the majority of people succumb to false promises for self satisfaction and empowerment proffered by nefarious opportunists and profiteers, some do not. Those that maintain loyalty to God and His moral code encounter resistance and oppression in the short term but eventually enjoy redemption and deliverence.

We are Delivered for Good, not Evil

In Parshas Shemot, God promises us freedom so that we can celebrate Him and serve Him. He doesn't offer us freedom to deny Him and serve ourselves. We know this from Moses's and Aaron's words to Pharaoh in Exodus 5:1 and 5:3. 

Moses and Aaron later went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what God, the God of Israel, has said: ‘Send forth My people, so that they may celebrate a festival for Me in the wilderness.’”

They said, “The God of the Hebrews has appeared to us. Let us therefore make a three-day journey in the wilderness so we can sacrifice to God, our God, lest He strike us with a plague or by the sword.”

Our nation and our people have suffered long enough from believing the false promises for self satisfaction and empowerment proffered by nefarious opportunists and profiteers in the abortion industrial complex. Baby killing redefined as heath care, civil rights, and religious values enslave the human heart and mind. Too many innocent humans perish. Too many children, parents, families and communities endure irreplaceable loss and irreparable trauma. 

Our freedom from enslavement depends on sacrificing the idea that killing unborn human beings is compassionate and sensible and justifiable in law. We embrace a new way of thinking that sees the work of God's hands in each and every unborn child, celebrates the gift of life and serves our loving Creator.

For, when he sees his children, the work of My hands, in his midst, who shall hallow My name, and they shall hallow the Holy One of Jacob, and the God of Israel they shall revere. Isaiah 29:23.

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Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.

Cecily Routman is the founder and president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation. She opposes abortion homicide in general and among Jews in particular and laments secular policy making in Israel that results in loss of Jewish life and delays the messianic redemption. Cecily envisions a Torah based holy Land of Israel and a world that respects the life of every human being from conception.

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