Shmot

Beresheit (Genesis) is the Beginning of All.  In essence, it is the story of God.  It tells the tale of how the universe came into being and how one certain lineage was directed toward an amorphous goal.  Who knew what this young Abram might become? Or where he was being directed?  Or why he was chosen?

The stories woven in Beresheit are powerful tales which are told and retold through the centuries of "becoming" but unless we know the end of the story they are just stories.

This Shabbat we begin the second book of Torah, Shmot.  The first word of this second book of Torah is “v’eleh.”  The “v” (meaning and, or but) comes to show that it is connected to what came before, but only tangentially.  Something new is about to begin.  All human history has been leading up to this moment.  

A nation is about to be born.  No longer just narratives about single people – Adam, Noah, Sarah, Isaac - the Torah moves us toward the idea that we are now a nation. 

Yet we are no mere nation like the Hittites or Jebusites or Greeks.  We are a nation with a destiny.  

Soon this embryonic nation will coalesce through its servitude to Pharaoh and become bound to Heaven with the Giving of Torah. The Book of Shmot is where the Torah truly starts and our history commences. 

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