Temple Adat Torah blog

There are no accidents in Torah. There is a deliberateness in the composition of Torah that has an uncanny and often subtle, nuanced way of drawing our attention to themes and motifs that occur and recur throughout the Torah. Colorful narratives that move us through the arc of our national history are woven into descriptions of the legal, cultic, and societal standards and benchmarks that laid the foundation of Judaism. How
this is achieved is nothing short of miraculous. Recurring words and phrases dance through the Torah, helping us to learn what the Torah is teaching us.

I am busy writing column 60, the end of the book of Bereishit, and anticipating the transition from the very complex and emotionally fraught narratives of the forefathers to the very complex and emotionally fraught Moses story! I joke, but it is a change from the intensely personal, familial focus of Genesis to the more public, national one in Exodus. How the text achieves this change in focus is not only by introducing a new story line, but by using already familiar vocabulary and expressions in a way that helps to draw parallels between the already told story and the new one
unfolding.

Here is an example: In the creation story in the first chapter of Bereishit, the insects, the birds and the animals are described as being fruitful and multiplying, swarming, creeping, flying and filling up the land. God sees his creations and on each day makes note that “it was good”. ( כי טוב ). We form an image in our minds of abundance and prosperity, of the goodness of the earth and everything that was in it. Words such as רמס (creeping),
שרץ (swarming) מלאו את הארץ (filling up the land), פרו ורבו (be fruitful and multiply) are repeated throughout the creation story to connote this joyful, beautiful image  that was full of promise and excitement.

Then we come to the beginning of Exodus, which starts with the enslavement of the Israelites. How does this come about? Having been saved from famine by Joseph, the Israelites have settled in Egypt in the land of Goshen. They have been fruitful, have multiplied, are swarming and filling up the land. But in this story, we find those same words, “sheretz”, “mil’u”, “p’ru u’revu”, etc., are no longer the vocabulary of promise of creation and the potential of the world.  Those same words take on a new, sinister meaning, opposite to the positive,,joyful meaning of those words in Genesis. 

Our image of what is happening is now dark and foreboding. The new Egyptian king, who “didn’t know Joseph” and all that Joseph had done for Egypt, fears the Israelites because they have become too numerous and are swarming the land. The more the Egyptians try to stymie their growth and strength, the more the Israelites increase and spread out. In the eyes of the Egyptians, the Israelites pose an existential threat, and they want to
UNDO them. In other words, they aim to undo Creation.

And in case we have missed the analogy to Genesis, even the “IT WAS GOOD” phrase appears in this narrative. When Moses is born, his mother “became pregnant, gave birth to a son, and saw him and It Was Good”! The “destruction” of God’s creation at the hand of the Pharaoh was to be
thwarted by the goodness of Moses.

Masterful use of language conveys insight into the messages of Torah. Bereishit is the beginning of mankind, followed by the emergence of the family of Israel/Jacob. But Exodus is a different kind of beginning. It is the beginning of Israel, the nation, whose existence emerges, not out of primordial chaos, but out of the chaos of destruction. The story of Moses would again turn those “creation words” into something good and wondrous.