The OrQuest app tells three stories from Parashat Shemot (the Hebrew midwives, baby Moses in the basket and Moses fleeing to Midian) and explains two of its passages verse by verse.
When it is read in Israel
23 Tevet 5787
23 Tevet 5788
19 Tevet 5789
23 Tevet 5790
This calendar runs until 21 September 2030.
The Israeli reading calendar is from Hebcal (CC BY 4.0), checked against Sefaria.
The midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they kept the children alive.
What it teaches
Awe of Heaven. Always remembering before Whom we stand, and so keeping away from wrong.
Twice the Torah says that the midwives feared God. Facing the king’s order, their awe took a simple form: they did not do as he said, and they kept the children alive. Awe of Heaven is not only a feeling; it is also what a person does when asked to do harm.
The lesson
Awe of Heaven holds back the hand, even when a king commands harm.
She opened it and saw him, the child, and there was a baby boy crying. She had pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.”
What it teaches
Loving-kindness. Doing good for others without expecting anything back.
The Torah shows here that kindness begins with a look: Pharaoh’s daughter opens the basket, sees a crying child and has pity on him. Then the pity becomes action: she agrees to have a nurse brought and promises to pay her. And the child she found among the reeds becomes her son.
The lesson
Kindness begins the moment you see a crying child and do not walk past.
In those days Moshe grew up. He went out to his brothers and looked at their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one of his brothers.
What it teaches
Responsibility. Owning what you did and what is in your power to do.
Moshe does not stand aside when an Egyptian strikes a Hebrew, when two Hebrews fight or when shepherds drive off the daughters of Midian’s priest. The Torah teaches that responsibility begins with looking: Moshe goes out to his brothers and sees their hard labour. Even after fleeing Pharaoh, in a foreign land, Moshe rises again.
The lesson
One who sees a wrong rises to help, even strangers.
Moshe, shepherding at the edge of the wilderness, turns aside to a bush that burns without being consumed, and is called by name.
For children, teens and adults
Decades have passed since Moshe fled Egypt. He is not leading anyone and not planning anything; he is minding sheep that are not even his, at the far edge of the wilderness. Then he sees a burning bush that refuses to burn up, and the rest of his life turns on one unremarkable decision: whether to walk over and look. Pay close attention to the order of these six verses. The looking comes first. The call comes second.
U-Moshe hayah ro'eh et tzon Yitro chotno kohen Midyan, vayinhag et hatzon achar hamidbar, vayavo el har ha'Elohim Chorevah.
Moshe was shepherding the flock of Yitro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midyan. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, to Chorev.
At the burning bush Moshe asks for God’s name, and receives a verb in the future tense: I will be.
For children, teens and adults
Moshe has been given the biggest job in the Torah so far: walk into Egypt and tell a nation of slaves that they are going free. Before he agrees, he asks something that sounds almost technical: what should he say when they ask who sent him? The answer he gets is neither a title nor a description. It is a verb, in the future tense, and it changes what the whole rescue is built on.
Vayomer Moshe el ha'Elohim, hinei anochi va el bnei Yisrael, ve'amarti lahem Elohei avoteichem shlachani aleichem, ve'amru li mah shmo, mah omar alehem.
Moshe said to God: Suppose I come to the children of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is His name?” What shall I say to them?
The verses are from Miqra according to the Masorah (Wikisource, CC BY-SA 4.0), via Sefaria, without the cantillation marks. On this site the four-letter Name is written ה׳.
