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Friday, December 31, 2010

Ponderous Parsha Point...

...okay so - when we last left our heroes The Almighty had instructed Moshe to present himself to the King of Egypt as His messenger and request a three day escape into the wilderness for Bnei Yisroel to pray/sacrifice to G-D. This week the request is denied in triplicate and all manner of makkos ensues.

The thing is...Three Days? Really? Is that what the plan was? As best I recall when the nation ends up leaving they don't plan on coming back. So what's the deal? Is there a grand lie/subterfuge going on here? And if so why? (Also, why at some point does the request change to the more common "let my people go", as in forever?)

9 comments:

  1. The request was for a seven day trip. Three days out. One day to worship God. Three days back.

    See here: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2010/12/parsha-notes-shmos-2010.html

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  2. ok, amounts to the same thing

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  3. See Abarbanel end of ch 3 of Shmos. Hashem originally told Moshe to ask for a 3 day trip, but added that He knows that Pharoah is going to say no -- the whole point was to demonstrate Pharaoh's stubborness. Not only will Pharoah not free the Jews, but G-d said I'll prove the point that he won't even budge a little bit. (There are other answers as well.)

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  4. What R' Chaim said is what I was going to say. (Except without the sources, since I never remember who said these things.) :)

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  5. open up your toras chayim chumash and see a debate between Rabeinu Chananel and Rashbam (as I recall) regarding exactly this question. One says it was a trick and they meant to go forever and the other says G-d planned a 3 day trip to ease them into freedom and mitzvos slowly. There would likely be other short trips to follow before the final departure.

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  6. The trick idea is discussed at length by the Derashos haRan (end of derush #11). Pharoh had to be led to believe that there was a chance of BN"Y turning back so that he would willingly give chase and be led to drown in Yam Suf. (Abarbanel is very critical of this idea.)

    The important point is that according to both views the real plan was to escape forever.

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  7. Rav Kamenetsky (i think) said it WAS supposed to be just for 3 days as the jews were in need of a spiritual re'jew'nvination, and then they would survive till the end of 400.
    As things turned out Pharo didn't let, turned up the steam and pressure.
    This week Bo moshe already notes to His majesty that their not gonna come back.

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  8. 1. A simple reading of the text shows that Moshe Rabbeinu's mission was to deliver the Jews 100% from slavery in Egypt and take us out of there, too. His mission included bringing us to Har Sinai to receive the Torah. This all had to take place during Moshe's lifetime.

    2. The best explanation I've heard about the subterfuge (3 days, etc.) was that this was payback for the Egyptian subterfuge (Pharaoh luring Jews into construction projects by appeals to their Egyptian patriotism) that led to their slavery in the first place.

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