that he will bury him in the Holy Land.
Yaakov blesses Yosef’s sons Menashe and Ephraim as his guardians,
He fails to reveal the End of Days and dies on his deathbed.
Yosef fulfils his promise to his father before his death,
Yaakov is buried in the Holy Land, in Hebron, in the cave of Machpelah.
Yosef himself dies at the age of one hundred and ten, having given his brothers and sons a parting covenant:
To remember G-d’s promise to ‘raise up the Jews in the Land,’ no matter how bitter the portion.
Book: Exodus
Weekly chapter: Shmoth #13
The new Pharaoh was afraid that the Jews had multiplied greatly,
And in case of war might join Egypt’s enemies.
He ordered newborn Hebrew boys to be slaughtered with malice aforethought,
To enslave the Jewish people with exorbitant labour.
Levi’s daughter, wishing to save her son from certain death,
put him in a tarred basket and left him in the reeds.
Pharaoh’s daughter adopted the child, and he was called Moshe,
He grew and lived in Pharaoh’s palace and was honoured and profitable.
But the blood of the Jews in him, it seems, was aroused,
When he saw his fellow man beaten, he killed the Egyptian torturer,
‘And that he might not be punished by Pharaoh for his murder.
Moshe hurried to the neighbouring country of Midyan.
In Midyan Moshe married Tzipòra, the daughter of the priest of Yitro,
At Mount Sinai, G-d revealed Himself to Moshe in a flame of burning thorns.
And promises to help His Chosen People in the mountain,
Aoron is commanded by G-d to be Moshe’s interpreter.
G-d is merciful to His beloved child,
He didn’t leave Moshe in trouble despite his change of tradition.
He sent Moshe to lead the Jews out of the Egyptian hell…
Did not dissolve to make the people of Israel in a foreign environment.
From the mouth of Moses the statements of the Creator were heard by the Egyptian Pharaoh:
‘Let My son go, that He may serve Me.’
For keeping their names, the Jewish people were forgiven,
The love of liberty for their own and others’ freedom, Israel has kept it ever since.
Book: Exodus
Weekly Chapter: Va’erah #14
G-d reveals Himself to Moshe and promises him to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt,
deliver them from slavery, save them, and take them to Himself as His chosen people at Mount Sinài.
G-d declared to Pharaoh, ‘Let My people go…’, and in the absence of an answer-rescript,
He inflicted great executions on the fertile land of Egypt.
Aaron’s staff turns into a serpent, the Nile River flows blood instead of water,
Toads, lice and wild beasts invade Egyptian cities,
Pestilence, boils, hail from heaven – Pharaoh was hardened by the calamity that fell from heaven,
But the tyrant of Egypt did not let the Children of Israel go out of Egypt…
Book: Exodus
Weekly Chapter: BO #15
Locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn – the three final and most severe punishments of the ten,
G-d sent to Egypt to show that there is only One Lord of the world.
The transformation of a tribe of slaves into a free people could not take place,
without the opposition of monotheism to the Egyptian sacred idols.
G-d gives the Jewish people the first commandment to establish their own calendar,
The months of the new moon, in which they must henceforth.
To sacrifice a lamb for Passover and to stain their doorposts with blood,
That G-d may pass over them, before the Egyptian firstborns are punished.
The death of the firstborn breaks Pharaoh’s resistance, and he drives the Jews out,
The children of Israel are in a hurry, and do not even have time to wait for the dough to rise.
They take with them unleavened bread, the gold of the Egyptians and their own honestly earned money,
In remembrance of the Exodus and their dedication to G-d, they receive the commandment to put on tefillin.
Book: Exodus
Weekly chapter: Beshalah #16
Soon realising what valuable workers Egypt had lost,
Pharaoh chased the Jews in chariots to retrieve them by force.
Sandwiched between the sea and Pharaoh’s army, the people of Israel were disturbed,
And were divided into those who were ready to surrender, to fight, and to dare to go forward.
G-d delivered the Jews from the hands of the Egyptians by a miraculous phenomenon,
The waters of the Red Sea parted to let them through.
The waters closed over the Egyptians… This made the Jews happy,
The children of Israel believed in G-d and there was no turning back.
When they murmured of thirst and hunger in the wilderness,
G-d sent them water and manna and quail from heaven.
Friday is double, the Sabbath is a day of rest, and the Jews honour it to this day.
Joshua soon gained the first victory over the Amalekites.
Book: Exodus
Weekly Chapter: Itro #17
When Moshe killed the Egyptian overseer for his cruelty and fled to Mediàna,
There he found a wife, Tziporah, and two sons were born to them.
On the advice of his brother Aaron he did not take them with him to Egypt, to the tyrant ruler,
so as not to subject his wife and children to the humiliation of slavery.
Moshe’s father-in-law Yitro, having heard of the great miracles, with Moshe’s wife and sons,
He hurried from Medjan to the camp of the Israelites with the best of intentions.
The idolater Yitro made circumcision, accepting the Creator with more than words,
And counselled Moshe to set up a system of judgement to govern the people.
Seven weeks after the Exodus, an exceptional event took place at Mount Sinai,
Not only for Israel, but for the whole world.
G-d’s