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Why did Bnei Yisrael cry about their avodah when their children were being slaughtered? The shiur explores whether Pharaoh's actions were legally justified under dina d'malchusa dina—perhaps even divinely sanctioned as a quasi-deity. The climax: Hashem (ה׳)'s remembering the bris suggests that without it, Pharaoh's horrific decrees might have stood.
Rabbi Zweig opens with a close reading of the pesukim at the beginning of Shemos, focusing on the perplexing sequence: "Vayamas melech Mitzrayim, vaye'anchu Bnei Yisrael min ha'avodah." Rashi (רש"י) explains that Pharaoh became afflicted with tzaraas and began slaughtering Jewish children—360 a day—to bathe in their blood. Yet the Torah (תורה) states the Jews groaned "from the avodah" (the work). How could they be complaining about work when their children were being murdered? This is an astoundingly callous response unless we understand "min ha'avodah" differently. Rabbi Zweig proposes that "avodah" here does not mean physical labor but rather the Jews' legal obligation to the state. He draws a modern parallel: in every country, citizens can be drafted and ordered into life-threatening situations—even certain death—to protect the nation's sovereignty. A Secret Service agent must take a bullet for the president not because the president as a person owns the agent's life, but because an attack on the president is an attack on the state itself. The key distinction: a state may compel you to die for its defense, but it cannot compel you to die for the personal benefit of an individual, even the king. If the president needs a heart transplant, the state has no right to kill a healthy citizen and harvest his heart.
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Why does the Midrash connect Pharaoh's expulsion of the Jews to the mitzvah of shiluach hakan? The shiur develops a chiddush that Pharaoh's sin wasn't only drowning the children, but the insensitivity of expelling the parents afterward. The deeper analysis reveals that Pharaoh may have valued the Jews greatly and wanted to control them—making his expulsion an act of tremendous cruelty, not liberation.
Why does Moshe respond to the splitting of the sea with shirah rather than praise or thanksgiving? Rashi's use of "al libo" reveals that shirah is an emotional expression—a response of love to love. When Hashem shows personal care, the only adequate response is "I love You too," not mere gratitude or praise, and this principle applies to all relationships.
Shemos 2:23-25
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