From Sh'mot 3 to Shvat 1 Part One of the Torah is complete. The Book of B'reishit closes with the death of Yosef, and the opening p'sukim of Sh'mot tell us that not only Yosef died, but "all his brothers and all of that generation". Part Two (without subdividing further) is the rest of the Torah. The first chapter of Sh'mot tells us what was going on in Egypt to the greatly extended family of Israel. The second chapter introduces Moshe and his family to us, and takes us briefly and quickly through Moshe's life from birth, his "formative years", marriage, fatherhood... until right before Prophecy. From chapter 3 of Sh'mot until the very end of the Torah with Moshe's passing, we have Part Two of Moshe Rabeinu's life — Moshe the Navi, the greatest of all prophets, before him and after him. The rest of the Torah is the story of Moshe Rabeinu and his prophecy, a.k.a. Torat Moshe. The events that find themselves at the two ends of Moshe's career as Prophet and leader of the People are the Burning Bush and the arrival at Arvot Mo'av, the final place of encampment before the people enter Eretz Yisrael. At each of these events we find the two central... what's the word? — the two main features (there is a better word) of G-d's plan for His People whom He is taking out of Egypt. They are (and we've written about them often) TORAH and ERETZ YISRAEL. At the Bush, G-d says to Moshe that He is the G-d of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and that He has seen the oppression the people are suffering, heard their cries, and that He is going down to save the people from Egypt, take them out, AND BRING THEM TO A GOOD LAND, A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY... Right up front, so to speak, G-d says that His purpose in taking us out of Egypt is to bring us to the ERETZ YISRAEL. Then He says to Moshe that the proof that He indeed is sending Moshe, is that when the people leave Egypt they will return to this very same mountain (Har Sinai) to serve G-d (and to receive the Torah). Years later, in the 40th year of wandering, on Rosh Chodesh Shvat, just 37 days before Moshe is to leave this world, He does two things. He ascends a mountain to look out over the Land which he will not enter, but the people will. And he commences a major review of the Torah which he has taught the people throughout the years of wandering. Between these two events, throughout Moshe's career as leader of the People of Israel, he teaches Torah and he emphasizes the significance of Eretz Yisrael to the Jewish way of Life. [The Sh'mot Homepage] |