This week we begin the Book of Shemot, the book of Names, most commonly known as Exodus.
We read about a new king, a king who did not know Joseph. The new king has a warning to the Egyptians, “…this people the Children of Israel, are more numerous and stronger than we.”
It is hard not to read present day, and more recent histories into Pharaohs words. The perception of Israelites, Jews, and now the nation of Israel is that we are too much, even as Israel is the smallest of nations, and Jews so few in number we barely show up in the demographics of populations worldwide. This over-estimation of size and strength began a very long time ago!
This is the parashah where we meet Moses, first as a baby discovered in the River, and then, almost immediately as a grown man. We wonder about his years growing up in the palace, where he must certainly have been a treasured son to the daughter of Pharaoh. Like Joseph, separated from his Hebrew family, Moses too straddled two worlds.
Many of us have read books about Jewish infants and young children saved by friends and neighbours during the years of the Shoah, who were then sought out and returned to their Jewish families – often distant family members – after the war. Here is a link to one of those complicated stories: https://blog.nli.org.il/en/rabbi_herzog/ The return of these children to Jewish family after the devastations of the Shoah also often took those same children from the only family they knew and remembered. Straddling past and present with an eye to Jewish survival in the future was always complicated.
For Joseph, for Moses, for so many children even in the 20th century, we have a duty to remember. Yad va’Shem the Shoah Museum in Israel, keeps a database of names of those murdered. https://www.yadvashem.org/archive/hall-of-names/database.html Names matter. We carry our past and our present and our future in our names.
With love,
Rabbi Lynn, Chanah Leah bat Avraham v’Sarah
Shemot
January 4, 2026 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk
This week we begin the Book of Shemot, the book of Names, most commonly known as Exodus.
We read about a new king, a king who did not know Joseph. The new king has a warning to the Egyptians, “…this people the Children of Israel, are more numerous and stronger than we.”
It is hard not to read present day, and more recent histories into Pharaohs words. The perception of Israelites, Jews, and now the nation of Israel is that we are too much, even as Israel is the smallest of nations, and Jews so few in number we barely show up in the demographics of populations worldwide. This over-estimation of size and strength began a very long time ago!
This is the parashah where we meet Moses, first as a baby discovered in the River, and then, almost immediately as a grown man. We wonder about his years growing up in the palace, where he must certainly have been a treasured son to the daughter of Pharaoh. Like Joseph, separated from his Hebrew family, Moses too straddled two worlds.
Many of us have read books about Jewish infants and young children saved by friends and neighbours during the years of the Shoah, who were then sought out and returned to their Jewish families – often distant family members – after the war. Here is a link to one of those complicated stories: https://blog.nli.org.il/en/rabbi_herzog/ The return of these children to Jewish family after the devastations of the Shoah also often took those same children from the only family they knew and remembered. Straddling past and present with an eye to Jewish survival in the future was always complicated.
For Joseph, for Moses, for so many children even in the 20th century, we have a duty to remember. Yad va’Shem the Shoah Museum in Israel, keeps a database of names of those murdered. https://www.yadvashem.org/archive/hall-of-names/database.html Names matter. We carry our past and our present and our future in our names.
With love,
Rabbi Lynn, Chanah Leah bat Avraham v’Sarah