Shemoth:

How many deaths does it take till they know

That too many people have died

                        Bob Dylan

 

Fifteen verses into the parsha, Pharoah orders the infanticide of Hebrew boys.  The righteous midwives refuse to commit this heinous act.  They hide behind a lame excuse, saying that the Hebrew women are like animals and don't wait for the midwife before delivering their babies. They are  rewarded by Gd... and tolerated by the Pharoah they betrayed. 

Perhaps Pharaoh’s  order was a secret and that is why it did not create the revolution of outrage that it merited. The midwives were not willing to do the killing - that was too close to them, it would be an a murder committed with their own hands.  But they were not courageous enough to warn the Hebrews of the plot against them.  More likely, they did reveal the plot, but too few believed them.  People said that the animosity of this pharaoh will pass; or this pharaoh will die and things will go back to the way they were, the political rights of the Hebrews will be restored.

 

Pharaoh's daughter saves a condemned Hebrew boy.  She knows what she is doing - violating the national law, the edict of her father. One can imagined all sorts of rebellion of child against parent.  This is an ancient and modern source of the moral high ground.  Her act is tolerated. Moses, her adopted son is raised in the shadow of her story.  The story of his name Moshe, "for I drew him out of the water," impacts his development. It evokes the righteous rebellion - the  need for the act and the possibility of its performance. It helps me understand how and why Moses kills the cruel and violent overseer as he smites a Hebrew slave. What would his mother have done?  How could Moses rebel by exceeding the values of his foster mother?

Moses tries to break up a fight among Hebrews. They threaten to  identify him as the killer of the Egyptian taskmaster. They did not need to see the manslaughter, they knew it was this man who was trying to make peace among slaves. Anyone else would enjoy their battle, perhaps bet on the winner. Moses understands that he is identifiably different. The slaves have made a correct deduction. Moses must flee. He is a threat to the hierarchy of persecution. 

When Moses comes to Midian, he sees the strong tormenting the weak.  The local shepherds displace the daughters of Ruel ( Jethro). True to form, he protects the weak. Through that he finds a kindred spirit, marries his daughter, and they have a son.  They name him Gershom: "I was a stranger in a foreign land."  Moshe's time away from Egypt helps him realize that the people  he chose to identify with, the Hebrews, are strangers in Egypt. Moses realizes that justice is a stranger in Egypt.  He is ready for the Divine command to liberate the oppressed. 

Moses, logically, doubts that he can successfully battle a regime with an organization that predates Abraham and rules over the most powerful army in the world. Gd's cryptic answer is in the name provided: I will be what will be. The future, in all its dimensions and possibilities, will happen. If you have the goal in mind, it will favor your cause. Fortes fortuna juvat.  The name of Gd: the future will be the present. 

Moses takes the prescribed action. He requests a holiday for the workers. Life outside work must be given its due.  Pharaoh will not tolerate any diminution of the work.  It is clear that the product of the work is not the important issue. Pharaoh cuts off the supply of raw materials as a punishment for this request. The jobs program is merely a method to control this large population ... of strangers. 

It is only when the work burden is made intolerable - not when the babies are drowned, not when the slaves are brutalized - that the people recognize that something is wrong with this system.  And they blame the liberator, not the oppressor.

The parsha is called Names.  It is the names of those who stood up against the system of oppression that we remember. The future will happen. Identify the goal.