Parsha:

Shemot,  Va'era 

Description

The image of our ancestors' slavery, which we commemorate each year on Pesach and the liberation from which is the foundational story of our peoplehood, has often been cast in terms that are familiar to the audience from contemporary images of oppression - from the antebellum south to the Gulag to the labor camps of the Shoah. A careful look at the text, however, gives us a different picture, one that shifts, slightly but significantly and in an impactful way, on our understanding of the great drama of Yetziat Mitzrayim.