Parsha discussion

Question:   Why does משה pray for the ending of ארבה without an explicit promise from פרעה that he will free the Jews? In previous cases this had been done Approach : We could posit that משה understood it implicitly from the desperation in the plea of פרעה. This seems difficult as the plague of ארבה seems to be no worse than ברד, for example. Therefore, it seems that the answer lies in the fact that פרעה finally admits that he has sinned to הקב״ה, i.e. there is an acceptance that it is הקב״ה who is the ruler of the world and not just the G-d of the Israelites. That being the case, it is obvious to משה that פרעה is regretting his actions and will do the will of הקב״ה, which of course includes releasing the slaves.

Question:  6:13 why the repeated command? Approach : there are two subtle differences between this and the previous command. One is that Aharon is mentioned. The second is that the verb used changes from לשלוח to להוציא. It would seem that the changes are to answer the question that משה poses. Since משה is an ערל שפתים, the command is given to אהרן to join in the task, as he does not have this affliction. The second change implies that the exodus from Egypt will be done in a more passive (and hence more miraculous) manner than had previously been planned - Pharoah no longer needs to actively send the people free, rather it’s sufficient for him to not prevent their leaving. And so the argument of משה that the בני ישראל didn’t listen to him is now less relevant to the task at hand.

Question : Does it make sense that there were only two midwives for the entire Jewish population? Approach:  it seems to be difficult to accept that there were only two. Rather, we can suggest a few possible explanations: They were two in the capital city, where Pharoah ruled They were the head midwives, either in the local area, or for the entire country They were the only two who dared to defy the decree They were the only two non-Israelite midwives to service the Israelite mothers

Question : How does the double portion for יוסף work? Surely all his children should share in the double portion, rather than just מנשה & אפרים Approach : Seemingly, this wasn’t a “regular” double portion. Rather, as יעקב effectively says, each of his children is to be treated as their own entity - and יוסף is entitled to two such entities. Therefore, only two of the children can be the heads of portions, and any other children would need to be subsumed under their brothers.

Question:  Why does יהודה change the story of the conversations between his brothers and the vice Pharoah? Approach:  the simplest explanation of course is that יהודה has a goal that he is trying to accomplish, and therefore needs to embellish the story so that the Ruler will be as sympathetic as possible; of course, the ruler can not verify the veracity of the story being told. An alternative is that the story told is accurate. But the stories told in פרשת מקץ and ויגש are told from different perspectives and with differing goals. And hence the pertinent aspects of the narrative are different.