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1) A Chumash Shiur - What is "Avar Rachok"?
Our chaver Benjamin Yasgur developed a close relationship with Prof. Nechama Leibowitz and wrote an interesting sefer documenting their correspondence about various topics in Chumash. One particularly intriguing twenty-year discussion centered on when exactly God commanded Moshe to return to Egypt with the message that "all the people who seek your life have died" (Shemos 4:19). See here for the chapter exploring this question - it makes for an excellent Parsha shiur this week.
2) Derech Eretz Kadmah Le'Geulah
How essential is derech eretz? Important enough to delay the redemption itself. R. Moshe Taragin, in his new sefer on the thought of Rav Amital, reflects on the remarkable fact that Moshe asks permission to properly take leave of his father-in-law before heading off to redeem the Jewish people from Egypt. Who has time for social niceties when history is waiting to unfold? Rav Amital would share a fascinating story about Rav Chaim Vital and the Arizal to illustrate this profound point. See here for the piece from R. Taragin's sefer To Be Holy but Human..
3) Leaving the First Golus
Moshe receives three signs at the burning bush: his staff transforms into a serpent and back again (Shemos 4:2-5), his hand becomes leprous when placed in his cloak and is then healed when he repeats the gesture (Shemos 4:6-7), and if these two signs fail to convince, water from the Nile will turn to blood on dry land (Shemos 4:8-9).
How do these three signs build upon each other? Is each progressively more miraculous, designed to convince skeptics step by step?
Aaron Weiss, in a Dvar Torah from Yeshivat Shaalvim (many years ago), suggests that these signs weren't meant to convince the people that God was with Moshe, but rather to give them mussar - to inspire them to leave their Egyptian golus. They needed not just to make a leap of faith, but to actively decide where they wanted their future to lie. See here for my handwritten notes of this derasha.
4) Click Here for last year's Chomer Lidrush
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