Daily Chumash Sunday, 19th Teves: The slavery begins

Parshas Shemos

Pesukim:124  [Siman:ויקח ]

Haftorah:[1] Yeshayahu 27:6-28:13; 29:22-23

Rishon

1. The family of Yaakov who arrived in Egypt:
   • These are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt. Reuvein, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Yissachar, Zevulun, Binyamon, Don, Naftali, Gad, Asher. A total of seventy souls who descended from Yaakov were in Egypt.
   • Yosef and all his brothers and all that generation passed away.
   • The Jewish people reproduced and multiplied to great numbers, and the earth became filled with them.

2. The slavery begins:
   • The plan: A new king was appointed over Egypt who did not know Yosef. He told his nation that the Jewish people have multiplied more than us, and therefore we should conspire a plan to deal with them, lest they multiply even more and drive us out of our land.
   • The slavery: Pharaoh appointed tax collectors to make the Jewish people work in hard labor, and had them build cities of storage for Pharaoh, the cities of Pithom and Raamses. The more the Jews were oppressed, the more they multiplied. The Egyptians became disgusted by the Jewish people.
   • The Egyptians enslaved the Jews with crushing labor. They were worked with hard labor involving mortar and bricks and every labor of the field. All the labors they performed were crushing and back breaking work.

3. The midwives Shifrah and Puah, and the decree to kill the boys:
   • Pharaoh instructed the Jewish midwives, Shifrah and Puah, to kill all the male children born to the Jewish people. The girls were to be spared. The midwives feared G-d and did not listen to his instructions and allowed the male children to live.

[1] So is followed by Ashkenazi and Chabad communities. However, Sefaradi communities read from Yermiyahu 1:1-2:3