Mishpatim (Judgements) Exodus/Sh’mot 21:1-24:18

Know G-d’s Word as well as you know your name Mishpatim (Judgements) Exodus/Sh’mot 21:1-24:18   Most of us reading this Torah portion today may feel these laws set out here were for a different time and have little to teach us in our modern world. Some may even consider these verses as only applying to […]

B’Shallach (After He Had Let Go) Sh’mot/Exodus 13:17-17:16

Torah PortionB’Shallach (After He Had Let Go) Sh’mot/Exodus 13:17-17:16

Haftorah Reading: Judges 4:4-5:31

 

Today we read of the people of Israel being freed from Egypt and slavery after living four hundred years as slaves to Pharaoh. If I had to put a title to this section it might be, “Change and Transformation.” I want us, as we study today, to look at our own life in light of what we talk about.

 

In our opening verse Exodus 13:17 we read, “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that G-d led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for G-d said, ‘Lest perhaps the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt.”

B’Shallach (He Sent) Sh’mot (Exodus) 13-17

Torah Portion B’Shallach (He Sent) Sh’mot (Exodus) 13-17

Haftorah Reading Judges 4:4-5:31

This week’s Torah portion begins with Pharaoh sending out the people of Israel and their beginning of the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. During this trek we also see their journey from slavery to freedom. In this portion we begin to see that both of these journeys will be a process, not an immediate transition.

Mishpatim (Judgments) Sh’mot Exodus 21-24

Torah Portion: Mishpatim (Judgments) Sh’mot Exodus 21-24

HafTorah:  Jeremiah 34:8-22; 33:25-26

Tonight we read the Torah portion Mishpatim or Judgments. This portion follows immediately after the giving of the Ten Commandments in last weeks Torah reading. The Jewish people had been in Egypt for hundreds of years, most of that time serving as slaves to the country of Egypt. They had little or no experience living as a free people, a people that had to deal with how to live as a free society. Here in this portion we read the beginning of G-d’s instructions on how a society should operate.