Dear Friends,
There is a debate within Jewish traditional texts as to when the Israelites were actually freed from Egypt. In our Torah portion this week, we are told that The Exodus will take place “
Ka’ChaTzi HaLaila
” which loosely translates to “like the middle of the night of the night.” The unusual and unexpected prefix, and the repetitive nature of the text, begs the question as to why the biblical text was somewhat ambiguous about the time, and makes us wonder when The Exodus actually began.
The Talmud suggests that we should understand “
Ka Chatzot Halaila
” as approximately midnight. It tells us that The Exodus took place at midnight, but Moses left little room for variance because he thought the Egyptians would make a mistake when calculating when midnight occurred, and therefore consider him a false prophet.
The hOr Hayim suggests a different interpretation. When our text says KaHatzot it was actually referring to the Book of Genesis, when Abraham rescued his nephew Lot at midnight. Just like how Lot was rescued at midnight, so to would the Israelites.
In line with both of these interpretations, we seem to understand that The Exodus took place, not just during the night, but in the night of the night, or the darkest and deepest night. Just like in the Book of Genesis, as was the case with The Exodus, when it is darkest, when it is the scariest, is when we should still have hope. To paraphrase Thomas Fuller, it is always darkest before the dawn. When our commentators emphasize the time of The Exodus, they are reminding us that no matter how dark it gets, whatever is going on in our lives and in the world around us, we should always have hope.
Shabbat Shalom
,
Josh
