Tanach Thoughts

In memory of Gavriel ben David Blum z"l, killed in Gaza last week. Yesterday I paid a shiva call to the Blum family whose son Gavriel, whom I knew in high school, was sadly killed last week in Gaza. They recounted a story that I think his friends told them when they visited the night before. It's the sort of story that makes me uncomfortable (and his father did hesitate for a moment before telling it to the crowd, but his mother okayed it). Today I thought about it again and found a kernel of connection to Torah, with an emphasis on the story of the Exodus, now being read in shuls around the world, so I think it's worth getting over the uncomfortable bit. As our sages taught: תורה היא, וללמוד אני צריך! (This is Torah, and I must learn!) One day, a group of higher-ups visited the area in Gaza where Gavriel's unit was staying. The soldiers were tending to various military assignments, and the higher-ups, including several very high-ranking officers and a member of the so...

Note: The following is a translation of a dvar Torah I wrote earlier for my yeshiva's weekly newsletter. In our upcoming parsha, Shemot, we start reading about the harsh slavery of Bnei Yisrael in Egypt. These events are quite puzzling, considering the verse in the beginning of the parsha: "But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them." This puzzlement grows even more when we discover what it meant, exactly, that Bnei Yisrael were "prolific" and "increased very greatly", as described in Seder Hadorot: "And the sons of Esav prepared to do battle with the sons of Yaakov...and of the sons of Esav 80 men were killed and of the sons of Yaakov not one...and Yosef and his brothers the heroes of Egypt set out to confront them..and they killed from them about 600 men all of the heroes of Se'ir the Khorite...and Yosef fought with all of the neighboring enemies and he caus...