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Shiurim & Adult Education
THOUGHTS ON SHEMOT BY SAMUEL KOSLOVER
The prophet Isiah describes redemption with a deliberate tension: “Be’itah achishenah” — “In its time, I will hasten it” (Isaiah 60:22). The verse suggests two modes of consciousness, the human level of understanding events, and the divine level whereby far larger forces move behind the scenes to accelerate history towards a specific end.
This distinction is already present at the beginning of Sefer Shemot. While Shemot opens with the narrative of the Exodus, it also marks the beginning of a broader redemptive movement: the return of the world toward Edenic consciousness. Just as Chanukah marks the turning point of the physical year, when the days stop shortening and begin to lengthen, Shemot represents a parallel turning point at a supra-spiritual level, where the long contraction that began with Adam’s sin begins to reverse.
As the Ramchal explains in Derech Hashem, Adam’s failure was not merely personal but cosmic, and its repair is entrusted to the collective soul of the Jewish people. History from Egypt onward is therefore not merely national history but the gradual unfolding of that rectification, with the Exodus as its first concrete expression. What makes this process difficult to grasp is that it unfolds in both revealed and concealed ways. It must be visible enough to move history forward yet hidden enough that its deeper logic remains inaccessible from within history itself. This duality is already embedded in the Torah’s description of the moment when redemption begins.
Just before God reveals Himself to Moshe, the Torah states: “Vayar Elokim et Bnei Yisrael, vayeida Elokim” — “God saw the Children of Israel, and God knew” (Exodus 2:25). The Kedushat Levi explains that God’s “knowledge” here refers to a dimension of the Jewish people that they themselves could not yet access. On the surface, they appeared unworthy of redemption, spiritually diminished by exile and enslavement. God, however, “knew” the future reality of this nation — that they would stand at Sinai and become worthy through that encounter. The implication for us today is that we are more worthy of great things than we sometimes allow ourselves to believe.
A second approach understands “vayeida Elokim” as referring to the inner, subconscious movement of the Jewish people. Consciously, they had given up on redemption; they experienced themselves as abandoned and undeserving. Yet beneath that conscious despair, a process of teshuvah was already underway. God “knew” this deeper movement even when it was not yet visible or articulable at the surface level.
The Ohr HaChaim offers a further dimension. He explains that Jewish suffering itself causes God, so to speak, to turn toward Israel. That turning is already the beginning of redemption, insofar as it represents divine providence becoming increasingly revealed. Finally, the Ohr HaChaim suggests that “Hashem knew” means that the Egyptians hated the Jews to a degree the Jews themselves did not even perceive. Much of that hatred remained hidden, but it was fully known to God. Likewise, when we hear only of the attacks that reach us, we still do not grasp how deep the enmity truly runs, yet all of it will be fully accounted for in the fullness of time.
Taken together, these teachings show that far more is occurring within the redemptive process than we perceive day to day, to the point that we may not even recognize our own worthiness for redemption. This allows us to understand what we are experiencing today as part of a process that culminates in full and complete salvation, speedily in our days.
Shabbat shalom
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