The 10-Line Torah Portion

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Yitro Torah Portion Summary

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Moses’ Father-in-law heard what God did for the Israelites and was in awe of such a powerful Lord.

He and observed Moses settling disputes among the people of Israel and urged Moses to appoint chiefs to govern the people.

Moses explains to the people of Israel that God will make of them a great nation if they commit to following His commandments.

When the people agreed, Moses left for three days and informed them that when he returned from his trek up the mountain, they should be clean and pure.

On the third day, Moses returned and amid smoke and the blasts of shofars, he brought to people of Israel to the foot of the mountain to hear Gods Commandments.

The first commandment stated that there was no other God beside the one, true God, and no one should observe or bow down to idols.

They were told that they should not take the Lord’s name in vein, and that on the seventh day, they and their cattle should rest.

The commandments also instructed them not to commit adultery, murder or commit sexual impropriety.

They were not to steal, bare false witness, or covet their neighbor’s house, wife or belongings.

Upon witnessing this great spectacle, the people of Israel fell back in fear of God, and asked that Moses speak to them on God’s behalf.

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Beshalah Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

God led the people of Israel on an indirect route from Egypt, with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night.

After telling Moses to camp by the Red Sea, he planned to have Pharaoh attacked the people of Israel, so that God could save the Jews as the last minute, thus proving his power to them.

As Pharaoh and his army approached, Moses raised his hand and the sea parted for the Israelites to cross.

The Jews crossed safely, but as the Egyptians came after them, the waters crashed down upon them, destroying them all, prompting the Jews to sing and dance.

As the Jews wandered through the desert, they began to question God, for they had trouble finding food and water.

God produced a flaky substance that they called manna, and were instructed to collect a single days-worth of food six days a week, and twice as much on Fridays, so that on Shabbat they could rest.

Some people refused to follow God’s instructions, collecting too much on weekdays, and not enough for Shabbat.

God then told Moses to hit a rock to produce water for the people of Israel, who were constantly questioning Gods authority and commandments.

While in Horeb, the people of Amalek attacked the Jews, and God once again demonstrated his power by enabling the Jews to continue to win as long as Moses held his arms in the air.

Joseph led his people to victory over Amalek as Moses, with the help of Aaron and Hur, held his arms above his head.

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Bo Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Moses and Aaron warned Pharaoh about the impending Locust plague, but Pharaoh’s heart was hardened as he would not let the Israelites leave.

Pharaoh offered to let the Israelites leave if they left their animals behind following the plague of three days of darkness, but Moses rejected this offer.

Pharaoh told Moses that if he returned to speak with Pharaoh, he would be killed.

God commanded the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts to avoid the final plague — death of the first born.

The Israelites were instructed to then eat the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs in what became the first Korban Pesach.

That night, the first born Egyptians were killed, causing Pharaoh to finally allow Moses and the Jews to hurriedly leave Egypt.

Prior to leaving, the Jews were instructed to ask the Egyptians for all of their gold and silver, leaving their nation without any wealth.

The Israelites left in such a hurry, that their bread did night have time to rise.

The Jews were then instructed to observe the anniversary of the Exodus by eating unleavened bread for seven days and telling the story of the Exodus.

Additionally, God commanded the Jews to wear tefillin as a reminder of the Exodus.

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Vaera Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

God instructed Moses and his brother Aaron to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.

In order to do so, God first had Moses and Aaron demonstrate God’s power by turning a staff into a snake.

Pharaoh instructed his magicians to do the same, and was thus unimpressed, even when Aaron’s snake ate theirs.

Moses then dipped his staff into the Nile,  turning all of the water into blood.

Pharaoh dismissed this aswell, since his magicians were able to do the same.

Since Pharaoh’s heart was stiffened, God then brought frogs upon the land, and then vermin and insects.

With each plague, Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites leave.

However, once the plague was lifted, his heart was hardened.

The Lord then struck all Egyptian livestock with disease, gave boils to all Egyptian people and caused deadly hail to fall upon them aswell.

Pharaoh was impressed with each of these acts, since his magicians were unable to reproduce them, but he remained stubborn and would not let the Israelites go.

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Shemot Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Jacobs sons were fruitful in Egypt, and fearing this rapidly-growing tribe, the Pharaoh levied a tax on them and then decided to make them slaves.

Later, the Pharaoh decided to kill all Israelite sons, but Shifrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives, sided with God rather than Pharaoh and helped to hide one baby boy for three months, until his mother finally had to get rid of him, which she did by placing him in a basket and floating it down the river.

The Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket and the child, named him Moses, and cared for him.

When Moses was older, he assaulted an Egyptian for beating an Israelite slave, and then fled from Egypt when he found out that others had witnessed it.

Moses went on to marry Tzipporah and have a son, Gershom, and while tending sheep for his father-in-law, he saw a bush that was burning but was not consumed by the fire.

Moses heard the voice of God in this bush, and was told to go to Egypt and free the Israelite slaves and take them to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Moses questioned why he was selected, citing his speech problems, and saying that the Israelites and the Pharaoh would not listen to him.

God told him to take his brother, Aaron, to speak for him, and demonstrated some of the miracles that Moses would perform to show God’s power.

Finally, Moses agreed to go, and after confronting Pharaoh for the first time, asking him for a few days off for the Israelites to pray, Pharaoh punished the Israelites for being lazy, by no longer providing them with straw for the bricks they were making.

With the people of Israel angry at Moses, God told him that he would do things to Pharaoh that would not only encourage him to let the slaves go, but would cause him to drive them out of his land.

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Vayehi Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

After living in Egypt for 17 years, Jacob, feeling that his time was limited, asked Joseph to bury him in Canaan, with his family.

Joseph brought his two sons, Menashe and Ephraim to see Jacob, and receive a blessing from him, but when they did so, Jacob insisted that he place his right had on Ephraim and recite his name first, even though he was not the first born.

Later, Jacob gathered the rest of his sons to tell what was to come for each of them, saying that Reuben was unstable like water and that Shimeon and Levi were instruments of anger and would be scattered.

He said that Judah, like a lion, would be a leader in the future, Zebulun would live near the sea, Yissakhar would be a tiller of the soil and Dan would be a serpent of the highway.

He added that Gad would be a great warrior, Naphtali a messenger of brilliant speeches, Joseph a calm and outstanding leader in God’s eyes, and that Benjamin would tear the wolf to pieces and divide it as spoil.

These are the twelve tribes of Israel.

Soon Jacob died, and as instructed, Joseph embalmed his father and brought him to the Cave of Makhpelah, in the land of Canaan, to be buried near Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca and Leah.

After burying their father, Jacobs sons were concerned that Joseph might hold a grudge against them for what they had done in the past, and punish them.

However, after confronting and apologizing to Joseph, he told them not to be afraid, since God meant for their actions to bring them to the present.

Joseph continued to live in Egypt with his brothers, and before dying at the age of 110, he told his brothers that he wished to be buried in Egypt and have his body moved to Canaan if they ever returned to that land.

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Vayigash Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

After a silver goblet was found in Benjamin’s bag, and Joseph forced his brother to remain as a slave in Egypt, Judah pleaded for his brother’s release, offering himself as a substitute.

When Joseph heard that his father’s heart will be broken if Benjamin did not return, he finally decided to tell his brothers the truth about who he was, and they all wept with joy.

Joseph told his brothers not to be worried about their past, and to bring their father to Egypt so that he may see him.

Jacob at first did not believe his sons’ stories, but after seeing the Pharoah’s wagon, he was revived and wanted to go to Egypt to see Joseph before he died.

Jacob had a dream in which God told him not to be afraid of going to Egypt, and that his family will be fruitful and multiply there.

Upon arriving in Egypt, Joseph introduced Jacob to the Pharoah and suggested that they be given the choicest lands of Goshen as a new home.

As the famine grew greater in Egypt, Jacob blessed the Pharoah and settled in Goshen.

Before long, the famine grew so great that the people of Egypt had given all their money in exchange for food from Joseph and the Pharoah.

Soon, they had also traded all of their livestock for food, leaving them no choice but to sell their land and labor, offering 1/5 of all their land’s production to the Pharoah.

Jacob and his family settled in Goshen and became fruitful and multiplied.

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Miketz Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

The Pharoah has some troubling dreams and upon the advice of the baker, called on Joseph to interpret them.

Joseph told the Pharoah that his dreams about seven fat cows being eaten by seven thin cows, and seven healthy ears of corn being devoured by seven thin ears indicated that there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.

After advising the Pharoah to stock up on food during the seven good years, the Pharoah made Joseph an important man and changed his name.

Joseph married  the daughter of a priest and had two sons — Menashe and Ephraim.

As predeicted, the seven years of plenty came and passed, and were followed by the seven years of famine.

During these times of starvation, Jacob sent all but one of his sons to get food from the Pharoah, but when Joseph recognized them, he disguised himself as someone they would not recognize, and accused them of being spies.

As Joseph held Shimeon hostage, the other brothers went back home to plead with Jacob to let them bring Benjamin back with them – a request that Jacob eventually agreed to.

Upon seeing Benjamin, Joseph held a great feast and celebrated before sending his brothers home with full bags of grain and all the money they had come with.

However, before leaving, Joseph hid a silver goblet in Benjamin’s bag, and then sent a servant to accuse the brothers and bring back the one who “stole” it.

Since the goblet was found in Benjamin’s bag, he was brought back to Joseph to be his slave, and the rest of the brothers were sent home to Jacob.

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Vayeshev Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Joseph, son of Jacob, told his brothers about various dreams in which piles of wheat and the sun, moon and starts bowed down to him, which made his brothers angry.

Thinking that their father loved Joseph more, the eleven brothers plotted to throw Joseph in a pit and have their father think he was killed by a wild animal, however they later decided to sell Joseph into slavery for twenty pieces of silver.

The brothers took Joseph special coat and rubbed goats blood on it to convince their father that he was dead.

One of Joseph’s brothers, Yehudah, moved away, had children (who died because they were evil), and then mistakenly inpregnated his daughter-in-law, Tamar, one night, when she was pretending to be a prostitute.

In Egypt, Joseph was doing well, working for Potiphar, the Pharoah’s chief chef, when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph and was angered when Joseph refused her advances.

When Potiphar found out, he had Joseph thrown into the Pharoah’s dungeon, where he quickly became the guards’ favorite and was put in charge of the other prisoners.

The Pharoah’s butler and baker were thrown in jail, and both had dreams that Joseph interpreted.

The butler dreamt that three vines bloomed with grapes that he pressed into the Pharoah’s cup, which Joseph told him meant that he would be released in three days.

The baker said that in his dream there were three baskets of bread, and birds were eating the bread, which Joseph interpreted to mean that the baker would be hung in three days and birds would eat his flesh.

Both dreams came true, but when the butler was released he did not remember Joseph and no one knew about his gift.

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Vayishlach Torah Portion Summary

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Many years after marrying Rachel and Leah, Jacob sent servants to visit with his brother, Esau, from whom he had stolen his father’s blessing, to see whether it was safe for him to return home.

When his servants returned with news that his brother was on his way to Jacob’s camp with 400 men, Jacob prayed to God and then split up his camp so that if his brother killed his family, half would survive.

The night before Esau arrived, Jacob struggled with an unknown person, and after an entire night of wrestling, the figure dislocated Jacob’s thigh and blessed him with a new name — Israel.

As it turned out, Esau was thrilled to see his brother, and after a warm embrace, turned down Jacob’s gifts.

After his encounter with Esau, Jacob’s family travelled through Sukkoth, when he built booths as shelter, and then bought land from the sons of Hamor to build an alter to God.

While in this land, Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, was raped by Shekhem, whos soul clung to Dinah, causing him to wish to marry her.

Shekhem wished to marry Dinah, offering a large dowry, and was told by her brothers, Shimeon and Levi, that she could only marry him if all of his men were circumcised.

Three days after their circumcisions, when all of the men were in great pain, Shimeon and Levi killed all of the men, including the one that raped their sister, and took the women and children captive.

Jacob was unhappy with what they had done, and turned to God, who told him to move to Beth-El, on a journey where he once again wrestled and was blessed by God.

While delivering Benjamin, her final child, Rachel died and was buried, followed shortly thereafter by the death of Isaac at the age of 180.

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