Parshat Shemot — When Seeing Returns, Redemption Can Begin

From Bereishit to Shemot: When Rupture Becomes the Environment

Sefer Bereishit ends not with perfection, but with something far more fragile and meaningful: the possibility of connection. It closes with a family that has endured betrayal, rivalry, loss, and fear — and has not collapsed under the weight of it all. Brothers who once could not stand in the same room are finally able to stand together. Parents who caused harm without intending to are still present enough to bless. Difference is no longer erased, and pain is no longer denied. Healing in Bereishit is incomplete, but it is real. It is the kind of healing that allows life to continue without pretending the past never happened.

Sefer Shemot opens by asking what happens to that humanity when the environment itself begins to work against it. The Torah does not shift themes so much as it widens the lens. The question is no longer whether connection can survive rupture within relationships, but whether it can survive when rupture becomes systemic — when fear, control, and dehumanization shape daily life. This is not a sudden transition from family to nation. It is a progression from private pain to collective constriction.

That is why Shemot begins with names. “These are the names of the children of Israel.” The Torah could have begun with Pharaoh, with policy, or with oppression. Instead, it insists on naming. Even as the story moves toward slavery and suffering, the Torah anchors us in identity. Names are the first defense against erasure. Before the Torah tells us what was done to their bodies, it reminds us who they are. It signals that what is at stake in Egypt is not only freedom, but humanity itself.

The Ramban famously describes Shemot as the book of exile and redemption, but exile in the Torah does not begin with chains. It begins with constriction. A people can be physically present and spiritually trapped long before overt cruelty appears. Exile takes hold when fear becomes the organizing principle of a society, when perception narrows, and when people are no longer seen as individuals but as problems to be managed. Redemption, in contrast, does not begin with escape. It begins with the restoration of relationship — between people, and between human beings and God.

Chassidic teachings deepen this opening by noting that names represent inner essence. To name someone is to acknowledge that there is something within them that cannot be reduced to function or threat. By opening Shemot with names, the Torah affirms that even as external life becomes harsher and more constricted, inner essence has not been extinguished. It is still present, waiting to be seen again.

This is the ground on which the entire book stands. Shemot does not rush us to miracles or revelation. It first brings us into a world where humanity is slowly narrowed, where fear becomes normalized, and where seeing clearly becomes increasingly difficult. Only once we understand what is being lost can we begin to understand what redemption will require.

Slow Trauma: How Egypt Trains People Not to Notice

The Torah is very precise about how Egypt begins its descent into cruelty. It does not start with violence, decrees, or forced labor. It begins with language. “הָבָבָה נִּתְחַכְּמָה לוֹ” — Let us deal wisely with them. Pharaoh does not frame his plan as hatred or oppression. He frames it as intelligence, prudence, and responsibility. This is the first move of Egypt, and it is the most dangerous one. Suffering does not arrive suddenly; it is introduced gradually, wrapped in reason.

This is the nature of slow trauma. It does not announce itself as abuse. It presents itself as necessity. Step by step, fear reshapes perception. A growing population becomes a looming threat. Difference becomes danger. Human beings are no longer encountered as people, but as a problem to be managed. Once perception shifts, behavior follows. Policies that would once have seemed unthinkable now feel justified, even inevitable.

The Ramban teaches that moral collapse begins not with action, but with distorted vision. When reality is interpreted through fear, cruelty can be rationalized without ever being named as such. Pharaoh does not say, “Let us harm them.” He says, “Let us be wise.” Wisdom becomes detached from morality, and intelligence becomes a tool for self-protection rather than truth. At that moment, seeing is already corrupted. The world is no longer perceived as it is, but as fear needs it to be.

The Ha’amek Davar sharpens this point even further. The Netziv explains that Pharaoh’s anxiety was not rooted in concrete danger, but in imagined outcomes. “Perhaps they will multiply, perhaps they will join our enemies.” Fear of what might happen becomes more powerful than what is happening. Once people are seen primarily through the lens of threat, moral boundaries erode quickly. Policy begins to follow perception, not reality.

This is how Egypt trains people not to notice. Nothing changes all at once. Compassion dulls. Sensitivity fades. What once would have been shocking becomes normal. Pain recedes into the background. And because no single moment feels like a breaking point, the system continues unchallenged.

At this stage, oppression is no longer experienced only as violence. It is experienced as inevitability. Seeing itself has been reshaped. The problem is no longer only what Egypt does, but how Egypt sees — and how that way of seeing spreads quietly through an entire society.

Oppression rarely begins with violence. It begins with seeing people wrongly.

When Pain Becomes Invisible: The Loss of Human Seeing

As Egypt’s grip tightens, the Torah describes a shift that is quieter than decrees and more devastating than force. “וַיְמָרֲרוּ אֶת־חַיֵּיהֶם בַּעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה” — their lives were embittered through hard labor. The verse does not focus only on the work itself, but on what it does to life. Suffering is no longer episodic. It becomes the texture of existence. When pain is constant, it stops standing out. It becomes the background against which everything else is measured.

This is the nature of chronic suffering. Over time, people adapt not by healing, but by narrowing. What once would have demanded attention begins to feel ordinary. When suffering becomes routine, something essential is lost: the capacity to recognize it as wrong. Pain that is everywhere becomes invisible, not because it is mild, but because it is unrelenting.

The Maharal explains that the deepest form of dehumanization does not occur when bodies are broken, but when people are reduced to function. A human being who is seen primarily as labor, output, or utility is no longer encountered as a person bearing tzelem Elokim. This is not only a physical degradation; it is a perceptual one. When someone is viewed through what they produce rather than who they are, their inner life disappears from view. Seeing collapses into use.

Egypt perfects this form of erosion. The work is not only hard; it is designed to redefine identity. A person is no longer a son or daughter, a parent or sibling, a bearer of memory or hope. A person becomes a task. Over time, this way of seeing spreads beyond the oppressor. When pain is constant and dignity is denied repeatedly, people can begin to internalize the same narrowing gaze. They stop expecting to be seen — and stop seeing one another.

This is the quiet devastation of Egypt. Dehumanization does not always announce itself with cruelty. Often, it arrives through normalization. When suffering is everywhere, compassion becomes costly. When labor defines worth, humanity feels irrelevant. And when seeing another person as fully human requires effort, the world adjusts by looking away.

Egypt does not only enslave bodies. It trains people not to see each other as human.

In a world trained not to see, the greatest danger is not cruelty, but the disappearance of those still capable of compassion.

Human Seeing Returns: The First Cracks of Rachamim

Against the steady erosion of humanity in Egypt, the Torah introduces something quietly radical: individuals who still see. Not leaders, not revolutionaries, not people with power — but human beings who refuse to let fear redefine reality. The first cracks in Egypt’s wall do not come from confrontation. They come from vision.

“וַתִּירֶאןָ הַמְיַלְּדֹת אֶת־הָאֱלֹקִים”

— the midwives feared God. Rashi explains that this fear was not abstract piety; it was moral clarity. To fear God here means to reject Pharaoh’s framing of the world. Pharaoh sees danger where there is life. The midwives see life where Pharaoh sees threat. They refuse to accept a reality in which killing can be called wisdom. In a system built on distorted perception, their seeing becomes an act of resistance.

Shemot Rabbah emphasizes that the midwives’ courage preserved life precisely when collapse felt inevitable. They did not overturn policy or dismantle the system. They simply refused to cooperate with moral numbness. In doing so, they kept rachamim alive within a world organized around fear. Their seeing did not end suffering, but it prevented suffering from becoming the only truth.

The Torah then shows this same act of seeing in an unexpected place. “וַתֵּרֶא אֶת־הַתֵּבָה” — Pharaoh’s own daughter sees the basket. The verse could have said she heard a cry or noticed a disturbance. Instead, it emphasizes sight. She sees — and allows what she sees to matter. She does not erase the child’s vulnerability, and she does not explain it away. In a palace built on denial, she permits herself to be moved.

Chassidic teachings articulate what the Torah is hinting at here. The Kedushat Levi teaches that when a human being awakens compassion below, it awakens compassion above. Rachamim is not forced into the world; it is invited through resonance. When someone refuses to look away from suffering, the world becomes receptive again.

This is the turning point the Torah wants us to notice. Before Moshe appears as a leader, before redemption takes shape, seeing returns in small, costly ways. The midwives see. A woman in the palace sees. These moments do not yet change the system, but they change what becomes possible within it. They restore humanity to a space that had learned to function without it.

Redemption does not begin with power. It begins wherever someone refuses to look away.

Moshe’s Wounds and Midyan: Why Seeing Requires Safety

When Moshe finally appears in the narrative as an adult, the Torah introduces him with an act of seeing: “וַיֵּצֵא אֶל־אֶחָיו וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם.” He goes out to his brothers, and he sees their suffering. Rashi notes that this was not a passing glance. Moshe placed both his eyes and his heart into their pain. He allowed himself to feel what others had learned to numb. This moment is real, courageous, and costly — but it does not emerge from nowhere.

Moshe’s capacity to see is shaped by a life marked by dislocation and threat. He is born under a decree of death, separated from his mother almost immediately, and raised in the house of the very regime that seeks his people’s destruction. He grows up protected, yet profoundly split — belonging fully to neither world. When he finally acts on behalf of his brothers, intervening in their suffering, the system turns on him. Pharaoh seeks his life, and Moshe is forced to flee. The attempt to help costs him everything he knows.

The Torah does not rush past this rupture. Instead, it slows the story down. “וַיְהִי בַּיָּמִים הָרַבִּים הָהֵם” — many years pass. This detail matters. Seeing suffering is not the same as being ready to carry it. Revelation does not follow immediately after Moshe’s moral courage. The Torah makes room for time, distance, and quiet. Midyan is not presented as a punishment or a detour. It is a place where Moshe’s life finally stabilizes. He finds work, relationship, family, and rhythm. He is no longer hunted. No longer split. No longer reacting.

Chassidic teachings help articulate what the Torah is showing rather than stating. The Aish Kodesh teaches that survival alone is not redemption. A human being can endure tremendous suffering and still not be ready to carry the suffering of others. Presence inside pain preserves humanity, but only when the soul is not constantly bracing for danger. Moshe’s years in Midyan allow his inner world to settle. Only then can he stand in the pain of others without being consumed by his own.

The Sefat Emet deepens this further by reading “וַיֵּצֵא” not only as a physical departure, but as an inner movement. To go out is to leave a constricted identity, to step beyond the narrow roles imposed by fear and circumstance. Perception widens only after grounding. Seeing requires space and safety — a nervous system no longer locked in survival.

This reframes Moshe’s greatness in a crucial way. His ability to see others’ suffering is not just a moral achievement; it is the fruit of a life that has finally become safe enough to feel. The Torah insists on this sequence. Responsibility does not precede regulation. Leadership does not emerge from raw survival. Before Moshe could carry the pain of a people, his own life had to become stable enough to hold it.

From “Vayar” to “Ra’oh Ra’iti”: When Rachamim Fully Opens

The Torah’s language now becomes unmistakably deliberate. When Moshe first encounters the suffering of his people, the verse tells us, “וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם” — he saw their burdens. Later, at the burning bush, Hashem introduces Himself to Moshe with strikingly similar words: “רָאֹה רָאִיתִי אֶת־עֳנִי עַמִּי” — seeing, I have seen the suffering of My people. The Torah could have shifted vocabulary. It could have spoken of hearing, remembering, or knowing. Instead, it mirrors the language of seeing, drawing a deliberate line between Moshe’s earlier act and Hashem’s present response.

Here the Torah names its central truth clearly: redemption does not begin with action, but with restored vision.

Rashi explains that “ראה ראיתי” does not describe a momentary awareness. It means sustained, present seeing — an attentiveness that does not look away. The doubling of the word signals depth and continuity. Hashem is saying that He has entered the suffering, that He is holding it fully, not from a distance. This is not new information reaching Heaven. It is rachamim taking form in the world.

Chassidic teachings help us understand why the Torah places these two acts of seeing in such close relationship. The Kedushat Levi teaches that when a human being awakens compassion below, it awakens compassion above. Not because Divine mercy was absent before, but because rachamim moves through resonance. When someone becomes capable of seeing suffering without numbing or fleeing, the world itself becomes a vessel for Divine response. Moshe’s “vayar” does not cause Hashem’s “ra’oh ra’iti” — it aligns with it.

The Sefat Emet frames this as a widening of perception. Revelation, he teaches, does not begin with speech or command, but with vision that has expanded beyond fear and self-protection. Once seeing becomes possible again, the ground is ready.

That is why the Torah is so careful about how Hashem calls Moshe at the bush. “מֹשֶׁה מֹשֶׁה.” His name is spoken twice, gently and personally. Before mission comes relationship. Before instruction comes presence. Hashem does not overwhelm Moshe with command; He meets him where he is, calling him into connection. Only after Moshe answers does the work of redemption begin.

At this point, the arc of seeing is complete. It has moved from emotional entry, to moral clarity, to humanization, and now to Divine response. What began as one person’s willingness to see suffering without turning away has become the opening through which rachamim can fully enter history. The Torah is teaching us that redemption does not descend into a world that cannot see.

Hashem’s “I have seen” enters a world where someone has already chosen to see.

Parenting Reflection — When Pain Becomes Background Noise

The Torah tells us that Moshe went out to his brothers and saw their burdens. Before there was leadership, intervention, or redemption, there was seeing. That sequence matters — especially for parents. When a child is struggling, behavior is the most visible layer. It is also the most misleading. The Torah insists that our first responsibility is not to react to what we see on the surface, but to look beneath it.

Parents often live with slow, ongoing pain — exhaustion, fear, disappointment that stretches on for months or years. Over time, the struggle becomes part of daily life. The danger here is not a lack of love or care. It is normalization. When pain becomes familiar, we can begin responding only to behavior — to what disrupts, worries, or exhausts us — without noticing the deeper story unfolding underneath.

The first act of a parent, and of anyone who wants to preserve relationship, is to see beyond behavior. This kind of seeing does not excuse or ignore what is happening. It simply recognizes that behavior is almost always carrying something else: fear, shame, unmet needs, grief, or a nervous system doing its best to survive. Until that inner world is seen, no amount of guidance or correction can truly land. Without seeing, even help can feel threatening. We often avoid seeing not because we don’t care, but because we’re afraid of what it will ask of us.

At its deepest level, the Torah’s model of seeing begins even earlier. At the moment of creation, the Torah tells us, “וירא אלוקים כי טוב.” God sees — and names goodness — not because the world is finished or perfected, but because it exists. Seeing, in the Torah’s first language, is not evaluation. It is affirmation. It is the recognition of inherent worth before behavior, before achievement, before repair.

Chassidic teachers understood how essential this is. Rebbe Nachman taught that finding a nekudah tovah, a single point of goodness, keeps hope alive when everything else feels heavy. This is not denial. It is the refusal to let behavior eclipse essence. The Aish Kodesh, writing from within catastrophe, taught that small acts of presence — listening without fixing, staying emotionally available without control — preserve humanity when circumstances cannot yet change.

Only after seeing can the work begin. Only after relationship is protected can growth take place. Rules, boundaries, and guidance have their place, but they cannot precede understanding without causing harm. The Torah’s order is clear: first Moshe sees; only then does redemption begin to move.

Sometimes the most healing act is noticing what we have learned to live with — and choosing, once again, to truly see.

Closing — Redemption Begins with Restored Vision

At the end of the chapter, the Torah pauses before moving the story forward. It does not describe rescue, confrontation, or escape. Instead, it tells us something far quieter and far more consequential: “וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹקִים… וַיִּזְכֹּר… וַיַּרְא… וַיֵּדַע אֱלֹקִים.” God hears. God remembers. God sees. God knows. The language is relational, not dramatic. Before anything changes in the world, something changes in the quality of attention brought to it.

This sequence is the culmination of everything the Torah has been teaching us. Suffering has been present for a long time. Crying out has already happened. What is new here is not pain, but the restoration of connection. Seeing returns — first in human hearts, then in Divine response. Redemption does not interrupt reality from the outside; it grows out of relationship re-entering the picture.

This is why the story cannot move forward until seeing is restored. As long as pain remains unseen, it remains unheld. As long as people are reduced to functions, threats, or behaviors, there is no space for healing. Before miracles, before leadership, before liberation, someone must see — and someone must be seen. That is the doorway through which rachamim enters the world.

Redemption does not begin when suffering ends.

It begins when seeing returns — first in human hearts, and then in Divine response.

Have a Wonderful Shabbos!!!

Yaakov Lazar