Weekly Message

8 January 2026

This week’s parashah, Sh’mot, tells the story of our enslavement in Egypt, and the beginning of our liberation. It begins by recalling the names of Yaakov’s sons who had gone down to Egypt many years earlier.

Why begin the story by recalling those names? An ancient midrash teaches that one of the reasons why we were redeemed from Egypt is that, during our years of slavery, we held onto our Hebrew names, names like those of our ancestors. We never fully conformed to the society in which we lived. We refused to be defined by it, to let Egyptian culture tell us who we were.

Daring to be different can indeed be liberating. And the celebration of Shabbat is a case in point. To take  a day away from social media, for instance, is an act of non-comformity, which causes us to stand out. But it is also an act of self-liberation, which makes space for our souls to grow. To honor Shabbat is to refuse to be defined entirely by the world around us. It is also to expand our range of vision, to liberate ourselves to rediscover what we value most in life.