Summary of parashat Shmot
The Israelites multiplied in Egypt. Threatened by the growing number of Israelites, Pharaoh enslaved them and ordered the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah to kill all newborn males. When they refused, he ordered his own people to throw the Hebrew babies into the Nile.
Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, and her husband Amram have a son. The child is placed in a basket on the river, while his sister, Miriam, watches from afar. Pharaoh's daughter discovers the child, raises him as her own, and names him Moses.
As a young man, Moses leaves the palace and witnesses the hardships faced by his people. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and kills the Egyptian. The next day, he sees two Jews fighting; when he confronts them, they reveal what Moses did the day before, forcing him to flee Egypt for Midian. There, he rescues Jethro's daughters, marries one of them—Zipporah—and becomes the shepherd of his father-in-law's flocks.
God appeared to Moses in a burning bush at the foot of Mount Sinai and instructed him to go to Pharaoh and demand, "Let my people go, so that they may serve me." Aaron, Moses' brother, was appointed as his spokesman. In Egypt, Moses and Aaron gathered the elders of the people of Israel to tell them that the time of redemption had come. The people believed them, but Pharaoh refused to let them go, further intensifying the people's suffering.
Moshe returns to God and protests, "Why have you done evil to these people?" God promises him that redemption is near.
