In this week's section, we read about Pharaoh's decree to "throw the children into the river." Our sages tell us that the Egyptians were great diviners, and Pharaoh's soothsayers told him that the savior of the Jewish people would be born according to the order of the constellations.
To prevent this, the Pharaoh ordered all children (even Egyptian children!) to be thrown into the river.
As we have mentioned many times, the Torah contains practical teachings for everyday life in all times and places. The river Pharaoh was referring to is the Nile. The Egyptians obtained their sustenance from this river, irrigating their fields through canals to cultivate the land.
In this analogy, the river represents the social system, the source of our livelihood today. That is, the system of supply and demand, the conventions of work, and society in general. The Pharaoh represents a philosophy of life in which work and/or societal trends on various matters are paramount—those things we live off of and with.
The Pharaoh believed that children should be "thrown into the river," immersed in the affairs of work and the customs of society, "soaked" in the world, full of sports, television and everything that fashion dictates.
The Jewish perspective is that children should be raised with genuine Jewish values and traditions. On the contrary, they should know from a very young age that societal dictates do not govern their lives and are not important; rather, their essence as Jews and their connection to God through the Torah and the Mitzvot are.