This week's section, called "Vaerá" (I showed myself), is a direct continuation of the previous one, where, at the end, after Pharaoh's hardening of servitude over the Jewish people, Moshe questioned God, saying that since he spoke with Pharaoh the situation only worsened and He had not fulfilled His promise of redemption.
In response to this question, God assures that He will fulfill His promise to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to deliver the Promised Land by bringing the Jewish people out of Egypt.
One of the most important commentators on the Torah is Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040-1105). His work is based primarily on explaining the simple and literal meanings of the text and events, frequently using syntactic tools and also the words of our sages when they help to understand the text itself. Rashi was precise and exact in every commentary, not writing a word more or less, and often conveying profound ideas with few words.
In our parashah, we find a particular case worthy of analysis. The verse says (Exodus 6:3): "I revealed Myself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the name of God, and I did not make My essential name known to them." Rashi comments on the words "I revealed Myself" and explains: "To the patriarchs." The problem is that the verse itself says, immediately following the words "I revealed Myself," "to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." It makes no sense to say that Rashi wants to teach us that these are the patriarchs, since this is already known at this point in the Torah.
One possible explanation, beyond the understanding of the text itself, is that Rashi wants to teach us that, although each patriarch had his own spiritual work, Abraham in the line of kindness, Isaac in the line of severity and Jacob in the line of balance between the two previous ones, there is a spiritual work common to the three: that of being avot, fathers and patriarchs.
Our sages explain that, although the souls of the Jewish people existed even before creation itself, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had the merit of having those pre-existing souls invested in their descendants. In other words, God chose them to be the patriarchs of His people, His souls. This is expressed in the heritage that every Jew, man and woman, inherited from each of the patriarchs. The love for God that they cultivated and their sacrifice in spreading the idea of the One God (whose profound meaning is that God is the only thing that exists, not merely that there is one God) earned them the "prize," so to speak, of being the patriarchs of the souls of the Jewish people, thus making them heirs to their virtues.
In addition to the individual virtues of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each inherited a shared quality of "patriarch": the foundation and sustenance of a family based on the principles and values of the Torah, putting each of the mitzvot into practice, rests in the hands of each and every one of them. No one can shirk this responsibility, as we all inherit the capacity to be "patriarchs.".
The way to "materialize" these qualities is through genuine Jewish education, committed to our people and to God.