Pharaoh said to his people: "Come, let us outsmart it, lest it become numerous and if a war will occur, it too may join our enemies and wage war against us" (1:9-10)

"The Germans did not have DDT. Their general-purpose pesticide, which was used whether the pests were rats, lice, or whatever, was a commercial product named Zyklon B. Its active ingredient was hydrogen cyanide. Zyklon B consisted of solid disks that would give off hydrogen cyanide gas when exposed to air. Large amounts of Zyklon B were found in the Nazi camps. But there is a non-criminal explanation for this that is well documented. In the camps there were outbreaks of typhus fever, which was carried by lice. Zyklon B was the agent supposedly used to kill Jews in mass in the alleged gas chambers."

(from an anti-Semitic 'revisionist' version of the Holocaust)

In the Pesach Haggadah we read: "The Egyptians mistreated and afflicted us." (Devarim 26:6) If you examine the Hebrew phrase closely, you will see that it actually says "The Egyptians made us bad." How do you unite an entire nation in the persecution of a minority? You "make them bad."

You conduct a smear campaign to demonize them. You turn them from people into a sub-species; into an affliction, a disease. You turn them from a "them" into an "it."

The Torah gives us a chilling vision of the future in the above verse. Pharaoh refers to the Jewish People with a masculine singular pronoun - "hoo." You can read "hoo" as "him." But you can also read "hoo" as "it."

When people become an "it," when they become in your eyes no more than an alien organism, then you treat them as any sensible person behaves when faced with a germ. You kill it. You "disinfect" yourself. You carry out a medical program of bacteriological genocide.

It's all so chillingly logical.

"And Moshe grew, and he went out to his brothers" (2:11)

There once was a Hollywood cowboy who had come from a very "un-cowboyish" background: He was an assistant in a men's clothing store in Detroit.

To beef up his image a bit, the studio publicity machine concocted a new identity for him. They did a quick face-lift on his life story, which now depicted him being discovered in a Wells Fargo telegraph office in a small cowboy town in Arizona.

It happened one day that at the peak of his fame the Hollywood cowboy came to that small town. As befitting his fame, he was given a ticker-tape parade down Main Street.

As he was riding on the back of his open limousine, his car passed the Wells Fargo office. He leaned across to his press agent - the very same press agent who had re-written his past - and said to him without batting an eyelid:

"You see that Wells Fargo station? That's where I was discovered..."

One of the dangers of fame is that you can start to believe your own press release.

The Midrash tells us that when Moshe "grew," he grew "not like the way of the world." The way of the world is that when a person grows and becomes celebrated and famous, he forgets his roots, his background and his brothers. He seems to have a kind of insidious amnesia when it comes to their problems and difficulties.

Moshe grew up in the palace of Pharaoh with an Egyptian gold spoon in his mouth. Nevertheless, he grew up "not like way of the world," he never forgot the plight of his people. Moshe "went out to his brothers." He went out to discover their problems and the ways he could rescue them from oppression.

"And a man from the House of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi" (2:1)

When writing about the union of Moshe's parents, why didn't the Torah just say "And Amram went and married Yocheved"?

In his lifetime, Moshe achieved a closeness to Hashem unequaled by any other human being. He alone ascended to heaven and received the Torah for Israel. He alone spoke to Hashem face to face, with crystal clarity, unlike all the other prophets.

There was a concern that in the course of time someone might say that Moshe came from heaven, and make Moshe into a god. For this reason, the Torah stresses that his origin was as normal and earthly as anyone. "A man from the House of Levi married a daughter of Levi."

Although Moshe was the prince of prophets, his parents were regular flesh and blood.

"To whom shall one teach knowledge, who can be made to understand a message? Those weaned from (mother's) milk, removed from the breast!" (28:10)

Since the time of the Industrial Revolution, we have witnessed an ever-accelerating development of science and technology.

As the Zohar predicted, from the year 5600 the gates of wisdom were opened. If the Jewish People had been worthy, this tremendous outpouring of knowledge would have found its proper home in the wisdom of Torah and holiness.

Now, since we were not worthy, this diffusion of higher energy has found its way to the realm of superficial wisdom and precipitated the invention of weapons of mass destruction to humanity's profound loss.

From the day that the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, "prophecy was given to fools and infants." Meaning, that when the Jews dwelled in the Holy Land, celestial energy, both spiritual and material, descended to its correct landing place.

However, since the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, this spiritual radiance has gone astray - descending on desolate lands and unsuitable people - "fools and infants."

This is what the prophet means when he asks whether "those weaned from (mother's) milk" can be "made to understand a message."

Sources

• Kvelling - Rashi, Gur Arieh, Sfas Emes
• Believing Your Own Press Release - Yalkut HaDrush in Iturei Torah
• The Prince of Prophets - Kehillas Yitzhak in Iturei Torah