We have now started the Book of Shemot during our weekly Torah readings on Shabbat. This week’s Torah portion describes our servitude in Egypt, and relates the story of Moshe, and how God appears to him in the wilderness at the Burning Bush, and commands him to take the Jews out of Egypt.
This week’s quiz is a simple question:
Why does God bring the Jews out of Egypt?
Out of the following list of reasons, choose the one correct answer, which is stated in the Torah during Moshe’s very first encounter with God:
1. To spend Pesach in the Catskills.
2. To take a cruise to St. Thomas.
3. To retire in Boca.
4. To invent bagels and lox.
5. To go to the Land of Israel.
6. To live in ghettos in Brooklyn.
7. To make movies in Hollywood.
8. To become doctors and lawyers.
9. To assimilate in America.
10. To receive the Torah on Mount Sinai.
The correct answer is #5 – to bring the Jews to the Land of Israel, as it states in the Torah:
“I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of Egypt, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large Land, to a Land flowing with milk and honey” (Shemot, 3:8).
Mount Sinai was to be a temporary stopover to pick up the Torah, but the goal of the Exodus was to bring the Jews to Israel. This is the goal of the Torah – to build a Torah nation in the Land of Israel.
You can disagree if you want, but that’s what it says in the Torah.
