Our leader Moshe was adopted by Basya the daughter of the Pharoh and was raised from infancy until adulthood in the Pharoh’s palace. Basya, who had herself clandestinely converted to Judaism, raised Moshe with the assistance of his mother Yocheved in the palace. All this was kept hidden from the Pharoh.
The Medrash relates that Pharoh had his suspicions about Moshe’s origins and on occasion tested and challenged Moshe to expose who he really was.
The Torah relates that when Moshe became an adult, he left the palace to check up on his brethren who were enslaved. When he saw their dire state of exhaustion, he went to Pharoh with the following proposal. He said, “I noticed that the Jews are being enslaved and working 24/7. If this keeps up, it will be to your disadvantage, for fatigue will set in and they will expire from being overworked.” Pharoh asked Moshe what he had in mind. “If you give them a day off each week it would be to your benefit, for they would become refreshed and production will be enhanced.” Pharoh asked Moshe which day of the week he had in mind. Moshe responded, “The Seventh day of the week.” Moshe continued to explain to the Pharoh why he chose the Seventh day. “Based on the astrologic stars and constellations, the star Shabtaee rules on the Seventh day and any work done under the influence of that star is not blessed with success.” Pharoh agreed and for many years, due to Moshe’s intervention, the Jews had a day off on Shabbos.
The Medrash relates that during the Shabbos day off, the Jews would read scrolls they had in their possession that described their ancestry, history and traditions. The scrolls also spoke about G-d’s guarantee that they would be freed and return to the Land of Israel. Reading these scrolls gave them hope and carried them through the darkest of times.
Moshe’s concern for the Jews did not stop after supplying them with a weekly day off. The Torah relates that when he was out surveying the Jews’ plight, he protected them. While doing so, his identity became exposed and he needed to escape for his life from Egypt.
Moshe was absent from Egypt for some 60 years until G-d spoke to him at the Burning Bush – the eventual site of Mount Sinai where G-d would give the Jews the Torah. G-d instructed Moshe to return to Egypt to lead the Jews and to be His representative to deal and negotiate with Pharoh.
Initially, Moshe’s involvement did not produce results; on the contrary, Pharoh reacted by burdening the Jews with additional work quotas and taking away their Shabbos day of rest.
Once the ten plagues against the Egyptians began, the servitude of the Jews basically came to an end, however, the dominance of the Pharoh still prevented them from leaving Egypt.
Once the Jews were freed, G-d commanded them to observe the Shabbos on the seventh day of the week. Two reasons are given in Ten Commandments why G-d commanded us to observe the Shabbos. One, is that G-d created the world in six days and rested on the Seventh. The Avudram explains that G-d highlighted that our rest has nothing to do with the Shabtaee star that inhibits blessings; rather, we do it as a command of G-d, and to emulate G-d and His ways of creation of the world.
The second reason for the observance of Shabbos is that we should remember that we were slaves in Egypt and G-d freed us in a miraculous way. We recall how we kept the Shabbos in Egypt and how G-d freed us to become His beloved nation and that we have a mission to represent G-d by living according to His will and direction.
When G-d gave the Jews the Mitzvah of Shabbos, Moshe was extremely elated because he had chosen in Egypt to rest on the day of the week that G-d had in mind. This special feeling Moshe had is captured in the words of the Shabbos morning Amida prayer which states, “Yismach Moshe,” – Moshe was jubilant with G-d’s gift of Shabbos within his chosen portion.
The Bnei Yisochar points out that Moshe had a connection to the Seventh day of Shabbos since he was the seventh generation from Avraham – Yitzchok, Yaacov, Levi, Kehos, Amram and Moshe.
This past weekend, my son Tzvi attended a convention where he heard a phenomenal personal story from Mr. Gary Torgow. Mr. Torgow is a chairman of a bank. We know how important cyber security is for any banking institution. The office controlling money transfers of executives received an email from Mr. Torgow’s email account to move several million dollars to an off shore account. The email looked perfect and exactly how other emails with such requests were made in the past. It also indicated that, “I am traveling abroad (which he was) and I cannot be reached to confirm; please send without additional confirmation.”
Looking over the email, the woman receiving the request asked her superior if she should proceed. She checked it out and said yes. Before she processed it, she asked her again, “Should I go ahead and transfer the funds?” And again she said yes, but this time she asked what was causing her hesitation. She said that I’m looking at the day the email was sent and it was on a Saturday. Mr. Torgow is Sabbath observant and he would never send such a request on his holy day.
Mr. Torgow went on to say that the blessed Shabbos stopped the hacked e-mail from going through and saved him from losing several million dollars!