16 Shevat 5785
Selected excerpts from "Parashat Yitro: Two forms of Kiddush Hashem" by Daniel Pinner:
...When God repeatedly sent Moshe to Pharaoh with the demand, “Send forth My nation” (Exodus 5:1, 7:16, 7:21, 9:1, 9:13), this demand was invariably in the Name of Hashem, the God of Israel or the God of the Hebrews. The reason is simple and obvious: the purpose of the Exodus was not merely to redeem a nation from slavery. Its deeper purpose was Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying the Name of Hashem.
...Ultimately, the Ten Plagues and the Splitting of the Red Sea forced Pharaoh and Egypt to acknowledge Hashem, God of the Hebrews, as the Supreme Power. God told Moshe: “I will be glorified through Pharaoh and through all his army, and Egypt shall know that I am Hashem” (Exodus14:4), on which the Midrash comments: “This teaches that when Hashem exacts punishment from the nations, His Name becomes great in the world” (Tanhuma, Beshallach 7).
...This, then, was the awesome Kiddush Hashem in last week’s Parashah: God publicly defeated and destroyed the world’s mightiest nation as punishment for the evil they had perpetrated against Him and His nation.
~ SHABBAT SHALOM ~
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