Take the Torah, Or Else... (Jethro)

Jews did not have much choice when offered the Torah. God told them that if they did not accept it, He would destroy the world and turn it back to void. 

To make the offer actionable, God formulated it as such: "And it was on the third day" (בהית הבקר ויהי). The first letters of these three words spell bohu (בהו) - which implies destruction.

(Incidentally, other nations were also offered the Torah but refused it as not fitting their nature.)

Art: Moses with the Tablets by Guido Reni

Travel to Israel for burial (Beshalach)

Moses took Joseph's remains with him from Egypt to Israel. That was not easy. Egyptians buried Joseph in a metal coffin in the river Nile. However, Moses came to this place and said, "Ox, come up!" And Joseph's coffin floated up. 

Earlier, when Joseph told Egyptians to get circumcised, he also converted them. Moses cared for them and took them out of Egypt. These were the "mixed multitude" who went together with the Jews out of Egypt. Since Joseph started their conversion process, he now merited to see the mitzvah to the end.

Even though the mixed multiple caused multiple troubles to the Jewish people, they nevertheless represent the purpose for which the Jews ended up in the dispersion - to collect these souls and bring them back.

Art: The Water of the Nile by Frederick Goodall

Finger of God (Vayera)

When Moses turned the dust into lice, the Egyptian magicians could not repeat this feat. Until now, they could duplicate the plagues, what with the snakes and blood, but lice were out of their reach. They said in explanation, "This is the finger of God."

It is well known that magicians were operating through demons. Since demons cannot control objects smaller than a barleycorn, they could not reproduce this feat. However, what led them to believe that God was involved and not, say, Moses's magic?

The answer lies in the name of God, אלהים. The possible permutations of the letters of God's name number 120. Like this:

אלהים

אלהמי

אלמיה

אלמהי

...

Since the first letter can be one of 5, the following letter one of 4, and so on, you end up with 5*4*3*2*1=120 permutations. The Gematria (numerical value) of "lice" (כנים) is 120. That is how the magicians knew.

Pharaoh's death also came through this. Even evil people are sustained by God, albeit unwillingly. Pharaoh's sustenance came from the last two letters of God's name. Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea (ים סופ). The Red Sea combined the last two letters of God's name (ים) with the word (סוף), meaning "end."

Art: Pharaoh and His Army Drowning in the Red Sea by David Colijns

Moses was born circumcised (Shemot)

Moses was born already circumcised. Since he was Jewish already from birth, he refused the milk of Egyptian women. When the daughter of Pharaoh found him, she had to find a wet nurse for a three-month-old baby, and this is when she tried the Egyptian wet nurses without success.

Where is that in the Torah? The sister of Moses, Miriam, said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse him?" The first letters of her words spell "He is circumcised."

מִן הָעִבְרִיֹּת; וְתֵינִק לָךְ - "from the Hebrew women, to nurse him for you."

First letters:

מהול - circumcised

When Moses's mother first looked at him, "she saw that he was good." That is because the foreskin is called "bad," and Moses was "good," that is, circumcised. 

Art: Moses in the Bullrushes by Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau

The child of yibum with brother's widow is his reincarnation (Vayeshev)

Tamar succeeded in making Judah sleep with her. This way, Judah performed a "yibum," also known as "marrying brother's widow." Previously, Judah's son Onan did a "yibum" with Tamar, his brother's Er widow. Judah's act with Tamar could qualify, by stretch, as a "yibum."

The secret of yibum is that the child born of such a union is a reincarnation of the brother who passed away. This worked. Tamar had twins, and they were reincarnations of her two previous husbands. In their new lives, they corrected their previous mistakes.

The midwife marked the firstborn by tying a red thread on his hand - because their previous mistake involved hands. Zerah, who is the reincarnation of Onan, gave his hand first. He felt that he was not as bad as Er because he at least had a reason, not wanting to have a child in this brother's name. Still, he got a thread whose color was red - because he was not wholly blameless.

Art: Judah and Tamar by Arent de Gelder

Dinah Was a Boy at First (Vayishlach)

After six sons, Leah knew that she was pregnant with another boy. She would then have a disproportionate number of boys, seven out of twelve. So Leah judged that it would not be fair and prayed that the child's gender would be changed to a girl. That is why the baby's name was "Dinah" which means "Judgement." Dinah is called "naar," which means a boy, but when the Torah is read in the synagogue, this word is pronounced "naarah," which means a girl.

Since it was Leah who caused Dinah to be born a girl, Dinah is called Leah's daughter, "And Dinah, Leah's daughter, went out."

Dinah was the reincarnation of Eve. Dinah's abductor, Shechem ben Chamor the Hivite, was the reincarnation of the initial Snake. The word "Hivite" means a snake in Aramaic. Since he has injected poison into Eve, his only desire was to stay connected to her, this time as Dinah. After Shechem was circumcised, his correction in life was complete, and he was killed, having nothing left to do.

Art: Jacob persuades Leah and Rachel to flee by Pieter Potter

And he lay with her that night (Vayetze)

"And Yakov slept with Leah that night... and Issachar was born."

Issachar studied Torah more than any other of the twelve sons of Yakov. So, Issachar represents the essence of Yakov. It says "that night" and not "on that night." In Hebrew, it is "ba laila who" and not "ba laila hawho." The word "that" applies to the man (Issachar) and not the night. 

Later, Issachar was reincarnated as Rabbi Akiva. When the brothers sold Yosef, and the time came to atone for that, Rabbi Akiva was the leading sage of the ten sages martyred to perform this atonement. The connection to Issachar is in the words of Rabbi Akiva.

Now, we can establish other connections. Adam had two wives: Lilith and Eve. Adam's reincarnation, Yakov, also had two wives, Leah and Rachel. Yakov's reincarnation, Rabbi Akiva, also had two wives: the former wife of Turneius Rufus and his first wife, Rachel. The wives are also connected through reincarnations.

Art: Joseph sold by his brothers by Balthasar Beschey