The mission of Moses – Sh’mot
After all the historical dramas of the book of B’reshit, Sh’mot begins the Moses period of Israelite history.
We see how he is given by the king’s daughter the name Moshe (Ex. 2:10). The root of this name means “to draw out”.
The commentaries regard the name as an indication (and a prophecy) that this baby boy would grow up to take out the people from slavery.
There is a Midrash that the original intention was that this would be the Messiah, indeed that Moses himself appealed to God to let him be Mashi’ach. God determined that there was a different role for Moses to carry out and the Mashi’ach would be a different, later figure.
Moses would not be the end-of-days Mashi’ach but he would prepare the people to be equipped for future messianism by means of Torah and mitzvot.
