“Man is free, but everywhere he is in chains,” wrote a French philosopher in the mid-18th century, setting off a firestorm in Europe against monarchy. But more than 3,000 years earlier, a greater shockwave resounded from within the superpower empire of Mitzraim (Egypt), and that’s what we see in this week’s Torah reading, שְׁמוֹת Shemot (“names,” Exodus 1:1–6:1).