It’s cold comfort while we’re suffering to understand that learning how to endure it will make us stronger (James 1:2–4). And it can seem cruel to watch such a struggle from the outside, thinking someone with power should step up and stop it.
That heart cry for deliverance is the focus of the Torah reading שמות Shemot (“names,” Exodus 1:1–6:1). Amid the passage’s exploration of the key question of why the Kingdom of Heaven that spoke the Earth into existence seems to be unable or unwilling to stop the oppression of one of its superpowers — Mitzraim (Egypt) — there’s the subtle hit of Heaven’s coming knockout blow to that bully.
The Holy One blessed about three-score and 10 Israeli immigrants, lifting Mitzraim above its neighbors during a punishing famine while multiplying Israel’s numbers at a rate that was frightening to a pharaoh who thought he was in control of his own destiny. Just think what Heaven will do for those who cry out for relief.
