The Women March as the New King is Inaugurated: What We Can Learn from Rashi

While we can always make mistakes reading into the Torah something in the current news, and vice versa, we also cannot shy away from the invitation of profound synchronicities, like the fact that we in synagogue read about the "new king" being inaugurated as the women protest, as something very similar (with a million women) is happening outside the sanctuary walls.  When we bring our minds to modern application or comparison, we bring our commentators and our critical thinking skills.  I bring three "Rashi's" or traditional interpretations of our parashah.  First, Exodus or "Shemot/Names" starts with the names of individual Hebrews, not a collective term like "the Hebrews," because God calls us to see actual individuals when we make generalizations about groups, rather than, like Pharoah, making generalizations only.  Second, the new king does not ackowledge the contributions of the invidual Hebrews, their patriotism, and their hatred of the enemies of Egypt despite coming from those regions.  And third, that in his fear mongering that the Hebrews are essentially refugees from the Syrian area-- and therefore will "join with" those enemies of Egypt to bring down the country-- Pharaoh actually weakens his country so much that his own prophecy comes true, first in the plagues and then, generations later, the resulting weakened Egypt falling to those (Assyrian) enemies from the north [who destroy and exile the Israelites as well].