After the Children of Israel had settled in Egypt, in the land of Goshen, a new King came into power in Egypt.

The new King (Pharaoh) was worried that the children of Israel might not be loyal to him, so he made the Children of Israel into slaves. That wasn’t enough for him, and he still worried about the loyalty of the people.

Pharaoh decided that if he had all the boy babies killed, there would be no leaders among the Children of Israel. Since he was King and could do whatever he wanted, he ordered that any boy baby born to one of the Children of Israel had to be killed immediately.

Moshe’s Mother couldn’t bear to see her child killed, even though she already had two children. She hid her baby for as long as she could and then she put him in a little waterproof basket hoping that he would float to a nicer place and be adopted by some people who wouldn’t hate him.

As the baby was floating down the Nile River, the daughter of the Pharaoh was in the water, and she saw the basket and decided that the gods had sent her this child. She picked him out of the water and gave him the name Moshe. She brought him to the palace and raised him as a prince. Moshe’s sister, Miriam , stood by and offered to find a wet nurse for the Princess. The wet nurse was Moshe’s mother Yocheved.

One day the young Prince Moshe was out walking when he saw an Egyptian overseer beating one of the Children of Israel. He grabbed the whip and beat the overseer. The overseer died and Moshe buried him.

The next day When Moshe was out again he heard two of the Children of Israel fighting, and when he came close one of them asked if Moshe was going to kill him too, like he had killed the Egyptian the day before.

Moshe ran away from Egypt since he figured that soon everybody would know and they would come to arrest him.

Moshe ran as far as the land of the Midianites. There he met and married Tzippora, the daughter of Yitro, a Priest of the Midianites.

Again, a new King (Pharaoh), took the throne of Egypt, and this King was even worse to the Children of Israel.

HaShem knew that it was time to get the Children of Israel out of Egypt. [It was told to Abraham that his children would serve 400 years as slaves to another people. So it really didn’t have anything to do with the Egyptians.]

Moshe worked as a shepherd for his father-in-law. While tending the sheep, he came to HaShem’s mountain, Mount Horeb. This is the same mountain where Abraham had brought Isaac, and the same mountain where, one day, the Beit Hamikdash would stand.

On this mountain, Mount Horeb, HaShem appeared to Moshe in the “heart of a fire, in the middle of a thorn-bush. Moshe saw the bush and the fire, and noticed that the bush itself was not burning. He decided to come closer to the bush.

As Moshe got closer to the bush, HaShem called out to him: “Moshe, Moshe.” Moshe answered, and HaShem told him not to get closer, and to take off his shoes, because he was standing on holy ground.

HaShem said that it was time for HaShem to bring the Children of Israel out of Egypt. HaShem told Moshe that Moshe had to go to Egypt to bring out HaShem’s people, the Children of Israel.