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Parashat Shemot is the start of a new Sefer, and everyone knows that that means it’s time to talk about all the different names of the Sefer. There’s the obvious “Shemot” that doesn’t tell you anything about the Sefer, but there’s also the Ramban’s name for it, “Sefer Ge’ulah,” because it’s all about the redemption of the Jewish people. The Behag’s name for this Sefer is “Chumash Sheini,” which seems fine until you realize that he calls no other Sefer by its number. In the Netziv’s introduction to Sefer Shemot, he asks, why not name every Sefer “Chumash Rishon,” “Chumash Shlishi,” etc? Alternatively, why not just take the route of the Ramban and name it after a major event in the Sefer, like “Sefer Matan Torah”? The Netziv says, “Shuta DeMaran Zatzal Nitein LeLamdeinu Binah,” “The words of our Rabbis of blessed memory are to teach us a deeper understanding”. This is not just a name, but it must say something about the nature of Sefer Shemot.
The Netziv answers that Sefer Shemot is a continuation of Sefer BeReishit, the name “Chumash Sheini” means “part two”. BeReishit is about the creation of the world, and that hasn’t been completed yet. Everything is in motion, but the Midrash says that “BeReishit Bara Elokim…” means “BeShvil Torah SheNikreit Reishit” and “BeShvil Yisrael SheNikri’u Reishit”, “The world was created for Torah and the Jewish people, which both have the nickname of ‘Reishit’”. Without Bnei Yisrael receiving the Torah, the story isn’t complete. The Ramban asks, why does the Sefer start “Ve’Eileh Shemot…” “And these are the names…”? Since first grade we’ve been taught not to start things with “and”! The answer he gives is that it is not starting anything new. It is picking up right where it left off, building on Parashat VaYechi before it. Furthermore, Bri’at Ha’Olam was never completed until Matan Torah, where Bnei Yisrael not only became a nation, but became HaShem’s nation. The Midrash says that when HaShem created the world, it was on condition that Bnei Yisrael accept the Torah. If they didn’t, the world would go back to Tohu VaVohu. These ideas all lend themselves to the fact that Sefer Shemot is just Sefer BeReishit Part Two, which helps us understand something deeper about Am Yisrael itself.
The Jewish people learning and putting to use the Torah is the reason the world was created, and therefore is the reason the world is still in existence today. The Netziv adds in his introduction that the purpose of the Jews is to be an “Ohr LaGoyim,” “a light unto the nations”. When Moshe is blackmailed into fleeing the country, his heroic action of saving a beaten slave is used against him. He does not come back for revenge, but he does come back and prove everybody wrong, following the word of Hashem. He is no killer, he is a role model. Shemot is the beginning of the end of Ma’aseh BeReishit, and Moshe sets the precedent for what an upstanding Jew should do, what the world exists for, by upholding the principle of being an Ohr LaGoyim with Torah and Mitzvot.