If you’ve ever repeated your story about a wrong turn in life that somehow worked out for the best, you probably didn’t leave out a single detail. You’d set the scene, describe the details where it went wrong, and then extra focus on the moment where it unexpectedly came together (for context, How I Met Your Mother stretched out for eight seasons).

This week’s parsha starts in a similar way. We’re given a detailed introduction to the story of the Jewish people in Egypt; the names of those who went down, what their lives were like, and how they settled there. It’s almost excessive, considering we already know from next week’s Parsha that the new........

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