EXODUS I:1-VI:1

EGYPTIAN INGRATITUDE

Yaakov (Jacob) and his sons have passed away. Thus begins theGalut, the exile of the Jewish people. While a member of Yaakov’s lived, there was a palpable connection with the Land of Israel, and the sojourn of the immediate family in Egypt took on a temporary character. With the death of Yaakov’s sons, the link with the ancestral land is lost and residence in Egypt becomes permanent. The descendants begin to integrate into the Egyptian environment and culture, and according to theMidrash, they abandon the practice of circumcision, which distinguished the descendants of the patriarch Avraham(Abraham).

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After Yosef‘s (Joseph) death, the Egyptians question theirrelationship with the Hebrews. Pharaoh gathers his advisors to ask them what to do with them. The fact is that the Egyptians had become slaves of the state because Yosef had given them the necessary seeds to sow the field and as payment, the peasants were limited to being the servants of Pharaoh, to whom they had to deliver twenty percent of the production. 

Instead, the Jews remained an independent group of the state that, in the future, could ally with any invader to overthrow the regime. According to the Midrash, Pharaoh met with three advisors, Bile’am (Balaam), Iyov I(Job) and Yitro (Jethro) andasked them: Did Egypt owe a permanent debt to the descendants of Yosef? Thanks to Yosef‘s policies of storing the overproduction of the years of plenty, Egypt had become the leading power in the known world at the time. Now that Yosefhad passed away, what was the responsibility to the Hebrews?

Bile’am was jealous of the Hebrews because of their ties with God, since He had promised the patriarchs that He would make them a great people. Bile’am showed his antipathy to this people, and he believed they represented a danger to the stability of Egypt and therefore it was necessary to put an end to their independence and stop their growth. Despite his prophetic abilities, which some commentators equate to those of Moshé (Moses), Bile’am believed Egyptian gratitude should be limited to the person of Yosef. His descendants did not have to enjoy the effect of the well-being that Yosef had brought to Egypt.

Although Iyov is described by the Bible as a person of integrity and righteousness, fearing God, he was unwilling to go beyond what was strictly required in his conception of justice. Judaism preaches the notion of Lifnim mishurat hadin, the goodness of living according to the spirit of justice and not necessarily abiding by the strict letter of the Law. Judaism teaches that there are circumstances and cases in which the help offered should not be measured. For example, there is no limit to the honor given to parents, nor is there a limit to the help given to the poor. Iyov remained silent in the face of Pharaoh’s question. By not responding, he avoided allying himself with Bile’am, but he also did not explicitly defend the Hebrews, and in many cases, silence has a negative effect. Silence, which is not far from indifference, is often very painful for the person affected. This is how many Holocaust survivors of the last century express it. Bear in mind what was said by Elie Wiesel, silence only helps the oppressor never the tortured.

Yitro disagreed with Bile’am and, thinking he represented aminority, decided to leave the meeting. Yitro took the risk of becoming a minority of one, and in so doing demonstrated the traits of a proper personality, who would later become Moshé’sfather-in-law. Although Yitro did not identify with Bile’am‘sposition, on the other hand, he was not convincing enough to change the course of the conversation, which ended in a series of decrees aimed at morally and materially weakening the Hebrews, including the order to throw newborn males into the Nile. 

Finally, the Hebrews were enslaved and had to perform the most arduous physical tasks, the basic purpose of which was to break their pride and nullify any aspiration for freedom. As in many other cases, effective leadership was required to break the chains of slavery. Moshé is  chosen by God for a twofold task: to convince Pharaoh to allow the Hebrews to leave and, at the same time, to carry out an equally difficult task: to convince the Hebrews that freedom is one of the most important values for preserving the dignity of the human being.