Rise and Shine

This week’s Torah reading has a surprising declaration by God: I am the Eternal, Who raises you up from the land of Egypt (Vayikra 11:45). This is most unexpected. We’re accustomed to God referring to the departure from Egypt as YETZIAT MITZRAYIM, the departure (okay, Exodus) from Egypt. Why the change to ‘raises you up’?

Rashi explains: In all other places it is written, ‘I brought you forth’, and here it is written ‘that brings you up’ — in reference to this it was taught in the school of Rebbe Ishmael: If I had brought up Israel from Egypt only to effect this one thing — that they do not defile themselves by reptiles as do the other peoples, that should be sufficient for them (Bava Metzia 61b), and it should be regarded by them as an elevation for themselves — this is what is implied in the expression used here: MA’ALEH (I raised you above the people of the land of Egypt).

Our greatest commentator explains that the Exodus was for the purpose of keeping the rules listed here in Chapter 11 of Vayikra. Mainly that includes the laws of KASHRUT with a little bit about the rules of impurity thrown in.

Rav David Zvi Hoffman explains, very reasonably, that God describes the departure from Egypt as ALIYA because the goal was to reach Eretz Yisrael. We all know that any journey towards our Homeland is called ALIYA. However, God resorted to describing the redemption from Egypt as Y’TZIYA, because, sadly, most of that generation never made it to the Promised Land.

Basically, those two comments describe the two general approaches to the term MA’ALEH in our verse. Do we view this ‘ascent’ as a physical activity, as in going to Eretz Yisrael or as a spiritual reality, as in keeping Kosher or avoiding impurity? In reality, both viewpoints have merit. But since the opinion that the Ascent was the physical journey towards Eretz Yisrael just doesn’t present many variations on the theme, let’s stick with the spiritual side of the issue.

Rav David Zvi Hoffman also noticed an important textual hint about our spiritual ascent, as well. He pointed out that whenever the Torah describes God as holy it writes the word KADOSH with four letters, including the silent VAV, which acts as a vowel giving the long O sound. However, whenever the Torah mentions the holiness of the Jews, it spells the word with only three letters, using just the dot between the DALED and the HEY to make the long O sound. He explains:

The reason for this change in spelling is that although man must strive for moral perfection, he cannot reach this highest level of holiness for it is reserved for God. The difference in spelling of the word KADOSH informs us that we can strive to emulate God’s holiness but can never truly match it.

The Kli Yakar uses this idea of ever striving upwards to help explain at least parts of the rules of KEDUSHA enumerated in our Parsha. He notes that humanity’s trait of walking upright aligns with the expectation that humans aspire to achieve greater sanctity by ever reaching upwards to the heavens. Even though our feet are planted on the earth, our heads, containing our minds and imagination, are much higher ‘searching for the Source from which our souls were hewn’. 

Creepy, crawling things (SHERATZIM and REMASSIM), on the other hand, are the animals which are closest to the ground and the dirt. We are forbidden to eat such bugs and reptiles, because that might diminish our higher aspirations. Since our departure from Egypt, which raised us to a higher plane of existence, we endeavor to avoid those lowly things.

Rav Shalom Barzovsky, the Slonimer Rebbe, understood our verse about being ‘raised up’ as part of a conundrum surrounding the entire Egyptian bondage. He reasonably asks why God told Avraham Avinu in the famous Covenant Between the Parts (BRIT BEIN HABITARIM, Braishit 15:9-21) that we would go into servitude, ‘strangers in a strange land’. Don’t we often say in our prayers: Because of our sins You have exiled us from our Homeland? If sin is the catalyst for exile, what sin did the 70 holy souls who descended into Egyptian Bondage commit?

He responds: So, what was the purpose of the exile? It was to purify and prepare Yisrael to be the Chosen People. For we could not reach that exalted level without the oppression we endured. 

The Rebbe believes that our ability to ascend was limited without first sharing a national descent. After the Exodus, our spiritual possibilities are unlimited. 

This whole idea that the Exodus was a necessary precondition for the spiritual awakening of the Jewish nation is, of course, the great lesson we just experienced during the Pesach holiday. Then the Rebbe concludes that this is the very idea in the Haggada of ‘In each and every generation, every one of us must see themselves as if we personally went out from Egypt’. 

But now we know that we must think: That each and every one of us ASCENDED from Egypt. Perhaps when we’ve learned that lesson, we’ll be ready for the even greater ascent awaiting us when Mashiach arrives. Of course, that’s why the word MA’ALEH is in the present tense. This process is still going on, and we’re still experiencing the spiritual high, which will only get higher in that new age just around the corner. Get ready to fly!