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J.J Gross

Was it the Israelites who enslaved themselves in Eygpt? (Vaera)

Last week, parshat Shemot gave us mixed signals concerning Egypt’s attitude and intentions regarding the Israelites.

On the one hand Egypt seems desirous of holding on to the Israelites as ‘slaves’

… פֶּן־יִרְבֶּ֗ה וְהָיָ֞ה כִּֽי־תִקְרֶ֤אנָה מִלְחָמָה֙ וְנוֹסַ֤ף גַּם־הוּא֙ עַל־שׂ֣נְאֵ֔ינוּ וְנִלְחַם־בָּ֖נוּ וְעָלָ֥ה מִן הָאָֽרֶץ

… lest they multiply and should war occur he (Israel) too will join our enemies v’ala min haaretz (normally translated and ‘and so go up out of the land’) (Shemot/ Exodus 1:10)

Based on this verse, the Egyptians very much want to hold onto the Israelites even though they are considered a security risk.

And yet just a few verses later the opposite is manifest, as the Pharaoh orders the Israelite midwives :

אִם־בֵּ֥ן הוּא֙ וַֽהֲמִתֶּ֣ן אֹת֔וֹ

if it is a male (newborn) you should kill him. (1:16)

Clearly there seems to be a conflicting attitude.

Moreover, the clause in verse 10 וְעָלָ֥ה מִן־הָאָֽרֶץ as meaning ‘and so go up out of the land’ makes no sense. After all, if such a war were to occur and the Israelites were to act as a fifth column, the last thing they would do (as victors) would be to leave the land. If anything they would stay put and subjugate the natives.

So why do we conventionally translate וְעָלָ֥ה מִן־הָאָֽרֶץ as ‘and so go up out of the land’?

Perhaps we reflexively associate the root עלה with ‘aliyah’, and ארץ with Eretz Israel, which is hardly the case here. The last thing Egyptians would think of is aliyah and Israel. I would suggest that וְעָלָ֥ה מִן־הָאָֽרֶץ means literally ‘to rise from the land’ i.e. to rise above everyone and take control.

Now, mind you, there were already plenty of Israelites who were doing quite well for themselves. As I pointed out in an earlier essay on parshat Shemot, slavery in Egypt was an entirely different institution than in the ante-bellum South.

Everyone in Egypt was a slave except for Pharaoh, in the sense of kicking the one below him and kissing the one above. That was the social order in Egypt. We need no greater proof that some Israelites had made it fairly high on the social ladder than the fact that Pharaoh had a working relationship with the Israelite midwives, and that Moshe and Aharon could waltz into Pharaoh’s throne room at will and talk to him face to face (something which even Yosef couldn’t do, evidence the fact that he had to ask members of Pharaoh’s household to request permission to take Yaakov to Canaan for burial)

Now let us go to Parshat Vaera.

At first there is no indication of any need for plagues to convince Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to leave. Indeed, from what we have gleaned from Parshat Shemot, the Egyptians would have been delighted to see the Israelites go. Could it be that it was the latter who wanted to stay?

Let’s a have a look at the text. God tells Moshe to tell the Israelites:

אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָה֒ וְהֽוֹצֵאתִ֣י אֶתְכֶ֗ם מִתַּ֨חַת֙ סִבְלֹ֣ת מִצְרַ֔יִם

I am the Lord and I will take them from under the Egyptian oppression. (Shemot/Exodus 6:6).

Moshe obeys God:

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר משֶׁ֛ה כֵּ֖ן אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְלֹ֤א שָֽׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־משֶׁ֔ה מִקֹּ֣צֶר ר֔וּחַ וּמֵֽעֲבֹדָ֖ה קָשָֽׁה

And Moshe spoke thus to the Children of Israel and they did not heed Moshe for lack of patience and because of hard work. (6:9)

Now what if the Children of Israel HAD listened to Moshe? Clearly the story would have ended here. They would have packed their bags and gone. That they chose not to listen had nothing to do with any lack of freedom to leave. It had to do with their desire to stay. As we saw in Parshat Shemot, the Egyptians really wanted to get rid of the Israelites.

It is only now that the business of plagues begins. And the purpose of these plagues would be twofold:

  1. To persuade Pharaoh to kick the Israelites out (against their will) and;
  2. To help the Israelites realize that they had no business remaining in Egypt, and that it was their destiny to leave and go back to where they belong.

(Although I always stick to the pshat (literal meaning) of the text, it is interesting to note that the Midrash says only 20% of Israelites ever left Egypt – which just shows the degree of integration, assimilation and inertia that prevailed — and this was AFTER the ten plagues.)

So what exactly was going on with the Children of Israel? To what precisely were they slaves?

A hint is offered in verse 6:5 when God says;

וְגַ֣ם | אֲנִ֣י שָׁמַ֗עְתִּי אֶת־נַֽאֲקַת֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר מִצְרַ֖יִם מַֽעֲבִדִ֣ים אֹתָ֑ם

And I have also heard the groaning of the Children of Israel that Egypt subjugates them. (6:5)

Note that it is EGYPT which subjugates them, not EGYPTIANS. Clearly, the Israelites are enslaved to the very life of Egypt, much as most Jews are slaves to the life of their diaspora host countries today.

For, indeed, is a corporate lawyer working 90 hours a week in New York for $500,000 a year not a slave to his job because he is enslaved to his lifestyle? Indeed, is he not a slave to America? And the same is a fortiori true for Jews in Europe who really have no business being there. The handwriting is so clearly inscribed on the proverbial walls of France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Germany and even England that one has to be fundamentally defective not to see it. Yet here, too, the Jews are slaves to their respective countries, slaves to the lifestyle that that country offers.

Ask most committed Jews in the diaspora why they remain there and you get one of three reasons:

  1. I don’t have enough money to become an Israeli;
  2. I have too much money to become an Israeli (i.e.  taxes);
  3. Our children and grandchildren live in America (somehow that is never a problem when the grandparents live in NewYork while the kids live in California.)

The first group are the bottom rung — wage slaves who cannot see themselves clear to running for their lives unless they first reach a certain economic threshold (an ante that always gets mysteriously upped as soon as it is reached).

The second group are too rich and refuse to pay the price in terms of Israeli taxes despite the fact they would still be rich after paying for the privilege of living as free people.

The third group don’t understand that the likelihood of their kids making the move would be vastly increased if they would only take the first step. It’s the parents’ responsibility to set an example.

But very, very few read the handwriting on the wall and say they have enough to make a go of it. Because slavery is addictive.

Most are slaves to money, to a lifestyle, to careers (Americans especially live to work rather than work to live.) Their egos and sense of self worth are hopelessly bound up in their profession, corporate rank, partnership status, etc. They are compulsively ready to pay blood money for their children to get a Harvard, Yale, Princeton diploma. Owning a 3,500 square foot home (for starters) in a posh neighborhood, is sine qua non.

Hence, they rarely act in their own best interests, preferring to be armchair Zionists, sending their kids to gap years in questionable yeshivot, or worse yet to real hesder yeshivot where they sit as eunuchs next to the kind of Jews who know how to fight, and can combine Torah with infantry, armored corps and paratroopers.

These children (for they remain children, unlike their Israeli counterparts) then go back to America to fall under the nefarious influence of ivy-league professors. Campus life castrates them into politically correct pseudo-intellectuals for tuition of a mere $65,000 a year, before yielding them up to 7-9 years of professional schools and professional slavery from which it becomes nearly impossible to liberate oneself.

How sad. How identical to ancient Egypt where “not enough” and “too much” prevented our ancestors from hearing Moshe.They were “kotzer ruach” too impatient, too busy to listen because of their “avodah kasha” , their hard labor – the need to finish a legal brief, another public offering, a new hedge-fund shenanigan while their families are neglected from Sundown Saturday to sunset Friday.

Well, at least we’re consistent. Nothing ever changes.

About the Author
J.J Gross is a veteran creative director and copywriter, who made aliyah in 2007 from New York. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a lifelong student of Bible and Talmud. He is also the son of Holocaust survivors from Hungary and Slovakia.
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