Pathology of Exile – Shmot
The book of Shmot is also called the book of the Galut & Geulah as the first part deals with our exile in Egypt and the second with Exodus and the building of the Beit Hamikdash. The Ramban says that the book of Shmot comes to restore Am Yisrael to the state we were in the time of the Avot in Breishit. Just like the שכינה rested on the tents of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov and just like there was ברכה שרוייה בעיסה, and a נר דולק מערב שבת לערב שבת, so too did Hashem’s שכינה rest on the מועד אהל, there was a blessing on the לחם הפנים and the lamps of the מנורה were lit.
Parshat Shmot is all about exile.
In the beginning of the parsha we read about Yaakov and his family going down to Egypt, 70 souls in all (actually it was 69 - there are numerous פירושים who the 70th was, but that is not the subject of this shiur). 210 years later (a mere 5 generations), Am Yisrael numbered close to 15 million people.
It is easy to do the math - 600,000 men of military age, plus a similar number of men above and below that age = 1.2 million, plus a similar number of women = 2.4 million , i.e approximately 3 million people who left Egypt. That however was only 1/5 of the total Israelite population –
וחמשים עלו בני ישראל מארץ מצרים (שמות יג, יח)
which means that before יציאת מצרים there were 3 X 5 = 15 million. From 70 people to 15 million in 210 years is an annual growth rate of 10% approximately. If you study global population growth rate statistics, there are a very few (Arab) countries that come close (7-8%) and only for a limited period. A constant 10% population growth rate for a period of 210 years is unprecedented in history – never before and never since. When it says –
ובני ישראל פרו וישרצו וירבו ויעצמובמאד מאד ותמלא הארץ אותם (שמות א,ז)
it is referring to this phenomenon that defied the laws of nature. Chazal say that each time a woman gave birth it was to sextuplets.
This must have been unnerving to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, that the maternity wards in all the Egyptian hospitals were inundated by Jewish women and instead of hearing Egyptian in the streets all you heard was Yiddish!
So Pharaoh says to his people (he uses scare tactics) “Look, Am Yisrael is greater and more powerful than we are, let’s deal with them cleverly, because if there is ever a war, they (the Jews) will join with our enemies to fight against us!”
His first concern is understandable. According to historians the Egyptian population at the time was a round 2 million vs. 15 million Jews. They were certainly outnumbered. The second concern though is not clear. OK so the Jews outnumber us, but why would they choose to join with Egypt’s enemies if there would be a war? This is before the שעבוד - before Am Yisrael became slaves. They were free and prospering in Egypt, why would they wage war on the country that had given them all this prosperity? It is like biting the hand that feeds you!
What is Pharaoh’s “clever” idea to deal with Am Yisrael? To appoint שרי מיסים, tax collectors! We’ll raise their taxes. Big deal! What’s so clever about that? Even Achashveirosh thought of raising taxes and he was not the brightest bulb.
To get to the root of the matter, we have to go back a few weeks to parshat Mikeitz. The midrash says that Pharaoh was a dwarf. At the entrance to his throne room he installed a door that was his height. Anyone else entering the room had to bend down to get in, thus automatically bowing down before him. After you entered there were 70 steps going up and on the top, 70th step was Pharaoh sitting on his throne. Egypt at the time was the most advanced nation on earth, they had a highly developed culture (albeit of idol worship) and they were the center of technology and learning. To be the leader of such a nation, you had to be pretty smart and the midrash says that Pharaoh could speak 70 languages. Each time someone entered his throne room, Pharaoh would test them. If they spoke one language they could ascend 1 step, if they spoke 10 languages, 10 steps and so on. Nobody ever reached the 70th step.
According to the midrash, the night before Yosef was called on to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams an angel taught him 70 languages. When Yosef entered, Pharaoh tested him - he said hello to him in Dutch, in Greek, Sri Lankan and Danish and each time Yosef conversed with him fluently in each language and ascended another step until finally he was on the top 70th step together with Pharaoh. Pharaoh made Yosef swear he would never reveal that like Pharaoh, he also knew 70 languages. Yosef then proceeded to correctly interpret Pharaoh’s dreams and to map out a solution to the problem.
On the one hand Pharaoh was happy that he finally had a solution to his perplexing dreams but on the other hand he was extremely intimidated by Yosef who he immediately recognized as being smarter than himself. In the ancient world, when there was someone more powerful or wiser than the leader – they overthrew him and replaced him. Pharaoh lived in constant dread that Yosef would try to overthrow him. So he did exactly what any scheming leader would do, he kept his friends close, but his rivals even closer and he made Yosef viceroy of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself, where he could keep a close eye on him. There was never any love lost between Pharaoh and Yosef. After being appointed viceroy, the next contact we hear between Yosef and Pharaoh is when Yaakov dies and Yosef asks Pharaoh to bury Yaakov in Canaan. Pharaoh initially refuses, but then Yosef tells him that Yaakov made him swear not to bury him in Egypt, “If I break my oath to my father, what is to stop me breaking my vow to you to not reveal I know 70 languages”, says Yosef. Pharaoh agrees. It is a fragile and tense relationship.
Pharaoh (the same Pharaoh or a new one – it is a machloket in the Gemara), has no trouble inciting the masses with his scare tactics. The Egyptian masses hate Yosef. He stripped them of everything they possess! They look at the Jews in Goshen living the good life while they are mortgaged lock stock and barrel to Pharaoh, because of Yosef!
The שעבוד does not occur overnight. Pharaoh is too smart to physically attack a mass of people 7X his number. Instead he announces a national initiative – to build a massive storage facility in Raamses. The whole country will participate, Egyptians, Jews, even Pharaoh himself and they will be paid a salary! It is a festive occasion and the Jews happily join in. The organizers split everyone into smaller teams and different locations and they start working. Gradually the Egyptians start to leave and when the Jews understand what is going on, they are met by an army of police and the whip! Separated and defenseless they become enslaved.
This was not the first exile we had ever experienced, Avraham went down to Egypt during a famine, Yaakov went to Lavan in Charan. It is however the first exile we experienced as a nation and is a template for all future exiles.
The pattern is repeated over and over.
Am Yisrael are exiled from Eretz Yisrael
They settle in some country
They prosper
A corrupt/evil leader incites the masses against them
They are expelled/persecuted/annihilated
Exile is the consequence of some חטא. There is a machkloket what sin caused גלות מצרים, some mefarshim say it was Avraham’s saying במה אדע כי אירשנה and expressing doubt. There is no dispute what caused galut Bavel – שפיכות דמים, עבודה זרה וגילוי עריות. Also, no dispute what caused galut Edom – שנאת חינם.
Am Yisrael are exiled to another country. Initially they are welcomed because wherever they go, they bring ברכה. When Yaakov went to Lavan, suddenly the drought stopped. When Yaakov goes down to Egypt the famine ends after only 2 years.
The Jews prosper, because a. they are better educated than the general population, b. they have better values and most importantly c. because Hashem is looking after them (even in galut).
A corrupt/evil leader sees their growing prosperity and influence as a threat to his rule, but more than that he despises them because they see him for what he truly is. He may be able to pull the eyes over his own people, but Am Yisrael are אנשי אמת and see through him. The masses are easily incited using scare tactics and/or outright lies, because they too despise the fact that the Jews are prospering more than they are.
The Jews are then either expelled (France 1182, England 1290, Germany 1348, Hungary 1349, Austria 1421, Spain 1492, etc.) or they are severely persecuted (mellah/ghetto in Muslim countries, blood libels, pogroms in Russia, etc.) or they are annihilated - physically (Germany 1939-1945) or culturally (America, present day).
One of the most successful tactics to weaken the Jews was what Pharaoh did. He appointed שרי מיסים, tax collectors. Not just any tax collectors, but Jewish tax collectors. He appointed Jews to office. This was a pandora’s box which gnawed at the unity of the Jewish community. Even today if we look at the “moderate” countries like the USA, Britian, etc. - where Jews reach positions of power – this is one of the strongest catalysts for turning Jew against Jew.
It is a self-repeating pathology, everywhere the Jews go or have ever gone in history.
You can analyze it and say that it all boils down to human nature, but it is deeper than that. There have been many exiles with many other nations all over the world and this pattern does not occur with them, only with the Jews. Why?
It is because HKB”H designed it that it would be so! Hashem doesn’t want the Jews to be any place other than Eretz Yisrael, so He programmed the world to spit them out wherever they went. Sometimes it was quicker, sometimes it took hundreds of years, but the end was/is inevitable. Am Yisrael is like a flower that is only indigenous to one kind of soil. Plant it anywhere else and it eventually withers and dies.
Only when we are in Eretz Yisrael, serving Hashem, can we truly thrive. If we sin however, even Eretz Yisrael spits us out - into galut.
Even today, as we speak, we are experiencing galut. Our brothers in the Diaspora experience it daily - and it is getting worse all over the world. Even those of us living in Eretz Yisrael are experiencing it. Since the COVID-19 outbreak we have joined our brothers in the Diaspora in exile – we are being exiled from our shuls. Shuls closed, re-opened, closed,re-opened with only 20 people, closed, re-opened, with only 10 people, minyanim on the street, in the rain, snow, sweltering sun.
I do not know what sin of ours caused this, but galut is the result of some sin, no question of that. We all need to explore our hearts and use the coming weeks of the שבבים (שמות, בא, בשלח, יתרו, משפטים) to step up our בין אדם למקום and בין אדם לחברו. Take on new and extra things upon ourselves, engage in random acts of kindness and chessed, treat our fellow Jews with derech eretz and respect, have more bitachon in Hashem, take a deep, honest look at ourselves and do tshuva for our shortcomings (שובו בנים שבבים)… and hopefully we can reverse this גזירה רעה.
Shmot is the parsha of exile, but it is also the parsha of the beginning of the geulah. More than anything we should work on our ציפייה לישועה, beseech Hashem to redeem us, stamp out despair and serve HKB”H with simcha, gratitude and confidence in the coming geulah. Every day we should conclude our tfilot by singing אני מאמין באמונה שלמה בביאת המשיח with all our hearts and souls and with bitachon that it is just around the corner.
