Shalom Friends;
This week, our Parshat HaShevua — Parshat Shemos is being sponsored by R’ Dr. Pinchas and P’nina Klahr of Ramat Beit Shemesh dedicated for the safe return of all Chayalim — physically, mentally and spiritually, for the Liberation of all hostages and for Kol Klal Yisrael. To Mishpochat Klahr, many thanks for your sponsorship and your kindnesses through the years.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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In last year’s vort on Parshat Shemos, this author discussed various historical accounts and queries regarding possible historical time periods during which the evolution of Jewish enslavement in Mitzrayim occurred; whether a foreign nation had conquered Egypt and installed its Pharaoh over Egypt, or whether the Pharaoh of Yosef’s time was overthrown by his own advisors and subsequently developed convenient politically expedient amnesia regarding Yosef and the Jews in order to return to power, or whether the Pharaoh who subjugated the Jews was a new indigenous [adjective: originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country; native] Pharaoh.
There are various accounts regarding both Egyptian history and the possible assimilation of the Jews into the Egyptian heartland which may have set the stage for the evolution of various antisemitic canards which have plagued Am Yisrael throughout our periods of galut, through to these days — in the seventy-sixth year of contemporary Israel’s national sovereignty. And this possible assimilation into the Egyptian heartland, and loss of certain moral standards, may have led ultimately to the Jews’ loss of self-respect and self-esteem as well as considering themselves in a lowly manner leading them to being subjugated by the Egyptians.
How ever the historical timeline actually evolved, Rabbi Shmuel Goldin outlines the evolution and sequence Pharoah’s systematic persecution of the Jews in his sefer “Unlocking the Torah Text” (Sefer Sh’mos, pages 3 – 9) :
“And a new king rose up over Egypt who did not know Yosef. And he [the new king] said to his nation: ‘Behold the nation, the B’nei Yisrael are more numerous and stronger than we. Come let us be wise to them, lest they become numerous and it will be that if war occurs, they will join our enemies and wage war against us and go up from the land.’” (Rabbi Goldin citing Sefer Shemot, Perek 1, posuk 9-10)
Persecution, the Torah testifies, inevitably begins with propaganda, with the verbal isolation of a people from surrounding society.
Clearly, Pharaoh’s description of the B’nei Yisrael as “more numerous and stronger” than the Egyptians is patently false, even ludicrous. And yet the king knows that lies, boldly spoken, will be readily accepted by those who want to believe them.
Pharaoh’s evil genius is also evident in his specific accusations against the B’nei Yisrael. He consciously plays upon his own nation’s envy, xenophobia and fear of a fifth column within their borders. Why should we tolerate, he asks, a dangerous separate “nation” in our own land?
Pharaoh’s edicts move to the next level with the designation of taskmasters and projects specific to the B’nei Yisrael. These people are different, Pharaoh proclaims through these actions, and the problems they create require special treatment.
The physical and psychological isolation of the B’nei Yisrael is now complete.
“And the Egyptians enslaved the B’nei Yisrael with crushing harshness. (b’pharech)” (Rabbi Goldin citing Sefer Shemot, Perek 1, posuk 13)
When the B’nei Yisrael respond to Pharaoh’s initial decrees with resilience, the Egyptians ratchet up the process to the next level.
The Biblical term “b’pharech” potentially conveys, according to the commentaries, varied aspects of this new level of persecution [degradation]:
Rashi leads a number of scholars who… explain that the term refers to labor that crushes and breaks the body. (Rabbi Goldin citing Rashi on Sefer Shemot, Perek 1, posuk 13) Such toil has no real purpose beyond the physical torment and psychological degradation inflicted upon the laborers.
Some Talmudic sages suggest that, in order to mock and demean the slaves, men’s work was given to the B’not Yisrael and women’s work was given to the men. (Rabbi Goldin citing Talmud Bavli Mesechta Sota 11b)
One… Talmudic source sees the word “b’pharech” as a consolidation of the two Hebrew words peh (mouth) and rach (soft). The Egyptians beguiled the B’nei Yisrael with soft, enticing speech. Through lies and false promises…, the taskmasters induced their slaves to cooperate in their own enslavement. (Rabbi Goldin again citing Talmud Bavli Mesechta Sota 11b)
Only after the physical and psychological subjugation of the B’nei Yisrael has reached a critical point can Pharaoh embark on his true plan, the physical destruction of this… nation.
Murder, however, particularly when carried out in the public arena, must be perpetuated slowly and cautiously. Pharaoh… opens the final devastating stages of his design against the Jews in a manner that not only attacks the weakest among them but that can be carried out secretly. He commands the Hebrew midwives to kill the male infants in such a way that “even the birthing mothers will remain unaware.” (Rabbi Goldin citing Ramban on Sefer Shemot, Perek 1, posuk 10)
….To protect himself, the Egyptian king wants the extermination of the Jews to begin in territory that carries a degree, however slight, of moral ambiguity. The Talmud postulates that Pharaoh conveyed to the midwives a method of determining the sex of the children of B’nei Yisrael before their birth. (Rabbi Goldin again citing Talmud Bavli Mesechta Sota 11b) Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch explains that, in this view, Pharaoh is deliberately commanding abortion rather than infanticide. (Rabbi Goldin citing Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch on Sefer Shemot, Perek 1, posuk 16) “We are not really murdering male Jews. We are only preventing their birth.”
When this subterfuge [noun: an… expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something] is thwarted by the righteous midwives, Pharaoh finally proclaims his true intentions and commands that all male infants be cast into the Nile. Even at this point…, Pharaoh ingeniously shields himself from blame. The Ramban notes that Pharaoh couches this final, devastating edict in language that distances the murder from the official seat of government. The king does not command his army or his officers to carry out this terrible act. Instead, he instructs his “entire people” to murder the Hebrew infants. (Rabbi Goldin again citing Ramban on Sefer Shemot, Perek 1, posuk 10) In retrospect, the king will be able to protest, “What do you want from me? This was not an official action. This was a spontaneous, popular pogrom.”
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (“Growth Through Torah”, Parshat Sh’mot, pages 138-140) quotes from the beginning of Sefer Shemos and cites both Ohr Hachayim and Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz in providing yet another dimension to the evolution of Jewish enslavement in Mitzrayim and profound lessons we need to internalize today:
“And Yosef died, and all of his brothers, and that entire generation.” (Sefer Shemos, Perek 1, posuk 6)
Ohr Hachayim explains that the enslavement of the Israelites by the Egyptians occurred in three stages. First Yosef died, the Israelites lost their power. Then the brothers died. As long as even one of the brothers was alive, the Egyptian still honored them. Even afterwards as long as the members of that first generation were alive, the Egyptians considered them important and were not able to treat them as slaves.
Rabbi Chayim Shmuelevitz…, commented .. that there are two aspects here. One is on the side of the Egyptians. They were unable to treat the Jewish people as slaves as long as they [the Egyptians] considered them important. The other aspect is on the side of the Jewish people themselves. As long as they [the Jewish people] were considered important and worthy of respect by themselves [self-respect and self-esteem], the Egyptians were not able to treat them in an inferior manner. Only when they considered themselves in a lowly manner could they be subjugated by others.
Rav Chayim refers to this as how the evil inclination deals with people, i.e. that once a person feels inferior, feels a sense of guilt and worthlessness, “then he is easy prey for being trapped by the evil inclination….”
Rabbi Goldin concludes with these poignant thoughts (“Unlocking the Torah Text,” Sefer Sh’mos, page 10) :
The uncanny ability of the Torah text to speak across the centuries is nowhere more clearly — nor more frighteningly — evident than in its description of the enslavement of the Jews at the hands of the Egyptians. Here, openly rooted at the dawn of our history, are the very methods used against us… to such devastating effect, by enemies in every era, including our own.
From cold, calculating Nazi murderers to zealous Islamic fundamentalists — willing to kill their own… in pursuit of the destruction of Israel, and all of Western culture, the adversaries and tactics we face today are much too familiar. Propaganda, demonization [noun: the act or fact of regarding, treating, or speaking of a person or thing as entirely bad], subterfuge, and the teaching of hate remain the preliminary of the murderers’ trade as, over and over again, words inexorably lead to to deeds.
Laid down at the beginning of time, the painstaking tactics of prejudice and persecution have remained remarkably constant. Evil will be defeated only if these initial tactics are recognized when they first appear and [are] confronted head-on.
We know that over the hundreds of generations and thousands of years that the Jews spent in Galut, wandering from nation to nation, finding temporary lodging and attempting to live as Jews, to whatever degree, while attempting to integrate and ingratiate themselves into society, they were always vulnerable as, in each nation, in each generation; the rulers of these nations, each nation’s religious leaders and populations inevitably turned on the Jews bringing them to expulsions, pogroms and genocide.
But, with Israel now a sovereign nation with a burgeoning hi-tech industry and a strong and technically superior military, we cannot allow ourselves to be subservient to any nation, to any so-called “super-power” or group of adversary nations or terrorist groups.
We can envision, in Rabbi Goldin’s words, the scenario which led to the 7 October/Simchat Torah Hamas and terrorist friends’ Barbaric Wild Beast attack which murdered, injured and maimed thousands of Israelis while taking hundreds of Israelis hostage, and risking, and letting their own “civilians” possibly die as human shields as these sub-human animalistic creatures shield themselves against the Israel Defense Forces.
Similarly, we can envision, in Rabbi Goldin’s words, the scenario in which hate for Israel and Jewry has been taught and inculcated in both the “United Nations” schools in Gaza for generations, as well as in the world’s universities where leftist, pro-Communist professors have, for generations in the twentieth, and now, the twenty-first centuries taught a curriculum of antisemitism which has manifested in the world-wide students’ pro-Hamas demonstrations and violence against world Jewry since October 7th..
Israel, as it hopefully renews pursuit of a war of annihilation and eradication of all terror by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all of their terrorist buddies — in Gaza, Yehuda and the Shomron as well as Hezbollah in the north, in Lebanon — must retake control of Gaza, re-settling in Gush Katif those who they ceremoniously expelled eighteen years ago. And Israel must reverse the hateful and antisemitic curriculum inculcated into Gazan youth in the “United Nations” schools.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently re-settled in Gush Katif, once the IDF, by the Yad Hashem, destructs and eradicates the wild beasts of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, all other terror entities, and if necessary Iran, and that our brethren be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them, that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Homesh be rebuilt, as well as the buildings of Yishuv Elchanan, all at total government expense. May our Chayalim return from battle unharmed — physically, mentally and spiritually and may all of the hostages brutally taken by the wild beasts of Hamas be liberated and returned to their families. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is in his fourth year at home in Eretz Yisrael and has embarked on a new chapter in his life. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her spirit and memory continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of nine years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. May we see, in 5784, the REAL Jews from the Ukraine and Russia make Aliyah enmass — via thorough review by Misrad HaPanim. And may we soon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese Wuhan Lab corona virus pandemic and all like viruses and variants. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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