Since in our weekly Torah reading, we’re right in the middle of the Exodus drama, getting ready to leave Egypt on our way to Israel, we can ask the question – why did the Jews have to leave Egypt? What was so important that they had to pack up all their belongings and go? Why make such a big tumult? Why couldn’t they have just stayed in America, I mean Egypt, where they were?
In fact, as we mentioned in our previous blog, four-fifths of them asked this very same question. They saw no reason at all to pack up and leave. After all, they had gefilta fish in Egypt, kosher bakeries, Empire chickens, plenty of shuls in the neighborhood, local Jewish newspapers, Jewish Community Centers, Federations, mikvahs, and rabbis who told them they didn’t have to listen to Moshe and make aliyah. Plus all of the fleshpots in Egypt were open to them for their enjoyment – what could be better? They enjoyed the best of both worlds. What did they lack?
In the eyes of 80% of the Diaspora lovers , it was one huge headache when Moshe showed up with the news that Hashem wanted them to leave Egypt and return home to the Holy Land. Moshe tried to explain, but they didn’t catch on. They didn’t want to listen. They wanted to stay right where they were in Egypt, and so they all died in the plague of darkness. Four-fifths of the Jews in Egypt missed out on the Exodus because they didn’t want to say goodbye to the exile. Four-fifths of them!
And so, we ask the question they asked – what was so bad with their life in Egypt that Hashem insisted they leave? True, they had to work hard in Egypt, but, from their point of view, they had everything it takes to be good frum Jews.
Well, it turns out that their understanding of being Jewish was different from the understanding that Moshe wanted to teach them. Their understanding of Torah was different from the Torah that Hashem wanted them to follow, a Torah that is not merely a list of private, ritual commandments, but the Constitution of the Jewish Nation, which, in addition to keeping kosher, includes serving in the Israeli army, going off to war, appointing kings and a Sanhedrin, listening to prophets, performing agricultural laws unique to the Land of Israel, and celebrating the Festivals three times a year at the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem. Hashem wanted the Jews to leave Egypt, because He doesn’t want His People to go to shul, eat glatt kosher, and build the economy of gentile lands. Hashem wants His People to go to shul, and eat glatt kosher while they are building their own land – and that can only be done in the Land of Israel, the special Holy Land that Hashem promised to the Jews. Hashem didn’t want the Jews to stay in Egypt under the rule of Pharaoh, because He wants His People to serve Him as an independent Jewish nation, in its own Jewish homeland, and not as scattered individuals and communities interspersed amongst the goyim around the world. Hashem doesn’t want His People to be frum Jewish Egyptians. Hashem wants them to be the frum nation of Israel in the Land of Israel because that is how His Name is sanctified in the world, when the Jews have their own powerful Torah nation – not when His People are scattered minorities in other people’s lands keeping the few mitzvot they can – even if a Jew is appointed to be Secretary of the Treasury for a few years – whoop-dee-doo!
That’s the meaning of the Exodus. Hashem chose us to be His special Holy nation, and took us out of the exile of Egypt, separating us from the goyim, in order to bring us to His Holy Land, just as He promised He would.
Is that so hard to understand?