The Torah makes the case very clear that our darkest period was the slavery in Egypt, and on Passover we celebrate the redemption from that slavery. There was torture and affliction in Egypt and infanticide was rife, and yet the major stress is always the slavery. Indeed, the very first of the Aseres HaDibros is “I am the L-rd your G-d who has led you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.” Even though G-d saved us from starvation and death, He chose to be referred to as the One who has redeemed us from slavery.
In order to comprehend the malevolence of slavery, we must first distinguish between the two terms used to describe work in Lashon HaKodesh: melacha and avodah. While both are generally translated as “work,” their meaning is significantly different.
The Rambam explains that melacha connotes a finished product at the conclusion. It is this type of work that is forbidden on Shabbos. Avodah, however, means any type of labor without any real purpose or achievement. The term for a slave – eved – is a derivative of this word. An eved is one whose effort produces work with no goal or accomplishment. He exists in order to work and his work is the exclusive agenda of his master.
When G-d redeemed us from slavery he saved us from purposeless work and life without purpose. The Egyptian design was to afflict us with slavery about which it says “l’maan anotam b’sivlotam.” They appointed taskmasters over the nation in order to torture us with our burdens. They built treasure cities for Pharaoh – Pitom and Raamses. The Gemara Sota says that the cities were constructed on quicksand so that as soon as the work progressed it was swallowed into the earth. Why would Pharaoh initiate the construction of mammoth cities upon unsuitable ground? Clearly the Pharaohs knew how to find appropriate construction areas and were masters of engineering, for the pyramids and sphinyxes have lasted for thousands of years and are justifiably among the wonders of the world.
Two more contemporaneous examples of slavery will sharpen the question. African slaves were forcibly brought to the New World and their taskmasters in the American South were pragmatic, albeit cruel, in exploiting their slave force for profit and convenience.
In Nazi Germany, the industrial giants such as I.G. Farben and Krupp even more ruthlessly exploited their Jewish slave force to earn billions of marks by sadistically taking advantage of emaciated slaves.
Why then, didn’t Pharaoh – whom no one would accuse of having a moral conscience – take advantage of his slave force? What point was there in having them engage in futile activity?
The answer is that the plantation owners and I.G. Farben and Krupp were motivated by greed, while Pharaoh was driven by what the pasuk describes as torturing us with our burdens. Egyptian avodas perech entailed doing backbreaking work for naught. Chazal tell us that Pitom was thus named because “sherishon rishon pi tehom bolo,” the mouth of the deep swallowed up one building after another (Pitom from the word pi tehom, meaning the mouth of the deep), and Ramses was thus named because “sherishon rishon mitroses,” one building after another collapsed (Ramses from the word mitroses, meaning collapses) (Sota 11a).
Likewise, the division of labor foisted upon the Jewish slaves was without any regard to efficiency; men did the work traditionally assigned to women and vice versa. This is not the way to do a competent job. The Egyptians had no desire for any financial gain, they simply wished to employ the Jewish people in avodas perech – bitter servitude.
An eved Ivri, a Jewish slave, may only be told to perform tasks that you require, not those that you do not require. The only purpose of Pharaoh’s work was to lower the morale and the will of the nation. Pharaoh understood that no matter how hard a person works, there is consolation in being able to see the fruit of one’s labor. A productive outcome can make backbreaking labor fractionally bearable. But to see all of the effort be hemorrhaged for naught is exquisite torture.
Rav Pam related the story of a fellow imprisoned in the gulag who was harnessed to a large stone that he was forced to revolve like a mule. The work was arduous and monotonous, but there was a modicum of consolation in that he was informed that the wheel was connected to a grinding stone in a flour mill outside of the cell. This knowledge alone kept him from being broken. When he learned upon his liberation that the stone did not do any grinding at all, he went mad.
The Bridge on the River Kwai tells the story of how a regiment of British POWs are marched to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp where they are forced to build a bridge across the River Kwai. The climax of the story is when the prisoners who have slaved so arduously to construct this bridge for their cursed Japanese masters discover – in low tide – that Allied commandos have wired the bridge to detonate it. The POWs do all that they can to prevent this against their very own interests and for the betterment of the enemy. It was just too devastating for them to see the fruit of all of their slave labor in the blazing sun explode before their eyes.
With the liberation from Egypt, the Jewish People are privileged to serve Hashem, where every act is rewarding.
