Parshat Shemot 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. 210 years later (a mere five generations), Am Yisrael numbered close to 15 million people! From 70 people to 15 million in 210 years is an annual growth rate of 10%. 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. Chazal says 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!
Pharaoh decides to use scare tactics “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 concern is understandable. According to historians the Egyptian population at the time was around two million, they were certainly outnumbered.
What is Pharaoh’s “clever” idea to deal with Am Yisrael? To appoint tax collectors! We’ll raise their taxes. What’s so clever about that?
To get to the root of the matter, we have to return 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 had to bend down to get in, thus automatically bowing down before him. After you entered there were 70 steps and on the top step sat Pharaoh 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 one 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, Greek, 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 propose 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 intimidated by Yosef who he immediately recognized as being smarter than himself. In the ancient world, when someone was more powerful or wiser than the leader – they overthrew him. Pharaoh lived in constant dread that Yosef would attempt a coup. 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 debate 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!
One of Pharaoh’s most insidious tactics to weaken the Jews was to appoint 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.
This self-repeating pathology manifests itself everywhere the Jews go or have ever gone in history. Am Yisrael is compared to an olive tree (Jeremiah 11:16), because like olive oil, Am Yisrael naturally ascend to the highest levels wherever they are. This arouses jealousy and animosity and the end of the story is always the same; the Jews are removed, by expulsion, by extermination or by assimilation.
This phenomenon is by design, G-d designed it that it would be so! G-d does not want the Jews to be any place other than Eretz Yisrael, so He programmed the world to spit them out wherever else 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 exile.
Shemot is the parsha of exile, but it is also the parsha of the beginning of our redemption.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: What was Pharaoh’s daughter’s name?
Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Question: What was Yaakov’s punishment for saying to Pharaoh “Few and troubled were the years of my life (Bereishit 47:9)?” The Midrash (Bereishit Rabba) says that Yaakov’s lifespan was shortened by 33 years.
