Post by Rabbi Neil on Jan 20, 2023 23:22:54 GMT
Did the Egyptians deserve the Ten Plagues? Did we? Those are the questions that come to my mind as we reach the Torah portion of Va’era this year. Throughout the beginning of the Book of Exodus, it is Pharaoh who stops the Israelites from leaving, not the rest of the Egyptians. Why does God punish all of the Egyptians, ultimately by killing a member of every single Egyptian family? We could perhaps say that some Egyptians were taskmasters over the Israelites, and that they and their families tolerated and profited from a system of abuse over another people. I think that’s a little too simplistic, though. As we know from countries whose leaders are happy to use violence against their own people, protesting against violent dictatorship is extremely dangerous. Even when there are mass protests, these can be put down with terrifying and brutal results. Even making statements that are critical of the dictator can lead to violent reprisals. That’s what makes the story of Shifra and Puah from last week’s portion so interesting – that they undermine the decree of the genocidal Pharaoh without him even knowing that they’re doing it. They tell him that they cannot fulfil his murderous wishes regarding Israelite children because the Hebrew women are not like other women and give birth before they can even reach them! The lie is obvious from those like us who have had experience with civil disobedience, but for the Pharaoh it was inconceivable that this could have been an act of rebellion. So, maybe the Egyptians at the time lived in such a repressive, violent society that they couldn’t protest without risking their lives, and who among them would risk their life for a foreign slave people? If that is the case, the everyday Egyptians may not have deserved the Plagues because there was nothing they could do to stop the oppression of the Hebrews.
At the same time, though, they still profited from the slavery. Entirely new cities were built – Pitom and Ramases – as store cities so that the Egyptian people would not suffer from starvation. And in last week’s Torah portion, we learn that “the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel” (Ex. 1:13), not just some of them, but all of them together. The text seems to imply that that the Egyptians are all part of one brutal system, at the very least complicit. If that is the case, then the mention of Shifra and Puah is not because they are two of many people who engage in acts of civil disobedience, but specifically because they are the only people to engage in it. If that is the case, then we could say that yes, the Egyptians maybe did deserve the plagues.
Of course, this entire question is an extremely modern one because it assumes some kind of division between the people and their ruler. Specifically, it assumes individuality. In ancient texts like Torah, and others, though, we know that’s not the way people are viewed, though. In the eyes of such ancient narratives, there are not people but peoples, most of whom have heroes about whom stories are told. The average person remains nameless, and their identity is subsumed into the identity of the person in charge of the people. Ancient narratives are not concerned with people like us, they’re concerned with leaders and heroes. In the ancient mindset, then, of course the Egyptians deserved the Plagues, because the Egyptian Pharaoh ordered the enslavement of the Hebrews. Our modern question on whether the Egyptian people deserved it is incomprehensible to Torah, even if it is important to us today.
The reserve question is also an important one – did the Hebrew deserve redemption from Egypt? On this, our sages are divided. The Book of Ezekiel (20:8) makes it clear that the enslavement was not caused by Pharaoh but by God, who was punishing the Hebrews. In that book, Ezekiel says of the Hebrews that “none of them threw away the detestable things they saw, and they did not abandon the idols of Egypt.” In other words, the Israelites became so idolatrous that they deserved punishment. In Exodus Rabbah, we learn that “When Joseph died, the Israelites abolished the covenant of circumcision, saying, ‘Come, let us become like the Egyptians.’” That text believes that the Israelites didn’t deserve redemption until Moses circumcised them all once Pharaoh agreed to let them go. That midrash is definitely not covered in The Prince of Egypt! That would have made for a very different movie, I think! In a similar vein, Yalkut Shimoni, a 13th century commentary, says of the line in Exodus 1:7 that says “the land was filled with them” means that “the amphitheatres and circuses were filled with them.” This, then, is another commentary that says that they didn’t deserve redemption because they had become so assimilated. Instead, such negative commentaries often suggest that the people were redeemed either in order to show Egypt that God is in charge, or they were redeemed not because of their current merits but because of their future merits, specifically, the merit of receiving Torah (see Exodus Rabbah 3:4).
In typical Jewish fashion, though, there is also another school of thought that says the exact opposite. In Talmud (Sotah 11b), Rav Avira says that because of the righteous women of that generation, the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt. Rabbi Akiva says the same thing elsewhere (Ex. Rabbah 1:12). Another opinion based on Exodus 4:31, which says, “the people believed,” suggests that the people were redeemed as a reward for their faith (see Mechilta D’Rabbi Yishmael, Bo, Masechta D’Pischa 14 [Shemot 14:31]). And one very famous opinion expressed in a number of places (Mechilta (Bo [12:6], Masechta D’Pischa, parashah 5, s.v. v’hayah) and Vayikra Rabbah (Emor 32:5)) has Rav Huna quoting Bar Kappara that “On account of four things Israel was redeemed from Egypt: they did not change their names, they did not change their language, they did not speak lashon hara [slander; reveal their secrets], and not even one of them was found to be promiscuous.”
For both Egyptians and Israelites, then, the question of whether or not they deserved what happened to them remains unresolved. Perhaps whether or not we think they deserved it says as much about us and the way we view our texts and the way we view individuals and mass reward and punishment as it does about the text itself. If we say that the Egyptians didn’t deserve it, we’re probably thinking on a more modern level, looking at individuals, and assuming that not all people behave the same way. If we say that they did, we might hold a worldview that says that despite individuality, people in communities and societies tend to behave in similar ways based on the lifestyle available to them. Maybe we hold like the midrash (Avot 3:19) that a society is judged by the majority of its deeds and that even if some Egyptians did not profit from or participate in slavery, too many did.
If that’s the case, we need to ask ourselves one difficult question, what do we deserve? Are we more like the Egyptians or like the Israelites? That may seem like a shocking question, but I think it’s a very important one when we read the Ten Plagues. The shock of that question is probably because we’re descended from the Israelites, and because we literally re-enact the Exodus from Egypt at the Seder service every year. We sing the words of Moses in our liturgy, we celebrate Shabbat not just because God rested but because we left Egypt. So, what do I mean by asking whether we’re more like the Egyptians or like the Israelites? I mean morally and religiously.
Do we assimilate and enjoy the amphitheaters and circuses of the rest of society? Yes, of course we do! Jews have an important place in the entertainment industry, and a somewhat smaller place in the world of sport. We don’t spend our entire lives locked away in Torah study to the exclusion of the rest of the world. We mix with the non-Jewish world and we learn and grow from it, instead of hiding away in closed communities pretending that the only reality in the world is in the text. Do we only name our children with Hebrew names? Some do, some don’t. Do we speak only Hebrew? Clearly not. Do we engage in lashon hara, in evil speech? Clearly, and the very fact that I said that even constitutes lashon hara! Do we have foreign idols in our homes? Usually not. So, in some sense we’re like the ancient Israelites and in some sense we’re not. But what about the Egyptians - do we profit off slavery of others? Absolutely. Our entire society is predicated on it. We willingly… joyfully… buy goods from transnational corporations that devastate communities around the world by forcing their countries to sell their natural resources at inappropriate prices in order to pay off their national debts. We stuff our store-house cities with food while others starve. We engage in small acts of civil disobedience here and there but never risk institutional change because to do so would impoverish ourselves. We build our homes and our religious institutions on land that was taken by force from others and we do not even think about it. We drive around in vehicles that plunder from the earth and that pollute, knowing that we in our riches will be spared the worst ravages of global heating while millions of the poor will suffer. We bask in our righteousness, we convince ourselves of our goodness, and on the occasional days in the year when we realize that we have committed so many wrongs, we absolve our consciences by returning to God and begging “Ashmanu – we have sinned. S’lach Lanu – Forgive us.” We forgive ourselves and project onto God that God forgives us, too, because if we didn’t, we would have to truly face the horrors of our society and how it was built on and is perpetuated by the suffering of others.
So, yes, we are descended from the ancient Israelites, that much is obviously true. And we are morally both like the Israelites and the Egyptians. Just like the Israelites and the Egyptians, I believe that we neither deserve the Plagues nor do we deserve Redemption. Instead, we have to work for redemption – our own and that of other people. Failure to do so will bring about the Plagues, in a more modern form, and we will be totally deserving of them then. The difference is that unlike the ancient Egyptians, we definitely do have power. We are, on average, freer and richer than any other human beings in history. We have the potential to be Moses, to help liberate enormous numbers of people from oppression, and we have the potential to be Pharaoh, creating new ways to oppress those less fortunate than ourselves, those out of sight and whose suffering is easy to keep out of mind. And that, I think, is an essential message of this week’s Torah portion. No-one deserves suffering – the Israelites did not deserve it and the Egyptians did not deserve it. Everyone deserves to be free not because of their actions or their religious observance but simply because freedom is an essential part of being a human being. Freedom of expression, freedom from violence and oppression, freedom to be whoever we want to be. If our society in any way limits that and we do nothing to prevent that, we step into the shoes of Pharaoh. If we stand up and protest, if we actively work to promote freedom for all, then we step into the shoes of Moses. This week’s Torah portion doesn’t ask of us whether we are like the nameless Israelites or the nameless Egyptians, it asks of us whether we are like Pharaoh or like Moses.
This week, then, let us make a choice. Let us choose not to be nameless. Let us choose to behave in such a way that future generations speak our name in remembrance of us standing up to Pharaoh. Let us face the same fear of our own insignificance that Moses faced, and let us act despite that fear. Let us be honest about the times when we become like Pharaoh, and let us be inspired by the times when we became like Moses. And if we honestly feel that we cannot be like Moses alone, let us as a community together be the leaders of our people. Let our actions as a community be an exemplar of freedom for generations to come, not by destroying those who oppose us, but by transforming them, and by transforming our entire society. Let us not just share our bread with the hungry and give housing to those without homes (Is. 58:7) but let us also dismantle every economic, social and political structure that limits the freedom of others, particularly the poor and the voiceless. This Shabbat, we reflect on the choice in front of us – Pharaoh or Moses? Next week, our action can make us Moses and our inaction can make us Pharaoh. The choice is ours.
At the same time, though, they still profited from the slavery. Entirely new cities were built – Pitom and Ramases – as store cities so that the Egyptian people would not suffer from starvation. And in last week’s Torah portion, we learn that “the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel” (Ex. 1:13), not just some of them, but all of them together. The text seems to imply that that the Egyptians are all part of one brutal system, at the very least complicit. If that is the case, then the mention of Shifra and Puah is not because they are two of many people who engage in acts of civil disobedience, but specifically because they are the only people to engage in it. If that is the case, then we could say that yes, the Egyptians maybe did deserve the plagues.
Of course, this entire question is an extremely modern one because it assumes some kind of division between the people and their ruler. Specifically, it assumes individuality. In ancient texts like Torah, and others, though, we know that’s not the way people are viewed, though. In the eyes of such ancient narratives, there are not people but peoples, most of whom have heroes about whom stories are told. The average person remains nameless, and their identity is subsumed into the identity of the person in charge of the people. Ancient narratives are not concerned with people like us, they’re concerned with leaders and heroes. In the ancient mindset, then, of course the Egyptians deserved the Plagues, because the Egyptian Pharaoh ordered the enslavement of the Hebrews. Our modern question on whether the Egyptian people deserved it is incomprehensible to Torah, even if it is important to us today.
The reserve question is also an important one – did the Hebrew deserve redemption from Egypt? On this, our sages are divided. The Book of Ezekiel (20:8) makes it clear that the enslavement was not caused by Pharaoh but by God, who was punishing the Hebrews. In that book, Ezekiel says of the Hebrews that “none of them threw away the detestable things they saw, and they did not abandon the idols of Egypt.” In other words, the Israelites became so idolatrous that they deserved punishment. In Exodus Rabbah, we learn that “When Joseph died, the Israelites abolished the covenant of circumcision, saying, ‘Come, let us become like the Egyptians.’” That text believes that the Israelites didn’t deserve redemption until Moses circumcised them all once Pharaoh agreed to let them go. That midrash is definitely not covered in The Prince of Egypt! That would have made for a very different movie, I think! In a similar vein, Yalkut Shimoni, a 13th century commentary, says of the line in Exodus 1:7 that says “the land was filled with them” means that “the amphitheatres and circuses were filled with them.” This, then, is another commentary that says that they didn’t deserve redemption because they had become so assimilated. Instead, such negative commentaries often suggest that the people were redeemed either in order to show Egypt that God is in charge, or they were redeemed not because of their current merits but because of their future merits, specifically, the merit of receiving Torah (see Exodus Rabbah 3:4).
In typical Jewish fashion, though, there is also another school of thought that says the exact opposite. In Talmud (Sotah 11b), Rav Avira says that because of the righteous women of that generation, the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt. Rabbi Akiva says the same thing elsewhere (Ex. Rabbah 1:12). Another opinion based on Exodus 4:31, which says, “the people believed,” suggests that the people were redeemed as a reward for their faith (see Mechilta D’Rabbi Yishmael, Bo, Masechta D’Pischa 14 [Shemot 14:31]). And one very famous opinion expressed in a number of places (Mechilta (Bo [12:6], Masechta D’Pischa, parashah 5, s.v. v’hayah) and Vayikra Rabbah (Emor 32:5)) has Rav Huna quoting Bar Kappara that “On account of four things Israel was redeemed from Egypt: they did not change their names, they did not change their language, they did not speak lashon hara [slander; reveal their secrets], and not even one of them was found to be promiscuous.”
For both Egyptians and Israelites, then, the question of whether or not they deserved what happened to them remains unresolved. Perhaps whether or not we think they deserved it says as much about us and the way we view our texts and the way we view individuals and mass reward and punishment as it does about the text itself. If we say that the Egyptians didn’t deserve it, we’re probably thinking on a more modern level, looking at individuals, and assuming that not all people behave the same way. If we say that they did, we might hold a worldview that says that despite individuality, people in communities and societies tend to behave in similar ways based on the lifestyle available to them. Maybe we hold like the midrash (Avot 3:19) that a society is judged by the majority of its deeds and that even if some Egyptians did not profit from or participate in slavery, too many did.
If that’s the case, we need to ask ourselves one difficult question, what do we deserve? Are we more like the Egyptians or like the Israelites? That may seem like a shocking question, but I think it’s a very important one when we read the Ten Plagues. The shock of that question is probably because we’re descended from the Israelites, and because we literally re-enact the Exodus from Egypt at the Seder service every year. We sing the words of Moses in our liturgy, we celebrate Shabbat not just because God rested but because we left Egypt. So, what do I mean by asking whether we’re more like the Egyptians or like the Israelites? I mean morally and religiously.
Do we assimilate and enjoy the amphitheaters and circuses of the rest of society? Yes, of course we do! Jews have an important place in the entertainment industry, and a somewhat smaller place in the world of sport. We don’t spend our entire lives locked away in Torah study to the exclusion of the rest of the world. We mix with the non-Jewish world and we learn and grow from it, instead of hiding away in closed communities pretending that the only reality in the world is in the text. Do we only name our children with Hebrew names? Some do, some don’t. Do we speak only Hebrew? Clearly not. Do we engage in lashon hara, in evil speech? Clearly, and the very fact that I said that even constitutes lashon hara! Do we have foreign idols in our homes? Usually not. So, in some sense we’re like the ancient Israelites and in some sense we’re not. But what about the Egyptians - do we profit off slavery of others? Absolutely. Our entire society is predicated on it. We willingly… joyfully… buy goods from transnational corporations that devastate communities around the world by forcing their countries to sell their natural resources at inappropriate prices in order to pay off their national debts. We stuff our store-house cities with food while others starve. We engage in small acts of civil disobedience here and there but never risk institutional change because to do so would impoverish ourselves. We build our homes and our religious institutions on land that was taken by force from others and we do not even think about it. We drive around in vehicles that plunder from the earth and that pollute, knowing that we in our riches will be spared the worst ravages of global heating while millions of the poor will suffer. We bask in our righteousness, we convince ourselves of our goodness, and on the occasional days in the year when we realize that we have committed so many wrongs, we absolve our consciences by returning to God and begging “Ashmanu – we have sinned. S’lach Lanu – Forgive us.” We forgive ourselves and project onto God that God forgives us, too, because if we didn’t, we would have to truly face the horrors of our society and how it was built on and is perpetuated by the suffering of others.
So, yes, we are descended from the ancient Israelites, that much is obviously true. And we are morally both like the Israelites and the Egyptians. Just like the Israelites and the Egyptians, I believe that we neither deserve the Plagues nor do we deserve Redemption. Instead, we have to work for redemption – our own and that of other people. Failure to do so will bring about the Plagues, in a more modern form, and we will be totally deserving of them then. The difference is that unlike the ancient Egyptians, we definitely do have power. We are, on average, freer and richer than any other human beings in history. We have the potential to be Moses, to help liberate enormous numbers of people from oppression, and we have the potential to be Pharaoh, creating new ways to oppress those less fortunate than ourselves, those out of sight and whose suffering is easy to keep out of mind. And that, I think, is an essential message of this week’s Torah portion. No-one deserves suffering – the Israelites did not deserve it and the Egyptians did not deserve it. Everyone deserves to be free not because of their actions or their religious observance but simply because freedom is an essential part of being a human being. Freedom of expression, freedom from violence and oppression, freedom to be whoever we want to be. If our society in any way limits that and we do nothing to prevent that, we step into the shoes of Pharaoh. If we stand up and protest, if we actively work to promote freedom for all, then we step into the shoes of Moses. This week’s Torah portion doesn’t ask of us whether we are like the nameless Israelites or the nameless Egyptians, it asks of us whether we are like Pharaoh or like Moses.
This week, then, let us make a choice. Let us choose not to be nameless. Let us choose to behave in such a way that future generations speak our name in remembrance of us standing up to Pharaoh. Let us face the same fear of our own insignificance that Moses faced, and let us act despite that fear. Let us be honest about the times when we become like Pharaoh, and let us be inspired by the times when we became like Moses. And if we honestly feel that we cannot be like Moses alone, let us as a community together be the leaders of our people. Let our actions as a community be an exemplar of freedom for generations to come, not by destroying those who oppose us, but by transforming them, and by transforming our entire society. Let us not just share our bread with the hungry and give housing to those without homes (Is. 58:7) but let us also dismantle every economic, social and political structure that limits the freedom of others, particularly the poor and the voiceless. This Shabbat, we reflect on the choice in front of us – Pharaoh or Moses? Next week, our action can make us Moses and our inaction can make us Pharaoh. The choice is ours.