Passover, The Chumash (Five Books of Moses)

Pharaoh’s Jewish Slave Dilemma

Question

Question: King Pharaoh needed his slaves. Why would he order to kill all baby boys? That will mean that within a generation or two he will have no slaves population left. I am familiar with the reason given that he feared the savior would arise from among the newborns, but killing all male babies is definitely the wrong thing to do for someone fearing the slaves’ departure.

Answer

I’m really very excited to get your question. This is an issue that I have struggled with since I was small. When I was younger, I used to ask it at every single Passover Seder: What was Egypt’s goal in enslaving Israel? If they valued our work: Why have us build cities that fall down (as the Midrash says on Exodus 1:11)? Why twice try to kill newborn boys? Why would they be upset when we increased in number? The more slaves, the better!

On the flip side, if they were Nazis, if they just hated us and wanted to be rid of us: Why try to stop us from leaving? Why enslave us at all; why not just kill us?

Amazingly, Rashi’s Commentary presents both sides of the issue on the verse in Exodus 1:10: Pharaoh says to his people, “Maybe there will be a war, and Israel will fight against us, and go up from the land.” Rashi says there are two explanations: 1) Israel will be able to escape, and we won’t be able to stop them. 2) A commonly used idiom in Hebrew is being invoked, fastening your troubles on your enemy. It really means, “We’ll lose everything; we’ll have to go up from the land.”

I’ll tell you a secret. Whenever I see Rashi give two explanations that seem to be polar opposites – I assume that they can fit together. They must represent a shared, common thread.

Here’s the idea, with a little background: G-d’s purpose in creating the world is to shower kindness and love upon us. He searched and waited for a receptacle. Eventually, he found our father Abraham, the man who was capable of receiving all the kindness that G-d wants to bestow. From then till the end of time, G-d is shaping a world built around Abraham, fashioning his descendants into a nation, and that nation into one that can fully receive his kindness.

Other nations can receive blessing also; it will be through Abraham and his nation. Israel is the central source of blessing in the world.

No one understood this better than Pharaoh and Egypt. When Joseph came down to Egypt, followed by his family, it inaugurated an unprecedented period of Egyptian glory. All the wealth in the entire region flowed to Egypt, which alone had prosperity during the great famine. It became the greatest power of the time. And Pharaoh knew why: “Where can we find such a person, upon which the spirit of G-d rests! (Genesis 41:38)”. He put Joseph in charge right away. He, like Potiphar (Genesis 39:3), like the head of the jail (Genesis 39:21), immediately recognized that success came from drawing close to Israel, in the person of Joseph. Deep down Egypt knew “This is all because Israel is here. If Israel should leave, if we should lose our connection to G-d’s kindness, all the wealth would leave as well.” It was really there in the first place because of them. Of course, Egypt was absolutely right. When they left, Israel took the wealth of Egypt with them.

This is the common thread of the two explanations in the Rashi that I mentioned earlier. If Israel would leave, all of “Egypt” would go with them.

What could Egypt do about it? The right thing or the wrong thing. At first, Egypt tried to draw close to Israel, to do as much kindness for them as possible. Eventually, however, they decided to try to take what they wanted without earning it; to get the blessing by controlling its source.

Best wishes,
Michoel Reach

Follow-up question

Question

Thank you so much for the in-depth answer. I never thought about this issue quite this way, and it was very interesting to read. I do have a couple of follow-up questions though:

1. Could you explain Rashi’s second explanation? I read the text in Hebrew (I speak fluent Hebrew) and I still cannot understand his conclusion that it is the Egyptians that will leave.

2. If what the Egyptians fear is that their wealth – given to them by the proximity of the Israelites – will be gone once they leave Egypt, and the slavery was meant as a way to keep the Jews in place, then why order the killing of baby boys? This still doesn’t make sense, since killing the babies means no Jews left in a couple of generations.

Answer

(1) He’s using an idiom which perhaps is not common today, but is used a lot in the the Talmud. People did not like saying bad things about themselves, so they would say it instead about someone they didn’t like. The listener would understand from the context who was actually intended.

For instance, the Talmud often talks about when troubles befall “son’eihem shel Yisroel” – the enemies of Israel. The reader knows that it’s really talking about us, G-d forbid.

The interesting thing about the Rashi is that he’s applying it to a verse in the Torah (“they will go up from the land”, which actually means, “we Egyptians will have to go up from the land”), and a statement by a non-Jew. Apparently he feels it’s a pretty universal habit.

(2) I’m not sure about the second question. Perhaps they would have stopped killing Jewish baby boys once the population dropped to tolerable levels. Or else they felt that it would be sufficient to keep the girls around, who could be completely assimilated into Egyptian society. Maybe that would be enough to keep the blessing coming without having to deal with the actual Jewish nation.

By the way, you might be interested in comparing this issue to the story of Laban and Jacob. It seems to me that Laban was trying to do the exact same thing as Pharaoh: He couldn’t let Jacob leave, but he was getting frustrated because the blessing was increasingly flowing to Jacob’s family and no longer to him.

Best wishes,
Michoel Reach