The Exodus from Egypt is the seminal event in Jewish history. While it was just the first stage of the forming of the Jewish nation, it is the Exodus that must be remembered each and every day and each and every night. We recall both the positive, the day, and the negative, the night, of our stay in Egypt.
It was Egypt that housed us and allowed us to develop into a great nation – the basis of the Torah command to treat Egyptians much better than Amon, Moav, Amalek and other nations of the world. Egypt exposed us to the greatest civilization of the day, one whose accomplishments we have yet to fully replicate. At the same time we witnessed how the most advanced society can become the most morally depraved. In addition to their unwarranted persecution of the Jewish people, their business practices were corrupt and their sexual practices deviant. Instead of using money and sex to attain holiness[1] they used them to oppress the Jewish people. So distasteful were their practices that once we left we were commanded not to return.
In order that the Exodus be front and centre in pretty much all that we do there are mitzvot galore that are meant to remind us of Egypt and the Exodus. Belief in G-d, loving the stranger, Shabbat, pidyon haben, mezuzah, tefillin, honest weights, severance pay, the shema, and of course the many mitzvot of Pesach all are connected to the Exodus[2].
Yet I would like to focus on a different type of remembrance of Egypt. “A new king arose who knew not Joseph” (Shemot 1:6). The slavery of the Jewish people began when Pharaoh conveniently forgot about Yosef. Yosef who saved Egypt from ruin, whose policies helped consolidate power in the hands of Pharaoh was not even a footnote in Egyptian history. He was a foreigner and “the Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, since that would be a toevah, abhorrent to the Egyptians[3]” (Breisheet 43:32).
If the enslavement began with the forgetting of Yosef it could not end unless and until Yosef would be remembered.
“And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, ‘G-d will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you’” (Shemot 13:19).
This is an amazing verse. Our Rabbis explain that redemption comes in the blink of an eye. The Jewish people had been in Egypt four hundred and thirty long years (Shemot 12:40 and 12:41)[4] yet they left in such a hurry they did not even have time to bake bread. They had to leave and they had to leave now. Surely, Moshe Rabbeinu had more pressing matters to attend to than worrying about the bones of Yosef. Why would he not delegate this task, as he did regarding the slaughtering of the pascal lamb and putting its blood on their doorposts? “Moshe then summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, pick out lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover offering” (Shemot 12:21). Only those Jews courageous enough to sprinkle the blood of an Egyptian god on their doorposts would be saved. So important was this act that the bringing of the pascal lamb becomes one of only two mitzvot that carry the punishment of karet, excision (the other being brit milah). One who does not celebrate Pesach has shown that they have little to do with Jewish history and the Jewish present.
While the Jewish people are observing their “first seder” Moshe Rabbeinu is worrying about Yosef’s bones. Apparently, just as the people could not leave unless they first put blood on the doorposts, they could not leave without the bones of Yosef.
While the enslavement of the people began with forgetting Yosef, our descent to Egypt began with the fighting between Yosef and his brothers. If the Jewish people were going to build a nation, they would have to remember the tragedy of Yosef and his brothers. The bones of Yosef would have to accompany them on their journey to Israel. It would remind us of the danger of civil strife. Uniting the nation is the job of the leader and hence it would be Moshe who would carry Yosef’s bones.
This – taking Yosef’s bones and uniting a nation – is no easy task. There is little reason to think Moshe had any idea where Yosef’s bones were[5]. The Midrashic rabbis taught that the Egyptians put Yosef’s bones in a metal casket and dropped it in the Nile River. They understood – even more so than the Jewish people – that the Jewish people would not and could not leave Egypt without Yosef’s bones. They had, or so they thought, ensured the Jewish people would never leave.
This past week Ron Gvili’s HY”D bones were brought back to be buried in Israel. With the last hostage home, the people of Israel can begin to move forward, to continue the great, and difficult, task of building a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. We must internalize the fact that regardless of belief and practice we are one people. Our divisions matter little to our enemies. In the words of Rav Soloveitchik we are united as a community of fate.
To constantly remind ourselves of this we must carry before us the bones of the heroes of Israel. Ron Gvili, on medical leave, drove 50 miles to defend Kibbutz Alumim, saving many lives before giving up his own. May we soon merit the fulfilment of the vision of Yechzkel that the dry bones will come back to life.
[1] In Jewish thought intimate relations in the proper context are an expression of holiness. Marriage is known as kiddushin, holiness.
The most fundamental expression of Jewish observance and faith is integrity in our business dealing, so much so that our Sages (Shabbat 31a) claimed the first question G-d will ask us when we leave this earth is nassata vnata bemunah, were your business dealing conducted faithfully. It is G-d Who ultimately determines our financial success and one who cheats denies this fundamental principle. As Rashi explains (See Vayikra 19:36) we were taken out of Egypt for the purpose of financial integrity.
[2] Fascinatingly, I cannot think of even one mitzva we have to remind ourselves of Sinai.
[3] One need only read this verse to understand the Torah’s abhorrence of eating chametz on Pesach.
[4] See my devar torah from last week here where I discuss the Rabbinic view that the Jewish people were actually in Egypt for 210 years.
[5] We do not even know how Moshe knew about Yosef’s request, nay demand, to be buried in Israel. We are not even sure how he knew about Yosef at all. The last mention of Yosef in the Torah was when that previous Pharaoh did not know who he was.