VA-YIGGASH – WHY DID OUR ANCESTORS ‘GO DOWN’ TO EGYPT?
The ‘Joseph story’ is so well known we may forget that it begs a few important questions.
At the beginning of Parashat Va-yiggash, after Judah, the fourth son of Leah and Jacob, has made an impassioned plea to Joseph for the safe return of Benjamin to their father, Joseph, realising that his brothers have learnt their lesson, finally reveals his true identity to them (Genesis 44:18-45:4). When he does so, Joseph says something very curious (45:7): ‘… God sent me before you to ensure you would be a remnant on the earth, and to keep you alive for a great deliverance.’
Joseph’s words bring to mind what Avram learnt during a ‘deep sleep’ at the beginning of his journey (Leich L’cha – Gen. 15:13-14): ‘You shall surely know that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them 400 years; / and also that nation, whom they shall serve, I will judge; and afterwards, they shall go out with great substance.’
The mediaeval commentators, Rashi and Ramban, were concerned to reconcile the reference to ‘400 years’ with the actual period of enslavement in Egypt: Exodus 12:40, for example, states that the total period of time that the Israelites ‘dwelt’ in Egypt – that is, including the time when they were not slaves – was 430 years.
But there is a more puzzling issue: Why did Abraham’s descendants, the ‘children of Israel’, have to become slaves at all? So, they ‘went down’ into Egypt because of the famine – but why couldn’t they have returned to Canaan after the famine was over?
The Torah seems to be suggesting that before the Israelites could inherit the land promised to Abraham they had, first, to be ‘strangers in a land not theirs,’ become enslaved, and then be ‘delivered’ from their bondage – that these were essential pre-conditions. Why? Joseph’s brothers had to be taught a lesson about family fidelity. But what lessons did the Israelites have to learn? To acknowledge God as the sole ‘Redeemer’? To realise, from experience, that it is wrong to oppress strangers? (Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34). What do you think?
Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah