Parshas Shemos- "Alas, The Matter Has Become Known"

There is no other group of people in the history of the world that has suffered as much as the Jewish nation at the hands of its adversaries. The Jewish people have borne the brunt of all kinds of persecution, more so than any other religious, ethnic, or national collective. The motivation driving their oppressors to cause them such suffering is a topic for another time, but the reason that Hashem allows His dear people to bear such terrible treatment is a lesson highlighted in the slavery of the Jews in Mitzrayim. 

The slavery in Egypt is defined in the Torah as a “kur habarzel”, an “iron crucible” (Devarim 4:20). Rashi explains that this is a reference to the process in which gold is perfected through melting it at high temperatures in order to remove any impurities, leaving only the pure, precious metal behind. In a similar vein, the Jewish people required a process of purification to make them worthy of being the “Am HaNivchar”, Hashem’s ambassadors in this world, and through the exile in Egypt this was to be achieved. It is not clear though what the “impurities” were that needed extraction, and where in the course of their suffrage it was effectively corrected. 

Parshas Shemos teaches the backstory of Moshe Rabbeinu, and his development into the leader who would eventually become the redeemer of the Jewish people. Against all odds, Moshe grew up in the palace of Pharoah, and began to recognize and engage with the suffering of his Jewish brethren. The pesukim (2:11-15) tell us that Moshe went out amongst the Jews and witnessed an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jewish man, Dasan. Moshe looked both ways before killing the Mitzri, saving the Jewish victim. The following day, Moshe witnessed two Jews who were physically fighting, one of them being Dasan, the fellow who he saved the day prior, and he chastised them for this incorrect behavior. Upon hearing this criticism, the guilty party responded to Moshe and stated “do you intend to kill me as you did to the Mitzri?!”. The next verse teaches that Pharoah was informed of the murder of the Egyptian, and Rashi clarifies that indeed the informer was Dasan, the Jew who had been saved by Moshe a day earlier. Pharoah attempted to put Moshe to death for this crime, yet miraculously he escaped to Midian, where his progression continued, as is recorded in the verses.

The pasuk states that when Moshe heard the retort of Dasan, he became fearful and declared “achein noda hadavar”, “alas, the matter has become known” (2:14). Simply understood, Moshe was concerned that Dasan would inform Pharoah of his crime. However, the Midrash (quoted in Rashi) teaches a deeper idea, that Moshe now understood the root reason that the Jews were caused to suffer, more so than the other seventy nations of the world. Upon seeing that Dasan was willing to speak lashon hara, gossip, about another Jew, Moshe declared “the matter has become known”, the root of their suffering has become clarified. Due to their willingness to engage in gossip about each other they are made to suffer subjugation in such terrible ways. 

This Midrash requires an explanation. The Jews in Mitzrayim were engaging in other serious sins, including avoda zara (see Rambam Hilchos Avodas Kochavim 1:3). They had sunken to spiritual lows, practically becoming as entrenched in sin as the Egyptians. How did Moshe know that it was this particular issue that was attributable to their suffrage and not other aveiros? Furthermore, gossip is a ubiquitous issue, plaguing other nations as well. Why would the Jews need to suffer more than the other nations? Finally, another Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 32:5) states that one of the four qualities that merited the Jews to redemption was that they did not gossip about each other. The Midrash proves this point based on the fact that the Jews knew that they would eventually take the gold and silver of the Egyptians prior to the Exodus, yet not one Jew informed the authorities. This would appear to directly contradict the above recorded incident. How can we understand these two statements of Chazal?

At the conclusion of Sefer Bereishis, the era of Yosef and his brothers came to an unresolved finale. Although there was a degree of reconciliation between them in regards to their underlying enmity, an element of friction still persisted (as explained in an earlier writeup). Yaakov Avinu stated on his deathbed that his sons should “gather together” in order for him to reveal the time of Mashiach (Bereishis 49:1). He was ultimately unable to reveal this information, but perhaps inherent in his words was the assertion that in order to merit a redemption, the Jewish people must “gather together”, develop a deep sense of achdus. The issue of the gossip discussed above was the natural continuum of this earlier disconnect. The process of suffrage in Mitzrayim was to purify the Jewish people in this sense, as the collective suffering would work to remove the underlying friction between Jews, bringing them to a state of true unity. When Moshe saw that this disconnect still existed, as evidenced in the behaviors of Dasan, he understood that this was the reason for the slavery. The other Midrash notes that the redemption was possible due to the fact that through this process of communal suffering, the Jews had developed a deep unity, and would furthermore not gossip about each other, highlighting that they had removed the underlying enmity between Jews. 

There are a number of examples where this process of perfection is exhibited in the course of the story of the exile. When Moshe was to return to Egypt and redeem the Jewish people, Hashem told him “ki meisu kol ha’anashim hamivakshim es nafshecha”, “the people who wished to have you dead have perished” (Shemos 4:19). Rashi explains that this refers to the loss of the wealth of Dasan and Aviram, as a poor man is considered dead. It is not entirely clear why Moshe needed to hear this information. Perhaps, Hashem meant to convey that Dasan and Aviram, the people who had been gossiping about other Jews, had lost their sphere of influence, and the Jews had grown beyond their incorrect behavior, becoming a unified entity in the process. Furthermore, the Midrash (see Rashi on Shemos 5:14) explains that the hierarchy of the slavery in Egypt included an Egyptian taskmaster appointed over Jewish officers, who were in turn to command other Jews in their labor. The Jewish officers were meant to supply the Egyptian taskmasters with a certain number of bricks that had been built by the Jews under their watch. The Jewish officers had mercy on their brethren and would not pressure them to fulfill the expected regiment of bricks, resulting in them subsequently absorbing the beatings of the Egyptians appointed  above them. This too highlighted the unity that the Jews had developed, a deep and real care for the well-being of one another. When the Jews eventually left Egypt, the Torah states that they were “chamushim” (Shemos 13:18), or had prepared the necessary armaments for travel. Rashi explains that this word also stems from the root of “chomesh” or a fifth. Only a fifth of the overall Jewish population merited exiting Egypt, as eighty percent died and were buried during the days of makkas choshech, the plague of darkness. It would emerge that for every five sets of parents, only one left Mitzrayim, leaving four sets of orphans without parents. Targum Yonasan ben Uziel explains that the children of the other four families were adopted by the remaining set of parents, and in this merit they left Mitzrayim. This is yet another example of the deep unity the Jewish people had developed due to, and throughout, their experience in Egypt.

Why indeed was this issue more problematic than the other aveiros, and more so a reason to suffer in Mitzrayim?

For the nations of the world, unity is certainly a laudable virtue, that, when present, can result in tremendous accomplishments. However, for the Jewish people, unity is a prerequisite for their success in their service in this world. There is a total, comprehensive service that Hashem wants the Jewish people to accomplish. When the Jews are unified, the total service can be done, but when this is missing, by very definition the work will be lacking. To illustrate: there was a historic deal created between Yissachar and Zevulun. The tribe of Yissachar would learn Torah and determine the important halachic decisions surrounding the Jewish calendar, while Zevulun would conduct business, making money that was in part used to support the efforts of Yissachar. When each party realized that the other was skilled in a different way than them, contributing uniquely to the total sum in a fashion that they could not, this system would work perfectly to fulfill the overall service of Hashem. However, if the people of Zevulun were to decide that those of Yissachar were ineffective and therefore unimportant, concluding that they could do a better job instead, the system would naturally result in failure. Zevulun would then attempt unsuccessfully to fill the assumed void of Yissachar, as they were not skilled like them, and would then not be effective in their actual job, as they would be preoccupied with something else. Clearly, it is a unity that is accomplished through the recognition that every individual and subgroup have abilities that the others do not possess, that can result in the total service of Hashem being accomplished. Otherwise, competition between the individual parties to perform every element of His service becomes the norm, which will not result in success. Working together in a unified fashion that highlights the strengths of each uniquely contributing party results in His service being accomplished. Prior to leaving Egypt this dynamic needed to be recognized and actualized, as this would be the only way that the Jewish people could be His nation that would succeed in His service in the world. This was the process and necessity of the “iron crucible” of Mitzrayim. 

Unfortunately, it would appear that we do not learn from our history. The underlying dissension between Jews that caused the suffrage in Egypt, as well as the trigger for the destruction of the second Bais HaMikdash, is still alive and well. To the degree that we can recognize the importance of every fellow Jew and the significance of each subgroup, we can succeed in Hashem’s total service in this world. May we merit this deep sense of unity, and through it, the ge’ula sheleima soon in our days! 

[There is a question that still requires clarification. The Gemara (Nedarim 32a) wonders why Avraham Avinu was punished so that his descendants would suffer in Egypt for two hundred and ten years. It provides three answers, highlighting different actions that Avraham had performed incorrectly. The explanations seem to be completely unrelated to the above idea of the suffrage in Egypt acting as a process of creating Jewish unity. These differing ideas require some sort of an explanation, and b’ezras Hashem will be clarified at a later point.]

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