Parashat Shemot 5770
The Profound Word
Howard S. Joseph
http://TheProfoundWord.com
What’s in “The Names”?
Well, we thought that we had arrived at the end of the beginning as we completed the book of Bereishit. Yet there seem to be some issues left unresolved. This has led generations of commentators to speculate as to the name of the second book.
The usual Hebrew name is Shemot called after the opening words ve’eyleh shemot: these are the names. Other names found in the literature may reflect the substance of the book: Exodus, or the the Book of Redemption as suggested by Ramban, for the grand Exodus from Egyptian slavery occupies so much of the book.
Neziv begins his introduction to the book citing the ninth century scholar known as Behag after the name of his famous work Halakhot Gedolot [most probably authored by Rabbi Simeon Kayyara, who lived in Basra, Babylonia], and who calls it Homash Sheni, literally, the second fifth. [ His five names for the books are: Bereishit, Homash Sheni [the second fifth], Book of Kohanim (Leviticus), Homash Hapekudim (the fifth of Census), and Mishneh Torah (Deuteronomy.] In the Talmud, Sotah 36b, the names for the second and fourth books are similar.]
Neziv builds on this idea and maintains that:
this comes to teach us this particular book is second to the book of the beginning of creation for it is the second part of this book. That is, in it is completed the order of creation…. For the general purpose of the world is that there is required one people who is intimately connected to God [ki helek Hashem amo]. This was not completed until Israel left Egypt and came to their purpose to be worthy of being a light to the nations to bring them to knowledge of God…. This is the purpose of the creation which was created for God’s glory…. So the giving of the Torah is the completion of the creation,…, Israel came to the purpose of its creation…. Only the Torah is the purpose of the elevation of Israel who were fashioned as a covenant people to be a light to the nations. So, the Book of Shemot is the second to the first [book of creation] as if they were one topic with two parts of the Book of Creation.
Here Neziv cites a famous Talmudic source in Avodah Zara, 3a:
And R. Simeon b. Lakish further said: What is conveyed by the phrase. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day? [Hebrew: Ha-Shishi; the other days of creation do not have the 'ha' prefix without which it could mean 'day six'. The 'hey' vocalized as 'ha' provides emphasis that this day is special: it is the sixth day(hsj).] It teaches us that God made a condition with the works of creation, saying: If Israel accepts my Torah it will be well, but if not, I shall return you [the world] to a state of chaos. [ The connection is that the Sinai Revelation took place on the sixth day of the month of Sivan. In other words, the sixth day of creation depends upon the sixth day of Sivan for its completion(hsj).]
So, with the Exodus and the Sinai Torah revelation, the second book of the Torah is really also part of the creation story. It is the story of the creation of Israel as a unique nation prepared for it’s role in history. The Book of Genesis is not enough. Why not?
Firstly, Neziv always refers back to the initial promise to Abram at the Covenant of the Pieces:
Know for a certainty that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great wealth. [Gen. 15, 13-14.]
Certainly, this process has not yet been completed. Genesis ends with Jacob’s family, the incipient nation of Israel, still only a family or clan, living in peace in Egypt. This process is deemed essential for the creation of the nation of Israel. A period of slavery, suffering and redemption is necessary in order to create the Israel that will be the nation that God requires.
Neziv uses the term creation in regards to Israel. This means for him that Israel as an entity is a special unique creation in the world. While Neziv takes seriously the existence of other nations, they may come or go throughout history. Israel, however, is a necessary structural part of the world order. It is a creation like other creations. It has a function and purpose. The experience in Egypt is a fundamental part of the creation of Israel as God’s nation on earth. As we proceed in this book we will see why he believes the experience of slavery and redemption is so necessary.
For Neziv the verse your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs is not a prediction but a command. Israel must keep itself separate. It must maintain its identity and not assimilate into other nations. If it loses its identity it loses its purpose and function in the world. It then loses its special status and becomes subject to the travails of history like any other nation. It becomes frail and vulnerable, no longer under the Divine Providence through which it was created as a unique structure. It also arouses the enmity of the nations rather than their love when it tries to be like them. It is this lesson among others that Israel has to learn in Egypt.
At the outset of the book and Parashah we are told that the land [of Egypt] was filled with them.
Neziv comments:
This comes to teach us that they dwelled not only in the area of Goshen which was theirs but they lived throughout Egypt among the Egyptians…. In all available places that they found to purchase and live in they did so….
Scripture tells us this to alert us to the subsequent cause of hatred, governmental decrees and suspicion of what was not at all their intention [i.e., to harm Egypt.] All this occurred because they wished to depart from the will of Jacob that they live only in Goshen and remain alone and separate from Egypt. However, they did not wish to do so.
In the Midrash Shemot Rabbah it says that they also stopped circumcision for this reason: to be like the Egyptians. For after they began to live among them they thought it would be good to be like them and not be visibly identifiable as Jews. For this reason, says the midrash, God reversed their hearts to hate His people.
We have already explained in the the book of Bereishit that the verse ?your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs? is the cause that in all generations that enemies rise against us to destroy us when we refuse to be like strangers separate from the nations.
This may appear counter-intuitive. However, the realities of the modern world confirm Neziv’s insight. True enough, immigrants, strangers may eventually integrate completely into their new surroundings but the process is not always smooth. Nineteenth century antisemites would often target the more assimilated Jews as the enemies of Europe reasoning that if Jews did not have loyalty to their own traditions then how could one trust them to be loyal to opportunistically adopted cultural norms. They would shed these for other more beneficial opportunities. In this way they echoed what Pharaoh says: there may come a war and they may join our enemies. They have no fundamental loyalty but will go with the best deal. People without the fundamental virtue of loyalty are hard to trust. If Israel is to be a blessing to the world it must gain the trust of the world. It must remain loyal to the ein Yaakov, the vision of Jacob, and maintain itself as a separate, identifiable entity, preparing itself for its ultimate role. This profound lesson it must learn.
Shabbat Shalom
Hayyim Shemuel Yosef
Tevet 23 5770
January 9, 2010