The Egyptian Holocaust

Our sages have told us "", events that occured to our forefathers are harbingers for their future descendants. In the events involving the enslavement in Egypt a frightening, and almost eerie pattern emerges.

1. - Bnei Yisroel came originally to Egypt at the king's expressed desire. Most probably, Paroah was impressed by Yosef's financial acumen and expected similar ability in his brothers. In future centuries, Jews would be invited to countries in Eastern Europe to revive and stimulate the economy. Poland, which would later become notorious for its anti-Semitism, welcomed the Jews for this very reason after the Spanish Inquisition at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

2. - Bnei Yisroel all moved into one area of settlement. This ghetto-ization has obvious benefits, and so Yosef himself was desirous of this arrangement. But it can also have negative consequences as the pogroms of history tell us.

3. - The Torah goes out of its way to describe to us the miraculous population explosion Bnei Yisroel experienced. Where there are no Jews, there is no anti-Semitism. It is only when they become a large visible minority that their presence becomes resented.

- As the word "metzuyan" implies, they were notable and stood out. The Jews were becoming too prosperous.

4. - How can any human being persecute someone who has been so beneficial to them? It can only be done by erasing from the national conscious and memory all the good that the victim had contributed. In Germany, Jews had been the cream of society. Through propaganda, all of their accomplishments were soon forgotten and buried under the anti-Semitism.

5. - The spectre of dual loyalty was raised. Paroah claimed that Bnei Yisroel's allegiance lay elsewhere and not with their own counrty. In various armies at various times, Jews were forbidden to serve in the army because of suspicion as to their loyalty. Thus they were in the unbearable position of being accused of disloyalty without being able to disprove it.

6. - According to Rashi, "misim" is from the word taxes. Bnei Yisroel were forced to pay excessive taxes, this time in the form of forced labor. Traditionally, heavy taxes were always levied upon the Jewish communities, further crippling already depressed economies.

7. - Rashi says, according to one explanation, that the Egyptians were disgusted by themselves. Germany between the world wars was suffering from just such a national malaise, having been subjected to a humiliating surrender at Versailles after World War I. War reparations forced Germany to relinquish huge sums of money, plunging the economy deep into debt and deeper into depression. At times like these, political leaders arise to take advantage of the frustration and channel the hatred onto a convenient scapegoat. The midrash quoted by Rashi is also very revealing. "Kekotzim hayu b'eineihem" - The Jews appeared to them as mere thorns. They were not human beings, certainly not full fledged humans. Psychologically, it is impossible for such unspeakable crimes to transpire, with the tacit approval of the multitudes, unless the victims are reduced to something less than normal. It is only when Jews are thought of as a sort of sub-human species, that they can be exterminated like rats, or cut down like thorns. This attitude toward Jews has been common throughout many Christian and Muslim societies. The 'pure' Aryan blood and 'contaminated' Jewish blood pseudo-science of the Nazis was not a new phenomenon, merely an updated version of the past.

8. - According to the midrash, "b'phe rach", with a soft mouth. The Egyptians lured Bnei Yisroel into servitude by appealing to their patriotism. Paroah declared a sort of 'National Service Day' for the country, and Bnei Yisroel all showed up en masse. When they did, officials were there to note their names and adresses so they could not hide in the future. There was nobody more German than the German Jews. A large majority did not even refer to themselves as Jews, preferring instead more cumbersome constructions like 'German of Hebrew extraction', 'Mosaic persuasion', etc. Countries aren't impressed when Jews become more patriotic than the natives. When Stalin took control of the Soviet Union, he rewarded the tens of thousands of Jewish communists who had helped bring about the revolution by killing them out. The Holocaust started in assimilationist Germany, not Jewish Poland.

9. - The Jews were forced to build large buildings and towers, only to watch them crumble because of the unfirm foundations upon which they were built.They repeated this process again and again, becoming completely demoralized by the frivolous work - for the sake of - work. In one infamous Nazi death camp, a favourite execution involved forcing Jews to carry heavy rocks up some 192 steps, throw them down and retrieve them, repeating this 'game' until they dropped. Even before the war, Jews were made to clean streets and streetwalks with toothbrushes and water. Thus, the Jews were broken.

10. - Because of Paroah's obsession to kill out Jewish males, even the Egyptian boys were killed because he was unsure where the redeemer would come from (Rashi). Hitler, too, tied up valuable transport cars, weaponry and railroads in his pursuit of the final solution, directly condemning tens of thousands of German soldiers to their death. These materials could have been used to evacuate soldiers or advance the war effort! Even so, it was worth the sacrifice of Gentiles, in order to kill more Jews.

11. - Informants were everywhere and nobody could be trusted. Hiding became increasingly difficult. Not that there were no exceptions. Just as Bisya, the daughter of the king, with little to gain and a lot to lose, risked her life to save a Jew, so did such great men like Raoul Wallenberg, the King of Denmark and others stand out for their valour in situations of great sacrifice where they stood to gain very little. But men like these were few and far between.

12. - According to the midrash, Paroah became striken with tzora'as and bathed in Jewish blood as a cure. At first blush, this would appear a figurative statement, as one might say about the Vietnam War, "It was a bloodbath". However, after reports about human skin used for lampshades, Jewish bones for soap, and Jewish hair for pillowcases, one is not so sure.

13. - Bnei Yisroel were put in charge of their own, with responsibility to Egyptian overlords. The comparison to Jewish Kapos in World War II is exact. (That was only the most recent manifestation. In the 19th century, during Czar Nikolai's decree of Jewish child conscription, it was the leaders of the community who were responsible to come up with the conscripts. If they failed, it was they who were punished, not the individual families.)

14. - Jews were denied the necessary tools to make the bricks and then accused of laziness when they failed to produce. Echoes of this can be discerned throughout the Middle Ages when Jews were denied entry into the various workers guilds and professions, and then accused of being usurers, the only profession open to them. (Sadly, Jewish Paroahs, wondering why the defenseless Jews did not mount a stronger defense, have also accused them of 'passivity'.)

15. Nuremberg Laws - According to these laws, one could be considered Jewish if he had even one Jewish grandparent. The gemara, Chullin 79b, concerning the prohibition of slaughtering a sheep and its child on the same day, discusses how much 'sheep' is enough to make a sheep. The conclusion is that even a sheep which mates with a doe, producing an offspring which in turn has an offspring - it is forbidden to slaughter these two on the same day, as the prohibition stretches to even a semi-sheep. Even though the animal is a hybrid of uncertain status, there is enough sheep blood there to include this animal in the prohibition. We, too, were judged to be sheep on the basis of one qualifying grandparent.

16. There are many ways that the German Holocaust differed from its Egyptian precursor. However, even here we find strange and striking parallels. The midrash says that the Jews distinguished themselves from their hosts by not adopting their speech, their clothing or their names. Compare this to Germany: Names - Jews were forced by law to attach the name of Israel (for the males) or Sarah (for the females) on all passports and documents, to mark the Jews as such. Clothing - Jews were forced to wear a Jewish star on their garments, again to distinguish them from the Germans. Language - Germany was from the first areas to introduce sermons and drashos in the vernacular rather than the traditional Yiddish. Thus, while in Egypt, basic cultural differences were preserved, in Germany they were not.

Some of the above comments have been based upon the lectures of Rabbi Berel Wein, to whom I am greatly indebted. To create a smooth reading, I did not make any footnotes or quote any sources. Most of the material, though, can be found in the classical midrashim on Chumash. Points concerning German or Gentile history can also be confirmed by any good reference books.

There are many other points that should be considered. Paroah's step-by-step strategies, advancing from hard labor to infanticide through midwives to drowning children in the Nile, seem to reflect the German march to the final solution. Midrash HaGadol describes what Moshe saw when he came to Egypt to liberate the Jews - piles and piles of Jewish corpses. All of this should serve to gives us pause.

Dovid Farkas
Shemos 5759