06 Jan SHEMOT: THE UNPREDICTABLE EXILE, THE UNPREDICTABLE REDEMPTION

Parashat Shemot tells
of the Egyptians’
enslavement of
Beneh Yisrael. We
read that as Beneh
Yisrael rapidly reproduced, and their
population grew, Pharaoh feared that they
would turn against the empire and join
with Egypt’s enemies. He thus decided to
enslave them, so they would not endanger
the country. Pharaoh later decreed that all
newborn boys among Beneh Yisrael should
be murdered.
The Gemara in Masechet Sota (11a) tells
that Pharaoh actually consulted with his
three advisors, all of whom are known to
us from other contexts: Bilam, Yitro and
Iyob. Bilam, the Gemara relates, made the
suggestion to oppress Beneh Yisrael, and
so he was killed in battle by Beneh Yisrael
many years later. Iyob remained silent,
without agreeing or objecting, and he was
punished for his inaction by enduring harsh
afflictions. Yitro fled, unwilling to take part
in the inhumane treatment of Beneh Yisrael,
and he was thus rewarded.
If we think about it, the reactions of all three
men are nothing short of baffling.

Bilam, as the Mishna in Pirkeh Avot (5:19)
describes, was exceedingly arrogant. He felt
overly confident and secure. We would have
expected him to dismiss Pharaoh’s fears, to
remind Pharaoh that Egypt was powerful
enough not to feel threatened by Beneh
Yisrael’s rapid growth. Iyob, as we know,
was an exceptionally righteous man. He is
the last person we would expect to sit by idly
as the panel of which he was part devised
an evil plan to persecute an innocent sector
of the population. And Yitro is described
by the Rabbis as a profound thinker and
philosopher, who studied and pondered all
the different faiths in the world until arriving
at the truth of monotheism. Surely a man
with such brilliance could have shown
Pharaoh the absurdity of his fears, that there
was no reason to suspect that Beneh Yisrael,
who had shown no signs of disloyalty, would
turn against the country. Yet, Yitro did not
speak up and instead ran away.
This shows us quite clearly how the
Egyptian bondage unfolded in a way that
nobody could have ever predicted. Beneh
Yisrael lived peacefully in Egypt, without
causing any trouble or inviting enmity, and
yet, through a series of circumstances which
they would never have foreseen, they found

themselves brutally enslaved, and
their infants put to death.
However, this Parasha tells us also
how the redemption from Egypt
unfolded in no less an unpredictable
fashion.
A woman named Yochebed decided
to hide her child from the Egyptian
authorities and placed him in a
basket on the Nile River. The baby
was discovered by none other than the
princess – the daughter of the evil king who
decreed that all infants among Beneh Yisrael
should be put to death. We would have
expected the princess – who immediately
identified the child as a Jew – to comply
with her father’s edict, and kill the baby, or
at least leave him to die on his own. But she
not only saved the baby, in direct defiance of
her father’s decree – she brought him to the
palace and raised him there, giving him the
name “Moshe” which alluded to his having
been drawn from the water (“Meshitihu”) –
loudly broadcasting the fact that she acted
against her father! Remarkably, Pharaoh’s
own palace became the home in which the
redeemer was raised.
The Rabbis teach that Pharaoh decreed the

murder of the infants because his astrologers
warned that the one who would redeem
Beneh Yisrael was about to be born. And
yet, it turned out that Pharaoh himself raised
this baby who would lead Beneh Yisrael to
freedom.
Just as the exile began as a result of a
sequence of events that nobody could have
possibly predicted, the redemption, too,
unfolded in a likewise unpredictable manner.
The Egyptian exile is viewed by our tradition
as the prototype of all subsequent exiles, and
the redemption from Egyptian bondage is
viewed as the prototype for all subsequent
redemptions. Just as the Egyptian exile
began and ended in ways which nobody
could have predicted – so will all our nation’s
exiles began and end in unpredictable ways.