Ki Tavo
Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
Isaiah 60:1-22
“And the Egyptians did evil unto us” (Deuteronomy 26:6).
In part of this week’s portion, the Torah instructs us to remember our slave origins and express gratitude to the Almighty, who liberated us and brought us to our ancestral homeland.
But one phrase remains difficult in context: “the Egyptians did evil unto us and afflicted us…” Obviously, if they afflicted us, they did evil unto us.
What is the specific meaning of “they did evil unto us” (vayareyu)? I believe a novel translation of this word will illuminate the meaning of Jewish persecution and of the Israeli experience in our own generation.
First, the Hebrew noun ra, or rea, can mean evil, but it can also mean friend. In the beginning, the Egyptians acted friendly towards us and offered an acceptance that led to our assimilation.
“And the children of Israel grew fruitful, and swarmed, and multiplied and became very mighty; the land became filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). The description superficially seems to be of positive growth.
But the verbs suggest otherwise. To “swarm” implies to creep all over like reptiles, and to “fill the land” hints at excessive visibility, a Jewish presence everywhere, including the bars, casinos and red-light districts.
The Israelites were becoming more Egyptian than the Egyptians — and such activities are the antithesis of Judaism, which demands a life-style of discipline and sanctity.
G-d entered into a covenant with Abraham that guaranteed that the Jews would never disappear. Hence, the historical rule of Judaism — overseen by G-d — must be:
Either you will live as a special people, set apart by your values, laws and customs; or if you forget your uniqueness and court assimilation and extinction, I (G-d) will send a tyrant who will force you to be reviled and set apart in that way.
Thus the next verse in Exodus: “And there rose up a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph,” who persecuted and demonized the Israelites, causing them to become anathema to the Egyptian majority (Exodus1:8 ff).
Vayere’u, the Egyptians first befriended us, causing us to assimilate, until G-d sent a tyrant to afflict us, forcing us to remain a people apart.
An alternative way to translate vayareyu is, “they caused us to be evil.”
Everyone knows the famous adage of Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I would add, “And powerlessness corrupts worst of all.”
More than a decade ago, when visiting Australia on a lecture tour, I saw a play called “The Edge of Night.” Its sub-plot revealed the real character of a Holocaust survivor, a gifted businessman, a generous philanthropist and a respected leader of the Jewish community of Melbourne.
His son-in-law receives an anonymous letter with a photo proving his father-in-law to have been a Kapo, a Nazi collaborator. During a family seder, the son-in-law suddenly hands the survivor the letter and picture.
The patriarch crumbles; but before leaving the table, he says, “Do you think there were heroes in the concentration camp? There were no heroes. There were only two kinds of Jews: those who survived and those who didn’t survive.”
There are many personal and confirmed testimonies that demonstrate acts of Jewish humanity and even heroism during the most difficult of times.
But by and large, suffering is not to be idealized. It generally brings out the worst, not the best, in human nature. Vayareyu, the Egyptians caused us to act evilly when they afflicted us.
These last seven decades have seen the Jewish people rise from powerlessness to power, at least from the military perspective. I believe we have passed with distinction the tests of powerlessness and of power.
Yes, there have been individual violations of our own ethical code, but these have been condemned and prosecuted by the Israeli establishment. More to the point: We never asked to be occupiers; we only asked to be able to compromise and live in peace with our neighbors.
We cannot be blamed for choosing to be occupiers rather than occupied, to be victors rather than vanquished, especially since we know how our enemy treated areas they controlled and people they conquered.
Even in a war in self-defense, the Israel Defense Force chooses to suffer casualties in house-to-house searches for terrorists and arsenels rather than engage in aerial bombing, in order to limit collateral damage.
The world was silent when we were the victims and condemns us when we attempt to defend ourselves as ethically as possible — even when we build a fence to prevent attacks by suicide bombers.
But we must remain true to our Jewish souls. We dare not become powerless victims again, but we must continue to exercise power with the moral restraints that our Torah demands.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of the community of Efrat.
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