A Short, Hard Fall From Grace — Shemot 5781

It only takes ten verses this week for the Israelite people to fall about as far as a people can, from the height of privilege as new immigrants who had saved the Empire all the way to slavery in Egypt.

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Our fall from grace this week comes fast. In just ten verses we go from being a small group of migrants in a new land, with a powerful patron, to being enslaved because the size of our community scares our new neighbors, who view us as interlopers, as pariahs, and most of all, as a threat to their own safety.

Our journey to slavery in Egypt takes multiple generations. Sforno, the 16th century Italian rabbi comments that “after the last of the original 70 migrants had died, [the Israelites’] whole lifestyle became more like that of creeping insects, creatures headed for destruction.” Each generation grew less righteous than the previous, enjoying the privilege granted to them by their forebearers without honoring the traditions of their forebearers.

Eventually, a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and his accomplishments, and did not feel beholden to the foreigners in his midst.

Interpreting this verse in the context of history, Sforno writes:

“Although there can be no question that in the annals of Egyptian history the 80 year reign of Joseph and his legislation saving Egypt from the famine was duly recorded, as well as how he legislated that the whole land would belong to Pharaoh and the farmers would become his tenants, it did not occur to anyone to associate the Hebrews of their time with the family of Joseph who had been so highly esteemed. The idea that the present day Hebrews deserved special consideration on account of their illustrious forbears did not occur to anyone.”

On September 6, 1789, Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to James Madison from his apartment in Paris. It was less than two months since residents of Paris had stormed the Bastille fortress, now considered a major turning point in the French Revolution. In his letter, Jefferson wrote:

“The question of whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water.”

Jefferson was considering whether it was fair of him to obligate future generations to adhere to his vision of democracy. In his letter he wonders aloud whether any system of government he and his peers install would even be respected by future generations of Americans, long after he and the founding generation had passed away. Jefferson concluded that “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation.” In Jefferson’s view, each generation would be faced with the choice to either honor the traditions they had inherited, or create new traditions of their own.

Jefferson’s conclusion remind me of the words we recite during Passover each year, as we retell the same story the Torah begins anew this week. “In every generation we are obligated to tell the story as if we ourselves had come forth from Egypt.” This first person perspective of the Exodus encourages each of us to internalize our people’s experiences of oppression, and reinforces our bonds as a community. If we didn’t tell the story this way, each generation would feel further and further removed from the Exodus, the experience of gaining our freedom would grow more and more muted until it ceased to have any real meaning at all. Instead, we, the living generation to borrow Jefferson’s words, relive our ancestors experiences as if they were our own so we can embrace our freedom with the same vigor as those who wept on the shores of the Red Sea.

We’re at the start of this journey, and no matter how far we travel the path to freedom, someday we’ll find ourselves right back at the beginning again. Jefferson’s conclusion is true. No society can make a perpetual constitution, but by the same logic any society can choose to reconstitute itself, it only requires a willingness from us, the living generation, to begin the journey again.

Shabbat Shalom