Shalom Chaverim!
…כִּֽי־חָזַ֥ק עֲלֵהֶ֖ם הָרָעָ֑ב וַתְּהִ֥י הָאָ֖רֶץ לְפַרְעֹֽה׃
… because the famine was too much for them; thus the land passed over to Pharaoh.
[Beresheit 47:20]
The case could be made that the idea of slavery in Egypt begins in this week’s parashah, Vayigash, with the famine and Joseph’s ability to exploit the people’s hunger to enrich the Pharoah. Don’t feel bad: If it was not Joseph, it would have been someone else.
Once the people had given all their money, then possessions, then livestock, then land to Pharoah just so they could eat and live another day, they found themselves on that next day beholden to Pharoah as serfs, slaving away for their existence.
Then: “What goes around, comes around”….and we the Israelites soon find ourselves enslaved to Pharoah until God sets us free with the Exodus.
By the same logic of What goes around, comes around, we sense the inevitability – don’t we? – that it’s on us who were set free to remain fighters for freedom still today.
There is literal famine which triggers slavery – the worst kind of desperation. But there is also hunger which is insidious, disguised, and subtle. Although we live under the illusion that literal hunger is not a danger for us here today – it is a constant danger, make no mistake – we are not even aware that our metaphorical hunger is exploited, making us slaves of our own undoing in ways we hardly notice.
In keeping with this year’s goal of linking music to the weekly parasha, Bob Dylan points to this truth in his song Gotta Serve Somebody, listen here, with subtitles to see the words too.
[By the way: The new movie out about Bob Dylan’s life in the early Sixties is great and recommended!]
How do we attain complete freedom for ourselves and for everyone?
SHABBAT SHALOM
Rabbi Michael Schwartz