Because many of us are not able to attend shul in person, the Rabbi has agreed to share his shabbat morning drashah in advance. Here is the first half of it. To read the full drashah, click here and it will take you to what will become a rich archive of all of Rabbi Staller's drashot.
This week we’ll be finishing the Yosef story, and with it, the first book of the Torah, Sefer BeReishit. And while the Yosef story wraps up nicely– the family is reunited in Egypt, Yosef provides for them with land and food during the famine, and the tense question of who will takeover Yaakov’s mantle is seemingly resolved with the answer that the tribes will share it– the larger arc of the narrative should leave the reader wanting. While by now, most of us are already familiar with the story of Jewish history and anticipate the turns the story takes, for a first time reader looking at the Torah’s narrative of God’s divine plan, this entire Egypt chapter likely seems so strange. Why does God have to bring Yaakov’s family down to Israel just to enslave them in Egypt? Wouldn’t God’s miraculous salvation of Yosef have been a powerful ending to the story? Couldn’t the brothers have then moved back home after the famine and tried to build the nation of Israel? Why is the Jewish descent into Egypt– the culmination of the entirety of BeReishit– a necessary step?
I think the significance of the Jewish people’s long-term descent to Egypt is actually found in an often overlooked passage at the very end of last week’s Parashah. Before transitioning to the death of Yaakov and his blessings to his sons, the Torah tells us one final episode about Yosef, the viceroy of Egypt. The Torah tells us (BeReishit 47:13-26) how, during the height of the Egyptian famine, the people of Egypt had expended all of their silver, metals, and money purchasing food from Yosef, and were left penniless. Yosef, seeing that the people had no more money to buy back the food he had previously collected from them, instead issued a tax of farmland itself. Indeed, the Torah dramatically tells us that due to Yosef’s tax, the entirety of Egypt became owned by Pharaoh and all of its inhabitants became Pharaoh’s sharecroppers– surely a hefty tax! Having taxed everyone down to their very land, Yosef then collects everyone in the country and moves them from their ancestral farmland into cities– breaking their claim to the land, and displacing them. Indeed, it is not surprising that the Egyptian people respond to this new situation by saying Yosef has saved them, but “we will be slaves to Pharaoh” (BeReishit 47:25)... continued
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