Shemos 5772

Parshas Shemos recounts Moshe’s first meeting with Pharaoh at which the demand to release the Jews is made and is emphatically rejected. Not only does Moshe fail in his attempt to secure freedom for his people but their burdens become heavier than ever before; Pharaoh decides to crush the “freedom movement” by taking away the Jews’ liberty to even fantasize about the prospect of release from the Egyptian prison.

Even Moshe himself is dejected and asks Hashem why He allowed things to degenerate. Hashem cryptically answers, “Now you will see…”, as if to say that this was part of the Divine plan all along. Things had to become worse before they could become better. Only now that things have reached rock bottom can the process of redemption truly begin. But why must this be?

Commentators explain that the requisite measures of Egyptian evil and Jewish suffering were not yet filled. The persecutions were meant to last four hundred years as foretold to Avraham Avinu; the Exodus, coming after only 210 years of Jewish settlement in Egypt, was therefore premature. The requirement of four hundred years, however, could be satisfied by measures of evil and suffering that were equivalent to that which would have been expected in that longer period. Pharaoh’s intensification of the enslavement thus resulted in an acceleration of the process of liberation.

There may be another approach to this problem.

We know that the Yetzias Mitzrayim is the basis of our theological beliefs about G-d. (See Ramban Shemos 13:16 for his classic presentation of this idea.) His very existence, His knowledge of and concern for the affairs of man, and His omnipotence are all demonstrated by the miracles of the Exodus story. But belief – Emunah – is only one component of the Jewish way of thinking; it must be coupled with trust – Bitachon – practical reliance on G-d’s love and power.

There are two aspects of the Egyptian experience which are relevant here. The miraculous liberation – replete with signs and wonders – is the basis for Emunah. But it is the darkness of the enslavement and its extraordinary duration that are necessary conditions for the inculcation of Bitachon. Would the Egyptian enslavement have been of such short duration that memories of freedom would still be fresh, we would not have exercised our ability to maintain hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. By subjecting us to a multi-generational experience wherein the people who were to be liberated had been born into slavery and never knew anything else, Hashem placed us in circumstances where we would learn a lesson that would be necessary for the survival of the Jewish people in the future: As hopeless as a situation may appear, nothing – absolutely nothing – is beyond the ability of Hashem’s saving power, and thus there is always room for hope and Bitachon.

Of course, the precise measure of hopelessness needed could only be determined by Hashem himself. His decision was that every last Jew – even Moshe Rabbeinu himself! – had to reach the depths of despair before the time was ripe to learn the appropriate lessons from the redemption. Thus, the failure of Moshe Rabbeinu’s first mission and the resulting decrees of Pharaoh were necessary conditions for the realization of Hashem’s objectives.