Going Up and Out of Egypt

 Parshat B'Shalach 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 Rephidim (a place referenced in Shmot 17) is synonymous with two events: (1) there was no water, and perhaps as a result of what the people did in response, testing God and wondering if He’s even there, and (2) the battle with Amalek. 

 In the context of the complaining about water, Moshe is asked why he took them out of Egypt (ג) וַיִּצְמָ֨א שָׁ֤ם הָעָם֙ לַמַּ֔יִם וַיָּ֥לֶן הָעָ֖ם עַל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לָ֤מָּה זֶּה֙ הֶעֱלִיתָ֣נוּ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם לְהָמִ֥ית אֹתִ֛י וְאֶת־בָּנַ֥י וְאֶת־מִקְנַ֖י בַּצָּמָֽא: 

 Notice that they ask לָ֤מָּה זֶּה֙ הֶעֱלִיתָ֣נוּ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם – Why’d you bring us UP from Egypt? This is a seemingly odd phrase for when we think of the Exodus, we think of יציאת מצרים. God begins the Decalogue with אנכי ה' א-לקיך אשר הוצאתיך… Are we talking about going out of Egypt? Or Aliyah from מצרים – going up? 

 While one might think these words are interchangeable, the fact is they are different. They don’t mean the same thing, and the truth is that they don’t have the same connotation either. 

 Yetziah means leaving. Aliyah means going up. 

 Just to clarify, the phrase למה הֶעֱלִיתָ֣נוּ appears two times – here and in a complaint of Dasan and Aviram in Parshas Korach. In Parshas Chukas, when the people are complaining about water before the מי מריבה episode, they say twice למה העליתנו – He’elisoonoo. Why did you bring us up? 

 [In Parshas Chukas, Ibn Ezra notes that “He’elisoonoo” is a strange word. Obviously its vowelization is different than הֶעֱלִיתָ֣נוּ, but I couldn’t explain its difference otherwise beyond some subtlety in grammar.] 

 Which means that primarily at major moments of confronting Moshe over the Exodus, this term of ALIYAH MIMITZRAYIM is making an appearance. 

 Some commentaries (Ibn Ezra, Rabbenu Bachaye) note that since the wilderness and Canaan are north of Egypt, they’re simply noting a geographical move northward. This is certainly a definition of going up! But perhaps there is greater depth to the distinction. 

 A number of commentaries and Midrashim (see Midrash Sechel Tov) take the Aliyah depiction of this matter as a specific attack against Moshe, not for the Exodus (leaving Egypt), which everyone accepts as coming from God, but for the specific concept of העלאה, of raising up from Egypt, as if this was Moshe’s plan. And so the question becomes, what else are they complaining about with this word? Are they suggesting, for example, that since their “Aliyah” is Moshe’s fault, all of their religious commitments are Moshe’s fault? From whatever happened in Marah, to, as later complaints might include, Sinai, the Mishkan, and God’s role even in our destiny? Alshikh and Abravanel specifically identify their complaint against Moshe for putting the children and animals in harm’s way – because Pharaoh was long ago agreeing to let the adults go. And so, the argument goes, had you Moshe accepted that offer, we’d have left a long time ago and not put our children in this situation. Yes, we’d have left the kids in Egypt, but that simply means we’d have returned to Egypt! Wasn’t that the original plan anyway? So the Aliyah we are experiencing is YOUR fault, since God only recommended a 3-day journey at the outset! 

Or maybe, as Malbim puts it, they blamed Moshe for working alone, without the input and advice of the Zekenim (elders)! 

There is a small problem, however, in that God told Moshe at the burning bush to gather the elders, tell them God appeared to you, and tell them “וָאֹמַ֗ר אַעֲלֶ֣ה אֶתְכֶם֘ מֵעֳנִ֣י מִצְרַיִם֒” I will bring you UP from Egypt, and וְשָׁמְע֖וּ לְקֹלֶ֑ךָ – they will listen to you! 

Aliyah from Egypt was always part of God’s plan! The question is if the people knew or were aware of this, or if they simply accidentally co-opted a phrase in their complaining. [I am not sure of the answer…] 

Netziv, both in our parsha and in Parshas Chukas, focuses on this phrase and teaches us a profound lesson about what Aliyah Mimitzrayim is all about. 

 Netziv says their complaint was that they had to function in the world in a manner that was למעלה מן הטבע – above the laws of nature. So whoever wasn’t cut out for this kind of higher level living was lost at the lifestyle they were now exposed to. Miracle manna, miracle water, body needs that simply vanished – when you have heavenly bread and heavenly water it might just dissipate from the body without producing waste. After all, how could this perfect food have any “waste” in it? 

In Chukas, Netziv has them asking היינו שנהיה בדוקא אנשי מעלה הראוים להשגחה פרטית – they wondered what gave Moshe the impression that they were אנשי מעלה or that they could be אנשי מעלה who were deserving of such a high-level- spiritually-sustaining existence of supernatural sustenance. Why can’t you make it simple through not making it so simple? 

We need bread, we need a river. So let us make the things ourselves and eat them ourselves and gather water ourselves! 

To be אנשי מעלה – people who aim higher – is the task of the Jewish people. 

 קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני – Be holy, for I [God] am Holy. 

Rabb Morris Joseph, a British rabbi from the turn of the previous century (he died in 1930) wrote in his book “Judaism as Creed and Life,” “Being chosen doesn’t mean that we are better, but that we ought to be.” 

It’s a good aphorism that models a particular kind of behavior, but perhaps it’s more important for us to remember not that we are better, but that we ought to be striving for higher and better. 

 While certainly everyone’s task in this world is personal improvement, every now and then someone laments to me about others’ public observances: some people are lax about washing, brachos, bentching, bracha acharona, people engage in gossip, or perhaps in general some don’t seem to care much about halakha or God. 

Obviously each person has his or her own relationship with God, but perhaps we ought to ask if we truly believe in God or whether we live this life because it’s most convenient or because it was how we were raised, rather than on account of a true conviction, or a belief in reward and punishment in the next world? 

 Each of us may benefit from asking the following questions: 

• What do I believe in? What do I want to believe in? 
• What choices do I make and what actions do I take to demonstrate my beliefs? 
• When I come to shul, do I turn off the phone and eliminate distractions, including talking to neighbors? 
• Do I pay attention to all the words of davening – such as when we sanctify God’s name in Kaddish and Kedusha? 
• Do I pay attention to the Torah reading? Am I listening as God speaks to me through the words of the Torah? 
• Do I believe that צדקה in both the charitable giving sense, and in the doing the right thing sense, is the way I’m supposed to behave always? After all, in the Sodom story, God chose to tell Avraham Avinu His plans because He knew that Avraham will be teaching his descendants לעשות צדקה ומשפט, to live out our creed of living for righteousness and justice. 
•  Do we seek out opportunities to learn more, or do we only perk up when an opportunity to learn something piques our interest because of a clever title? While it’s difficult to navigate a website like yutorah.org that has hundreds of thousands of lectures and shiurim, plenty of filters can be plugged in that you can really find whatever you want there – from history, to biographies of great Jews, to Jews in the entertainment industry, to of course every Halakha and Gemara under the sun. 

The Bnei Yisrael who complained to Moshe missed a particular opportunity in למה העליתנו. They did not want the burden of being אנשי מעלה, and as a result, Amalek came. 

 And what is Amalek? 

 The Slonimer Rebbe explains in Parshas Ki Setze that the commandment for remembering Amalek זכור את אשר עשה לך is a reminder that we have a spiritual battle against evil. Amalek is the ultimate distraction from being and becoming אנשי מעלה. The mitzvah is written in the singular because this battle is every individual’s battle – each of us comes to our relationship with God on our own basis, based on our particular needs, understandings, and of course our own output. The Slonimer Rebbe said Remember that YOU the individual faces this battle with Amalek, because each person has different challenges. 

 It is Eisav’s descendants saying “What do you need God for? Come live with us! Disappear as a unique identity!” It’s Amalek enticing the נחשלים, the weakhearted and saying “Join our way! No rules! Anything and everything goes.” 

For us, for our ancestors who were told at the splitting of the Sea, התיצבו וראו את ישועת ה', see God’s salvation, the goal of our connection is ויאמינו בה' ובמשה עבדו – to believe in God and in Moshe and His servant

 אנשי מעלה. Being people who ascend. Being people who are מעלים בקדש. Let us take the slip of the tongue of those who challenged God and say not למה העליתנו – why did you take us up from Egypt, and instead say “How privileged we are to be elevated.”

 ברוך הוא א-לקינו שבראנו לכבודו והבדילנו מן הטועים ונתן לנו תורת אמת. 

If indeed we are privileged as we say in עלינו – שלא עשנו כגויי הארצות - that we are different than others, our difference is in our being אנשי מעלה, people who are always an upward trajectory to be closer and closer to the Almighty. 

Rephidim’s challenges are therefore a call to all of us to remember our calling – not to get distracted by the things which take us away from our life goals. May we merit to live up to our creed, and embrace our lot of being אנשי מעלה.

The Darkness of Depression – a Modern Plague

Parshat Bo

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

The Plague of Darkness comes upon Egypt without warning, and the Torah describes it in this way. 

 21 God said to Moshe, “Stretch your hands toward the heavens, and there will be darkness on the land of Egypt, and the darkness will be tangible.” 22 And so Moshe stretched his hand heavenward, and there was a thick darkness in all of the land of Egypt for three days. 23 No person saw his fellow, and no person rose from his place for three days, and the for the children of Israel, there was light in their dwellings.

 שמות פרק י (כא) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְקֹוָ֜ק אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֗ה נְטֵ֤ה יָֽדְךָ֙ עַל־הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וִ֥יהִי חֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־אֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וְיָמֵ֖שׁ חֹֽשֶׁךְ: (כב) וַיֵּ֥ט מֹשֶׁ֛ה אֶת־יָד֖וֹ עַל־הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם וַיְהִ֧י חֹֽשֶׁךְ־אֲפֵלָ֛ה בְּכָל־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם שְׁלֹ֥שֶׁת יָמִֽים: (כג) לֹֽא־רָא֞וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶת־אָחִ֗יו וְלֹא־קָ֛מוּ אִ֥ישׁ מִתַּחְתָּ֖יו שְׁלֹ֣שֶׁת יָמִ֑ים וּֽלְכָל־בְּנֵ֧י יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל הָ֥יָה א֖וֹר בְּמוֹשְׁבֹתָֽם: 

A few questions stand out. In other plagues, Moshe is told either to stretch his hand or staff, and he, in turn, always uses his staff. This time, he is told to stretch his hand and he stretches his hand (!). Why? How many days of darkness were there – 3 (and verses 22-23 are referring to the same 3 days), or 6, and the verse speaks of two different 3-day periods? If the darkness was thick, wouldn’t telling us that people did not see each other for 3 days be superfluous? 

Or HaChaim addresses some of these questions in his commentary, noting that the darkness was a spiritual entity (base on Tehillim 18:12), and thus had to be treated with respect. This could only be achieved with the soft touch of the hand, rather than through the waving of a stick. 

Or HaChaim quotes a Midrash that the darkness came from Gehinnom, which he takes to suggest that there were actually two kinds of darkness: the first set of three days in which people could not see one another, and the second set of three days in which people could not rise from their place. 

 Continuing with his explanation of the light that the children of Israel had, he quotes another Midrash that describes how in the world the come the wicked will be enveloped in darkness, whereas the righteous will be illuminated by His light. 

Whether there were 3 days of one kind of darkness and 3 days of another kind, or there were only 3 days altogether which are described in two different ways, there is room to suggest that there are different ways the Egyptians experienced darkness. A pshat understanding would simply follow a translation that the darkness was intense and inhibited both sight and movement. Understandably, the “thickness” of darkness inhibiting movement is hard for us to imagine, unless we can imagine a Hamsin (some kind of sandstorm) or a very difficult humidity that simply zapped all the strength out of the Egyptians (neither of those are pshat, and I am not suggesting that’s what brought darkness). At the same time, this would all be irrelevant if the comments of Or HaChaim are meant for us to understand that this darkness was other-worldly. But the degree of the darkness bringing an inability to see and move is exactly what the text says. 

Another kind of darkness is a darkness some people experience when sitting on the pit of despair, namely a darkness of Depression. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, the following are signs of Major Depression Disorder.

 • Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness

 • Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters

 • Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities…

 • Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much

 • Tiredness and lack of energy, so even small tasks take extra effort

 • Reduced appetite and weight loss or increased cravings for food and weight gain

 • Anxiety, agitation or restlessness

 • Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements

 • Feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or self-blame

 • Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things

 • Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide

 • Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches

While I am not arguing that all of these applied to the Egyptians, surely some of them did. Pharaoh may have been stubborn and may have had a hardened heart but he was likely experiencing some of these symptoms as well. 

 For all purposes, the plague of Darkness was the last plague from which people could emerge and say “Pharaoh, enough is enough. How far do you want this to go? Do you want people to die? Everything else has happened to us, and that seems to be the logical next step!” We have seen such arguments coming to Pharaoh from his own people over the course of the plagues. Sometimes Pharaoh listens, and sometimes he does not. He has offered for Israel to leave on a number of occasions, but he has also walked back those offers when the terms of agreement weren’t to his liking, or when plagues that seemed to be driving his allowance for Exodus came to their conclusions. But at least, until now, Egypt could recover from the plagues as none of them caused the mayhem that a plague of death would cause. 

Darkness was certainly real, but there is the other element of darkness, an ominous feeling, a premonition perhaps, that this darkness is a prelude to a different kind of darkness, one from which there is no return. It is that feeling that is contributing to people’s inability to get up and move. They know their king is stubborn. They know he is not letting Israel go. They have seen what the God of the Hebrews is capable of, and they are licked. They don’t want this fight anymore. But what could they do? The people were so controlled, so owned, they could not mount a revolution and overthrow the Pharaoh. They had to roll with the punches that God was throwing their way, and with the inability to challenge Pharaoh any more than through simply asking “How long will you allow this to go on?” 

Depression is real. It can be debilitating, it can cause a person to feel unable to do simple tasks, and sometimes can prevent a person from even getting out of bed for days or weeks at a time. It is not something a person can “snap out of” or “get over” – sometimes real intervention, help, a plan, goals are needed in order to get a person to a place of balanced equilibrium. 

The important thing is to recognize it, to accept it as a reality, and to seek help in order to begin to heal and to get to a place where recovery is on the horizon. 

We often ask people, “How are you?” and we don’t stick around to hear the answer. Or, if the answer is anything other than “I am great! Thank you!” we are not interested in hearing it. Good friends can see through the “front” that some people put up when they’re actually not OK and might have the guts to say “You don’t seem OK. What is going on?” If we can tap into that pain – which is sometimes identifiable, but sometimes unclear as to its source – we may be able to help someone who seems helpless, someone who really needs intervention but does not know where to turn.

As a mohel, I sometimes encounter parents who are extremely anxious about the bris. I often tell them that their anxiety and moodiness is quite identifiable, and will be over after the bris, when you see your baby is fine. And that is just about how it always goes!

Were it only that easy to know what is bothering people, what causes their bouts with anxiety or Depression, it would be a much simpler world – with simple solutions to what are sometimes big challenges, but never insurmountable. 

Some people experienced varying degrees of Depression in the immediate aftermath of October 7 in Israel, wondering and worrying over what the future of the Jewish people in Israel can actually look like with barbarous enemies living on their doorstop, more out-in-the-open than ever about their goals and ambitions of seeing every Jew removed from Israel in one form or another. Some may have sought intervention, some managed to pull through, and many may still need assistance in coming round the corner from those terrible days and personal feelings. 

 In the case of Egypt, the Depression people may have felt was beyond out of their hands. They were at the will and whim of a stubborn dictator who let his own ego get in the way of concern for his people and what he was doing to their own prospects for the future. Did all of Egypt deserve the fate of the plagues, especially the coming Plague of the First Born? It is hard to know with certainty. But as in modern warfare, the way an enemy capitulates and gives up is when leadership no longer has the support of the people, because the civilian population has been vanquished and no longer wish for the fight to go on. The Egyptian population were helpless and suffered as a result. Their Depression couldn’t be treated – it was a lead in to the almost-worst-plague imaginable (worse would have been even more death than “only” the firstborn, unless the “firstborn” was the absolute worst because of how antiquity valued the firstborn and its stance as being representative of the fate of a nation). 

May those who experience this modern plague of Darkness find healing, and may those who are watching a friend or loved one cope and find healing be sensitive and supportive through that process.

P'Dut - (פדת) - Redemption From Three Exiles

Parshat Va'era 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

 One word for ‘redemption’ – פדת – is often translated as ‘distinction.’ Rabbi Sholom of Belz (as quoted by Rabbi Scheinbaum in his Peninim Al HaTorah vol 14 – all quotes below are from Rabbi Scheinbaum) noted that the word פדת appears three times in Tanakh. The first is in our parsha, 8:19, when a distinction is made between the Israelites and the Egyptians in a plague of Arov. The second is in Tehillim 111:9 – referencing a redemption that came upon His people. The third is in Tehillim 130 – Shir Hama'alos Mima'amakim – כי עם ה' החסד והרבה עמו פדת – with Him (God) is kindness, and abundant redemption. 

He suggested that these three forms of redemption correspond with three different kinds of galus - three kinds of feelings of exile. 

 The first is the most obvious, when a Jew is exiled among non-Jews. Unfortunately, we often lose sight of the reality of this exile, because we become so comfortable in our own existence that we don’t think about the fact that we are in galus. Even though we have our shuls and our schools and our kosher stores and restaurants, and we can walk around in most places freely, openly Jewish, the fact is that our focus is not even close to 100% on Torah pursuits. 

Torah pursuits would include living in the land of Israel, working the land to fulfill all mitzvos associated with the land. It would also include mindful and intentional living to focus on our relationship with God through Torah study and mitzvah fulfillment. We are all very distracted from what should be our pursuits in what should be our God-focused goals in life. This is an outgrowth of being in a non-Jewish culture, with all its bells and whistles and technology. 

The second kind of exile is the one imposed by a Jew on another Jew. “When Jews disparage and hurt each other verbally, and even physically, we have a bitter galus that is far worse than when the persecution is directed at us by gentiles.” We need look no further at the division in Israel pre October 7 and how enemies of our people used that division to their advantage. But it is more important for us to consider if we ever engage in that kind of disparagement towards others – perhaps because of varying ways we disagree with one another in politics, in life choices, in how we diet, make medical decisions. It would be a beautiful utopia if everyone agreed about everything and every life-path chosen worked for everyone. But then we’d be robots, not human, and we would be missing so much of the beauty that comes with seeing others for who they are, and even learning from their perspectives and their ways – even if our own path works for us at this time. 

 This kind of exile is demonstrated through simply seeing another as “the other” and not seeing the soul of the person who is worthy of respect. [I have different words for actual criminals who hurt people and ruin their lives.] If our shared collective goal is to serve God and to be among people who share a commitment to the same Torah, and if there are many recognized paths for how to achieve those goals, then it doesn’t seem that this kind of exile – pinning ourselves against ourselves – needs to be an exile we ought to want to stay in. 

 The third kind of exile is the Jew who is in exile within himself. “The Jew who has no control over himself is in a deep exile. He can ascend from the depths of his self-inflicted exile only through his own efforts. It takes courage, strength, faith and incredible siyata dishmaya (assistance from heaven)…” 

We pray for this daily in the blessing of ראה נא וענינו, which is largely viewed as a blessing asking God to heal us from our spiritual maladies and ailments. It’s more to give us a Refuas HaNefesh – a healing of the soul, before we even approach the healing of the body. 

A body can usually heal relatively quickly. A tormented soul can take years to heal, if ever. 

We find that when Moshe appears on the scene in our Parsha, long after the people believed he had been sent by God at the end of Chapter 4, that they aren’t listening to him. While it is clear that their work is getting in their way of being able to pay attention – ולא שמעו אל משה מקצר רוח ומעבודה קשה – the fact that they had believed Moshe was sent by God seems to have been forgotten. 

This is the downside of being in a personal exile within oneself. 

 Viktor Frankl famously observed that those who had the best chance of survival in a concentration camp were those who had not only not given up on life but had things to look forward to. Some may have had a family member they believed was alive and whom they’d find after the war. Some had research to do, books to write, songs to compose. On the other side, he noted that when he was in Auschwitz at the end of 1944, the highest concentration of natural deaths were at the end of 1944, among people who had help out hope that they’d return home for Christman or New Years. (Obviously he’s not only talking about Jewish prisoners.) 

And so we are reminded that there are many things that can drag us into a personal exile. Some people are distraught over the war in Israel. We get a shot in the heart every time we hear of the falling of another holy, precious, beautiful IDF soldier. Some people have family members who are ill or ailing. Some people have trouble with a child or grandchild, or with an elderly parent whose care has become a particular challenge. 

 The strength of community is found when we gather, and when we give ourselves the chance to share our difficulties and our challenges. 

 For Moshe, who went through his own struggles of acceptance in Pharaoh’s eyes and in the eyes of the people, as well as his own development in his relationship with God, life was clearly a journey that included much struggle and ended with the most incredible relationship with God. Even his relationship to the people evolved from being a stranger to their greatest advocate, defender and protector. 

 May we work our way through the self-imposed personal exile, through the exile of not getting along, and may God help us through the final exile of struggling with enemy nations who remain hell-bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. May He do to them as He did to Egypt – deliver us from their evil plans so they may not bother us again for the remainder of time.

Your Burdens, and Other Deeds and Actions of Value

Parshat Shemot 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

When Moshe and Aharon show up in chapter 5 to speak with Pharaoh, it is easy to see how Pharaoh would be utterly confused by their presence. Here are two people, one of whom is known to be from the tribe of Levi, a tribe which is not enslaved, and the other is his apparent brother, who hasn’t been in Egypt in quite some time, and together they are demanding that the slaves be released for some religious excursion? It could very well be that the Israelites have never even expressed any kind of religious fervor, so the request is further coming out of left field! 

Malbim analyzes Pharaoh’s response, which came after the clarification that “we are asking for a 3-day journey into the wilderness,” in which Pharaoh said “Why, Moshe and Aharon, are you interrupting (תפריעו) the people (העם) from their activities? Go back to your own burdens (לסבלותיכם)!” And in the next verse, he tells them they don’t have to go to their burdens any longer, because the עם הארץ is numerous. A strange, and very quick, turnaround!

 In the Midrash, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi notes that the tribe of Levi were not subjected to slavery, so Pharaoh was essentially noting, “It is because you guys don’t have slave-labor that you are asking to bring offerings to your god. Now, go to your own burdens [in other words, it's time for you to be enslaved too].” 

Malbim notes that there is a distinction between עם and עם הארץ. עם הארץ are the poor and lower tier of Hebrews, and there is a clear difference between their deeds (מעשיו) and other burdens (סבלות). מעשיו refers to different kinds of work which are engaging in mainstream commerce, while working in one’s house and field. סבלות is the very difficult work (slave labor) that is done for the king. 

 There is also a difference between one who is מפריע and one who is משבית. The משבית is trying to cancel something which is permanent – such as backbreaking slave labor, which is a constant and an ongoing task. The מפריע is someone who is just interrupting other kinds of (non slave labor) tasks, such as the workings of a household. 

 It was not the case that all of Am Yisrael were engaged in the backbreaking slave labor. The “tax” that Pharaoh ordered in Chapter 1 was that a certain number of people would be engaged in the labor force, a force populated by the עם הארץ. Everyone else was otherwise concerned with their own projects, their own house and field and other business, and they are referred to as עם. 

 The tribe of Levi, which includes Moshe and Aharon, were not subject to slave-labor. When Moshe came to talk to the people about the coming redemption בודאי לא בא אל עם הארץ שהם העובדים בעבודת פרך – he certainly did not come to the Am HaAretz, those engaged in the most difficult slave labor. 

 Malbim is suggesting that Moshe and Aharon initially would not have had the opportunity to engage those most heavily enslaved in conversation. Thus when Pharaoh said “Why, Moshe and Aharon…” it is odd that he addressed them by name, when he could have just said “Why [leave out names] are you trying to מפריע the עם from מעשיו?” 

Really, he’s suggesting, Pharaoh was asking two questions: 

1. Why, Moshe and Aharon…? Meaning, what is it your business? Aren’t you free from labor? Why are you engaging in a fight that is not yours? 

2. Why are you even bothering with the needs of the עם - the not enslaved? Why should they be taken away from their daily concerns (מעשיו), for them to waste their time with your shenanigans? 

This is why he said “לכו לסבלותיכם” – go engage with your burdens – suggesting that their impertinence will now lead to Moshe, Aharon, and their tribe to now be subject to סבלות, the backbreaking labor from which they had been, until this time, exempt. 

 However, Pharaoh quickly backtracked this decree when he had the following thought process, when he realized that these two זקנים (elders), Moshe and Aharon, had divine protection. He asked “What will I gain if I put these two elders along with the rest of the עם הארץ (a.k.a. his slaves)? They will cause unrest and they will prevent those people from doing their work which is the labor I need! Yes, they are stopping (מפריעים) the עם from engaging in their מעשים, but the עם הארץ (actual slaves) are far more numerous, and any interruption there will cause havoc among my most important projects that are reliant on slave labor.” 

This explains why in the verse which immediately follows the declaration that you should לכו לסבלותיכם, go to your burdens, we see this: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֔ה הֵן־רַבִּ֥ים עַתָּ֖ה עַ֣ם הָאָ֑רֶץ וְהִשְׁבַּתֶּ֥ם אֹתָ֖ם מִסִּבְלֹתָֽם: “And Pharaoh said, the עם הארץ are too many. You should rest from your סבלות obligations.” 

Malbim’s analysis hinges on a couple of words and phrases which seem similar or the same in the text, but whose subtle differences helps us understand far more about Egyptian society at that time, and about Pharaoh’s own personality. He may have sometimes seemed to be impulsive (as some kings tend to be), but he was also very much aware of his economy, how it was working, and how it’s not always a good idea to enslave everyone. There are other areas of society that need people to work, beyond construction. 

There need to be farmers, and dairy farmers, and those who tend to households (handymen), and every kind of trade under the sun, in order for a society to flourish. We are well aware (or should at least acknowledge) that the Israelites had their own homes, their own cattle and sheep, their own land, etc. in all their time in Egypt. Aside from paying attention to their growth in Egypt, we need merely think about how when the plagues come, Pharaoh is often checking to see if the Israelites suffered the same fate as his own people – whether their homes were affected by frogs and lice and animals, whether their cattle died, whether their fields were impacted by the hail and locusts, etc. 

 We see that everyone who is making a contribution to society has a role and a place. While in Egypt that distinction was of who would be a full-on-slave or who would have some other difficult life to navigate in other tasks that were also necessary for the Israelite community to flourish and thrive. 

It seems that some people surely had an “easier” life than others, but this is not to suggest that life at this point in Egypt was good for anyone. Those who were not enslaved may have had to see that there was ample food for everyone. They may have had to dig the latrines and outhouses and make sure that ancillary needs were taken care of, because those engaged in slave labor had no time for anything other than their slave labor. 

 It doesn’t take much to be a contributing member in a society. It simply takes doing tasks that others are not doing, that need to get done. Hopefully we can all always feel that we are doing something that is of benefit not only to ourselves, but to others as well. This is true at the very least in our homes, and certainly in our community and shul, and in any effort we make on behalf of other Jews, whether in our local area, or across the world in Israel.