The Jew in Exile: What Yaakov's Meeting With Pharaoh Can Teach Us

Rabbi Shmulevitz Z"L, of blessed memory, taught an interesting message about this week's parsha; Yaakov lost a year of his life for every negative word he uttered when Pharaoh asked him how old he was. Yaakov, who was supposed to live 180 years like his father Yitzhak, summarily lost 33 years of his life for depicting a negative narrative of his life. And thus, he lived 147 years, and not the 180 years he was supposed to. As Rav Shmulevitz teaches, the numbers, though, don't add up - the words related to Yaakov amount to only 25, whereas Pharaoh himself uttered 8 words. With that in mind, Rav Shmulevitz teaches that the righteous are held accountable for even the negative impressions they invoke others; Yaakov, melancholy and possibly downcast upon being taken away from his home, unintentionally and unwittingly caused Pharaoh to wonder as to the source of Yaakov's sadness. 

If I may, though, I would like to focus on a different message I see here, a message that I think bears something positive for our experience of life in Israel and the morass of exile. In Yaakov's response to Pharaoh, in a sense, he was also putting him in place. He certainly benefitted much from his largesse and as such blessed him, but that notwithstanding, Yaakov's message is a very clear one: "My years in the land of my fathers (the land of Israel) were fewer than those my fathers merited," and because of that, Yaakov adds, "I am sad."

There is something, unique and pure about Yaakov's candor. The same way Yitzhak responded to Avimelech and his general, Pichol when they sought a truce - "But you have hated me all of your days," likewise, Yaakov doesn't mince words and tells Pharaoh that while he is grateful for Pharaoh's munificence and generosity, he would rather have not been brought to exile. 

Yaakov, considered by most to be the greatest of the forefathers for exemplifying the attribute of truth, synthesizing Avraham's kindness and Yitzhak's stalwart spirituality, was, at this historical moment, sharing a message for generations to come. The Egyptians of old worshipped death almost more than life; life was in essence, preparation for death, mummification and the like. Idols were made to supplicate the Gods so that you would be provided for in the afterworld. Special amulets were affixed to idols, with prayers uniquely designated for each of one's future needs, clothing, food, etc. It could very well be that the Egyptian worship of the material caused them to in truth forego any pursuit of what was genuinely spiritual. The Egyptians, for example, worshipped the beetle, because they thought it regenerated itself from nothingness, almost like immaculate conception. Egyptians saw beetles growing out of dung and thus worshipped their mysterious regenerative powers; little did they know that beetles laid their eggs in dung. 

To summarize, it would seem that perhaps there was something negative of sorts in Yaakov's intonation - and the very denotation of his words, but it could be that the very paradigm he set, i.e. eschewing Egypt's material wealth, and seeing in Israel alone "the land of the living", the land of any worth, whereas exile, as a place with no ultimate hope, and no true worth, was precisely that which gave our people hope throughout the long years of Egyptian bondage. That after all is the exemplar of exile for our people - like Yosef, and like Mordechai, who both helped their respective countries advance themselves economically, Yosef concentrating all of the country's wealth, and Mordechai, imposing larger taxes and enriching the royal coffers at the end of the Megilla. Jews can be advisors, can help advance countries' prospects but their true goal is to advance their own people, to seek a better Jewish future, which is what Yosef and Mordechai both did, paving the way through their economic standing for the ultimate return of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael. 

Joe Lieberman, formerly the Democratic VP nominee, said that if forced to decide he would put America first, not Israel, which is the antithesis of the Jewish way. For if Jews can pull any strings, it is only for the betterment of their people; and if they think to do otherwise, like Mordechai told Esther, "For if you persist in keeping silent at a time like this, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, while you and your father's house will perish." 

Perhaps best said by Menachem Begin when Joe Biden, then a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tried to bully him into kowtowing to American pressure: "We've been around a few thousand years. We'll get along just fine without you."