Them Could Be Us
In a remarkable, and startling, and as well unsettling, comment on the ninth plague of darkness, the rabbis teach:
The rabbis write that there were Jews who loved Egypt and wanted to stay. They were not slaves like the majority of their brethren. Instead they enriched themselves through their people’s slavery.
The rabbis know history. They understand human beings. Evildoers can only achieve their evil ends if they have accomplices. Among the persecuted one often finds collaborators. This was Hannah Arendt’s controversial insight about the Holocaust.
Sometimes we are responsible for our own slavery.
At the Passover Seder we read: “In every generation one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt.”
In order to go free we must contemplate what enslaves us. How do we enslave ourselves?
How are we accomplices to our own oppression?
In answering this question, we may discover the secret to our own redemption.
Addendum:
In normal circumstances I would be rooting for the team that has a 98-year-old, and saintly, religious figure on its side, especially one whose motto is, “Worship, Work and Win.” but not this year. Go Blue!
Why did the Holy One bring darkness upon the Egyptians? Because there were wicked ones among the Israelites who had Egyptian patrons. They enjoyed great wealth and honor and did not want to leave Egypt. The Holy One said: if I bring a plague upon them publicly and they die, the Egyptians will say, “What happened to us happened to them as well.” Therefore, God brought three days of darkness upon the Egyptians so that the Israelites would bury their dead without their enemies seeing them and for this they should praise God. (Exodus Rabbah)When we typically write history, we tell the stories of us versus them. We are good. They are evil. The Israelites are all innocent. They are the victims. The Egyptians are evil. They are all oppressors. This is not oftentimes how the real world operates. History becomes confused with myth.
The rabbis write that there were Jews who loved Egypt and wanted to stay. They were not slaves like the majority of their brethren. Instead they enriched themselves through their people’s slavery.
The rabbis know history. They understand human beings. Evildoers can only achieve their evil ends if they have accomplices. Among the persecuted one often finds collaborators. This was Hannah Arendt’s controversial insight about the Holocaust.
Sometimes we are responsible for our own slavery.
At the Passover Seder we read: “In every generation one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt.”
In order to go free we must contemplate what enslaves us. How do we enslave ourselves?
How are we accomplices to our own oppression?
In answering this question, we may discover the secret to our own redemption.
Addendum:
In normal circumstances I would be rooting for the team that has a 98-year-old, and saintly, religious figure on its side, especially one whose motto is, “Worship, Work and Win.” but not this year. Go Blue!