The Hunger

By Rabbi Joshua (hungrily known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In this week's parsha, we read of the famine that came to the Land of Canaan and which led Avrohom to leave the land and go down to Egypt, taking his wife Soroh and his household with him. As they approached Egypt, Avrohom asked Soroh to tell people there that she is his sister, as a means of protection. When they reach Egypt, Soroh is taken to the house of Pharaoh. Eventually, through divine intervention, Pharaoh realizes he has acted wrongly, and decides to return her to Avrohom, and to give them gifts as compensation for the wrong he had done. He tells him to take his wife and leave, but commands some men to accompany them on their way out. This entire sequence of events is considered as one of Avrohom's ten tests. Since the mishneh in Avos tells us that Avrohom passed all of his tests, we would expect the commentators to say that he did the right thing by going down to Egypt in face of the flood. However, as we shall see, this is not in fact, the case.

Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, the Ramban, in his commentary to the Torah, writes that Avrohom did a great sin, inadvertently, when he put his wife in danger, and also sinned by going down to Egypt. Rather, says the Ramban, he should have relied on God to provide for him, and stayed in the land of Canaan. Many commentators disagree with this opinion of the Ramban. A primary opponent of his opinion is the Maharal of Prague, who says that, although there are many different opinions among the rabbis concerning why the Jewish people went into exile in Egypt, there is no source for the Ramban's explanation. Actually however, a number of recent writers, among them the late Rabbi Chaim Elazari, in his commentary Nesivei Chaim, say that the source of the Ramban is a statement in the Zohar, which says that Avrohom went down to Egypt without permission, and that because he did, his descendants went into exile there. There is another possible source for the Ramban, in a non- kabbalistic text, that I would like to explore.

My dear friend and mentor, Rabbi Bezalel Naor (see www.orot.com), in his volume Ben Shonoh Shaul, cites a Talmudic passage, in Sotah 46b, which says that because of the four steps that Pharaoh took in accompanying Avrohom out of Egypt, as reflected in the command he gave to send people with him, he was able to enslave Avrohom's children in Egypt for four hundred years. Rabbi Naor notes that the Maharsha, in his commentary to the Talmud, has great difficulty with this passage. Why, he asks, should Avraham be punished for something that Pharaoh did? According to the Ramban, however, argues Rabbi Naor, the passage makes sense, because it was only due to Avrohom's descent to Egypt and his placing of his wife in danger that the situation which arose that would bring Pharaoh to accompany Avrohom out of the country. Since these actions of Avrohom were, according to the Ramban, sins, the subjugation of his descendants that came as a result of these acts can be viewed as a result of those sins. I would like to offer a somewhat different and expanded explanation of how Pharaoh's actions were attributed to Avrohom and brought about the subjugation of his descendants.

Why does a person accompany someone else when he goes on a trip? The rabbis tell us that the person is thereby protected from possible mishaps on the way, such as robbery and violent attacks. The fact that Pharaoh felt a need to offer this kind of protection to Avrohom indicates that Avrohom did not project a sense of confidence in God that would preclude any need for outside protection. The Ramban in fact says that Avrohom's descent into Egypt in face of the famine was wrong because he should have relied on God to provide for his household and him. Apparently, then, this lack of trust was sensed by Pharaoh, and he therefore provided Avrohom and his entourage with the protection he needed. As Rabbi Elazari points out, in defending the Ramban's opinion, an average person would not be required to exhibit such a high level of trust in God, and would have been completely justified in leaving Egypt because of the famine. Avrohom, however, needed to exhibit a much higher level of trust. His failure to do so thus generated the need for his descendants to be enslaved in Egypt, an experience that helped develop their trust in God's providence.

Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) at the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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