AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE

By Rabbi Joshua (Consentingly known as the Hoffer) Hoffman

The Torah tells us that before sending Moshe and Aharon on their mission, G-d spoke to them and commanded them concerning Bnei Yisroel and Pharaoh, to take the Jews out of Egypt (Shemos 6:13). The command concerning Pharaoh was clear, but what was the command in regard to the Bnei Yisroel? Various commentators have offered different suggestions, but perhaps the most interesting one is that of the Yerushalmi in the third chapter of Rosh HaShanah, which says that the Bnei Yisroel were commanded to free their slaves. This explanation is quite puzzling because, ostensibly, it would only have relevance once the nation had the ability to own slaves and the laws of slaves were in operation, which would not occur until the nation received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. What, then, was the meaning of this command given in Egypt?

We have mentioned in the past the explanation of Rabbi Meir Juzint, zt”l, who served as assistant dean of students at the Hebrew Theological Seminary at Skokie, Illinois. He said that the Hebrew Israelite slaves were so downtrodden that they came to believe that they would never become free. Therefore, Moshe and Aharon told them that, in the future, they would be commanded to free their slaves, and if they had the ability to grant freedom to others they must also have the ability to become free themselves.

Rabbi Juzint’s explanation of the Yerushalmi can accord with the comment of Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Hakohein Kook in his commentary to the Haggadah of Pesach. He says there that when the farmer brings his first fruits to the Temple and recounts what happened to the Jews in Egypt, as recorded in Parshas Ki Savo, he says of the Egyptians “Va-YaRayu Osanu” which is usually translated as they did evil to us. However, if that was its meaning then it should have said “Va-Yarayu Lanu.” The word “Osanu” refers to what the Egyptians did to us, and the phrase therefore, according to Rav Kook, means that they made us think that we were evil and therefore deserved the treatment we were receiving. In order to relieve the slaves of this inferiority complex, then, it was necessary to teach them, according to Rav Juzint’s explanation of the Yerushalmi, that in the future they would engage in the freeing of their own slaves.

Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk in his Meshech Chochmah, however, understands the Yerushalmi in its simple sense, as having immediate application to the Jews in Egypt and says that there were, in fact, some Jews in Egypt who owned Jewish slaves. These Jewish slave owners were, then, being commanded to free these slaves. Following this explanation, something very interesting emerges.

One of the main purposes of the exile in Egypt, as Rav Yosef Dov Solovetichik zt”l has pointed out, was to develop an ethical responsibility among the Jews, to make them into rachmanim, people of compassion, as the Torah tells us repeatedly, that we should not mistreat the stranger as we were strangers in Egypt, and we understand his soul, having been strangers ourselves. According to the Meshech Chochmah, this lesson of compassion that we learned in Egypt, applies not only to the stranger who comes to us from the outside, but to one’s fellow Jew as well. This idea is brought out very starkly by Rabbeinu Yonah in his Sha’arei Teshuva (3:60) in his explanation of the verse in Parshas Behar (25:46). The Torah tells us there “And your brethren, the children of Israel, a man to his brother he shall not subjugate with hard labor (avodas perech).” Although this verse appears in the context of the laws of a Hebrew slave owned by a Jew, Rabbeinu Yonah explains it as applying to all Jews, and says that it is prohibited to tell someone to do something for you if he really doesn’t want to do it and only complies out of fear or embarrassment to refuse.

Although, Rav Asher Weiss in his Minchas Asher, writes that what Rabbeinu Yonah writes is not normative halacha but rather a middas chasidus or extra measure of piety, my teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik zt”l took it very seriously and would always tell whoever he asked for a favor that he should only do it if he really wanted to. In this way, he internalized the message of the exile in Egypt, to become compassionate people, not only in regard to those who come to us from the outside, but in regard to each and every Jew as well.