Antisemitism is on the top of every Jew’s mind. We complain about it. We call out those who do nothing to stop it. We have an issue with everyone who is silent, except with ourselves. We may feel good about ourselves because we are talking about it. However, in a moment of self-reflection, we know that it is not enough to just talk. Many people want to do more, but they simply don’t know what is required of them, perhaps because we don’t truly understand what antisemitism really is, and why it rattles us the way that it does.
To move forward, It is helpful to look at the history of the Jewish people, to learn how our enemies acted and how we responded.
The first recorded hateful acts against our people is found in this week’s Torah portion, Shemot. The story is told of how a new king rose to power, and that he did not know who Joseph was. Whether he really didn’t know all the good that Joseph did, or he deliberately turned his back on the Jews, is an ongoing conversation. What we do know is that over time, life became worse for the Jews during his reign. Reading into the verses of the Torah, we learn that it took a period of about thirty years for things to end as they did.
At the beginning of his reign, Pharaoh requested of the Jews to volunteer to build the cities of Pitom and Ramses. Then it became their responsibility, and then later they were required to make the bricks from scratch. Pharaoh finally forced the Jews to gather the materials needed for making these bricks. As the burden become unbearable for the Jews, G-d finally said that it was time to step in and redeem the Jewish people.
The rest is history.
Let’s delve deeper into the burden that the Jews carried and the hidden inspiration that they found within their suffering.
The term “bricks” is not random. Bricks are fabricated by people from the beginning to the end. Since the king didn’t care about the cost of labor, why did he have the Jews create bricks when he could have forced them to cut rocks for building the cities—especially since stone is better quality than bricks.
Spiritually speaking, there is a deeper message here.
Bricks are made from the earth, a mixture of mud and straw. These are cheap materials. There is nothing fancy to be found in the mixture. They are made from the lowest materials that can be found.
The Jews too, felt that way. They felt stripped of their dignity and their pride. All the years that they invested in Egypt, putting in their effort to make Egypt a successful country, was taken away from them. They become slaves. But what they did not lose was their identity. They knew who they were. The forced labor encouraged them to look deep within themselves to find purpose and meaning. Mud and straw may look meaningless, but they were able to transform those materials into bricks.
The same thinking process applied to their identity. They took pride in being Jews. When given the mitzvah of preparing the Pascal lamb and matzah—forbidden by the Egyptians at that time—they jumped in and did it, knowing full well that they were risking their lives.
This is a lesson for us to take today. Let’s embrace a mitzvah. Don’t be shy about it and let others know. When we strengthen our Jewish identity collectively, the world will back off, just as the Egyptians did.
Shabbat Shalom