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B"H Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi
D'var Torah on Ki Tavo
The Past and Future of Egypt
In the Book of Exodus, God tells the Israelites:
You have seen the Egyptians today, but you shall not see them again, ever. [Ex. 14:13]
Later in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds Israel of that commandment:
The Lord has said to you: 'From now on, you will not return to [Egypt]'. [Deut. 17:16]
In this week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo, the Israelites hear that commandment for the third
time:
You shall not see [Egypt] anymore. [Deut. 28:68]
The message is clear: We are not to return to Egypt and live there. In time, this was
codified into the 601th commandment of Judaism:
"You will never again dwell permanently in the Land of Egypt.",
a commandment that, sadly, I broke the moment I was born, since I hail from Egypt.
Actually, in spite of this commandment, Jews have lived in Egypt, and even flourished there,
since biblical times. But today, for the first time ever, Egypt is practically judenrein,
free of Jews. I was one of the last Jews to leave.
Egypt is very much in the news today, and has been since their revolution of January
2011, still underway two and half years later. Today, every pundit and his uncle is a self-styled
expert on Egypt, and will give you an in-depth opinion about what's going on there and what
it means. Me, I am not a pundit. I am only an uncle. Many times over. But I was born
and raised in Egypt, until I was forced out in 1967, after the Six-Day War, when I was
eighteen. So I may be able to give you some insights.
God took the Jews out of Egypt 3,500 years ago, freeing them from slavery and sending
them on to begin a new chapter in their march through history, as a proud and free people.
But what about the Egypt they left behind? Did it ever get free? No, never. To this day,
it has always remained enslaved by masters foreign and domestic. Are the Egyptians condemned
to perpetual retribution for enslaving the Jews? Or has their time finally arrived to
"proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof" [Lev. 25:10],
in the middle of the massive demonstrations we have been watching on TV for almost three
years?
First, why should we care what happens to Egypt? We are happy to be out of it, we are
happy to be rid of it. But we are commanded to remember Egypt every single day. The Torah
says:
Remember the day when you came out of the Land of Egypt all the days of your life. [Deut.
16:3].
The Talmud reinforced this message [Berachot 12b]. The Passover Haggadah adds that in every
generation, every person must consider that he, himself, was personally rescued from Egypt.
(That's easy for me to say.) The Exodus from Egypt is highlighted at the Kiddush for every
Shabbat and holiday eve: Zecher litziat Mitzrayim. Egypt is where we truly became a people, where
we received the Torah. We are not allowed to keep Egypt out of our collective consciousness.
We are linked to it, by history and proximity, if nothing else.
So what can we say about Egypt today? Egyptians have a long history of being passive, fearful.
They are afraid to speak their mind. They may tell you in private what you want to hear,
but in public they will go with the flow, out of fear. You are never sure what they
really think. They fear their leaders and the police state that keeps those leaders
in power. What has been happening in the streets of Egypt for three years is totally unprecedented
in their 5,000-year recorded history. The people are demanding a voice in determining
their future. They have already caused the Army to depose two totalitarian rulers, Mubarak
and Morsi, the first secular and the second Islamic, and have publicly reviled them, to
their faces, with astonishing vehemence. This has never happened before.
Let us briefly review the history of Egypt before we proceed:
-First, the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were in charge, all absolute rulers with absolute
power over the people. The people, then as now, were mostly dirt-poor peasants. The Pharaohs
were backed by the priests, whose job was to scare the people into submission, by threatening
the wrath of the many false gods that were worshipped.
-Recorded history can be said to begin with the Pharaoh Menes, who united Upper and Lower
Egypt in 3000 BCE, 5,000 years ago.
-By the time Cleopatra ruled in the first century BCE, Ancient Egypt was already moribund.
It was conquered by Alexander-the-so-called-Great in 331 BCE. He built the city of Alexandria
in his name and image. The Greeks -- or Ptolemies, as they called themselves in Egypt -- were
the masters for three centuries.
-Then the Romans took over from them for about four centuries.
-When the Roman Empire split, the Byzantines took over Egypt in 395 and kept it for another
three centuries.
-Then Islam was born. The foreign Arabs conquered Egypt in 639 and ruled it for six centuries,
up to about the middle of the 13th century. The Egyptians of today are mostly the descendants
of these invaders. The Ancient Egyptians morphed into the Christian Copts, and declined in
proportion to become only about 10% of the population today.
-The Mamluks then took over Egypt in 1250 and held it for some three centuries. They
were former slaves from Russia and the Caucasus who converted to Islam.
-They were followed by the Turks, or Ottomans, for another three centuries.
-Even Napoleon tried his hand at conquering Egypt. He came in 1798, but after three years
gave up and withdrew, leaving a power vacuum.
-That vacuum was quickly filled in 1805 by an Albanian commander by the name of Muhammad
Ali. He managed to gain some autonomy from the Ottoman Empire and ruled Egypt ruthlessly
as viceroy, along with his descendants, for a century and a half. His descendants ruled
under the colorful names of khedive, sultan, and finally king.
-In 1882, some thirteen years after the Suez Canal opened, the British invaded, ostensibly
to protect that vital waterway and ensure the stability of the Egyptian dynasty. They
became the de facto rulers for many decades.
All this time, the poor Egyptian people watched their foreign masters, helplessly, licking
boots and trying to survive by being as servile as possible.
-Then the 1952 revolution came and brought Nasser to power. It was not a grass-roots
event. It was a bloodless palace coup. The Army simply came and told the king, "Your
time is up. Get out!" Nobody consulted the common people. As expected, they cheered Nasser
with the same gusto as they cheered King Farouk a few years earlier.
It's true that for the first time since the Pharaohs, the Egyptians were now ruled by
one of their own. But "ruled" is the right word. The new rulers proved to be every bit
as totalitarian and oppressive as their foreign predecessors. Democracy was never part of
their vocabulary. Maintaining themselves in power was their foremost concern. Nevertheless,
human nature is such that, if you are going to be ruled with an iron hand, better that
it be by one of your own than by a foreigner, so the Egyptian people felt better in that
regard.
Most Egyptians are tolerant, good-natured, kind-hearted, and not fundamentally antisemitic.
But their leaders and preachers frequently encourage antisemitism. There are three sources
of antisemitism in Egypt: The Islamic fundamentalists, the intellectuals, and the Coptic Church.
-The Islamic fundamentalists have always opposed peace with Israel and have vowed to abrogate
the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. They support terrorism and view Jews in the most outrageously
negative of terms, which I will not repeat here.
-The intellectuals are whipping up antagonism towards Jews and Israel through the media.
They know that if war comes, they can always get out of fighting on the battlefield by
pulling the appropriate levers. They speak bravely of "honor", as long as others do the
fighting and the suffering and the dying. The government has always given them a free
rein as a safety valve.
-And the Coptic Church is stuck in a medieval interpretation of Christianity from which
the rest of official Christianity has been moving away. I remember shivers going down
my spine when I heard the Coptic pope on the radio in 1967, right before the Six-Day War,
when war frenzy was whipping up the masses. He said, "The time has finally come when the
Jews will pay, and their sons will pay, for the crucifixion of Christ". He spat out the
word "pay" with great anger. To be sure, not all Copts are antisemitic, and some may even
feel favorable towards Jews, but the message from their leaders has always been one of
hostility.
But the three of them together do not add up to a majority. The Copts are only 10% of
the population and are always at odds with the Muslim majority. Religious clashes are
becoming more frequent, with churches being bombed and scores ending up dead or injured.
Numerically, the intellectuals are but frosting on the cake. And the core Muslim fundamentalists
are significant in numbers, some estimate 20%, but still a minority.
Corruption and nepotism are rampant and a way of life. You may find that to get a driver's
license, you have to slip the examiner a fifty-dollar bill. But that's not the worst part. The worst
part is that bad drivers are driving around. If you want a good job, who you are and who
you know are more important than what you can do. But that's not the worst part. The
worst part is that incompetents are frequently in charge of things. All that is not likely
to change soon.
So how do I personally see the future of Egypt? First, let us answer the earlier question
I posed: Is Egypt under a perpetual curse for enslaving the Jews? The prophet Isaiah
says:
[God said:] I will spur Egypt against Egypt; and every one shall fight against his brother,
and everyone against his neighbor... I will give the Egyptians to the hand of a cruel
lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, said the Lord... [Their] princes... are utter
fools; the wisest advisors of Pharaoh are a senseless counsel... They shall cry to the
Lord because of the oppressors, and He will [eventually] send them a savior, and a defender,
who will deliver them... [After] the Lord smites Egypt, [Egypt] shall return to the
Lord, and He will... heal them... In that day, [God will bless] Israel, Egypt and Assyria,
saying: "Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.
[Isaiah 19:1-25]
So no, Egypt is not under a perpetual curse. Isaiah tells us that, after much punishment
and internal infighting, Egypt will eventually see the light and be blessed. But Isaiah does
not say when that will happen.
But back to the present. It should be plain to all that the Army is still in charge, and
always has been since 1952. This will not go away. They will continue to be the kingmakers,
allowing the people to freely elect civilian presidents as long as these presidents do
not stray too far from what they perceive as the "good of the country". They will oust
any president, elected or not, if the people do not want him, as expressed by mammoth,
overwhelming street demonstrations involving millions of people. That is how Mubarak went,
that is how Morsi went, and that is how the Army intends to keep it.
For now, Egyptians feel free to speak their mind, after mindlessly cheering whoever was
in power for 5,000 years, out of fear. The reason is that, for the first time, they do
not know which way the wind will blow. In the 2012 presidential election, half voted
for the Islamists (and many came to regret it) and half voted for the seculars. So since
it is not clear to them which way the country will go, they feel they might as well express
their true opinion.
As the Egyptians collectively decide their own future, for the first time in their long
recorded history, they would do well to remember the promise made to Abraham in his very first
encounter with the Divine:
I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.
[Gen. 12:3].
As history has shown repeatedly, that promise will be kept. Whether it's the United States
of America in the blessing, or Nazi Germany in the curse, or Spain in the blessing followed
by the curse depending on how they behaved, that promise will be kept. If the Egyptians
choose to move in the direction of cursing the Jews, they may well find themselves right
where they were before.
Or lower.
Shabbat shalom.