As Parashat Shemot, and therefore the Book of Exodus, opens, the Hebrew family have been in Egypt for well over a century. This exile, long-since promised to their ancestor Abraham (Genesis 15:13), had begun very auspiciously with Joseph inviting his father and brothers to come down to Egypt to live in royal splendour and luxury (Genesis Chapters 45-46).
Egypt set the paradigm for all future exiles: it began wonderfully - and descended into oppression, slavery, and outright genocide:
“A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph, and he said to his nation: See - the nation of the Children of Israel are more numerous and mightier than we are; come, let’s outsmart it, lest they become too many, and then, if there’s a war, it too will side with our enemies and fight against us, and go up out from the country" (Exodus 1:8-10).
The Talmud (Eiruvin 53a and Sotah 11a) and the Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 1:8 and Sechel Tov, Shemot 2:10) record two different interpretations of the phrase “a new king":
Rav (a 1st-generation Babylonian Amora, a disciple of Rabbi Yehudah the Prince) understands it literally, a new king.
Shmuel (also a 1st-generation Babylonian Amora, also a disciple of Rabbi Yehudah the Prince), however, interprets it to mean that the same king enacted new decrees. He argues that had there been literally a new king, then the Torah would have introduced him by saying that “the king died", as it does in Exodus 2:23. Therefore he posits that the old king did not die.
So according to Shmuel, the king “became as one who did not know Joseph". That is to say, he pretended not to know Joseph. He knew perfectly well who Joseph was and all the benefits that he had brought Egypt - but he deliberately ignored all those in order to persecute Joseph’s nation.
One widely-held theory is that the Pharaoh who had released Joseph from prison and elevated to be his second-in-command was Amenhotep IV - one of the most powerful Pharaohs of the mighty 18th Dynasty, the Pharaoh who reformed Egyptian religion, abolished its rampant idolatry, and replaced it worship solely of the sun. Therefore Pharaoh Amenhotep IV changed his name to Ekhanaton, meaning “Glory of the Sun".
Certainly not the pure monotheism which Joseph represented, but still a huge step in the right direction. One idol is better than hundreds, and could have been just one step away from recognising the One true G-d.
However the Egyptian masses hated Ekhanaton and his religious reforms, and when he died, the subsequent Pharaohs restored all the old Egyptian pantheon.
So it is eminently consistent with known Egyptian history for the new Pharaoh to have erased Joseph’s and Ekhanaton’s achievements: indeed “a new king…who did not know Joseph". A new regime, a new dynasty, which believed that it owed no loyalty whatsoever to these foreign Hebrews.
However, the Torah does not depict “a new king who pretended not to know Joseph". It is unequivocal that “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph".
And so I suggest a radically new and different understanding:
וַיָּקָם מֶלֶךְ חָדָשׁ עַל מִצְרָיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדַע אֶת יוֹסֵף:
“A new king arose over an Egypt which did not know Joseph". Of course this new Pharaoh knew exactly who Joseph was and all he had done for Egypt. It was Egypt, the nation, the masses, “who did not know Joseph".
I find support for this interpretation in the Midrash:
“Why did they call him ‘a new king’? Wasn’t he still the same Pharaoh?! - The Egyptians said to Pharaoh: Come, let’s attack this nation. He replied: You fools! Until now we’ve eaten what they supplied, so how can we attack them? Had it not been for Joseph, none of us would be alive! But because he didn’t listen to them, they deposed him from his throne for three months, until he said to them: I’ll agree to whatever you want to do! Whereupon they restored him" (Shemot Rabbah 1:8).
According to this, the initiative to persecute the Jews in Egypt originated with the Egyptian masses - with “Egypt which did not know Joseph" - and the king acceded to popular sentiment to keep his throne.
And then this king died:
“It happened in those great days that that the king of Egypt died, and the Children of Israel groaned because of the labour, and they screamed; and their shout because of the labour rose to G-d" (Exodus 2:23).
This seems puzzling: why did the Children of Israel groan and scream just because the Pharaoh died? Why was this their breaking point?
An almost-contemporary Gadol ba-Torah, Rabbi Meir Kahane Hy"d (New York and Israel, 1932-1990), explained:
“After generations of terrible suffering, Pharaoh at last actually died. The Children of Israel rejoiced greatly because they were sure that their situation could not possible get any worse; they hoped that the new pharaoh would repeal the decrees - but they were disappointed. In the words of the Da’at Z’keinim, ‘As long as the original king still lived, they longed for the time when he would die, hoping that that his decree would be rescinded. But when he died and it was not rescinded, they said: From here, we know that this will never come to an end’…
And the Jews therefore fell into total despondency, unable to cope with their torments any more. And in their despair, ‘the Children of Israel groaned because of the labour’" (Peirush ha-Maccabee, Exodus 2:23).
This is a truly profound insight into human psychology: hopes which are destroyed cause deeper despair than complete hopelessness.
It was the lowest point ever in Jewish history. Even though slavery and exile were all that they had known for generations, and even though their situation did not objectively become any worse, they had had a brief hope of better and brighter lives - a hope which was cruelly dashed.
Yet it was precisely when the Children of Israel reached this breaking point, this bleakest, lowest, most degraded, most desperate, most desolate of all ebbs, that G-d immediately began to work His redemption. The very next verse continues:
“And G-d heard their groaning, and G-d remembered His Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob; and when G-d saw the Children of Israel, He knew them" (Exodus 2:24-25).
Hundreds of miles away to the south-east, on the other side of the Sinai Desert, Moshe was shepherding his father-in-law Jethro’s flocks, as he had been doing for decades: an ordinary day, the same as any other…
...but that was the day that G-d appeared to Moshe in the Burning Bush, telling him that He hereby appointed him to begin the mission of saving the Children of Israel:
וּמֹשֶׁ֗ה הָיָ֥ה רֹעֶ֛ה אֶת־צֹ֛אן יִתְר֥וֹ חֹתְנ֖וֹ כֹּהֵ֣ן מִדְיָ֑ן וַיִּנְהַ֤ג אֶת־הַצֹּאן֙ אַחַ֣ר הַמִּדְבָּ֔ר וַיָּבֹ֛א אֶל־הַ֥ר הָאֱלֹקִ֖ים חֹרֵֽבָה:
“When Moshe was shepherding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, Priest of Midian, he led the flock beyond the desert; and he came to the Mountain of G-d, to Horeb" (Exodus 3:1).
Moshe had been born to Levi’s family at a time of genocide, his life miraculously saved. Raised in Pharaoh’s palace as an Egyptian prince, he still felt sufficiently attached to the Children of Israel to kill the Egyptian slave-driver who was whipping the Hebrew slave.
Laudable and inspiring as Moshe’s bravery was, it cost him dearly: knowing that Pharaoh would have him executed for collaborating with the Hebrew slaves, he fled to Midian (Exodus 2:11-15).
From Prince of Egypt to fugitive in exile overnight.
He had spent decades living his peaceful, uneventful, pedestrian life as a shepherd - and now, just as suddenly, just as dramatically, his life once again transformed completely. From prince to fugitive, and now from shepherd to G-d’s greatest prophet ever and national leader of Israel.
I suggest that the Torah hints at this very subtly in its punctuation, the “notes" (often called the “trop" in Yiddish):
וּמֹשֶׁ֗ה הָיָ֥ה רֹעֶ֛ה אֶת־צֹ֛אן יִתְר֥וֹ חֹתְנ֖וֹ כֹּהֵ֣ן מִדְיָ֑ן...
“When Moshe was shepherding the flock of Jethro…"
Two words here are punctuated against all the rules of grammar: רֹעֶ֛ה אֶת־צֹ֛אן, “was shepherding". Both the word רֹעֶ֛ה and the word צֹ֛אן are marked with the note תְּבִ֛יר, tevir. By all the rules of grammar, the תְּבִ֛יר cannot occur twice in succession - yet here it does!
The word תְּבִיר means “breaking" in Aramaic (equivalent to שְׁבִירָה in Hebrew: the ש and ת frequently interchange between the two languages): its purpose in grammar is to “break" a phrase into two sub-clauses.
I posit that the Torah uses the תְּבִ֛יר, the “breaking", twice in succession to indicate the breaking point that the Children of Israel had reached. It’s subtle, so subtle that few people would notice it - but it’s there. The Torah itself feels the pain of the Children of Israel.
I have found only one other instance in the entire Tanach of the תְּבִ֛יר occurring twice in succession:
וַיֶּאֱהַ֣ל אַבְרָ֗ם וַיָּבֹ֛א וַיֵּ֛שֶׁב בְּאֵלֹנֵ֥י מַמְרֵ֖א אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּחֶבְר֑וֹן וַיִּֽבֶן־שָׁ֥ם מִזְבֵּ֖חַ לַֽה'
“Abram encamped, and he came and dwelt in Elonei Mamrei which is in Hebron; and he built there an altar to Hashem" (Genesis 13:18).
Here, too, the תְּבִ֛יר occurs twice in succession: וַיָּבֹ֛א וַיֵּ֛שֶׁב, “he came and dwelt".
Abram has reached his own personal breaking point here: immediately before this, circumstances had forced him to part from Lot - his nephew whom he had loved and nurtured as a son, his nephew who he adopted as a son when Lot’s father Haran died in Ur Kasdim, his nephew who he took with him when he made Aliyah (Genesis 11:27-12:5).
Without any son of his own, Lot was the closest to a son that Abram had, and he must have been terribly distraught at having to split from him. Lot was Abram’s sole blood-relative from his childhood, he had yearned to inculcate him with his own highest ideals of sanctity.
It didn’t work out, Abram and Lot had perforce to part ways, maybe forever - and the Torah itself feels Abram’s pain with its phrasing, וַיָּבֹ֛א וַיֵּ֛שֶׁב, “he came and dwelt", using the תְּבִ֛יר, the “breaking, twice in succession.
Indeed immediately after this, his nephew Lot was taken captive in the war between the four kings against the five kings, and Abram was constrained to take 318 of his disciples to go out to war to rescue his nephew (Genesis 14).
Two terribly traumatic episodes in quick succession.
And immediately after this, G-d forged the בְּרִית בֵּין הַבְּתָרִים (Covenant of the Parts) with Abram, guaranteeing that he would yet have descendants, and that he and his descendants would inherit the Land of Israel forever (Genesis 15).
As with Abram, so with his descendants four centuries later: it was when they plummeted to the תְּבִ֛יר, the ultimate breaking point, that G-d began to unleash His redemption.
Life can at times seem bleak, hopeless, even desperate. But it is precisely at that breaking point that G-d begins to lift us up.