Fruitful Hope amid Outrageous Fortune

Parashat Shemot, Exodus 1:1–6:1

Daniel Nessim, Kehillath Tsion, Vancouver, BC

When we experience the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as Hamlet put it, how are we to understand it all? Before recounting Jacob’s death, B’reisheet had ended with Jacob’s manifold blessings over his sons. Now, stranded in Egypt, his descendants felt far from being blessed. What caused Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to oppress and enslave them? What caused our ancestors to leave Egypt? 

Shemot tells us that we cried out for deliverance when Pharaoh oppressed us (2:23), but says nothing about us wanting to leave Goshen, the land of Rameses, the most fertile part of the land of Egypt. Leaving Egypt, it seems, was God’s idea (3:8). Perhaps Israel had forgotten God’s promise to the patriarchs. Perhaps they were afraid to ask for so grandiose, so magnificent a deliverance from Egypt to the promised land of their ancestors.  

Oppressed though they might be, after centuries Egypt was our ancestor’s home, or so they thought. Horribly as they were being treated, it was familiar. They had, in fact, assimilated to a large degree. Now, after hundreds of years in Egypt as Ezekiel tells us, they were worshiping the gods, the idols, and the detestable things of Egypt. But God had bigger plans for them than they had hope or faith to believe in.  

Something kicked off the story of the Exodus, something that precipitated the Israelite’s cry for deliverance. That something is that before Pharaoh ever repressed and enslaved them, they were fruitful. Very fruitful. Shemot tells us that they were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them (Exod 1:7). The statement echoes word for word the blessing, indeed command, spoken to Adam and Eve that they should be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen 1:28).  

This is a Gezerah Shavah of sorts. Gezerah Shavah refers to a known rule applying to a new case based upon an identical word or phrase in both cases. It can be limited to principles on which to base halakhic (legal) decisions, but in a wider sense it is generally used to establish a connection between texts just as we have here. There is an undeniably intentional echo in the same words being used at creation and now with Israel in Egypt. The implication is that something new is being created and being done in Egypt.

In the creation story, on the third day God created all living vegetation. Yet he did not bless it to be fruitful and multiply. Ramban suggests that this is because it is the nature of vegetation to multiply. One plant typically has many seeds and can bring forth many other plants. One tree has hundreds of fruit. One tree has tens of thousands of seeds or even a hundred thousand seeds each season. Multiplication is the nature of vegetation.

Again, on the fifth day, God created the swarming creatures of the skies and the seas. He gave them the blessing to be fruitful and multiply. The argument for why God did not bless the cattle and beasts of the earth in this way is less obvious, but perhaps it is to draw a distinction between other animals and mankind, who were not only to be fruitful and multiply, but also to rule over the fish, the birds, the cattle, the whole earth, and everything that creeps on it.  

It was the brilliant medieval commentator Rashi who emphasized that if the Almighty had said “Be fruitful” only, one creature might have brought forth a single one, and no more; therefore he added ur’vu “and multiply,” implying that one should bring forth many.  

This brings us back to Shemot, our parasha. For Israel, the blessing given at creation was being amplified. Israel was very literally being fruitful and multiplying. Their population was exploding. Moses says they were fruitful and then adds the word prolific. He says they multiplied and then emphasizes that they increased “me’od me’od”—very greatly. And the earth (in this case the land of Rameses, the land of Goshen), was filled with them (Exod 1:7). On this, commentaries suggest that it was common in those days for the Hebrew women to have six children at a birth. Sextuplets even. Multiplying, in other words. So now in Egypt, the heavenly blessing and command for all mankind was being fulfilled at least in part in the people of Israel.  

It is this that kicks off the story of Shemot. The blessing of God over Israel arouses the opposition of the powers that be. God’s blessing on Israel arouses the fear of the nations. The nation of Egypt reacts with opposition; it is the first national scale, organized, systematized, antisemitic persecution in history. There is no indication that the Israelites felt blessed. Their large families were overshadowed by the murder of their male children. The favorable location in a bountiful part of Egypt was overshadowed by their forced servitude to the taskmasters of Egypt. For them, life did not seem at all blessed.  

There is no doubt, however, especially in light of the language of fruitfulness echoing the language of fruitfulness in the creation account, that the Almighty was at work. Whether they knew it or not, good was coming out of the evil that they were enduring. That work of the Almighty was what was behind their fruitfulness and behind their oppression by the king of Egypt. Was God being vindicated? For forty years Israel cried out because of the oppression, while Moses grew into a man. For forty more years they would cry out while he shepherded sheep in Midian and started his own family there. No wonder by the time Moses and Aaron began to intercede with Pharaoh on their behalf the Israelites were full of doubts, and no wonder they had fallen into idolatry. They weren’t seeing God’s power. 

But God was indeed at work. It is like so many other times in the story of Israel and individuals featured in the Tanakh. While people struggled with their issues of faith and struggled through the difficulties and torments of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, there was yet something happening behind the scenes. Even Moses gets to the point where he is exasperated, frustrated, and losing hope, but our parasha ends with God’s reproof to him at that time: “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh”  (Exod 6:1).

Paradoxically, Shemot begins a stage of blessing for Israel that will redound to the blessing of all the nations of the earth. As deep as their trials and tribulations were, so much greater were the positive results that came out of it. The blessing of God over Israel begins the story of Israel’s redemption that we later find is the paradigm and key to redemption for the nations. As Rav Shaul once declared on a personal level, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” He then continued on a cosmic level, that even all of creation would be “set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:18–21). 

No matter how unfruitful, how adverse and unproductive life might seem today, we can surely trust that as he has in the past, the Almighty is indeed working behind the scenes towards a good that will make the present troubles fade into insignificance.