Hawk in the Clouds

Our life as a nation began in a concentration camp. Mitzrayim was our very first slave labor camp. The Torah describes the radical turnabout that occurred in the life of the Jewish People in the land of the Nile a sea change that dragged the people down from the pinnacle of honor and prestige they had enjoyed during Yosef’s time as viceroy of Egypt to the abyss of enslavement humiliation and oppression: “And they appointed over them tax collectors to afflict them with their burdens….” (Shemos 1:11).

Why this choice of words “tax collectors to afflict them with their burdens”? The Netziv in his sefer Ha’amek Davar explains: “And these officials would be wicked and deliberately inflict torment on them not only for the purpose of collecting tax but in order ‘to afflict them with their burdens ’ thus taxing their strength… through torture abuse and beating.”

That is to say tangible gain was not Pharaoh’s aim but rather the humiliation of the Hebrew race and the erosion of its self-image. Trampling their honor was much more important to him than any benefit that would accrue to him from their labor in building the cities of Pisom and Ramses.