Vayigash: enslavement

Vayigash: enslavement

 

The slave may be a volunteer. 

At the end of Vayeshev, the people volunteer to be slaves rather than starve to death.  Joseph accepts the offer for Pharaoh.

the status of Joseph's brothers is not clarified in this transaction.  We are told that the priests were exempt from slavery. We are not told of any other exemption ( including the Bnei Yisroel). 

 

I heard the story of a man who, during the Holocaust, volunteered to work in a concentration camp to avoid starvation.

 

Where does the slavery come from?

There  is the curse that Noah gives Ham, but the manifestation of the curse is not clear immediately. Cosider the construction of the tower of Bavel. Was slave labor used?  was the diversity of language a way to avoid enslavement?  The eved word was used to describe Adam's relationship to the land. Note that the Egyptians sold themselves along with the land. There is an idea that the ownership of land begets freedom. 

 

The story of Joseph and his brothers leading to the enslavement of Brei Yisrael is also a story of brothers selling each other.  It seems that brothers betraying one another is a requirement for slavery.  Usually slavery arises by  a sibling selling another sibling as a slave. The brothers ( led by Yehuda in this endeavor) sell Joseph.  The brothers offer themselves as slaves, if they are caught with the Joseph's goblet. The parsha begins with Yehuda offering to trade his servitude for Benjamin's. 

 

We are slaves to our biology.  We are slaves to our circumstances.  We are slaves to our dreams and the reality that distorts their realization.

 

Prior years:  

Yoseph establishes the new political/economic order

 

substitutiary sacrifice