Why Were the Israelites in Egypt?

The story of our exile in Egypt begins with intense hatred among brothers, continues with their reconciliation and prosperity, collapses again into division and crisis, and ends with unity and a miraculous escape. And the prize for our restored unity: the formation of the Jewish people, combined with the duty to be “a light unto the nations.”

The more the Jews in Egypt showed self-hatred among their own ranks, the more Pharaoh and all of Egypt turned against them. The Book of Zohar (Shemot) asks, “Why were Israel exiled, and why specifically to Egypt?” The answer that The Zohar gives is, that “[the Creator] exiled them to Egypt, who were proud and despised and loathed Israel.”(1) The Midrash adds, “When Joseph died, they broke the covenant and said, ‘Let us be as the Egyptians.’ …Because of it, the Lord turned the love that the Egyptians loved them into hatred.”(2) We tend to think of the Egyptians only as Israel’s enemies, but this view overlooks the beginning of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt, when Joseph was Pharaoh’s viceroy and Jacob blessed Pharaoh, who gladly supported Joseph’s decision to grant Israel the most fertile stretch of Egyptian land.

The people of Israel remained fragmented until the emergence of Moses. He began to reunite Israel under his leadership until they finally escaped Pharaoh’s rule, came out of Egypt, and were given dominion over the Land of Israel, albeit after a long and arduous journey.

In the desert, at the foot of Mount Sinai, the people of Israel solidified their unity to the point that they became as one. This is why the great 11th century commentator RASHI described them as being “as one man with one heart.” That level of unity was the essential requirement for the conglomerate of strangers who subscribed to Abraham’s message to be declared a nation. There, at the foot of the mountain, was the “official” birth of the Jewish people. Henceforth, our fate would depend on our unity. The example of disunity and enslavement versus unity and redemption that the Israelites had experienced in Egypt was to be a lesson for them to maintain their unity no matter how intense their egoism grows. The linkage between disunity and adversity has not been broken since. Unfortunately, however, this lesson has still not been learned.

The strength of the Jewish people was never measured by their number, but by their unity. The Babylonian exile lasted just as long as the Jews remained apart. The story of Esther tells us how that exile was to be overcome. First, the arch-antisemite Haman said to King Ahasuerus that the Jews were separated: “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom” (Esther 3:8). The 17th century commentary on the Torah, Kli Yakar, writes that “a certain people scattered and dispersed” means that they were “scattered and dispersed from one another.”(3) Likewise, the prominent interpretation of Jewish law, Yalkut Yosef, takes “separated” to mean that “there was separation of hearts among them.”(4)

Their last resort was unity. When they united, they saved themselves, their people, and facilitated the beginning of the return from Babylon. The book Torat Emet explicitly warns,

“When all of Israel are in complete unity, no harm will come upon them. Indeed, wicked Haman complained about Israel that they are a scattered and separated people, that there is separation of hearts among them. Therefore, Esther suggested that they would all gather into one place and become one bundle … and their salvation would quickly come.”(5)

And as was said in the previously mentioned Midrash Tanhuma (Nitzavim 1):

“If a person takes a bundle of reeds, he will certainly not be able to break them all at once. But taken one by one, even a small child can break them. So is the power of Israel: When they are all one bundle, when they are united together, they are rewarded and delivered.”(5)

Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam after his Sulam [ladder] commentary on The Zohar, poignantly described what happens when Jews “debate” (a euphemism for what the Talmud calls “stabbing each other with the swords in their tongues.”)(6) Ashlag stated that when Jews argue, “They believe that in the end, the other side will understand the danger and will bow his head and accept their view. But I know that even if we tie them up together, one will not surrender to the other even a little, and no danger will interrupt anyone from carrying out his ambition.”(7)

Some three centuries later, The Book of Zohar described succinctly and clearly the process that Israel went through: “‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also sit together.’ These are the friends as they sit together and are not separated from each other. At first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another … then they return to being in brotherly love. …And you, the friends who are here, as you were in fondness and love before, henceforth you will also not part from one another … and by your merit, there will be peace in the world.”(8) Indeed, being “a light unto the nations” could not have been more evident than at that time.

Today, as divisions and polarization grow not only within the Jewish people but across societies worldwide, the message of unity is more urgent than ever. The conflicts we see in Israel, in the diaspora, and among the nations, mirror the ancient cycles of disunity and crisis described in our texts. We are once again being shown that separation brings adversity. The global rise in antisemitism, political unrest, and moral confusion all point to one spiritual root: our failure to unite above differences. In our time, the calling to be “a light unto the nations” means setting an example of internal solidarity, rising above hatred, and creating a common heart that radiates warmth, peace, and connection outward to all humanity.

(1) Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, The Book of Zohar with the Sulam [Ladder] commentary by Rav Yehuda Ashlag (10 vol. ed.), vol. 4, Portion Shemot, Item 250, 78.
(2) Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 1:8.
(3) Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, Kli Yakar, “About Shemot 17,” Item 8.
(4) Rav Ovadia Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Mark 699, Item 4, “Rules of Mishloach Manot”[sending gifts on Purim].
(5) Torat Emet, “The Days of Purim in the Halacha and Agada,” chap. 7, “The Three Days of Fasting.”
(6) Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b.
(7) Yehuda Ashlag, “Exile and Redemption,” in The Writings of Baal HaSulam, 1, 157.
(8) The Zohar with the Sulam [Ladder] commentary (21 vol. ed.), vol. 14 [excerpt translated by Chaim Ratz], Aharei Mot, Items 65-66, 20-21.

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