One of the most familiar themes in discussion of the opening chapter of Exodus is how it could be that "There arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (1:8). There are a variety of explanations in rabbinic literature and the traditional commentaries – he was not a new king at all, but rather made himself as if new by his change of heart towards the Hebrews (midrash and the Talmud), and/or the king (the old, or a new one) pretended he did not know of Joseph (Rashi), or he was too young to have known Joseph personally (Sa’adya Gaon), or did not realize that Joseph had been a member of the Israelite people (S’forno). The modern biblical scholar Nahum Sarna, in his book Exploring Exodus, adds the suggestion that the events of the end of Genesis and beginning of Exodus took place at a time of political upheaval and changing factions of leadership in Egypt.
But Sarna notes something else that got me to thinking. In his introduction, he observes that the book of Exodus "is incomprehensible except as a sequel to the Book of Genesis" (5). Which gave me the thought: for the enslavement of the Israelites to take place, Pharaoh must not know (or let himself know) Joseph, for whatever reason. But for the events of this book to lead up to yitzi’at Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt – and the encounter with God at Sinai that follows – then it is crucial that from the beginning we the readers certainly do have to know of Joseph.
One step more than that – I found myself also thinking about a book I had to read a loooong time ago in rabbinical school, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, by the historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t remember the contents of the book all that clearly (I am getting older…), but what I want to get at in this little drash is right in the subtitle anyway. History and memory. Two ways of knowing about the past, but very different.
Pharaoh does – or in this case does not – have knowledge (from the Hebrew root y,d,h), that is, access to the history of Joseph and what he did for Egypt. All the more so, then, he does not have memory of Joseph. Contrast that to how the book of Exodus tells its story to its readers. We don’t begin with the new king, although certainly we could, since that’s the instigating event of the story (actually, there is a tradition found in midrash and in Rashi’s commentary asking why the Torah as a whole doesn’t begin with Ex. 12:1-2, the first time a commandment is given to the Jewish people, but that’s a topic for another time…). First, we begin with a reminder: the 70 members of the Israelite tribe who came down to Egypt, how that first generation passed away, and how their descendants prospered and grew in number. Here’s where we came from, and how we got here.
Knowing and remembering will continue to clash as Moses and Pharaoh clash. Contrast how Moses presents himself and his mission from God to the Israelite people and how Pharoah responds to Moses’ claim that he comes in the name of God in their first meeting. God introduces Godself to Moses at the burning bush by saying "I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (3:6) and tells Moses to say essentially the same thing to the Israelites: "The Lord, God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you" (3:15). God appeals not to history, but to familial and communal memory. Pharaoh, on the other hand, dismisses Moses with these words: "Who is this ‘Lord,’ that I should listen to his voice and send out the Israelites – I do not know the ‘Lord’ and furthermore I will not send out the Israelites" (5:2). Once again, Pharaoh is interested only in what he "knows" (y,d,h), and has no memory or experience of God to draw on.
What is more, God’s message to the Israelites continues to specifically invoke memory. This is, first of all, in the language itself: "The God of your ancestors has appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: I have surely taken note of you (pakod pakad’ti) and what is being done to you in Egypt." The verb here is p,k,d, and it carries with it the sense of a promise being recalled and fulfilled; this is the verb used when God grants Sarah her pregnancy as had already been promised (Gen. 21:1). And in fact, God is not only using the language of memory, but also asking the people to recall a specific promise, made by Joseph: "God will surely take notice (pakod yiphkod) of you and bring you up from this land to the Land which God swore to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob (Gen. 50:24; see also Ex. 13:19).
Memory, in fact, continues to be the theme of the Exodus going forward in Jewish history. Jews have on more than one occasion gotten into heated discussions regarding the question of whether the Exodus is a real historical event. From the religious perspective at least, that’s the wrong question, however. The Exodus is true even if we never find archeological evidence to support its historicity (and one would think that when 600,000 people suddenly marched out of Egypt and into the Sinai desert, someone would have dropped something for an archeologist to find), because it is true in our memory. Again and again, God explains the commandments by reminding us that "you were slaves in Egypt," and in our blessings we note that we perform acts "in memory of the Exodus from Egypt" (zeicher litzi’at Mitzrayim). At the Passover seder we say that if our ancestors had not been redeemed, we too would still be slaves to Pharaoh, and thus remind ourselves that we must experience this night as if we ourselves went out of Egypt. This is not unrelated, of course, to the midrashic idea that all our souls were at Sinai for the giving of the Torah, that each of us personally experienced the Revelation. It is true that those who forget history are all too often doomed to repeat it, and the study of Jewish history is a vital endeavor (some of my best friends are historians!). But Jewish living demands that we each be a link in the chain of Jewish memory as well. May we all merit to thank the God of our ancestors for all that God has done for us.
Shabbat shalom.