Torah portion

TORAH PORTION

So, they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor; and they built storage cities” for Pharaoh Pithom and Raamses. “But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.”

The last phrase can be also be translated as: “and the Egyptians became disgusted with themselves due to the Israelites.” Why were the Egyptians so intimidated or annoyed by the Jewish people? After all, we were contributing members of Egyptian society and economy, harmless newcomers who simply wanted to live in peace. Why did the Egyptians feel that we would “join their enemies and overtake them in war?”

The answer is that it is, indeed, irrational. People that have intense dislike for others seem not to need justifiable reasons for doing so. Their hatred extends far and wide; their fears are without basis, but they make it seem that a basis is obvious. The Egyptians saw a new people coming up and immediately were turned off by them, but they could not explain why so they created all sorts of far-fetched rationales.

We have all met people that seem to dislike us off the bat for no reason whatsoever. Is it something that should bother us?

The answer in this week’s portion is no.

Being self-critical is a positive idea but being needlessly selfconscious is not. The

Egyptian mentality was to demean and belittle those that were different. The

Jewish mentality is to either say, “Yes, I am different; and that’s actually pretty neat.

Why don’t you get to know me and my lifestyle a little better” or, alternatively, “No, we are actually all similar to each other deep down. There is no need to target me.”

Love your neighbor as yourself means that we have to come to a place of selfconfidence and security with who we are. We do not need to look over our shoulders at what we are missing; we can look inside ourselves and see what we can contribute to the world. We have to love ourselves even if others find fault with us.

Let us reject the pettiness of the Egyptian way of thinking and, instead, baselessly love ourselves, our fellow Jews and our fellow human beings. Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Yaacov Lasson is chaplain at Ascension Providence Hospitals.

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