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New King. Who’s This? Commentary on Parashat Shemot 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
Being the new person is tough—joining a new circle of friends, moving to a new neighborhood, transferring to a new school, getting a new job, or marrying into a family. How can anybody instantaneously catch up on the years of relationships, inside jokes, and ‘do’s-and-‘don’t’s that seem to have been around forever?
The same question applies when a new leader enters office, as the Book of Exodus reminds Jews around the world this week. For centuries, of course, politicians have often succeeded in transitioning from an old administration to a new governmental staff; however, Parashat Shemot shares with us a tragic cautionary tale.
Though Jacob, his twelve sons, and their families had long ago moved to ancient Egypt and prospered there (Exodus 1:1–7), the fate of the Israelites took a sudden turn for the worse when the new Pharaoh came to town. In the words of Exodus 1:8, “וַיָּ֥קׇם מֶֽלֶךְ־חָדָ֖שׁ עַל־מִצְרָ֑יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יָדַ֖ע אֶת־יוֹסֵֽף׃” (“A new king arose over Egypt; he did not know Joseph”). The way the Torah narrates it, this Pharaoh knew nothing about Joseph personally or perhaps even Joseph’s credentials as Egypt’s second-highest ranking officer in Egypt (Genesis 41:40–46), a man of unparalleled understanding or wisdom (41:39), or an accurate interpreter of dreams (41:12–13).
Ignoring the achievements of the past, fear alone colored the new Pharaoh’s understanding of Jacob’s family. What if, he wondered, those Israelites may have grown so numerous and powerful that they could overthrow the Egyptian way of life (Exodus 1:9–10)? The new Pharaoh got to work. He designated a special task force to oversee the suffering of the Israelites, enslaved the Israelites, forced them to build cities and structures never before needed, and even commanded the murdering of every Israelite baby boy upon his birth (1:11–15).
Where did things go wrong? How did Egypt once provide sustenance to Israelites in a time of need and then transform into a regime that harbored such xenophobia as to deny our ancestors any sense of common dignity? For millennia, this very question has agitated our spiritual forebears. Perhaps this all boiled down to a combination of excessive powerful and insufficient experience. According to the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 11a, the great 3rd century C.E. sages Rav and Shemu’el debated whether this “new king” had been a complete novice in Egyptian politics or may have held power before issuing unusually harsh decrees that shook up the old government. The Spanish Biblical commentator Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra (1089–1167), writing on Exodus 1:8, concluded “שלא היה מזרע המלוכה” (“that [the new Pharaoh] was not from the royal lineage”) and had in fact “הקים” (hekim, “overthrown”) the old dynasty.
Medieval Jews, whose very lives in Christian-majority and Muslim-majority countries depended on the mercy of foreign rulers, assumed that Jews protected themselves best by girding themselves with a healthy dose of skepticism. Couldn’t these nobles turn on us one day? When will we witness the next expulsion, massacre, or crusade? The unidentified medieval Jew whose hands wrote Midrash Aggadah on Exodus 1:8 was the first to suggest that ancient Egypt’s Israelites fell victim to a multicultural society that both hated and loved the very successful Israelites:
הוא היה פרעה הראשון, אלא אמרו לו נזדווג להם, אמר להם שוטים עד עכשיו היו מושלים בנו ולא היינו מושלים עליהם ואלולי יוסף לא היה לאותם אנשים חיים, ואנו רוצים להזדווג עמהם. מיד הורידוהו מכסאו ועשה ג’ חדשים, אחר מכאן אמר להם כל מה שאתם אומרים אני שומע לכם, החזירוהו לכסאו… הדא הוא דכתיב ויקם מלך חדש.
This [new king] had been the first Pharaoh. However, [the people of Egypt] said to him, “Let us marry those [Israelites]!” That [pharaoh] said to them, “Fools! Until now, they have been [secretly] ruling us, and we have not been ruling them! Had it not been for Joseph, those people wouldn’t be alive! Yet we [somehow] want to marry them!?” Immediately, those [Egyptians] removed him from his throne. He spent three months [in political exile]. Afterwards, he said to them, “I hear everything that you are saying.” They returned him to his throne… This is why it is written [in Exodus 1:8]: “A new king arose.”
Because we have learned the story of Parashat Shemot, we know that what happened next pleased few people. Pharaoh did not have a change of heart and did not announce that Egyptian law approved of Egyptians and Israelites building homes together. Instead—trying to eradicate the deep state allegedly run by those cunning Israelites (like Joseph, whoever he was)—this Pharaoh heard the people’s complaint and spun it. New royal decrees rendered the Israelites so off-limits to their Egyptian secret admirers that the Israelites would soon be deprived of humane living conditions. (Who’s so marriageable now?)
Could this Pharaoh really have not known about Joseph though and still have doubled down on such a thin conspiracy theory—that a group of some 70 Israelites (according to the counting in Exodus 1:5) controlled what archaeologists estimate to be approximately 4 million Egyptians? The Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 11a, some 1500 years ago suggested merely “דַּהֲוָה דָּמֵי כְּמַאן דְּלָא יָדַע לֵיהּ כְּלָל” (“that [this Pharaoh] would [act in a manner] similar to someone who did not know [Joseph] at all”). Though playing the fool may have been a pretense, it was far more than a game. Ignorance became the law. The ancient Aramaic translation of the Torah, Targum Onkelos reports not that this Pharaoh did not know Joseph but “דְּלָא מְקַיֵּם גְּזֵרַת יוֹסֵף” (“that he did not uphold Joseph’s decrees”). With utterly inane hostility, the royal house of Egypt dismissed the best of Joseph’s governance, including such efforts as to spare Egypt from mass starvation (recorded in Genesis 41:27–47:27).
The timing of our reading Parashat Shemot this year syncs up with great uncertainty about the future of some of the world’s most closely watched nations. As of this writing, Israel and Hamas appear days away from initiating an imperfect ceasefire. The United States will soon inaugurate a narrowly elected new (and former) President. The Prime Minister of Canada has announced his resignation from his party nearly a year before the next scheduled election, and Germany is a mere few weeks away from electing a new government after the ruling coalition lost its majority. These are just a few examples of the unease we may feel and recognize when we consider the fragility of democracy in 2025.
Classical Jewish wisdom has generally warned us not to grow too comfortable with political institutions. In the Mishnah, Avot 1:10, the sage Shemayah, living under the Roman Empire around the turn from B.C.E. to C.E., prescribed distrust of all governmental authorities. Rabbinic sentiment had eased up by the 1st century C.E. though when Rabbi Chanina (or Chananyah, depending on the version of the text) urged his students in Mishnah, Avot 3:2, “הֱוֵי מִתְפַּלֵּל בִּשְׁלוֹמָהּ שֶׁל מַלְכוּת, שֶׁאִלְמָלֵא מוֹרָאָהּ, אִישׁ אֶת רֵעֵהוּ חַיִּים בְּלָעוֹ” (“Pray for the welfare of the government, for, if people had no fear of it, people would swallow each other alive”). Governments may be fickle, and any single politician’s political influence or whims may feel disproportionate to the amount of power the outside observer might think is actually deserving in any given case. Nonetheless, like any group of people who are made in God’s image (a la Genesis 1:26) and who come together to do anything to serve others, governments must be held accountable to behave ethically and to act based off of the greatest knowledge we can acquire.
In this moment of infinite change, we ask God to bless us with leaders who respect history, who love truth, who honor human dignity, and who understand the importance of governing with compassion. May they never forget Joseph.
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