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Parshat Vayigash – The Risks of Freedom

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egyptian slaveryIn another few months, we will reach the holiday of Passover, celebrating our redemption from Egyptian slavery.  We will spend two long seder nights amid eight complete days thanking God for liberating us from the terrible oppression that we faced in Egypt.  But wait a second – who sent us down there in the first place?  Jacob and his children emigrate from Canaan (Israel) to Egypt in this week’s parshah, and the Torah is very clear that God wanted them to go.  As a matter of fact, two generations earlier God had already informed Abraham that his children would be exiled to Egypt and that it would be there that they would develop from just a family into an entire nation.  Why did we ever have to leave Canaan?  Why couldn’t we transition into nationhood in our own land? Continue reading Parshat Vayigash – The Risks of Freedom

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