December 24, 2023|י"ב טבת ה' אלפים תשפ"ד Antisemitism in Ancient Egypt By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

The story goes that a woman met an ultra-religious Jewish young man at the corner. "How despicable!" she told him, "Look at you Jews. You have no respect at all for modern society. You are stubborn and backwards and refuse to change your clothes or your styles. This isn't medieval Europe." The young man looked at her curiously, and said, "Excuse, ma'am. I'm not Jewish. I'm Amish."  The woman blushed, and quickly said, "Oh, my, I'm so sorry! Of course, you are. Well, it is quite admirable that you don't let the change in culture sway you from your religious customs. I respect your defiance in the face of adversity..." How often does the world respect different cultures, different societies, different ways of life, except, of course, the Jew. There is something about antisemitism that doesn’t seem to make sense. And I wonder when all of this unexplained antisemitism began.

 

I would like to ask a simple question. Did the ancient Egyptians really hate shepherds? It certainly seems so. After all, Yosef tells the brothers that when they move from Canaan to Egypt, they should tell Pharaoh that they are אנשי מקנה, men of flock, בעבור תשבו בארץ גשן, so that they can settle in the land of Goshen, כי תועבת מצרים כל רעה צאן, because the Egyptians despise shepherds. And Yosef’s plan worked. The brothers told Pharaoh this and asked Pharaoh if they could live in Goshen because it was a fertile land for their sheep and cattle, and Pharaoh agreed. But why do Egyptians despise cattle and what was Yosef’s ultimate goal?

 

Both the mefarshim, the commentaries and modern scholars struggle to figure out why the Egyptians despised shepherds. Did they despise shepherds or did they despise specifically Hebrew shepherds? One theory is that the Egyptians were vegetarians. That is the position of the Ibn Ezra, the Radak and others. 

 

However, many modern scholars doubt whether this is true. Some scholarly articles present some evidence suggesting that Egyptians were vegetarians, but archaeological evidence has shown that many Egyptians did eat meat. As an example, Egyptologist Pierre Montet wrote, “The walls of private tombs are covered with long processions of animals being led to slaughter for human consumption. Cattle were the chief source of meat.”

 

Rashi has a slightly different approach. He explains that Egyptians despised shepherds explaining that להם לפי שהם אלהות, that many of the Egyptian gods resembled livestock and therefore, it would be abhorrent in their eyes for Yaakov’s family to raise cattle for the purpose of consumption. If the issue with the shepherding is that many of the Egyptian gods resembled livestock then that could explain why Moshe Rabbenu tells Pharaoh hundreds of years later to allow his nation to sacrifice to God in the desert because הן נזבח את תועבת מצרים לעיניהם ולא יסקלנו? Will we sacrifice the abomination of Mitzrayim in front of them and they will not stone us? The livestock resemble the gods of Egypt, so Moshe tells Pharaoh that that is a reason why they should sacrifice in the desert, out of sensitivity for the Egyptians. Indeed, this could be why the final plague involved slaughtering a ram. The supreme Egyptian god at the time of the exodus was Amon-Re, the sun god who is represented with a ram’s head. The action of slaughtering the ram is an act of faith on the part of the Bnei Yisrael to God that they are slaughtering the god of the Egyptians in front of the Egyptians.

 

However, if shepherding was an abomination for the Egyptians because their gods resembled livestock, then why does Pharaoh tell Yosef וְאִם־יָדַ֗עְתָּ וְיֶשׁ־בָּם֙ אַנְשֵׁי־חַ֔יִל וְשַׂמְתָּ֛ם שָׂרֵ֥י מִקְנֶ֖ה עַל־אֲשֶׁר־לִֽי – if you know and among your brothers are men of valor then you should place them in charge of my flocks. Pharaoh apparently had livestock, so why was it an abomination to be a shepherd. Some mefarshim suggest that maybe Pharaoh raised livestock for idolatry but Yaakov’s family raised them for food. Additionally, maybe Pharaoh had his own rules. He could raise flock but nobody else in Egypt could. If Pharaoh fashioned himself to be a god then that position could make sense. But again, scholars find it difficult to assume that Egyptians refrained from consuming cattle because they thought that the cattle represented gods based on archaeological evidence. Maybe, though, the Egyptians ate some types of meat and not others? Maybe specifically eating rams representing Amon Re and sheep representing Khnum, a fertility god was a problem but eating other types of meat were not a problem. However, the Torah does state that כל רועי צאן were an abomination. Every type of shepherd was a problem. Is there a difference betweenרועי צאן  and אנשי מקנה? Maybe shepherds were a problem but herders of cattle that weren’t צאן was not a problem? 

 

Some scholars suggest that the Egyptian issue with shepherds was their uncleanliness. Egyptologists write about how there was a lot of instruction to ordinary Egyptians about hygienic and cosmetic care products such as mouthwash and perfume. They also wore linen. Perhaps shepherds typically wore wool and animal skins which not as hygienic as linen. Animal fibers with less than frequent washings can be very odorous in the hot and dry Egyptian environment. Perhaps this is why Yosef gives his brothers changes of clothing after he discloses his identity to them. However, there is no real evidence to support this claim.

 

Maybe there’s another approach to deal with this question. When Yosef’s brothers ate with him in last week’s parsha, the Torah states that Yosef and his brothers ate separately because לֹ֨א יוּכְל֜וּן הַמִּצְרִ֗ים לֶאֱכֹ֤ל אֶת־הָֽעִבְרִים֙ לֶ֔חֶם כִּי־תוֹעֵבָ֥ה הִ֖וא לְמִצְרָֽיִם – the Egyptians could not break bread with the Hebrews because it was an abomination to Egypt. The Chizkuni refers to the Egyptians as גסי רוח, as arrogant. This suggests that the Egyptians felt superior to non- Egyptians. Maybe also Egyptians felt that shepherds were of a lower class. However, archaeologist David H. Kelley wrote that intermarriage was not uncommon between Egyptians and foreigners, so, again, this perspective may not reflect reality.

 

Articles have been written about this question of why Egyptians despised Hebrew shepherds and I think that there is not one clear answer, but then I think isn’t that antisemitism? Isn’t this the first instance of antisemitism? There is no clear explanation for it but it exists. Was it that Yosef’s family ate meat? Was it that they slaughtered Egyptian gods? Was it that they were smelly and unclean? Was it that they were just different? Whatever it was, it takes someone like Yosef to sense that he was the exception not the rule. In last week’s parsha, Yosef understands that the Egyptians won’t even eat with Yosef, the viceroy of Egypt, because he is a Hebrew. Yosef provides a valuable service for the country. He is the Court Jew, so he is tolerated, but his family may not be treated as well. Therefore, he tells the brothers to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds and need a good place for their sheep to graze which is away from society and perhaps the profession reflects a low standing or insensitivity towards Egyptian gods to convince Pharaoh to allow them to live alone. I think that Yosef is the first person to sense antisemitism even though he cannot put his finger on why it exists.

 

And this is something that we have seen for thousands of years. Why did the ancient Egyptians despise the Hebrews? We don’t know. Why does much of the world turn a blind eye to Hamas and simply pressure Israel into ceasefire that will leave Hamas intact? We don’t know. Recently, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised a question that to me and probably to all of us in this room was so obvious. He asked how is it possible that many nations are calling for an end to the current conflict but there are no demands made of the aggressor? He said, “What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying--demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that." And we bang our heads against the wall and ask ourselves why doesn’t much of the world get it? And the answer, unfortunately, is, as Yosef intuited thousands of years ago, that antisemitism doesn’t make sense. No matter what we say and what we do, some people will simply not understand that Hamas needs to be eliminated. Antisemitism is not rational. I would say that it is actually somewhat supernatural. It is a fate from which every Jew suffers. 

 

But if antisemitism is a supernatural phenomenon, then it deserves a supernatural response. Yes, we fight antisemitism by natural means, through political advocacy and education, but we need to enlist God to help us! Our tefillot do matter! Our extra mitzvah commitments do matter! Is it illogical that these behaviors help – well, it’s just as illogical as antisemitism. The next time we get frustrated by the rising antisemitism and rising anti-Israel rhetoric, let us appreciate our power to fight it, by both natural and supernatural means. Someone recently told me that he recently started putting on tefillin every day. I asked him when he started. He said it was during COVID. He felt that COVID deserved a supernatural response and he’s been putting on tefillin ever since. What are we going to say a few months from now or a year from now, when Israel finally wins the war. Are we going to point to something new, a new mitzvah, that we are doing and we can say that we started doing it during this war? Think about it – a supernatural phenomenon requires a supernatural response. Let’s all be part of that response.