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Ex. 10:1-13:16
Précis: God sends the 8th and 9th plagues, locusts and darkness, and alerts Moses that the 10th and final plague will follow. God instructs Moses on the institution of the Passover. Then, the final plague, the death of all of the first born, is wrecked on Egypt. The Israelites, accompanied by the “mixed multitudes,” leave Egypt, carrying with them the “spoils of Egypt” given to them by the Egyptians. The parasha ends with a repetition of the laws regarding Passover.
Ex. 11:4-5 “Moses said, ‘Thus says the Lord: Toward midnight I will go forth among the Egyptians, and every first born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits upon his thrown to the first born of the slave girl who is behind the millstones…’”
Adina Gerver raises the issue of collective punishment in connection with these verses (MyJewishLearning.com, 1/20/15), noting that they force us to face up to the concept of collective punishment. It was Pharaoh who kept the Israelites enslaved, not all of the entire Egyptian population. As Abraham might have argued (but Moses didn’t!), were there not even 10 “good people” in all of Egypt? This collective punishment seems deeply unjust to us.
One may argue, however, that this collective punishment is intended to teach us that we have a collective responsibility to seek justice and to free the oppressed. At a time when immigrants are desperately seeking an escape from horrible warfare, does this not suggest that all free people have a responsibility to help them?
On the other hand, one can reasonably claim that I am not responsible for the actions of others, nor for the terrible repercussions that arise from someone else’s evil acts. Am I responsible for the barrel bombs in Syria, or the terror in Africa, or the lawlessness of Palestinian attacks on civilians? Am I, or is America, responsible for shouldering the global burden for all that is wrong in the world? Such a role is impossible.
As we know all too well, Israel today is castigated for its so-called "collective punishment" of Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza, when the "innocent civilians" in those territories are subjected to travel limitations, enhanced security requirements, and are harmed during armed conflict. How can that be squared with our understanding of what is right and just?
The answer for Israel and for America as well is that silence in the face of these atrocities abets future atrocities. Here, we come full circle to this week’s parasha. Where is the outrage of the “good” Egyptians? Their silence damned them all. Where is the outrage of the "good Palestinians" in a society which glorifies suicide bombers? Their silence may not damn them all, but it certainly does not excuse them at all.
The lesson: to be silent in the face of evil is to be implicated in the evil itself. It is the responsibility of each one of us to speak out and to call for action against injustice, wherever it may be taking place. Our voices may be small, and the effort may seem pointless, but we cannot ignore our responsibility to cry out against the evil we see around us, and take action whenever and wherever we can.
