In an effort to not be so repetitive with the posting, I shall try to blog about something aside from Korbanot but still having to do with Chumash and possibly Vayikra.
Something that I've been wondering that is relevant to blog about is the issue of how the Egyptians are perceived. This year, the whole school is learning World History, so as you guys should all know, the Egyptians were a pretty cool, interesting people. They treated their own people more than okay, and their whole thing that they had going on was pretty awesome. So what I want to say, is I think our perception of the Egyptian people is a little harsh. I mean, maybe it's just me, but I used to think that the Egyptians were such 'bad guys'. But when you think about it- we were slaves, were they really supposed to invite us over to a cup of tea? Slaves don't typically have the best time ever. I understand that we weren't expecting to be slaves, Yosef was important there, blah-blah-blah, but did it really come as such a surprise? I don't know, I feel like we may be looking at this a little one-sided sometimes and develop a bias. I could be wrong- feel free to disagree.
Okay, if somebody is not satisfied with that, then you can go click on this link from RavKookTorah.org if you really want to and tell me what you think about korbanot and stuff. I was going to post about the Midrash on it, but then I decided not to. But yes, I would love to hear about what you think about the midrash. Interesting stuff.
Also, I hope the changing fonts colors encouraged you to keep reading this post. If you made it to the end, congratulations!
Okay, I loved that you wrote that about the colors at the end because I was just thinking how beautiful you made this! Anyway, I don't necessarily agree about your theory on why the Egyptians treated us so badly because even though we were slaves, they did not have to make us do such BACK BREAKING LABOR! They knew they were being cruel and horrible people. I do agree that they were obviously not going to treat us like their best friends because we were indeed slaves. I also would blame the Jews for keeping their minds in that "slave mentality" which hurt them in the end because it caused them to sin and not trust G-d as much as they should have. They should have wanted to throw away all of what they had in Egypt even if some things seemed luxurious because the Egyptians overall treated them badly!
ReplyDeleteBackbreaking labor sounds bad, but what about, say, the black slaves in America? I would say that they went through backbreaking labor too.. And this was centuries later when people are supposed to be in more civilized societies. Just something to think about.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the slave mentality thing. It is really sad that they kept that. Of course, I don't know as much about it as you do because I didn't spend all last year learning about it, but from what I've heard it's pretty bad and sad that they kept that.
I think there are two sides to every story.
ReplyDeleteIn America, the African Americans can say, "Yes, back then white people were horrible and we hate them so much. They were so super evil."
I mean, they were being really horrible, but only because after a few generations people just thought that that was the way life went. But there were still people who had morals and were good to their kids...
Also, another reason why people would say they did not like the ancient egyptians is because they were in general not moral people. as we learned in chumash last year with mrs wittlin, there were babies lying all over the floor because the women were trashy and it was so sad.
But you bring up some great, valid points!
Hello my beautiful friends.
ReplyDeleteI seriously loved your post Racheli. I must tell you that at first I agreed with Aviva because the Egyptians were very cruel to the Jews when they were slaves; often, they were unnecessarily cruel. Therefore, on that part I completely agree with Aviva. However, I do agree with you that the Egyptians are often portrayed as “evil” in the Torah because they had a personal effect on us in our history. It is, however, not fair to single them out and make it seem like they are the only ones who were cruel, especially to their slaves. During that period of time, many other countries and nations were exceptionally cruel- to other nations that they conquered in addition to their slaves. That was simply the accepted way of life back then. I would also like to mention that the Romans owned a lot of slaves and treated them horribly. They were literally able to do with them as they pleased. A man could take any woman, girl or boy he wanted and have sexual intercourse whenever he felt like it. Gladiators had to go through rigorous training and their life depended on success in the arena. Slaves were brought from foreign, sometimes very conservative countries and were exposed to things in Rome that were absolutely shocking to their eyes. One million Jews experienced such a shock as well when over one million were brought to Rome as slaves. They are not depicted as malicious and vindictive like the Egyptians were. That really bothers me too Racheli so I completely understand what you’re saying.