Musar zu Jechezkiel 23:1

Moses sanctified his body to such an extent that even the parts he had inherited from his father and mother at birth became purified, refined, so that he was able to receive the word of G–d without the help of any intermediaries. The שרים of the Gentile nations, whose brains emit only material infected with the pollutants of the serpent, are in a different class. The שר של מצרים is the foremost amongst all those spiritually defective forces. The nation whose patron he is is a prime example of people steeped in sexual immorality, whose seminal discharge has been compared by the prophet to the seminal discharge of horses (Ezekiel 23,20). Egypt is a prototype of all that is morally abhorrent. We already pointed out in our commentary on פרשת מקץ that Egypt is called ערות הארץ, the most shameful place on earth. When Avital the scribe therefore referred to the measure of אמה, a cubit, this is not inappropriate. Although the שר של מצרים is, of course, a spiritual being to whom measurements in the physical world do not apply, yet he can be measured by such a yardstick. Our sages have described even angels as possessing such measurements as we know from Chulin 91, where the Talmud discusses the measurements of the ladder Jacob saw in his dream. The ladder is supposed to have been 8000 Parsa-ot wide in order to enable 2 pairs of angels each to ascend and descend simultaneously because the angels are each 2000 Parsa-ot wide. Most likely there is a deeper significance to that statement in the Talmud. The fact remains that it shows that the sages think of spiritual beings in terms of physical measurements.

והסיר ה' ממך כל חולי וכל מדוי מצרים הרעים . The greatest sickness of the Egyptians was of a mental nature, i.e. they denied the existence and authority of G–d when they said: "Who is G–d, etc.?" They were so steeped in sexual immorality that the prophet Ezekiel 23,20 compares them to emitting semen like horses. Their indulgence in these activities was a display of their arrogance.

The land of Egypt is to earth what the מקום ערוה, seat of the reproductive organs, is to man. This is why Ezekiel 23, 20 describes Egyptians as ejaculating seminal discharge that resembles that of horses, and generally describing them as debauched. [The theme is that it is the nature of the earth itself which contributes to the debauchery of its inhabitants. Ed.] Jacob's descendants were exiled to Egypt because in that country it was easiest to transfer their share of the serpent's pollution to their surroundings. Once they had disposed of those pollutants they could emerge purified. Joseph was especially suited to start such a process because he had demonstrated by his previous behavior how to maintain the Holy Covenant with G–d entered into by Abraham when he circumcised himself. The evil influence of the serpent's pollution remained only in the descendants of Esau. The reason the Torah presents us with such a long list of Esau's descendants at the end of פרשת וישלח, is to inform us that they were all ממזרים, bastards. Rashi already comments in this manner on Genesis 36, 2. Esau went to the land of Se-ir because he did not want to undergo the exile experience in either Egypt or the land of Canaan (where he would not have been sovereign, seeing that Israel owned that land). Had he been prepared to undergo that experience, he, too, could have rid himself of the negative influence of the original serpent.