Commentaire sur L’Exode 1:12

וכאשר יענו אתו AND AS THEY AFFLICTED THEM — In whatsoever matter it was that they set their hearts upon afflicting them so was the heart of the Holy One, blessed be He, set upon multiplying them and making them grow apace.

כן ירבה; the measures the Egyptians took to slow down the Jewish birthrate not only did not work but backfired.

וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה, The more they oppressed them the more they increased. There is a beautiful explanation by the Zohar second volume page 95 on Kohelet 8,9. Solomon says that "there is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment." The Zohar explains that when one has to endure persecution and troubles, the good [which may have been mixed with the evil. Ed.] is distilled from the evil joining other areas which are totally good; by the same token the evil of that mixture joins other areas of pure evil. These two details are hinted at when Solomon speaks of לרע לו. Similarly, the Torah here tells us the same thing. The more persecution the Israelites suffered the more "good" was released from what had been only a mixture of good and evil previously. With the release of that "good", i.e. good qualities, the Israelite families merited having more and more children. Hence the Torah adds the words וכן יפרץ in the sense of ופרצת ימה וקדמה, "You will burst forth to the West and to the East, etc." Alternatively, the word may mean "it achieved a breaking forth" i.e. a separation from an environment in which the good had been forced to mix with the evil. The evil was now released and separated. This resulted in the famous "iron crucible" in which the character of the Israelite people was forged in Egypt.

וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה, “they would continue to multiply in direct ratio to the degree of greater hardships imposed upon them.” This means that they maintained their birthrate at the same level as when they had been free men.

To the extent that they set their hearts to oppress [them]. Rashi is answering the question: The verse implies that Bnei Yisrael increased because the Egyptians oppressed them. Would they not have increased otherwise? A further question: oppression decreases a population’s growth. Rashi answers: “To the extent that they set their hearts. . .” In other words, the Egyptians did not actually oppress them [at this point]. Rather, they intended to do so.

V. 12. Die in Form einer Steuer auferlegte Staatsmaßregel erreichte nicht ihren Zweck; in dem Maße, in welchem sie es zu entkräften suchten, in dem Maße wurde es immer zahlreicher und imposanter, so dass, wörtlich: "ihnen Ekel wurde", nicht "vor den Juden" — etwa á la Schudt — es steht זקף גדול auf ויקצו, sondern: sie hatten an allem Ekel wegen der Anwesenheit der Juden. Alles, woran sie sonst Freude haben konnten und obgleich sie dessen ja jetzt schon in so großem Maße vor den Juden voraus hatten, verlor den Wert in ihren Augen, weil auch Juden da waren, weil sie doch die Juden nicht von allem ausschließen konnten, — wie ילקוט zu ותמלא הארץ אותם erläutert: שנתמלאו בתי טרטיאות ובתי קרקסיאות מהם, gingen sie ins Theater, waren Juden da, in den Zirkus, waren Juden da. —

כן ירבה וכן יפרוץ, “so it would increase even more and multiply even more.” This was in line with G-d’s promise to Yaakov that his descendants would greatly multiply in Egypt. He told him not to worry about going to Egypt. (Genesis 46,3)

כן ירבה signifies: so they multiplied and so they grew apace (i. e. God’s determination was carried out, the imperfect tenses of the verbs denoting the continuance of the increase and growth). This is the real meaning; but there is a Midrashic explanation of these imperfect tenses: The Holy spirit (God) said this: You say פן ירבה, “lest they increase”, but “I” say כן ירבה, “thus will they assuredly increase” (Sotah 11a).

ויקוצו, they became frustrated with their own lives when watching the development of the Israelites. This expression for frustration with one’s own life has already been used when Rivkah could not bear thinking about Yaakov marrying a Canaanite girl. (Genesis 27,46) It also occurs in a similar sense in Isaiah 7,16.

וכן יפרוץ, “and they would proliferate ever more.” The term is borrowed from פורץ גדר, “making a breach in a fence,” (both literally and figuratively speaking, in this case making the efforts of the Egyptians to contain their birthrate ineffective). According to the commentators specializing in allegorical approaches, מדרש, the more the Egyptians tried to control the Jewish birthrate the more G’d blessed them by making them ever more fruitful.” This was most noticeable in the much smaller birthrate of the tribe of Levite, a tribe that remained exempt from performing slave labour. When the people were counted at the beginning of the Book of Numbers, the males of the tribe of Levi, even though they were counted already from one month up and not from twenty years up as the rest of the people, amounted to approximately 30-50% of the other tribes.

So they are increasing and becoming strong. Since כן ירבה (lit. “so they will increase”) is referring to Hashem’s intent [to increase them], and He desires that Bnei Yisrael should constantly increase, why does the verse say ירבה in the future tense, [implying that it did not take place now]? Therefore Rashi explained it as כן רבה וכן פרץ (they are increasing and becoming strong), which indicates that is was ongoing.

The plain meaning of the verse is that for every unjustified act of cruelty by the Egyptians, G'd compensated the Jewish people with a commensurate increase in the number of babies that were born to them. Additional hands enabled the parents to meet the work quota imposed upon them by the Egyptians. The words כן ירבה, "so they would multiply," would then mean that the additional number of children made up for the reduced performance by their weakened parents in proportion to the emasculating effect of the hard labour. This became a vicious circle as the Egyptians kept increasing the workload.

ויקצו the word means, THEY WERE WEARY OF THEIR LIVES. Our Rabbis explained that it means that they were as thorns (קוצים) in their eyes (cf. Sotah 11a).

Their lives became abhorrent to them. Rashi is answering the question: it says the Egyptians came to loathe, מפני בני ישראל (lit. in the presence of Bnei Yisrael). Yet Bnei Yisrael were not with the Egyptians all the time. They were in the land of Goshen far from Pharaoh and his people. Therefore Rashi explains: The Egyptians’ own lives became abhorrent to them when Bnei Yisrael were mentioned. I would rather say Rashi inferred it from the verse’s use of מפני (because of) instead of simply saying ויקוצו בבני ישראל , “They came to loathe the Bnei Yisrael.” (Maharshal)