Musar su Genesi 47:21

I have also told you that these "sparks," i.e. result of these emissions, first surfaced during the generation of the Deluge and the generation of the Tower of Babel. Those generations were similarly remiss. Joseph first circumcised the Egyptians and then transferred them in order to morally refine them. He wanted to repair the damage inflicted on the world through the wasteful seminal emissions by all those generations. He tried to lead those people back to sanctity and the holy covenant by his action. This is the real meaning of Genesis 47,21: ואת העם העביר אותו לערים מקצה גבול מצרים ועד קצהו, "He transferred the people from the cities from one end of Egypt to the other." Joseph had first circumcised the people whom he transferred. The transfer was to refine them morally. In the course of time the mixed multitude that joined the Jewish people at the time of the Exodus were people descended from those whom Joseph had circumcised. This is the mystical dimension of Exodus 1,9: ויאמר אל עמו הנה עם בני ישראל, He said to his people: "Here are the people of the children of Israel, etc." Pharaoh later on referred to the people who became the ערב רב, the fellow travellers.

What we learn from all this is how careful we must be when we reside in a land that enjoys G–d's daily personal supervision. We must conduct ourselves submissively vis a vis G–d. King David expressed this sentiment when he said גר אנכי בארץ , "I am merely a stranger in the land (of Israel)" (Psalms 119,19) David considered himself as at most possessing the status of a stranger in that land. When G–d told Abraham in Genesis 15,13: "Know that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs,” we must ask why He added the words "in a land that is not theirs?" Is it not clear that one can only be a stranger in a land that one does not own? Rashi addresses this problem and says that this expression includes the times when Abraham's descendants would also at times be strangers in countries other than the land of Egypt, during the 400 years which start with the birth of Isaac. Other commentators see in this expression an allusion to the fact that Israel would reside in Goshen, i.e. not Egypt proper, the expression לא להם, referring to the Egyptians who did not "own" Goshen, seeing it had been given to Sarah by Pharaoh. Alternately, it could refer to the resettlement policy of the Egyptians which Joseph had initiated in Genesis 47,21, where Rashi explains that as a result none of the Egyptians themselves had a real claim to the land they were settled on It is clear in our context, that Abraham's descendants, i.e. Israel, were meant to become strangers and subsequently slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. At a later stage in their history they would become strangers in their own country. This is why G–d emphasized that during these first four hundred years or part thereof they would be strangers in someone else's country. Afterwards they would be strangers just as David described himself as a stranger in ארץ ישראל.

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.