ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף דברים 11:10

For the land to which you are going . . . is not like the land of Egypt . . . it is a land of hills and valleys, from the rain of the skies it drinks water. It is a land that Hashem, your God inspects; the eyes of Hashem, your God, are constantly upon it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year. (Devarim 11:10–12)

WE REMEMBER THE FISH WHICH WE WERE WONT TO EAT IN EGYPT FOR NOUGHT. According to the plain meaning of Scripture [the explanation of the verse is that] the Egyptian fishermen used to put them to work to bring in the fish that they caught in their trawls and nets, and they would give them some fish [to eat], as is the custom of those that spread nets [upon the waters].¹⁶⁰Isaiah 19:8. And cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic¹⁵⁹Verse 5. are very abundant in Egypt, for it is as a garden of herbs,¹⁶¹Deuteronomy 11:10. and when they dug for the Egyptians in gardens and in all manner of service in the field¹⁶²Exodus 1:14. they would eat the vegetables. Or perhaps the Israelites who were the king’s slaves doing his work would be supported by him with sparing bread and scant water,¹⁶³Isaiah 30:20. and they would be dispersed throughout the city and would enter the gardens and fields, and eat of the vegetables without leaving anything over, as the king’s servants do. And [in addition it is possible that] they would give them at the edge of the river [Nile] small fish from the king’s portion which have no market-price in Egypt, as I have explained in Seder V’eileh Shemoth.¹⁶⁴Exodus 1:1. The verse referred to is ibid., 11. This was the complaint of the children of Israel,¹⁵⁵Verse 4. not the complaint of the mixed multitude¹⁵⁵Verse 4. [who were originally not of the stock of Israel and were not enslaved in Egypt, therefore they could not say, We remember the fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for nought; but after the mixed multitude fell a lusting¹⁵⁵Verse 4. they all] complained to Moses and demanded of him, Give us flesh, that we may eat,¹⁶⁵Further, Verse 13. as Scripture mentions further on.

והכנעני אז בארץ, “and the Canaanite was at that time in the process of conquering the Holy Land from the descendants of Shem. (according to Rashi) The justification appears to have been that Cham his father was senior to his brother Shem by two years. Rashi explains further that originally that land had been bequeathed by Noach to his son Shem. This is why G-d told Avraham that in due course, He would give that land back to Avraham’s descendants, as he was a descendant of Shem. In Numbers 13,22 as well as in Deuteronomy 11,10 Rashi states that Cham had built the city of Chevron for his son Canaan. According to this it would appear that the land of Canaan (Holy Land) had been given by Noach to his son Cham. We must therefore understand what Rashi wrote here as referring not to Shem personally, but as to one of Shem’s descendants. Perhaps he referred only to part, the northern section of Eretz Yisrael. His section included Jerusalem. The major section of the land of Canaan spread southwards in the direction of Egypt. Chevron was already part of the southern section. However, if we look at the wording in the Talmud in Ketuvot 112, where the Talmud challenges the underlying assumption that Cham built a city for his younger son Canaan before he built a city for his older son Mitzrayim, this sounds peculiar. According to the Torah in Numbers 13,22 Chevron was built seven years before Tzoan of Egypt. Clearly then the Torah had not spoken of Cham having built these cities, but of Noach. We may assume that the interpretation of the passage we quoted from the Talmud is to be understood as a question, i.e. “surely this is unbelievable?” [This is the way it appears in our versions of the Talmud. Ed.] Noach built Chevron for his younger son Shem, and subsequently he built Tzoan for his son who was 2 years older than Shem. The Torah, according to the Talmud, wished to state that the city of Chevron was seven times more successful than the city Tzoan. [The word שנים, usually meaning “years,” may also be used instead of פעמים, “repeated times.” Ed.] If we accept this interpretation, the line that the Canaanites were at that time trying to wrest the land of Shem from him, i.e. to conquer Chevron and Jerusalem, makes much better sense.