When our patriarch Ya’aqob was getting ready to descend to Egypt and reunite with his son Yosef —Egypt’s second most powerful man— he feared and hesitated. HaShem then revealed Himself to Ya’aqob and said: “Do not be afraid to descend to Egypt, Ya’aqob. There I will make you a great nation”.
What was Ya’aqob afraid of?
PREVENTING THE INEVITABLE
Our last patriarch feared that his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren would assimilate into the prestigious Egyptian culture, and end up becoming “Egyptians of Semitic origin”. The assimilation of immigrants to a land that welcomes them is not only common, but normal and in a certain way, inevitable. In the United States there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Italian, Irish or Polish immigrants, who arrived here at the beginning of the 20th century or before!. Today, they consider themselves 100% American. They do not have, to my knowledge, any “existential” connection with the ancient European lands of their ancestors or their ancient traditions, except perhaps in culinary matters. This was Ya’aqob’s fear. That his descendants would assimilate and become 100% Egyptians.
Ya’aqob did two things to prevent assimilation. Firstly, according to our Sages, Ya’aqob sent Yehuda before the family arrived and entrusted him with the organization of a Hebrew school or Talmud Tora. In this way, they could continue to educate their children and theach them the values of Abraham Abinu.
Second, Ya’aqob asked (demanded!) Yosef to take his body and bury it in the land of Israel. In this way, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would always keep in mind that their place is in Israel. In this sense, Yaaqob was the first Zionist.
YOSEF JOINS FORCES
Yosef, on the other hand, also took several measures to avoid assimilation.
First, he established his family in the land of Goshen, a separated land. And he made it clear to Pharaoh, and to his own family, that they would continue to dedicate themselves to raise cattle, a job that was taboo for Egyptians, because of their religious beliefs (they believed, like many Hindus today, that some animals embodied the spirit of gods or dead people, and need to be left alone, feed and even worshiped). In this way, Yosef wanted his family to maintain a limited social relationship with the Egyptians. And finally, Yosef, as his father did, made his descendants swear that his body will also be taken out of Egypt to the land of Israel.
APPEARANCE, NAMES AND LANGUAGE
And then, more. Jews refused to adopt certain key elements of Egyptian society. The children and descendants of Israel kept the traditional Semitic dress, and did not adopt the Egyptian dress code. Most Jewish men would grow a beard and wear special colored tunics. The image we see above shows a Semitic family –the Egyptians were not Semites– that came from Canaan in the 19th century b.c.e. We can clearly see the beards and tunics, as opposed to the shaven (or beardless) Egyptians with white tunics or skirts. The dress code of the descendants of Ya’aqob was different. You could tell visually who is a Jew by the way he or she is dressed.
Our Sages also explained that Jews did not change their Hebrew names for Egyptian names. Someone namd “Levi” or “Shimon” could only be a Jew.
Finally, Jews did not change their language. This means that parents spoke Hebrew at their house, and teachers probably spoke Hebrew in the schools. And perhaps, if the mother-language was Hebrew, when they spoke Egyptian Jews had a “Hebrew accent”.
WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM YOSEF?
Regarding the origin of these three elements, my son David shared with me this chiddush (= creative interpretation). He told me that these three elements were mentioned by the Tora in the story of Yosef. When he was forced to appear in front of Pharaoh and later in front of the Egyptian society. The very first thing that Egyptians did to Yosef, when he was taking out of prison, was shaving him and dress him like an Egyptian. Then, the Egyptians changed his Hebrew name”Yosef” for an Egyptian name, “Tsafenat Pa’aneah” (the decipherer of the occult). And finally, we also witness that Yosef embraces the Egyptian language as his first language, since when he communicated with his brothers, before revealing his true identity, he did so through an interpreter. I do not think it is coincidence that these same three elements –clothing, name, language– have been identified by our Sages (or perhaps by Yosef himself!) as the key elements that would lead to or accelerate the process of assimilation of a human group into its new home.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
Summarizing and thinking about our present reality, we learn that 3500 years ago our ancestors did every possible effort to avoid assimilation by having their own Jewish education system; maintaining a very strong connection with the land of Israel; living in community; working in jobs that allows limited interaction with Egyptians; wearing something that indicated that they were Jewish (similar, for example, to a Kippa today); maintaining their Hebrew names and learning and speaking Hebrew: the language of Abraham, Yitshaq and Ya’aqob.
That’s the old good formula to prevent assimilation.
