The people of the Children of Yisrael were greater and mightier from us. (Shemos 1:9)
The Beis Halevi’s commentary on the Torah explains our verse as follows:
Pharaoh wished to harm Yisrael, but it is a very shameful thing to harm a people baselessly, for no reason. So he decided to act smartly. He presented the Jewish people’s wickedness to his ministers, the advisors of the kingdom. He spoke of the negative qualities of their hearts, and claimed that they are not trustworthy, neither as regards the country’s affairs in general nor as regards individual Egyptians.
This is what Pharaoh meant when he said to them, “The people of the Children of Yisrael are greater and mightier from us.” “Mightier” refers to wealth and acquisition of possessions. Pharaoh claimed that the Jewish people’s wealth was “from us,” in other words, from the Egyptians. They steal and swindle the Egyptians, they charge us interest, etc. Therefore, Pharaoh suggested הבה נתחכמה לו פן ירבה והיה כי תקראנה מלחמה ונוסף גם הוא על שונאינו – “Let us deal smartly with them, lest they increase, and when a war will happen, they too will join the enemy,” since their hearts are not faithful to the country, and they are against the state in general.
We see that Pharaoh, in order to harm the Jews, depicted them in the eyes of his countrymen as evil and corrupt people. Jews steal our money and swindle us, etc etc. So there is good reason to treat them harshly. About this we recite in the Haggadah: םִיַרְצִ מּנוָ לּעוֵרָּיַו, which, translated according to the commentary of the Beis Halevi, means as follows: “The Egyptians made us out as evil people.”
And this is what the non-Jews have been saying about us throughout the generations.
יםִּמַעָב הֶרֶקְּ בּנוֵימִׂשְּס תֹאוָמּי וִחְס – You have made us repulsive and disgusting in the midst of the nations.
1 Eichah 3:45.
This verse is why the anti-Semites hurl at us the epithet of “dirty Jew.”
But there is a hidden blessing in this curse. There is a story about the Baal Shem Tov that once a Jew came to him and said he was afraid of a non-Jew who keeps calling him “dirty Jew.” The Baal Shem Tov calmed him and assured him that he has nothing to fear from this guy. If this guy sees the Jew as “dirty,” it will cause him to distance himself from the Jew, and not attack him.
This way of looking at Jews strengthens the separation between Yisrael and the nations, and this is a blessing.
