“And these are the names of the children of Israel”... Sefer Shemos opens with the letter ו (vav) in order to connect between the pesukim of this weeks parsha and the previous pesukim from the end of Sefer Beraishis. The purpose for this is to teach us that those that went down to Egypt were righteous, just like their parents. The word ואלה also is employed to show continuity with the people who had preceded them. In this instance the preceding people were Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov Avinu, all of whom were outstandingly righteous. Another reason for the letter ו in this instance is to remind us that the galus of the Jewish people already began during the times of Avraham specifically when Yitzchak was born. Additionally, it comes to teach us that just as the earlier generations perceived that they were in exile and accepted their fate without resentment, so to did the generation that came down to Mitzrayim, also accepted their destiny without complaint. Perhaps this will help us understand why the Torah bothered to list the names of the shevatim when we have been well aware of their names as the Torah already listed them in Parshas Vayigash. The Torah informs us of the reason why the names appear once more, i.e. that they had all willingly accepted their destiny to endure the galus. As oppose to Eisav who had decided to leave the land of Canaan by moving to Mount Seir. The Midrash ascribes Eisav's move to the decree of Hashem that Abraham descendants would become strangers in a foreign land. Eisav wanted to escape that obligation and that is why he moved away voluntarily at that time.
הבאים מצרימה - Who arrived in Egypt; they came in order to endure exile; את יעקב -"With Yaakov Avinu ," i.e. In the same spirit as Yaakov Avinu, to fulfill their duty to become exiles. The Torah wants to prove that the Israelites did not move to Egypt for other reasons and that is why it writes that they came “איש וביתו”, - everyone with his respective family, i.e. they prepared for a lengthy stay; otherwise they would have left their families in the land of Canaan.
Death of Yosef and the Four Causes of Enslavement
And Yosef died...and the Israelites were fruitful, etc. Why did the Torah have to repeat again that Yosef died? The Torah already mentioned this at the end of פרשת ויחי. In addition, why do we have to be told that all the other brothers and the whole generation who had come to Egypt died? In addition, what is the connection between the respective deaths of the brothers and the rapid reproduction of the בני ישראל in the next verse?
There were a total of four reasons that brought about the enslavement of Klal Yisrael: The first was the death of Yosef, had Yosef lived on for some time the Mitzriyim would never have ruled over his family. The Torah therefore informs us that as long as Yosef was alive Klal Yisrael lived a serene and comfortable life. The second cause leading to enslavement of the Jewish people was the death of Yosef's brothers. As long as even a single one of the brothers remained alive the Egyptians would continue to honor Klal Yisrael. Once the Egyptians had become aware of the honor paid by the Canaanite kings at Yaakov Avinu’s burial, they began to honor all of Yaakov Avinu 's' sons, something they had not done previously.
The third cause leading to the enslavement of the Jewish people was the death of the entire generation of Jews who came down to Mitzrayim, the sixty-six people who had been born in the land of Canaan. All of these people were regarded as invited guests by the Egyptians, and they were treated with great respect. This may also have been due to their being perceived as more intelligent than the local population. The fourth and final cause leading to the enslavement of the Jewish population was their unusual fertility. Any of the causes that had restrained the Egyptians from planning some way of keeping the Jewish population increase at bay had now been removed. When we keep this in mind we understand why the Torah wrote: "and the children of Israel had already been fruitful, etc." The Torah did not want to inform us of this detail but to indicate that it now served as a cause of the process of enslavement. Another cause, one that did not have to do with Yosef, the brothers, or the first generation of Jewish immigrants to Egypt, was the fact that a new Pharaoh arose in Egypt. Even according to the view that the word "new" only referred to new laws designed to subdue the Jewish population, the absence of the four causes already mentioned which had held up discrimination against the Jews also helped to shape Pharaoh's attitude now. The plain meaning of the verse is, of course, that it refers to a brand new Pharaoh, a person who had not known the Yosef who had interpreted the dream of Pharaoh at least 102 years earlier.
Our difficulty is that the Torah only needed to write that the whole generation had died out. Why did the Torah have to refer separately to the death of Yosef, the brothers, and that of the generation? If there had not been enslavement as long as a single one of that generation was alive, there most certainly had not been any enslavement as long as one of the brothers or Yosef himself had been alive!
Perhaps the Torah wanted to describe a gradual deterioration in the status of the Jews in Egypt which commenced with Yosef's death. At that time the Jews who had up to then been considered the elite of Egyptian society were reduced to being no more than equals to the Egyptians at large. Once Yosef's brothers died the social position of the Jews underwent a further deterioration, some Egyptians beginning to despise them. However, they still had not lost their status of legal equality with the rest of the population. Once the last of the surviving Jewish immigrants died, the legal position of the Jews had become sufficiently shaky to enable a new king to legislate against them. The principal reason was the increasing reproduction rate of the Jews and the high degree of their visibility throughout the country frightened the local population and they feared that the Jews would eventually try to dominate them. We find in chapter three of Seder Olam that 116 years elapsed between the death of Levi until the Exodus. The actual enslavement did not last for more than 86 years, i.e. from the birth of Miriam. She was named מרים as a reminder of the מרירות the bitterness which characterized the life of the Jewish people at that time. You see from the above that at the time the last surviving brother of Yosef died, the Jews were still free. I conclude therefore that the enslavement did not commence until after the last of the immigrant Jews had died. The Torah compared these immigrants to the tribal heads because as long as they were alive their very lives protected the Jews against legal discrimination.
