The affliction we suffered in Egypt was not necessarily the fault of the Mitzrim. It’s true they worked us to the bone and we suffered terribly from them but there’s another aspect to the ‘affliction’ that we can’t blame especially on the wickedness of the Egyptians – the lechem oni represents also the affliction we willingly accepted upon ourselves in Mitzrayim. Now that’s an entirely new subject that the matzah is testifying to and it needs to be explained.
The fact is that in the ancient days any minority, even a slave nation, that lived in the midst of a host nation had a choice: either you assimilate or you suffer. Among nations of antiquity there was no such thing as living in another country and yet maintaining a separate identity. Unless you’re willing to suffer, to intentionally remain separate and different and suffer all the degradation and affliction that comes along with remaining an outcast, you’ll assimilate – sometimes immediately, sometimes a little longer – and after a while you become part of the nation that had originally enslaved you. In the course of time the slaves merged with their masters. They intermarried with them and became lost among them.
A Different Nation
But the Bnei Yisroel were a different story. They had a different destiny, a higher destiny, than all the nations of the world and so they refused to change. שׁ ְ מָ ם אֶת א שִׁ נּו ל – They didn’t change their names. Imagine a Jew has to go into a profession, an office in Manhattan, and his name is, let's say, Moshe; so he signs up as Maurice or Murray or something else so he shouldn't be so conspicuous among the gentiles; he shouldn't be uncomfortable. But look at the names of that generation in Mitzrayim! Beautiful Hebrew names! They continued to call themselves names that set them apart: ר פּ ְ דָ ה צ ו – Hashem, our Rock, will redeem us. Or מִ י אֵ ל שׁ ְ ל ו– Hashem is my peace. רִ י אֵ ל צ ו – Hashem is my rock. ַ מְ לִ י אֵ ל ג – Hashem bestows all good on me. All distinct Jewish names.
Egyptian Harrasers
אֶת לְשׁוֹנָם א שִׁנּו ל – They didn’t change their language. They spoke only lashon kodesh. Imagine, a Hebrew is sitting in an Egyptian bus; imagine there were buses in Egypt and there are Egyptians all around you and they are chattering in Egyptian. And you have a friend of yours and you want to talk to him. So you talk in lashon kodesh.
You know what that means? To the Egyptian it sounds outlandish, backwards. “What's this?” They look down at you. They laugh at you and mock you. It’s quite uncomfortable.
Now they could have spoken Egyptian. Why not? They knew the language. But no, they insisted on maintaining their separate identity even though it meant oni, affliction; even though it meant they were exposing themselves to ridicule and harassment.
שָׁ ם אֶת לְבו א שִׁ נּו ל – They made sure to wear different clothes than the Egyptians. You think the goyim took that sitting down? They knew what was doing here, that the Jews wanted to be different, that they looked down at the Egyptian ways. And so the Mitzrim reacted. You can be sure the Egyptian boys threw things at them and the adults harassed them as well. Don’t think it didn’t happen. When you walked through the streets at night with your Jewish hat, whatever it was that identified you, so the Egyptians would throw stones.
American Harassers
You young Americans don’t know how it was in the past, even here in America. I remember when the Italians threw stones at us. They used to set their dogs on Jews who passed by. We suffered a great deal of harassment.
I remember when I was seven years old, a Christian gang in front of the church stopped me. They said “Are you a Jew?” I was a little boy; I was afraid of them and I said, “No.” I'm still sorry I said no, but they would have beaten me up. I was a little boy, only seven years old. I said no and they let me go.
And even today when a person walks in a neighborhood of let's say Italians and his tzitzis are out, so the Italians know these are 'Jew strings'. And they see he’s wearing a beard on his face so he's exposing himself to a certain amount of persecution.
Now you can be a very good Jew without a beard. Only that you’re not advertising your identity. You know, if you walk down the street waving an American flag, then you’re going to be the target of all the bums, of all the beatniks, of all the liberals. Whereas, if you carry the American flag inside, beneath your lapel, you might be a big patriot, but you’re not suffering for it. A beard is a flag. I’m not saying that you have to wear a beard in order to be a tzaddik, but you’re not suffering for Judiasm.
So if you want someone to spit in your face like a woman did in mine – I was walking up the subway stairs and a woman looked at me and spit directly into my face. “Jew!” she said. And it didn’t happen only once. Here I was standing by the roadside, and a motorist spit in my face as he passed by. Now he wouldn’t spit in your face. Because he thinks you’re a brother Italian! Three times people spat in my face. Stones have been thrown at me. Once I was bruised! All because of the beard.
Success in Egypt
In Mitzrayim, it was even more so, because the Jews were especially hated. They were looked down upon more than in America. But the Jews insisted on dressing like Jews anyhow. And they spoke only the Jewish language and they called themselves only Jewish names. And they were harassed and persecuted just because of that. But they did it anyhow. They looked down on the persecutors and they were proud. They knew who they were.
It was hard; it could be that there were some people who weren’t matzliach and they reacted by trying to curry favor with the Egyptians. There are always some weaklings, people without backbones who will try to adopt gentile ways in order to avoid embarrassment and suffering. But on a whole the Am Yisroel willingly ate this bread of affliction – in the midst of persecution they still held steadfast to all their traditions. The loyal Jew said, “I’ll suffer. I’ll eat the bread of affliction. I’m going to demonstrate who I am even if it means a stone in the head.”
Bread of Successful Suffering
And so when eat לֶ חֶ ם ע וֹ נִ י today we have to remember the greatness of our nation that voluntarily accepted the role of discrimination because they wanted to remain a separate people. Don't think that our nation was chosen for nothing. They earned it by years and years of privation that they willingly undertook to suffer. When they ate this bread of affliction they gained weight – spiritual weight. They became better and better, more and more loyal, stronger and stronger. Never did they succeed as much as the time when they were in Mitzrayim!
That’s a very important lesson that the matzah is testifying to. The most glorious era of our history was the era of lechem oni, when we ate the bread of affliction and so we are reminded also that this is the greatness that Hakadosh Baruch Hu expects from us too. Certainly it’s a diet that is very good – to eat the bread of voluntary affliction, suffering for the sake of loyalty to Hashem – and so the matzah testifies to those glorious days, and it stands to us forever as a model of the glory of a loyal Jew, how he succeeds in Golus.
The Matzah Testifies:
The bread of affliction was a choice our ancestors made. They chose to be afflicted in order to remain a separate entity and stay true to their noble ideals. That was their greatness and it’s a model for our greatness as well.
