Israel’s Spiritual Journey to Egypt Originally, our ancestors worshipped idols. This passage comes to state why God chose to bring Abraham and his descendants closer to Him and why God chose them over others. What significant was this choice if there were no other worthy nations aat that time There were other choices: there were Abraham and Nachor, and God chose Abraham. There were Isaac, Ishmael, and Abraham’s other offspring and God chose Isaac. God gave Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and then God chose Jacob and his children. Three times God chose to refine and choose one from the others until there was a truly pure and holy genetic line¹literally “a holy and pure drop.” The word is used in Pirkei Avotfor semen. Apparently, the Maharal is known for some of his politically incorrect genetic theories about Israel’s uniqueness. Choice here means that Abraham and his descendants had to go through a process of purification and refining in order to be truly worthy. that does not contain any waste. Jacob and his sons were chosen because they were three times purified and were without any waste. Having already mentioned the physical shame, (“We were slaves in Egypt,”) the text goes on to explain the spiritual shame that Israel had to overcome, since both forms of shame were found in Israel: material and spiritual. The Holy One then lifted them up from shame to exaltation. The verse states, “Jacob and his offspring went down to Egypt,” even though later it states that they went down forced by divine decree. ¹ It should have said here that Jacob and his offspring were made to go down to Egypt. This is not problematic since certainly it was a divine decree that Jacob and his family went down to Egypt. However, the Holy One gave them good reason to down to Egypt – they went down with honor at Joseph’s request.

footnotes: ¹ Tipa kedosha u’berurah, ¹ This verse suggests that Jacob and his family went down to Egypt of their own volition – contradicting the later statement.