The sages had their own ideas about the relations between men and women. Female satisfaction in male-female relations was considered to be extremely important. In fact if the woman experienced sexual gratification first the couple was assured a male child. This influenced the number of male children born to the Israelites in Egypt! To oppress them by making them do hard labor: The Egyptians wanted to reduce the number of Israelite males. They tried to keep the Israelites from multiplying by forcing them to do hard labor. In this way, they believed that they would reduce the men’s” desire to be intimate with their wives. What Pharaoh did not anticipate was that the woman would respond by seducing their husbands. This caused the Israelite couples to give birth to even more male children. According to the Talmud, if a woman reaches climax before the man, the couple will give birth to male children. Thus, the harder the Israelites were oppressed, the less desire they had to be with their wives, the more the women pursued their husbands, and the couples gave birth to more male children. This caused the Egyptians to dread⁷² the Israelites and fear them even more!

footnotes: ⁷² Exodus 1:12

The most common mistake that people make is to assume that the Israelites built the pyramids. According to the Torah, the Israelites built the garrison cities of Pit’hom and Ramses. Here Rabbi Horowitz distinguishes slavery from oppression. The Egyptians were guilty of both – but they weren’t put to death for having enslaved the Israelites. Slavery was an acceptable institution in the biblical world – from a Jewish perspective oppression of another human being was unacceptable. Garrison cities, Pit’hom and Ramses: The Talmud⁷³ suggests that Pit’hom and Ramses are actually one city. One says the city was called Pit’hom; the word Ramses suggests one building after another tumbled down (mitroses). Another opinion is that the city was called Ramses; the word Pit’hom suggests that it was swallowed up by a great abyss. But this is problematic since the Torah says that they built “garrison cities,” in the plural – how could they be one and the same city? We have already learned that Noahides that are found guilty of theft are put to death but are exempt from repayment. So why, then, were the Egyptians drowned in the sea and the Israelites rewarded with great wealth when they left Egypt? The Egyptians were guilty of two crimes: they enslaved the Israelites and they oppressed them. They had to pay the Israelites for the years of slavery but they were punished with death for having forced the Israelites to work in seemingly useless ways just to oppress them. We see a reference to this above in the comment on the garrison cities which the Israelites were forced to build over and over again. The cities kept collapsing but the Egyptians forced the Israelites to continue to work only to oppress them. So what did the two sages differ over in the comment about whether the cities were called Pit’hom or Ramses? They differed whether the servitude came first or the oppression came first. According to the first opinion, oppression came first (building after building would collapse) and the slavery came later. According to the second opinion, the slavery came first (they would build the whole city only to have it sink into the ground) and the oppression followed it.

footnotes: ⁷³ Sotah