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How long were B"Y in Mitzrayim?



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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Oct 16 2021, 11:26 pm
I heard a shiur on this weeks parsha that answered a question that I had for many years, that I wanted to share.

As a general rule we know that, “ein mikra yotzei midei peshuto, “a verse cannot be removed from its face context.

You always have to have a way to take the passuk at face value.

Yet there is a passuk with a very obvious problem. In Shmos, when B"Y are leaving Mitzrayim, the passuk says that they lived in Mitzrayim for 430 years.

This presents an obvious problem because we know that they only stayed for 210 years. Rashi comments there that it's not possible to say that it was 430 years, based on a calculation from the years the Yaakov came down to Mitzraim.

Instead, Rashi says we need to start counting from the bris bein habesarim. If you count from that point, you get 430 years.

So this always bothered me, firstly because it seems kind of random to choose a time and say it starts from there. True, that's when Avraham first heard about the fact that his descendants would be in Mitzrayim. But how does that translate to saying that that's when they started living there?

My second problem is that even if Rashi wants to give a way to explain it, we still have to have a way to explain the pshat. This seems like a big anomaly, that we can take a possuk and change the basic meaning.

So today I heard a shiur by Rabbi Glatstien that solved this issue for me. He quotes the Malbim who says that when Avraham first came to Mitzrayim, he actually made a settlement there. He built Goshen. And when he later went back, he stayed in the city he built. This happened immediately after the bris bein habesarim. (The passuk says Achar- which tells us that it happened right after the previous event.)

Years later when Yaakov and his sons came to Mitzrayim, they naturally went to the city that Avraham built- Goshen.

So it comes out that there was a settlement of B"Y for 430 years! The passuk says "umoshav bnei Yisroel "- the settlement was 430 years, not that they actually lived there all 430 years..
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amother
Navyblue


 

Post Sat, Oct 16 2021, 11:32 pm
To further your point, Avraham build Goshen and always lived his life as a גר, a stranger in his country, and never made a ישוב. Yitzchak did the same thing. When it says "וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו", it means that Yaakov tried to make a yishuv (ביקש יעקב לישב בשלוה), a permanent living place, in the same place that his father made himself a גר, a stranger and wanderer. Therefore, קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף - Hashem sent the trouble of Yosef upon him to continue the גירות that would shorten בני ישראל's actual stay in מצרים.
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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 12:17 am
amother [ Navyblue ] wrote:
To further your point, Avraham build Goshen and always lived his life as a גר, a stranger in his country, and never made a ישוב. Yitzchak did the same thing. When it says "וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו", it means that Yaakov tried to make a yishuv (ביקש יעקב לישב בשלוה), a permanent living place, in the same place that his father made himself a גר, a stranger and wanderer. Therefore, קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף - Hashem sent the trouble of Yosef upon him to continue the גירות that would shorten בני ישראל's actual stay in מצרים.


Interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Is this your own thought or are you saying it over from someone?
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amother
Navyblue


 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 1:00 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Is this your own thought or are you saying it over from someone?


I learned it in 12th grade. I don't remember who says it, but it was definitely a מפורש on רש"י.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 9:15 am
The way I learned it, there was no question that there was a presence for that long, just the the shibud was condensed.
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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 9:42 am
PinkFridge wrote:
The way I learned it, there was no question that there was a presence for that long, just the the shibud was condensed.


Rashi works out the years from the numbers that are in the text itself, and proves that it's impossible to say that they were in Mitzrayim itself for 430 years.
We know that Kehas was one of those who came down with Yaakov. So let's assume that was year 1.
He lived 133 years.
His son Amram lived 137 years.
His son Moshe was 80 when he left Mitzrayim.
The total is 350, which is maximum number years they could have been there. And this doesn't take into account that Kehas may have been older when he came, and the overlapping years of fathers and sons.

That's why Rashi says the shot clock starts from way before Yitzchak was born- from the time of the bris bein habesarim.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 4:30 pm
b.chadash wrote:
Rashi works out the years from the numbers that are in the text itself, and proves that it's impossible to say that they were in Mitzrayim itself for 430 years.
We know that Kehas was one of those who came down with Yaakov. So let's assume that was year 1.
He lived 133 years.
His son Amram lived 137 years.
His son Moshe was 80 when he left Mitzrayim.
The total is 350, which is maximum number years they could have been there. And this doesn't take into account that Kehas may have been older when he came, and the overlapping years of fathers and sons.

That's why Rashi says the shot clock starts from way before Yitzchak was born- from the time of the bris bein habesarim.


Could it start then because Avrohom spent time in Mitzrayim?
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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 4:34 pm
PinkFridge wrote:
Could it start then because Avrohom spent time in Mitzrayim?


Yes, that was the point of the Malbim.
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SmileNow




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 10:28 pm
I also learned that the city of goshen was gifted to Sarah as a parting gift when he let her go after stealing her. This was part of the compensatory/parting gifts paroh gave to Avraham.
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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 10:44 pm
SmileNow wrote:
I also learned that the city of goshen was gifted to Sarah as a parting gift when he let her go after stealing her. This was part of the compensatory/parting gifts paroh gave to Avraham.


Do you know a source for this?

I don't want to take this majorly off topic, but the larger theme of the shiur was that Avraham actually left Charan twice. Once at the age of 70 (without Sarai) and the second time at age 75. It was during the second leaving that he took his wife and all of his possessions.

But the bris bein habesarim happened when he was 70, which means 5 years PRIOR to leaving Charan with Sarai. ( These numbers are in the text. )

According to this reckoning, (which if memory serves, is clearly spelled out in Tosfos) Avraham settled Goshen during the first lech lecha. It had to be so because the Torah says explicitly that he was 70 by the bris bein habesarim, and earlier in the parsha it says he was 75 when he left.

Therefore, according to this, it would not make sense that Goshen was received as a gift, when Sarai was kidnapped because that would make Avraham 75. He would have had to have already built it 5 years earlier. In other words, it would contradict the whole premise here.

(Is this clear? If not, let me know and I'll clarify further.)
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imorethanamother




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 10:49 pm
Rabbi Glatstein also had another shiur a while ago that said that it is indeed a very big problem that we were not in slavery in Egypt for those 400 odd years, so some of the galus/slavery of the ages will ultimately equal the years Hashem originally intended. The original decree in this parsha was not mentioned by name, so it didn't necessarily have to be Egypt.

I have to find it. I wish TorahAnytime had a better search engine.
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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 17 2021, 11:52 pm
imorethanamother wrote:
Rabbi Glatstein also had another shiur a while ago that said that it is indeed a very big problem that we were not in slavery in Egypt for those 400 odd years, so some of the galus/slavery of the ages will ultimately equal the years Hashem originally intended. The original decree in this parsha was not mentioned by name, so it didn't necessarily have to be Egypt.

I have to find it. I wish TorahAnytime had a better search engine.


That sounds interesting. Maybe it is in one of his parashas Bo shiurim.

As an aside, he has a lot of fascinating content this week with the ascendancy of Yishmael and how it is relevant to our day.
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imorethanamother




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Oct 18 2021, 12:50 am
b.chadash wrote:
That sounds interesting. Maybe it is in one of his parashas Bo shiurim.

As an aside, he has a lot of fascinating content this week with the ascendancy of Yishmael and how it is relevant to our day.


My husband remembers the shiur too, and it might be in Parshas Balak about Bilaam. Because in that shiur, he talks about how Bilaam's curses also ended up coming true at a later date.

Which shiur are you referring to about Yishmael? Link?

He talks about galus Yishmael a lot - about the conjunction of two galus-nations per tekufah. We are in the Eisav-Yishmael one now, and the Yishmael one triumphs. It's scary.
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b.chadash




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Oct 18 2021, 9:53 pm
imorethanamother wrote:


Which shiur are you referring to about Yishmael? Link?

.


The ascendancy of the Jewish people over Yishmael through the Akeida
https://www.torahanytime.com/#.....22726
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