By Rabbi Yerachmiel D. Fried

Dear Rabbi Fried,

I noticed that you were a signatory on a letter from a number of rabbis proclaiming their objection to any legitimization of intermarriage. The letter ends with blessings of continuing the unbroken chain which began with the first Passover, leaving Egypt until today. But surely, as slaves to the Egyptians, there must have been plenty of intermarriage and relations with their Egyptian taskmasters. This must have led to much Judeo-Egyptian blood mingled in those leaving Egypt, similar to what happened in this country during the days of slavery. With the emphasis on the time of Egypt, this doesn’t seem at all to be an appropriate blessing delegitimizing intermarriage.

Gloria T. 

Dear Gloria,

Rashi, the classical commentary to the Torah, addresses your question. The Torah, when enumerating the leading Jewish families which left Egypt, seems to do a strange thing. It surrounds each name, front and back, with the letters yud and hey. In other words, the Friedman family was called the “Y-Friedman-H” family. These two letters spell one of the names of G-d. Why would the Torah do that?

Rashi explains the following, “Since the nations of the world were belittling the Israelites, saying, ‘How can these people trace their lineage back to the Tribes of Jacob? Isn’t it obvious that, while in servitude, the taskmasters controlled their (Israelite) maidservants? If they controlled the men, certainly they controlled the women!’ Hence the Holy One, blessed be He, connected His Name with theirs, attaching the letter hey on one side of their names and a yud on the other side. This is G-d’s own testimony that they are truly the offspring of their patriarchs and matriarchs.” This is the meaning of the words of King David, “The tribes of yud and hey, a testimonial to Israel.” This Name of G-d testifies that they and their tribes are pure. Hence each tribal name carries the yud and hey, such as Chanoch the family of HachanochiY, Palu the family of HapaluiY.

This teaches us that Jews, despite their many years of servitude, succeeded against the odds in remaining sexually separate from their taskmasters and Egyptian society at large. In fact, the rabbis tell us that it was in the merit of three accomplishments that the Jews were redeemed from Egypt: They did not change their names, their language or their mode of dress. Those three items are what identify a people as a nation apart. This was despite tremendous pressure to “modernize” and assimilate into the popular and prestigious Egyptian culture.

In fact, on a different verse, Rashi points out that there were many Jews who did, in fact, assimilate. Those Jews perished and were buried during the plague of darkness, since they lost the merit to join the intact Jewish nation in their miraculous redemption from Egypt. They forfeited, by their assimilation, their place in the annals of Jewish history and being the subject of discussion of generations of Jews at the Passover Seder. In the same way that the Almighty attached His Name to the Tribes of old, the miracle of our survival endures today. Despite all the nations that have controlled and ruled over us, we have, often at the cost of our lives, ensured the integrity of our lineage as Jews. This is a large part of our celebration of Pesach.

May we be worthy to pass on the torch to the next generation, keeping intact our holy lineage with the name of G-d on either side of our names!

Sincerely,

Rabbi Yerachmiel Fried

Rabbi Yerachmiel D. Fried is dean of DATA-Dallas Area Torah Association.