G

enesis ends on an almost 
serene note. Jacob has found 
his long-lost son. The family 
has been reunited. Joseph has forgiven 
his brothers. Under his protection and 
influence, the family has settled in 
Goshen, one of the most prosperous 
regions of Egypt. They now 
have homes, property, food, 
the protection of Joseph 
and the favor of Pharaoh. 
It must have seemed one 
of the golden moments of 
Abraham’s family’s history.
Then, as has happened so 
often since, “There arose a 
new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph.” 
There was a political climate change. The 
family fell out of favor. Pharaoh told his 
advisers: “Look, the Israelite people are 
becoming too numerous and strong for 
us” — the first time the word “people” is 
used in the Torah with reference to the 
children of Israel. “Let us deal shrewdly 

with them, so that they may not 
increase.” And so, the whole mechanism 
of oppression moves into operation: 
forced labor that turns into slavery that 
becomes attempted genocide.
The story is engraved in our memory. 
We tell it every year, and in summary-
form in our prayers, every day. It is 
part of what it is to be a Jew. Yet there 
is one phrase that shines out from the 
narrative: “But the more they were 
oppressed, the more they increased and 
the more they spread.” That, no less 
than oppression itself, is part of what it 
means to be a Jew. The worse things get, 
the stronger we become. Jews are the 
people who not only survive but thrive 
in adversity.
Jewish history is not merely a story of 
Jews enduring catastrophes that might 
have spelled the end to less tenacious 
groups. It is that after every disaster, Jews 
renewed themselves. They discovered 
some hitherto hidden reservoir of spirit 

that fueled new forms of collective 
self-expression as the carriers of God’s 
message to the world.

DEALING WITH ADVERSITY
Every tragedy begat new creativity. 
After the division of the kingdom 
following the death of Solomon came 
the great literary prophets, Amos and 
Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Out of the 
destruction of the First Temple and the 
Babylonian exile came the renewal of 
Torah in the life of the nation, beginning 
with Ezekiel and culminating in the 
vast educational program brought back 
to Israel by Ezra and Nehemiah. From 
the destruction of the Second Temple 
came the immense literature of rabbinic 
Judaism, until then preserved mostly in 
the form of an oral tradition: Mishnah, 
Midrash and Gemara.
From the Crusades came the Hassidei 
Ashkenaz, the North European school 
of piety and spirituality. Following the 

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

Turning Curses
into
Blessings

38 | DECEMBER 23 • 2021 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

