This is the week where it finally happens. In our reading tomorrow, in Parashat Bo, the enslaved Israelites will finally be released from their oppression. This is our master story. Every single Friday night, in kiddush, when we say, ‘zekher l’yitziat Mitzrayim,’ remember the Exodus from Mitzrayim, this is what we mean. It’s easy to paint a picture of us vs. them, but lines between people weren’t actually so clean.
The Midrash teaches that there were three groups of individuals in Mitzrayim that had very different views on the liberation of the Israelites and different ways of responding to Moshe and his demand to Pharaoh. The first group didn’t want to let them go, and the Midrash teaches that these folks died in the plagues. They saw nothing wrong with the structure of their society. The second group supported the liberation of the Israelites and even revolted against Pharaoh’s oppressive policies. These individuals, however, only wanted the Israelites out of their hair because the plagues and that powerful Israelite God had become too much to bear. They just wanted the problem to go away.
The third group of people comes directly from our Torah portion: a group of Mitzreem who celebrated the first Pesach with the Israelites and then left with them, becoming a part of their people. These individuals who cast their lot with the Israelites are called the erev rav - the mixed multitude. The Midrash refers to the erev rav as k’sheirim - the proper ones. This is the praiseworthy group, not simply because the Israelites wanted some Mitzreem on their side, but because the erev rav were willing to really see those who were oppressed.
If these are the k’sheirim, the proper ones, the Midrash poses a profound moral question: what does it take to be proper? What does it take to be praiseworthy? The erev rav aligned themselves with the lowest strata of society and wouldn’t stand to benefit from their oppression. The second group of people only wanted slavery to end because the complications of Israelite oppression were hurting their lives. But the erev rav saw the enslavement of Israelites for what it was - pure evil.
We, too, are left with a choice when we see oppressive policies hurting other people. We can try and distance ourselves from those policies, even disagree with them. Or we can try and join the oppressed to help them create a better life. This is the much harder choice. It requires sacrifice of the familiar and comfortable. But I believe this is what our tradition wants us to remember when we say ‘zekher l’yitziat Mitzrayim.” Don’t just remember that we were once oppressed, but remember those who knew that oppression was wrong, and were willing to fight for us and with us for its end. That, indeed, is what it takes to be proper. May their legacy be ours.
