By Rabbi Jeffrey Wohlgelernter,  Congregation Adat Yeshurun, San Diego

The beginning of the Book of Shemot deals with the enslavement of the Jewish people. The Medrash teaches about the methodology used in order to corral and subdue 600,000 people.
    
The whole country was encouraged to help Pharaoh in rebuilding and strengthening the country. As Egypt was a great melting pot, every nation came out to help.

Each day, the Jews would be working alongside Egyptians and all the other foreign nationals that were there. Slowly, day by day, fewer and fewer people would show up to work, but not the Jews. We have a strong work ethic and each day we would come to work full of energy and enthusiasm. Soon, it turned out, only Jews were working.

Then this great exercise turned ugly and we were expected to produce certain quotas, and we were held to these tougher standards and requirements. Eventually, we turned around and realized that we were enslaved. A slow process, step by step. A brilliant program.

However, it still doesn¹t explain how 600,000 men can allow themselves to become enslaved. We were a very powerful people. We were so powerful that the Egyptians felt it necessary to figure out a way to destroy us. We were in that day's equivalents of the government, the banks and the newspapers.

We left our ghettos and melted into Egyptian society. How does it happen that a people like this can be enslaved? Had we no strength? Had we no convictions?

The truth is that we had no power and we had no convictions because we had no pride!

The verse in last week's portion teaches us that Joseph died, his brothers died and that whole generation died. And then the next verse teaches that an evil king arose over Egypt who didn't know Joseph. Why would the Torah need to tell me information that I already knew from the end of Genesis, where we are taught that the whole generation had died?

What the Torah is teaching us is that as long as Joseph was alive, we felt an incredible pride being the son of Yaakov and the brother of Joseph. They were able to hold their heads up proudly, feeling a sense of value and worth. Then Joseph dies. But at least those who were still alive could still say that they are the brothers of Joseph. Then the brothers die, and everyone still feels like they have a sense of self-worth and pride because they are the nephews of Joseph and the grandchildren of Yaakov.

But then the whole generation dies, and so does their Jewish pride. Their leaders are gone, the founders no longer exist, and the sense of value diminishes. Immediately, the Torah tells us "and a new king arose over Egypt who didn¹t know Joseph."

When we have no self-value, when we have no pride, then our enemies see us the same way. Under these circumstances, we can be corralled and taken over and made into slaves.

Throughout our history, whenever we lost our sense of Jewish pride, we lost our sense of strength and conviction and we were overcome and subdued by our enemies. This is why G-d had to rebuild us slowly through miracles and wonders during the plagues. He had to rebuild in us a sense of value and worth so that we would have the strength to follow Moses out of Egypt.

What greater pride and value could one feel when one realizes that G-d alone is protecting you and choosing you as His nation?

When we feel proud, we look proud. When we feel low and weak, we look low and weak. Our job is to find our sense of pride in being G-d¹s chosen nation and to feel a sense of value and strength and worth that we are so lucky to have been chosen as G-d's messengers in this world.

We aren't better, we aren't stronger and we aren't smarter. We were chosen as the ones to bear the message of G-dliness to the world. Only when we see that as a badge of honor and live up to it, take pride in it and uphold it, will the world recognize it as such and be able to learn from it. If we are ashamed of it, the world will disrespect it. If we hide it, the world will forget it. But if we are proud of it, the world will respect it and learn from it.

If I have pride in myself, the world will be proud of me!