Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

My wife, Middy, and I just returned from a two-week trip to Egypt. The impetus for visiting Egypt was to visit our son, who is living temporarily in Cairo. We decided to combine that visit with an organized tour of Egypt which focused on the ancient historical sites of the Pharaohs.

Egypt is of course the place where the Jewish people were born. The Torah tells us that Jacob went down to Egypt from Canaan with his family of seventy souls. There that family grew became a great people, so great that the Egyptians were fearful of them and enslaved them. Our enslavement in Egypt and ultimate liberation is foundational to our Jewish identity. It was in Egypt that the Jewish people first came to know and understand the power and majesty of the God of Israel.

Both ancient and modern Egyptians call their country “MSR” or “Misr”. The Biblical and Modern Hebrew word for Egypt is “MiSRayim”. In Egyptian, the name “MSR” means “country” or “border”. In Hebrew the word means “narrow strait”. It can refer both to the geography of the country, as seen above in the picture from NASA, as well as the place of constriction we find ourselves in when we are in pain. “From the narrow straits (MSR) I called to You,” writes the psalmist, “God answered me and brought me into a spacious place.” (Psalm 118).

The Greek historian Herodotus described Egypt as “the gift of the Nile”. There is no rainfall in Egypt. Without the river, there could be no Egypt. Perhaps that is why the first plague turned the Nile to blood.

I’ll write more on our trip to Egypt in the coming weeks.

Shabbat Shalom.