The Jew, or The Jews?

Paroh described the Jewish threat to his country. He said “The nation of the Sons of Israel is bigger and stronger than us. Let us wise up on him, lest he becomes even bigger and he will fight against us in time of war, and chase us from the land”. Here he describes the Jews in the singular tense only (“him”, “he”). This contrasts strangely with the previous pasuk that says “the Sons of Israel multiplied and became many and the land was full of them” – all in the plural tense. Why the change?

One suggestion around the table was that the Torah was glad in their growth, and therefore mentions it. Paroh, on the other hand, begrudged them every drop, he wished they would stay very few, and therefore used the singular tense.

I suggested that if my memory serves me well, I belive that Hitler, of unblessed memory, used to speak of the Jews in general as “the Jew”. “The Jew is trying to take over the world economy” or whatever. This was not just poor grammar on his part. It emanated from a deep-seated belief that the key to world events and history lay in the question of race. There were, to his mind, two sovereign races that struggle over world mastery; the Aryan race and the Jewish race. It is either or. Either the Aryans destroy the Jews, or the Jews destroy the Aryans. So in his fight to save the world, he was fighting the Jewish race; not individual Jews. That’s why he used the term “the Jew” – for he was referring to the essence of Jew in the world. Perhaps Paroh shared that attitude. He was scared of “the Jew”, that inexorable force that was growing stronger and scarier by the day. And he wanted to save Egypt from “the Jew”, and that’s why he referred to them in the singular. Maybe that’s why, even as the Makkos decended upon him and were decimating Egypt, Paroh did not yield. For he was saving the world. He was trying to control “the Jew”, to stop that power from becoming unleashed. This was a worldwide struggle, the struggle against the Jew, and it was worth sacrificing almost everything for it!