Abominable Bread

In last week’s parsha we read about Yosef running Potiphar’s household “And he [Potiphar] left everything he had for Yosef to manage … except for the bread that he ate (Bereishit 39:6).”

Chazal interpret this in two ways. The first is that Potiphar allowed Yosef free reign in his household to do with as he wished, with the exception of Potiphar’s wife (the word “bread” is a euphemism for “wife”). The second interpretation is that Potiphar allowed Yosef to run everything in his household except for anything connected to actual bread (no euphemisms).

We learn in this week’s parsha, that the brothers went down a second time to Egypt to purchase grain. Yosef treated them better than he had the first time and he gave them bread to eat, but he ate separately from them and both Yosef and the brothers ate separately from the Egyptians (Bereishit 43:44).

Yosef ate alone because he did not want his brothers to see him eating separately from the Egyptians and thus realize he was not an Egyptian, because he was not ready to reveal himself to his brothers.

This week’s parsha is all about food and more specifically, bread and grains. The parsha begins with Pharaoh’s dreams about the seven fat and thin cows, the seven healthy and withered stalks of wheat, the seven years of plenty and famine. It goes into vivid detail how Yosef stockpiled grains and wisely distributed them, all the while procuring additional assets for Pharaoh.

In this shiur I would like to focus on the mutual abhorrence that the Egyptians and the Israelites had for each other’s bread (both considered the other’s bread an abomination) because it gives us great insight to the diametrically opposed life philosophies of the Torah and the Egyptian culture.

Egypt was undoubtedly the superpower of the time, because they were the “bread basket” of the world. Egypt was idyllic for grain production because it combined the fertile Nile Basin – perfect for growing grain and because it was also desert – the perfect dry conditions to store grains for extended periods (if the climate is too humid, the grains go moldy).

Where grains abound, so does baking knowledge and Egypt was also the first “baking superpower.” Much of our modern baking science is derived from the ancient Egyptians. They were avid experimenters and were the first to discover the benefits of combining the fermentation process with bread and are credited with “discovering” yeast.

Until ancient Egypt everyone used to individually bake their own bread in their own homes. There is no evidence of industrial bread production or even “professional” bakers, until ancient Egypt. Archeologists have uncovered remains in the pyramid building sites in Giza of vast industrial infrastructure for baking bread and brewing beer (the froth from the beer was used to ferment the bread, hence their proximity) presumably to feed the prodigious workforce that constructed the pyramids. We read in last week’s parsha that Pharaoh had his own professional, royal baker.

Baking prowess is not essentially a bad thing. The problem is how they abused this knowledge and power. Egypt wielded their “bread” like a weapon. They literally held in their hands the power of life or death (by famine). Bread was not simply food the Egyptians ate – it was tangible evidence of their “superiority” over other nations. They used it ubiquitously in their numerous pagan rituals. In Egypt, bread assumed numerous and varied shapes and forms, many overtly sexual in nature, associated with their obsession with fertility. Bread was also often brought as a sacrifice or buried together with deceased Egyptian nobles.

Contrast this with the bread of Am Yisrael, the simple “Uggot Matzot” of Avraham (Bereishit 18:6) and his descendants, the bread of tzaddikim.

It is therefore not surprising that the Egyptians were not attracted to Israelite bread, to them it must have seemed primitive and tasteless. But that is not how the parsha describes it. It says that the Egyptians considered Israelite bread an abomination, a really strong word for simple dislike or disgust. So much so that they would not eat bread together with an Israelite and not even allow an Israelite to come near their bread.

There is something much deeper and more fundamental at work here than simple culinary tastes.

Pharaoh considered himself a god, the Nile was also considered a god. The Egyptians could not stomach the concept that they were not lord and master over something as basic as their daily food. Quite the opposite, they flaunted their “mastery” of everything connected to bread and wielded it as a weapon and a symbol of their superiority over every other nation on earth. To even consider that there is a higher G-d beyond themselves that determines the availability of food, or lack thereof, was abhorrent to them.

The Egyptian bread also typified their philosophy of instant gratification, by adding sweeteners, such as honey, that stimulate the reward centers in the brain and create a pleasurable physical sensation. This correlated with their hedonistic philosophy of “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

Obviously, the Torah philosophy is the exact opposite. We understand the true Source of our daily bread and this is expressed in numerous forms as part of our religion, in our prayers and in our daily business dealings.

It is therefore not difficult to understand why Hashem chose matzah as the bread of our freedom during our Exodus from Egypt. This is also the reasoning behind the subsequent prohibition of offering any Mincha offerings on the altar which contain sourdough or honey, the very symbols that Egypt flaunted.

Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: For Yaakov and his family there was no shortage of food during the seven years of famine – Yaakov had millions of sheep. Why did he need to send his sons to Egypt to procure grains?

Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Question: Even though Binyamin was not complicit in the sale of Yosef, did he know what happened to his brother? The Midrash Tanchuma (Vayeitzei 6) says that the stone of Binyamin on the Choshen is “Yashpeh” which, if split into two words, reads “Yesh Peh,” “there is a mouth.” Binyamin knew about the sale of Yosef but kept silent to not embarrass his brothers.