In the Bible we first learn of Mitzraim as one of Noah's grandsons, the second son of

Kham during a genealogical section in Genesis, in which the entire world seems

to be settled with inhabitants that branch off into different cultures.

Generations later we learned that there was a famine in Knan, and Avram, the man who would

one day become the father of Isaac and with him the Jewish people, went down to a place

called Mitzraim, to sojourn there, for the famine, Genesis tells us, was severe in the land. Thus,

Mitzraim, Egypt, is introduced in the formative text of the Jewish people as an alternative to

the land that will one day become the home of the Jewish people. And forevermore, it will play a role

in the psyche of Israel as the great other, the great alternative.

The land of Israel suffers from famine, whereas Egypt is a land of plenty.

In the generation of Joseph, the children of Israel will push him down into a pit,

and the king of Egypt will raise him up to become his prime minister.

Canaan is subject, always,

to the limits and vicissitudes of nature, whereas the Egyptian regime is dedicated to conquering

nature, overcoming its cycles of plenty and poverty. Canaan is where shepherds, wandering in

the wilderness, can encounter the creator of the universe.

Egypt, by contrast, is teeming, tight, narrow, an imperial capital.

The land of Israel is promised by God as an inheritance.

Egypt is governed by a pharaoh, believing himself to be a God,

who forgets the past as he ascends to the throne.

It's there, in Egypt, that the children of Israel begin to assume a national identity, or at least the Egyptians think they do. It's there that they linger

for centuries in servitude and squalor, until God remembers his covenant with them and sends back to

...