159. And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days

I heard

“And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed from the work, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God from the work. And God heard their groaning” (Exodus 2:23-4). This means that they suffered so much that they could not bear it. And they so pleaded with prayer, that “their cry came up unto God.”

But we can see that they were saying, “Would that we had… when we sat by the meat-pots, when we ate bread to the full.” And they also said, “We remember the fish which we ate in Egypt for nothing, the zucchini, and the watermelons, and the hay, and the onions, and the garlic.”

The thing is that indeed, they were very fond of the work in Egypt. This is the meaning of “And they mingled with the nations and learned from their actions.” It means that if Israel are under the dominion of a certain nation, that nation controls them and they cannot retire from their control. Thus, they tasted sufficient flavor in that work and could not be redeemed.

So what did the Creator do? “The king of Egypt died,” meaning they had lost this servitude. Thus, they could no longer work; they understood that if there is no completeness of the Mochin, the servitude is also incomplete. Hence, “and the children of Israel sighed from the work.” The work means that they had no satisfaction from the work, since they had no vitality in the servitude.

This is the meaning of “the king of Egypt died,” that all the dominations of the king of Egypt, who nourished and provided for them, had died. This is why they had room for prayer. And they were immediately saved. Afterward, when they walked in the desert and came to a state of Katnut [smallness], they craved the servitude that they had prior to the death of the king of Egypt.