But all this changes when Klal Yisroel become a nation. The midrash says that Klal Yisroel moved out of the Goshen ghetto and started to settle all across Egypt. That is when the king made himself forget Yosef and made all these decrees against Klal Yisroel.

When the Jews came to Egypt, they were coming to a very advanced society and culture. They were impressed by it even though they had a yeshivah and a Rosh Yeshivah. Eventually, Klal Yisroel abandoned their policy of separation from the Egyptians and started to eliminate bris miloh.

There are two versions of how Klal Yisroel eliminated bris miloh - the Netziv and the Beis Halevy. One opinion is that they simply stopped performing the bris altogether. Another opinion is that they continued to do the bris, but made an operation of cosmetic surgery which made it seem as if they had no bris.

These two opinions reflect the two approaches Jews take when they assimilate.

One approach is to simply abandon Torah and drop all observance. The other approach is more subtle. They wanted to make sure that they technically fulfilled the mitzvos, but wanted to participate fully in Egyptian society with no social barriers. They assimilated by becoming Orthodox Jewish goyim. They acted like Egyptians, they looked like Egyptians and they still kept mitzvos.

What happened as a result is that the affection that the Egyptians had for the Jews turned into hatred. This is the story of Jewish History. Looking at the three greatest destructions of Jewish communities in the last thousand years in Europe, we find a chilling common denominator. The expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 was preceded by an unprecedented level of integration of Jews into the upper echelons of Spanish society and government. The Jews were culturally assimilated in a complete way. Don Yitzchok Abarbanel was the finance minister who was basically running the Spanish Empire. The Jews were educated with a full Spanish education. They abandoned botei din for the Spanish courts. But in 1492, the Christians of Spain put an abrupt end to all this.

The massacres of 1648-1649 were preceded by the Golden Age of Poland as far as Torah was concerned. Gedolei Torah such as the Schach, Taz, an Mogen Avrohom were produced by this vibrant Polish community. But on the other hand, the Jews were part of Polish society. One even became king for a day and they were at the leading edge of science and culture. But in the peasant revolt of Tach Ve’tat, around a million Jews of Poland were slaughtered.

When you look at the churbon of Europe in the 1940’s one very striking fact emerges. The source of the churbon, “The Final Solution” and the Nazi regime came out of Germany. Of all the countries in Europe, the Jews of Germany were the most assimilated and integrated into German society and they made huge, lasting contributions to German culture and science. It is where Haskoloh began. But it was the Germans who stood up and said no. The Ohr Someach predicted that the churbon would start in Germany because people identified more with German culture than with Torah.

The Netziv and the Beis Halevy and the Ohr Someach all say, this shift in identity and affiliation is what sets anti-Semitism in motion.

Being a Jew is on the one hand a lifestyle of shemiras hamitzvos. But to a large extent it is also forming a unique and singular approach to the world and understanding of the world. It is a whole value-system and way of appraising events that happen to us as individuals and globally. It is a point of sharp conflict and contention between us and the scientific view of the world. We believe creation ex-nihilo, while the scientific world never was really comfortable with the concept of a Creator. So even while the scientific community has accepted the theory of “Big Bang”, they still believe that all the laws of nature were always in existence, and those laws happened to suddenly given rise to a universe at one dramatic point in time.

But we believe the universe and the laws which govern it were all created ex nihilo - yesh me’ayin - by Hashem. He controls nature and can break the laws of nature at will. Nothing exists independently of Hashem and nothing in the universe exists outside the blueprint of the Torah. So whenever we confront any phenomenon in the world, we know that it comes from the Torah. The Torah must contain a way to approach, respond, and deal with everything that happens in the world.

Becoming part of a whole new way of thinking and approaching the world and values outside of Torah, is the first step of assimilation. After you adopt the attitudes and values of that new culture, you start to turn to the Torah and evaluate and criticize the Torah from that external value system and world view.

There is new movement in the Orthodox world called Open Orthodoxy. There is one concept that animates this movement. They want to take the values and attitudes and world view of Western society and use them to evaluate the Torah and see what parts of the Torah fit with the world and what parts have to be adjusted or removed in order to fit with the world. But there is no such thing because Hashem wrote the Torah, He created the world we live in through the Torah, and the Torah dictates our approach to the world.

So the process of assimilation goes slowly and gradually. In Germany in the 18th Century they first said we want to remain true to the Torah while slowly adopting the attitudes of the surrounding culture. But then by reading so much of their philosophy and literature, they started to think like the Germans and discovered that much of the Torah doesn’t fit the German conception of a civilized society. They started to feel insecure and then picked away at the so-called primitive parts of the Torah until everything started to unravel.

The same thing happened in Russia at the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th. The Jews of Russia had started to adopt all kinds of isms which promoted different visions of the perfect human society. The Torah didn’t fit in with those visions and it had to be changed. But the Torah created an entire world yesh me’ayin according to the Torah. The way we approach the world is by asking honestly what the Torah has to say about the world. This is the basis for being a Jew.

Take music for example. There is a sickness that is pervasive in the Jewish world today called “Jewish music”. The secular world has their unique so-called musical styles and genres. What does the Torah have to say about them?

There is a beautiful teshuvah by the Rambam who was asks about the Torah approach to Arabic love songs. He divided the sheiloh into three sub-issues. If there is a woman singing the song, it is an issue of kol ishoh. If the words are improper, it is an issue of lo sic’rivu le’galos ervoh. But what about the music itself—with no singer and no words? The Rambam responds with a very deep insight. Music expresses certain feeling and emotions. The particular feelings and emotions being expressed by these Arabic love songs are antithetical to Torah. There can be attitudes and emotions against the Torah which these styles of music develop and inculcate into your character without even realizing it. It is forbidden.

The secular music of today, aside from having a mind-dulling effect which actually makes you more stupid when you listen to it, it also develops attitudes and emotions which are antithetical to Torah. Even when you put the right words to it, it still instills these feelings which are against the Torah.

The Torah isn’t just a list of do’s and don’ts. The Torah is an all-encompassing approach to life. It is supposed to engender certain emotions, attitudes and concepts. It has its own literature and culture. Becoming a Ben Torah means becoming immersed in the culture of the Torah. It takes a lot of time and effort to immerse one’s self into the world of the Torah.

The life-story of the Rosh is a fascinating one. He grew up and learned in Germany and became a talmid muvhak of the Maharam Mi’Ruttenburg. When the Maharam was arrested and put in jail and the Rosh had to flee Germany, he was taken in by the Rashba in Spain. The cultural-intellectual worlds of Germany and Spain were very different from each other. How was it possible for the Rosh to make such a seamless transition from Germany to Spain? Very simply. The Mahahram, the Rashba and the Rosh were all people who were shaped and formed by the Torah. They all shared a common culture of Torah despite being physically located in very different host countries.

The Yad Ramah wrote extensively about the neshomo and olom habboh. He lived in Spain. But he sent them to the Rash Mi’shantz who lived in France for confirmation—to know this is an authentic Torah view. The Ramban and Rabbeinu Yona could move from Spain to France and back again without any difficulty in acculturating themselves. They didn’t identify themselves as neither Spaniards nor Frenchmen. They were completely defined by the Torah.

Now-a-days, frum Jews are very accepted in the Western world, so far. We have indeed given us a lot of freedom to develop our Torah communities and infrastructure by our host countries. But to think they can contribute to our understanding of the world and even the Torah, is absurd. We dare not allow them to define who and what we are in terms of our values and ideas. In the end, two things happen. The Torah that we have gets edited and adjusted until it totally loses its integrity. You start to evaluate the Torah from a whole different set of concepts and values and attitudes.

Those of us who are learning Meseches Kiddushin can appreciate the absurdity of a so-called Orthodox rabbi composing a traditional-sounding formula for officiating at a wedding ceremony between two male Jews. But that is an approach based on the current, transient values of secular society. The rest of the world is now utterly convinced that this relationship is as sacred as any other union. So this so-called rabbi has to find a way to adapt the Torah to fit into this new morality. But this approach is totally mistaken. There is nothing alien in the world that is outside the Torah’s reach.

Hashem runs Jewish history in a very interesting way. The Netziv writes that Hashem has placed a special dynamic in history called anti-Semitism. Whenever we assimilate too much into the surrounding non-Jewish culture, this irrational hatred of Jews is triggered in order to reject us and prevent us from losing our identity. It happens in each generation over and over again. It won’t change. We can try as much as we want to assimilate and it won’t help. Yosef had a great impact on Egyptian civilization. The Jews were very impressed with the advanced Egyptian culture when they came down from primitive Cana’an. They became enamored with it and tried to assimilate.

Shevet Levi remained faithful to the Torah entirely.

Levi was the Rosh Yeshivah who turned his strong passions and emotions into a passion for Torah. When the Jews said “let’s be like the Egyptians” and they stopped bris miloh, Shevet Levi continued doing bris miloh.

Pharaoh devised a plan to enslave the entire Jewish nation. He used national service and patriotism as his strategy. He exploited the desire for the Jews to become part of Egyptian society. They would eagerly join the national effort in order to be more accepted by the Egyptians. Gradually, Pharaoh started making exceptions for himself and his fellow Egyptians and eventually only the gullible Jews remained as slaves to the government.

How did he do it? The Jews were desperate to become integrated into Egyptian life. But there was one faction of radical, backward, religious fanatics who wanted nothing to do with Egyptian society. They could care less about being accepted by the Egyptians and joining any patriotic project. It was Shevet Levi. We will stay with our bris miloh and stay in our Yeshivah with our mesorah from Yaakov Ovinu and nothing will change.

And guess what happened? For the next 82 years of unimaginable torture and persecution and slavery, Shevet Levi were not enslaved. They never joined!

Being in Yeshivah is a complex process. Obviously it entails learning hours of working hard on understanding the lomdus of the sugya and being medakdek in halacha. But it is also a process of defining yourself by the Torah and its values and goals. It requires stepping away from the world and its influences and immersing yourself in a complete Torah environment. Within this environment you need to think about what is important in life, what your future family should look like, and what your goals in life should be.

What people do in their free time is a litmus test for what they really value and cherish in life. The midrash says that because the Jews in Egypt were given Shabbos as a day off from slave labor, they were able to read the scrolls they had been given by their ancestors retelling the story of the Ovos. This is what Klal Yisroel did when they had a respite from that crushing workload and it kept their identity intact until the time for geuloh arrived.

Pharaoh said” increase their workload and don’t let them turn to these empty things.” He was preventing them from learning their version of Torah. He needed to remove their ability to reconnect to their core identity through their mesorah if he wanted to control them in a total and absolute way. We can’t have them define themselves as Jews anymore, so we have to take away their leisure time. When a Jew has a spare moment, he learns Torah. He rededicates himself to avodas Hashem.

A Jew defines himself in terms of Torah. Only the Torah contains his ideals, his values, his culture. What he reads and what he listens to should reflect those ideals and those values. You can’t be Egyptian and Jewish, you can’t be Western and Jewish. You have to choose your identity.

The enslavement began immediately after the Jews left Goshen and started to express a desire to become accepted in Egyptian society. Pharaoh exploited this desire to assimilate and lured them into becoming slaves. Only Shevet Levi resisted the urge to assimilate into Egyptian society. They said, our place is preserving the mesorah of the Ovos, and as a result only Shevet Levi was spared the bone-crushing slavery of Egypt.