וַיָּ֥קָם מֶֽלֶךְ־חָדָ֖שׁ עַל־מִצְרָ֑יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יָדַ֖ע אֶת־יוֹסֵֽף

(שמות א:ח)

“And a new king arose in Mitzrayim who did not know Yosef,” (Shemos 1:8).

According to one opinion in the Gemara (Sotah 11A), this pasuk is not to be taken literally. Rather, the existing king stayed in power, but he renewed his old decrees. The latter part of the pasuk, “ … who didn’t know Yosef,” means that the king really did remember Yosef, but chose to behave as if he had no recollection of him.

Zera Shimshon asks: What is the meaning of Pharaoh “renewing his decrees?” One interpretation could be that Pharaoh implemented new edicts, such as the construction of the cities Pissom and Ramses. However, this interpretation is questionable, because if this is what happened, the Gemara should have said Pharaoh “made” or “institute” new decrees rather than “renewed” them. Additionally, there’s no clear indication in the pesukim that Pharaoh reactivated previously dormant decrees. This leads to the question: What exactly is implied when Chazal describes Pharaoh as having “renewed his decrees?”

Secondly, considering that all the Egyptians, and, indeed, the entire world, were aware that Yosef governed under Pharaoh, it raises the question: What does it mean when it’s said that Pharaoh pretended not to remember him? If such a pretense were to become public knowledge, he would risk becoming a subject of ridicule throughout Egypt and the entire world!

Even more so, if the intent of Chazal was that Pharaoh pretended that he did not remember Yosef, the pasuk should have been written: “And a new king rose to power who did not remember Yosef,” and not, “who did not know Yosef!”

Zera Shimshon provides answers to these questions by citing a concept written in the sefer Asara Maamoros.

To better understand this, though, we need to understand an essential principle: ownership transcends mere physical or legal boundaries and affects the spiritual realm. This concept is exemplified in the halachos of terumah, which has kedusha and designated exclusively for consumption by Kohanim. Interestingly, even the most learned Torah scholar or the most righteous individual—if not a Kohen—is forbidden to eat terumah. Yet, an animal belonging to a Kohen is permitted to consume it!

Similarly, Chazal teach us (Avos DeRabbi Nassan, perek 8) that the camels of Avraham Avinu wouldn’t enter a house that had in it an avodah zara, and the donkey of Rabbi Chanina ben Dossa wouldn’t eat in the house of a thief.

These examples highlight that ownership is not a superficial matter; it intimately connects the spiritual essence of the owned with the owner and the owned is affected by its owner.

In this framework, we can now understand what is written in Asara Maamoros; that it was a deliberate act by Hashem to have Yosef ascend to power in Mitzrayim before the enslavement of Bnei Yisroel by the Egyptians. This sequence was significant because it allowed Yosef to acquire ownership over the Egyptians. As a result, when Bnei Yisroel were later subjected to labor in Egypt, they were not technically the Egyptians’ property. This is based on the halachic principle: “mah shekonno avdo, konno rabbo (what a slave acquires, his master acquires).” Since the Egyptians were considered Yosef’s property, by extension, Bnei Yisroel, were not owned by the Egyptians but by Yosef and his descendants.

If Yosef had not acquired ownership of the Egyptians, the circumstances for Bnei Yisroel would have been significantly altered. In this scenario, they would have been actual slaves, wholly owned by the Egyptians. Consequently, they would have been completely engulfed in the Egyptians’ spiritual contamination—like their owners—resulting in them being transformed into people of total spiritual decay, which would have greatly hindered their ability to be redeemed and purified from this tumah.

Pharaoh was well aware of the above, and he desired to perpetuate Bnei Yisroel’s servitude—aiming for them to continue as his slaves indefinitely. However, he had this legal hurdle: Bnei Yisroel were not technically slaves to the Egyptians but to Yosef, and thus, he anticipated that they would finally be redeemed. To circumvent this, Pharaoh sought to retroactively undermine and nullify Yosef’s being the ruler, which would nullify his acquisition of the Egyptians during the great famine. This would cause that the subsequent slavery of Bnei Yisroel by the Egyptians would be legally binding and they would be so spiritually corrupt that they would not be able to be redeemed and leave Mitzrayim.

His strategy involved reviving an old law stating that a slave could not rule over Egypt, applying it retroactively to Yosef, who was referred to as a slave—as evidenced by the verse, “and there, with us, was a Hebrew person, a slave to the master of the butchers.” This was the decree that Pharaoh sought to renew. Not recycled old decrees of slavery but he renewed the old decree that a slave cannot become a ruler in Mitzrayim.

However, Pharaoh’s plan was fundamentally flawed. After Yaakov and the shevatim arrived in Egypt, it was widely acknowledged that Yosef was not genuinely a slave but had been unjustly taken from his homeland. Under Egyptian law, this made Yosef a legitimate ruler, and, thus, he held legal ownership over the Egyptians.

According to this, the intent of Chazal—who said that Pharaoh made himself as if he did not know Yosef—is not that Pharaoh pretended that he didn’t remember who Yosef was, everyone in the world and surely in Mitzrayim knew who he was; rather, he pretended as if he was really a slave, and not a free person, and therefore was not able to be a ruler in Mitzrayim.

The question remains: Why would the Egyptians continue to believe Yosef was truly a slave after witnessing Yaakov refer to Yosef as “my son,” upon his arrival in Mitzrayim, which indicated that Yosef was kidnapped from his homeland and not a born slave?

This can be explained through a halachic principle from Baba Basra. It states that a man claiming a boy as his son is generally believed. However, as the Shulchan Aruch clarifies, this is not an absolute rule. In cases where the father might gain personal benefit from his claim—like an exemption from taxes—his testimony is not wholly accepted without question, for the simple reason that he might be saying that he is his son only to gain that personal benefit.

Thus, Pharaoh contended that Yosef was, indeed, a slave, as was previously believed before Yaakov and the shevatim’s arrival in Egypt. He argued that Yaakov’s calling Yosef his son was not a definitive proof of Yosef’s non-slave status, suggesting that Yaakov could have claimed Yosef as his son merely to secure food during the famine. Consequently, Pharaoh maintained that Bnei Yisroel were legally slaves to the Egyptians, and, therefore, there was no possibility for their liberation.