Pharoah — yes, Pharaoh — and honoring G-d first

Last weekend earned some off-the-track Jewish attention. On Thursday, Mexican jockey Victor Espinoza made his way to the Chabad Ohel and the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The spiritual man was looking for some divine intervention to help him win the Triple Crown.

On Saturday, the “Jewish horse,” the ironically named American Pharoah, owned by the Jewish Egyptian-American Zayat family, running under the aforementioned jockey, did indeed make history, being the first horse to win the coveted horse-racing triple crown in 37 years.

A WCBS-TV report on Espinoza’s visit to the Rebbe’s grave noted that it was probably the first time anyone prayed for a pharaoh at the Ohel. But I suppose that the horse’s purposely misspelled name makes it alright.

Watching Ahmed Zayat explain how G-d comes first for his family, and hearing of their plans to camp out at Belmont Park for Shabbos in order to be present for the race, one can’t help but think that while their horse’s name might include a nod to their Egyptian origins, they do not intend to ever return there.

Not that this is surprising. Why would anyone who had suffered or been oppressed by Egypt ever want to return there?

This is precisely the dilemma we are faced with when we read Bamidbar 14:2-4: “The entire community was saying, ‘We wish we had died in Egypt! We should have died in this desert! Why is G-d bringing us to this land to die by the sword? Our wives and children will be captives! It would be best to go back to Egypt!’ The people started saying to one another, ‘Let’s appoint a [new] leader and go back to Egypt’.”

Having been the victims of slavery and oppression, we wonder how the Israelites could possibly contemplate returning to Egypt, even when faced with what seems to be the dangerous nature of the Canaanites. Even if Canaan seems to be a less than favorable option, having seen that they can survive in the wilderness, wouldn’t no-man’s-land be a suitable alternative over a return to bondage?

The simplest answer is that they may not have preferred Egypt, but at least they were familiar with Egypt. They knew what to expect.