[Avodah] Fwd: VA'EIRA "Too Much Dust Clouds the Mind with Lust"

[Simon Montagu]

I found the makor on Sefaria, it's RB on Genesis 41:16. As I read it, RB
isn't contrasting physicality and spirituality, but rather opposing belief
in the eternity of matter to belief in "yedia, hashgaha and hidush", as the
original post said, "The natural order could not be overcome, overridden,
or transcended in any way."

Also that the Egyptians believed in a hierarchy of divine beings, with
Pharaoh himself way up in the hierarchy, rather than One Creator and Master.

Either way, I don't think it's all that critical whether any of this was
historically true of the Egyptians in either Joseph or Moses' time. Derash
routinely merges the attributes of historical resha`im and contemporaries,
either lesaber et ha'ozen when describing the ancient ones, or in order to
use them as stand-ins when criticizing the modern world (e.g. Bereishit
Rabba mentioning the circuses and theatres in Sodom).
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