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Why did the Jews stop performing bris milah after Yosef's death, even while the Shevatim were still alive? The shiur develops a chiddush that when Yaakov died, the Jews became legal slaves to Egypt under Egyptian citizenship law. As slaves, they were halachically obligated only in the seven Noahide laws, not the full Torah (תורה), until Hashem (ה׳) took them out of Egypt and established they could never be true slaves.
The shiur begins by examining Rashi (רש"י)'s statement that we can calculate the years of enslavement from Levi's lifespan. Rashi explains that as long as any of the Shevatim were alive, there was no shibud (servitude). However, this raises fundamental questions: Rashi elsewhere says the tzarah (trouble) of the shibud started when Yaakov died, yet the Torah (תורה) in Shemos states that the enslavement began only after "Vayamos Yosef v'chol echav v'chol hador hahu" - after Yosef, all his brothers, and that entire generation died. Furthermore, the Torah describes massive Jewish population growth between the death of the brothers and the start of active enslavement. The timeline appears contradictory. Rabbi Zweig proposes a crucial distinction between legal status and practical implementation. When Yaakov died, the Jews were conferred Egyptian citizenship. However, Egyptian citizenship had already been redefined by Yosef's policies during the famine years - all Egyptians (except the priests) had sold themselves to Pharaoh, meaning citizenship equaled slavery to the state. Thus, when the Jews received citizenship at Yaakov's death, they legally became slaves, though this status wasn't actively enforced yet. This explains why Vayechi is a parshah s'tumah (closed portion) - their eyes were sealed to the implications of this legal change.
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Shemos (Vaeira period) - discussing events surrounding Yaakov's death and the onset of slavery
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