Table of Contents
Egyptian Bondage
2331AM

Year 2331 of the Jewish calendar.

1

Levi died in the year ninety-three after their descent to Egypt [this is year 2331] (see year 2195 for his birth). And in Tze"dah it is written that Levi died in year 2332, one hundred and seventeen years before they left Egypt, so he was in Egypt for ninety-four years. (And in Sheder HaKabbalah 19:2 it is written thirty-five, which is a typographical error.) In Tanna d'vei Eliyahu, Parshat VaEra (6:17), it says Levi saw Aharon and Moshe.

This presents a difficulty, for Aharon was born in year 2365, and this needs investigation. So he died thirty-two years before the birth of Aharon. Afterwards I found that in chapter 10 this difficulty was settled. He was buried in the city of Manachat [see year 2510].

Levi died after all the tribes, and as long as one of the tribes was alive there was no slavery. So the slavery was not more than one hundred and sixteen years and not less than eighty-seven, from year 2332 until 2448 (Seder Olam chapter 3). When all of Egypt saw that all the children of Yaakov, the brothers of Yosef, had died, they took from them all the vineyards and fields that Yosef had given them, and all the good houses and all the best of the land.

And they made their lives bitter until the children of Israel were distressed in life because of Egypt.

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