“Why did [G-d] bring darkness (the 9th plague) upon [the Egyptians]? Because there were wicked Israelites in that generation who didn’t want to leave [Egypt], and they died during the three days of darkness so that the Egyptians shouldn’t see their downfall and say that they (the Israelites) are being smitten just as we are” (Rashi on Sh’mos 10:22). Later (13:18), Rashi tells us that 80% of the Israelites died during the plague of darkness, an astounding number. By comparison, the six million Jews who were killed in the holocaust, while well over a third of the estimated Jewish population at the time, and certainly significant (the life of each and every Jew is significant), was under 40%, less than half the amount (percentage-wise) as those who perished shortly before the exodus from Egypt. [It should be noted that Rashi quotes only one opinion in the M’chilta; another opinion says rather than only one in five surviving, it was one in fifty, while a third opinion says it was one in five hundred. You can do the math to figure out the percentages; only one in five surviving, which means that four out of five did not, is enough to make the point.] Yet, while we (correctly) consider the holocaust to be a national tragedy, remembering the victims either on Yom HaShoah or on Tisha B’Av, we celebrate the exodus from Egypt as the epitome of our being saved (“redeemed”), with barely a mention of the tremendous loss of life that occurred. (Even when we “remember the victims” at the Seder by spilling some wine, it is done when we mention the ten plagues, with the victims being the Egyptians.) Why is the loss of such a high percentage of our population not considered a national tragedy?

Rabbi Yitzchok Sorotzkin, sh’lita (Rinas Yitzchok II) asks a totally unrelated question, quoting the first Rashi on the first verse in the Torah: “There was no need to begin the Torah any earlier than ‘this month is for you’ (Sh’mos 12:2), which was the first mitzvah that Israel was commanded.” He asks why this was considered the first mitzvah if Avraham was commanded that he and his descendents be circumcised (B’reishis 17:1-14), Yaakov was commanded not to eat the sinew of the hip (B’reishis 32:33; although his wording, based on Rambam, isn’t precise, the point is valid unless it wasn’t really a “commandment”), and Amram (Moshe’s father) was commanded to keep additional mitzvos (see Rambam’s Hilchos M’lachim 9:1; it would seem that Rav Sorotzkin didn’t mention the mitzvos commanded to Adam and Noach because they weren’t directed only at us, although since Yishmael was included in the mitzvah of circumcision, which Eisav should have kept as well, this line of thinking could apply to circumcision too). What made the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh the “first mitzvah,” from where the Torah could have started, when other mitzvos were mentioned (and given) before it?

To answer this question, Rav Sorotzkin references Siach Yitzchok’s commentary (in Siddur Ishay Yisroel) on the Yom Tov davening, where we say that G-d “chose us from among all the nations, loved us, and wanted (or forgave) us.” Siach Yitzchok suggests that the first stage, G-d having chosen us from among all the nations, refers to G-d taking us out of Egypt despite (at the time of the “choosing”) it being difficult to differentiate between us and the Egyptians, since “these are idol worshippers and these are idol worshippers.” Until that point, before we were “chosen,” it was not appropriate to give us the Torah (see Maharal’s Tiferes Yisroel 17), so none of the mitzvos commanded until then could be considered “the first mitzvah of the Torah.” Now, though, as G-d was about to take us out of Egypt, “choosing” us from all the other nations, and we became eligible to receive the Torah, the first mitzvah commanded after this “eligibility” took effect, the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh, qualified as being “the first mitzvah in the Torah.”

This “first” mitzvah was commanded between the 9th and 10th plagues, i.e. after the plague of darkness, when those Israelites who were “wicked“ died. In an earlier piece, Rav Sorotzkin discusses why “not wanting to leave Egypt” was enough of a reason for them to die. He focuses on the wording of the Midrash that Rashi is based on (Sh’mos Rabbah 14:3), which says “there were sinners among Israel who were given a position of authority from the Egyptians and they had wealth and honor and they didn’t want to leave.” He then references the Bais HaLevi on Parashas Sh’mos, who says that although making the Israelites into slaves benefited the Egyptians economically, their main purpose for giving them torturous tasks was to get them to abandon their religion, telling them that if they did, they would make their lives easier by lessoning their workload. As Yalkut Shimoni (268) says, “the Egyptians said to them, ‘why are you circumcising your sons? Let them be like the sons of the Egyptians (i.e. uncircumcised) and we will lighten the hard labor from you.” Rav Sorotzkin then suggests that those who were given a “position of authority, and had honor and wealth” were those who abandoned their religion in order to avoid any hard labor, and were rewarded by the Egyptians for doing so. Because they abandoned their faith, Rav Sorotzkin says, they deserved to die during the plague of darkness.

[As a side note, this would explain why, if the wicked died during the plague of darkness, Dasan and Aviram, who were wicked in Egypt, at least from the time they caused Moshe to have to flee to Midyan in the first place (see Rashi on Sh’mos 2:13 and 2:15), and remained wicked until the day they died, rebelling against Moshe in the desert (Bamidbar 16:23-32, 26:9-10), did not die during that plague, as despite their wickedness, they never abandoned their religion. They may have believed (or made themselves believe) that Moshe was not authorized to take the nation out of Egypt, as the 400 years G-d had told Avraham his descendents would be slaves had not yet passed (see pg. 3 of www.aishdas.org/ta/5765/beshalach.pdf), but their “position of authority” was based on their being independently wealthy (see Rashi on 4:19; becoming poor would have had no impact on what they wanted to do to Moshe unless it was their wealth that had given them access to Pharaoh in the first place, access they no longer had). It was not based on them having capitulated to the Egyptians by abandoning their faith, as they never did, and they therefore were not included with the “wicked” who died during the 9th plague.]

It makes sense that those who had abandoned the faith of their fathers would have to be eliminated before G-d officially “chose” the descendents of Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov to be His “chosen nation.” Therefore, during the 9th plague, all those who were “wicked” died, after which G-d officially designated the nation to be His “chosen people,” making them eligible to receive the Torah, and the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh “the first mitzvah of the Torah.” And since we didn’t, and couldn’t, become G-d’s “chosen nation” until after the plague of darkness, it was at this point that we attained our status of nationhood. Anything that occurred before this might have been tragic, but couldn’t be considered a “national tragedy” worthy of commemorating yearly, or even incorporating into the Seder. (True, when we “remember the victims” we also include the assimilated Israelites who died in the plagues, specifically the 9th plague, but they do not get a separate commemoration.)

There have been many large-scale human tragedies discussed in our traditions, including the generation of the flood and the generation of the dispersion. But as tragic as they were, they were not national tragedies, and are therefore not commemorated. Similarly, as tragic as the death of 80% of a population is, since we didn’t really became a “nation” until after their deaths, this tragedy isn’t commemorated either.