The Rambam (Hilchos Melachim 5:6) writes that it is strictly forbidden to live in Egypt although he himself resided there for the latter portion of his life. In the days of the Rambam, a time of crusading knights and blood libels, the Egyptian soil was no longer controlled by the Pharaohs, having long since been trampled by Nebuchadnezzar's Persians and finally dismantled by Alexander's Greeks. In the 12th century, a time that witnessed the end of Rashi, and the inaugural bells of the halls of the sagacious Tosafists, the rich Alexandrian topsoil was in the possession of the Great Saladin. Saladin, a Muslim general, was neither pagan nor particularly oppressive toward the Jewish people. The Rambam, a trusted member of his medical staff, entreated Saladin to lift many sanctions against Jews in Muslim controlled territories. He also managed to gain access for groups of Spanish Jewry to return to their homeland, Israel. This monarch was nothing like the biblical Pharaoh who went to great lengths to ensure that his Jewish slaves would continue to suffer. The Rambam's Saladin had little in common with the tyrant of Moshe Rabbeinu’s generation.

The Torah states, “I have heard the groan of the Children of Israel whom Egypt enslaves” (Exodus 6:5). The Torah does not describe Israel as being subjugated to the evil Egyptians, but rather, to the land itself. The Egyptian borders serve as a Semitic prison; its natives are employed as taskmasters by a land that refuses to allow G-d's people to go free.

The prophet Yechezkel is told to “set face against Pharaoh,” and share with his people the grim fate which awaits them. Pharaoh is the “great sea-monster that crouches within its rivers, who has said: mine is the river and I have made myself” (Yechezkel 29:3). Pharaoh, a hedonistic microcosm of his entire nation, is portrayed as a part of the spiritually deprived land of Egypt. The prophet continues, “Now I shall attach hooks to your cheeks and I shall cause the fish of your rivers to cleave to your scales” (ibid 29:4). According to this prophecy, Pharaoh's punishment was to become a part of the Nile. Although Pharaoh may be the most monstrous of the great sea-monsters, he is nothing more than a part of the land's taxonomy; more than an oppressor, he is viewed by Tanach as the product of a spiritually bankrupt land.

The first mention of Egypt in the Torah is in Parshas Lech Lecha. Due to famine, Avraham and his wife Sarah are forced to descend to Egypt. Avraham was afraid that his wife, Sarah, might incite jealousy among the people of the land, and therefore requested that she identify herself as his sister. Despite the fact that Avraham was the father of monotheism, his level of faith in G-d diminished as he prepared to travel from the Land of Canaan to Egypt. As soon as he departed Mesopotamia, he had to make spiritual preparations to encounter a land where G-d seemingly did not exist.

The Rambam, in concluding his discussion on living in Egypt writes, “It appears to me that if a king of Israel were to conquer the land of Egypt with the consent of a Jewish court, then inhabiting its territory would be permissible” (Hilchos Melachim 5:8). If a descendant of Judah was to extend Israel's borders into Egypt, then the curse of the land would be lifted. If a Jewish king were to rule Egypt and imbue within it a spirit of G-d, the land would be rendered livable.

If a Jew can exercise this quality of the anointed Jewish royals, then he can ward off any danger. He can prepare himself to live amongst strangers, even in lands which choose to deflect the Divine light of Hashem. Although at the Rambam’s time a Jewish king had yet to sanctify Egypt, clearly the country had lost some of the anti Semitic sting that had been exhibited by previous inhabitants.