Or HaChaim on Genesis 46:3/אור החיים על בראשית מ״ו:ג׳

1 אל תירא…כי לגוי גדול אשימך שם "Do not be afraid…for I will make you into a great nation there." What precisely was Jacob afraid of when he set out to go to Egypt? If it was the fear of ushering in exile for his family, how did G'd's assurance alleviate that fear? If, on the other hand, G'd meant to console him that there would be no exile there, history teaches that Jacob's family became enslaved and suffered persecution and hard labour in Egypt! Besides, how did the announcement that Jacob would become a great nation while in Egypt console him over what he was afraid of? Why could he not develop into a great nation in any other place but Egypt? Furthermore, why did G'd add the letter ל and said לגוי גדול אשימך, instead of merely בי גוי גדול אשימך?

2Clearly, the Torah refers to the prediction/decree at the covenant between the pieces when G'd told Abraham (Genesis 15,13) that exile had already been decreed. No doubt Abraham had informed his son and grandson of this decree. When Jacob saw that food was for sale in Egypt, he immediately associated this with the fact that his descendants would endure exile there. He was afraid that this exile would commence the moment he arrived in Egypt.. He was also worried that he would be buried there, in a land which was totally impure. G'd therefore appeared to him in a dream describing Himself as the G'd of his father; He meant that just as the exile had not commenced during Isaac's life and Isaac had not experienced persecution, so it would not commence during Jacob's lifetime either. Concerning Jacob's intention to return to the land of Canaan as soon as the famine was over, G'd told Jacob that he would develop into a great nation in Egypt; in other words, G'd had a good reason why Jacob would not return to the land of Canaan soon. G'd alluded to this by saying כי לגוי גדול אשימך שם, i.e. in order for this to be accomplished you have to stay there for some considerable time.

3In order to understand the whole concept I must preface by quoting a tradition we have in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his colleagues (recorded in Likutey Torah, Miketz). The purpose of the various exiles is to isolate segments of sanctity which are scattered Within various branches of the קליפה, the "peel" surrounding the kernel which is all sanctity. Inasmuch as Egypt was full of abominations [manifestations of such a קליפה, Ed.] and impurity had its "headquarters" in that country, it was no more than natural that many such segments of sanctity were scattered throughout that country. In fact the amounts of such scattered segments of sanctity are usually proportionate to the amount of impurity and defilement that abound in a certain area or environment. The phenomenon we have just described originated as soon as Adam sinned. It has been Israel's task to "rescue" all those splinters of sanctity and to make them part of a whole. Our sages (quoted in Likutey Torah on Parshat Vayeshev) have said that the nation that left Egypt and experienced the revelation at Mount Sinai was previously captive within this קליפה called Egypt. It is to such a nation that Moses said in Deut. 4,8: "who is a great nation possessing such righteous statutes, etc." G'd told Jacob that the purpose of Israel spending time in exile in Egypt was to enable it to develop into this great nation. "The great nation" [all the fragments of sanctity, Ed.] at that time was "lost" amongst all the Egyptians and it had to be isolated and then led out from there. Unless Jacob descended to Egypt at this time, there would be no hope of accomplishing this. It was because Jacob represented sanctity in a powerful and concentrated form that he could become the "magnet" which would attract the various scattered segments of sanctity that still abounded in Egypt in an ineffectual form. This is the meaning of the statement in Bereshit Rabbah 79,1 that Jacob did not depart from this world until he had seen 600.000 descendants. These 600.000 were the ones who endured persecution there and were ultimately refined in what our sages are fond of calling the "iron crucible" which welded the Jewish people into a nation and enabled them to leave Egypt after having been refined. Jacob understood then that is was necessary for him to settle in Egypt for the rest of his life and he was no longer filled with dismay at that prospect, especially so since G'd assured him that he personally, would not experience oppression and persecution. As to Jacob's final concern, that he would not want to be buried amidst the impurities that Egypt was full of, G'd assured him that He would see to it that Jacob would be buried in the land of Israel.