THE LORD SAID TO MOSES, "STRETCH FORTH YOUR HAND TOWARD THE HEAVENS, AND THERE WILL BE DARKNESS OVER THE LAND OF EGYPT, AND THE DARKNESS WILL BECOME DARKER."

SO MOSES STRETCHED FORTH HIS HAND TOWARD THE HEAVENS, AND THERE WAS THICK DARKNESS OVER THE ENTIRE LAND OF EGYPT FOR THREE DAYS.

THEY DID NOT SEE EACH OTHER, AND NO ONE ROSE FROM HIS PLACE FOR THREE DAYS, BUT FOR ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THERE WAS LIGHT IN THEIR DWELLINGS.

(Shemot 10:21-23)

 

They did not see each other - Cause or Effect?

They did not see each other, and no one rose from his place. The meaning thereof is that this darkness was not a mere absence of sunlight where the sun set and it was like night. Rather it was a thick darkness. That is to say, it was a very thick cloud that came down from heaven. It was for this reason that He said, "Stretch forth your hand toward the heavens to bring down from there a great darkness which would descend upon them and which would extinguish every light, just as in all deep caverns and in all extremely dark places where light cannot last [as it is swallowed up in the density of the thick darkness]." Similarly, people who pass through the Mountains of Darkness find that no candle or fire can continue to burn at all. It is for this reason that They did not see each other, and no one rose from his place, for otherwise they would have used the light of fire. This is the intent of the verse He sent darkness and it became dark (Psalms 105:28). It was not the usual absence of daylight above but an extraordinary darkness as well. It is possible that it was such a very thick cloud that there was something tangible in it, as our Rabbis have said (Shemot Rabba 14:1), and as indeed it happens in the Atlantic Ocean, as Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra testified.

(RaMBaN on Shemot 10:23, Chavel translation)

 

The Rebbe Rabbi Hanokh MeAlexander interprets this passage in Hassidic fashion: Since They did not see each other everyone just looked out for himself; they were only concerned with saving their own lives and the lives of the members of their households. As a result: no one rose from his place - not one of them succeeded in rising above the moral depths in which they lived.

 

For our teacher, Rabbi Yogel of blessed memory

Thirty days after his passing

And it shall be for a sign between Me and you

Haim Rubinstein

The Exodus from Egypt is a foundation stone of our religious outlook. From our infancy it serves as a context in which we assimilate notions of freedom and liberty. In our adulthood, we connect the scenes of Uncle Tom's Cabin to the experience of the collective "exodus from slavery to freedom" which is imprinted in the Jewish genome. Simply the freeing of slaves.

For someone who serves the King of the World, the transition from civilization to the wilderness involves a deeper and more liberating stratum. The blessing of He who "makes the winds blow and brings down the rain" makes the spiritual [ruah = both "wind" and "spirit"] prior to the material [geshem = both "rain" and "material"] and clarifies the order of the world. Behind every "earthly" phenomenon there hides a lofty idea. A "turn of the spirit" precedes any "movement" in the real world, thought before action - ideology before praxis.

Egypt was the largest and most stable kingdom of the ancient world. Egypt drew its life from nature. It was nourished by the Nile. It was Mother Earth; large, stable, and enduring. It was a great civilization which found its expression in huge buildings, the plastic arts, and a plethora of texts written in a unique language and in a system of writing that was preserved for thousands of years. Egypt was the civilization.

The ancient Egyptians had long noticed the powers that set the world in motion; wheat's powers of growth, the force of waves crashing on the pier, the winds that pushed rain clouds. The ancients understood that a hidden spiritual essence stood behind the phenomena of nature. This essence caused the effects. Their tremendous civilization grew up around that cause. The creative force gained its power from knowledge and imagination of thought's expanses. The comprehensions of higher entities are the building blocks of ancient Egyptian culture and are expressed in its manifold creations.

The gods of Egypt were the concrete cultural expression of this understanding of hidden forces. The multiplicity of gods and their material representations testify to the broad and variegated conceptualization of the various powers that exist in the world. The powers are embodied in the various gods. Nun - the father of the gods and embodiment of the ancient sea; Ra the eagle-headed sin-god, Osiris, ruler of the dead; the enchanted Isis; the children of Shu and Tefnut; the children of Geb and Nut, the holy trinity of Neve-Amon, the local gods. The world was rich and complex. The world was threatening and built upon reciprocal balances. It was beyond the ability of a simple man to understand and cope with it. The priests and magicians were in charge of placating the gods in order to moderate and steer the various powers at work in reality. Their work made use of concrete concepts. In hopes of building their relationship with the gods, the gods' qualities were attributed to their earthly representations so that these could serve as objects of worship.

Our tradition attributes the source of Jewish belief in a single, hidden and transcendent God to Abraham the Hebrew [Ivri]. His name, which the midrash explains as saying "all of the world on one side [ever] and he on the other side," expresses his uniqueness and originality. The originality of his understanding of the unity and hiddenness of divine being constituted a breakthrough in the ancient world with its multiple deities. The ability to know and worship the God without physical expression brought the faith to its purest form. From the outside, it is impossible to discern between believer and atheist, except by their behavior, behavior influenced by the internalization of values projected by God. The Hebrew's faith finds its fullest expression in his aspiration to full, internal, and unmediated unity between his own values and the higher values. The personification of a god in a statue is replaced with the expression of God's values in the behavior of the faithful.

The Ten Plagues may be viewed as constituting a debate between faiths, somewhat similar to the later Jewish/Christian disputations. Moses and Aaron took one side, representing the Hebrew faith as against Pharaoh and his magicians, who represented the accepted views of the civilized world.

Moses' and Aaron's stand is relevant in every generation and represents the believer's internal struggle between independence and uniqueness as against his desire to identify with the masses and the ruling culture. The Hebrew faith demands recognition of and identification with a set of values which emphasizes human self-control, action based on laws which do not necessarily jibe with man's natural desires and emotions, as against a culture led by human desires and ambitions, embodied in various rituals - the natural, earthly culture.

The "debate" which unfolds between Moses and Pharaoh employs pictorial language to express the struggle between them. While later disputations involved loquacious philosophical arguments, here the opponents communicate with each other symbolically. Each side performs "magical" acts, changing the staff into a snake, and so forth. These are all part of the contest; each side seeks to demonstrate its power to the other, like a pair of boxers dancing around each other and launching punches into the void that separates them.

The plagues center upon the Egyptian gods. They start with the Nile - Herodotus called Egypt "the gift of the Nile" - by way of the lower animals, to the cattle, the agriculture, the sun and end with the best of the sons. Moses challenges every Egyptian god, one after the other. While Pharaoh's outlook - representing the outlook of every Egyptian - gradually shifts, so does Moses'. Pharaoh begins saying Who is the Lord that I should heed His voice to let Israel out? I do not know the Lord, neither will I let Israel out (Shemot 5:2) and moves to You are lax, just lax. Therefore, you say, 'Let us go, let us sacrifice to the Lord' (5:17). He becomes acquainted with God but does not believe the people's true motivation. The contest becomes fiercer. In the first plagues the magicians prove themselves able to match Moses' deeds. His miraculous "arguments" do not convince Pharaoh, who sets up his magicians against Moses.

After the plague of lice the magicians admit the superiority of the Hebrew God: and the magicians did likewise with their secret rites to bring out the lice, but they could not (8:14). Pharaoh is insistent. After the plague of mixed beasts he begins to understand that he is losing the debate, his stubbornness is a symptom of "bad sportsmanship." Rationally, he is losing but he remains emotionally incapable of accepting defeat. After "nature" makes its voice heard in the plague of hail, Pharaoh admits: and he told them, "This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right and I and my people are the wicked ones (9:27).

Our parasha opens with the utterance, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst (10:1). The parasha ends with: And it shall be for a sign upon your hand and for ornaments between your eyes, for with a mighty hand did the Lord take us out of Egypt (13:16).

The miracle, the symbol of Moses' arguments, the defeat of the Egyptian gods - these are the goals of the plagues of Egypt. The divine sign, the sign of the victory of Moses' "arguments" over those of Pharaoh and his magicians, the defeat of "natural," human civilization accompanies the Jew wherever he goes. The "sign" is the concise product of the Exodus story.

They escape from the yoke of human, earthly civilization to a place liberated from it - to a "cultural wilderness" where man is alone with his God. There is no mediation there, no additional middle authority. There the pure Hebrew culture will grow. The exodus from enslavement to the Egyptian gods, enslavement to human appetites and emotions, the exodus to spiritual freedom, the liberation from momentary pleasures, in order to take on the yoke of high principles - this is the true significance of the Exodus from Egypt. The concept points to eternal life-long struggle to exit. Exodus from pride, exodus from jealousy, exodus from flattery, exodus towards restraint, exodus towards humility, exodus towards modesty that respects one's fellow man. The Exodus from Egypt is a constant struggle with human weaknesses.

The lesson, the conclusion, the commandment, can be found at the end of the parasha: And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, "Because of this, the Lord did [this] for me when I went out of Egypt." And it shall be to you as a sign upon your hand and as a remembrance between your eyes, in order that the law of the Lord shall be in your mouth, for with a mighty hand the Lord took you out of Egypt. . And you shall keep this statute at its appointed time, from year to year. (Shemot 13:8-10).

The Hebrew culture overcame the earthly culture with a mighty hand. With the might of consciousness. With the might of a man struggling with his weaknesses, he exits Egypt each and every moment. The sign on his weak, soft hand reminds him that this is not a physical, belligerent struggle, but rather a continuing and spiritual struggle against the inner Pharaoh. He will reach the heights of his efforts only with death, as he enters the place where there is no more struggle.

Haim Rubinstein - Hebrew

 

 

God and Man Have a Task in Common

Evil is not only a threat, it is also a challenge. Neither the recognition of the peril nor faith in the redemptive power of God is sufficient to solve the tragic predicament of the world. We cannot stem the tide of evil by taking refuge in temples, by fervently imploring the restrained omnipotence of God.

The mitzvah, the humble single act of serving God, of helping man, of cleansing the self, is our way of dealing with the problem. We do not know how to solve the problem of evil, but we are not exempt from dealing with evils... At the end of days, evil will be conquered by the One; in historic times, evil must be conquered one by one. (God in Search of Man, pg. 377)

 

 

For example, Chazal declare in a number of places, "Those engaged in a mitzva-related mission do not come to harm" (Yoma 11a, Kiddushin 39b, Chullin 142a). On the other hand, the gemara concludes, "This principle is inoperative where danger is to be expected" (Pesachim 8b; see also the above sources, where the formulation is slightly different). To complicate matters further, another passage declares that it is forbidden to rely upon a miracle (Pesachim 64b).

Obviously, since it is almost impossible to define precisely terms such as "danger" or "miracle," these general statements in the end do not yield practical guidelines for action. When addressing fundamental political issues—for example, whether we should retain Judea and Samaria and rely on God's protection, or whether we should cede these lands in recognition of internal and external pressures—we are likely to discover that sincere and profound disagreements exist even among believing Jews. It is not my desire, nor is it within my ability, to decide such matters either way. I must, however, emphasize one point: Let us not fall prey to overzealousness in the realm of bittachon. We would be erring grievously to believe that an approach that seemingly champions excessive trust in Divine intervention is, in fact, imbued with a greater amount of fear of Heaven than a view which adopts a more rational and pragmatic methodology.

In certain instances, to be sure, adopting an adamant or compromising approach indeed results from too much or too little fear of Heaven. But this is not necessarily the case. It is possible for one to be intransigent, spouting slogans of faith, yet motivated in truth by irresponsibility. It is also possible to be pliant and yielding, yet possessed of an abiding trust accompanied by great caution. Certainly, differences of opinion will exist with respect to evaluating the chances of success of a particular diplomatic or military initiative, as well as with respect to the degree of statistical probability necessary to remove an endeavor from the category of "relying on a miracle." In any case, for God's sake, let us not allow a discussion about fateful national issues degenerate into a "competition" over which position expresses greater fear of Heaven

 

We shall go with our youths and elders: There are no Representatives in the Service of God

We have no intermediary, no priests, no representative before our God. If we are to go, we must all go; the tiniest baby in the cradle, the last sheep of our possessions. Each and all are integral parts of our community. None and nothing may remain, for we are all to form a hag la'hashem "a circle about God." God calls us together around Him, and when God calls us, He wants to see us with every member of our family and with al our possessions, about Him.

(R. Samson Raphael Hirsch on Shemot 10:9 Levy translation)

 

Nor shall you break a bone of it - The Symbols Which Express the Meaning of the Redemption from Egypt

Nor shall you break a bone of it - The real offering consists primarily of the blood and the flesh (i.e., the muscles), excluding the bones which only form the passive framework. An offering is essentially a giving up of oneself and of the activities prompted by one's own will. In the Pesach offering one receives oneself back. This symbolic "enjoying of oneself again, represents the gift of the return of one's personality, i.e., regained freedom of will. This refers primarily only to the basar - the flesh, the active part of the personality (the muscles). With this basar, this mevasser (messenger) of the nefesh, the soul, there are the bones, the means placed at the service of the will, to enable the activity of the muscles to function, and to hold the whole together. They are not the creature itself but they are placed at the disposal of the creature and in conjunction with it, 'a bone with meat attached', they represent, not indeed activity, but the means by which activity is achieved. As long as the basar is on them, they can represent the dedication by one's own free will of one's activities to God. i.e., as long as the basar is pure, the bones, as the means used by this free will for activities, themselves become important, and must be treated with respect, must be protected from fracture. Apart from their use in conjunction with the basar and holy uses, the means themselves are worthless. In conjunction with it, they take on the importance and meaning of our morally free personality. Hence the dictum: "If there is no kazayit [size of an olive] of meat, then there is no prohibition against fracturing bones; if it is impure, there is no prohibition against fracturing bones". Taken together with the two preceding precepts the verse would express: No person is to be withdrawn from the home, no basar from the person, and no bone from the flesh; the consecrated idea of the home is to hold all and everything fast to itself.

(Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, Shemot 12:43-49.)

 

[Editor's note: In continuation of Rabbi Hirsch's words about the consecrated home, one can read the passage which continues the laws regarding the Pesach sacrifice: There shall be one teaching for the citizen and the stranger as a moral statement which expresses the deep meaning of the redemption for Egypt; The freedom of a people cannot base itself on the negation of the freedom or equality of another people).

 

 

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