9 For Egypt - And One For Israel?!?!

Parshat Bo

by Rabbi Avi Billet

There are many accounts in the Midrash about what the purpose of the plagues were. Theories abound as well. And while the overwhelming approach of the Midrash is that the plagues were meant to be “measure for measure punishment against the Egyptians” for the sin of overplaying their role as taskmasters, there is one plague that doesn’t fit in with the rest in the Midrashic depictions: the plague of Darkness.

              
Of course, there are explanations for its purpose. The Midrash Tanchuma in Bo  writes that the plagues follow a pattern of how an invading king and his army would slowly destroy a city and its army after putting it under siege. Each of the plagues in this account parallels an attack point, and darkness is compared to imprisonment or solitary confinement of the enemy force.

              
And while it is certainly possible that Darkness was meant to be an attempt at defeating the Sun god Ra, the fact is that in most Midrashic accounts, the plague of Darkness is explained as “God’s opportunity to kill off the Israelites that would not be leaving Egypt,” so the Egyptians would not be able to see that there were wicked Israelites who were not worthy of Redemption (Midrash Rabba Vaera 14, Tanchuma Vaera 14).

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Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains the plagues following the mnemonic of Rabbi Yehuda – D’tza”Ch, Ada”sh, B’aCha”V – that most of us recall from the Haggadah, suggesting that the first plague in each of grouping fit into a specific theme of intensity, the middle, plague in each group represented a different message, while the last plague in each group was the punishment.

              
Blood, Beasts, and Hail demonstrated to the Egyptians “Gerut” – that they were merelystrangers in their own land, at the mercy of God, and were hardly in any position to make the Israelites feel as strangers. Frogs, Pestilence and Locusts demonstrated “Avdut,” or “how illusory were the notions that had made them feel superior to the people whom they had reduced to slavery.” Finally, Lice, Boils and Darkness served in the function of “Inuyim,” making the Egyptians “feel what it means to have to submit to a systematic regime” of suffering.

              
Hirsch further delves in Darkness specifically, comparing it to a divine set of chains which immobilize someone. “It shackled the whole person , cutting him off from all fellowship and all possessions, so he could move neither hands or feet to obtain the necessities of life… for three days of hunger, each person was chained to the spot where he happened to be when the plague struck.” It seems from the text of the Torah, that the use of artificial light, such as a flame, was unavailable to the Egyptian during this plague.

              
While we may have explained how the plague of Darkness was meant  as a punishment, and how it may have even been a form of “measure for measure” punishment against the Egyptians or against their gods, we still have not addressed why the Midrash, in its multiple accounts of the plagues, refers to Darkness as more of a punishment to the Israelites, and a cover-up period so the Egyptians would not see the devastation wrought upon the Israelites.

              
Honestly, I am stumped.

              
Unless we say that the Midrash is portraying an incredibly valuable lesson.

              
This past Monday night, there was a national screening of a very important film “Patterns of Evidence: Exodus” in which the filmmaker, Timothy Mahoney, explored different ways of looking at ancient history in Egypt and Canaan to prove, based on the Torah and the historical findings, that the stories of the Torah are true. Not “moral stories,” as some scholars, suggest, but actual events which transpired. 

              
In the live televised talkback panel discussion afterwards, Dennis Prager, one of the panelists, noted that one reason to accept the Torah as true is because it does not paint the Israelites in a manner which is all that impressive. All other cultures of the Ancient world, in their own writings and recorded history, only paint themselves as the greatest of the great. But Israel – not so much. In fact, not at all. Slaves (what the Haggadah called "Beginning with denigrating tales"), stubborn, stiff-necked, difficult, idolatrous in the face of insurmountable evidence that God is in the world, and worst of all - they are complaining all the time.

              
So the Midrash fits right into this kind of narrative. 9 plagues for the Egyptians, and 1 plague for the undeserving-of-freedom Israelites, with the Darkness serving merely as a cover for the necessary deed, so the Egyptians wouldn’t see, with respect to the punished Israelites, how right they (the Egyptians) had been.

              
Intellectual honesty. In the world of ideas, there is nothing quite as impressive as those who can see the views of others for what they are, who support the importance of a variety of opinions, and who understand that there is a world of truth-seeking which must examine all the evidence and information before us, in an unbiased fashion, in order to arrive at the truth.

              
The Midrash might be saying – yes, it was a punishment for Egypt. Just as the Egyptians might not have understood how or why the Israelites came down in the firstplace, opening themselves up to the possibility of one day being slaves, it also wasn’t their place to understand how or why some of the Israelites would disappear a few days before the actual Exodus.

And that while most punishments did not affect the Israelites, the one that did was not to be seen by those who were the guilty party behind the oppressive slavery that had terrorized so many for so many years.