Pesach – Makos

If you compare the 10 מכות with regard to who carried out the action which brought on the plague, you find something interesting. Aharon raised the staff over the water to bring blood and frogs, and over the earth to bring lice. We all know that this was due to Moshe’s sensitivity to the water and earth since the water protected him when he was in the boat that his mother made for him as a baby, and the earth protected him when he buried the Egyptian that he had killed in the sand. We typically think that Moshe set the rest of the מכות into effect. However, if you look closely he was not involved in 3 other מכות, ערב, דבר and מכת בכורות.

By ערב Hashem tells Moshe to warn פרעה about the מכה and then it says למחר יהיה האות הזה, and the next Pasuk says ויעש יקוק כן ויבא ערב כבד. Moshe does no action, this is purely Hashem. Then, by דבר, again Moshe warns פרעה, and almost an exact mirror of the language by ערב it says, וישם יקוק מועד לאמר מחר יעשה יקוק הדבר הזה: ויעש יקוק את הדבר הזה ממחרת וימת כל מקנה מצרים. In both cases there was a warning, which ended by Hashem saying that the מכה would happen מחר, and then Hashem Himself performs the מכה without any involvement of Moshe. And finally, by מכת בכורות we hear כה אמר יקוק כחצת הלילה אני יוצא בתוך מצרים: ומת כל בכור בארץ מצרים. And after brief break from our sponsors discussing קרבן פסח we get back into the מכה and it says ויהי בחצי הלילה ויקוק הכה כל בכור בארץ מצרים. For the third time in these 3 examples פרעה is being warned that the מכה will take place in one day’s time from now, and in this case as well, Hashem strikes with no prior action from humans.

I think what this means is as follows: When the Rambam describes what Avraham revolutionized the world with, he does not say that Avraham was the father of monotheism, because he wasn’t. שם and עבר had a school which taught all about Hashem, and many other nations as well knew that Hashem existed and simply believed that He had created the world and then taken a back seat and given power over the many forces of nature and made them gods. What Avraham taught was that Hashem lives with us and wants more than anything to have a relationship with us. In the words of the מדרש, He is the builder of the palace that we call planet Earth. And He lives in that palace with us. Avraham taught that when you tie your shoes, Hashem cares and tells you how to do that. Hashem loves to watch you eat the many different foods that He made, and he wants each one to have a specific ברכה. It matters how you get dressed, which direction you face when you sleep, and so many other myriads of details that most would say are trivial. But the message that Avraham spread was a message of love, because if the Creator of the entire cosmos; the One who made sure that we are exactly as far as we need to be from the sun to not get burnt or frozen, the One who measured exactly how big a beetles exoskeleton should be, if He cares about every detail that I have in my life, that makes me cosmically important. It means that you are essential to the existence and movement of the world. This is the theology that our nation was founded with, and it is this message that Hashem showed us by performing specifically these 3 מכות by Himself. Allow me to explain.

מכת בכורות is obvious, that was the pinnacle of the year-long saga that was the destruction of Egypt. The plan all along had been to show that Hashem is in this world, and this was that plan coming to fruition, of course Hashem needed to do that מכה all alone. But what about ערב and דבר?

If you follow the progression of the מכות, you see that they move fluidly from down to up. דם starts in the water and stays in the water. צפרדע starts in the water but the frogs move onto land. כנים starts in the land and moves onto people and animals. ערב happens not in the land, but on the land, it takes place in the space that we humans inhabit and control. דבר as well happens in the space that is occupied by our feet to our heads, in our “world” so to speak. שחין starts with Moshe throwing something from our airspace upwards to the sky, but the boils affect the humans. ברד comes from the sky down to the land. ארבה starts with a wind carrying bugs in the sky. חשך only happens in the sky. And מכת בכורות comes from another realm entirely, when the Infinite enters the finite world. You see a beautiful progression that demonstrates Hashem’s perfect command over everything that exists in our physical world.

By handling ערב and דבר by Himself, which are the only two מכות that are contained in humankind’s natural habitat, He was giving over the message of Avraham to his children as they are about to make the transition from being a tribe to a nation. Don’t think I only exist in the heavens and only visit to deliver the mighty climactic blow of wiping out all firstborns of your enemy nation. I exist and enter your world specifically to affect your habitat. When it comes to mixing fire and ice, or turning water into blood, that I can do through a messenger. But when we deal with human habitat, and cattle which was the entire basis for economy in the ancient world, that is where I get involved personally. I want to be involved in your world, in your business transactions, and in your day to day living. I want that relationship with you and I want to be in your lives, I love you.