Until we face the situation

Rabbi Melanie Aron

January 30, 2004

Our Torah portion this week tells the story of the final three plagues, locusts, darkness and the slaying of the first born. It also includes instructions for the night of the Exodus and for Passover as it is to be celebrated throughout the generations.

This being the week before Tu Bishvat, I thought that it would be interesting to mention the Jewish Publication Society’s unique commentary which presents the plagues as the natural consequences of a disruption of the ecological balance in Egypt.

They begin with an abnormally wet winter that leads to an inordinate amount of red sediment being washed down from the highlands of Ethiopia, hence the Nile turning to blood. This makes the environment of the water inhospitable for the frogs, who leave the water, infected by the insects that have been attracted to the dying fish, leading to plagues of insects and disease.

In the section we will be reading tonight, the plague of darkness, the darkness is explained as a consequence the preceding plague of locusts. The normally occurring chamsin winds carry more dust than usual because, in eating all the vegetation, the locusts have removed that which normally provides an anchor to the soil.

In a year marked by extremes of temperature for our families back east, cattle and chicken diseases with potentially grave consequences, and warnings from very sober, even Republican scientists about the consequences of global warming, the potential for bringing disaster on ourselves must be recognized.

The rabbis drew different lessons from this passage. Traditional commentaries stress the darkness as a barrier between people. How dark was it? they ask, so dark that a person could not recognize their fellow. When that happens they tell us, we are truly at the low point of our existence.

The negotiation between Pharaoh and Moses is ongoing. Contrary to the movies Moses doesn’t appear and say: Let my people go. Rather his opening position is: Let my people go that they may celebrate a holiday for Me for three days in the desert. When eventually, after 7 plagues, Pharaoh agrees to let the leaders go, Moses broadens his demand, to demand that every one go, even the women and children. Following the three days of darkness, this ninth plague, Moses demands that the Israelites be allowed to bring their cattle and the flocks, for “we shall not know with what we are to worship Adonai until we arrive there.”

The rabbis view this not just as a bargaining ploy but as a true statement about worship. We do not really know in life what God will ask of us, and we do not know which of things we are doing, will really turn out to be the important preparation.

Pinchas Peli tells a story in this connection of three students and their teacher discussing hypothetical questions. What would you do, the teacher asked these Orthodox Yeshivah buchers, if you were walking on Shabbat, when its forbidden to touch money, and you saw a stack of $100 bills on the ground? Would you pick them up? Of course not, the first students said.

You fool, the teacher said scornfully. He turned to the second student. What about you? The second student considered his classmate’s fate. I would pick up the money, he said.

Sinner, the teacher scolded. Well, what about you, the teacher said, as he turned to the third.

Well, I don’t know. He hesitated, A stack of $100 bills is really something, he said, on the other hand the Shabbat is very important. I think I would struggle with myself and I hope I would make the right decision.

At last we have a real answer the teacher said.

And that said Pinchas Peli, is what the Torah is teaching us, truly, we shall not know how we are to worship Adonai until we get there.