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Bo: Counting to Ten · A Thought for the Week

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to a Thought for the Week, a Torah in
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  Speaker 1: Motion podcast. I'm Jake Hellman, founding director of Torah in Motion,
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  Speaker 1: and it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
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  Speaker 2: The Parsia Podcast this week is sponsored by Carolyn Hawkstader
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  Speaker 2: and Adam Dicker in observance of the York side of
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  Speaker 2: Adam's father Zecharia Yehuda ben Shimshunzal, May we be blessed
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  Speaker 2: with good health and long life.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. The ten plagues are really nine preparatory plagues,
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  Speaker 1: and then one final plague, the Plague of the Firstborn
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  Speaker 1: that basically changed world history. That was the one and
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  Speaker 1: only plague that got Paro to actually let the people go,
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  Speaker 1: at least temporarily. He tried to get them back. And
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  Speaker 1: the truth of matter, this is what God had told
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  Speaker 1: Komosha when it was on his way to Egypt. He
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  Speaker 1: told them that you should tell Paro that if you
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  Speaker 1: don't send the Jewish people free hee and o kiho reka,
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  Speaker 1: I will kill your firstborn. And clearly it doesn't just
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  Speaker 1: me in Paris, firstborn means all the Egyptians firstborn. And
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  Speaker 1: in many ways, of course, this is me Dug connecting
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  Speaker 1: me dot. It's measure for measure. Paro's culminating decree his
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  Speaker 1: anti Jewish measures was the killing of Jewish babies, and
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  Speaker 1: the culminating maka for God on Egypt will be the
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  Speaker 1: death of the Egyptian babies. Now, it's true that all
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  Speaker 1: the Jewish male babies were killed or attempted to be killed,
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  Speaker 1: and only the firstborn Egyptian was killed. But it's interesting
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  Speaker 1: the immediately prior verse where God had instructed him to
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  Speaker 1: tell Paro, God had made the statement he should begin
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  Speaker 1: his conversation to Poro. The beginnings conversation should be Coomar shamp.
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  Speaker 1: This is what the God says, Beneberglorisrael. The Jewish people
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  Speaker 1: are my firstborn. Every Jew is like the firstborn, special
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  Speaker 1: relationship with God. Okay, so the nine plagues are basically
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  Speaker 1: setting the stage. Unfortunately, I mean power had a chance
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  Speaker 1: to change that, but he didn't take advantage. And of
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  Speaker 1: course they increase in severity and power.
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  Speaker 2: As the plagues go on, they're worse and worse, causing
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  Speaker 2: more and more damage.
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  Speaker 1: Begins with inconvenience. They have to dig wild wells for water.
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  Speaker 1: The water the normal.
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  Speaker 2: Water system is broken, so the tour says, they went
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  Speaker 2: and they dug wells Okay, it's not great, but it's not.
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  Speaker 1: The end of the world. And the frogs, I guess,
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  Speaker 1: are a little bit worse. When you get to the
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  Speaker 1: second set of plagues, you actually have actual damage, like
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  Speaker 1: permanent damage. Are of the wild animals. So it says
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  Speaker 1: that t schaeda aretz beef the aro the land was destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: And interestingly, for the first time, after this fourth plague,
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  Speaker 1: Paro says to the Jewish people or to Moosha, okay,
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  Speaker 1: go worship God. You can leave. And before, of course,
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  Speaker 1: he changes his mind. After Deverir the pestilence, the fifth plague,
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  Speaker 1: it says, I I'm a call me named me Trime.
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  Speaker 1: All the cattle of eachy goide we're killed. So already
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  Speaker 1: we're getting more serious. And the third set of plagues
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  Speaker 1: those that came from above right, the three sets basically
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  Speaker 1: the bottom three. The first three come from below the
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  Speaker 1: ground right at the ground damart aki. The next three
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  Speaker 1: are sort of ground level occurring the animals, and the
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  Speaker 1: last three coming from the heavens from God. So the
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  Speaker 1: hail and the locusts caused much greater damage. The Tare
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  Speaker 1: says that by after the hal Kalasadhikapa, it destroyed everything
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  Speaker 1: in the field, that colle Sasa, that Shibert, it was
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  Speaker 1: all finished. And by Arba by Locus, it says, this
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  Speaker 1: was such a terrible plague, there was never anything like it.
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  Speaker 1: Lo the Fanavlo I becam on and there will never
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  Speaker 1: will be anything like it Baharavlo. Yeah, okay, So you'd
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  Speaker 1: expect the ninth plague to be a a real doozy,
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  Speaker 1: as we might say, But the ninth plague Russia, it
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  Speaker 1: has no physical damage. It's sort of very interesting. It's
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  Speaker 1: just I'm not it's not pleasant. It's being in darkness
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  Speaker 1: for three days, but doesn't Why is there no destruction
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  Speaker 1: with the ninth plague. So you could say perhaps that
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  Speaker 1: everything was already destroyed. Okay, I'm not thrilled with that answer.
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  Speaker 1: It's also interesting that actually this seems to be the
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  Speaker 1: second time there's a plague of darkness. It's it's something
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  Speaker 1: I am sure many I don't know many people. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't notice it for a long time, it says, it says,
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  Speaker 1: by the eighth plague, by the Locus, it says, by
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  Speaker 1: a kassekol a r it's the locust came and they,
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  Speaker 1: you know, were in the whole land. But Shaka rat
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  Speaker 1: sty off the sun. So it already was darkness. That
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  Speaker 1: was part of the plague was darkness, and then it
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  Speaker 1: destroyed everything. It ate up everything that was left, anything remaining.
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  Speaker 1: So what's the plague of darkness? They are in habits.
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  Speaker 1: You want to say, it's a more intense darkness. There's
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  Speaker 1: darkness and darkness. I don't know. So the Torah, it
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  Speaker 1: would appear that there's darkness and this is really not
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  Speaker 1: just a quantitatively different darkness, but totally qualitative, even maybe
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  Speaker 1: more than qualitative. I would say, Uh, it's what we
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  Speaker 1: might call a spiritual form of darkness. By your Alahem
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  Speaker 1: had to Orki tov vy abdela alhembin or bin God
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  Speaker 1: at the beginning of creation. The first act of God's
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  Speaker 1: creation is by he or let there be light. And
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  Speaker 1: God saw there was light, and he separated the light
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  Speaker 1: between light and darkness. So you already see light and
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  Speaker 1: darkness are two op city. You already see, Uh, there's
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  Speaker 1: something more here than just physical light. How do I
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  Speaker 1: know that? So what in the world is this or
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  Speaker 1: it's totally not clear what this light is because the
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  Speaker 1: sun is created on day four. That's the real ore,
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  Speaker 1: so Rushi points out well. Rushi says that this original
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  Speaker 1: light that was created was actually put aside that was
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  Speaker 1: such a some kind of a spiritual light. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what that means exactly. And it was put aside
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  Speaker 1: for the righteous for the future, and that's the righteous light.
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  Speaker 1: And of course, if the light is for the righteous,
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  Speaker 1: darkness is for those who are not so righteous. And
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  Speaker 1: light in general is the symbol of spirituality. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we talked about physicality spirituality, and I often ask people, so,
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  Speaker 1: what does it mean? It's spiritual. It's not an easy
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  Speaker 1: term to define. What exactly is that? So I think
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  Speaker 1: the definition as I understand it is something physical cannot
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  Speaker 1: be shared, where something spiritual can. What I mean, So
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  Speaker 1: I have a piece of pizza, so I'm very nice,
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  Speaker 1: so I give you half my slice. It's very nice
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  Speaker 1: to me, but I own then have half a slice
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  Speaker 1: to eat. When if something is physical, I can't share
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  Speaker 1: it with you. If I do, I lose what I have.
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  Speaker 1: Something which is spiritual can be shared and it's not diminished.
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  Speaker 1: We all know whether one person uses the light or
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  Speaker 1: fifty people use the light. The light isn't any less.
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  Speaker 1: That's the same thing by knowledge. Knowledge is very spiritual.
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  Speaker 1: Not only don't you lose knowledge, you always gain knowledge
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  Speaker 1: when you share knowledge with other people. I know how
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  Speaker 1: much I gain from just putting together these podcasts, So
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  Speaker 1: I thank you for listening. That gives me the incentive
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  Speaker 1: to keep preparing them and for me to learn lora
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  Speaker 1: ooh et akiv. It says in the Torrent describing this
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  Speaker 1: flag of darkness that you Egyptians did not see their brothers.
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  Speaker 1: So again I would interpret this and uh, obviously it
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  Speaker 1: can be interpreted on his plain level, but it means
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  Speaker 1: more than that light and darkness, spirituality helping people like
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  Speaker 1: goods dark bad. The Egyptians didn't see the needs of
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  Speaker 1: their brother They did not help them. They were each
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  Speaker 1: one's own thing. You know, we're we're not one people.
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  Speaker 1: What makes a nation and it's Barsha Bow and the
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  Speaker 1: Exodus that formed the Jewish people into nation. This is
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  Speaker 1: the nation building partia of the Torah. What makes a
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  Speaker 1: nation a nation is our shared sense of purpose, caring
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  Speaker 1: for each other. Your problems are my problems, empathy for
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  Speaker 1: one another, to reach the level as the sage you
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  Speaker 1: say that they did forty nine days later at Mount
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  Speaker 1: Sinai Isha like one person with one heart, the Jewish
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  Speaker 1: people were totally united. Very interesting. You know, each each
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  Speaker 1: of usn't so bad. We maybe alluded to that at
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  Speaker 1: other times, maybe for some people. But you know, to
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  Speaker 1: be a servant and depending on how your master is
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  Speaker 1: for noble people, often it's not such a bad job.
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  Speaker 1: And how do we know it's not bad. First of all,
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  Speaker 1: the Jews always want to go back to Egypt. And secondly,
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  Speaker 1: the rabbis tell us that only one fifth of the
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  Speaker 1: Jews left. Whether they mean it's literally or not, it's
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  Speaker 1: not important. But many Jews decided to stay behind. And
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  Speaker 1: the rabbis say they were quote unquote killed in the
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  Speaker 1: plague of darkness. They died then, So again I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if that means it literally or not, but I
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  Speaker 1: think the idea that they died in darkness. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: they die because they didn't have that sense of joining
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  Speaker 1: with the nation together, being part of the nation. They
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  Speaker 1: were in darkness. Those who left Egypt were the people
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  Speaker 1: who I don't want to say saw the light, but
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  Speaker 1: who used the light to guide them in their relationship
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  Speaker 1: with other people. This, of course has we know how
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  Speaker 1: important this is, you know, caring for other people. That's
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  Speaker 1: what the whole tour is about. Avafta lare love your neighbors, yourself,
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  Speaker 1: that's the most important verson. So many bes fought to
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  Speaker 1: care about people and to help people. That's what Judaism
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  Speaker 1: is all about. And what leaving Egypt is about is
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  Speaker 1: not to afflict even the poor people, the stranger, the immigrant,
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  Speaker 1: the convert, because you know what it's like to be
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  Speaker 1: like that. And sometimes we're very good at this, but
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  Speaker 1: we're also very bad at it at the same time.
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  Speaker 1: And unfortunately we know all too well throughout history the
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  Speaker 1: fighting and infighting and civil wars, and of course well
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  Speaker 1: known that the Rabbi say, we lost Israel and the
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  Speaker 1: Second Commonwealth because we didn't know how to get along
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  Speaker 1: with one another. And unfortunately, I think you see today.
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  Speaker 1: On the one hand, there's tremendous unity. Sometimes it's a
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  Speaker 1: non juice make it for us that way, that's not
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  Speaker 1: the way to have unity ideally, But at the same
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  Speaker 1: time there's true mendus division and tremendous fractures. And we
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  Speaker 1: read bau not to tell us that the Jews left
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  Speaker 1: each of thirty five hundred years ago. But to tell
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  Speaker 1: us what we have to do to learn the message
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  Speaker 1: of the Exodus that the Torre tells us Ulakhobin Australia
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  Speaker 1: orbit emotional time. While there was darkness for the Egyptians,
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  Speaker 1: there was light. For the Jewish people, there was carrying empathy.
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  Speaker 1: And let us that's the message of the Exodus, that's
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  Speaker 1: the message for us in the ten plagues, and let
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  Speaker 1: us learn it well, and let us merit for the
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  Speaker 1: redemption blessed with an internal peace among the Jewish people,
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  Speaker 1: leading to external peace with Jewish people in the world
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  Speaker 1: at large. Chevelet Shalom. We hope you enjoyed a thought
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  Speaker 1: for the week a Torrah in Motion podcast. If you
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  Speaker 1: found it meaningful, please share it with a friend. We
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  Speaker 1: the world, please visit torainmotion dot org. Slash Tony thank
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  Speaker 1: you very much, looking forward to learning with you next week.