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Vaera | The Makkot Curriculum
Vaera | The Makkot Curriculum, by Rav Yitzchak Etshalom
A paideia for Pharaoh. How many Makkot were there?
We inevitably approach our study of Parashat Va'era with an assumption of 10 Makkot (plagues) with which Hashem smote and 'judged" the Egyptians. However, that number does not appear in the Torah's record of the events and other presentations of the Exodus story in Tanakh highlight only some of these plagues, ending up with a smaller number - and the Midrash famously expands this number by a factor of up to 50, seeing 5 sub-plagues within each one. We look back at the structure of the…
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