Shabbat
Shalom! This week’s Torah portion, along with much of the first few chapters of
Exodus which becomes the Passover story, raises some interesting questions
about collective punishment. These questions aren’t new, not for me and
certainly not from the perspective of Jewish tradition. But almost every year,
I find a new commentary or midrash, or notice a new detail, think of a new
angle, that renews these questions. The most burning and consistent question
for me as been, “Who exactly experiences the plagues?” This week’s Torah
portion, Parashat Bo, chronicles the last three, most horrifying, plagues, and
the final tense night for the Israelites in Egypt.
In the New American Haggadah, children’s author Lemony Snicket offers the following commentary on the Ten Plagues:
It is one of the peculiarities of the Passover story that God
sends ten plagues down on all of the Egyptians, not just the ones who were in
favor of slavery. It is likely that there were a fair number of Egyptians who
said, “I see no reason to detain these Hebrew slaves any longer than we already
have,” and who nevertheless found themselves drinking blood instead of water.
By the time frogs had hopped through the land, and gnats and flies had stung
everything in sight, there were doubtless more Egyptians who said, “You know, I
would rather do without slaves than have all of these terrible pests around,”
and who still suffered from pestilence and boils. By the time the threats came
from the sky—hail, locusts, and darkness—there couldn’t have been too many Egyptians
who were in favor of keeping the Jews in bondage, except the stubborn Pharaoh,
who only changed his mind when his own son, who by this point was probably an
abolitionist—a word which here means “in favor of ending slavery if only
because he was sick of plagues”—was slaughtered as part of the tenth and final
plague. It is likely that the entire Egyptian nation disagreed with the Pharaoh
by that time, and yet it was the entire nation that was punished.
This is not fair, and Jewish tradition has us spill ten drops
from the beverage of our choice when naming the plagues, in order to remember
the suffering of the Egyptians. Of course, the pain and terror of ten plagues
cannot compare with a glass that is slightly less full than it was originally,
but tradition dictates that these ten drops are symbolic, a word which here
means “a way of expressing how sorry we are about something that happened a
long time ago and was not directly our fault.” This symbolism may come in
handy, so that some night at dinner you can say, “When I spilled grape juice
all over your beautiful white tablecloth, it was not an accident, but my way of
apologizing for various terrible things that have happened to innocent people.”
When
I read that in April of 2012, it struck me that I really had never considered
that innocent Egyptians perhaps were made to suffer by the plagues. I of course
knew the famous midrash about the angels dancing after the Israelites cross the
parted Sea of Reeds to safety, and God admonishes them for dancing while other
children of God die, but I had seen that more as a general concept of God
feeling sorrow when people have to die, no matter how deserving or necessary
that death. After all, in that scene, we are talking about members of Pharaoh’s
army, people actively chasing down the Israelites and who have probably
conquered and kill before. But it never occurred to me that some Egyptian
civilians who probably had to endure the plague might also be abolitionists, or
at least passive supporters of Israelite freedom.
What I had spent a lot more time wondering was how the Israelites experienced
the plagues. We know they must sacrifice a lamb and mark their doorposts to
remain safe from the 10th plague, so are we to assume that without instructions
to protect themselves, they were vulnerable to the first 9? Or that they were
automatically protected from the first 9, but for some reason needed that extra
precaution for Plague 10? If they were safe in Goshen, could they see what was
happening to the Egyptians? Was it frightening for them?
We can’t ever know, and the rabbis don’t agree. Since 2012 and getting more
intrigued by the questions of who experienced the plagues and who deserved what
they experienced, I have read multiple commentaries and midrashim about the
Israelites, though none about the potentially innocent Egyptians. Many
midrashim do agree that the Israelites were safe from the plagues, and could
see what was happening to the Egyptians. Some say that they were only safe in
Goshen, but those that served in the palace, had cushy lives, and didn’t want
to leave Egypt, were subject to the plagues along with the Egyptians in their
shared households. Some say that the Israelites of Goshen sold clean water to
the Egyptians during the first plague, balms for the boils and live, sold them
produce during the locust invasions, and so on. One modern novel (I hesitate to
call it a midrash, as it is written from a fairly Christian perspective)
speculates that the non-Israelite slaves (those that leave with the Israelites
as the “Mixed Multitudes”) could also be protected from the plagues.
In looking through the JPS English edition Miqra’ot Gedolot this week, I saw
that Bechor Shor, a 12th century French rabbi, commented that when the Torah
says, “but all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings,” it means “In
the land of Goshen, but the rest of Egypt was dark, even for the Israelites,”
whereas Rashbam a century earlier said, “Even if they dwelled in an Egyptian’s
house.” Rashi seems to think that the sinful Israelites who did not want to
leave did also have to sit in darkness. However, the righteous Israelites not
only had light in their dwellings, whether they dwelled in Goshen or in
Rameses, that light went with them as they went out of their dwelling places.
Furthermore, the so called righteous used it to go case the homes of the
Egyptians so that when God tells them they can take the spoils of Egypt with
them when leave, they know exactly what they want and where to find it.
Hizkuni, a 13 century rabbi, also adds that Pharaoh believed that the
Israelites were subject to the same darkness, did not think to ask Moses for it
to be removed, and assumed that even if he allowed Moses to take the Israelites
out to worship HaShem, they would not be able to get far due to the darkness.
It seems that overall, our scholars throughout the ages have shared my
curiosity and concern over the collective punishment of the plagues. Although
many try to explain them in ways that are most benevolent - only the wicked suffered,
the righteous profitted off the suffering of the wicked - it remains ambiguous
how our ancient text may have played out and how Moses or others of the time
felt about the narrative they were living through. What we can do with this
curiosity and concern, however, is to develop modern Jewish values that reject
collective punishment, and craft midrashim that help us assert that the future
need not reflect the past, that we can move forward in just ways that celebrate
the newfound freedom of some without taking away life and liberty from others.
Life and liberty here is not to be confused with the privilege to assert
dominance over those that are recently liberated. Merely, that it is possible,
and it can be congruous with Jewish values, gleaned from the hand-wringing of
our rabbis over this week’s Torah portion, to assert a world in which everyone
lives with freedom and dignity and equality. May we see that world arise in our
lifetimes. Amen and Shabbat Shalom
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