Vaera – Exposing Coverups

Vaera – Exposing Coverups

In Vaera we are introduced to the ten plagues.  There is a famous question as to the need for ten plagues. If the purpose of the plagues is to extricate the Israelites from Egypt then surely an Omnipotent God is able to do this with one plague? If the plagues were just a punishment as Abraham was told at the Covenant between the parts “And also the nation that they will serve will I judge, and afterwards they will go forth with great possessions”, then again one plague could suffice?

The answer is that the plagues are more than just punishments. They are pedagogic tools to teach Egypt and the civilised world about the very nature of God that they denied.

Recall that by plague number three – Lice- Pharaohs’ necromancers unable to replicate the miracle, acknowledged that this “is the finger of God”. In Hebrew the word used for God is Elokim which represents God who powers nature (Elokim=86 which = Hateva meaning nature ! as taught by Rabbi/Kabbalist Yehudah Loew known as the Maharal of Prague 1520-1609 ). But the Egyptians still resisted the notion of God who transcends nature/time/space.  At the very beginning when Moses came to Pharaoh to demand that he release the people, Pharaoh had said “Who is the Lord (using the ineffable tetragrammaton YH-VH) that I should heed His voice to let Israel out? I do not know the Lord, neither will I let Israel out.” (Shemot 5:2)

Pharaoh rejected the concept of One underlying force that both powers creation, is imminent within creation and yet simultaneously transcends creation. To accept the Unity of God would mean to collapse the hierarchy of power. All are equal before God. All are created in His image and are therefore essentially free. To enslave another human being was an affront to the image of God. To accept the One God as Judaism teaches represented an existential threat to Pharaoh’s ego and the entire infrastructure upon which his mighty empire was built!

So each plague came to uncover and expose a lie that Pharaoh and his society lived by. Let us look at the first plague- blood. Here the river Nile and all its tributaries were transformed to blood for 7 days. What is the significance of this?
Until 1970 when the Aswan High Dam was built, the Nile overflowed its banks each year and this literally provided life to all the Egyptians as there was little or no rain to subsist on. Even today due to the extreme aridity of Egypt’s climate, population, 96 million inhabitants (over 93%!)are concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta, while 98 percent live on only 3 percent of the territory. 
The Nile supports life and in the ancient world of the Pharaoh’s it was worshipped. 
[R. Menachem ben Solomon (12th cent. C.E.), in his Midrash Sekel Ṭov (Genesis 41) points this out “Whence (do we know) that the Nile was his (Pharaoh’s) god? Because it says “He goes out to the water, and you (Moses) shall stand on the bank of the Nile.(Shemot 7:15)”

But the Nile also held another dark secret :

According to a number of commentators the process of Israelite enslavement was gradual because Pharaoh understood the psychology of his people. The slippery slope to slavery was necessary to acclimatise the people towards brutality. After all it was not that many years before that Joseph – an Israelite- had single-handedly saved Egypt and the entire Mesopotamian region from certain death during a famine of cataclysmic proportions. Joseph had devised an economic plan that not only saved the lives of his fellow Egyptian “citizens” but enriched Egypt to a level heretofore unseen. Killing Israelites would not sit that easily with Egyptians who had long memories.

His plan to exterminate the Jewish people took the following trajectory:
Pharaoh first taxed the Israelites. He then engaged them in forced labour to build storage cities (Pithom and Rameses). When the Israelites continued to flourish and multiply he clandestinely engaged the Midwives (headed by Miriam/Puah and Yocheved/Shifra) to kill the baby boys (Girls were not seen a threat as they could be assimilated into Egyptian culture as slaves). When this failed a critical juncture had been reached. All covert methods at reducing the Israelites had backfired. At this point he issues an edict to the people that they have the permission to throw every new born baby boy into the river Nile.

What is key to note is that Pharaoh issued this decree to the people at large and not to his police force or taskmasters as per Steven Spielberg’s depiction in his cartoon-movie “The Prince of Egypt” (see Shemot 1:22).
This is no coincide and a very deliberate strategy of Pharaoh to allow for denial and cover up of his heinous crime “incitement to genocide”. 
The commentators (Ramban) explain that the “anti-Semites” throughout the land now had licence to steal Israelite baby boys and quench their thirst for blood by disposing of them in the River.
When the Israelites would complain to the authorities of the unspeakable atrocities being committed, Pharaoh (and the leadership) could pretend to show concern:
“This is an awful fate that has befallen your baby? Pray show us evidence of the perpetrator? Show us proof of your babies existence?!” And of course the poor bereft Israelite would have no recourse to Justice. All evidence was at the bottom of the Nile (although only 36 feet deep the Nile is dangerous it contains numerous diseases as well as the famous Nile Crocodiles!)
And so Pharaoh could achieve his goal of extermination whilst hiding behind a wall of lies and deception.
Meanwhile the river Nile held the dark secret of the Egyptians – that despite their sophisticated culture (in technology, literature and art) – at its core they were rotten.

Now we can appreciate the function of the plague of blood. The Nile was transformed to blood to reveal the twisted evil of the Egyptians. Once Hashem’s presence is revealed then the lies and coverups are automatically exposed and nothing remains of the false outer shell of reality.

This is also true in our own lives. The more we connect to Hashem our source of life, the more we are aligned with our truth, the more authentic we are, living lives of dignity meaning and purpose, then the more the lies of our world are exposed. 
Every society and culture has its own “river Nile” that hides darkness and moral corruption. There are many tributaries to the river that people desperately hold onto.  
Many people are too scared to identify the aspects of their lives that are false and inauthentic as they fear that by doing so they are losing their very existence. Human beings have elaborate defence mechanisms based on this fear of losing oneself. And so the lies we tell ourselves perpetuate.
Aharon intitiates the plague of blood by stretching forth his hand with the staff. The staff symbolises our straight connection to God, bridging heaven and earth.
The plague of blood teaches us that when we align ourselves with Hashem’s values then automatically the Nile transforms to blood – exposing our false self’s which we can leave behind  “for dead” (just like the plague caused all life in the Nile to die).

If we identify and hold onto our true self – the Divine spark that lies within us- then we begin to connect to our True source Hashem – living according to His Will not ours. When we understand that at our core we are pure (we begin each day in Shacharit with “My God, the Soul that You gave me is Pure”)  then we are connected to a wholesome self. From this position we are unafraid to explore and uncover the false shells we inhabit, cast them off so that we can lead even purer and more fulfilled lives.

The transformation of the Nile to blood was not a one time phenomena.
It is spiritual process we (and society) must each engage in if we are to find truth, tranquillity, true meaning and purpose in our lives.

This article is based on a class by Rabbi YY Jacobson NY 2021
Shabbat Shalom