April 16, 2011- Parshat Acharei Mot/Shabbat Hagadol

It's always a remarkable image: little Jewish children sitting around the Passover table cheering on the devastation and destruction of the Egyptians through methodical, step by step torturous and murderous plagues. One by one, blood, frogs, lice, beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and finally death. Yippee! Isn't Passover so much fun?! As if that wasn't enough, Moshe taunts Pharoh (at God's urging of course) with debilitating psychological warfare, pretending to ask for a mere 3 days "vacation" to fatten and slaughter a few sheep (doubly insulting because sheep were the Egyptian god). Pharaoh knew it was an escape plan, but politics were politics even back then. Granted, the Egyptians had deceived the Jews into becoming "servants" of Pharoh through careful manipulation, and then maintained 120 years of brutal slavery and sadistic decrees - their demise was well deserved and who could fault the Jews for gawking. I mean, we're still at it millennium later.

Really, the plagues were as much for them as they were - and are - for us. Each plague serves a distinct purpose. Each plague elucidates a specific attribute of the Hebrew God that no other nation could possibly fathom: One singular entity whose existence encompasses all of creation leaving nothing to chance, save the free-will autonomy of man. No grain of sand, no gigabyte too small to be rendered insignificant; nay, the entire universe is one giant stage of almost infinite significance upon which the story of the human soul will unfold. The 10 plagues correspond to the 10 statements of creation, the 10 commandments, the 10 Sephirot (for you kabalists), the 10 catagories of joy (for you romantics), and even your 10 fingers and toes. The world was de-created, re-created and shaken and stirred until every morsel of God's attainable glory was highlighted, and the Jewish people lifted to the status of a Nation - an entity far greater than the sum total of its parts, a new dimension where we as individuals cease to exist, yet where we coalesce into a creation much more God-like, and hence much closer.

Egypt was the world super-power in everything, including magic. So much so that the Jews couldn't fully 100% believe in the plague or Moshe's signs. 99% maybe, but not 100%. Even though the Egyptians couldn't reproduce more than the first two plagues, Jews always deep down harbored a sense of superiority and maybe figured Moshe could best the best. (Sinai eventually cleared up any doubts). During the third plague of lice, the Torah teaches that the Egyptian magicians tried, but were unsuccessful and headed to, at least, the "finger of God". Why couldn't they compete? Our Sages teach that lice were too small. Really? Rivers into blood, millions of miraculous frogs, but lice were too small?!?

The power of magic has no dominion over something with no substantive size - less than a mustard seed. The Maharal of Prague explains that magic is a manipulation of all the negative forces in creation, or more accurately, a utilization of the forces of creation negatively (much like love can be guided or misguided, ire, wealth, gravity...). Yet again, it begs the question, "why? Why can't magic rule over things smaller than a mustard seed?" If this is the most you've ever heard about a mustard seed, herein lies the answer. This is not some random comparison. The yardstick of something of substance, something of its own girth, so to speak, is a mustard seed. Anything less has no legal status, doesn't exist as its own entity. Magic, or utilitarian forces for evil, can only dominate over something that otherwise boasts of its own identity, its own self-perpetuating existence. One's ego, or self-inflation, is by definition an affront to the very concept of the Jewish God. It is here that evil takes root. But when the Jewish people humble themselves and no longer consider their own existence outside of God and the Jewish nation, magic has no recourse. When we're unified, we're only unified because we ignore the petty, the physical, the ego. This is the goal. This is one of the great consequences of experiencing the plagues - for a few moments in history we had our sights set on perfection, on oneness of purpose. These moments are precious. So precious we celebrate them year after year. We revisit and recreate anew this sublime sense of unity and belonging.

We'll sing next week Dayenu, and each stage of that treasured tune has remarkable merit - plagues, sea splitting, etc. But one line is troubling. "If you only brought us to Mt Sinai and not given us the Torah, it would have been enough." Really? What's the big deal of getting to Mt. Sinai if nothing were to happen? To this question I heard a wonderful answer. The Torah intimates that when we finally arrived at Mt. Sinai, we were so unified that we're described as "one being with one heart". Even without receiving the Torah, for the Jewish people to experience such unity and love, that too would have been enough.

Have a Chag Kasher v'Sameach - a beautiful holiday to all.

Rabbi Lynn