From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 2:41
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Vaeira,
5766
Washed
Up
By Rabbi Joshua (aquatically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
In
this week's parsha, we read of seven of the ten plagues that were visited upon
Egypt. Commentators have pointed out that the plagues came in two sets of three
and a final set of four, and that each of the three sets came to teach a
different fundamental idea about God and His control of the world. Furthermore,
they point out that before the first plague of each set, Moshe came to Pharaoh
early in the morning to demand that he release the Hebrew slaves, and to warn
him that if he doesn't, God will bring a plague upon Egypt. There is, however,
an interesting difference between the first and fourth plague, on the one hand,
and the seventh plague, on the other hand. Before the plagues of blood and
'arov,' the Torah tells us that Moshe met Pharaoh early in the morning at the
river, while before the seventh plague, we are only told that Moshe came to
Pharaoh early in the morning, but not that he met him at the river. A simple
explanation for this difference is given by Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin in his
Oznayim LeTorah. He writes that Pharaoh used to go to the Nile in the morning in
order to bathe, just as we find that his daughter used to do. The plague of
hail, however, was preceded by that of boils. Because Pharaoh had boils on his
body, washing in the Nile was painful. The midrash, in fact, says that the
Egyptians who suffered from the plague of boils could not wash in either hot or
cold water. Therefore, says Rabbi Sorotzkin, because of his condition, Pharaoh
no longer went to the Nile in the morning.
Rav Dovid
Feinstein, although not addressing himself to the difference between the first
and fourth plagues and the seventh plague, explained why Moshe went to see
Pharaoh at the river when warning him about the plagues of blood and of 'arov.'
Pharaoh, as Rashi mentions, considered himself to be a god, and to have power
over the Nile. In fact, the prophet Yechezkel cites Pharaoh as saying that he
created the Nile. Thus, Pharaoh must have gone to the Nile each morning and
said,' provide us with sustenance.' Moshe warned Pharaoh that it was God who
controlled the Nile, and that if he wouldn't release the Hebrew slaves, God
would turn the Nile into blood and not provide the water the Egyptians needed.
Pharaoh, however, was not moved by this plague, and so others were brought. When
these also didn't influence Pharaoh to change his mind, Moshe came to him again
in the morning, when he was wont to give his command to the Nile, and told him
that if he wouldn't release the slaves, then the people would be killed by wild
animals, in which case there would be no point in the Nile providing water,
since the people who could benefit from it would be dead. Thus, there were
specific reasons for Moshe meeting Pharaoh at the water when he warned him about
the plague of blood and the plague of 'arov,' because they were both directed at
towards Pharaoh's delusion that he was in control of the Nile. Based on this
explanation, we can explain that, after these two episodes, there was no further
need for Moshe to meet Pharaoh at the river and, therefore, he did not go there
when he warned him about the seventh plague. Both of these explanations, that of
Rabbi Sorotzkin, and that which we suggested based on Rabbi Feinstein's
teaching, are of a technical nature. I would like to suggest a more essential
explanation, that will help us understand the mind-set of Pharaoh as Moshe came
to warn him about the plagues.
The midrash, in Shemos Rabbah
(12:1), says that God, in sending Moshe to Pharaoh in order to warn him of the
plagues, was actually trying to move him to repent before the plagues came.
After the first and fourth plagues, the midrash continues, Pharaoh discerned a
pattern of Moshe coming to meet him at the river in the morning. Therefore, in
order to avoid these encounters, he ended his practice of going there at that
time. To counter this move, God told Moshe to go to Pharaoh at his home, before
he left for the day. This explanation, however, needs to be understood, as Rabbi
Yitzchok Ze'ev Yadler points out in his commentary Tiferes Tzion. If Pharoah was
so bothered by Moshe's visits, why didn't he just ban him from coming to see
him, or set up guards to keep him away? Apparently, then, there was something
about the river that made Pharaoh uncomfortable when Moshe met him there. What
exactly was it that bothered him? I would like to suggest that it was Moshe's
origins that caused Pharaoh unease. Pharaoh, we should recall, had commanded
that all new-born Hebrew males be thrown into the river, because his astrologers
told him about the coming birth of their redeemer. When Moshe was born, however,
his parents put him in a basket and set him floating on the Nile. Pharaoh's
daughter found him when she went to wash in the river one morning. The midrash
tells us that she went there as part of her process of conversion to Judaism.
When she saw the baby in his basket, she took pity on him, and raised him in
Pharaoh's house. This same person who was now alive only by virtue of the fact
that his daughter had accepted belief in the God of the universe was now telling
Pharaoh, in the name of that God, to repent and release the Hebrew slaves. This
coincidence must surely have sparked some troubling thoughts in Pharaoh's mind,
and caused him to reconsider his belief system and his course of action.
It is interesting to note that the Talmud in Zevochim (102a),
cites the verse which describes Moshe's warning to Pharaoh about the plague of
blood, "And you should stand there where you will meet him on the bank of the
river" (Shemos 7:15), and brings an opinion that Moshe was told to stand before
Pharaoh as a sign of respect for him. Another opinion in the Talmud there
derives exactly the opposite conclusion from this verse, that Moshe visited
Pharaoh at the river to show him disrespect. Perhaps, however, these two
opinions reflect the thought process that Pharaoh was going through when Moshe
came to see him at that location. Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ginzburg, in his Yalkut
Yehudah to Shemos, 1:10 (cited by Rabbi Jeffrey Bienenfeld in Divrei Torah, a
collection of sermons by various Young Israel rabbis), mentions the comment of
the Ramban that Pharaoh took a gradual approach to enslaving the Hebrew, and did
not immediately impose harsh conditions upon him. Rabbi Ginzburg says that this
approach reflects a certain amount of human decency that Pharaoh still
maintained, despite the fact that he did, in fact, persecute the slaves. It was
because of this spark of decency, says Rabbi Ginzburg, that God sent Moshe to
warn him about the plagues, and try to influence him to release them. Perhaps,
then, the two opinions in the Talmud reflect the ambivalent nature of Pharaoh's
attitude to the slaves, each opinion choosing to emphasize one side or the other
as characterizing which of the two changing attitudes was predominant.
Interestingly, in the course of the Talmudic discussion, the identity of which
rabbi holds which opinion is reversed, perhaps reflecting the nature of the
dispute, as we have explained it. The ambivalence of Pharaoh's attitude to the
slaves may, perhaps, have further reflected an ambivalent attitude that he had
in respect to belief in the One God of the universe in whose name Moshe called
on him to release the slaves. When Moshe came to see Pharaoh at the river, the
image of his daughter saving the infant baby floating in his basket while she
was on her way to accept upon herself belief in the God who Moshe was now
calling upon him to heed must have tortured his mind even further, and led him
to avoid any further encounters of this nature.
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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