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Apr. 14th, 2014 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretD'var Torah I intend to share tonight at the Seder table:
I started out intending to ask the question of what Detzach Adash Be'achav means. This is a mnemonic Rabbi Yossi the Galilean offers for the Ten Plagues: Dom (Blood) ZTfardeya (Frogs) Kinim (Lice) gives Detzach, etc... But in searching the sources, all I could find on this were some thoughts on the mnemonic as a mnemonic, and in general on how Jewish tradition uses such mnemonics as tranmission tools. Which I find interesting, but not what I was looking to explore.
So I moved on slightly to the related question of where the order of the plagues comes from. Why does God start with Blood and conclude with the Death of the Firstborn? How are the plagues situated with relation to each other? What was the strategic plan underlying them?
Artscroll cites the 19th century commentator the Malbim as saying that there were three sets of three plagues, with a specific pattern. In each set of three plagues, Moses warns Pharaoh before the first two plagues, but not the third. The reason for this is because in Jewish law, a person must be warned in the presence of two witnesses that something is against Jewish law before they can be punished for it by a human court. The Malbim argues that homiletically the two prior plagues act as witnesses that the Egyptian people and Pharaoh were properly warned of the consequences of defying God's will. And then, of course, the tenth plague stands alone, separately warned for.
This reflects an anxiety I detect throughout the commentaries on Exodus about the morality of the plagues. Rashi repeatedly draws out Midrashic explanations that show the Egyptians were warned even further than is textually explicit about what was to come. For example, on the plague of sch'chin, boils, he asks how there were animals left to get boils if all of the animals had died in the previous plague of dever, animal disease. His answer is that the Egyptians who feared God and his prior warnings kept their animals indoors where they would not be susceptible to the animal disease, but the boils still affected them. Again and again, Rashi seeks to emphasize how thoroughly the Egyptians were warned before they were hit with this inhumane sequence of plagues that affected the whole nation even though it was truly Pharaoh's decision that was causing them.
This is because the Rabbis were uncomfortable with the idea of plagues, I think. The God we serve has taught us the value of human life, has taught us the value of justice, and it is hard to see justice in the enactment of the plagues. On the other hand, it is easy to see the value of Freedom, and I think if it's about anything, the Passover Seder is about the idea that no price is too high a price to achieve Freedom. So the Rabbis are attempting to show that though ultimately the only answer we're supposed to find satisfactory is that there's no price too high to achieve Freedom, along the way all possible steps were taken to minimize the harm done.
Another thread of thought on the plagues is that the plagues can be separately categorized by the location they are imposed, which is marked by matching keywords: The first two plagues, the blood and the frogs, make up a set of plagues imposed specifically on the Nile River. The Rabbis make a lot of this, that the Nile was the lifeblood of Egypt and these plagues were specifically designed to threaten it to show that the Nile was vulnerable to God's wrath. The third plague, the Lice, forms a set with the sixth plague, Sh'chin or boils, because each of them is initiated from the dust of Egypt. Arov and dever, plagues four and five, are both cast on the animals of Egypt. Both the hail and the darkness saw Moses stretch out his hand toward the heaven, these plagues were on the sky of Egypt. And the locusts and the death of the first born affected the whole land (Aretz) of Egypt. Five sets of two plagues marked by keywords and a sense of progression, but disordered. You would expect that after the two plagues on the Nile, you'd get two plagues on the dust, two plagues on the animals, two plagues on the sky, and two plagues on the whole nation. Instead, some of the plagues are shuffled up while the general sequence is maintained.
I haven't found an answer for why this is, but I feel it's worth thinking when we say Detzach Adash Be'achav that perhaps the mnemonic is somehow incomplete.
Also, consider this
Another explanation: "Strong hand" indicates two [plagues]; "Outstretched arm," another two; "Great manifestation," another two; "Signs," another two; and "Wonders," another two.
These are the Ten Plagues which the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon the Egyptians.
My schematization explains why the plagues would be broken down thusly into pairs, though I cannot tell you which mapping goes where.
Chag sameach to all who celebrate. I cannot wait for my seder... I'm meeting a new cousin!
I started out intending to ask the question of what Detzach Adash Be'achav means. This is a mnemonic Rabbi Yossi the Galilean offers for the Ten Plagues: Dom (Blood) ZTfardeya (Frogs) Kinim (Lice) gives Detzach, etc... But in searching the sources, all I could find on this were some thoughts on the mnemonic as a mnemonic, and in general on how Jewish tradition uses such mnemonics as tranmission tools. Which I find interesting, but not what I was looking to explore.
So I moved on slightly to the related question of where the order of the plagues comes from. Why does God start with Blood and conclude with the Death of the Firstborn? How are the plagues situated with relation to each other? What was the strategic plan underlying them?
Artscroll cites the 19th century commentator the Malbim as saying that there were three sets of three plagues, with a specific pattern. In each set of three plagues, Moses warns Pharaoh before the first two plagues, but not the third. The reason for this is because in Jewish law, a person must be warned in the presence of two witnesses that something is against Jewish law before they can be punished for it by a human court. The Malbim argues that homiletically the two prior plagues act as witnesses that the Egyptian people and Pharaoh were properly warned of the consequences of defying God's will. And then, of course, the tenth plague stands alone, separately warned for.
This reflects an anxiety I detect throughout the commentaries on Exodus about the morality of the plagues. Rashi repeatedly draws out Midrashic explanations that show the Egyptians were warned even further than is textually explicit about what was to come. For example, on the plague of sch'chin, boils, he asks how there were animals left to get boils if all of the animals had died in the previous plague of dever, animal disease. His answer is that the Egyptians who feared God and his prior warnings kept their animals indoors where they would not be susceptible to the animal disease, but the boils still affected them. Again and again, Rashi seeks to emphasize how thoroughly the Egyptians were warned before they were hit with this inhumane sequence of plagues that affected the whole nation even though it was truly Pharaoh's decision that was causing them.
This is because the Rabbis were uncomfortable with the idea of plagues, I think. The God we serve has taught us the value of human life, has taught us the value of justice, and it is hard to see justice in the enactment of the plagues. On the other hand, it is easy to see the value of Freedom, and I think if it's about anything, the Passover Seder is about the idea that no price is too high a price to achieve Freedom. So the Rabbis are attempting to show that though ultimately the only answer we're supposed to find satisfactory is that there's no price too high to achieve Freedom, along the way all possible steps were taken to minimize the harm done.
Another thread of thought on the plagues is that the plagues can be separately categorized by the location they are imposed, which is marked by matching keywords: The first two plagues, the blood and the frogs, make up a set of plagues imposed specifically on the Nile River. The Rabbis make a lot of this, that the Nile was the lifeblood of Egypt and these plagues were specifically designed to threaten it to show that the Nile was vulnerable to God's wrath. The third plague, the Lice, forms a set with the sixth plague, Sh'chin or boils, because each of them is initiated from the dust of Egypt. Arov and dever, plagues four and five, are both cast on the animals of Egypt. Both the hail and the darkness saw Moses stretch out his hand toward the heaven, these plagues were on the sky of Egypt. And the locusts and the death of the first born affected the whole land (Aretz) of Egypt. Five sets of two plagues marked by keywords and a sense of progression, but disordered. You would expect that after the two plagues on the Nile, you'd get two plagues on the dust, two plagues on the animals, two plagues on the sky, and two plagues on the whole nation. Instead, some of the plagues are shuffled up while the general sequence is maintained.
I haven't found an answer for why this is, but I feel it's worth thinking when we say Detzach Adash Be'achav that perhaps the mnemonic is somehow incomplete.
Also, consider this
Another explanation: "Strong hand" indicates two [plagues]; "Outstretched arm," another two; "Great manifestation," another two; "Signs," another two; and "Wonders," another two.
These are the Ten Plagues which the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon the Egyptians.
My schematization explains why the plagues would be broken down thusly into pairs, though I cannot tell you which mapping goes where.
Chag sameach to all who celebrate. I cannot wait for my seder... I'm meeting a new cousin!