|
They did not see one another. The worst darkness is that blindness in which one person will not "see another" refusing to look upon his misery and to help him. He who will not "see another" will himself become incapable of "rising from his place", that is of growth and development.
Hiddushei HaRIM
|
We continue the theme from last week: the loss of life and property and the devastation of the land of Egypt after being pounded by the first 7 plagues. Parashat Bo also includes the instructions for Passover and preparations for the exodus from Egypt. The parasha begins with a description of the last three plagues: Locusts, Darkness and the Slaying of the First born. All three can be understood as a form of darkness. "Locusts hid all the land from view, and the land was darkened." (Ex. 10:15). (Last month, we witnessed such a locust invasion in Egypt, and some of them even reached the borders of Israel. Locusts, by the way, are the only kosher insect, and some Jewish communities have a tradition of eating them!). The plague of darkness follows the locusts, and is the ominous warning for the final, devastating plague of Makat Bechorot. The death of a child is certainly a kind of darkness, too. All three are connected through this motif of darkness. Remember, too, that Egypt's supreme god Amun-Ra, the god of the sun, was the Creator of the Universe and Ruler of the Gods. Like the first attack on the Nile, the plagues have to be understood as an attack on Egyptian mythology and belief, and the impotence of Egyptian's supreme god would have had been devastating on Egyptian morale.
The Italian commentator Sforno is correct that normally, there is no such thing as 'darkness.' Darkness is really only the absence of light. It's like cold- which is the absence of heat. We can't actually make cold. We only can make heat; ice cubes don't 'cool' your drink; actually, your drink makes the ice cubes warmer (and melts them), so the energy (warmth) of your drink is reduced. (Our refrigerators and air conditioners work the same way; they make things feel colder by transferring the heat from the air and removing it). The text says the darkness upon the land of Egypt was a darkness that was so thick it could be touched, or felt (vayamesh) like Isaac's request to 'feel' Jacob when he comes pretending to be his brother Esau ('let me feel you' Gen. 27:21). Sforno instead interprets the word from the root mush, 'Let the word of Torah not 'depart' [yamush] from your mouth' (Joshua 1:8), and combines both meanings in a wordplay to suggest that here, the darkness wasn't simply the lack of light but had an actual physical (tangible) substance or reality that even light couldn't dispel, and hence the dark wouldn't 'depart'.
I am not fond of the various 'scientific' explanations to this unusual darkness that are normally suggested: an eclipse, (although these only last minutes, not days) or a sandstorm. Egypt occasionally experiences dry, hot winds (hamsin) that are filled with sand and dust and darken the sky. However, the Rabbis see the darkness in more spiritual terms, and connect the phrase "people could not see one another" to the darkness. We assume that it was because it was dark, people could not see one another, but the Rabbis suggest that it is the other way around! It was because they could not see one another, it became dark. Because the Egyptians were not able to be concerned with others, they were in a psychological darkness (melancholy in Greek means 'dark mood'). And here is our spiritual lesson: people not prepared to be concerned for one another are at risk of being in a spiritual darkness. For example, the Talmud defines 'dawn' (the earliest time for morning prayers) as the time "when one can recognize the face of a friend" (Berachot 9b). The Conservative Etz Hayim Commentary writes: "when one can see other people and recognize them as friends, the darkness has begun to lift."
Lessons for Today
Were the Egyptians clinically depressed from the series of disasters that they had experienced, or from the realization that their comforts were contigent on the Israelites' slavery and suffering? Today we use the expression, "the fog was as thick as pea soup"; the midrash suggests that the darkness was as thick as a 'gold dinar.' This last midrash provides a clue to the Egyptian's blindness. Avnei Ezel (Rabbi Zusia Friedman) writes: "The pursuit of the golden dinar makes people selfish so that they become unwilling and unable to 'see' others and their needs." A chasidic story tells of a rabbi who visits a wealthy man, known to be miserly. "Look outside the window and what do you see?" asks the rabbi. "Why people of course," replies the man.
"Now look at this mirror."
"I only see myself."
"You see the difference between a [glass] window and a [glass] mirror," says the rabbi, "Just a little silver covering the glass, makes us only see ourselves."
Hundreds of thousands of survivors are suffering today in the aftermath of last month's tsunami. Recognizing and helping a person in need allows for our own spiritual growth and development. We all know it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, and we have the power to bring more light into our neighbours' lives, whether they're next door, or around the globe.
CanadaHelps which hosts Kolel's own e-donation site, or UJA federation, and many other international agencies online as well as other institutions continue with raising funds desperately needed for relief efforts for the survivors struggling with the devastation from last month's tsunami.
Shabbat Shalom.
|
