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"AND THERE SHALL BE BLOOD THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND OF EGYPT. Even the spittle of the Egyptian became blood. Why did God punish them with blood? To pay them back in their own coin, for so God said to Abraham: ’And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge’ (Gen. XV, 14). They did not allow the daughters of Israel to have ritual immersion after their menstruation, so that they should not increase; on this account were they smitten with blood.
Midrash Rabbah
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One of the rewards of Torah study is seeing one's life with a little more clarity when it is refracted through the lens of the Torah text. We often gain such insights into our own life or behaviour from examining and reflecting on the biblical narrative. However, it works both ways. Sometimes, it is our life that informs our reading of the Torah- just one reason why we read and re-read the Torah each year. The text hasn't changed; but hopefully, over the past year(s), we have gained wisdom and experience that enables us to see new lessons in the text. Sometimes an event will jolt us into reading a text with a new perspective or understanding, like when we read the story of the Tower of Babel on the Shabbat after the twin towers of the World Trade Center were attacked on Sept. 11.
This past week the world was stunned with the devastating effects of the tsunami in South East Asia that caused enormous destruction. Normally, I write the parasha a week in advance, so this week's parashah is the first one I am writing since the catastrophe. (I just returned from Israel with my family and a group of 11 other families on a 2 week Kolel Israel Family Adventure (stay tuned for a full report)). The media's attention is now turning from pictures of destruction and the heart-wrenching stories of survivors, to the much needed disaster relief efforts to help rebuild homes and lives. How does this horrendous tragedy inform our reading, and how can Judaism help inform our response?
Israel, resting on the Syrio-African rift, is no stranger to seismic activity. Israel's landscape was moulded by these geological forces, and some scholars suggest that the collapse of the walls of Jericho were not from Joshua's shofar blasts, but from an earlier earthquake. In the Psalms of Hallel, we sing the Psalmist's description of such an earthquake:
Betzeit Yisrael...When Israel went forth from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange speech....
The sea saw them and fled,
the Jordan ran backward,
mountains skipped like rams,
hills like sheep. (Ps. 114:1, 3)
In this week's parashah, we read about the first seven (of the ten) plagues that are annually recited as part of the Passover Seder: "Dam, Tzfardei, Kinim..." The image of mass destruction surely will be in many people's thoughts when we read about the first plague: the Nile being turned to blood. The Torah describes all the water of Egypt turning to blood (lakes, canals, ponds), even the water in wooden and clay vessels. The midrash even suggests the graphic image that their spit turned to blood! Then, to make matters worse, the Egyptian magicians, not to be outdone, show that they too can do this trick: and turn water into more blood. (Of course, I've always wondered: where did they get the water from!) It is true that the Israelites, still had water in Goshen, but in the midrash, a glass of water would turn to blood when an Egyptian took it; and only returned to water when the Israelite held it.
The first plague on Egypt's Nile was not arbitrary. Egypt is called the gift of the Nile. It is the source of Egypt's life and its economic engine. It provided transportation, food (fish), water for drinking and bathing, as well as for agriculture. The importance of the Nile cannot be over-estimated. Rashi's comment, based on a midrash, correctly explains that the Nile's annual flooding was critical for Egyptian agriculture as Egypt does not rely on rainfall (like the land of Israel). Egypt worshipped the Nile as a god. The midrash asks: Why were the waters first transformed to blood? Said the Holy Blessed One: I shall strike first his god, then his nation! As the saying goes, Strike the god, and the priests will tremble. (Shmot Rabbah). In this week's haftarah reading, God challenges the Pharaoh of Egypt who claims to have created the Nile (and thus be self sufficient): "My Nile is my own; I made it for myself." (Ezekiel 29: 3b). An attack on the Nile is an attack on Egypt and on her gods and Pharaoh himself. The first (and next week, the last plague) really are to hammer home the message that God controls nature, even the so called 'gods' that Egypt worships.
The Rabbis saw the plague on the Nile as an example of middah k'negged middah: tit for tat. In another midrash (quoted at the beginning), the Rabbis connect the blood of the Nile to the blood of menstruation. Jewish purity laws (niddah) require ritual immersion (mikvah) after a women's menstrual period before resuming sexual relations. So forbidding this immersion would have been an effective form of Israelite birth control! The blood imagery can also be understood poetically: you spilt the Israelites' blood like water, now your water will be turned to blood. Since the Nile was used as an instrument of death, God punishes the Nile.
This past week, in communities around the globe, it has felt like water has been turned to blood. Last week in Jerusalem, in one synagogue we attended, they refrained from singing the very popular passage: "Ilu finu malei shirah kayam, Let our mouths be filled with song like the sea" as it would have been too painful. It reminded those present of the midrash that pictures God silencing the angels who want to sing when the Egyptians are drowned at the sea: "My creatures are drowning, and you wish to sing!?"
Lessons for Today
It is difficult to find a spiritual lesson in this enormous tragedy. I shy away from approaches that find meaning in what is perhaps the greatest natural disaster of all time. Nature is amoral- that is, neither good nor bad. In the Bible, God is seen to control nature, and therefore, it is more difficult to explain why 'bad things happen to good people.' Most of us understand that volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis are natural forces that we cannot control. Until recently, many Jewish tourists stayed away from Israel because of safety concerns (although the good news is, during the 2 weeks we were there, Israel was packed with tourists!). And ironically, Israel's newspapers following the tsunami were filled with photos of Israelis missing or believed dead instead of from a terrorist attack. In the High Holy Day liturgy we read the stirring prayer 'Unetaneh Tokef.' The Reform prayerbook includes a lovely metaphoric rendering for Yom Kippur: 'who shall burn with the fires of greed, and who shall drown in the waters of despair.' The original Hebrew is more graphic: 'Who shall perish by fire and who by water.' We don't want to dwell on it, because no one knows what tomorrow will bring. You don't need to take unnecessary risks (unless you really want to), but you can't live your life in fear of crossing the street. One of the lessons in this tragedy is to live your life to the fullest, because life is fragile and an incredible gift. Everyone alive today has been given that gift, and although we don't understand the why or the when, every person has to return that gift.
While in Israel, I was fortunate to see Rabbi Neal Loevinger (past Reb on the Web and author of many weekly parashiyot) who shared his thoughts with me and inspired this week's column. He writes: The Pharaoh response is arrogance, denial of moral responsibility, and the belief in one's ability to utterly control one's fate. When Moshe receives his mission to confront Pharaoh, God says, "I have heard their outcry." Note, then, that seeing the suffering of others is a trait of the Divine; ignoring it is the trait of Pharaoh.
A number of local and international agencies are collecting funds, and I urge all of us to participate. You can use CanadaHelps which hosts Kolel's own e-donation site, or UJA federation, or many other international agencies both online and at other institutions.
Shabbat Shalom.
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