Timeless Torah

The Nile turns into blood. Is that normal or miraculous? How about swarms of frogs? Natural or something out of The Twilight Zone? Obviously all of the plagues that beset the Egyptians were supernatural. How else could Moses prove that it was G-d Himself who was orchestrating the strategy against Pharaoh?

And yet the final affliction in this week's Biblical reading is Plague #7....Hail. Why you ask is hail, which seems pretty tame in comparison, listed among all of the other paranormal torments that make up the Ten Plagues? Actually, this specific hail was kind of amazing. Within the external shield of snow and ice there was , "fire amid the hail." As Rashi explains, "In order to serve G-d, the fire and water in the hail made peace with one another."

This solves the question of the Hail's placement among the other plagues. What still remains perplexing is the purpose. Each and every one of the epidemics that struck contained a moral. That is why the Nile turned into blood, it reminded the Egyptians of their cruel attempt to drown the Hebrew male infants. What evil character trait then did the fire/ice hail expose?

Egypt is unlike the land of Israel promised to the Jews. The Torah itself points out some of their differences. In Deuteronomy it states, "For the land which you are entering to inherit is not like the land of Egypt from which you are coming... it is a land ... which drinks water of the rain of the heavens." As the commentaries emphasize, "Egypt does not drink rainwater; rather, the Nile rises and waters it ."

Rain represents the reciprocal relationship between heaven and earth. In the words of our Torah, "A vapor rises from the earth" to the heavens, and the heavens return it as rain. This represents the spiritual truth that G-d responds to the efforts of man, reciprocating our prayers, yearnings and deeds with nurture from Above.

But rain alone does not suffice to make the land flourish and give fruit. The soil must be plowed, broken up and softened, before it can receive the seed and absorb the rain. Spiritually this means that it is not enough to send up "vapors" of lofty feelings and virtuous works; one must first plow his ego,crush the clods of coarseness and arrogance in his personality, to make his life receptive to the flow of divine nurture from Heaven.

This is the doctrine of the rain-watered land. But in Egypt things were different. Egypt was nourished not by descending rain but by the overflow of the Nile, which would periodically flood the land. Nor was it necessary to plow its soil; the floodwaters of the Nile would leave behind a layer of extremely fertile silt which required no breaking up prior to planting.

An Egyptian is one who does not recognize the Heavenly source of the blessings of life. He believes that all is generated from below, that everything he has achieved is of his own making. Nor does he see the need for any "plowing" of his personality, he is fine as he is, clods and all.

When G-d does make it rain in Egypt, it falls as hail. Hail that is ice without and fire within. We often speak of warm and cold personalities. The former is a passionate, loving, outgoing individual, always ready to extend a hand and a smile to a fellow. The latter is reserved, self- centered, indifferent to the fate of others. But the cold individual is also aflame, fired with self-love, ablaze with egotistical passions. Indeed, it is his excess of inner heat that is the cause of his icy exterior.

The Egyptian rain/hail of ice enclosed fire unmasked the Egyptian personality of selfishness. For in this unplowed land, where the heavenly source of its water is unrecognized, the nurture that descends from Above is perverted as a source of increased love of self and greater alienation between man and his fellow.