It is not terribly surprising that contemporary readers of Shemot (the Book of Exodus) struggle with the narratives of the plagues. On the one hand, there is a strategic sense that the barrage of plagues could possibly have been effective in building sympathy for the Israelite cause and defeat Pharaoh. Contemporary scholars agree that liberation movements succeed more often when they are strategically nonviolent; when it is clear to all undecided parties that the authoritarian leader is the source of violence, rather than the opposition.[1]
And of course, there is also moral distaste for a liberation wrought with so much force, with so many innocent casualties. As one of my regular participants in Torah study put it, when we studied Parashat Va’era (Exodus 6:2-9:35), “I know we are supposed to aspire to ‘walk in God’s ways,’ but I do not want to emulate the motivations or behavior of this God character – He seems like kind of a shmuck!”
A Reconstructionist Reading
What is interesting to me about this comment is how very non-Reconstructionist it is. It reads God as a bigger version of a person, acting out of human-like motivations with human-like capacities. That is, in fact, how the language of the Exodus narrative describes “Him”. But several years after the publication of Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s groundbreaking work of Jewish theology, God is Here: Reimagining the Divine, I think we have other options for a philosophically Reconstructionist reading of the plagues. We can read the narrative as an insightful portrayal of the consequences of the abuse of power, as I explain below.
Rampant abuse of power causes indiscriminate destruction that is not limited to its original targets.
Reading especially in light of current events, the narratives of the plagues bring to light certain insights that might not have mattered in more democratic times. The first is that rampant abuse of power causes indiscriminate destruction that is not limited to its original targets. This theme begins to develop as early as Exodus 1:22. After failing to secure the compliance of the midwives in his plan to kill the Hebrew baby boys, “Then Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, ‘Every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.’”
How Corrupt Societies Collapse
The Talmud (Sotah 12a) teaches,
Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, says: “He decreed even on his own nation [that all their male babies must be killed.]” And Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, says further: “He decreed three decrees. Initially, If it be a son, then you shall kill him… (Exodus 1:16). And afterward, “Every son that is born you shall cast into the river…” (Exodus 1:22). And ultimately, he decreed even on his own nation [to kill even the Egyptian baby boys.]
This terse midrash, offered without explanation, reflects the reality that once a ruler is willing to kill children, that violence will not be confined to its initial targets for long.
When the ruler continues to wield violence and misery unchecked, there are consequences. We see this today: The environment degrades. Disease spreads. Trade relations with neighboring nations falter, leading to a decline in prosperity for everyone, which does not actually land equitably, but hits the most economically vulnerable the hardest. Armed state agents kill bystanders as well as their official targets. Our ancestors, as well as the Egyptian magicians in Exodus 8:15, articulated these consequences as “the finger of God.” But that needn’t actually imply a willful action in history on the part of the Divine. We can read it as a description of how corrupt societies collapse.
Once a ruler is willing to kill children, that violence will not be confined to its initial targets for long.
Tyrants Resist Pressure
The second key insight that the plagues narrative offers is how very resistant tyrants are to pressure. Pharaoh was not going to be persuaded by either rational or emotional argument. Even as the plagues multiply, Pharaoh’s response, in the beginning, was not to question if what he was doing was wrong, but rather to prove that he and his regime were capable of wreaking equally powerful destruction.
Consider Exodus 7:21-2, after the Nile turns to blood:
The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile; and there was blood throughout the land of Egypt. But when the Egyptian magicians did the same with their spells, Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed them…
And Exodus 8:2-3:
Aaron held out his arm over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same with their spells and brought frogs upon the land of Egypt.
In both cases, Pharaoh’s response to the plague is to prove that the best minds of his kingdom could cause the same damage, rather than instructing them to alleviate suffering. Pharaoh seeks to demonstrate that he is in control of the destruction, that he is causing it deliberately, rather than admit that it is a consequence of his earlier choices.
Beginning with the third plague of lice, the “hartumei mitzrayim”, the Egyptian magicians, have trouble replicating the plagues (though the medieval French commentator Chizkuni suggests that they start to realize that stopping the plagues would be a better idea than replicating them – and they can’t do that either.[2])
The plagues isolate Pharaoh. His courtiers and magicians become more assertive that he is leading them down a disastrous path as they continue.[3] The Egyptian people understand that the magnitude of harm they have experienced is a consequence of the slavery in which they were complicit, and in Chapter 12:35f., they willingly give the people gold, silver and clothing as reparations before the Israelites depart. But Pharaoh himself never learns. Despite the unfolding calamities, what stops Pharaoh in the end is his own destruction, for even after the tenth plague and the death of his own son, Pharaoh pursues the Israelites until he drowns in the sea. One imagines that had he not drowned, he would never have stopped chasing them.
Tyrants cling to power, even as the scope of destruction widens and innocents get hurt along the way.
Of course, all of these insights are somewhat obscured by the framing of God as an external anthropomorphic actor in the story, rather than an unfolding process. But we should understand that our ancestors preserved this account of their liberation story not because they were especially bloodthirsty or less morally advanced than we are. As Rabbi Toba Spitzer has elegantly argued, our ancestors had a deeply sophisticated relationship with the divine. While we all might wish that liberation could be achieved painlessly, our ancestors surely observed that it this is rarely the case – that tyrants cling to power even as the scope of destruction widens, that innocents get hurt along the way. This is not a story of a liberation fantasy, but a version of a story of how liberation actually happens in this world. Part of the process is that violence is initially ignored when it is inflicted upon an underclass. But then the damage is then felt much more broadly, by those who were previously comfortable, unaware or at least unprotesting.[4]
How do we reconcile the deaths of the innocent Egyptians, the deaths of hungry children? We do not. We pour out drops of wine as we name the plagues, and we recite a shortened Hallel prayer of praise, in memory of the angels whose songs were stopped by Divine anguish over the pointless loss of so many beloved Egyptian creatures.[5]
The plagues do not give us the permission to wreak violence on innocents in the effort for liberation, God forbid. But they give us a model for how to think about liberation struggles now, and to notice the uncomfortable “birthpangs of redemption” that today might take the form of an economic crash, or a climate event in a place where people felt complacent. Each of these moments have the power to be transformative, if they inspire us to shake off the tyrant’s power, rather than just sending “thoughts and prayers.”
So as we recite the plagues this year – and perhaps consider the contemporary plagues that trouble us – by all means, we should diminish our joy and honor the memory of the innocents. But we should also be clear-eyed that the fault lies not with the divine, but with Pharaoh himself, in all the forms he takes, and with those who enable him – then as now.
[1] See Freedom Trainers – https://freedomtrainers.net/about/ and Strategic Nonviolence Academy https://strategicnonviolenceacademy.org/ for more fleshed out articulations of this claim.
[2] See Chizkuni on Exodus 8:14
[3] See Exodus 10:7
[4] With thanks to Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein, for pointing out this take on the plagues, at https://jewschool.com/progressive-jews-we-are-on-the-side-of-the-plagues-173916
[5] Megilla 10b
