In this week’s Parshat Bo we have the three remaining plagues God brings down on Egypt: locusts, darkness and the slaying of the first born. What is the purpose of the plagues? If God only wished to bring the Jews out of Egypt, why were 10 plagues necessary? Why not just perform one miracle that resulted in the Exodus?
One answer our sages classically derive from the plagues is the triumph of monotheism over polytheism, in other words, the plagues were instructional in teaching the world about the one supernatural God. Professor Cassuto of Hebrew University describes how each of the 10 plagues demonstrates the truthfulness of the God of Israel over the falsity of the Egyptian deities. Cassuto provides a few examples: The Nile River was worshiped as a God and therefore turned into blood. One of the Egyptian goddesses was a figure that was half-frog, half -woman—hence the plague of frogs. The plague of darkness blocked the sun, the chief god in the Egyptian pantheon, and the first born in ancient Egypt were worshipped as gods. Thus, the plagues were sent by God to expose the sham of Egyptian deities. As Moshe told Pharoah in last week’s parsha: “so all will know there is no God like our God” (Shemot 8:6).
But there’s another lesson to be culled from the plagues which carries more contemporary relevance,and that is the Jewish attitude to power: It teaches us that power, in of itself, is not a bad thing and that there is no Torah value in being weak or defenseless. The plagues made Moshe and the Jewish people look strong. They caused the Egyptians to admire Moshe and the Jewish people. The fact that the Israelites were able to successfully confront a threat enhanced their position in the world. We recite this every day in the Az Yashir prayer: “Namogu kol yoshevei k’naan– the inhabitants of Cannan melted away.” After the Ten Plagues and Splitting of the Sea, the Jewish people were seen as powerful and this reputation carried on throughout the Chumash into the Nevi’im where, more often than not, the Jewish people were the ones with power, including warriors, such as Shimshon and King David.
The Torah never glorifies war or power, but it also never puts it down, especially when it is necessary for self-defense. When the nation of Midian joined Moav to attack the Jewish people, the Torah says: “Tzaror et hamidyanim — Fight the Midianim” (Bamidbar 25:17), and based on this phrase, the sages of the Talmud ruled: “Habah lehargecha— hashkeim lehargo / One who arises to kill you, you must defend yourself and kill him first” (Sanhedrin 72a).
Referring to the case of habah ba’Machteret -—the thief who sneaks into your home at night, the Torah rules “ain lo damim”–— it is not considered murder to use lethal force to protect yourself. This law is adopted by virtually all Western legal systems. “Turn the other cheek” is a New Testament teaching in which Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount declares: “Do not resist evil…whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other…(Matthew 5:38–42). And elsewhere in the Christian Bible it famously says: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you… bless them that curse you and pray for those who despitefully use you” (Luke 6:27–31).
These are not Jewish teachings. Judaism teaches us to fight evil and that there is great honor in self-defense. This is one of the reasons Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik attributed religious significance to the creation of the modern State of Israel -— because ultimately the Jewish State defends Jewish lives. The Rav, zt”l, in his seminal work on Religious Zionism, “Kol Dodi Dofek,” wrote that one of the six knocks of religious Zionist opportunity is that with the creation of modern Israel, Jewish blood is no longer hefker (ownerless). Now Jews can defend themselves, which is an honorable thing as far as Judaism is concerned. Rabbi Soloveitchik said that the Israeli flag “has a spark of sanctity” because of the sacrifices made by the people of Israel to defend themselves.
There’s holiness in self-defense and nothing wrong with being powerful. The problem is too many Jews and non-Jews got used to the last 2,000 years of our Diaspora history which was characterized by powerlessness and victimhood. The world has not fully adjusted to our new reality of power.
Years ago, I was listening to the comic political commentator Bill Maher, who while interviewing Bibi Netanyahu, asked the Prime Minister: “Why does Israel have an image problem?” Netanyahu offered this response: “For 2,000 years, the Jew was the perfect victim, we had no land, no army, no government, no way to defend ourselves. And by being a perfect victim we were always perfectly moral because we were always on the receiving end of the persecution, and so the world got used to the idea of the Jew as a victim…but now, after the Holocaust, we refuse to be a victim. We’ve re-established a state with an army and so we’ve deviated from that perfection of powerlessness into power, and therefore a real historical adjustment needs to be made. We refuse to be victims, we will defend ourselves like any other normal country would because, Bill, we’re not going back to the gas chambers.”
The world will have to get used to a new kind of Jew, one with power. But it must start with us. We must learn to be proud of Jewish defense and the power Israel thankfully has today. And for us Jews in America, that means using our power to ensure Israel has the means to defend itself. Only a strong Israel will bring about the peace we all so desire. May the blessing of our power today lead to peace and may we soon see the realization of our daily prayer: “Hashem oz le’amo yiten – May God gives strength to His people” and through that strength, “Hashem yevarech et amo bashalom — May He bless us all with peace.
Rabbi Mark Wildes, founder, Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE), a highly successful Jewish outreach program which engages 20’s/30’s in Jewish life and which has facilitated 383 marriages.
