Plagues? Why Plagues?

I’m on an airplane again. This time, returning from a shiva visit to the family of Sandy Klugman, of blessed memory, in Seattle. Sandy and her late husband Elliot were pillars of our community for many years. Today’s Dvar Torah is dedicated to her memory.

In order to get the Jews out of Egypt there was no need for ten plagues. Moshe could have just led them out while Pharaoh stood by helplessly. In order to punish the Egyptians, Hashem could have skipped the first nine and gone straight for the Killing of the Firstborns. The main purpose of all the plagues, the Torah tells us, is for the world to know that Hashem exists and that He controls every aspect of nature. 

The Zohar (the foremost book of Kabbalah) states that Hashem is “above above without end and below below with no limit.”  While it appears to us that the world is separate from the Divine and runs itself, the Divine energy that is beyond all of creation is also the life-source of everything in existence. 

Science tells us that solid materials are really just a collection of floating molecules. (I’m not a scientist so don’t get me for being a little simplistic here.)  It is a given that there is much that the eye cannot see, but that doesn’t mean it’s not so. 

Kabbalah is telling us that the static laws of nature are actually Divine Providence in hiding. The Hebrew word for nature,Teva, means drowned or sunken – because the divine source is covered up by the physical. 

Pharaoh and his people refused to accept this. The point of Torah is for people to work and change the world from the bottom up. Hashem wants us to be partners in Creation and fix the world by choosing to do good. The plagues were the ultimate show that Hashem is in full control of nature, and in the end, Pharaoh recognized Hashem’s control and he himself pressured the Jews to leave.

I was talking to someone this week who told me that everything is up to “my own hands and mind.” I asked if anything had happened in her life that was unexpected or if she achieved anything that she didn’t feel she earned. She said “yes, that was luck.” If we look honestly at our lives, we can see that we receive many kindnesses that we can’t account for naturally. This is the hand of G-d, Divine Providence, because Hashem is ever present in this world. 

This upcoming Wednesday marks the tenth of Shevat, the day the previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneerson passed away in 1950, and the day our Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, assumed the leadership a year later. Every year on this day, the Rebbe would discuss the previous Rebbe’s last teaching. Our purpose, he said, especially our generation which will bring Moshiach, is to reveal this light and transform the world. We do this by transforming ourselves, making the choices that are in line with Torah, and revealing that Hashem is indeed “below below with no limit.”