A.
As our parasha unfolds, Pharaoh has refused to meet Moshe’s demand that he let the bnei Yisra’él go, and the Ten Makkoth, the great supernatural blows which would bring Egypt to her knees and force her ruler to acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel’s G-d, have commenced. The second of these was the Makkath Tzfardéa‘ which engulfed Egypt in millions of frogs, clambering all over everybody and getting into everything.
From the first mention of the plague of frogs in VII, 27 the Torah consistently refers to tzfard‘im, “frogs” in the plural; the word occurs four times in as many verses. But then, we suddenly read: ויט אהרן את ידו על מימי מצרעם ותעל הצפרדע ותכס את ארץ מצרים (“And Aharon stretched forth his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frog arose and covered the land of Egypt”; VIII, 2), whereupon the Torah reverts to the plural, which occurs five more times until the end of the account in v. 8. Why this sudden switch from the plural to the singular and back again?
The midrash asks our question and provides in answer: רבי עקיבא אומר , צפרדע אחת היתה והשריצה ומלאה כל ארץ מצרים. אמר לו רבי אלעזר בן עזרי', עקיבא, מה לך אצל אגדה? כלה מדבריך ולך אצל נגעים ואוהלות! צפרדע אחת היתה ושרקה להם והן באו (“Rabbi ‘Aqiva says, 'There was one frog, and it swarmed with young and filled the entire land of Egypt.' Said Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya to him, '‘Aqiva, what have you to do with aggada? Desist from your words and go over to afflictions [nega‘im] and tents [ohaloth]! There was one frog, and it croaked to [the others] and they came'”; שמות רבה פ"י סי' ה' וע"ע סנהדרין ס"ז).
In commenting on the Talmud’s record of this exchange, Rashi explains Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya’s riposte: מנע מדבריך ופנה להלכות נגעים ואוהלות דהן חמורים ובהם אתה מחודד ולא באגדה (“Desist from your words and turn to the laws of nega‘im and ohaloth, which are difficult and in which you are sharp, and not in aggada”). This is usually taken to imply that Rabbi ‘Aqiva was, as it were, a specialist in halacha who had no business departing from his speciality to dabble in interpretations of the narrative portions of Torah, or aggada. Yet, we find Rabbi ‘Aqiva quoted numerous other times in midrashic and aggadic passages without any hint of disapproval; indeed, elsewhere the Talmud informs us: רבי עקיבא התקין מדרש הלכות ואגדות (“Rabbi ‘Aqiva established [the techniques of] interpretation of halachoth and aggadoth”; ירושלמי שקלים פ"ה ה"א).
This being so, it seems worth investigating what, really, did Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya mean, and why did he consider his drasha superior to Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s?
B.
So, let us turn to the halachoth of nega‘im and ohaloth.
Let us start with ohaloth, the “halachoth of tents.” To understand what this means, we turn to Numbers VIV, 14 and read: זאת התורה אדם כי ימות באהל יל הבא אל האהל וכל אשר באהל יטמא שבעת ימים (“This is the Torah: [If] a human being [adam] should die in a tent [ohel], everyone who comes to the tent and everything which is in the tent will be metaphysically defiled [tame] for a period of seven days”). The dead body is a prime source of metaphysical defilement (tum’a), and the tent retains and holds this tum’a, such that it and everybody and everything in it are rendered tame. The complex laws governing the status of people and objects which are thus in contact with the tum’a of the dead are what Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya means by ohaloth.
The Talmud considers the question of whether a fetus (‘ubbar) which is stillborn, and thus obviously had died in the womb renders the mother an ohel and thus tamé. Rabbi Yishma‘el argues that it does not do so; Rabbi ‘Aqiva argues that it does (עיי' חולין ע"ב.).
If we consider Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s argument in conjunction with our verse, it appears easy to conclude that, at least in matters of the tum’a of dead bodies, Rabbi ‘Aqiva considers an ‘ubbar to have the same status as a full-fledged adam.
C.
Now let us consider nega‘im. A nega‘ is one of a series of a skin afflictions, each of which is designated in Hebrew by its own technical term, which potentially have metaphysical causes and consequences, one of which is that it renders the adam who has one tame.
In Leviticus XIII, 2, we read: אדם כי יהי' בעור בשרו שאת או בפחת או בהרת וגו' (“An adam, for there will be in the skin of his flesh a s’éth or a sappachath or a bahereth….”). Each of the Hebrew words is a technical term for a type of nega‘. The important thing to know here is that the nega‘ must be seen as soon as possible after it appears by a competent kohén to determine whether or not it is tamé.
The midrash Torath Kohanim discusses nega‘im שהיו בע"א ונתגייר בקטן ונולד כו' נשתנו מראיהם בין להקל בין להחמיר ר"א בן עזרי' מטהר כו' ר"ע אומר בין להקל בין להחמיר תראה בתחלה לכך נאמר "אדם כי יהי'" (“which were on an idolator who has [just] converted to Judaism, or on a small child who has [just] born…[If] their appearance has changed, whether leniently or stringently, Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya deems it cleansed… Rabbi ‘Aqiva says, 'Whether [the change] is lenient or stringent, it must be seen by a kohén at the beginning; for this reason it is said, "An adam, for there will be…."'”; פרשת נגעים פ"א סי' א').
As the Chafétz Chayyim points out in his Bi’ur to the above, the issue is that the apparent nega‘ in the skin of the non-Jew who has just converted was not examined by a kohén when it first appeared. Similarly, in the case of the newborn who exits his mother’s womb with an apparent nega‘, the nega‘ must have been בעובר במעי אמו דאינו מטמא משום דלא חזי לי' כהן לטמויי (“on the ‘ubbar in his mother’s belly, which does not impart tum’a because a kohén did not see it to determine its status”).
In the event that this original nega‘ undergoes some physical change, Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya rules that, regardless whether the change would ordinatily occasion leniency or stringency in a matter of tum’ath nega‘im, it is considered clean because the original status of the nega‘ is now unknowable. Rabbi ‘Aqiva agrees with Rabi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya concerning the original nega‘; however, now that its appearance has changed, he holds that it is in fact a new nega‘, which needs to be seen by a kohén to determine its status.
Rash mi-Shantz, in his comments on the above, explains that Rabbi ‘Aqiva has to rule concerning the status of the original nega‘ precisely because (as we have already established) he holds that an ‘ubbar is equivalent to an adam in matters of tum’a, and our verse again begins with the word adam. The only reason that the original nega‘ does not render the ‘ubbar tame, then, is that it was hidden from view when it first appeared.
D.
So we see that Rabbi ‘Aqiva held, both in hilchoth ohaloth and in hilchoth nega‘im, that an ‘ubbar is really equivalent to an adult adam, and that Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya was aware of his opinion.
This, I believe, is what Rabbi El‘azar ben ‘Azarya really meant: ‘Aqiva, your drasha is inconsistent with your views in ohaloth and nega‘im. There you equate an ‘ubbar with an adult; if there is a single “pregnant” frog, filled with thousands of embryonic frogs, why, in your view, should it count as a single creature? It’s just one more of the general group of frogs, in your opinion. You’ve therefore not explained why the word in our verse should be in the singular; whereupon Ranni El‘azar ben ‘Azarya offered his suggestion of the “croak heard round the world.”
Another demonstration of the wonderful internal consistency of Chazal.
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