As the bënei Yisra’él proceed through the desert on their way to the encounter at Sinai, they arrive a place called Rëfidim, ואין מים לשתת העם (“and there [was] no water for the people to drink”; XVII, 1). The people crowd around Moshe to complain that they, their children, and their cattle are dying of thirst, and Moshe turns to Ha-Shem. G-d’s advice is that he appear before the people, and take with him some of their leaders, the “elders of Israel” ומטך אשר הכית בו את היאר (“and your staff with which you struck the Nile”; v. 5), with which he was to strike a specific rock and bring forth water.
However, as we page back through the preceding parashoth we are reminded that Moshe, in fact, did not strike the Nile with his staff; due to the necessity that he show hakkarath ha-tov, gratitude, to the river which had saved his life as an infant, Aharon was explicitly instructed to do it instead (cf. VII, 19-20, Rashi ad loc.). Why, then, does G-d address Moshe as though he had done it? Come to that, why does G-d find it relevant to mention the first makka here, rather than any of the “signs and wonders” which Moshe had, indeed, brought about by manipulating his staff?
B.
Rashi asks our second question, and answers שהיו ישראל אומרים על המטה שאינו מוכן אלא לפורענות בו לקה פרעה ומצרים כמה מכות במצרים ועל הים לכך נאמר "אשר הכית בו את היאר" יראו עתה שאף לטובה הוא מוכן (“that Israel were saying about the staff that it was prepared only for disasters; through it, Pharaoh and the Egyptians had been punished with several blows in Egypt and at the sea. Therefore it is said, ‘with which you struck the Nile’, that they should see now that it was prepared also for good”).
Rashi’s reasoning also appears to underlie what Ramban wrote, והזכיר בו מכת היאור ולא אמר "והמטה אשר נהפך לנחש" או "המטה אשר עשית בו את האותות" כי הזכיר בו פלא כי אז הפך המים לדם והסיר אותם מטבעם ועתה יביא מים בצור החלמיש והנה יעשה בו דבר והפכו (“and He mentioned concerning [the staff] the makka of the Nile, and did not say ‘the staff which was turned into a snake’ or ‘the staff with which you performed the signs’, for He mentioned concerning it a wonder for then He turned the water to blood and removed it from its normal nature, and now would bring water by means of the flinty rock and behold, He would do through it a thing and its reverse”).
And similarly, the Or ha-Chayyim writes וזה יהי' לנס עצום כי זה אשר הבאיש המים הנמצאים ועשאם דם יפעול בכח עליון פעולה נגדיית שימציא מים לשתות העם ויש בה הכחש' מופלאת מנגדת אמתחכמים להעחיש כי הם פלאות אלקי ישראל במטה זה תבקע קרקפתו החושבות זרות (“And this would be an awesome miracle, for this [staff] which caused the existing water to stink and made it blood would carry out with supernal power an opposite function, in that it would bring into existence water for the people to drink; and there would be in it a wonderful refutation opposing those who suppose themselves wise to refute that they are wonders of the G-d of Israel [Eloqei Yisra’él]; with this staff the skull of foreign thoughts would be split”).
C.
To understand what was so essential about demonstrating that the same agent, the staff of Moshe, brought both miraculous ruin and miraculous rescue, it is necessary to remember that the essence of idolatry is egotism (cf. e.g. my comments on parshath Va-Éra’ two weeks ago). If a human being creates his own gods, and then bows before them, before whom is he really bowing? Is not the human being, the creator of the gods, greater than the gods themselves?
In a brilliantly insightful comment on last week’s parasha, the Malbim points out another essential psychological aspect of idolatry rife in the non-Jewish world. It seems that at the same time the narcissistic idolator-egotist worships himself, he also seeks to absolve himself of his responsibilities, by portraying himself as a victim.
At the beginning of last week’s parasha, Moshe announced before Pharaoh and the Egyptian court the eighth blow to fall upon the Egyptians, should Pharaoh continue to refuse to allow Israel to leave for the Divine service which Moshe had been demanding: Locusts, a plague of locusts such as had never been seen before, covering the earth, insatiably devouring everything which remained of the Egyptians’ harvest, to include what was stored in their granaries.
Surely by this time it was plain enough that whatever Moshe decreed came to pass: Time and again wild creatures had swarmed over Egypt (frogs, lice, a mixed group of predacious and venomous creatures); the strangest disasters, a plague which killed only Egyptian beasts in the field but spared those in the barns, or those belonging to the bënei Yisra’él; or the strange hail composed of fire and ice in a country in which rainfall is an exceedingly rare occurrence – all of these made it clear to all that the locusts would indeed come, and would be as awful as described.
So Pharaoh’s courtiers begged him to let the bënei Yisra’él go, lest Egypt be completely doomed, and Pharaoh gave in to them. He had only one remaining question: מי ומי ההולכים; who, precisely, would be going (X, 8)? Moshe answered: בנערינו ובזקנינו נלך בבנינו ובבנותינו בצאננו ובבקרנו נלך כי חג ד' לנו (“With our young men and our old men we shall go, with our sons and with our daughters, with our sheep, goats, and cattle we shall go, for we have a holiday of Ha-Shem”; ibid., 9), whereupon Pharaoh changes his mind: לא כן לכו נא הגברים ועבדו את ד' כי אתה אתם מבקשים ויגרש אתם מאת פני פרעה (“Not so, let the men go and serve Ha-Shem, for that is what you are asking; and he drove them from before Pharaoh”; ibid., 11).
Pharaoh’s volte-face is nearly inexplicable to the modern mind, without the Malbim’s insight.
The pagan’s emotional world is built around the concept that the gods came in two categories, the good ones, and the evil ones. The good ones are served in order to guarantee that they continue to grant their abundance: that the crops grow, the animals wax fat, the women remain fertile, and so on. The bad ones, on the other hand, are propitiated to fend off disaster. The service performed for either category is a very different thing: The “good” gods are served through song and feasting, at which their wives and children are naturally in attendance; the evil gods are offered blood sacrifice, for they demand blood, and the women and children are kept far away, lest their blood, too, be demanded (as, indeed, archaeological findings reveal the Canaanites clearly believed). The crux of this belief is the notion that human beings is not hold their fate in their own hands; rather, they consider themselves mere pawns, helpless victims in a great, cosmic conflict between two inscrutable powers, one good and one evil, beyond their control.
This concept lies behind the phrase elohim achérim, “other powers” (cf. XX, 3), which incorpor-ates the common Divine name usually translated “G-d,” respectfully rendered Eloqim. The Divine Name is plural in form but always takes a singular verb, for all of the “powers”, whether perceived as good or evil, are in fact aspects of one, solitary, unitary Being. The human being, the dëmuth Eloqim or “likeness of G-d” (Genesis I, 26) similarly owns the capacity for both good and evil, and is, precisely for that reason, fully responsible for his actions.
This was the concept from which Pharaoh recoiled, and which the dual agency of the staff was intended to refute, since not only were the bënei Yisra’él accompanied by the ‘erev rav, who had been integral to the self-deceptive culture of Egypt, but even the bënei Yisra’él themselves, after 210 years of exposure to it, had become susceptible to this dualistic sense of victimhood, of being pawns enmeshed in the game of the gods, rather than independent moral actors who “walked with” G-d, as Avraham did (cf. Genesis). This is why such emphasis is placed on the staff serving not only as an agency of the “dark side,” to bring about disasters, but also as an agency of good.
Just as G-d is, as are His creations.
D.
But, as we also observed, Moshe did not strike the Nile with his staff; why, then, does G-d attribute the action to him?
The Talmud asks our question: וכי משה הכהו והלא אהרן הכהו אלא לומר לך כל המעשה את חבירו לדבר מצוה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו עשאה (“Did Moshe then strike it?! Did not Aharon strike it?! But [it is] to tell you, anyone who motivates his counterpart in a matter of a mitzva, Scripture considers it as though he himself did it”: סנהדרין צ"ט:, וע"ע מהרש"א שם ד"ה כל המעשה וגם העמק דבר לפ"ז י"ז ואין כאן מקום להאריך), based, of course, on our passage, and elsewhere we find: גדול המעשה יותר מן העושה (“Greater is the motivator [ha-më‘asseh] than the performer [ha-‘oseh]”; בבא בתרא ט., רש"י שם ד"ה מעשה צדקה). It was Moshe who, at G-d’s instigation, told Aharon to strike the Nile. Moshe, then, was the më‘asseh and Aharon the ‘oseh.
Chazal thus come to assure us, through this passage, that we are not only responsible for our own actions; opportunities exist to influence others, efforts which also redound to the credit of the influencer. Just as Moshe received credit for having induced Aharon to strike the river with his staff, so, indeed, do those who generously give of their time, efforts, and patience to others. Very far from being pawns in some inexplicable conflict human beings are meant to command their fate, in accordance with the Torah.
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