A.
In the course of preparing Moshe and Aharon for their first meeting with the Egyptian monarch, G-d warns them: כי ידבר אליכם פרעה לאמר תנו לכם מופת וגו' (“For Pharaoh will speak to you to say, Give yourselves a sign....”; VII, 9).
From the account of the meeting which immediately follows, it would appear that everything proceeded exactly as G-d said; though the Egyptian King’s words are not recorded, we have no reason to doubt that he said exactly what was predicted. A little reflection will reveal how odd that is: One would expect him to say, “Give us a sign....” rather than “Give yourselves a sign”; what could he have meant by this odd turn of phrase?
Even more puzzling is the next clause in the verse, in which G-d prescribes the brothers’ response to the king’s order: ואמרת אל אהרן קח את מטך והשלך לפני פרעה יהי לתנין (“And you shall say to Aharon, Take your staff and cast [it] down before Pharaoh; it will become a reptile”). Whilst certainly a startling display (though, as we shall see, apparently one easily duplicable through a conjuring trick), it is hard to see how this provides an answer to Pharaoh’s challenge. How was this a sign “for themselves” which Pharaoh was expected to interpret and understand?
B.
I have heard in the name of the great Lubliner Rav, Rabbi Mé’ir Shapiro זצ"ל a deceptively simple explanation which answers the first question. He focuses our attention on the need for extreme haste in rescuing the bënei Yisra’él from Egyptian bondage, in remembrance of which the Torah prescribes that we eat unleavened bread on Passover (cf. Deuteronomy XVI, 3 and Exodus XII, 11; ברכות ט.).
The reason was that, after 210 years of residence in Egypt, there was very little difference between the bënei Yisra’él and any other ethnically related group of slaves or, for that matter, the Egyptians themselves. Why, then, should the Egyptian king pay the slightest attention to a petition presented by Moshe and Aharon on their behalf? Why should he listen to a claim pressed in the name of Ha-Shem, Eloqei ha-‘Ivrim that they be set free to serve Him (VII, 16) when they seemed as happy as any others of their station in Egypt serving the gods of Egypt?
Viewed in this light, Pharaoh’s order makes eminent sense: "Show me a sign recognizable in yourselves that you are in any way different from us, or anyone else. Let us see how your alleged allegiance to this 'G-d of the ‘Ivrim' in any way distinguishes or differentiates you from us."
C.
This explanation meshes very well with Rabbi Shapiro’s answer to our second question (המובא בספר "מעינה של תורה" בשמו). The Torah describes the episode in the Egyptian court as follows:
וישלך אהרן את מטהו לפני פרעה ולפני עבדיו ויהי לתנין: ויקרא גם פרעה לחכמים ולמכשפים ויעשו גם הם חרטמי מצרים בלהטיהם כן: וישליכו איש מטהו ויהיו לתנינים ויבלע מטה אהרן את מטותם: (“And Aharon cast down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a reptile. And Pharaoh, too, called to the wise men and to the magicians, and they, too, the hartummim of Egypt, did the same through their spells. Each man cast down his staff and they became reptiles; and Aharon’s staff swallowed up their staves”; VII, 10-12).
After Pharaoh rejects their petition, G-d instructs Moshe and Aharon to accost the king early in the morning, as he performed his morning ablutions at the bank of the Nile early in the morning, and tells them specifically והמטה אשר נהפך לנחש תקח בידך (“...and the staff which had been turned into a snake you shall take in your hand”; ibid., 15), whence we deduce two things: That the staff which had become a serpent and swallowed all the others subsequently reverted to being a staff; and that the staff was very recognizable.
Therein, says Rabbi Shapiro, lies the message being sent to Pharaoh: The debased and degraded condition of the bënei Yisra’él was not inherent in them, but was a product of their environment, of 210 years of exposure to the corrupt, corrosive, licentious Egyptian culture. Anyone exposed to such a culture, brought low and subjected to it, could easily become a blood-thirsty creature capable of devouring all comers; but removed from that culture, and placed in an environment conducive to the sanctity inherent in them, the bënei Yisra’él would become again a matté Eloqim, the worthy staff of G-d which they had been before the Egyptians had degraded them.
D.
Ramban famously tells us that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, “The deeds of the fathers are a sign for the sons,” and this is surely the case here. On the age-old and ongoing controversy of “nature vs. nurture,” the Torah takes a stand.
A careful reading of the Book of Genesis reveals a 23 generation pilot project in selective human breeding, from the first man through his son Shéth to the twelve shëvatim. From the very beginning, in each case, the various protagonists had other children, but with only a few exceptions the Torah dismisses them with the laconic phrase that he lived such and such years, ויולד בנים ובנות, “and sired sons and daughters.” The Torah’s primary interest is to delineate the bloodline which would lead, twenty generations later, to Avraham.
Avraham’s greatness was purely a matter of nature; he received no help whatsoever from his environment. Born into the final period of the Nimrodian dictatorship he came of age whilst it was yet in effect. His own father, Terah, was an idolator who earned his living purveying idols (עיי' בראשות רבה פל"ח סי' י"ט, מדרש תנחומא פרשת לך לך סי' ב'). Yet, Avraham sought the truth, found it, and clung to it stubbornly, known as Avraham ha-‘Ivri, at least in part, because of his willingness to stand on one bank [‘éver] with the entire world on the other (Genesis XIV, 12, בראשית רבה פמ"ב סי' י"ג).
Avraham had two sons, Yishma‘él and Yitzhaq. Yishma‘él, despite his father’s affection and fond hopes for him (cf. e.g. Genesis XVII, 18) had to be driven from their camp when Sara discovered him imitating the actions of the Këna‘anim (ibid., XXI,9, Rashi ad loc.); the 21st generation was continued only through Yitzhaq.
Yitzhaq likewise had two sons, ‘Ésav and Ya‘aqov. Again, only one valued his heritage and was worthy of continuity; ‘Ésav sold his birthright for a lentil stew, wantonly violated his family’s standards, and married idolatrous Yishmë‘éli and Këna‘ani women (cf. XXV, 28-34, Rashi ad loc.; XXVI, 34; XXVIII, 9). The 22nd generation was continued through Ya‘aqov, whose secret lay in his being a יושב אהלים, a “dweller of tents,” who secluded himself in the bosom of his family and, later, in he famous yëshiva of Shém and ‘Éver, until he had to confront the world and its corruption (ibid., XXV, 27, Rashi ad loc., מגילה י"ז. וסדר עולם רבה פ"ב).
It is plain from these examples that heritage is not all-important; one may say of Yishma‘él that, after all, that his father may have been Avraham but his mother was not Sara, but how do we explain ‘Ésav and Ya‘aqov? Both grew up in the same family, born of the same parents; both were surrounded by the same, toxic Këna‘ani culture. ‘Ésav succumbed; Ya‘aqov stood firm in his heritage, his ‘ivriyuth (if I may coin a term). The environment can be, as the Lubliner Rav says, a powerful influence.
Ya‘aqov’s sons, the 23rd generation, were severely tested by the incident with Yoséf, and in the end stood the test. But over the next 210 years, their descendants were immersed in the rancid, hedonistic, poisonous Egyptian civilization, and by the 26th generation, that of Moshe and Aharon, most of them had succumbed. The acid test was now performed: In their debased state, would they be able to answer the call of Ha-Shem, Eloqei ha-‘Ivrim to leave Egyptian bondage, as much spiritual as it was physical, and go out to serve Him in the desert?
The answer would be a resounding “Yes!” The Egyptians, battered and maddened by one blow after another, their country in ruins, they themselves assured of starvation after plague, miraculous hail, and locusts had devastated their food supply, were yet momentarily powerful; their army, one of the greatest in the world of that day, remained intact; and yet, before their eyes, the bënei Yisra’él showed the faith and moral courage to slaughter the avatar of the Egyptian creator-god at the height of his ascendancy, in Nisan, the month of Aries, the ram.
Cast down to the soil of Egypt, the matté Eloqim became a snake, the lowest of creatures; the environment was indeed powerful. But they still possessed it in them, especially when seized and exalted by the hand of an Aharon or Moshe, to revert to type, and become again a matté Eloqim.
What was true then, remains true today, if the will can be found.
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