Why did the Egyptians deserve the ten plagues – a bit in depth

Parshas Va’era; Perfect Judgment Our sedra contains seven of the ten plagues that were brought upon Egypt; blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, pestilence, boils, and hail. There is a central question regarding the plagues in general; one which brings out an important concept, as we shall see. The Rambam[1] asks the question: how could HaShem punish the Egyptians by bringing the plagues upon them – surely HaShem had promised to Avraham Avinu that his descendants would be enslaved. If so, the Egyptians had no choice but to enslave the Jewish People, for HaShem had already set it in stone that the Jewish People would be enslaved (hence His promise to Avraham). Now freewill (the faculty of humans to make their own, real decisions) is a prerequisite for reward and punishment. For only if I make my decisions can I be rewarded and punished; if Someone else is making those decisions for me and I really have no say in the matter, I cannot be rewarded or blamed – I was just a puppet and was not really doing things myself. If so, how can HaShem punish the Egyptians via the plagues – they made no decision of their own in enslaving the Jewish People; they were just actors in HaShem’s script? The Rambam himself gives an answer. He writes that the promise to Avraham Avinu was that a nation would enslave his descendants. But the individual Egyptian was not bound by this; though a nation had to enslave the people, each and every Egyptian still had the free choice whether or not to join in with the rest of the people and play a role in enslaving the Jewish People. The Ra’avid[2] takes issue with this answer of the Rambam. He argues that each individual could not really have had free choice according to the Rambam’s logic, for at least a majority of the people had to have enslaved the Jews to fulfil the promise that a nation will enslave the Jews. If so, only the minority of the Egyptians would have been able to have free choice according to the Rambam’s avenue of answer – and this would not suffice to explain how the plagues affected all of Egypt.[3] So, going back to the drawing board, the Ra’avid provides (another) two answers to our most central of questions. In his first answer, the Ra’avid says that it could very well have been that the Egyptians had no freewill regarding the decision to enslave the Jewish People. So how could they deserve the plagues? For the Egyptians deserved such punishments anyway. The Egyptian nation were the most morally decrepit nation around – so much so that Chazal reveal that in the plague of the firstborns every family in Egypt realised that the true firstborn was not the child they thought it was (such was the extent of adultery in Egypt). Indeed, another example of the moral and spiritual depravity of the Egyptian people is that some explain the prohibition to live in Egypt to be based on this nation being the moral and spiritual armpit of the world.[4] Interestingly enough, it would emerge from this answer of the Ra’avid that the plagues were not brought as a direct consequence of enslaving the Jewish People; they were punishments for outstanding sins due to other areas of Egyptian society’s failures. The Ra’avid’s second answer brings us back to the schoolboy understanding of the plagues; that the plagues were to punish the Egyptians. So what about the freewill issue? HaShem had only promised that the Jewish People will be enslaved; the Egyptians went further than that – they subjected the Jews to especially harsh and backbreaking slavery, and also murdered many Jewish babies too. Indeed, it was because of the harshness of the slavery that HaShem took us out of Egypt 190 years (gematria of keitz) ahead of schedule; the Egyptians managed to concentrate 400 years’ worth of slavery into 210 years in terms of Jewish suffering. Thus, the Egyptians were punished for going further than HaShem’s promise – something that they did have the freewill to do. Sometimes, one can learn as much from what the Rishonim do say as from what they do not say. The problem is that there would seem to be a much simpler answer to the Rambam’s original question out there, and so it is our duty to understand why these Rishonim did not want to give this simpler answer. First, what is this simpler/easier answer? The psukim say over and over again that the aim of the plagues was that the nation(s) should know that there is no-one like HaShem; that He is the Creator and the Master over the entire spectrum of the ‘natural’ world. This was HaShem’s ‘mission statement’ when He first spoke to Moshe at the burning bush (7:5): ‘and Egypt should know that I am HaShem when I stretch out My hand over Egypt’ – and Rashi there confirms that ‘stretching out My hand’ refers to the plagues. Moreover, this statement is repeated several times throughout the plagues (9:16 and 10:2, for example). Indeed, this is why the plagues covered the totality of nature; from water (blood, frogs) to the dust of the earth (lice), to plant life (locusts, hail) to the animal kingdom (wild animals, pestilence), to human senses and wellbeing (boils, darkness), and ultimately human life (plague of the firstborns) – for the plagues were to show Egypt (and the rest of the world) that HaShem is Master over every iota of nature via Him tearing nature to pieces. Having laid down this principle, we seem to have found a much simpler answer to our question. We asked how HaShem could punish the Egyptians; where was the freewill? The answer is simply that the plagues were not a punishment – they were to show HaShem’s Supremacy. Why did our Rishonim not want to give this answer? The answer to this seems to reveal something about HaShem’s judgment of the world and His treatment of people generally. The answer is that if the Egyptians had not deserved to be punished via these ten plagues then HaShem would not have made them suffer; even if the plagues’ goal was to display HaShem’s supremacy. Had the Egyptians not deserved these ten plagues, HaShem would have shown His supremacy some other way; in a way which would not have made the Egyptians suffer.[5] Thus, for HaShem to have brought these plagues (on Egypt), the Egyptians must have deserved to suffer the ten plagues anyway – which is why the Rishonim did not give our ‘nice n’ easy’ answer. The point to take out of this is the remarkable attribute of Divine mercy via which HaShem weighs up exactly who deserves to suffer (and to what degree) and who does not; and HaShem will not pour suffering on someone for no reason/if they do not deserve it[6] – even if this means forgoing the opportunity for HaShem to show His supremacy to the world. HaShem is the perfect Judge;[7] He takes everything into account before administering suffering or punishment. As Chazal tell us, HaShem can decide to push off punishing someone because those who are connected to this person do not deserve to suffer. For example, if someone is really deserved of illness as a punishment, HaShem can adjourn this verdict on the basis that this person’s family members are righteous enough not to be deserving of the ordeal of witnessing their relative suffering. We have therefore learnt about HaShem, but what about us? Let’s end with something a bit more practical. The gemarra notes that ‘the construction of children is destruction (binyan yeladim stirah) and the destruction of the wise is construction’ (stiras zekeinim binyan). The ‘simple’ explanation here is that children do not realise that sometimes in order to move forward one needs to take a step backwards and go back and solidify the foundations of any given project. Thus, they build on unstable and precarious foundations, which itself is nothing but destructive. The wise, however, understand the need to first solidify the foundations, and so their going a step back to achieve this looks like destruction, but really it is construction. The Kotzker Rebbe adds another level to this first part of the gemarra. ‘The construction of children is destruction,’ says the Kotzker, refers to the fact that when children want to raise their self-esteem and confidence (‘construction’) they do it via putting others down (‘destruction’). We can learn to avoid following those the gemarra labels ‘children’ from no less than HaShem Himself – Who, as we have seen, would have been unwilling to ‘raise Himself up’ and show the world His Supremacy via the ten plagues had the Egyptians not have deserved such suffering. HaShem is unwilling to raise Himself up via putting others down, so to speak. We should practice the same. Often, we fall into the trap of putting others down in order to raise our morale. Such behaviour is lowly to say the least, and reflects a lack of care for others, as well as a certain degree of immaturity on our part (note that our society’s humour is full of such behaviour, and it has turned into an accepted norm, unfortunately). Have a great Shabbos! [1] Rambam hilchos Teshuva 6:5 [2] Ra’avid on Rambam hilchos Teshuva, 6:5 [3] There are answers for the Rambam, but this is not the point of our discussion this week [4] See Ritva Yoma 38a ‘Alexandria’ and the Sefer HaChinuch [5] Perhaps this is also why Moshe Rabeinu, in his final few speeches to the Jewish People before they would enter the Land, mentions that the nations who occupied Eretz Yisrael were morally and ethically corrupt. Perhaps the reason is that if those nations deserved to be in the Land then we would not have been able to kick them out (we’d have lived side-by-side with them like a ger toshav does) – see Devarim 9:4-6 [6] We are not going to discuss why bad things happen to good people (tzaddik ve’ra lo) – it is too long a subject for this week. Suffice to say that HaShem has His reasons, and that there the Next World must be taken into account, (where there the real reward and punishment; see start of Mesillas Yesharim) not only this world. [7] See Devarim 32:4 with Rashi