TEN PLAGUE THERAPY

TEN PLAGUES DIVIDED

The Ten Plagues are divided in the Torah over two segments. Seven of them were described in last week’s parsha and the final three are in this week’s parsha.

The question has been asked, why this division?

One approach to answering this question is based on the notion that the Ten Plagues were directed not just against the bodies and property of the Egyptian people, but also against their psyches. A human being consists of Ten Faculties (corresponding to and derived from the Ten Divine Attributes) divided into two categories; three are intellectual faculties with seven emotional ones.

The Alter Rebbe, in his classic work the Tanya, traces the difference between the Ten Faculties of our G-dly Souls and how they differ from the parallel Ten Attributes of our Animal Souls. The G-dly Soul is governed by its intellect, which controls the emotions. In stark contrast, the Animal Soul is primarily governed by its emotions, and uses its intellect as a means to serve its emotional end.

Egypt and the Egyptian exile symbolize and embody the lowest manifestation of the Animal Soul’s emotional state. This is particularly true of their desire to enslave and persecute the children of Israel. That desire was born out of their hatred for the children of Israel. As the Torah stated in an earlier Parsha: “They became disgusted with the children of Israel.” Once their negative emotions peaked, they used their superior intellectual prowess to find ways to suppress the Jewish people. The Torah illustrates the use of their intellect with the words of Pharaoh, “Let us outsmart [them].” Egypt harnessed the power of its collective depraved mind to satisfy its decadent and cruel emotional priorities.

To counter the emotional evil of the Egyptians, G-d sent seven plagues, each directed at one of the seven character traits.

However, it would have been impossible to completely eradicate the Egyptian evil without also directly attacking its vicious mindset. That was the target of the last three plagues, recounted in this week’s parsha.

Oriented by this introduction, we can proceed to explain the significance of the last three plagues: Locusts, Darkness and the Plague of the Firstborn.

THREE PLAGUES: DAAS, BINA AND CHOCHMA

The last of the three intellectual levels—and the one closest to the emotions—is Daas, the ability to attach oneself to an idea. Without Daas one cannot generate feelings even if one fully understands the idea. Daas is the bridge between the intellect and emotions. Hence it was the first target of the three plagues recorded in this week’s parsha, which aimed to undo the power of the Egyptians to harness their evil ideas to their emotions.

The first of the final triad of plagues was locusts, which devoured the grain of Egypt. Chassidic literature connects knowledge with grain, based on the statement of our Sages that: “A child does not know how to call his father until he eats grain.” Along with the physical destruction of the grain supply, the plague was a concomitant assault on the Egyptians’ power of Daas.

The next plague was darkness which, in spiritual terms, can mean the absence of Bina, the faculty responsible for shedding light on a subject. Absent a full blown examination of a subject one is left “in the dark.” Hence the plague of darkness was directed against the Egyptian Bina-mindset. After this plague struck, the Egyptians were no longer capable of developing a sophisticated intellectual model for evil.

The final plague, the death of the firstborns, alludes to Chochma, which is the “first born” intellectual power; the power to conceive of an idea, on the basis of which one may develop a full understanding. The literal death of the first-borns was paralleled by the destruction of the Egyptian mindset responsible for conceiving of the persecution of the Jewish people.

Only after Divine demolition of the Egyptian mindset, which had crept by osmosis into the Jewish nation’s consciousness, were the children of Israel truly able to escape the Egyptian exile. Their physical bondage only ended because they had also defeated the Egyptian way of life; until then the emotional and intellectual foundation of the exile would have held its power to control them.

A TWO-PRONGED ATTACK

It is well known that the Rebbe emphasized the study of the subject of Moshiach and Redemption in our own day and age, as we stand on the threshold of the final Redemption. The lesson of the Plagues has much to teach us about the challenges we face today. We easily recognize our need to physically get out of exile and have Moshiach lead us to the construction of the Beis HaMikdash, but it is equally important that we strategize how to get out of our internal exile. To that end we must divide our “attack” and fight our battle on two fronts: the emotional and the intellectual.

The assault on our emotional attachment to exile can be mounted based on all of the negatives we still experience. When we witness the threats from those who would destroy the Jewish people or the Land of Israel, G-d forbid, it weakens our love affair with exile; we cry out “Ad Masai-How much longer?!” When we read of the tragic passing of people afflicted with terrible diseases or who suffer incredible pain, our hearts go out to them and we cry out to G-d: “We can’t handle the ravages of exile any longer!”

The more we feel the biting pain of exile, the more intolerable exile becomes, the more we can start struggling free of our internal exile.

As we become more spiritually refined, we begin to understand that in exile G-d also “suffers.” G-d revealed Himself to Moses via a burning bush, our Sages tell us, to indicate that “I am with them in distress.” G-d now puts Himself in our shoes, so to speak, and pleads with us to do our part in bringing Moshiach and release Him from self-imposed exile.

Sometimes, the emotional stimuli for wanting to get out of exile can come from the opposite, positive direction; incredible positive changes have been seen in the world. These changes, the Rebbe revealed to us, are due to the efforts of Moshiach. They are a taste of, and prelude to, the “real thing—the true and complete Redemption.” All of these positive developments, ranging from the collapse of the Soviet Union, last bastion of anti-Jewish and anti-Torah tyranny, to many incredible medical advances, should whet our appetite for the “full gourmet banquet” that will follow, imminently.

However, we can only succeed in completely eradicating every trace of exile resistance when we also attack the intellectual impediments to Geula.

This is where the Rebbe’s directive to learn the subjects of Moshiach and Geula in the Torah enters the picture. To counter the negative intellectual underpinnings, the mindset of exile, we must reorient our minds to see things through the liberating prism of Torah.

TEN PLAGUE MNEMONIC

We can now understand more deeply a section of the Hagada we recite Passover night at the Seder. After listing the Ten Plagues, the Hagada states:

“Rabbi Yehudah would use a mnemonic: D’tzach, Adash B’achav [the initials of the Ten Plagues].”

Now why did Rabbi Yehudah find it necessary to provide a mnemonic for the Ten Plagues? And why does the author of the Hagada find it necessary to tell us that Rabbi Yehudah used his mnemonic for the Plagues?

Rabbi Yehudah was acutely aware that the purpose of the Seder goes beyond thanking G-d for liberating us. That is admirable, but it is not enough. Today the primary purpose of remembering the plagues is to help us understand our role in breaking this final exile. We too must use a Ten Plague therapy to rid ourselves of any attachment to, allegiance with or affinity with exile. We need to reflect on the Ten Plagues to help us assault our own exile; both its emotional and its intellectual components.

Missing even one of the Ten Plagues would amount to leaving us with one, albeit small, vestige or seed of exile mentality or feeling. As a result, we would fail to liberate ourselves from internal exile. Unless eradicated, even a seed of exile can blossom into a full-fledged exile mentality. Rabbi Yehudah, whose name symbolizes Messianic leadership (Jacob’s son Yehudah was the ancestor of Moshiach), could not afford to let us miss mentioning and internalizing even one of the plagues, lest it keep us in our own personal Galus.

That is why Rabbi Yehudah provided us with a mnemonic. It is a powerful memory aid to keep us from forgetting how to combat exile.

We can now better understand the words of the Hagada, the literal translation of which is: “Rabbi Yehudah would give them a mnemonic.” Who is the “them?” The simple meaning is that it refers to the plagues; he supplied a mnemonic to help us recall each of the Ten Plagues. But, isn’t that obvious? Why not just state: “Rabbi Yehudah gave a mnemonic.”

FIRING ON ALL OUR CYLINDERS!

We may suggest that Rabbi Yehudah, the man who symbolizes Moshiach and Redemption, instructed the Jewish people with his mnemonic to instill within them the memory of all the Ten Plagues. He wanted to ensure that we don’t forget to use Ten Plague therapy for getting out of exile by internalizing each and every Plague. Our efforts to banish the Galus mindset cannot be a superficial exercise; it must become an integral part of our personality.

One of the symptoms of exile is forgetfulness. We forget things that are not essential to us. We forget things that are separate entities from ourselves. We don’t forget things that are part and parcel of who we are. Rabbi Yehudah intended to place these reminders into “them,” the Jewish people of all times, so that we can never forget that we need to be firing on all our cylinders to complete our journey to Geula!