We apologize for the unclear directions in the EBB regarding Mincha and candle lighting today. Mincha is at 5 pm. Candlelighting is at 5:04 pm.
Derasha
Dramatic as they are, there is no commemoration of the plagues in Jewish life until the last one. There is no remembrance of the frogs or the boils or the hail or the locusts. They are all good to illustrate at the Seder but they are not part of Jewish practice in any way. By contrast, myriad Mitzvot and Minhagim (customs) stem from this last plague. Over and over, we recall and acknowledge the status of the firstborn. We redeem the firstborn, we dedicate firstborn animals to the Beit HaMikdash, we exchange firstborn donkeys -- the day before Pesach, the firstborn fast. All of it connects to this plague.
All of those commemorations point to the crucial aspect of its focus on the firstborn. After all, if Hashem wanted to send a plague of death in the middle of the night, anywhere in the birth-order would do. The lesson of focusing on the firstborn has to do with hierarchies in general and with Egypt’s status in the ancient world as the so-called firstborn of nations.
The first goal was to wipe out any hierarchy when it comes to the value of life. The Halacha recognizes the need for triage in times of limited resources but it does not allow for the devaluation of any life. The reason for that is because of the presence of an innately valuable soul in everyone. This is not to say that hierarchies do not exist at all. Quite the contrary. But they cannot exist when speaking about life itself.
The Egyptian myth, one of its founding stories, was one of self-generation. It immunized them against any dependence on anyone or any other force. That is the sense that firstborn children have -- that nothing came before. The universally shared endowment of the soul rejects that. Consequently, nothing about social status or talent or wealth or accomplishment matters in measuring a person’s hold on life. It stems from an endowment outside of ourselves, and which always belongs to Hashem. He grants it, preserves it, and takes it back. We possess it, if at all, merely on loan. Self-generation -- literal self-possession -- is pure illusion. Wiping out the firstborn erased that myth.
This is why there is a fundamental connection between the redemption from Egypt and gratitude. In acknowledging the nature of life as a gift, there is no proper response besides gratitude. As with all gifts in life, the bigger the gift, the more abject the gratitude. That gratitude underscores the fact that life never belongs to us in the sense of being able to do with it as we please. We often conduct ourselves in that manner anyway, of course. But that’s why, as in any deviation from reality, there will always be consequences.
Second, the death of the firstborn offered a stark lesson to Egypt about what firstborn status means. The Egyptians understood that status in the same way most superpowers do. They were the most powerful nation in the world, so they fancied themselves positioned at the top of any hierarchy that mattered. The plague on the firstborn was an attack on this notion of special status conferred on the most powerful. The polemic throughout the book of Bereisheet against the status of the firstborn children is a systematic attack against this notion of the most powerful. Kayin and Hevel, Yishmael and Yitzchok, Esav and Yaakov, Reuven and Yehuda, Menashe and Ephraim, Aharon and Moshe -- the firstborn status is usurped in generation after generation. The message over and over is that the firstborn have no special right to power.
Now, the first thing Moshe Rebenu ever says to Paro is that the Jews are Hashem’s firstborn. So there must be something to that status. Instead of power, it is about service. This is why Esav was not interested in the least at being the firstborn.
After this plague, the only firstborn prerogative is service. Bnei Yisrael are supposed to be suffused with the sense that they do not exist except for the sake of service. Not as a hobby or as a pastime but rather as a driving purpose. If one has received a gift, one has to figure out its use and purpose. The assumption of firstborn status carries with it the sense that we are made for service.
This is why the only way to survive the plague of the firstborn is to first become servants of Hashem. Only the Pesach offering is labelled “Avoda” (13:5), or divine service, in the Torah. Service is performed by servants, and the preparation for this plague requires taking on that sense of purpose.
The plagues as a group remake the Creation story. As we mentioned last week, they convert the 10 statements of Creation into the 10 statements at Har Sinai. It is like a stem cell replacement therapy. The plagues knocked out the old cells. Then new stem cells, the 10 statements at Har Sinai, are infused to replace the old ones. But these cells can only take hold if the host is ready to serve. The new cells are programmed for service exclusively. The host that is not ready to carry out those instructions will get no benefit from the new cells. In the first of those statements at HaSinai, Hashem announces, Anochi, "I am." The message is that only Hashem exists in the full sense of “I am.” No one else exists except insofar as they are there to carry out what Anochi wants. After the final plague, that's what Bnei Yisrael are meant to do.
Congregation Emek Beracha 4102 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA 94306
