Last week, Parashat Shemot recounted how Moshe had first encountered G-d, Who had dispatched Moshe on his mission to redeem the nation of Israel. When Moshe demurred, doubting whether the Jews would believe that he really had been sent by God, He gave him a sign to perform:
“Hashem said to him: What is that in your hand? And he said: A staff. And He said: Cast it on the ground! So he cast it on the ground, and it became a snake” (Exodus 4:2-3).
Two staffs, Moshe’s and Aaron’s, were going to play a major role in the subsequent liberation of the Children of Israel.
When G-d sent Moshe to Pharaoh to warn him of the impending Plague of Blood, He told him:
“Go to Pharaoh in the morning…taking the staff that turned into a snake in your hand, and say to him:… Thus says Hashem…: Behold – I will smite the waters in the Nile with the staff in my hand, and they will become blood” (Exodus 7:14-17).
Yet it was Aaron who was commanded to implement the first Plague with his staff:
“Hashem said to Moshe: Say to Aaron: Take your staff and stretch forth your hand over Egypt’s waters, over their rivers and canals and lakes, and over all their reservoirs of water, and they will become blood, and there will be blood throughout the land of Egypt, including in wooden vessels and stone vessels” (v. 19).
Again with the second Plague, the Plague of Frogs:
“Hashem said to Moshe: Say to Aaron: Stretch forth your hand with your staff over the rivers, canals, and lakes, and bring up the frogs over the land of Egypt” (8:1).
And again with the third Plague, the Plague of Lice:
“Hashem said to Moshe: Say to Aaron: Stretch forth your staff and smite the dust of Egypt, and it will turn into lice throughout the land of Egypt” (v. 12).
The next three Plagues – swarm of wild beasts, epidemic, and boils – happened without any staff, neither Moshe’s nor Aaron’s.
For the seventh Plague (the final one in Parashat Va’eira), the Plague of Hail, Moshe used his staff for the first time:
“Moshe stretched forth his staff over the heavens, and Hashem gave forth thunder and hail, with fire going earthward” (9:23).
Moshe again used his staff to implement the eighth Plague, the Plague of Locusts (10:13). For the ninth Plague, the Plague of Darkness, he stretched forth his hand (vs. 21-22), but did not use his staff. And the tenth and final Plague, the Slaying of the Firstborn, was sent directly by G-d, without any agency from Moshe or Aaron.
Why was it Aaron with his staff, rather than Moshe with his staff, who implemented the first three Plagues?
The Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 9:10, 10:4, and 10:6; also Tanchuma, Va’eira 14) gives us an answer:
The waters of Egypt had protected Moshe when, as a helpless baby, the ark in which he lay floated peacefully on the River Nile. Thus it was not appropriate for Moshe, whose life had been saved by the waters, to then smite those waters, neither by turning them to blood nor by bringing forth the frogs from them. Smiting the waters was left to Aaron.
Similarly, when Moshe had killed the Egyptian slave-driver for beating the Jewish slave (Exodus 2:11-12), he hid the corpse in the sand, giving him time to avoid detection for the time it took him to escape from Egypt. It was thus equally inappropriate for Moshe to smite the dust of Egypt by turning it to lice; that, too, was left to Aaron and his staff.
And having given the Midrash’s answer, I offer another perspective:
Moshe and his brother Aaron had different characteristics. Moshe was the man of strict justice, and Aaron was the man of peace.
“Moshe would say: Let the law [i.e. strict justice] pierce the mountain! Whereas Aaron loved peace and pursued peace, always bringing peace between man and his fellow” (Sanhedrin 6b).
Moshe kept the nation in line through strict justice, while Aaron kept them in line through peace and love of peace:
“Whenever Aaron would walk along the way and encounter an evil man, he would greet him with peace. If the next day that same man would consider committing any sin, he would say to himself: Woe is me! How will I be able to raise my eyes after doing this and look Aaron in the face?! I would be so ashamed before him, since he greeted me with peace! And consequently, that man would prevent himself from sinning” (Avot de-Rabbi Natan 12:3).
Hence Hillel’s famous dictum, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace” (Pirkei Avot 1:12).
The purpose of the Plagues was to force Pharaoh and all Egypt to recognise G-d’s mastery and sovereignty over Creation, and thereby to send the Children of Israel forth out of slavery.
Indeed the S’forno (Rabbi Ovadyah S’forno, Italy, c.1470-1550) goes so far as to say that the sole punishments that G-d inflicted on Egypt were the tenth Plague and the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, both of which were measure-for-measure punishments for what they had done to the Jews.
The first nine Plagues, argues the S’forno, were solely “signs and miracles to make them repent” (Commentary to Exodus 7:4).
Now had Pharaoh and all Egypt repented as a consequence of the Plagues then they would have released the Jews forthwith, the slavery would have ended, and the Jews would have left Egypt in peace immediately.
Hence it was appropriate for Aaron with his staff of peace, and not Moshe with his staff of justice, to inflict these Plagues upon Egypt: their purpose was to bring peace, not to bring justice.
After all, the ordinary Egyptian wasn’t personally and directly responsible for enslaving and torturing the Jews, so these Plagues which afflicted every single Egyptian were a violation of strict justice. Strict justice would have prevented the blanket condemnation of the entire nation.
The Plagues were, however, the way to peace, by defeating the Egyptian nation as a whole. And since the purpose of inflicting collective punishment on the Egyptians was to bring peace, it was Aaron’s staff, the staff of peace, which was appropriate for the mission.
Moshe’s staff, the staff of justice, was inappropriate for this mission.
However, as we noted above, God did command Moshe to use his staff, the staff of justice, for the seventh Plague, the Plague of Hail (the final Plague in Parashat Va’eira).
Why the difference?
– Because the Plague of Hail was unique. In all the other Plagues the vast majority of Egyptians were passive bystanders, victims of events over which they had no control. But before the hail struck, Moshe gave them fair advance warning:
“Behold, at this time tomorrow I will rain exceptionally heavy hail down, such as has never been in Egypt…, so now, quickly send for your livestock and everything you have in the field; every person and animal that will be in the field and will not be gathered into the houses – the hail will fall on them and they will die” (Exodus 9:19).
And so, given this warning, some of the Egyptians took sensible precautions:
“Those among Pharaoh’s servants who feared the Word of Hashem chased his slaves and livestock to the houses; and whoever ignored the Word of Hashem left his servants and livestock in the field” (vs. 20-21).
This is the standard translation; however, I offer a radically different understanding:
הַיָּרֵא אֶת־דְּבַר ה' מֵעַבְדֵי פַּרְעֹה הֵנִיס אֶת־עֲבָדָיו וְאֶת־מִקְנֵהוּ אֶל־הַבָּתִּים
“Those who feared the Word of Hashem more than [he feared] Pharaoh chased his slaves and livestock to the houses”.
That is to say – for the first and only time in all the Plagues, every individual Egyptian had control over his own destiny. Every individual Egyptian could choose to believe Moshe and his message from G-d and thereby save his livestock and servants, or to ignore Moshe and suffer the consequences.
Since bringing cattle into the houses was an abomination for the Egyptians, it is logical to assume that Pharaoh would have forbidden the Egyptians to bring their animals into their houses. So every Egyptian was hereby forced to choose between Pharaoh’s decrees Moshe’s warning.
Hence my rendering, “Those who feared the Word of Hashem more than [he feared] Pharaoh chased his slaves and livestock to the houses”, taking the prefix מֵ- in the word מֵעַבְדֵי to mean “more than” rather than the standard translation “among”.
Hence the Plague of Hail was strict justice in a way that none of the other Plagues were; therefore Moshe’s staff, the staff of justice, was appropriate for inflicting this Plague.
Moshe used his staff again to split the Red Sea (14:16), simultaneously giving the Children of Israel their escape-route from the pursuing Egyptian Army and luring that Army into their final death-trap.
This, too, was strict justice:
Though the Plagues in Egypt struck every Egyptian, the innocent and guilty alike, the Splitting of the Red Sea killed solely such Egyptians as were personally and directly attempting to kill the Jews or recapture them for Egyptian slavery. Not one single innocent Egyptian drowned there, therefore Moshe’s staff, the staff of strict justice, was appropriate for splitting the Red Sea.
And Moshe used his staff again in the battle against Amalek: it was Moshe who stood “with the Staff of God in my hand” (Exodus 17:9).
The war against Amalek was a war against evil, against an evil nation whose national mission was to exterminate Israel – so defeating them enforced justice. So again, it was Moshe’s staff, the staff of justice, which was appropriate for leading this conflict.
There is a time for peace, and there is a time for justice. In an ideal world the two are of course eminently compatible.
But a time of war is obviously not an ideal world, and when we are forced to choose between peace and justice, we choose peace. After defeating our enemies, after bringing peace – then comes the time for justice.
It was only Aaron, the supreme peacemaker, and his staff who could teach us this lesson.
If you want peace, then you have to destroy the enemies of Israel whose ambition is to exterminate Israel. That is the way to bring peace into the world – even when that entails suspending strict justice.