Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch
Rabbi Shimshon Rafael HirschCourtesy
"And the magicians did likewise with their secret arts and brought up frogs upon the land Egypt" (Shemos 8:3).

Why would the magicians wish to increase the numbers of frogs overrunning Egypt? "If they were really such masters of their art, surely they should have used their powers to free the land from the plagues, not to increase them," writes Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch. "Were there then perhaps too few frogs?" he asks.

To answer this question (and two others), Rav Hirsch argues that the magicians did not, in fact, attempt to replicate the plague of frogs (or blood). Rather, they mimicked the hand motions of Aharon and tried thereby to bring an end to the plague. Hashem, however, foiled their plans, and their hand motions caused even more frogs to emerge from the waters of Egypt.

Thus, the words "the magicians did likewise" refer to the means they employed, not the end they desired. Indeed, these very same words in Shemos 8:14 -- in relation to the plague of lice -- can yield no other meaning since the Torah states clearly in that verse that the Egyptian magicians could not transform dust into lice.

Rav Hirsch goes further: He maintains that Egypt's magicians never tapped into "dark forces" to violate the laws of nature. Rather, like modern-day magicians, they used slight-of-hand to trick people into thinking they could accomplish the impossible. The Torah tells us that they used "lahateihem" to perform magic. Rav Hirsch suggests that this word comes from the roots "lahat" (flame, light) and "lot" (secret, hidden). "The great art of illusion," Rav Hirsch writes, "consists in showing the onlooker something bright and dazzling and thereby diverting his attention from what is really happening.... The art of the magician was accordingly a hidden one...because it was a dazzling one."

According to Rav Hirsch, "true" magic doesn't exist, and the reason the Torah forbids us from practicing it is not because it utilizes "dark powers," but because it brings us to "moral ruin." He writes:

"For good moral purposes no one has ever sought the aid of magicians. Where one has felt that the object one is pursuing has the approval of G-d, and is in accordance with His laws of nature, one has never seen occasion to grasp at such means of help. Only when the evil of what one wishes to accomplish prevents one from reckoning on the support of the Lord of nature does one attempt, by the supposed art of magic, kishuf, to accomplish the evil, in spite of G-d's laws of nature, through the sidedoor of magic."

Magic itself, though, is mere deception. Kishuf is false, kazav.

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) – head of the Jewish community in Frankfurt, Germany for over 35 years – was a prolific writer whose ideas, passion, and brilliance helped save German Jewry from the onslaught of modernity.

Elliot Resnick, PhD, is the host of “The Elliot Resnick Show” and the editor of an upcoming work on etymological explanations in Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary on Chumash.