Sidra Bo

Rabbi Menno ten Brink

You could touch the darkness in the 9th plague that came upon Egypt. Moses had to stretch out his arm to heaven, and then Egypt was shrouded in darkness for three days. That deep darkness, a choshekh al-eretz mitzrayim weyaameesh choshech (…), which was so deep dark that it was tangible.

Lo-ra’u ish, achiv, welo-kamu ish, mitachtav sheloshet jamim ulechol benee Yisrael haja or bemosjvotam (Ber. 10:22-23). “One could no longer see the other, no man could move a step, but where the Israelites lived there was light.”

There are various explanations about that darkness that preceded the 10th plague: the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians.

Some say it was a complete solar eclipse. But it generally doesn’t last 3 days, but a few minutes. Commentators explain those words wejameesh choshech as getting away from each other (mash, mush = withdrawing, going away), the darkness became more and more gloomy and oppressive. Ibn Ezra, gives a few alternatives for this word: mush: touching, feeling, sensing, and moving from somewhere. Or a darkness that was so dense that light could not penetrate it. Could that be a literal darkness? Perhaps another explanation is the result of the eruption of the volcano on the island of Santorini between 1500 and 1600 BCE. That is an explanation, which has sought a scientific explanation of the 10 plagues. But the darkness of 3 days is also blamed on a chamsin, a desert storm, which often plagues Egypt (and Israel), with sand from the Sahara, which can darken everything. Sunlight could not penetrate.

But how was it possible that the Egyptians were in that suffocating darkness, while it was light among the Israelites in Goshen? Not everything that is described in Torah should be taken literally, and certainly we liberals, often look at the meaning behind the pshat of the text, the metaphorical meaning, is it meant as a metaphor?

Very symbolically, but very concisely expressed, the Torah indicates that because of that palpable thick darkness among the Egyptians, one could not see the other. That was the situation in Egypt. Metaphorically, one no longer saw the other as a human being, as an equal, but as inferior, as a slave, as an instrument in the hands of the rulers. A spiritual, ethical, and moral impenetrable darkness. Slave labor had become normal, they were no longer used to anything else, that applied to both the Egyptians, but on the other hand also to the Israelites, as enslaved people. Egyptians no longer saw that those others were also people.

The Hebrew slaves were so physically and mentally maintained that they no longer had any ambitions to develop themselves. They were weary, after such a long period of slave labor, without any prospects. It was also safe. They had food and drink to stay alive, and they didn’t even know what it was like to be able to have another existence, they didn’t know what freedom meant anymore. The slaves and the slave drivers lived together in a thick darkness.

People who literally don’t see the other, and who can’t move to help make the world a better place, by stimulating each other’s freedom, instead of restricting it. This remained the case until Moses, sent by God, took the initiative to let a different light shine by darkening the sun. Moses, raised at the Court of Pharaoh, knew very well what freedom, but also what slavery meant.

The 9th plague of darkness is so symbolic of that contradiction between freedom and slavery, between light and darkness. The darkness was not a darkness that came because the sun no longer shone, it was a deep darkness that came from within, from within the people themselves. It was the spiritual state they were in. The 9th plague was there to show Pharaoh that his gods were not gods. The most important and revered deity in Egypt was Ra, the sun god. He was often regarded as the creator of the world and ruler of heaven and earth. He embodied the power of the sun and the cycle of day and night. That sun god was now darkened. There was another God who had the power to eclipse Ra. Pharaoh’s name was Rameses: meses in Egyptian, means son of: son of the sun god Ra, meses, as also in the name Moses. Pharaoh was considered the divine son of Ra. His father was blacked out in that 9th plague. When the sun disappeared, it turned out that there was a power greater than Ra and his son, Pharaoh.

The 10th plague immediately followed that 9th. If you can no longer see that the other person is also a human being just like yourself, society will eventually perish. That is what the 10th plague, the death of all the firstborn of the Egyptians, showed. That is the direct result of the deep darkness that people can inflict on each other, if you believe in a self-proclaimed god or ruler. We see this in all dictatorial regimes. None of these regimes ultimately remains, because man has the inner urge for freedom: freedom of thought, of belief, of being. A freedom that we celebrate every year at Pesach. We sing at the seder: awadim hajinu, lePharaoh bemitzrayim: we were slaves in the oppression of Pharaoh’s Egypt. Ata benay chorin, but now we are free.

Deep darkness arises when you shut out the real light of freedom.

The Israelites then had to kill a lamb, a deity to the Egyptians, and the blood had to be smeared on the doorposts for all to see. We have freed ourselves from a society where the other is oppressed, because leaders see themselves as gods.

Today, unfortunately, such societies are still present in the world. Let us always continue to see the other as a human being, keep looking them in the eye, even if we don’t agree with each other. Together we must keep in mind that we  are benay chorin, children of freedom. In the encounter between people, is where you meet God.

Rabbi Menno ten Brink is the Rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Community Amsterdam (LJG). He is an honorary life president of the European Union for Progressive Judaism.