Then the Eternal
said to Moses, “Hold out your arm toward the sky that there may be darkness
upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” Moses held out his arm
toward the sky and thick darkness descended upon all the land of Egypt for
three days. People could not see one another, and for three days no one could
get up from where he was… (Exodus 10:21-23)
The verses don’t give
any indication what time of day it was when God spoke to Moses or Moses lifted
his hands to the heavens to bring darkness down on Egypt. However, the ancient Aramaic
translations of the Bible say that it was dawn; when the darkness of night
should have yielded to the light of day, a thick darkness descended on Egypt.
The Egyptians could not see, could not move from their place and could not even
light a candle to dispel the darkness. One of the most basic truths of daily
life was upended: no matter how dark the night, in the morning, the sun will
rise.
Moses and we, as
readers, know that the plague will last three days but the Egyptians don’t know.
The physical difficulties created directly by the darkness are compounded by
unraveling a foundation of life. If we don’t know that the sun will rise, of
what can we be sure?
The Jewish tradition
knows of another situation in which people did not know that the sun would rise
and couldn’t light a candle. Primordial Adam, or more correctly Adam and Eve, on
the first Saturday night. According to Midrash Genesis Rabbah (11:2), the light
of creation that preceded creation of the sun continue to shine through the
first Shabbat. Therefore, when the sun set on Friday evening, Adam and Eve did
not experience darkness. When the Sabbath ended, God stored that light away,
the sun set and they made their first acquaintance with night. The midrash explains
what happened next:
When the sun set upon the departure of the
Sabbath, the darkness became palpable as the sun set. The First Man was
terrified….
What did the blessed Holy One do? He presented him
with two flints, which he struck together and light came forth, whereupon he
blessed it saying, “who creates the lights of fire.”
Unlike the Greek myth – and other similar stories from distant cultures – in which Prometheus is severely punished for stealing ready-made fire from the gods to help humanity, in the Jewish myth both fire and the technology with which to create it are gifts from God to humans.[1]
Adam acknowledges the gift and says the blessing “who creates the lights of fire,”
 |
| The flame of a very short Havdalah candle emerging from the candlestick |
the same blessing with which we end the Sabbath. At the beginning of each work week we express gratitude not only for the fire but also for the technology we have and can (perhaps, are commanded to) develop for our benefit.
Pharaoh is the opposite
Primordial Adam. He isn’t grateful and he doesn’t acknowledge any power or
divinity other than himself. Ezekiel (29:3) quotes him making an
even more striking statement: “O Pharaoh king of Egypt… who said, ‘My Nile is
my own; I made it for myself.’” Not only is the Nile under Pharaoh’s
jurisdiction but he created it (and don’t you dare turn it into blood). More radically,
the verse can even be understood as “My Nile is my own; I created myself.”[2]
Pharaoh considered himself a divinity and is disinterested in anything other than himself and perhaps the people who revere him. But now, when the sun it not shining on Egypt, and he is forced to deal with the darkness that not only obscures natural light but also neutralizes the human ability to create light, Pharaoh cracks. He starts to realize that he is not in a struggle against another more or less equal deity but rather that he is himself a subject under the control of a Power on a completely different level. He is not the axis around which the world turns; rather, he and his people are part of a global system of peoples, in which each one has the right to live in freedom. Therefore, when three days of darkness end, Pharaoh calls to Moses and agrees to release the entire people including the children. But when Moses begins to negotiate about the livestock, habit takes over and Pharaoh changes his mind.
Pharaoh fails and this kingdom
is destroyed because of his egotism and his inability to express gratitude.
Every Saturday night we
have an opportunity to live differently, to focus for a moment and be grateful not
only for fire but also the technology we have been granted, and set our minds towards
using and developing them for the benefit of the entire world.
Shabbat Shalom.
[1] See also Rachel
Adelman, “Primordial Adam and the First Havdalah,” in Havdalah, D.
Birnbaum and M. Cohen, editors, pp. 107-130. Prof. Adelman also discusses parallel versions of the Midrash in Midrash Tehillim and Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer.
[2] For a deep look at how Pharaoh’s ingratitude is key to the story of the Exodus, in contrast to Moses, see Rabbi Shai Held, “Gratitude and Liberation: Parashat Shemot”.
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