![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
parsha bit: Va'eira
When God sent the plague of blood, it affected not just the Nile
but all Egyptian water. Rabbi Avun ha-Levi said that if a Jew
and an Egyptian sat together, drinking from the same jug, the
Jew drank water while for the Egyptian it was blood. Even if the
Egyptian had the Jew pour the water for him, it turned to blood
in his hands. Only if the Egyptian paid money for the water did
it remain water. (Exodus Rabbah 9:10)
I think this is a sad midrash in one way. If, in the midst of oppression and plagues, a Jew and an Egyptian were able to sit down together as peers (which would be pretty remarkable), wouldn't a better teaching be that for that Egyptian, the water stayed water? But perhaps my modern thinking informs this; such a thing would certainly have undermined some of the power of the plagues. The p'shat (plain reading) of the torah account does not seem to allow for innocent Egyptians, which troubles me. I think we're supposed to read it at the grand, national level, not at the level of individual participants. I have trouble doing that sometimes.
no subject
For example, I'm not saying that those of us who oppsed the war in Iraq are responsible for what happened. But this midrash teaches us to oppose such things publicly, to write our representatives and to tell them what we think. In short, to get involved.
What's that old saying? "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
no subject
I don't want to be held individually accountable for Bush's policies (which I have written my congresscritters about), but I recognize that the world can rightly hold the nation accountable.
no subject
(Which is an interesting note, just from a theological persepctive -- Judaism assumes that commercial transactions have a genuine, spiritual reality -- commerce isn't simply something humans do, but it has a genuine reality to the universe itself.)
no subject
But I hadn't considered the theological perspective you raise. That's interesting!
no subject
no subject
no subject
1) Minorities have oppressed majorities before (apartheid)
2) Sinai had 600,000 men of military age. I've heard that expanded out to 2 million. (1,200,000 with women, and then the rest children I guess, but there were probably more than 1.5 children per couple). Say it was 2 million. Then add in the midrash that 1 in 5, 50 or 500 people wanted to leave and were not killed in the plague of darkness. So that means as many as 1 billion Jews (or 100 million, or 10 million) were in Egypt. And they weren't the majority?
no subject
I also hadn't heard that midrash before. I've heard that only 1 in 5 returned from the Babylonian exile, but not that only 1 in {5, 50, 500} left Egypt. (To be nit-picky, though, this midrash talks about spectacular numbers of Jews in Egypt but doesn't actually give us data on Egyptians; for all we know there could have been spectacular numbers of them, too. That's just a side point, a curiosity, though.)
no subject
I've never seen the Exodus as actually painting G-d in a particularly favorable light. After all, most of the plagues happen not because Pharaoh actually changes his mind about the Jews leaving, but because G-d actually "hardens his heart" and makes him change his mind. It's a bit of a show-offishness that doesn't sit right with me from the get-go.
But I suppose it works to some advantage in this case. After all, when the Jews leave Mitzraym they take a lot of converts out, too. Which begs the question - if an Egyptian were to convert during, say, the plague of blood, would the blood turn to water for him?
no subject
I was reminded of something while listening to the torah portion this morning: for the first five plagues, it is Paro who does the heart-hardening. (Reish Lakish argues that the first five times were Paro's doing and the second five were God saying, if I may paraphrase, "ok, if that's the way you want it...".) There are different words used for "harden", and sometimes the word used is "chazak", which is more like "strengthen". That word implies, at least to me, building resolve rather than changing direction. (NOne of this completely solves the problem, of course.)
The exodus narrative is, at some level, about a war between gods, ours and the Egyptians'. Paro was supposed to be a god according to Egyptian belief. (So were the Nile and the sun, both defeated by plagues. I'm sure there are other tie-ins; I'm not up on Egyptian theology.) The plagues seem cruel to the people but maybe fitting for the (supposed) gods; how do we reconcile that?
Sorry, I've got more questions than answers. Welcome to my world. :-)
Which begs the question - if an Egyptian were to convert during, say, the plague of blood, would the blood turn to water for him?
Interesting question. I would think that the principle that once you've converted you're a Jew equal with all others [1] would apply, so you'd get water. On the other hand, one has to wonder what processes would have been in place for formalizing the conversion during the slavery; is saying it enough, or did the erev rav have to demonstrate by leaving with the Jews? On the third hand, converting Egyptians would have had to paint their doorposts before the tenth plague; maybe that's public enough.
[1] Well, except for the part about marrying a kohein, but that's both weird and a tangent.
no subject
Isn't that the best way to be? I like people who have more questions than answers.
one has to wonder what processes would have been in place for formalizing the conversion during the slavery
See, that's another issue I'm wondering. Ruth is said to be the first convert, but midrash states many things about Abraham and Sarah converting people, there's the sticky point around the rape of Dinah, Joseph's wife is a total mystery, and also those Egyptians leaving with the Jews in the Exodus. Was saying "I'm a Jew!" enough?
no subject
Same here. I'm not sure it's the majority position though, hence the comment (to someone I don't know). :-)
Conversion: good question. I've heard other midrashim along those lines too; they often sound like retrojection or wishful thinking to me, but I haven't made a study of it. Rut is about the only documented case we have (which is why she forms the model for conversions today).
The torah talks a lot about "the stranger in your midst"; I suspect that the erev rav did not, in general, convert, else they would be Jews, not the erev rav or strangers. I think the people who left Egypt with the Jews were, mostly, just along for the trip, though I imagine some did ultimately become Jews. Do you know of midrash that talks about the erev rav?
no subject
I had never heard the midrash that even when a Jew poured the water for an Egyptian it became blood. I agree with your sentiment that for the Egyptian who sat down with the Jew it should have remained water. There are often hints in midrash that Jews and Egyptians lived on good terms.