parsha bit: Bo

[cellio]

Why did the Holy One, Blessed Be He, send a plague of darkness? Because there were wrongdoers among Israel who did not obey God and were deserving of death. God said: let not the Egyptians say "we have been struck down by plagues and so have they"; rather, he sent darkness so the Egyptians could not see the Jews burying their dead. (Exodus Rabbah 14:3)

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Though then you have a whole bunch of people all burying their dead in the dark. Wouldn't everybody bring lanterns to the cemetery so they could see enough not to fall into the open graves? Wouldn't the lanterns be obvious to the Egyptians?

[geekosaur]

Only the first three plagues also happened to the Israelites, according to the gemara. (And lanterns wouldn't have helped with the supernatural darkness.)

[cellio]

The darkness didn't affect the Jews, only the Egyptians. There is a midrash that while the Egyptians were suffering this plague, Jews inspected the contents of their houses so that later, when they asked to "borrow" gold and silver vessels on the way out and the Egyptians said "gee, I'd love to help you but I don't have any", the Jews were able to respond "what about that bowl you keep on the third shelf in that cabinet?".

The darkness was also not just a visual limitation but a heavy, thick presence; the midrash says that Egyptians who were standing couldn't move, those sitting couldn't stand, those lying down couldn't get up, and so on. They were locked in place for three days, unable to move or see. (I don't know about hearing.)

I had wondered "what's the big deal about three days of darkness?" before hearing this midrash.

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

I understood it to be 6 days of darkness. Three days of just darkness followed by 3 days of palpable darkness.