The Smiting of the Firstborn was the last of the ten plagues, and Moshe announces (Shemot 11:4-6):
Shemot 12:29-30:
This profoundly affected the Egyptians psychologically. There was no escaping God's wrath, and they each bore the brunt of the anger. And the effect was not just boils, or hail in the streets. It was death! Who knows? They might be next, even though the current plague was only against the firstborn! Thus, Shemot 12:33:
Thus, on a peshat level, there seems to be nothing amiss.
However, if we take examine the text more closely, we might find some issue, though perhaps that issue might be midrashic -- or perhaps it would be an issue on the level of peshat.
Consider the first account of the Egyptian reaction. Did every house have someone who died in it? With such a large society, is it not possible to find an Egyptian man and woman who were not firstborn themselves, who were childless. Or a household in which all the firstborns had already passed away? The claim that כִּי-אֵין בַּיִת אֲשֶׁר אֵין-שָׁם מֵת is a strong one.
There are several possible answers on the level of peshat. Simply put, one can answer "Yes," it turned out that every house had a firstborn, who died in this plague. It is a strange demographic phenomenon, but not impossible.
Another possible answer is the same as the previous, except to note that among the firstborn who were slated to die were the firstborn among the animals, and so this widens the group, and so perhaps if no human was a firstborn, at the least there would have been a firstborn among the animals.
Another possible answer is that in "there was no house," house does not mean a physical structure but rather a large family unit or clan. Thus, when the Egyptian midwives for the Israelites feared God, they were rewarded by getting "houses," which does not mean physical houses of stone. Shemot 2:21:
| כא וַיְהִי, כִּי-יָרְאוּ הַמְיַלְּדֹת אֶת-הָאֱלֹהִים; וַיַּעַשׂ לָהֶם, בָּתִּים. | 21 And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that He made them houses. |
Another possiblity is that the Torah speaks in the language of man, and this is an expression used to demonstrate the far-reach of the plague, but was not intended to be absolutely literal, and so the presence of 3 houses in which there was no dead body does not falsify the statement. In other words, nu nu.
One midrash posits another answer in the Mechilta. There, Rabbi Natan explains that the Egyptians kept images of their deceased in their homes, and these were destroyed in the plague, such that it was as difficult as the day of burial. Alternatively, or additionally, the Egyptians buried their dead in their homes, and during the plague, dogs came and dragged out and attacked these corpses, and it was as difficult as the day of burial.
This midrash is probably at least in part based on the aforementioned difficulty, but there are also several other pesukim that factor into it, and produce the final midrash.
Firstly, the role of the dogs comes from Shemot 11:7, which states that
peshat level, one can of course say that this is an idiom, and simply means that they will not come to harm, or even though slightest thought to cause harm, which is in marked contrast to the Egyptians who suffer all these fatalities. However, on the level of derash, if there is a contrast between Israelite and Egyptian, and the Israelites are not having dogs whet their tongues against them, by implication, the Egyptians are to have to worry about dogs.
Secondly, in the pasuk in Shemot 12:29:
The next verse has כִּי-אֵין בַּיִת אֲשֶׁר אֵין-שָׁם מֵת. This is not the same as saying "because Hashem caused one to die in each house." The midrash is taking this as the dead already being present in the house before the plague begins. And thus, there is no house in which the dead one was not already present, either in the form of an image or in the form of a corpse, and God struck those. This caused the great cry of the Egyptians.
Of course, even this midrash would not deny that living Egyptian firstborns were struck down. It is merely reinterpreting and rereading several verses very closely in response to a perceived difficulty in the text, such that an addition meaning may be adduced.
A second verse, already mentioned, describes the Egyptians' reaction to the plague. Shemot 12:33:
One could dismiss the issue easily enough. After all, can we really critique an emotional response to tragedy? Perhaps this was a result of confusion, or perhaps the result of a realization that they could be next. Or it could be a way or emphasizing the dreadfulness of the situation - "we, Egyptians, are dying, so let us send the people out as quickly as possible to stop the plague."
Yet, we could come up with solutions to the issue. One midrash -- not one that I initially planned on discussing, (and one I have not seen inside recently) analyzes וַתֶּחֱזַק מִצְרַיִם עַל-הָעָם and suggests that הָעָם is the nation of Egyptians. The firstborn of Egypt are מִצְרַיִם, and they formed and army and attacked their fellow Egyptians because they knew that otherwise they would die -- כִּי אָמְרוּ, כֻּלָּנוּ מֵתִים. Thus, all of them, in this body, felt that they were going to be dead people otherwise. This might also solve the issue of כִּי-אֵין בַּיִת אֲשֶׁר אֵין-שָׁם מֵת. A house without firstborn might have had people die as a result of this firstborn revolt.
The midrash I wish to discuss, in Mechilta, gives another solution. In explanation of the Egyptian's reaction of כִּי אָמְרוּ כֻּלָּנוּ מֵתִים, it notes that the Egyptians initially believed Moshe that this plague would only affect the firstborn. However, suddenly, five or six sons died, in a single household, and so they thought the plague was affecting the population at large, including non-firstborns. Thus, they said, incorrectly, כֻּלָּנוּ מֵתִים. What could account for this divergence from what Moshe promised. The Midrash takes advantage of existing knowledge (probably also adducible from pesukim,) that the Egyptian wives cheated on their husbands, and so each of these children who were thought to be non-firstborn were actually firstborn.
This midrash is addressing the shift between the Moshe's promise and the Egyptians' reaction, כֻּלָּנוּ מֵתִים.
However, when Rashi comes to the scene, this latter midrash is moved to address a problem in a different verse, and takes on a different meaning as a result.
for there was no house in which no one was dead If there was a firstborn, he was dead. If there was no firstborn, the oldest household member was called the firstborn, as it is said: “I, too, shall make him [David] a firstborn” (Ps. 89:28) (Tanchuma Buber 19). [Rashi explains there: I shall make him great.] Another explanation: Some Egyptian women were unfaithful to their husbands and bore children from bachelors. Thus they would have many firstborn; sometimes one woman would have five, each one the firstborn of his father (Mechilta 13:33).Once again, there is a "problem" with the pasuk which states:
no Egyptian house not have a firstborn?
Rashi offers two suggestions. First, on the level of peshat, he notes that Biblical usage of the term bechor includes the great one, and thus can mean the eldest or the head of the house. Thus, Tehillim 89:28:
| כח אַף-אָנִי, בְּכוֹר אֶתְּנֵהוּ; עֶלְיוֹן, לְמַלְכֵי-אָרֶץ. | 28 I also will appoint him first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth. |
Thus, a house without a literal firstborn could still lose someone called bechor, and every household will have one such person.
Then, Rashi offers a devar aggada, and cited a portion of the midrash from the mechilta. According to this midrash, since the women in Egypt slept around, many were actually the bechor, besides the eldest in a specific household.
The implication of this is that even in those houses in which the head of the household was not known to be a firstborn, he actually was, because the Egyptian women slept around. Or if the firstborn had already died or had left the house, the younger sons were also firstborns. Thus it is possible that every house had at least one dead.
There is a dispute amongst Rashi scholars about how to understand Rashi's statement of purpose of only coming to teach the peshuto shel mikra uleaggadah hameyashevet divrei
hamikra davar davur al ofnav. This can mean that he will bring a midrash if it fits with the rest of the text when the rest of the text is understood on a peshat level, and if it also answers some peshat based difficulty. Here, he brings a midrash which answers a difficulty.
As often happens with Rashi, the pasuk on which he brings the midrash is not the same as the pasuk upon which the midrash was initially based. And here, there is a reinterpretation that occurs. This specific midrash was driven by the disparity between Moshe's promise and the Egyptians' stated perception. That is, is was focused on the statement that everyone in the house was dying. Rashi moves the midrash to another verse and the midrash now addresses the issue of why every house had at least one dead. This is an entirely different question.
Of course, on the later pasuk, about everyone in the house dying, Rashi repeats the midrash, but only part of it - that several sons died rather than just one. We need to be told to compare with the Rashi on pasuk 30, to realize it is based on the same midrash, and is based on the Egyptian women's indiscretions.
We are all dead They said, “This is not in accordance with Moses’ decree, for he said, ‘And every firstborn in the land of Egypt will die’ (Exod. 11:5), but here, the ordinary people too are dead, five or ten in one house.” -[from Mechilta]As noted, this reusing of midrashic material in different contexts is common to Rashi's style. The result is often (unintentionally, but perhaps at times intentionally) a new meaning, and new Judaic material and literature, but this unfortunately obscures the derivation of the midrash and severs its connection to the text. Since many are primarily exposed to midrashim through Rashi, the side-effect is to treat midrashim as random Rabbinic legends with no textual basis whatsoever which spring up for no reason at all except for Rabbinic fancy, or in answer to otherwise difficult questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment