Beit Midrash

  • Torah Portion and Tanach
  • Bo
To dedicate this lesson

Who carried out the 10th and final plague?

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Rabbi Stewart Weiss

Shvat 5783
Our Sedra details the last plague, the slaying of Egypt’s first-born. The pasuk seems to make it quite clear that Hashem Himself will administer this plague: "I will go through Egypt on this night; I will strike down the first-born; I will mete out punishment to their gods." And the Hagada stresses: "Not through an angel or a seraph or a messenger, but by HKBH Himself." But then Hashem says, "if you place the blood of the Korban Pesach on your doorposts, I will not let the "mashchit-destroyer" enter your homes & plague you." Who is this "destroyer?!" We said it’s not an angel; & would we refer to Hashem as a "Mashchit?!" Rav Ahron Soloveichik gives a novel answer. He says that "mashchit" is the spirit of rampant destruction that generally results when an oppressed people are set free (e.g. in the French Revolution). Hashem wants us to have a higher moral character, & so we were forbidden to leave our homes that night & wreak havoc on our Egyptian masters.

את המידע הדפסתי באמצעות אתר yeshiva.org.il