We have reached the end. Egypt is no longer a threat. Their economy, in ruins. Their army, gone. The Jewish people, free. Truly and utterly free.

And then, we sing.

Song — that is what happens next. And we know that it happens because the Torah emphasises that fact with one tiny word: אָז‏ — “then.”

Now, we take this word for granted. But honestly, it’s strange. Indeed, upon first reading it seems totally unnecessary. With a simple stroke of my virtual pen, I could easily rewrite this sentence and we would never know that anything is missing:

וַיָּשִׁר מֹשֶׁה‏

And Moshe sang

In other words, remove the word אָז‏ and replace it with a simple ו‏ (vav). What is known as vav hachibur (the connecting vav).

After all, this is the standard way that the Torah continues a narrative. It happens all the time, line after line, story after story.

And we need to look no further than the previous lines for a clear example. Let’s start with verse 27 (chapter 14):

וַיֵּט֩ מֹשֶׁ֨ה אֶת־יָד֜וֹ עַל־הַיָּ֗ם וַיָּ֨שׇׁב הַיָּ֜ם לִפְנ֥וֹת בֹּ֙קֶר֙ לְאֵ֣יתָנ֔וֹ וּמִצְרַ֖יִם נָסִ֣ים לִקְרָאת֑וֹ וַיְנַעֵ֧ר יְהֹוָ֛ה אֶת־מִצְרַ֖יִם בְּת֥וֹךְ הַיָּֽם׃

And Moshe stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned as morning approached to its full strength, and Mitzrayim fled toward it, and Hashem shook Mitzrayim into the midst of the sea.

The English “and” is the literal translation of the Hebrew ו‏ (vav). But honestly, when translating, we don’t necessarily translate that vav:

Moshe stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned as morning approached to its full strength. Mitzrayim fled toward it and Hashem shook Mitzrayim into the midst of the sea.

Two vavs translated, two ignored.

On the other hand, theoretically speaking, G-d could have inserted the word אָז‏ — “then” — here:

אָז יֵּט֩ מֹשֶׁ֨ה אֶת־יָד֜וֹ עַל־הַיָּ֗ם וכו׳

Then Moshe stretched out his hand over the sea...

Indeed, I imagine we could start from the very beginning of the Chumash and find countless times when the word אָז‏ — “then” — would work perfectly well in the narrative flow:

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹקִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם... אָז יֹּאמֶר אֱלֹקִים יְהִי אוֹר

In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep... Then G-d said, let there be light...

In short, the word אָז‏ — “then” — could go almost anywhere, but seems to be needed nowhere.

And yet, here it is, in our verse. Prominently displayed.

Which means that it particularly belongs here. At this moment. After the miracle of Yam Suf.

Why? Why here? What is it telling us that we otherwise would not know?

That is our first question. There is one more.

Second Question

Second word, second question.

But first, a short introduction. There is an English word — conjugation. Some of us know what it means, some of us have no idea. But for all of us, it’s worth taking a moment and discussing it.

We’ll start by discussing the idea of a root. Words, we are told, have roots. Of course, they don’t literally have roots — roots belong to plant life. Trees have roots. Carrots are roots.

The tree and/or plant grow out of the root.

What about in Biblical Hebrew? Do Hebrew words grow out of Hebrew roots?

To answer that, let’s get a working hypothesis of a root. For me, a root is a concept. An abstract idea. Or, better yet, a flexible idea.

For example: ש-י-ר‏. The root of our word. It relates to the concept or idea of singing — combining melody and words.

Now let’s ask some particular questions. We’ll start with “who.”

Who is singing? I.e., who is combining melody and words?

Am I singing? Perhaps you are singing? Or maybe both of us together.

How about another question — when?

When did I (or is it you) sing?

Now, there are many other questions that a language needs to be able to answer. But these are two of the most common. Which may be a problem for us as we continue.

But for now, let’s run with these two and we’ll deal with any problems that come up as they arise.

For now, let’s just note the following — languages need methods for answering these types of questions. And that is where conjugation comes in.

Conjugating a root is the means by which the Hebrew language answers these implied questions. And in our particular verse, it tells us two vital pieces of information.

One, Moshe sang the song. Yes, I know that it says that Moshe and the Jewish people sang the song — but evidently Bnei Yisrael are secondary to Moshe.

Moshe sang — and the Jewish people joined in.

Or, Moshe sang — and taught it to the Jewish people.

Not sure. The key point is that Moshe is the essential doer here. He is primary, the Jewish people are secondary.

Two, Moshe hasn’t actually yet sung the song.

And here we get to our second question.

The (seeming) literal translation of this word is “Moshe will sing.” Not “Moshe sang,” but “Moshe will sing”:

יָשִׁיר מֹשֶׁה‏

Moshe will sing

That’s what it means to add a yud (י‏) to the root ש-י-ר‏. It answers both who and when at one time.

Who? He. That’s what yud means as a stand-alone prefix (i.e., without a vav being added to the end of the word).

Who is he? It is Moshe. That’s what our third word in our verse tells us:

אָ֣ז יָשִֽׁיר־מֹשֶׁה֩

Then Moshe will sing

And when did he (i.e., Moshe) sing? In the future. I.e.:

אָ֣ז יָשִֽׁיר־מֹשֶׁה֩

Then Moshe will sing

Now, our first response may be to say that this makes no sense. But that should not be our first response. Rather, we first should take it at face value and see if we can make sense of it.

What would it mean for the verse to say that “Then Moshe will sing”?

Well, for starters, it would mean that they didn’t sing this song at this moment. I.e., at the moment when G-d saved them from essentially certain destruction and they saw all the Egyptians drown.

That, after all, is the context of this song — as the previous lines detail:

וַיּ֨וֹשַׁע יְהֹוָ֜ה בַּיּ֥וֹם הַה֛וּא אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מִיַּ֣ד מִצְרָ֑יִם וַיַּ֤רְא יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אֶת־מִצְרַ֔יִם מֵ֖ת עַל־שְׂפַ֥ת הַיָּֽם׃ וַיַּ֨רְא יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־הַיָּ֣ד הַגְּדֹלָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָשָׂ֤ה יְהֹוָה֙ בְּמִצְרַ֔יִם וַיִּֽירְא֥וּ הָעָ֖ם אֶת־יְהֹוָ֑ה וַֽיַּאֲמִ֙ינוּ֙ בַּֽיהֹוָ֔ה וּבְמֹשֶׁ֖ה עַבְדּֽוֹ׃

And Y-K-V-K saved Yisrael on that day from the hand of Mitzrayim, and Yisrael saw Mitzrayim dead on the bank of the sea. And Yisrael saw the great hand that Y-K-V-K did with Mitzrayim, and the nation feared Y-K-V-K, and they believed in Y-K-V-K and in Moshe His servant.

If we take the future tense seriously, then that means that despite this tremendous miracle, this was not the time that Moshe and the Jewish people sang this song.

Even though they saw the Egyptians dead.
Even though they saw the great hand of Hashem.
Even though they started to fear Hashem.
Even though they now believed in Hashem and in His servant Moshe.

No — they didn’t sing the song. Not yet. But then, at some future point, they will.

OK. That would be quite unexpected. But if we want to take this conjugation seriously, then evidently that is what the verse would be telling us.

Except — if that’s what it means, what’s the “then”? What is אָז‏ referring to?

If “then” is referring to the immediate context — and if it is telling me that now, in this particular situation, Moshe (and the Jewish people) sang this song — then that would make sense.

At this point in the narrative. At this point in Jewish history. At this particular salvation, Moshe and the Jewish people sang this song.

In other words, if I want to take the meaning of the word “then” seriously, then I need to understand that they sang this song right now, at this moment.

Not in the future.

So, I have an internal contradiction.

If I take the word “then” seriously, it means right now.

If I take “will” seriously, it means in the future.

Something must give. And it seems the best giving candidate is the future tense. It’s hard to argue that “then,” at this moment, it was determined or decided that Moshe will in the future sing this song.

After all, when else did they sing this song? Is there any pasuk anywhere in Tanach that indicates that finally Moshe (and the Jewish people) sang this song?

Is there any future reference to this song?

In other words, let’s say that at this moment, Moshe set in his mind that he would some day sing this song. Perhaps he wrote the song now — in the context of this miracle — but did not yet sing it. Perhaps he was waiting for some future miracle or some future event.

Then, at that future event he would sing this song.

That’s a really intriguing idea. The only problem is there is no reference to that future event. There is no record, no indication that Moshe sang this song again.

So it seems that “will” will have to go.

It seems that it has to be now. At this moment Moshe sang this song.

But then, let’s be honest. That’s not what is written. The word is written as it is written — and that is in the future tense. I can’t just magically declare it to be the past tense simply because it’s inconvenient to have it in the future tense.

So, we’re stuck.

And we seemingly have only one of two options.

Option #1: See if there is something that we are missing in the grammar.

Option #2: See if there is something hidden in the future that we are missing.

In other words, either we find a way to say that the future tense is not actually the future tense.

Or that the future tense is the future tense, but there is something in Moshe’s future that we missed. Some song he is destined to sing, but has not yet sung.

Personally speaking, I plan to choose both options.

Option #2: Something Hidden in the Future

I’m going to share a secret with you — I don’t have time to fully and properly answer these questions. Yom Tov is coming too soon.

So I will write from memory what I have so far, and I encourage all of you to look further into this over Yom Tov.

Let’s start with the second option. There is a Gemara in Sanhedrin (91b) that says from this very pasuk — from the future tense of יָשִׁיר‏ — we learn about תְּחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים‏, the resurrection of the dead:

תַּנְיָא, אָמַר רַבִּי מֵאִיר: מִנַּיִן לִתְחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים מִן הַתּוֹרָה? שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אָז יָשִׁיר מֹשֶׁה וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת לַה׳״. ״שָׁר״ לֹא נֶאֱמַר, אֶלָּא ״יָשִׁיר״ – מִכָּאן לִתְחִיַּית הַמֵּתִים מִן הַתּוֹרָה.

It is taught in a Baraisa: Rabbi Meir said: From where is the resurrection of the dead derived from the Torah? As it is stated: “Then Moshe and Bnei Yisrael will sing this song to Y-K-V-K.” It does not say שָׁר‏ — “sang.” Rather, it says יָשִׁיר‏ — “will sing.” From here we derive that the resurrection of the dead is from the Torah.

Rabbi Meir is taking the future tense literally. There will be a time when Moshe Rabbeinu himself will come back to life and sing this song. The Gemara is telling us: you were right to be bothered by the future tense. It is the future tense. And there is a future.

But I have an idea — a thought to be considered and explored. I would like to suggest that there is another literal meaning of the future tense, one which is the background of this Gemara.

Let us remember the future that was as well as the future that was supposed to be.

In less than three months’ time, the Jewish people will be receiving the Torah at Har Sinai. There has not yet been a Chet HaEgel. There has not yet been a Chet HaMeraglim. Moshe has not yet been told that he cannot enter Eretz Yisrael. The plan — the l’chatchilah plan — is to get the Torah and to march straight into Eretz Yisrael.

And what was supposed to happen then? The nations would flee or fall. Moshe would build the Beis HaMikdash. The final redemption would have already been here.

My guess is that at this moment, Moshe had in mind that he was going to sing this song at the building of that Beis HaMikdash. He knew the full plan. He knew what was supposed to be. And he was going to connect this moment — the miracle at Yam Suf — to that moment — the building of G-d’s house. We may not know today exactly what that connection is, but Moshe saw it.

That was what was supposed to be.

But that was not what happened. We sinned. Moshe was prevented from entering Eretz Yisrael. And so we had a first Beis HaMikdash and then a second. Please G-d, some day we will have a third. And then Moshe will come back and sing this song at that third Beis HaMikdash.

That is Rabbi Meir. The thought that entered Moshe’s mind is not going to disappear. Moshe understands that one way or another, he will be singing this song at the final Beis HaMikdash. It just depends on us: will it be the first and only Beis HaMikdash, or the third one — with Techiyas HaMeisim?

That is the l’chatchilah understanding of “Then Moshe will sing.” The original plan was that Moshe would take the Jewish people into Eretz Yisrael and sing it then. What happened instead is that the singing got pushed to the future — to Techiyas HaMeisim, when Moshe will rise and sing this song at the full and final Beis HaMikdash.

Option #1: Something Hidden in the Grammar

On the other hand, even according to the reading above, I still want to say that they sang this song at that time, right there at the sea. That seems clear from the pesukim. After all, Miriam herself comes out afterwards and sings the song with the women. So it’s not that Moshe wrote the song now with the intention of only reciting it later. It was rather that he also intended to recite it later.

And in that sense, perhaps our word יָשִׁיר‏ can be understood slightly differently.

Let’s go back to our world of roots and conjugations. As I hinted at before, there are more than two questions that a language needs to answer. One is “who?” Another is “when?” But even within the world of “when,” we have sub-questions. Did he do it one time, or many? Did he actually do it, or did he just plan on doing it? Did he intend to do it? Language has to cover a lot of different scenarios if it’s going to be sophisticated and helpful.

And with that said, I want to reference — without, unfortunately, the ability to fully explore right now — two other possible understandings of our conjugation.

The first we find in Sefer Iyov. Iyov 1:5 says:

כָּכָה יַעֲשֶׂה אִיּוֹב כׇּל הַיָּמִים

Thus Iyov would do, all the days.

The word יַעֲשֶׂה‏ — “would do” — is the same conjugation as our יָשִׁיר‏. Third person, future tense. But it doesn’t mean Iyov will do this at some point in the future. It means he would do this — over and over, on a regular basis. The future tense here indicates an ongoing state, something that happens not just now but tomorrow and next week and next month.

Perhaps that is what אָז יָשִׁיר מֹשֶׁה‏ means. Then, at this moment, Moshe began singing this song — and it became a song he would sing again and again. Perhaps he already brought it into the regular prayers of the Jewish people.

But there’s another possibility, and this is the one that Rashi brings. Rashi, whom I encourage everybody to look into in detail, says the following:

אָז כְּשֶׁרָאָה הַנֵּס עָלָה בְלִבּוֹ שֶׁיָּשִׁיר שִׁירָה

Then — when he saw the miracle — it arose in his heart that he would sing a song.

Rashi is saying that the same conjugation, the same tense, has this idea of intention. Then, at this moment, Moshe resolved in his heart to sing this song. And so he did — as the pasuk continues: וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֵאמֹר אָשִׁירָה לַה׳‏ — “and they said as follows: I will sing to Y-K-V-K.” First came the intention, then came the act.

Rashi brings several other verses that have the same grammatical structure — אָז יְדַבֵּר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ‏ (Yehoshua 10:12), וּבַיִת יַעֲשֶׂה לְבַת פַּרְעֹה‏ (Melachim I 7:8) — and in each case, the future tense indicates not “he will do” but “he purposed in his heart to do.” I don’t have time to go through those right now, but I encourage everybody to look at that Rashi and look up the sources he brings and see the pattern.

And this actually fits quite nicely with the Gemara in Sanhedrin and our earlier explanation. Perhaps both things are happening at once. Moshe is singing the song now — but at this very moment, looking at this miracle, it entered his mind that he was going to sing this song again in the future, at the building of the Beis HaMikdash.

The point is this: the same conjugation can sometimes have different understandings depending on the context, just like the same word can sometimes have multiple meanings. We cannot be locked into just one explanation of a conjugation, because it might limit us too much in our ability to understand what the Torah is saying. Even if there is a primary or more common usage, it doesn’t mean there aren’t variations that we need to be sensitive to.

What About “Then”?

So now let’s get to our final question.

אָז‏\u200E — “then” — indicates that something happened right now. At this moment, Moshe sang this song and the Jewish people followed.

And this raises another question. Why is it that only now we sing a song?

Why not, for example, after Makkas Bechoros — after the killing of all the firstborn? Wasn’t that a great time to sing? Freedom! You’re leaving Egypt! You’ve been enslaved in the most brutal way for who knows how long. They gave you no respite. They tortured you. They wouldn’t let you go for a moment. And now they’re kicking you out — they can’t get you out quick enough — and they’re giving you all sorts of stuff. Isn’t that a great time to sing a song?

Indeed, as far as I know, G-d hadn’t yet told Moshe to go back toward the Yam Suf, that there was going to be one more confrontation. I don’t know if Moshe knew, until this moment, that there was going to be a Krias Yam Suf. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But even so — isn’t Makkas Bechoros a great time for שִׁיר‏?

Or how about the first מַכָּה‏? G-d’s fighting on our behalf already. The Mitzrim are being struck. Maybe some song back then. Something. I see that G-d sees what happened to us. He’s already judging the Mitzrim, already revealing their crimes. Some joy, some song, some celebration. Something.

Why only now?

I have a few ideas, but the one I want to share right now is one that I read in the Or HaChaim HaKadosh. What is the immediate verse right before ours? It says that the Jewish people — not just that they saw the יָד הַגְּדוֹלָה‏ of Hashem — but that they had יִרְאָה‏ — they feared Hashem. Not fear — awe. And then: they had אֱמוּנָה‏ — they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant.

You know the difference between fear and awe?

Let me take a detour to explain.

Imagine you’re in a spaceship and all of a sudden the computer malfunctions and starts taking you directly toward the sun. And there’s no way to override it. You would be filled with fear of the sun. You know how powerful it is. You know what it can do to you. That’s fear.

Now let’s take that same sun and look at it in a different way.

Imagine a place a mile away from you. Now imagine building a bonfire out of wood — a fire so large that you can feel its heat a full mile away. How much wood do you think you need for such a fire? How big would it have to be?

If that’s too close, make it a thousand miles. Make it on the other side of the earth if you want. Just try to picture how much wood you would have to use to build one fire so big that you can feel it from that distance.

Whatever number you have in mind — now imagine that you have to keep that fire going for a whole day. How much wood do you need now?

Now imagine not just one day, but every day. Day after day, year after year, going back from the very beginning of the earth all the way into the future. How much wood would you need?

Now picture the sun.

The sun is not one mile away. It’s not a thousand miles away. It’s not twelve thousand miles away. It’s 93 million miles away. And it’s not just that I can feel it where I happen to be standing. My entire city, my entire country, the entire continent, the entire hemisphere, the entire earth can feel its rays. It might be colder at night, but there is still some heat. It’s not absolute zero. And in the day — particularly a hot day — the heat is unmistakable. And this happens every single day without stop.

Imagine how powerful the sun is.

Now imagine that the sun is a small star. And they say there are about 100 billion stars in an average galaxy. And there are about 100 billion galaxies.

Imagine how much power there is in the universe.

Now imagine the One who created all of that.

That is yirah of awe. That is what the Jewish people felt at Yam Suf. They were filled with awe of Hashem unlike anything they had experienced before — despite all the Makkos, including Makkas Bechoros.

But they didn’t just have awe of Hashem. They had אֱמוּנָה‏. In Hashem. In Moshe His servant. They believed in Him. They trusted Him. They were loyal to Him.

Says the Or HaChaim HaKadosh — at least as I would like to understand him — now that the Jewish people had reached that מַדְרֵגָה‏, now that they had awe of Hashem and they were truly loyal to Him, now they could sing this song.

It’s not that they couldn’t have sung earlier. It’s that they weren’t ready to sing earlier. They hadn’t reached that state of awe and emunah yet. Moshe could have written this song any time. But he needed us. Just like he couldn’t go into Eretz Yisrael if we weren’t ready — we, the Jewish people, had to be on a certain level for this song to be sung.

So “then” — at that moment — when we finally achieved that level of yirah and emunah — Moshe sang this song.

And “then” — at that moment — Moshe said in his heart: this is the song I am going to sing when we build the Beis HaMikdash.

Share masmid

בְּטַכְסִיסֵי מִלְחֲמוֹת מְלָכִים בָּא עֲלֵיהֶם, כְּסֵדֶר מַלְכוּת כְּשֶׁצָּרָה עַל עִיר וכו׳‎

He [G-d] came upon them with the tactics of kings waging war, according to the protocol of a kingdom besieging a city...

— Rashi on Shemos 8:17 (based on the Tanchuma)

Rashi says something striking about the makkos: they are not just punishments. They are a war.

The Tanchuma lays out one strategic pattern behind that war, and Rashi points us toward it. That alone is worth careful study.

But perhaps there are other layers here as well.

Perhaps the war is not only a sequence of blows. Perhaps it is also a sequence of revelations. Perhaps each makah does not merely strike Egypt, but exposes something about Egypt — what it did, what it worshipped, what it relied on, what it thought it could hide.

That is what I want to explore.

My method is simple. I want to go through the makkos one by one, slowly, and pay attention to what each one seems to target, what language the Torah uses, what earlier scenes it echoes, and what larger pattern begins to emerge.

We do not need to force a perfect scheme from the start.

We can begin more modestly than that.

We can look carefully. We can make associations. We can test them. And then we can see what kind of war this really is.

Blood in the Water

The first makah is Dam. The Nile turns to blood.

What exactly is the point of that?

There are at least three different elements here, and each matters.

First: blood. Not just ruined water, but blood specifically. The substance itself is part of the message.

Second: water. Egypt’s water is struck, and with it Egypt’s ability to drink normally and live normally.

Third: the Ye’or — the Nile. Not just water in general, but Egypt’s great river in particular.

Those three things together create the opening blow.

Blood.
Water.
The Nile.

And once you put blood together with the Nile, one association presses itself forward almost immediately.

Go back to the beginning of Sefer Shemos:

וַיְצַו פַּרְעֹה לְכׇל עַמּוֹ לֵאמֹר כׇּל הַבֵּן הַיִּלּוֹד הַיְאֹרָה תַּשְׁלִיכֻהוּ וְכׇל הַבַּת תְּחַיּוּן‎

Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying: “Every boy that is born, throw him into the Nile. Every girl, you shall let live.” (1:22)

That river is not just a river.

It is where Egypt tried to hide its violence.

The babies were drowned, not stabbed. No blood filled the streets. No battlefield remained behind. The murder disappeared beneath the water. It could be denied. It could be obscured. It could be made to look clean.

That is part of the point.

As the Ramban explains on the earlier policy of dealing with Israel בְּחָכְמָה‎, Egypt’s oppression was not only cruel. It was calculated. It was meant to be effective and deniable at once.

It happens at night.
It happens quietly.
It happens in a way that buries the evidence.

And now the Nile itself is turned into blood.

That first makah therefore does more than afflict Egypt. It exposes Egypt.

The place where the blood of Jewish children was concealed now displays blood openly. The river that covered the crime now reveals it. The message is not subtle: We have not forgotten. You did not hide anything. G-d saw.

This also explains why the Nile is the focal point, even though the makah expands beyond it. When Moshe warns Pharaoh, the emphasis is the Ye’or:

בזאת תדע כי אני ה׳

...by this you will know that I am Hashem.

But the actual plague spreads wider:

rivers
canals
ponds
gathered waters
even water in wood and stone.

The center is the Nile, because that is the moral center. The expansion is broader, because the judgment is broader. Egypt’s crime was concentrated there, but Egypt’s guilt was not.

There may be something else here too.
The blood in the Nile is not only memory.
It is warning.

At the beginning of the story, it most naturally evokes the blood Egypt already spilled there — the blood of the murdered children. But by the end of the story, another image comes into view: Egyptian blood in water.

The empire that began by throwing Hebrew children into the river will end with Egyptians overwhelmed in the sea. The first plague is therefore not only indictment. It is forewarning.

Beware of the blood in the water.

That is how the war begins.

Not with the destruction of Egypt’s army. Not with the collapse of Pharaoh’s throne. Not even with direct human death.

It begins with revelation.

Before G-d brings Egypt down, He shows Egypt what it is.

Crying Out

The next makah is Tzefardea.

At first glance, it is a strange plague. What exactly is the affliction here?

We usually picture Tzefardea as frogs. That is certainly the standard understanding. But Abarbanel — and, according to Ibn Ezra, others as well — identify them as crocodiles.

Why would they do that? Presumably because the plague seems to demand something more threatening than mere annoyance. Frogs are invasive, filthy, and exhausting. Crocodiles are frightening.

The Netziv offers a kind of middle position: frogs for the masses, crocodiles for Pharaoh’s court.

Whatever one makes of that zoological debate, it serves mainly to sharpen the problem. This plague is not meant to be read as simple inconvenience. And once that is clear, the deeper question comes into focus: not only what the creatures are, but why they emerge specifically from the Ye’or.

That question matters because the first plague already taught us that the river is not just a setting. It is a witness. It is the place where Egypt tried to bury its crime. So when the next plague also rises from the Ye’or, we should assume the Torah wants us to connect the two.

But how?

Not in bricks. Nor in mortar or city-building. Rather, in cries:

וַיֵּאָנְחוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן הָעֲבֹדָה וַיִּזְעָקוּ וַתַּעַל שַׁוְעָתָם אֶל הָאֱלֹהִים מִן הָעֲבֹדָה‎

The Israelites groaned under the bondage and cried out, and their plea rose up to G-d from the bondage. (2:23)

Israel cries out. And at the bush, Hashem says:

כִּי שָׁמַעְתִּי אֶת צַעֲקָתוֹ... הִנֵּה צַעֲקַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָה אֵלָי

“I have heard their cry... the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me.” (3:7, 9)

And now, under the pressure of Tzefardea, Pharaoh turns to Moshe and Aharon:

הַעְתִּירוּ אֶל ה’ וְיָסֵר הַצְפַרְדְּעִים מִמֶּנִּי וּמֵעַמִּי וַאֲשַׁלְּחָה אֶת הָעָם

“Entreat Hashem to remove the frogs from me and from my people, and I will send the people out.” (8:4)

And what does Moshe do?

וַיִּצְעַק מֹשֶׁה אֶל ה’

Moshe cried out to Hashem. (8:8)

Moshe himself cries out to Hashem.

The reversal is sharp.

The empire that ignored cries must now depend on them.

What Egypt would not hear from Israel, Pharaoh must now seek for himself. The very man who stood over a system of suffering is reduced to asking someone else to plead for relief.

This is why Abarbanel’s formulation is so powerful. He describes these creatures as הַצּוֹעֲקִים‎ — the ones that cry out — and connects their emergence from the Nile to the cries that once came from that same river:

כְּצַעֲקַת וִילְלַת בְּנוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֵּצְאוּ מִן הַיְאוֹר כִּי מִשָּׁם יָצְאָה צְעָקָה וִילְלָה

Like the crying and wailing of the daughters of Israel, they came out from the river, for from there came crying and wailing.

That line transforms the plague.

The river does not only return blood. It returns sound.

In Dam, the Ye’or becomes a visible accusation. In Tzefardea, it becomes an audible one.

And the pattern does not stop there. In Dam, death in the water produces stench. In Tzefardea, death on the land produces stench again. The corruption of the river now spreads outward, from water to land, from hidden crime to public disorder.

That outward movement matters.

The babies in the river were the most concentrated and horrifying expression of Egypt’s cruelty. But they were not the whole story. Israel cried not only because children were taken, but because the whole machinery of slavery was crushing them. So the plague begins in the Ye’or, where the worst of the crime was hidden, and then it spills onto dry land, as if to say: the suffering was broader than that, and G-d sees that too.

If Dam reveals what Egypt did, Tzefardea reveals what Egypt refused to hear.

The Dust Strikes Back

The third makah is Kinim.

Aharon strikes the afar ha’aretz — the dust of the earth — and that dust becomes kinim on adam and behemah.

By now a clear progression has emerged.

Dam was rooted in the water. Tzefardea began in the Ye’or and then spilled onto the land. Kinim comes from no river at all. Its source is the earth itself.

The plague has moved fully onto dry ground.

And that matters, because dust is not neutral in the story of Egypt’s oppression.

Egypt worked Israel with chomer, leveinim, and avodah basadeh. Brickmaking. Field labor. Backbreaking work close to the ground, in dust, sweat, and humiliation. The Kli Yakar makes the physical point directly: hard labor leaves a laborer covered in dust and sweat, and kinim belong to exactly that world. The Malbim adds a deeper layer. Kinim is a makah of בִּזָּיוֹן‎ — not only pain, but disgrace.

That is the heart of the plague.

The dust of slavery strikes back.

What Egypt forced onto the bodies of its slaves now comes upon Egypt’s own bodies. The substance of degradation becomes the instrument of degradation. This is not yet the murder of Dam, and it is not the returning cry of Tzefardea. It is something broader and, in a certain sense, more ordinary: the daily humiliation of servitude, the reduction of human beings to filthy, sweating, dust-covered labor.

And that is precisely why Kinim belongs here.

The first three makkos now read as a single moral movement.

Dam exposes the blood Egypt tried to hide. Tzefardea gives back the cries Egypt refused to hear. Kinim returns the degradation Egypt made others live in.

The progression is striking. It moves from the most concentrated and horrifying crime — the murder of the children in the Nile — to the wider field of suffering that Egypt ignored, and then to the atmosphere of degradation that saturated the whole system. The evil becomes less concentrated, but more expansive. The first makah reveals what Egypt did at its worst. The third reveals what Egypt had become all the time.

That is why Kinim matters so much.

It is the completion of the first triad.

The theme of these opening blows is not yet total collapse. It is moral exposure. G-d is showing Egypt what it has done, and what kind of kingdom it has become. Blood. Cries. Dust. Murder. Indifference. Degradation.

G-d sees all of it.

And now, for the first time, even the chartumim cannot keep up. They fail, and they say: אֶצְבַּע אֱלֹהִים הִוא‎ — “It is the finger of G-d.”

Of course it is.

By the third plague, the dust itself has begun to testify.

The Second Round

We are not just moving to the next plague here. We are entering a new round.

And the Torah marks that shift in a recognizable way. At the opening of each new elevation, Hashem explains what this stage is for. With Dam, the point was:

בְּזֹאת תֵּדַע כִּי אֲנִי ה’

by this you will know that I am Hashem.

Now, at the opening of the second round, the formula returns — but it deepens:

לְמַעַן תֵּדַע כִּי אֲנִי ה’ בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ

so that you know that I am Hashem in the midst of the earth.

The point is not only repeated. It is expanded.

First: that I am Hashem.
Now: that I am Hashem in the midst of the earth.

The claim is growing as the plagues unfold.

And as it is with the explanation for why G-d is sending plagues, so it is with the actual plagues themselves.

Arov

Let’s start with Arov.

There is a real connection here to Tzefardea. In both plagues, creatures invade human space. Tzefardea penetrates bedrooms, ovens, and houses. Arov does the same thing more violently. The private sphere is not merely disturbed now. It is overrun.

There may also be a resonance here, even if I would not press it too far. Egypt invaded Jewish homes. It entered the private sphere, shattered its safety, and took children from their families. Now Egyptian homes are invaded in turn. Tzefardea had already entered bedrooms and ovens. Arov fills “your houses and the houses of your servants.” The home itself is no longer secure.

This is also where the hafla’ah begins. For the first time, Goshen is explicitly set apart. Hashem distinguishes between Egypt and Israel, and from here that distinction will only sharpen.

Dever

Then comes Dever.

And here I think something new is happening.

Until now, the blows have exposed guilt, invaded space, and afflicted bodies.

But Dever is different. This is a direct attack on Egypt’s economic life and power.

Until now, as painful as the other plagues were — they came and they went. Psychologically they may have been traumatic. And the stench was a constant reminder of what had been.

But the blood — gone.
The frogs (or crocodiles) — gone.

Not so with Dever. When Dever is done, there is devastation in its wake.

Your cattle — dead.
Your horses — dead.
Your donkeys — dead.
Your camels — dead.
Your sheep and goats — dead.

Every single one? I don’t think so. After all, later on, the Egyptians chase after Am Yisrael on their horse and carriages. And the plague of Barad (hail) struck any domesticated animal left in the field (which presumably contained horses and donkeys and camels and more).

But it was devastating nonetheless. One with lasting economic consequences.

Transport. Agricultural power. Stored wealth. Productive strength.

All struck and damaged.

In short, this is a new phase of the war. G-d has upped the ante.
He is now going after the Egyptian economy.

Shechin

Now for Shechin.

Here we are back on more familiar ground. Shechin clearly intensifies Kinim.

In Kinim, the dust of the earth (עפר — afar) becomes a bodily affliction on adam and behemah.

In Shechin, Moshe takes soot from the kiln (פיח כִּוְשָׁן — piach kivshan), and throws it heavenward.

Dust and soot — similar, yet different. We’ve seen that pattern before. It’s the stuff that variations are made of.

If I were to venture a guess — the dust of the earth relates to the work of the field. Soot, on the other hand, relates to the work of bricks and mortar.

Both of which were mentioned back in chapter 1:

וַיְמָרְר֨וּ אֶת־חַיֵּיהֶ֜ם בַּעֲבֹדָ֣ה קָשָׁ֗ה בְּחֹ֙מֶר֙ וּבִלְבֵנִ֔ים וּבְכׇל־עֲבֹדָ֖ה בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה אֵ֚ת כׇּל־עֲבֹ֣דָתָ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־עָבְד֥וּ בָהֶ֖ם בְּפָֽרֶךְ׃

And they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and in bricks, and in all the work of the field, which they made them do with rigor. (1:14)

Either way, we see that the material world of the slave becomes the instrument of the plague.

And we see that which they did to the Jews, is now being done to the Egyptians and their domestic animals (אדם ובהמה — adam and behemah).

And once again, we see an escalation as we work our way through the rounds of the plagues.

Kinim irritate and degrade. Shechin wounds and disables.

Indeed, with shechin even the chartumim cannot stand before Moshe. What had been bodily misery becomes bodily incapacity.

The Third Round

Now we come to the third round.

And once again, at the opening of a new elevation, Hashem explains what this stage is for:

בַּעֲבוּר תֵּדַע כִּי אֵין כָּמֹנִי בְּכׇל הָאָרֶץ

so that you know that there is none like Me in all the earth.

The progression is unmistakable.

First: that I am Hashem.
Then: that I am Hashem in the midst of the earth.
Now: that there is none like Me in all the earth.

The claim is growing as the plagues unfold.

And as it is with the purpose-statements, so it is with the plagues themselves.

Barad

Begin with Barad.

Here the textual connection to Dever is hard to miss.

Dever struck the mikneh in the sadeh:

הִנֵּה יַד ה’ הוֹיָה בְּמִקְנְךָ אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׂדֶה בַּסּוּסִים בַּחֲמֹרִים בַּגְּמַלִּים בַּבָּקָר וּבַצֹּאן

behold, the hand of Hashem will be upon your livestock that are in the field — upon the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the cattle, and the flock.

Barad returns to that same terrain — mikneh and sadeh — but expands it:

וְעַתָּה שְׁלַח הָעֵז אֶת מִקְנְךָ וְאֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר לְךָ בַּשָּׂדֶה כָּל הָאָדָם וְהַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר יִמָּצֵא בַשָּׂדֶה וְלֹא יֵאָסֵף הַבַּיְתָה וְיָרַד עֲלֵהֶם הַבָּרָד וָמֵתוּ

and now send, bring your livestock and everything that is yours in the field under shelter; every man and beast that is found in the field and is not brought home — the hail will come down upon them, and they will die.

And then the Torah makes the further expansion explicit:

וַיַּךְ הַבָּרָד בְּכׇל־אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם אֵת כׇּל־אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׂדֶה מֵאָדָם וְעַד־בְּהֵמָה וְאֵת כׇּל־עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה הִכָּה הַבָּרָד וְאֶת כׇּל־עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה שִׁבֵּר

and the hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, from man to beast; and the hail struck every herb of the field, and every tree of the field it shattered.

Dever struck the animal world of the field.
Barad widens the blow.

Now it is not only mikneh, but also כל האדם והבהמה אשר ימצא בשדה. And beyond that, the Torah explicitly adds plant life: כל עשב השדה and כל עץ השדה.

So this is not simply a repetition of Dever. It is an expansion of it.

The attack on Egypt’s economic life is now widening. First the animal life of the field was struck. Now the growing life of the field begins to be struck as well.

And here the house suddenly changes meaning.

With Tzefardea and Arov, the house had become vulnerable. Creatures entered bedrooms, ovens, and private spaces. But now the house becomes the place of refuge. Bring your servants inside. Bring your animals inside. Whoever comes into the house can be saved.

The place Egypt once violated now becomes the place in which one may seek protection.

Arbeh

Then comes Arbeh.

Now the blow spreads even further:

וְכִסָּה אֶת עֵין הָאָרֶץ ... וְאָכַל אֶת יֶתֶר הַפְּלֵטָה הַנִּשְׁאֶרֶת לָכֶם מִן הַבָּרָד

it will cover the surface of the land ... and it will eat the surviving remnant that was left for you from the hail.

Barad began the attack on plant life.
Arbeh completes it.

Barad breaks.
Arbeh devours.

These are twin agricultural strikes.

The first damages what is standing.
The second consumes what remains.

And now the economic war has clearly moved from animal life to plant life — from the creatures that work the field, carry goods from the field, and support the field, to what grows in the field itself.

All this work in the field that the Jewish people had done, all this benefit Egypt had been drawing from Jewish slave labor — now it is being lost.

Choshech

Then comes Choshech.

Now Moshe’s hand is stretched not toward water, not toward dust, not toward soot, but toward heaven:

נְטֵה יָדְךָ עַל הַשָּׁמַיִם

stretch out your hand toward the heavens.

That matters.

Until now, the plagues have been expanding the territory of Egypt that is being struck.

First the waters.
Then the dust.
Then the homes.
Then the fields.
Then the borders.

And now, with Choshech, it is not only territory that is struck. It is time itself.

וְיָמֵשׁ חֹשֶׁךְ

and one will feel darkness.

Choshech is different from the plagues that kill.

Dever destroys livestock.
Barad and Arbeh together destroy plant life.
But Choshech does something else.

It blocks light.

And by blocking light, it prevents growth, recovery, and rebirth.

Light gives warmth.
Light gives visibility.
Light makes fertility and growth possible.

To remove light is not merely to make Egypt suffer. It is to cut off one of the great conditions of life itself.

That is one reason Choshech feels like a kind of parallel to Dam.

The Nile is a source of life.
The sun is a source of life.

One gives water.
The other gives light.

Both sustain human life.
Both sustain agricultural life.
And both, in Egypt, were bound up with divinity. The Nile was treated as a god. Ra was the Egyptian sun god.

So it is striking that the first plague begins with water, and the ninth comes to darkness.

At the beginning of the sequence, Hashem strikes one of Egypt’s great life-sources.
Near the end, He strikes another.

And in both, there seems to be some independent medium which prevents the Egyptians from benefiting from their “gods.”

The river is full of blood — so they cannot drink the water.

The air in Egypt seems to be thick — perhaps indicating a foreign substance which prevents the light from shining through.

And the message is theological as well as practical.

These powers are not what you think they are.
They are not independent.
They are not self-sustaining.
They can be taken away.

That is how Egypt learns dependency.

Barad damages what is there.
Arbeh consumes what remains.
Choshech prevents anything from growing back.

That is the third round.

And one way to see the structure of the makkos as a whole is 3 + 3 + 3 + 1.

Three rounds of three, each introduced by its own purpose-statement, each one building on the last.

The first round exposes what Egypt did and what Hashem sees.
The second round expands the war and begins the attack on Egypt’s animal-based economy.
The third round widens that attack further — first to the growing life of the field, then to the possibility of growth itself.

Each round maintains what was present in the previous round and expands upon it.

At this point we should step back and notice the nature of the battle.

It is painful.
It is devastating.
It strikes Egypt’s ordinary life and economic foundations at ever deeper levels.

But Egypt’s military might has not yet been directly touched.

Until this point, the war has been fought through the systems that sustain Egypt — its water, its bodies, its animals, its fields, its produce, and even its access to light itself.

Future for Future

By the time we reach Makkas Bechoros, death has been expanding for a long time.

The fish die, and the Nile stinks of death.
The tzefardea die, and the land stinks of death.
With Arov and then Dever, death moves closer and closer.
With Barad and Arbeh, plant life itself is destroyed.
Choshech is not death, but darkness and death are close cousins.

And now the blow reaches its human climax.

Adam and Behemah

And when it does, it also brings to completion a textual line that has been building for some time.

In Kinim, the plague falls on אדם ובהמה:

וַתְּהִי הַכִּנָּם בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה

and the lice were on man and beast.

In Shechin, the same pair returns in more acute form:

וַיְהִי שְׁחִין אֲבַעְבֻּעֹת פֹּרֵחַ בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה

and there were boils breaking out on man and beast.

And now, in Makkas Bechoros, that line reaches its end in death:

וּמֵת כָּל בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבְּכֹר פַּרְעֹה ... עַד בְּכוֹר הַשִּׁפְחָה ... וְכֹל בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה

and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh ... to the firstborn of the maidservant ... and every firstborn of beast.

So there is an escalation here as well.

Kinim.
Shechin.
Bechoros.

Affliction.
Incapacity.
Death.

And the target is precise.

The firstborn is not merely a child.
The firstborn is continuity.
The firstborn is inheritance.
The firstborn is the future passing from one generation to the next.

That is what Egypt attacked when it went after the Jewish baby boys. And that is what is being struck now in return.

Future for future.

Cry and Silence

There is also a great cry in Egypt:

וְהָיְתָה צְעָקָה גְדֹלָה בְּכׇל אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם

and there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt.

But among Israel there is silence:

וּלְכֹל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא יֶחֱרַץ כֶּלֶב לְשֹׁנוֹ

but against any of the children of Israel, not a dog shall whet its tongue.

The people whose cries rose to heaven pass through the night in silence. The nation that ignored those cries is now filled with its own.

The Middle of the Night

And this happens in the middle of the night.

Egypt’s violence against Israel’s children was hidden, deniable, and bound up with the secrecy of night. Children were taken under cover of darkness and cast into the Nile. Now, in the middle of the night, the hidden crime returns in a form no one can deny.

The Nile Returns

And here we should note a second structure within the Ten Makkos.

As we noted earlier, the Nile is parallel to the Sun — both are sources of life.

But the Nile filled with blood is parallel to Makkas Bechoros. Not as life-source, but as blood-guilt.

At the Nile, blood appeared where Egyptian violence had been hidden.
Here, at the end, that blood-guilt is answered in Egypt’s own homes.

The Egyptians had been warned. G-d saw all that you had done.

Admit it.
Rectify it.
Ask forgiveness for it.

That was the warning. It was a warning the Egyptians ignored. Here, we see the consequences of that choice.

G-d did not forget.

Pharaoh’s War

Let us now try to tie this together.

By the end of the ninth plague, Egypt has been devastated. By the end of the tenth, its future itself has been struck. At that point, the story could have ended. Israel could have left. Egypt could have let them go. The entire chapter of Egypt might have closed there.

But Pharaoh makes a choice.

He cannot allow it to end that way.

So he harnesses his chariot, gathers his army, takes his elite force — six hundred chosen chariots — and goes after Israel.

War.
What a choice for Paro to make.

At the very beginning, Pharaoh’s fear was not simply that the Jews would multiply. His fear was that they would leave in the context of war:

הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה לוֹ פֶּן יִרְבֶּה וְהָיָה כִּי תִקְרֶאנָה מִלְחָמָה וְנוֹסַף גַּם הוּא עַל שֹׂנְאֵינוּ וְנִלְחַם בָּנוּ

let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when a war occurs, they too join our enemies and fight against us.

Paro feared war.
Now he is starting a war.
And he is about to learn that Hashem is a “man” of war:

ה׳ אִ֣ישׁ מִלְחָמָ֑ה

Hashem is a man of war. (Exodus 15:3)

Paro was afraid of the Jewish people leaving Egypt via war — and so he attempted to outsmart them.

He thought that by enslaving them, he could control them and prevent them ever leaving.

He sought to contain them, weaken them, and prevent that future from ever arriving. He enslaved them so they would never leave.

And now, when they are in fact leaving, he does the very thing he feared from the beginning.

He goes to war.

The Great Irony

And here is the great irony of this tale.

The man who feared war, used cunning and subterfuge to prevent the Jewish exodus:

הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה

let us deal shrewdly

And now, that very same exodus is going to be secured by G-d outmaneuvering Paro vis-a-vis the war that Paro himself is now starting.

Hashem leads Israel to the sea. Egypt sees them hemmed in and trapped. Paro thinks he has finally regained control. He pursues them into the water.

And there, the Nile returns.

Because that blood in the Nile was not only a sign of what Egypt had done. It was also a warning of what Egypt was becoming.

The blood in the water said two things at once.

First: you killed their children, and your children will die in turn.

Second: you are murderers, and murderers themselves must answer for the blood they spill.

That is why the Nile opens more than one line at once.

It opens the line that leads to the smiting of the Egyptian Sun god.

It leads to the line of the smiting of the Egyptian first born.

And now it will lead to the line of the smiting of Paro and his army.

And that military power is brought to the bottom of the sea.

The same kingdom that cast Israel’s children into water is itself cast into water.

The same regime that tried to bury its crimes beneath the Nile is now buried beneath the sea.

One sign — blood in the water of the Nile.
Two warnings.
Two fulfillments.
Brought together by One G-d.

Share masmid

Everyone knows the halacha of עד דלא ידע, and we all have different relationships with this mitzvah. Some of us love it. Some of us, dare I say, may hate it — or at least strongly dislike it. Others put up with it.

For me personally, my relationship to the mitzvah is more positive than most — but maybe not as excited as others. But I would like to move beyond my emotional relationship to the mitzvah and just take some time to try to understand it.

Regardless of whether we enjoy it, I think we can agree that it’s a bit difficult to understand.

It certainly does not seem in line with the nature of most of the mitzvot in the Torah.

After all, on Yom Kippur and other fast days we hold ourselves back from regular food and water.

On Shabbos we do have a Mitzvah of eating pleasurable food, but not to excess.

The same on Yom Tov, when there is a Mitzvah of simchas Yom Tov — which involves eating meat and drinking wine — once again that is not to excess. That is for enjoyment and no more.

And so it is with Mitzvah after Mitzvah. When there is a Mitzvah to partake of the physical, it is always limited and controlled in nature.

Over and over again in the Torah we see the principles of balance and healthy limits combined with self-control and restraint.

And then there is Purim.

Is it that on Purim we are finally supposed to let go. Throw off all shackles of self-control and drink until we get into a stupor and lose our awareness (aka daas — דעת)?

Are we really not supposed to know? To become unaware and wild like an animal?

Such a position seems so out of line with the rest of the Torah. And yet, there is the Mitzvah, clear as day:

אָמַר רָבָא: מִיחַיַּיב אִינִישׁ לְבַסּוֹמֵי בְּפוּרַיָּא עַד דְּלָא יָדַע...

Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim until he does not know... (Megillah 7b)

I know — I stopped the line early.
We’ll finish it soon enough.
But for now I just want that first part to sink in.

What in the world are we being commanded to do?

Just the Words

So how about we finish that line:

עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי

Until one does not know between Haman is cursed and Mordechai is blessed

Now this kind of works in English, but it’s slightly awkward. And there is a reason for that. The line is missing a short phrase — one that is understood, but not actually written (as is common in both Tanach and the Gemara).

So let’s try a new translation — one that adds a small word that is implied but not actually written:

עד דלא ידע להבדיל בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי

Until one does not know how to distinguish between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.”

The word להבדיל (lehavdil) — “to distinguish” — is not actually in the original line, but it is understood. And without it, the line does not make grammatical sense.

We find the same pattern in Sefer Shmuel, when Barzilai declines Dovid HaMelech’s invitation to stay with him in Yerushalayim:

בֶּן־שְׁמֹנִים שָׁנָה אָנֹכִי הַיּוֹם הַאֵדַע בֵּין־טוֹב לְרָע

I am eighty years old today. Can I still distinguish between good and bad? (Shmuel Bes 19:35)

The same structure and the same implied word: להבדיל. Rashi there confirms it.

So now our line makes sense.
Well, at least grammatically speaking.
But now that it makes grammatical sense, it doesn’t make logical or moral sense.

Because let’s understand what we are being told — that we drink until we can no longer distinguish between the fact that Haman is cursed (ארור המן) and Mordechai being blessed (ברוך מרדכי)

What?

Why in the world would I want to drink to the point where I cannot make that distinction?
What is the goal?
To somehow or other see them as the same?

Is this some sort of radical moral relativism? Where I see no moral distinction between Haman and Mordechai? Is it some sort of radical moral apathy? Where I don’t care who’s blessed and who’s cursed?

Neither of these seem possible. And yet, if we take the time to read the words properly, that is exactly what they seem to be saying.

Expanding Our Options

So far, we have limited ourselves to two types of distinctions.

One is a moral distinction — in that we see no moral distinction between Haman and Mordechai. The second distinction is in terms of outcomes — in that we do not care about the outcomes of either Haman or Mordechai.

And both options seem deeply problematic.

So what are our options?

For starters, perhaps we are missing something with one or both of our two distinctions that we mentioned above.

It’s hard to see. Moral relativism and moral apathy are hardly noble positions. I can’t imagine that the Torah is encouraging us to be less moral.

But maybe there is a nuance that we are missing.

That is one option — one that we will explore.

But there is another. And that is to expand our list of distinctions. Perhaps there is another way to understand this Mitzvah that we are missing. A type of distinction that we make that we shouldn’t.

A Third Distinction

Let’s start with our second option — looking for a new distinction. We’ll start by giving it a name — we’ll call it a narrative distinction.

When we talk about narratives, we’re talking about stories. About tales. About how things are transmitted and told.

Now life, as we have pointed out before, often has narrative elements to it. There is tension. There is suspense. There is not knowing how things are going to play out. And we often live the news and the events of our lives from that perspective.

We get emotional about it.
We care and talk about it.
We wonder and worry about it.

And we oftentimes analyze it.

And it could be that on that level — the level of analyzing the story of life — we are being told: you need to drink until you do not see the distinction between Haman and Mordechai, Mordechai and Haman — on that level.

Let’s see what that might mean from the perspective of the Megillah.

Let’s jump into Chapter three and live that chapter.

Haman has the king’s ring.
He has a sealed decree.
He has political authority and military backing.
He has secrecy and surprise.

And the Jews are scattered and vulnerable.

וַיָּסַר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶת־טַבַּעְתּוֹ מֵעַל יָדוֹ וַיִּתְּנָהּ לְהָמָן בֶּן־הַמְּדָתָא הָאֲגָגִי צֹרֵר הַיְּהוּדִים

The king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. (Esther 3:10)

If someone stands up at that moment and confidently declares ארור המן וברוך מרדכי. We would think such a person is detached from reality. All the visible data points the other way.

Why?

Because in Chapter 3 it looks like Haman is blessed and Mordechai is cursed. Or, more accurately, it looks like Haman will be blessed and that Mordechai will be cursed.

Did you catch that — this is a key point!

Being blessed or cursed is a state of being that is usually the end result of a process. Right now, in Chapter 3, Haman does look blessed. He has money, power, prestige.

But what about Mordechai and the Jews. They are not yet cursed. Haman and his men have not yet attacked them. They are (thank G-d) not destroyed.

That is just the trajectory of the story as it currently stands. The facts and analysis back up that trajectory. That is, indeed, where things are heading at the moment.

That is what the future looks like.

But we don’t live our lives in the future, we live them in the present.

At the moment that Chapter 3 took place, there was no sound, rational reason for declaring that Mordechai was blessed and Haman was cursed.

There was nothing in the data of the moment that leads to that conclusion. Indeed, as we noted, the data indicates that the opposite is most likely to be true.

And it is here that we reach our first (but not last) insight into the Mitzvah of עד דלא ידע.

We are not being told to be blind to this distinction in all situations. There are clearly moments when it matters. But in terms of the narrative perspective of life — wherein we are living the story — we are being told to stop trying to read the blessings of Mordechai and the curses of Haman into the present moment.

Why?

Because sometimes it is not there. Yes, eventually Mordechai will be blessed and Haman will be cursed. But who says that you can see that in the present moment. Who says that G-d has written that into the script of life?

No one!

And yet, we read life this way all of the time. We read the headlines, analyze events and make our proclamations about what will be. Who will live and who will die. Who by fire and who by water.

We think we can figure out blessings and curses from the narrative of the moment. As if we were the Creator Himself. Comes the Megillah and says — G-d runs the world. And He runs it in ways that you cannot always see or understand.

And so, on Purim, we are enjoined to reorient ourselves. Yes, you should see which way the wind is blowing. Mordechai did. He saw what was happening and went out and protested.

But note, protesting is the opposite of predicting. Protesting is saying that yes, the data indicate that we are heading one way. But I refuse to be a slave to destiny. I refuse to assume that the data of the moment equals the fact of the future.

And so this is our first level understanding of עד דלא ידע. And, like the other Mitzvos of the Torah, it is a level of limitation. We are limiting our analytical perspective to be in sync with what reality allows. And not letting it extend into the realm of the rationally unknowable.

Living the Future

Let us move beyond the moment into the future. We’ll start, though, by remembering a promise from the past:

וַאֲבָרְכָה מְבָרְכֶיךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ אָאֹר

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. (Bereishis 12:3)

Thus said HaKadosh Baruch Hu to Avraham Avinu at the very beginning of Jewish history. And this promise is not merely a particular promise to a particular person at a particular point in time.

No, there is something more fundamental going on here. There is a universal promise, made to the Jewish people (Avraham’s spiritual descendants) that permeates all of time. In short, this promise is built into the very fabric of human history. It is as much a law of nature as the laws of physics.

Which means that I am not limited to living the moment. It does not matter if all the data of the day points to Mordechai being cursed and Haman being blessed (as it did in the third chapter of the Megillah). Because we know how the story will eventually end.

True, it may not be that the particular Mordechai of the Megillah will end up blessed. That’s for G-d to decide.

But we do know that at some point, there will be some Mordechai (in spirit, if not in name) who will end up being blessed. While at the same time there will be some Haman who will end up being cursed.

That ending is known. It’s just the specifics of the ending that are not known.

And we can live this reality.

We can live with the knowledge that we don’t know how the day-to-day history will play out, while also knowing that there is a covenantal architecture to history. That there is a divine plan that will eventually play out.

This is a healthier way to live the narrative of life. But even here, there is a hidden danger.

When we need to know the future, then we are no longer living it. And by need, I mean a psychological need. One where we worry about and fret over the story and how it will end.

At this level, we turn to the tradition not for guidance on how to live the moment, but as some sort of pyschological reassurance that things will work out. Yes, on one level this is healthy. Life is hard and we need to be reassured. But there is another level where this is no longer health.

What, then, is a healthy perspective?

That is where I am aware of and live by the covenant, but where I don’t use the covenant as a psychological crutch. I don’t need to mull over my head how it could be that the present moment can lead to the future promise. I don’t worry about the details and try to figure everything out.

Instead, I am okay with living with the unknown. I don’t need to figure out how the covenant will play out. I may investigate that from a point of curiosity or a desire to see the possible ways in which the Divine Will plays out. But not out of psychological necessity.

This, then, is our second level of עד דלא ידע. The level where I don’t need to know how Haman will be curses and Mordechai will be blessed. Where I can simply live with HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s promise without worry about the promise.

So yes, on the one hand I still make the distinction on the intellectual/covenantal level. I know that Haman will be cursed and Mordechai will be blessed. But I don’t need to know how.

Instead, I simply live the Divine historical narrative — watching it play out in real time. I’m engaged, but not driven.

Artistic Examples

Pick your favorite form or art.

Is it music (for me, it is).

How about painting?
Or sculptures?
Or plays or poetry?

I could go on.

Now put yourself in the artistic moment. You are listening to the symphony, walking through the gallery, reading the poem.

What is that like?
And what is it not like?

It is not analytical. In the artistic moment you are not analyzing the music. Rather you are engaged with and being uplifted by it. After the artistic experience you may analyze it. But not during.

And even then, in the mode of analysis, there is an experiential element. We analyze because we enjoy. We want to understand the beauty that we have witnessed and experienced.

That is the mode of living Divine history that I am attempting to describe. Whereby we experience the Divine story as it unfolds and analyze it from that perspective of the experience.

Of course, art is often a required taste. Indeed, we don’t always allow ourselves to enjoy the artistic moment.

One’s parents drag us to the symphony.
Or put on Shlomo Carlebach in the car (Abba, that is so old).
Or take us to the art museum.

We are bored.
Uninterested.
We want to leave.

We have not yet learned how to live the art — because we haven’t yet learned how to tap into its (not so) hidden beauty.

But that can change.
We can open yourself up to the experience.

I write music. And (some of) my music has a certain jazzy element to it. And my son — well, he doesn’t jazz with the jazz.

And yet, one day, he said something akin to the following:

You know, this song is actually quite nice, even if it is jazzy.

He has started to transcend his artistic tastes.

And so it is with the Divine narrative. We can transcend our artistic experience of G-d’s history. We can open ourselves up to it.

A Job to be Done

There is, I believe, an even deeper level. Although, I do wonder — perhaps it is not deeper, but just different. This is the level of the job to be done.

In chapter four of the Megillah there is a moment of transition for Esther. The moment when she realizes that she has a job that is to be done:

לֵךְ כְּנוֹס אֶת־כׇּל־הַיְּהוּדִים הַנִּמְצְאִים בְּשׁוּשָׁן... וְכַאֲשֶׁר אָבַדְתִּי אָבָדְתִּי

Note what she is and she is not doing.

She does not sit calculating probabilities.
She does not forecast outcomes.
Rather, she gathers, fasts, prepares, and acts!

Like a team down in a game — they are not staring at the scoreboard wondering how it will end. They are asking: what is the next play? What is required of us now?

And they execute.

At this level, we do not distinguish between ארור המן and ברוך מרדכי. We do not analyze, predict or even experience the Divine narrative.

Rather, we ask what does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want from me right now? What is my role?

The Blessing within the Curse

There is one final level I wish to discuss — in many ways the most difficult one.

At this level, the cursing of Haman and the blessing of Mordechai are no longer experienced as separate and competing realities. Instead, they are intricately connected realities, with one being the source of the other.

Ask yourself, what would have happened if Haman had never come on the scene? Would we have ever reached the level of kimu v’kiblu (קימו וקבלו) — the national renewal that takes place in Chapter 9 of the Megillah?

Or how about the joy that we are all experiencing at the (hopefully) pending downfall of the modern day equivalent of Haman — the evil regime in Iran. Would we and the people of Iran be singing and dancing in the streets if it weren’t for the years of evil that we have all had to endure?

No.

There is a certain type of joy that one can only experience if they have first had to deal with a certain type of evil. Or, put otherwise, we can only get to the blessings of Mordechai if we first deal with the curses of Haman.

Would we prefer not to take this road. 100%!

But that is not the point. The point is that when we do travel on this road, the transformation, salvation and joy that we experience is a direct result of the evil that has transpired.

And from this persepctive, there is no distinction. One is inherenet in the other. Or, put otherwise, they are both part of one Divinely orchestrated whole.

Time to Drink

We are now ready to drink some wine.

Why wine?

Because wine has particularly properties that help us make these types of transformations.

Wine lowers our internal defenses.
Removes the barriers.
Sets us free.

So, once a year, we are commanded — drink to set your mind free.

Leave behind your analytical mind when analysis won’t help.
Detach yourself from your psychological needs.
Allow yourself the artistic experience.

Or, put in terms of the Mitzvah.

Drink until you don’t analyze how Haman will be cursed and Mordechai will be blessed.

Drink until you don’t have a psychological need to know how Haman will be cursed and Mordechai will be blessed.

Drink until you can just live the story of Haman becoming cursed and Mordechai becoming blessed.

Drink until you can see what your role is in the Divine narrative.

Drink until you see the interconnected nature of the curses and blessings in the world.

This, I believe, is (part of) the Mitzvah of drinking on Purim. It is the Mitzvah of a change in our mindset.

Which means that once we have reached that new mindset, we have fulfilled our obligation. There is no need — and perhaps no Mitzvah — to drink anymore.

May you have a freilichin and elevating Purim!

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There is a famous question of the Beis Yosef about the miracle of Chanukkah. Why, he wonders, is Chanukkah an eight-day holiday? Shouldn’t it really be a seven-day holiday?

After all, there was enough oil for one day — so the first day was not miraculous. In other words: let’s say all the oil burned on the first day, and then for the next seven days the Menorah burned “on fumes.” That means there was nothing miraculous about day one and everything miraculous about the next seven.

That is the Beis Yosef’s question — and it is quite famous (at least in certain circles). A lot of ink has been spilled dealing with and answering it. And it would seem a shame to spill any ink on it.

That is why I’m going to write this digitally.

In other words — I have “my” answer to this question. Now, I don’t really know if it is my answer or not, since I have not taken the time to skim (let alone learn) all the various approaches to this question.

So it may not be “mine” in the sense of being unique. And who knows — it may not even be “mine” in the sense of my having come up with it. For all I know, I heard this idea in some sicha some time in some place, and later on I thought I discovered it.

But it is certainly mine in the sense that I resonate with it. I like it, and I think it is true. Of course, I also believe there may be other true answers — but this is the true answer that most speaks to me.

And I hope it speaks to you too.

Here goes.

A Simple Approach

I have a simple method for approaching this problem: read the story as it is presented in the Gemara in Shabbos 21b, and notice what the Gemara itself chooses to emphasize.

We’ll start (almost) at the beginning — from the moment the Greeks enter the Heichal of the Beis HaMikdash. We are told that when they entered, they made all the oils in the Heichal tamei:

שֶׁכְּשֶׁנִּכְנְסוּ יְוָוֽנִים לַהֵיכָל טִמְּאוּ כׇּל הַשְּׁמָנִים שֶׁבַּהֵיכָל

Now, that is interesting.

Did the Greeks purposely make the oil tamei, or did it just happen as a byproduct of ransacking the place? And if it was on purpose — then why? Why not just spill out all the oil, or take it with them? (I’m sure oil had some financial value.)

So that is our first question:

Question #1: Assuming the Greeks purposely made all the oil tamei, why? What was in it for them to “defile” the oil of the Beis HaMikdash?

Let’s continue with the story.

At this point we have a major military success: the Chashmonaim regain control of the Beis HaMikdash. And then it says they searched and found only one small jar of oil which still had the seal of the Kohen Gadol on it:

כשֶׁגָּבְרָה מַלְכוּת בֵּית חַשְׁמוֹנַאי וְנִצְּחוּם, בָּדְקוּ וְלֹא מָצְאוּ אֶלָּא פַּךְ אֶחָד שֶׁל שֶׁמֶן שֶׁהָיָה מוּנָּח בְּחוֹתָמוֹ שֶׁל כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל

In other words, they found a jar that had not been opened and therefore was still tahor (see Tosafos if you have any halachic questions here).

That is all nice and good — but now I have a second question. Why did they search? Why the bedikah?

After all, the halachah is that they could use tamei oil until such time as they were able to acquire tahor oil. There are halachic principles here — “onus Rachmana patra,” and the idea that under certain circumstances public service can continue even when conditions aren’t ideal. So why the big insistence?

And let me conjecture what is meant by “bedikah.” I think of something like what we do when we do bedikas chametz. There, we are enjoined to search in every nook and cranny. Any place there might be chametz — we check.

So too here: they checked every nook and cranny of the Beis HaMikdash. Any and every place there might be oil — they checked.

Why?

So this is our second question:

Question #2: If it was halachically acceptable to use tamei oil, why make such a big issue out of it? Why the need to search for tahor oil?

And we’ll add one last question:

Question #3: Is there a deeper, substantive connection between the search for the oil and the miracle of Chanukkah?

Obviously on a technical level there is. If you don’t have oil, you don’t have anything to light. But is there something deeper than that — something essential?

So, all in all:

1. Why did the Greeks purposely make the oil tamei?

2. Why did the Chashmonaim insist on searching for tahor oil?

3. Is there a deeper connection between the search and the miracle?

It’s in the Story

I would like to suggest that the answer is found right within the story itself — in the way the Gemara tells it.

Here is the next line:

וְלֹא הָיָה בּוֹ אֶלָּא לְהַדְלִיק יוֹם אֶחָד. נַעֲשָׂה בּוֹ נֵס וְהִדְלִיקוּ מִמֶּנּוּ שְׁמוֹנָה יָמִים

“There wasn’t in it enough oil except for one day. A miracle was done with it, and they lit from it for eight days.”

It is that small little pronoun — “it.”

To see it, let’s rewrite the line without the emphasis:

“There was only enough oil to last one day. But a miracle happened, and they had eight days of light.”

Look at that. We can tell the story without constantly referring back to this small jar. But when the Gemara tells the story, it does refer back to it — three times:

• There was not enough in it except to light for one day.

• There was made with it a miracle.

• And they lit from it eight days.

There is something unique — or special — or dare we say miraculous — about this jar of oil. If we can find out what that “something” is, then I would like to suggest we have found our eighth miracle.

Because right now we only have seven miracles (the seven extra days). We need an eighth miracle if we are going to celebrate eight days.

And I believe it is hiding here: in this jar.

So what is so miraculous about this jar of oil?

A Simple Answer — and Why It’s Not the Full Answer

We could say, of course, that its very existence is miraculous: the Greeks overlooked it. And I think there is truth in that.

As I understand the story, the Greeks purposely and methodically attempted to make all the oil tamei. We still don’t know why, but at least we can conjecture that they did.

And the Greeks were a serious army. Organized. Dedicated. They almost reached 100%. They almost got every single jar.

We know because it required a bedikah to find the one little jar. It required searching in the nooks and crannies of the Beis HaMikdash.

And yet somehow — they missed one.

So yes, there is a miracle there.

But I don’t think that is the full miracle. I think that is only half of it.

The other half is to be found in the bedikah itself — and it is connected to our second question: why did they search? Why was it so important to them?

And the answer to that, I believe, is found in our first question: why did the Greeks care. And I would like to suggest that they cared — because they “cared” about tuma and tahara.

Why? We’ll get there. But first we need to understand these two words in and of themselves.

Because hidden inside those two words is, I would like to suggest, the essence of this hidden miracle. Because in some ways, the war itself was a war over tumah and taharah.

“Tamei into the Hands of Tahor”

Note the Al HaNissim prayer we say on Chanukkah. In it, we thank G-d for handing over:

• the mighty into the hands of the weak (גבורים ביד חלשים)

• the many into the hands of the few (רבים ביד מעטים)

• the tamei into the hands of the tahorim (טמאים ביד טהורים)

• the wicked into the hands of the righteous (רשעים ביד צדיקים)

• the wanton into the hands of those involved in Torah (זדים ביד עוסקי תורתך)

I get the first two elements in this list.

That the weak beat the mighty — that is a miracle.
That the few beat the many — another miracle.

And I can even make sense of the last two:

That the righteous beat the wicked and that those involved in Torah overcame those who acted with wanton disregard for the Torah.

But “the tamei into the hands of the tahorim.”

What?

Is there something miraculous about tahor defeating tamei? Does being tamei give you a military advantage? Should we train soldiers to touch sheratzim before battle?

No idea yet — but evidently, there was something either miraculous or deeply meaningful about this.

Note those two words: miraculous and meaningful.

What I am suggesting is that some of the items on our “list” are noteworthy because they were miraculous — such as a small, weaker force defeating a larger, stronger one. But others are noteworthy because they were meaningful — such as revealing what the war was really about.

I believe that that is the case with tuma and tahara. Something about tuma and tahara reveal what this war was about. As such, if we can figure out what the relationship between tuma and tahara and this war, we can find our eighth miracle.

Moving Beyond English

If we are going to tackle this, we have to move beyond mere words and less-than-ideal English translations. Writing the words tahor and tamei in italics doesn’t tell us anything. And the fact that there is no good English translation doesn’t help either.

And adding the word “ritual” before pure or impure often misleads more than it enlightens.

In English, the word “pure” often has the sense of a foreign element being mixed in.

So “pure water” means other elements in the water — dirt, particles, contaminants — have been filtered out. They are no longer mixed in. “Impure” means they are still there.

And note: it doesn’t matter whether we can see those foreign elements. Purity or impurity is determined by their presence or absence — regardless of our awareness.

Is that what tumah and taharah mean?

If so, what does it mean to be “ritually” pure? What foreign elements are being mixed in with our ritual acts?

There is another meaning of pure and impure in English: intent.

If I help someone because I genuinely care, we say my intentions are pure. If I help them to get something from them, we say my intentions are impure.

In this usage, “pure/impure” is not about mixture. It is about what is behind the action — what is more fundamental, driving, and motivating it.

So we go back to our phrase: “ritually pure.” Could we understand this in the sense of our intent when we perform mitzvos that don’t obviously have a rational or moral purpose. In that sense, one could try to say that tumah and taharah relate to kavanah — intent.

This sounds like a good contender. It feels right.

But here is the key question:

Is it actually right?

Not so clear.

Because how does one become tahor or tamei? Not via one’s intent, but through contact with certain realities — the classic example being contact with a dead body.

In other words: let a Kohen light the Menorah with the purest intent in the world, with passion and sincerity. But if either he or the oil had contact with death, then he or the oil is tamei.

So as appealing as it is, tahor and tamei seem to have nothing to do with intent.

And so it is with other English meanings of “pure” and “impure”:

• Purity as being clean or hygienic.

• Purity as being natural or unprocessed.

• Purity as being innocent or sinless.

• Purity as being perfect, ideal, or unblemished.

• Purity as being focused or undistracted.

• Purity as being exclusive or unshared.

• Purity as being sacred or holy.

For each of these meanings, we can show it does not map onto the halachic category of tumah and taharah.

And that may itself be our hint.

Death, Holiness, and Light

At the end of the day, tumah and taharah may not be irrational, but they are very hard for the rational mind to relate to at all.

Love is not rational, but we can see it exists. So too passion, beauty, desire. None are rational, but they clearly make their mark on the world.

But tumah and taharah — do these things even exist? Are they part of the world we actually live in?

As far as the Greeks (and others) were (and still are) concerned: clearly not. What difference does it make if you were in a tent with a dead body when you light the Menorah? It makes no difference whatsoever.

That was (and still is) the Greek attitude.

Now, Greeks can make peace with quaint “nonsense.” They can look at it with superiority and condescension. A harmless charm.

But that’s only if it’s harmless.

If, on the other hand, they see it as dangerous — as holding us back — then they oppose it.

And that, I believe, is exactly what happened.

Because the Greeks passionately believed in the need and benefits of rationality. Or put differently: they valued light. They believed in light. One might even say they worshipped light.

And then the Jews come along and say: there is this invisible, non-sensical thing called tumah and taharah that affects whether the Menorah can be lit. If the oil is tahor you can light. If it is tamei you cannot — exceptional circumstances notwithstanding.

So one aspect of the battle was about the source of light. Does this world of tuma and tahara exist, and does it affect the kind of light we can bring into the world — the kind of insight and illumination we can have?

The Jews said yes.
The Greeks said no.
And they fought over that yes and no.

To understand this, though, we have to go back to the dead body — and the tumah it imparts.

A Glance at Death

I remember many years ago a friend of mine related an experience. He was on a bus in Mexico. Traffic was backed up for a long time. There had been a terrible accident.

Eventually traffic eased and the bus started moving. As it passed the scene, my friend glanced — and what he saw sent a shudder down his spine.

On the side of the road lay a man — dead. He didn’t see the face. Just the outline. A blanket covered the entire body. That’s how he knew.

That was it — a momentary glance. But it made an effect. Not trauma for life, but an impression. A negative impression.

Now ask: when he returned to class the next day, could he focus?

If it was math, could he understand the formula? If it was history, could he remember facts? If it was English, could he write creatively?

The Greek answer is: yes. Of course. Thinking is thinking. Reason is reason. A glimpse of death doesn’t change the logic of an equation.

But the Torah says: no — there is an effect.

Not necessarily an effect in the realm of ordinary cognition, but an effect in an aspect of reality the Greeks were blind to: holiness.

Where Tuma and Tahara Actually Matter

Let us note for a second: where does it really matter whether something is tahor or tamei?

It is in the world of things that are holy — things that participate in kedushah.

• Terumah
  Terumah may only be eaten by a Kohen who is tahor. Tuma does not change the food itself; it disqualifies the person from consuming something holy.

• Karbanot (Kodashim)
  Offerings must be brought, handled, and eaten in a state of tahara. Tuma does not reflect a defect in the animal or the owner’s intent; it limits participation in the sacrificial domain.

• The Avodah in the Beis HaMikdash
  A Kohen who is tamei may not perform the avodah, regardless of righteousness or sincerity. Tuma functions as a boundary for engaging in Divine service.

• Entry into the Beis HaMikdash
  Certain forms of tuma bar entry. The restriction reflects the sanctity of the space, not moral failure.

• Sacred vessels and objects
  Vessels designated for holy use can become tamei and require specific procedures to be restored. Their practical function remains intact; their sacred status does not.

What Is Not Affected by Tuma and Tahara

• Ordinary food (chullin)

• Moral standing or righteousness

• Intent, emotion, or sincerity

• Intellectual or spiritual insight

In short: tuma and tahara do not describe physical conditions, moral worth, or psychological states — they regulate access to the domains of holiness.

In other words, we do not allow death to enter the realm of the holy.

When we connect to the Divine — the ultimate source of life and existence — we do so from a perspective of life. And if we have come into contact with death, we surround ourselves with an element associated with life — water — and then re-enter the realm of holiness.

We immerse in a mikvah — enveloped in life — and then engage with the holy.

So far, I don’t think the Greeks would necessarily object. They may not see the need, but I doubt they would fight a war over it.

But that changes when it comes to the Menorah.

The Menorah Is Different

The Menorah is holy. It is in the Holy Temple. Its oil must be tahor. It too must have no connection to death.

And here the Torah is saying something radical: the ability of the Menorah to shine — not physically, but spiritually — is tainted by contact with death.

This is where the Greeks said no.

This, they felt, holds us back intellectually.

We can almost hear an echo of the serpent in the garden: G-d is holding you back. He doesn’t want you to open your eyes.

In other words, the Greeks saw in Torah something that would limit our ability to “shine light” into the world — to understand it, to be inspired by it, to discover within it.

And as such, they attacked.

Not merely the Jews physically, but the Jewish perspective on death and light.

It is as if they said: if you want to keep death away from sacrifices, fine. But if you want to say death affects light — that we cannot allow. That is anti-intellectual. That cannot stand.

And the problem for us is that at first glance, it seems they have a point.

What is the connection between tuma (read: death) and light?

What the Greeks Missed

It seems obvious that we can understand the world regardless of our interaction with death. Not everything obvious is true — but let’s grant it for a moment.

Even then, something is missing.

There is more to the mind than understanding. There is also discovery and inspiration. I may be capable of understanding a math equation, but that does not mean I can discover one.

And there is also influence. I may love an idea, but it does not follow that I can ignite that love in someone else.

In other words, if we want a world of light, we need more than cognition. We need revelation — the emergence of truths that were hidden. We need inspiration — the ability to see possibilities and to move others to see them too.

And this is one of the Torah’s key insights: holiness is not just something we do. It is an awareness of reality and a way of interacting with it.

But it is also a dangerous realm. We are entering the world of the Divine, and how we enter affects how we see.

This is where we have to understand kedushah.

Kedushah, Death, and the Source of Light

Let me now address the deeper issue that underlies all of this: what holiness (kedushah) actually is.

Here is a working definition. Kedushah refers to those items, actions, and spaces that are dedicated to helping us connect to, perceive, and understand God. In other words, when we enter the world of holiness, we are entering the realm of the ultimate — that which stands behind everything that exists.

And it may very well be that this itself is part of the fundamental disagreement with the Greeks: whether reality has an ultimate, transcendent foundation, and whether human beings can meaningfully relate to it.

The Torah’s claim is that when we bring death into this realm, it has consequences — not merely emotional ones, but real effects. It affects three things at once:

1. What we can discover in the realm of holiness

2. What we can understand within it

3. Our ability to influence others, to inspire them, and to draw them toward that reality

Some may argue that this has no bearing on areas like mathematics or science — and perhaps they are right. But I am not so sure. It may be possible to formulate a serious hypothesis that even in those domains, immersion in death ultimately blinds creativity and insight.

But even if one grants the Greek their claim in the sciences, the Torah insists on something else: when it comes to the Divine, when it comes to ultimate meaning, there must be a separation. If death is allowed to intrude, our vision of reality becomes distorted. We may still function, but we will not truly see. We will understand less, and our influence will be diminished.

And here we arrive at one of the most remarkable features of Torah — and, indeed, of Chanukkah itself.

The miracle of Chanukkah has had an outsized influence on the world. It has inspired people to act, to sacrifice, to see possibilities they would otherwise never see. Inspiration itself is a form of light. It moves people. It opens their eyes.

It allows one to see that a small minority can defeat a vast empire.
That the weak can overcome the mighty.
That a morally constrained group can defeat a powerful but corrupt force.
That those devoted to Torah can overcome those who act wantonly against it.

This is not merely a military insight. It is a way of seeing the world.

And it is a way of seeing that spread do to those who deeply believed in and dediated themselves to the reality of tuma and tahara — after all, it was a Kohein who started the revolt against the Greeks.

And with this, let us return to the war itself.

The War Over Tumah and Taharah

When the Greeks entered the Beis HaMikdash, they did not destroy the oil. On the contrary — they left it. “Light all you want,” they seemed to say. “Have as much oil as you like.”

But don’t tell us that it matters whether that oil is tahor or tamei.

And so they deliberately made it tamei.

Not because they believed in tuma.
But because they believed it was meaningless.

This was their way of dismissing and delegitimizing the entire concept. A way of saying: this does not exist. And now — go ahead and light your Menorah.

But when the Chashmonaim began to experience victory — when the tahor defeated the tamei, when the weak, moral, Torah-committed minority overcame the powerful Greek empire — they understood something.

They understood that this war was really about tuma and tahara.

And therefore, it could not be that all the tahor oil was gone.

It must be, they said, that God left something behind.

And so they searched.

And they found.

And this itself was the first miracle.

The First Miracle: Seeing the Banner

The word nes does not merely mean “miracle.” In Tanach, it also means a banner — something raised high in war to signal direction, purpose, and meaning.

A nes shows people where to go.

The ability to believe — against all odds — that there must still be tahor oil, that holiness has not been extinguished, that death has not won — that itself is a kind of nes. As the Gemara relates:

נַעֲשָׂה בּוֹ נֵס

A miracle (nes) was done with it

And the fact that this belief proved true — that they actually found the flask — completes that miracle (read: nes).

This is the first day of Chanukkah.

The existence of tahor oil at all was already miraculous. And it is that type of light which burns beyond what the Greek view of light would allow. The Greeks may obtain facts, but they cannot reach the heart and souls like the Maccabees did. They cannot create a 2,200 (and counting) holiday. They cannot bring light into the darkness.

But the light that comes from the belief that G-d wants the source of our light to be tahor — that light will keep on shining.

In the Besi HaMikdash it will shine for seven more days.

In history — it will shine for eternity.

Chazal are generally not focused on the technical mechanics of miracles or the precise circumstances that made them necessary. Those are logistical and historical questions that we are often interested in, but they are not Chazal’s primary concern. Rather, their focus is on the fact of the miracle and, more importantly, on its meaning and significance.

In this regard, it is worth noting that the Gemara tells us they did have oil in the Temple, but it was not tahor (ritually pure). And for whatever reason — a reason the sources do not spell out — it took them eight days until they had oil that was ritually pure and fit for lighting the Menorah.

Now, the number eight is a rather significant number in the Torah.

A baby boy enters the covenant through brit milah on the eighth day.
The Mishkan is inaugurated on the eighth day, after seven days of preparation.
Sukkot lasts seven days, followed by an eighth day, Shemini Atzeret, which stands apart.
A newborn kosher animal may not be offered as a korban until it is at least eight days old.

There is a well-known idea, often associated with the Maharal, that seven represents the natural order — the world as it functions within the framework of creation — while eight represents that which goes beyond nature, l’maalah min ha-teva. Eight does not negate nature; it rests upon it, but introduces a dimension that is not contained within the natural system itself.

Seen through that lens, the miracle of Chanukah becomes clearer. The oil itself is entirely natural. Oil burns. The miracle was not that it burned at all, but how it burned — that it burned well beyond what we would naturally expect.

Similarly, the military war in one sense is entirely natural. People fight wars, often over ideology and over competing religious or cultural visions. The miracle of Chanukah is not merely that the Jews won a war. The deeper miracle is the influence that this victory was going to have.

That is what the miracle of the oil is pointing to.

And this is where the importance of tahor oil becomes central. Whatever it means for oil to be tahor (ritually pure), there is a clear message that in the world of influence and inspiration, not just any source of light will do. That source has to have a certain quality — what we call tahor. When the source of light is tahor, the light does not merely burn; it endures. It lasts far longer than the natural order would predict, far longer than it would if everything were operating only within the limits of nature.

The same is true of the war itself. This was not a war fought for land, money, or political power. It was fought in order to be able to live and practice the Torah faithfully, without distortion or coercion. It was a war fought with purity of intent. And the implication of the miracle of the oil is that a victory rooted in that kind of purity would have an influence that far outlasts the influence of ordinary military victories — even victories that are themselves extraordinary.

And indeed, here we are, roughly 2,200 years later, still lighting the menorah and still discussing the miracle.

There’s an interesting pair of halakhot about the sukkah and its s’chach.

The first halakhah deals with the minimum shiur — the minimum thickness of the s’chach. It has to be thick enough that there’s more shade than sun. That doesn’t mean the sukkah has to be dark or heavily shaded. It just means there has to be some noticeable level of protection from the sun — enough that the shade overpowers the sunlight to some degree. That’s the minimum standard. You need some basic, visible protection from the heat and glare of the sun.

But what about the maximum? How thick can the s’chach be?

You might think the upper limit would also relate to the sun — how much light it blocks — but it doesn’t. The Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chaim 631:3) says that ideally, the s’chach should be loose enough that you can see the stars.

That’s fascinating. The minimum requirement is about the sun, about protection and shade. The maximum is about the stars, about seeing through the s’chach. Why this shift? Why do we move from the day to the night, from sunlight to starlight? What might be hiding within these halakhot — what deeper ideas are waiting to be seen between them?

Protection and Awareness

Let’s start with the sun.

When the Gemara says we need more shade than sun, it’s not just about comfort. It’s about awareness. If you’re sitting under s’chach and you notice the sunlight still filtering through, but the shade is greater — you’re aware of what you’re being protected from.

Sukkot is a time of love, care, and divine protection. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is looking out for us — and part of that protection is awareness.

There’s an idea called shalta b’eina — that the s’chach must be visible to the eye. You have to be able to see it, to feel it, to live with it. And I’d like to suggest that this is more than a technical rule.

It’s not enough that God protects us, or even that He loves and cares for us. We have to be aware of that love and care. We have to know that we’re being looked after. That awareness — that living knowledge — is part of the experience of the Shechinah, part of what it means to dwell in the Ananei HaKavod.

When we sense that protection, when we recognize it consciously, we’re not just sitting in a structure — we’re sitting in God’s embrace.

Loving Like G-d Loves

And if we borrow that idea into our own lives, we can see how it applies in other ways.

There are moments when we take on, in a small way, some of the responsibilities of God. One of the clearest examples is when we raise children. We become partners with God in creation.

We love them. We care for them. We protect them. But that alone isn’t enough.

They have to feel loved. They have to experience that love. If you love your child but they don’t feel it, there’s something missing in the love you’re giving. Love has to be experienced to be whole.

So we need to be, in a sense, like the s’chach — providing protection and love in a way that can be seen and felt. Not only are they being protected and loved, but they can recognize it, live it, and feel it as part of their world.

That’s real love — not only to give it, but to make it known.

Light Within the Dark

Now let’s turn to the stars.

There’s a famous Midrash about the sun and the moon. The moon complains to God: “Can two kings share one crown?” And in response, God diminishes the moon’s light.

Later, though, God appeases the moon — by giving it the stars.

So what’s happening here? Is this just a story about physical light? Or is something deeper going on?

I’d like to understand it differently.

The sun and moon represent two ways of experiencing the world — the light of day and the darkness of night. Day symbolizes clarity, joy, and understanding — the moments when everything feels bright and good. Night symbolizes difficulty, loss, and confusion — those times when life feels dim or hidden.

When Elie Wiesel wrote about the Holocaust, his first book was titled Night. That word captures the feeling of darkness — of distance from the light, from the presence of God.

But even in the night, there is light. The moon shines, though more faintly. The question is: how clearly can we see God in the darkness? How clearly can we feel His love and protection when the world is not bright?

Originally, perhaps, humanity could see God equally in the good and in the bad — to bless Him for both. But that clarity has been diminished. The “light of the moon” has been lessened. It’s harder now to perceive the Divine in hardship.

And so God gave the moon — and by extension, gave us — the stars.

The stars are those tiny points of light that appear even when the moon is gone. They’re small, but there are many of them.

Even when it’s darkest — even when the moon has disappeared entirely — there’s still light in the sky.

Maybe the stars don’t shine as brightly as the moon, but they’re there, scattered everywhere, constant reminders that even in the deepest darkness, God’s presence and care never disappear completely.

Even when the sky is cloudy and you can’t see the stars — they’re still there. The clouds pass. The light remains.

And maybe that’s why the halakhah says you should be able to see the stars from your sukkah. Because part of the sukkah’s message is that even in the night — even when you can’t feel the warmth of the sun or the full light of the moon — you can still find those small, shining points of connection.

You can still see, faintly but faithfully, that God’s love is there.

Between Sunlight and Starlight

So perhaps that’s the balance the sukkah teaches us.

By day, we feel the shade and recognize that we’re protected.

By night, we look for the stars and remember that even when life feels dark, the light is never completely gone.

Between sunlight and starlight, the sukkah becomes a space of awareness — of faith, of love, and of the gentle, constant protection that surrounds us.

May we all sit beneath that shade with joy, with gratitude, and with the ability to see the light — both when it shines fully, and when it only flickers faintly through the night.

A thought on how to do teshuva this Yom Kippur.

Take a moment and note your biggest trigger in life. It can be an “active” trigger which animates you in negative ways (e.g., anger, frustration, etc) or a “passive” trigger which leads you to retreat and shut down (e.g., becoming depressed, overly reserved, etc).

Then commit yourself - on Yom Kippur, before G-d Himself - to work on that particular trigger.

To stay calm and collected rather than angry and frustrated.
To be happy and proactive rather than depressed and unduly reserved.

And if you are not aware of what your triggers are, then commit yourself - on Yom Kippur, before G-d Himself - to discover (and then work on) your biggest trigger.

And then, after Yom Kippur, make this trigger your project. Read about it, talk about it, ask about it, get help and assistance with it.

For more often than not, hidden behind our triggers is a world of pain, fear and other issues that subconsciously wields a great deal of control over how we live and experience life. And, again more often than not, this subconscious world inhibits us from doing real teshuva.

It is hard to forgive someone when you are actively experiencing pain.

It is hard to stay calm when internally you are in fear.

And it’s hard to feel remorse for one’s actions and truly commit to change when we are motivated by subconscious “forces” that we are not even aware of - and are not motivated by our deeper, more substantive selves.

In this light, our triggers are like a signpost showing us which path we need to travel down. They scream out to us, there is an issue hidden inside here.

Seek it out.
Unpack it.
Understand it.

And then - learn how to transcend it.

Indeed, transcending one’s triggers is just a fancy way of saying teshuva. For our triggers take us away from our true, deeper selves. And teshuva is the art and science of coming back to our truer, deeper selves.

And so, tomorrow - when we all come face to face with the reality that we aren’t quite who we (or G-d) wants us to be, take a moment to make this Yom Kippur different. Don’t just note the same shortcomings that we note year after year and think that all that is required is greater resolve or greater will.

Transformation is not a game of overpowering, but a process of gaining knowledge and skills. The knowledge of our inner world in all of its facets and the skill to deal with that inner world.

And the doorway into this inner world — the starting point of real teshuva — is our personal triggers.

There’s a beautiful line, in a beautiful poem, in a beautiful prayer that we recite on Rosh Hashanah:

״שׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל יִתָּקַע, וְקוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה יִשָּׁמַע״ The supreme shofar will resound and the silent voice will make its sound

Beautiful, yes. But it makes no sense.

• How can a sound be silent? A sound, by definition, is the opposite of silence.

• And what is this mysterious connection between the Shofar and this silent sound?

• How can the sounds of the shofar enable us to hear that which cannot be heard?

So while the line is indeed beautiful, it seems to also be nonsensical. If we are to make sense out of it, then we will need a deeper understanding of both silence and the shofar.

We’ll start with silence.

More than Noise

For most of us, silence means “no noise.” And indeed, sometimes this is true. The music is blasting, your child turns it off - ah, the joy of silence.

But cessation of sound is only one way to achieve silence. Another is when the sound is never allowed to develop in the first place. We have a word for that - censorship.

The microphone which is turned off.
The speaker who is never invited. The show which is cancelled.

• Can we hear the music that no longer plays?

• How about the person who was not yet spoken?

And then there is another type of censorship that is harder to pick up - self-censorship. The voice that is silenced not from the outside but from within. Out of fear, or shame, or the belief that no one truly wants to listen.

And what of the child who does not even know how to ask? His is a voice in potential, not yet formed, not yet uttered.

• Can we hear the silence of the voice that refuses to speak?

• Can we hear the silence of the voice that does not yet know how?

There is another kind of silence, a silence not of the words themselves, but of the meaning behind those words. Take, for example, the exclamation of “I don’t care” by someone who cares very much - but is in too much pain to admit it.

Or how about the silence of distraction. True, the words ring in our ears - and yet somehow or other we don’t hear them at all because our mind is elsewhere.

• Can you hear the meaning behind the words?

• How about the emotion behind the meaning?

• Can you even hear the words at all?

We are almost done.

We now turn to the silent voices within - the subconscious whispers of self-doubt and ego in all their various forms. They speak to us all the time - and we obey, even though we never really hear what they say.

And then there is the deepest silence of them all - the voice drowned out by all the other voices. It is the voice of the soul, of truth and love and meaning and purpose. It is the ever-present voice which we can hear IF we can learn to silence all the other voices.

• Do we hear it through the noise?

• Do we even know that it is there?

The Sound of the Shofar

To all of these questions — and more — our poem offers an answer.

It is the shofar.

The shofar, with all of its history and meaning has the ability to give sound to the silence and enable us to hear the unheard.

The Ram’s Horn

That history begins with the Akeidah (the binding of Isaac); wherein a ram is caught in the thicket by its horn. That ram became a substitute for Yizhak (Isaac) and that horn becomes the first shofar. And through that shofar G-d declares that what He wants more than His rights is a relationship with us.

G-d, as it were, has to choose. What is more important to him. Demanding that which He ultimately speaking has every right to demand or an eternal relationship with the Jewish people. In the end, G-d chooses the relationship - because ultimately speaking love is more important to Him.

And so, we find the first message of the shofar. I, G-d, love you and want to have a relationship with you.

The Call of Sinai

The shofar next appears at Har Sinai (Mount Sinai).

There, it does not speak of love, but of values and purpose.

I am the God who freed you from slavery. I am the God who asks for fidelity like a faithful partner. I am the God who values honesty and Shabbat and family bonds and love of neighbor.

This is how I act in this world. This is what I value in this world.

At Sinai, the shofar awakens the silenced voice of morality, the voice of truth in a world of confusion.

Tumbling Walls

Later, the shofar circles around Jericho. Day after day, its sound pierces the air until the great walls come crashing down.

Here the message is clear: the shofar is unstoppable. You can try to ignore love, silence truth, to wall off conscience and suppress meaning. But the shofar’s sound will break through.

The Ultimate Shofar

And with that we finally come to the Shofar Gadol, the great shofar of redemption.

This shofar is not a new sound and doesn’t carry any new meaning.

Rather, it is the symphony of all the other shofar blasts that sounds when they are all played together.

It is the love of the Akeidah — where G-d showed us how sacrifice can be expressed through a substitute, so that our total dedication to Him can be real, and yet relationship with Him can endure.

It is the purpose and morality of Sinai — where G-d showed us how to best live and act in this world and what to focus on and believe in.

It is the power of Jericho — wherein G-d showed us that no wall can block out His will and that the sounds of love and purpose can overcome any and all obstacles.

Now, if we go back and reread this beautiful line from this beautiful poem, we will see that it is this shofar that gives sound to those silent voices. It is the symphony of all the shofars that allows us to hear the symphony of silence that is constantly ringing out in the world.

The song that plays no more. The words that were never spoken. The inner cry and the cries of the truly oppressed. The meaning behind the words. The whispers of conscience that silently sing inside our head. The ever present subtly silent voice of our soul.

All these voices will finally be heard, because we have finally heard all the various voices of the shofar. Once we learn to really love, to truly be moral and purposeful people and to not cower or give up in front of all the obstacles sent our way - then we will have the understanding and sensitivity to hear that ever present silent world that surrounds us and is within us.

And, truth be told, if we listen, truly listen - we may be able to hear that shofar gadol (great shofar) blast tomorrow in Shul - and thereby open ourselves up to all these other sounds that we are missing, but so badly near to hear.