Monday, January 14, 2008

Full Circle

I was studying with my son Rafi (9 yrs old) Chumash Bereishas when the following thought came to me.

If one wants to look at the one event that began the exile of the Jews into Egypt we can look at the dipping of Josephs coat into the "goat blood" so that the brothers would be able to convince their father that he was killed by an "evil wild animal". This event sealed Joseph's fate which eventually led to the saving of his family from famine and forcing them to relocate to egypt.

Some two hundred and seventy years later when the Jewish people were leaving Egypt they once again slaughtered a goat but this time they dipped grass into the blood and then applied the blood to their doorposts so that G-D would pass over their house when killing the first born of Egypt.

When G-d brought the plagues on the Egyptians it almost seems like there was a message within a message and that he was also educating both the Jews and the Egyptians on the natural order of the world. The first plague began with water turning to blood.The second plague began with frogs which live on water and on land.The third plague began with lice(bugs)which live solely on land.Then the wild beasts which are more sophisticated (on the evolutionary scale).The plagues keep on progressing till it hits the top of the evolutionary chain which is "man". It is at this point that the first born are killed. There is still one creature that the Egyptians believed was above man and that is the "king"(they believed Pharaoh was a G-D). He would be considered the very top and last link of the evolutionary chain. It is at the splitting of the sea that the final plague which is the destruction or death of the king that the process is complete. Ironically it is with water which started the chain that the king at the very top of the chain is destroyed. Man and redemption have both come full circle

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good post.