Community Magazine April 2019

58 Community Magazine Why was Blood Chosen as the Method of Contaminating the Nile River? Why Didn’t Gd Change the Water to a Different Type of Liquid or Toxic Material? Bringing Back Bad Memories Ancient Egyptian kings would avoid drinking wine because of its resemblance to blood! Our sages explain that each of the ten plagues was delivered upon Egypt “measure for measure” – that is to say, each plague corresponded with a specific facet of the Egyptian people’s cruel mistreatment of the Hebrews, for which they were punished. Explaining the plague of blood, the Midrash Hagadol comments, “Because they threw the children of Israel into the water… they were judged with the water of the river.” Alternatively, Lekah Tov says, “Because they spilled the blood of Israel like water, their river was turned into blood and their water became undrinkable.” In other words, the plague of the blood punished the Egyptians for having “bloodied” the Nile River by throwing the newborn Israelite babies into the river. Still, we might ask, why did the entire Nile River need to be smitten in this way? Had the Egyptians spilled that much Jewish blood – enough to fill the entire Nile River? Theanswer is a resoundingandemphatic “YES!” Centuries earlier, at the dawn of human history, when Kayin killed his brother, Hevel, Gd approached Kayin and asked, “What did you do? The voice of the bloods of your brother cry out to Me from the earth!” Gd used the plural term “bloods” because, as Rashi explains, He referred not only to Hevel’s bloodwhichwas spilled, but also to the blood of his offspring, his innumerable potential descendants who never had a chance to live because of Kayin’s act of murder. When Kayin killed his brother, he also killed all his brother’s future offspring, and thus Gd speaks of the “bloods” that cry from the ground, referring to the billions upon billions of people whom Kayin effectively murdered. When the Egyptians awoke one morning to find rivers of blood flowing through their country, they recognized the full impact of their crime against the Children of Israel – the astronomical number of human beings whom they killed by murdering the Jewish infants. This answer was suggested by Rabbi Label Lam from Project Genesis – Torah.org .