Rabbi Yose HaGelili omer, Rabbi Yose the Galilean said: Why was it necessary for the Rabbi Yose to tell us “these were the ten plagues that God struck the Egyptians in Egypt?” Isn’t this obvious since the plagues are explicitly mentioned in the Torah? Rabbi Yose’s statement is especially problematic since he claims that there were fifty plagues at the sea while the Mishnah in Pirke Avot claims that there were only ten plagues in Egypt and ten at the sea. One is forced to conclude that Rabbi Yose does not agree with the statement in Pirke Avot! Rabbi Yose and the Mishnah have different understandings of the plagues and the events at the sea. For Rabbi Yose, the plagues in Egypt were different from the plagues at the sea – that is why the number is different, while the Mishnah assumes that they were of a similar nature. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, agree with the Mishnah, that the plagues were of a similar nature to one another. They believed, however, that each of the plagues had several aspects to them (fourfold or fivefold). Since Rabbi Yose was the student of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Akiva was the student of Rabbi Eliezer, it doesn’t make sense to suggest they were adding on to the opinion of Rabbi Yose. These statements came before Rabbi Yose’s statement. Rather, Rabbis Akiva and Eliezer were of the opinion that the word yad, hand, is used in many places to refer to the plagues in general and does not have any quantitative meaning for the number of plagues. The final part of each of their statements concerning the plagues at the sea, then, is not part of their original statements – they agreed with the Mishnah and were simply talking about the fourfold or fivefold nature of the plagues in Egypt. Rather, the Maggid, the author of the Haggadah, added this on to their statement to make them consistent with the statement of Rabbi Yose’s statement.