Background The plagues become almost ridiculous here as they multiply from ten to fifty to two hundred fifty. But more serious from Rabbi Lorberbaum’s perspective is the fact that these statements appear to contradict a statement in the Mishnah that plainly says that there ten plagues in Egypt and ten at the Red Sea. As the fundamental code of Jewish law, the Mishnah is the official opinion of the sages. So can we reconcile the opinion of these sages with the one in the Mishnah? Rabbi Lorberbaum draws on the Kabbalistic notion that there are not only ten Sephirot of holiness but also ten anti-Sephirot of impurity that give vitality to the world of darkness and judgment. These Sephirot are sometimes referred to as crowns (Ketarin). They are also referred to in the Zohar as the fifty gates of impurity. When Israel was redeemed from Egypt, the nation had already descended almost to the lowest of these gates of impurity, which would have made it impossible to redeem her from slavery. That is why, according to the Kabbalah, they had to leave in such haste. If Israel had stayed in Egypt one more day, they would have become unredeemable! Rabbi Yosi the Galilean said: How do you know that each plague…is equivalent to four plagues? Rabbi Yosi’s strange statement has inspired many different questions: How do we reconcile this statement with the one in the Mishnah, Pirke Avot, which says that there were only ten plagues at the Red Sea? (See Avot, 5:5). The numbers ten and fifty should not be taken literally. This number, like the number ten, is an allegorical way of referring to the spiritual state of the Israelites while they were in Egypt (?) and how they experienced the presence of God during the plagues and at the sea. Egypt was a place of darkness and impurity, where the forces of evil reigned. The nation had already descended to the lowest levels of impurity in Egypt. There are fifty gates of impurity, which are some times referred to as the ten crowns of impurity, and Israel had already descended to the fiftieth gate. Beyond this gate, there is no redemption because the spiritual dark angel of Egypt would now have complete control over the nation. When Rabbi Yosi said that there were fifty plagues at the sea, it was a way of saying that God vanquished the dark angel of Egypt before the people so that they were freed of the forces of evil. Ten and fifty are really the same, then. How can we conclude that all the plagues were each a “finger of God” since this expression is used for only one particular plague and not for all of them? The word Etzba, finger, refers not only to one plague but really to all the ten plagues. Just as each of the Sephirot in Kabbalah contain elements of the other nine Sephirot, so too the ten Sephirot, or Crowns of Evil, contain elements of the other ten crowns. In Egypt, however, the people of Israel were incapable of seeing that God had the ability to vanquish all the forces of evil in the land. Each plague appeared to be an attack on one particular force of evil. It was only at the Red Sea that the people of Israel saw that God had the power to vanquish all the forces of evil in Egypt; so they now saw God’s hand (since each finger represents ten, a hand is fifty plagues) descend and destroy the fifty gates of impurity. Etzba and Yad, then, are references not only to the nature of God, but to how Israel perceived God. The proof that Rabbi Yosi offers does not appear to make a lot of sense. Can we really conclude that Etzba, finger, is one or ten plagues and that Yad, hand, is five times as many plagues? The Bible does not show such mathematical exactness. If God is all-powerful, surely he could also perform fifty plagues with “a finger.” Surely these expressions have some metaphorical meaning and should not be taken literally! That is exactly the point. The hand and the finger of God are allegorical ways of speaking about the power of God and the ability to perceive God’s presence in the world. Only at the sea did the people get the whole picture, and that is why they “believed in God and Moses His servant.” The plagues were meant to be an object lesson, not just for the Egyptians, but for the Israelites as well. It was at this point that the people began to understand God as the first cause and creator of the universe who is All-powerful.