And great: the author of the Haggadah was curious why the word, rav, “great,” comes after the word atzum, ‘mighty” in Deuteronomy 26:5. Earlier the words appeared the other way around. Pharaoh says: “Look, the children of Israel are great (rav) and mightier (v’atzum) than us.”¹⁴⁰ Also in the book of Joel, we read: “A great, mighty nation.”¹⁴¹ The word rav here is an allusion to the verse “I let you grow like the plants of the field,” and the explanation found in Sotah11b. Rabbi Awira¹⁴² expounded: As the reward for the righteous women who lived in that generation, were the Israelites delivered from Egypt. When they went to draw water, the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged that small fish should enter their pitchers, which they drew up half full of water and half full of fish. They then set two pots on the fire, one for hot water and the other for the fish, which they carried to their husbands in the field, and washed, anointed, fed, gave them to drink and had intercourse with them among the sheepfolds… After the women had conceived they returned to their homes; and when the time of childbirth arrived, they went and were delivered in the field beneath the apple-tree… The Holy One, blessed be He, sent down someone from the high heavens who washed and straightened the limbs [of the babes] in the same manner that a midwife straightens the limbs of a child; ….He also provided for them two cakes, one of oil and one of honey…. When the Egyptians noticed them, they went to kill them; but a miracle occurred on their behalf so that they were swallowed in the ground, and [the Egyptians] brought oxen and ploughed over them, as it says, “The ‘ploughmen’ ploughed upon my back.”¹⁴³ After they had departed, they broke through [the earth] and came forth like the herbage of the field, as it is said: “I caused thee to multiply (r’vava) like plants of the field;”¹⁴⁴ and when [the babes] had grown up, they came in flocks to their homes, as it is said: “And thou didst increase and wax great and didst come with ornaments,” - read not with ornaments (ba'adei 'adayim) but in flocks (be'edre 'adarim). At the time the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself by the Red Sea, they recognized Him first, as it is said: “This is my God and I will praise Him.”¹⁴⁵ Why do we read ba’adei adayim as ‘flocks’ instead of the plain sense meaning of the words, ‘ornaments?’ If the expression means ornaments, then how can the verse also say, “You were naked and bare;”¹⁴⁶ if they had ornaments then they weren’t naked. Therefore the expression must mean, ‘flocks.’ There wore their ornaments, that they were easily recognizable to their parents as we have said above. Everyone immediately knew that these children were not the offspring of loose Egyptian women.¹⁴⁷, Weil explains refers to the children (adei) and the parents (adayim) The expression “mighty and great,” then, is a reference to this. They not only increased in number but they were only numerous in their numbers but they were born like the plants of the field and protected by God. According to the Midrash ten thousand babies were cast into the Nile, “I let you like ten thousand plants of the field.”¹⁴⁸ The verse from Ezekiel is used elsewhere to explain how the Israelite babies were saved in Egypt.¹⁴⁹ chapter 32 In both of these midrashim, the word r’vava is taken in its literal sense of ten thousand. The children that were thrown into the Nile were carried away and ejected into the wilderness – this too is, “I let you grow like ten thousand the plants of the field.”

footnotes: ¹⁴⁰ Exodus 1: 9 ¹⁴¹ Joel 2:2 ¹⁴² There is a mistake in the text – Rabbi Weil writes Akiva – the Talmud says Awira. ¹⁴³ Psalms 129:3 ¹⁴⁴ Ezekiel 16:6-7 Note that Rabbi Weil carefully edited this passage from the Talmud removing some of the proof texts and leaving the ones necessary for his explanation. ¹⁴⁵ Exodus 15:2 ¹⁴⁶ Ezekiel Ibid ¹⁴⁷ The expression adei adayim ¹⁴⁸ Song of Songs Rabbah Parshah 2 ¹⁴⁹ Pirke D’rebbe Eliezer,