A common idea in rabbinic literature is midah keneged midah, literally, measure for measure. God’s justice is balanced; his punishment (or reward) are comme nsurate with the actions which cause one or the other. In this section Horowitz explores Israel’s miraculous fertility. He begins with a fairly regular Midrashic interpretation but continues with a Kabalistic explanation of the number of children to which each Israelite woman gave birth. In classical Kabbalah (such as the Zohar) there are ten attributes of God through which the world was created and through which God reveals Himself. The upper three are beyond the ken of human understand while the lower seven are very much rooted in human experience. The lowest of these attributes is called malkhut, or sovereignty – it is also identified with the shechinah, the Divine Presence. Each of the other Sephirot has a variety of different symbols, names, colors, and words associated with it. The people of Israel were fertile, prolific, they multiplied, increased and grew exceedingly mighty; the land was filled with them: Following the translation in the Targum⁴⁴ is the Aramaic translation that appears next to the text in the traditional commentaries of the Torah., the text should have said “The land was filled from them.” “With them,” suggests that a miracle took place in Egypt: no matter how many people there were in the land of Goshen, it was never too crowded. Actually, there were several times 600,000 Israelites in Egypt and all of them lived in the land of Goshen⁴⁵ suggests that only 600,000 males left Egypt because only one in five – or one in five hundred – left Egypt. The other Israelites were struck down during the plague of darkness when the Egyptians could not see this. This explanation is based on the word, chamushim, the Israelites were armed when they left Egypt. The word chamushim is midrashically interpreted as being from the word chamesh, five – or a fifth or one five hundredth of the people left Egypt.. We are told that when the plague of hail struck Egypt, the Israelites who were in Goshen were all safe, implying that they were all in this district. When the Torah says, va-timalei ha’aretz otam, “the land became filled with them,” to mean that the land accommodated to their numbers. The six words used in this verse to describe the prolific nature of the Israelites (p‘ru, yishritzu, yirbu, ya’atzmi’u, miod, miod) is the basis of the statement that every Israelite woman gave birth to sextuplets. The Egyptians tried to afflict the Israelite men by preventing them from having intimate relations with their wives all week long. Because they prevented them six days a week, God repaid them measure for measure by giving them six children every time they gave birth to children. The expression b‘mi’od mi’od, exceedingly, can be read as midah k‘neged midah, measure for measure.⁴⁶, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your might,” bkhol mi’odekha. The Talmud understands this as bkhol midah asher attah moed, “Whatever measure that you can find.” (Talmud, Berachot) Pharaoh said “Lest (pen) they increase,” to which God responded, “So (kein) may they increase.” The tribe of Levi did not increase as prolifically as the other tribes because they were not subjected to hard labor like the others. Another interpretation of the expression, “The earth was filled with them,” based on the Midrash is to read this expression literally. According to the Midrash, when the Israelite woman gave birth the earth covered up their offspring and protected them. They then sprouted up like plants when they were older and returned to their families! According to the Zohar, the people of Israel are an allusion of the holy sparks that were scattered throughout the land of Egypt. They were scattered throughout the land so that they could gather up converts and bring back the holy sparks to God. The sages said that the Messiah, son of David, could not come until all the souls had been released from the body. Thus, the sextuplets to whom they gave birth represented six of the seven souls⁴⁷: Hesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. These are the lower seven of the ten Sephirot which make up the Sephirotic chart. They each contain a plethora of different symbols by which they are identified. They are aspects of God, the human soul and the inner workings by which the inner life of God functions. They are most prominently expressed in the Zohar and earlier Kabbalah, but are intrinsic to later Kabbalistic thought as well. One of the symbols of the seventh Sephirah, Malchut, is aretz, land. or sparks that each Israelite held within himself. The seventh aspect or spark is called aretz,** the land. The six Divine attributes were released through fertility of the Israelites but the seventh was immersed deeply in Egypt – it is Malchut, divine sovereignty. The seventh divine spark/Sephirah⁴⁸ is also feminine. Since it was already subjugated it was not necessary to worry about its redemption. was deeply rooted in the land of Egypt and in order to be redeemed, this divine dimension had to be released as well: “The “Land” was filled.” This was Pharaoh’s great fear. When he says, “Lest they rise up from the earth,” he means he is afraid that the other Divine aspects will be freed from the land of Egypt. At the time of the enslavement of the Israelites the six divine attributes/Sephirot were mixed in among the husks in the land of Egypt; by separating them from the husks the Divine sparks would be freed. When Pharaoh says, “Behold, the Israelites are too numerous for us,” he was expressing his fear Israel which was the embodiment of the divine sparks, would be lost to the Egyptians.⁴⁹

footnotes: ⁴⁴ The Targum ⁴⁵ The Midrash ⁴⁶ We find a similar interpretation of this word in the Shema ⁴⁷ The reference here is to the seven Sephirot ⁴⁸ The seventh Sephirah, Malchut ⁴⁹ Why should the Egyptians care about the Divine sparks? These sparks were a source of power and vitality. They understood that to lose them would be to lose their great power in the world.

According to Rabbi Horowitz, the oppression and enslavement of the Israelites was an attempt to keep them from removing the Divine sparks that were in Egypt. These sparks gave power and vitality to Pharaoh and all Egypt. The erev rav, the mixed multitude that left Egypt with the Israelites were invited to come along because some of the divine sparks were still residing among this group. **The people of Israel were fertile, prolific; they multiplied; increased and grew exceedingly:**There are four terms from fertility here: fertile (p‘ru), prolific (va-yishritzu), multiplied (vayirbu), and increased (va-ya’atzmi’u), plus the words b‘mi’od mi’od, exceedingly, repeated twice making six: for the six that were born in each delivery. Because the Divine sparks were spread out throughout the land of Egypt among the Israelites and the Egyptians, Pharaoh decreed that all the male children should be cast into the Nile and not just the Israelite boys. So says Rashi. The Targum understands this differently: He translates, “Any boy who is born to a Jew.” By this, the Targum means that any child who contains the sacred sparks is considered a Jew even if that child is born among the mixed multitude or the Egyptians. The Divine sparks were mixed in among the Egyptians. The text alludes to this: Erev Rav, the mixed multitude, has the same gematriah as da’at – 275 – divine understanding. Even as the Israelites continued to proliferate, “the land was full with them” - with these sparks. By the same token just as there were Divine sparks born among the Egyptians, there were those among the Israelites who did not contain the sacred sparks. It was during the plague of darkness that God wiped out those who were not among the sacred sparks in Egypt before the Israelites left the land.