Tevet 27, 5776/January 8, 2016
Why did G-d create the world in six days when He could have done so in a single nano-instant? To this timeless question can be added: Why did G-d employ ten plagues to compel Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, when He could have effected the exodus of Israel in a micro-second? In either case what was to be gained by a slow, deliberate, step-by-step process?
The classic answer, given by our sages of old to the first question is that G-d expanded His instantaneous creation into an ordered process so that man would be able to intellectually grasp the meaning of the world which G-d created, study and increase his knowledge of G-d's world and thereby draw closer to G-d Himself. An unexplainable, opaque world would have presented an impassible obstacle between man and G-d , and that would have contradicted G-d's intention in creating the world.
The ten plagues which G-d visited upon Egypt were essentially ten acts of deconstruction, anti-creation, or perhaps more accurately, un-creation. The ten plagues effected all the elements, and all the forms of life which G-d placed on earth. The fish in the waters, the beasts of the field and the birds in the heavens were all stricken by G-d . The grains and the trees were likewise stricken and uncreated by G-d . Even the stars in the endless galaxies were dimmed by G-d during the plague of darkness. All of creation was uncreated, and then restored by G-d , throughout the duration of the ten plagues. And the reason for G-d's deliberate, painstaking process of effecting Israel's release from Egypt was the same reason for His methodical, "scientific" method of creation: to enable man to grasp G-d's existence, G-d's presence, and the singular "fact" that all existence is a manifestation of G-d's will.
G-d had previously made it clear, during the generation of Noach and the great flood, that the "natural order of things" was only as natural and permanent as G-d wills it, but man, being man, tends to forget. Man, being man, tends to put himself at the center of creation. Man, being man, tends to confuse his own knowledge and familiarity with creation with ownership and mastery over creation. The ultimate assumption man makes is the assumption of self-divinity, and Pharaoh was the ultimate expression of this human self deception. Nobody was more self deluded than Pharaoh, who, with the aid of his sorcerers, and the illusion of his majesty and the false pretense of omniscience, was convinced that he was more than a match for (what he considered to be the upstart) G-d of the Hebrews. G-d's response to this brazen yet infinitesimally small speck of human existence was to slow down time to a cosmic crawl, and convert what could have been an instantaneous delivery of the children of Israel, into a drawn out and painfully educational display of G-d's absolute power over every thing and every one. It is true G-d placed Pharaoh front and center, being that he was the epitome of man's potential for anthropomorphic G-d denial, but the light and sound pyrotechnics of the ten plagues, was presented by G-d for the benefit of all humanity, and all humanity witnessed and was awesomely aware of the ten plagues in real time, as they happened. Israel, too, witnessed G-d's outstretched arm, extended on their behalf, and Israel, to this day, makes mention and remembers in her daily prayers the day G-d stood creation on its head, stripped it of all recognizable order of cause and effect, turned it inside-out, squeezed it, stretched it, inverted it and ultimately recreated creation in a wholly new reality in which Israel, a free nation, would forever be as testimony to G-d's presence and Divine will, a light to the nations, a signpost pointing to G-d's One-ness.
Rashi, the great Torah commentator, asks why Torah begins with the account of creation, and not with the first commandment received by Israel, the determination of the new moon. After all, if Torah is essentially a contract between G-d and Israel, shouldn't it cut right to the essentials, and leave matters of secondary importance to another place and time? Rashi answers his own question, stating that the account of creation testifies to the fact that the heavens and the earth all belong to G-d , and G-d has chosen the land of Israel for the children of Israel, lest anyone should ever accuse Israel of unjustifiably possessing the land. The very same is true of the ten plagues in Egypt. As G-d readies Moshe for the first of the ten plagues, He tells him:
"I am HaShem, and I will take you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will save you from their labor, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be a G-d to you, and you will know that I am HaShem your G-d, Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to
Yaakov, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am HaShem." (Exodus 6: 6-8)
The purpose of creation was to create a covenant between G-d and man via Israel, to place the children of Israel in the land of Israel, and for Israel to build a Holy Temple, a place and a space in time for G-d's Presence to rest and bless all mankind. If mankind misappropriates and misreads this purpose of creation, and forcibly tries to keep the children of Israel out the land of Israel, then G-d is willing and more than capable of reteaching His first rule of creation, by uncreating creation, as He did in Egypt, a painful lesson, but one not easily forgotten.
-The Temple Institute
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