Shabbat Parashat Va'eira - 5781

Shabbat Parashat Va'eira - 5781

Rabbi Hal Miller

Each one cast down his staff and they became serpents, and the staff of

Aharon swallowed their staffs.​ [Shemot 7:12]

In Cecil B. DeMille's movie, "The Ten Commandments", Aharon throws down

his staff and it becomes a snake. Then the Egyptian magicians do the same.

Then, Aharon's snake devours the other snakes. But that is not what the

verse says. It was Aharon's staff, back in original form, that swallowed the

staffs, not serpents, of the Egyptians. Either way, it seems a miracle, so what

is the Torah telling us?

The Gemora in Sanhedrin [67b] informs that the effects of sorcery can be

removed by pouring water over the affected item, so why was anything further

required to differentiate Aharon from the Egyptian sorcerers? Rabbi Yosef Dov

Soloveitchik explains that the Egyptians claimed that, while this would return

their serpents to their real shape as staffs, Aharon had brought a real serpent,

and had secretly cast a spell to change it to a staff before coming into the court,

so pouring water on it would not return it to being a staff. The only way to prove

Aharon's position as God's servant was to have his staff swallow up theirs.

Malbim begins his answer with another interesting question. He asks, "What was

the point of this miracle of the staff turning into a serpent in light of the fact that

God was about to bring ten plagues against the Egyptians in any case? And what

difference was there between Aharon's actions and the actions of the Egyptians?"

He answers that this was in response to Pharaoh's request that Moshe and

Aharon prove their credentials as messengers of God. This was not one of the ten

plagues, which themselves proved everything Pharaoh needed to know, rather a

direct reaction to Pharaoh, giving him one last chance before the show started.

Regarding the question about a staff swallowing instead of a serpent doing so,

Malbim tells us that the Egyptian sorcerers did their incantations in secret, but

"Aharon cast down his staff in front of Pharaoh and in front of his servants and

it became a serpent." The public nature of the miracle proved to the Egyptian

sorcerers that Aharon was real, but it was not enough for Pharaoh. The

swallowing of staffs by a staff was meant as proof for him.