Parshat Vaeira: The sorcerers and the lice

Up until the plague of lice, the Egyptian sorcerers had been able to mimic God’s plagues in order to convince Pharaoh that they were not genuine miracles. However, when they tried to produce lice, they were unable. There are different explanations about why they were able to turn their staffs into crocodiles, turn water into blood, and make frogs emerge from the water, but were unable to turn dust into lice.

• The sorcerers could not turn dust into lice because all the dust in Egypt had already been turned into lice and there was none less (Hizquni).
• Rashi, quoting Bavli Sanhedrin 67b writes that ‘a demon cannot rest on a creature smaller than a barley grain’, meaning the magic the sorcerers used does not work on very small objects. Ralbag explains this to mean that the tricks that the sorcerers deceptively used are only effective for large objects.
• Sforno and Ramban argue that they had to power to move objects and living creatures or to change their attributes, but not to actually create a living thing, which is beyond the scope of magic.
• Ramban suggests that the sorcerers actually could create lice using their methods, but that at this point God prevented them from doing so.

For more on parshat Va’eira, see Haggadah Berurah, the Haggadah that helps you tell the story of yetziat mitzrayim.