הגדה ברורה

Haggadot and essays for Pesah and all year round

Ran

‘Three days into the wilderness.’ Why lie?

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One of the most most difficult things to understand about the exodus story is why, over the entire course of his struggle with Pharaoh, Moshe maintains the fiction that the Hebrews want to go three days into the wilderness into order to celebrate a festival to HASHEM. Since we know from the beginning that the plan is to leave Egypt permanently in order to conquer the Land of Israel, Moshe would appear to be engaging in deception. The most immediately obvious way of reading this is that the …

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Parshat Va’eira: Pharoah’s sorcerers

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The Torah tells us that Pharaoh’s wise men and sorcerers were able to turn their staffs into taninim by means of their להטים. This word is unusual and Ibn Ezra suggests it may not be a Hebrew word. There are two main approaches to explaining how Pharaoh’s courtiers were able to perform the same miracle as Moshe. Rav Sa’adya Gaon and Ibn Ezra suggest that it was some sort of trick or optical illusion and that in fact no real change had occurred. This fits best with the interpretation according …

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