The Aseres Hamakkos represent timeless Torah ideas that apply to each one of us

“... Behold, tomorrow  I will send a locust-swarm into your border….”( Shemos 10:4)

The Aseres Hamakkos aren’t just weird supernatural occurrences. They represent timeless Torah ideas that apply to each one of us. How?

Kabbalah teaches that every human soul is comprised of ten building blocks, characteristics, also known as Ten Sefiros. These blocks make up our inner personality. In our personal lives, Mitzrayim relects a state of psychological dysfunction, affecting the soul’s attributes, rending them distorted. This hinders the human’s ability of self-actualization. We see this in the word Mitzrayim, which also means “constraints.” When we fail to confront our own dysfunction, our perverted attributes form psychological plagues. (Rabbi YY Jacobson, TheYeshiva.net)

W

hen I was single, I was involved with a kiruv program that paired chavrusas with students of Johns Hopkins University. I loved the challenge; the college drew students who were deep intellectuals, able to discuss weighty matters with maturity and understanding.

Fast forward several decades, and the situation couldn’t be more different. I was flying to the States and in the waiting hall before my flight, I sat next to a young women named Tess* who was a student at Johns Hopkins. Delighted at finding a fellow Baltimorean, I introduced myself with the intention of making some pleasant small talk before our flight. No go. Within 15 seconds, Tess was on the offensive. “Why do you live in Israel? Your citizenship there is causing so much pain to the entire Muslim population of the whole area.”

In our parshah we read about the last three makkos: Locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.

The eighth plague, in which invading locusts left no greenery in its path, serves as a symbol of the destructive consequences of a corrupted mind.

The ability of intellectual inquiry and scrutiny remains the singular most precious gift of the human race. It allows us to improve our lives and discover higher moral callings.

Yet it may also serve as a tool to rationalize every evil and to justify every destructive lifestyle or habit. Like the locusts that left Mitzrayim’s land barren, the corrupt mind can uproot every existing moral foundation, leaving a society bereft of spiritual values. This is the tragedy of Egypt-like intellectualism, where one becomes so open-minded that his brains slip out.

 The ninth plague, darkness, reflects the inability of the “Egyptian” soul to actualize its mind’s ability to conceive new and original ideas that had been previously inaccessible.

When one is arrogant and smug, he deprives his mind of the ability to experience illumination, forcing himself to remain in darkness, constricted forever in a narrow vision of life.

Well, that was head-on. But I wasn’t going to cave so easily. “Why were you here in Israel?” I asked.

“Visiting my grandmother. She’s part of the same problem. But she’s old and set in her ways, so I can’t blame her. But you’re raising a whole family there. You should know better!”

Tess was clearly distressed, but I give her points for keeping her tone civilized. I tried answering a few of her questions, but I quickly saw it was worthless. For each answer, she rolled on to a new question, barely hearing my response, so secure in her position that nothing I could’ve said would penetrate.

The tenth and final plague, the death of every Mitzri firstborn, symbolizes the death of identity. Kabbalah says the firstborn is symbolic of the first-formed instincts and motives of a soul, beneath the surface of the conscious self. That dimension of the personality is naturally more difficult to violate because it’s hidden and inaccessible. But a lifestyle of ongoing addiction and abuse will ultimately bring about the death of this super-conscious element of one’s soul.

With this final destruction, Bnei Yisrael were now free to accept the Ten Commandments, which also correspond to these Ten Sefiros.

When our flight was called, I tried to take leave pleasantly. But as Tess swung her knapsack onto her back, she threw out one last comment. “Israel shouldn’t exist. You shouldn’t be there. Then things would be more peaceful in the world.”

“How about Jews themselves?” I couldn’t help asking. “Should we cease to exist as well?”

Her answer shocked me. “It would make things better for the rest of the world.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 978)