[Avodah] Kama Maalot Tovot Lamakom Aleinu?

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Liron Kopinsky asked:

> In the Hagaddah, we go through the math of how many makkot there
> were in mitzrayim and at the yam suf. We say that since each
> maka in mitzrayim was an "etzba" and at the yam suf it was a
> "yad" that there were 5X as many plagues at the yam than in Egypt.
>
> This is fine except for the fact that we say "B'yad chazaka: zo
> hadever" (With a strong hand: this refers to the dever.) Why don't
> we say that dever counts as 5 times more than the other plagues?

I had previously approached this question by noting a contradiction: The plague of kinnim (Shemos 8:15) seems to teach that each of the plagues (or at least that one plague) was made by a finger of G-d, while the dever (Shemos 9:3) seems to teach that each plague (or at least that one) was made by His whole hand.

I'd like to suggest that this aparent contradiction is problematic for Rabbi Eliezer, but not for Rabbi Akiva.

Rabbi Eliezer, in the very section of the haggadah that we're discussing, considers all ten plagues to be fourfold in nature. But Rabbi Akiva considers them to be fivefold, and thus RLK's question is not a problem. Of course, Rabbi Akiva's *main* limud is the pasuk "charon apo", but he could very easily accept finger/hand as a second demonstration of the principle.

In other words, Rabbi Akiva *might* say the following (and if he would not, I hope he would forgive me for putting words in his mouth):

The pasuk "charon apo" shows that each plague had a fivefold nature. In fact, in Shemos 9:3, at the plague of dever, HaShem told Moshe to warn Par'oh of this "hand" which would soon attack his animals. In no way does this contradict Par'oh's chartumim, who saw only one manifestation (of the five) at the plague of kinnim (in Shemos 8:15). Thus, all ten of the plagues in Mitzrayim (including both kinnim and dever) were fivefold, giving a total of fifty destructive aspects. And so, at the Yam Suf, where He put His Yad HAGEDOLAH on Mitzrayim, there were 250 plagues.

Let's keep in mind that the Torah is a Shirah - poetry. The rhetoric and anthropomorphism does not need to be precise on every level. I accept that the symbolism at the dever and kinim could be a problem. But the Yad Hagedolah at the sea can easily be five times as [fill in your own word here] as the Yad at the dever.

Akiva Miller

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