[Avodah] Lying to Paro and the Egyptians

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 09:41:58PM -0500, Brent Kaufman via Avodah wrote:
> From: "Joel C. Salomon" <joelcsalomon at gmail.com>
>> Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch distinguishes between sho'el me'eis, requesting,
>> and sho'el me'im, borrowing.  In this context, it's the first term used.

> That's interesting but unexplained. It appears to be a distinction without
> a difference...

I don't understand. You asked about why BY were told to lie and even steal,
to say they wanted to borrow things when there was no plan to return them.
RSRH is saying that "asked for" the riches, not borrowed them. That
(in LhQ, Leshon Chazal aside) the root /sh-a-l/ only refers to borrowing
as part of an idiom that ends "me'im". So, no lying about borrowing,
and I would have thought your question was answered.

>               Regardless of wordplay it seems to be a less than ideal way
> in which to obtain something that belongs to someone else; especially since
> that had to go in their homes during makkos choshech...

RSRH says they are asking for gifts (or arguably backpay although we would
have to establish there ecer was expectation of payment for that to work), and 
therefore it woud no longer "belong to someone else".

Going to their homes during choshekh wasn't part of the acquisition, anyway.
It was to know what was available to ask for.

> Which, btw, wasn't makkos choshech, actually a makkah of blindness? Since
> an Egyptian and a Jew that were standing in the Egyptians home, the Jew
> could see and the Egyptian couldn't. That seems more like blindness than
> actual lack of light.

The Torah Temimah says it was a plague of cataracts. Barukh sheKivanta.

Except that it appears to be his chiddush. There is indication from the
pesuqim Choshekh wasn't what science today identifies as darkness, i.e.
the absence of light (a dirth of photons of the visible range of frequencies).

In Shemos 15:21, Hashem tells Moshe to raise his hand to heaven "vayameish
hachoshekh"; vayameish ususally refers to something being felt. Pasuq
22 calls it "choshekh afeilah". And while the depiction of "velo qamu ish
mitakhtav" could just mean the Mitzrim were too scared to move since they
couldn't see where they were going, many rishonim don't take it that way.
Especially given the previous words. Rather, the choshekh was a "thing",
not the absence of light, and it was thick enough to prevent the Egyptians'
motion.

As for the subjectivity:

According to the Maharal (haqdamah #2 to Gevuros Hashem
https://www.sefaria.org/Gevurot_Hashem%2C_Second_Introduction_to_Gevurot_Hashem
), all nissim happen this way -- reality is only changed for those who
need to experience a different reality. By makkas dam, it wasn't that
the water turned into blood when acquired by a Mitzri (without payment
to a Jew), it was that the liquid was simultaneously blood and water,
depending on whose experience we were talking about.

The Maharal starts with rejecting the Ralbag on the sun standing still
for Yehoshua. And he says "shemesh beGiv'on dam" is quite literal --
it only stood still in the experience of the warrring parties in Giv'on.

This kind of split between an unknowable objective what's really out
there and how we experience it would be very Kantian, and would speak
to Mach's explanation of why science works, if it wasn't for the Maharal
preceding either. So, if anything *they* were *his* zeh le'umas zeh.

For more, see what I wrote for Mesukim miDevash, Beshalakh pp 1-2
http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/beshalach.pdf
And a blog post on R Dessler's development of the Maharal's idea
https://aspaqlaria.aishdas.org/2006/02/14/rav-dessler-on-reality-and-perception

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 25th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                        taking control too extreme?