Parashat Bo starts with Hashem telling Moshe
לְמַ֗עַן שִׁתִ֛י אֹתֹתַ֥י אֵ֖לֶּה בְּקִרְבּֽוֹ
...So that I shall place these signs in him.
Simply speaking, the word את Ot means sign or symbol- which means that when G-d makes a miracle, it’s a sign or symbol that He is in control. But the Rishonim and Achronim explain this word another way as well. In the Haggadah of Pesach, the word אתות Otot refers to the Mateh- the staff of Moshe Rabbenu, a staff which had letters on it. So the word אתות doesn’t only mean signs. It can also mean letters.
The Aleph Bet are called אתיות Otiot the letters.
So Hashem was saying, “I am going to place the letters that are on the staff-
דצ׳ך עד׳ש באחב
These 10 letters form an acronym for the ten plagues.
Some say that this staff was created Ben hashemashot - at twilight, in the very last moments of Creation.
What is the significance of this staff, with these letters, and what is the lesson for us?
The Pirkei D’Rav Eliezer gives us a little history on the staff and where Moshe got it from.
As we said, it was created at the beginning of time.
Adam had it first. Eventually, he gave it to Noah, who gave it to Shem, who gave it to Avraham, who gave it to Yitzhak, who gave it to Yaakov, who gave it to Yosef.
When Yosef passed away, the Egyptians looted his palace and Yitro, who was an advisor to Paroah, took the staff. When Yitro left Mitzrayim, he took the staff with him and placed it in his backyard. Somehow, it became stuck, or rather, it miraculously took root in the ground. No one was able to pull it out. Yitro said that whoever was able to remove it could marry his daughter.
Sure enough, Moshe Rabbenu was the one who pulled it out of the ground, and then he took it with him. So Moshe had this staff, that was able to do miracles, and had the miracles written on it.
What are the lessons of this fascinating staff?
One point is that one can claim that the plagues were all coincidence, starting with the blood, and going all the way through. But as the Ramban says, a miracle is a miracle when it’s proclaimed before hand. He points out that the reason why it’s not mentioned in the Torah that Yocheved was 130 when she gave birth to Moshe Rabbenu was that it wasn’t announced before hand, unlike with Sarah Imenu, which was announced beforehand.
When the miracle is proclaimed beforehand, it can’t be called a happenstance.
If I say that it will snow in the middle of July, and then it does, that’s a miracle. Otherwise, maybe it just happened.
But this Staff wasn’t just announced a day before, or a week before, or even a month before..
Som times the weather, can be predicted a week or so in advance.
But staff was created 2,448 years prior to the miracle!
2,448 years before the miracle, it was already proclaimed. Why was that necessary? Because people try to wiggle out of things. They try to deny the truth. But it’s hard to deny a truth that has been announced 2,000+ years before hand.
That’s our first point.
Our second point is that Rabbi Epstein, ztl, the late Mashgiach of Torah Or, said that the whole purpose of Creation was that there should be a Jewish people that receive the Torah, and have Emunah.
Therefore, built into Creation, we need to have the 10 plagues.
There is a famous concept from the Mekubalim, that there are three sets of tens: The 10 statements of creation
it says VaYomer ten times) the Aseret HaDivrot/10 Commandments, and in between, we have the 10 plagues, that brings it about.
G-d created the world and with His ten statements, G-d went into hiding.
Then, G-d revealed Himself openly at Har Sinai, where it says G-d showed Himself.
But what brought about the The Revelations at Har Sinai? (it was the same ten revelations that went into hiding that now became revealed)
It was the ten plagues. The Mateh/staff with the ten letters, was built into the beginning of Creation, at twilight of day six, in order to take the ten statements that are hidden, and turn them into ten open commandments of G-d’s revelation. So the whole purpose of Creation is for us to realize and recognize G-d. We needed the 10 Makkot/plagues to bring that about.
Why so many steps and so many plagues?
Rav Moshe Feinstein says it’s because people deny. If G-d is in charge of the water, they’ll say He’s not in charge of the heavens. If He’s in charge of the Heavens, they’ll say He’s not in charge of the air. At every step of the way, people can deny. He says that a smart person is capable of comparing one thing to another. If I see G-d here, then I know He is there. I don’t need to see it in ten different places. We should be able, from the times that we see G-d in our lives, to apply it. If we see that G-d took care of me here, He will take care of me there. If He’s in control of this, He is in control of that. That is the whole reason that we are here: To recognize the clarity of Emunah that came about through Yetziat Mitzrayim. That is why, every single day, we have to remember Yetziat Mitzrayim. We have to remember these important fundamentals: the undeniable truth that G-d claims, going back to Creation, the 10 plagues.
He is in control of everything, and He continues to control everything.
Have a wonderful day and a Shabbat Shalom.