Plagues Then and Now

D’var Earth for Shabbat Hagadol before Passover

by Joel Davidson


The haftarah recited the Sabbath before the beginning of Passover, the Festival that celebrates the beginning of the new year of spring and also of our liberation from Egyptian bondage, comes from the prophet Malachi. In this passage from Malachi, which bears a resemblance to the ten plagues which the Lord visited upon Egypt and thus to the story of Passover, we see signs the plagues here are abating because the Almighty will cause them to abate. “And I will rebuke the devourer for your good, And he shall not destroy the fruits of your land; Neither shall your vine cast its fruit before the time in the field.” (Malachi III, v. 11) For G-d says that he will not destroy the good things that come from the earth. That is important, for we must have food to eat if we are to survive; we cannot easily survive a famine. Later on in the haftarah, Malachi talks about another plague - the destruction of the plants of the earth by fire. Malachi seems to be unable to make up his mind whether he will save the children of men by preserving the harvest or whether he will destroy the earth such that it will “leave them neither root nor branch.” (Malachi III, v. 19) And yet G-d seems to say here that the wicked “shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.” Malachi, III, v. 21.

If the earth does not function properly for us as it should, then many bad things can happen to us. The plagues of locusts devoured the food in Egypt’s Nile River delta and brought famine in its wake. Forest fires and raging fires out West and in California can imperil people’s lives, forcing them to abandon their homes in times of distress. The earth is so important to us and serves as our mother from which we sprang. Without proper food or sustenance we cannot survive nor can we survive when food or shelter are destroyed by fires.

T.S. Eliot once said that he didn’t know if the world would end with a bang or a whimper (T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets) and Robert Frost said, “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I‘ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice.” (Robert Frost, Miscellaneous Poems, Fire and Ice) The passage in Malachi refers to the destruction of the earth by fire. What about destruction of the earth by ice, such as with another ice age or by flooding? Wouldn’t that be a terrible catastrophe for us all as well? Look at the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile - they are another kind of destruction.

This Haftarah on Shabbat Hagadol before Pesach is a reminder of the terrible discomforts that the Egyptians endured when the Almighty visited plagues upon them. The devourer in the Passover story must surely be the locusts that descended upon the land of Egypt and ate everything in sight. And yet this passage in Malachi also seems to be saying that the Lord will punish the wicked by destroying them root and branch and that he will not bring a plague or plagues onto the world such as he did when the Egyptians refused to grant the Israelites their freedom.

As we approach the season of the greening of the Earth, we would do well to remember that we are dependent on Mother Earth for our sustenance and that we must not do anything to upset the balance of nature. Easier said than done, with the coming catastrophe of global warming with its concomitant freakish storms and precipitation of rain and snow in unexpected places. If it’s not too late to repent, perhaps we can fix the Earth in a way that allows us to continue to thrive on the fragile outer shell of our planet. However, with polar icecaps melting, threatening the habitat of the polar bears and with prospect of flooding and freakish weather, how can we longer survive in an environment which we are slowly poisoning, thus sealing our own doom?

Spring is a wonderful time of year. May the Almighty give us many more pleasant springs and summer and gladden our lives with the abundance which comes from the Earth and may we never know a time when Earth turns against us and refuses to allow us to survive on its soil.

Boruch Hashem Amen and Selah.

© Joel Davidson, March 2010