|
|
January 11, 2002/27 Tevet 5762, Vol. 54, No. 17
Portion repudiates dependence on magic
Torah Study
DR. ISMAR SCHORSCH
Va'era/Exodus 6:2-9:35
In the Torah, magic is forbidden - not because it is ineffective but because it does violence to the sovereignty of God. Exodus commands: "You shall not tolerate a sorceress." (Exodus 22:17) The length of the list mirrors just how widespread the practice of magic was in the ancient Near East.
Its underlying premise was the pagan idea that the gods, like humans, were subject to fate, a meta-divine realm that predated and transcended them. Magic exploited divine weakness by activating meta-divine forces to induce or compel the gods to heed the bidding of mortals. The Torah bristled at such contamination of its overarching monotheism.
This view of magic imbues a subplot of the fast moving narrative of the first seven plagues to strike Egypt in this week's Torah portion. Besides the titanic confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, there is also the secondary contest, between Aaron and the court magicians. Moses leads with Aaron. It is he who turns his staff into a serpent before Pharaoh and who then triggers the onset of the first three plagues by another wave of his staff.
Pharaoh counters with his magicians. As long as they can match Aaron's prowess deed for deed, Pharaoh betrays contempt. By the third plague, which turns dust into lice, the priests falter and confide in Pharaoh that "This is the finger of God." (Exodus 8:15)
But the point of the narrative is not only to register Aaron's victory, but to stress the difference in execution. In contrast to Aaron, who simply carries out God's command without any hocus-pocus, the magicians employ a ritual wrapped in secrecy. The efficacy of Aaron's rod (or that of Moses) flows directly from God's will, without benefit of occult techniques.
Despite their failure to keep pace with Aaron, the magicians do not seem to have conceded fully. They reappear in the sixth plague, when the Torah mentions tellingly that, "The magicians were unable to confront Moses because of the inflammation, for the inflammation afflicted the magicians as well as the other Egyptians." (Exodus 9:11)
By the fourth plague, Moses had taken charge. The plagues were now his doing. The verse suggests that Pharaoh's magicians were still trying to compete. But by this time their impotence is total: they can neither reproduce the plague nor protect themselves against it.
The aversion to magic may also be the factor that determined the blemish in Moses' profile. He was not a silver-tongued orator. In resisting God's call, he described himself as "slow of speech and slow of tongue." (Exodus 4:10) And indeed he did not convince Israel nor overwhelm Pharaoh by means of eloquence. According to Rabbi Nissim Gerondi of Barcelona, that is among other reasons why God chose Moses. In a land where incantations were all powerful, God did not want a leader who appeared to best the Egyptians at their own game. This was not a contest between competing systems of magic. God alone initiated and generated the signs and wonders that effected Israel's redemption from Egypt. The speech impediment of Moses underlined the new religious claim that the God of Israel could not be fettered by the occult.
Thus the subplot is actually the main plot. The repudiation of magic reflects a profound theological shift from a plethora of subordinate deities to a single supreme God, whose arena of action is history more than nature and whose favor is garnered by adherence to a lofty new standard of morality.
Dr. Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
|
