The 10 Plagues of God

This midrash is from a piece in the traditional

haggadah about the 10 plagues

It is written,“אֵלּוּ עֶשֶׂר מַכּוֹתשֶׁהֵבִיאהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא”. Do not read this as “God brought the ten plagues,” but rather “The ten plagues brought God.” This means that God was previously as uninvolved as possible with the Jews during the period of slavery. God only presented himself when he saw fit, or when the plagues were about to come. All of the other actions to change the fate of the Jewish people were done solely by the Israelites. The only exception would be God’s conversation with Moses through the burning bush. Pharaoh was the one who enslaved the Jews, the Jews worked, Moses ran away, and after being nudged by God, Moses was the one who delivered his message to Pharaoh and his court. After Moses had promised the coming of the plagues, God brought forth the plagues using his own mystical power, which he had not used in so far in the story of Passover.


haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues