Partners in Restoring Creation in a Tumultuous Time
Imagine living in a world in which violating morality leads to immediate consequences in the world of nature. This world seems so distant, especially at this moment in history when so many people, institutions, and nations are acting unfairly, hatefully, and immorally against the Jewish state without any consequence. From this vantage point, the story of the plagues, which is one of the most dramatic examples of direct divine intervention to punish wicked behavior, reads, at least right now, like an attractive revenge fantasy.
From the first chapter of Sefer Shemot, Pharaoh is firmly entrenched on the side of death. The Jewish people are fruitful and multiply (1:7), which is the purpose of creation itself, and Pharaoh seeks to thwart this population growth by mercilessly drowning all male infants in the Nile (1:16). The Egyptian ruler is bent on destruction and undoing creation, and the Creator, the G-d of the Jews, is committed to restoring it by protecting life through the plagues and subsequent liberation of His people.
The specific aspects of the plagues may be viewed as a dismantling of creation, as a form of intrinsic retribution for the kinds of violations that Pharaoh commits. To share two examples: Pharaoh uses the water of the Nile, typically a source of life, as an instrument of death, and then the water is changed to blood to wreak havoc on all of Egypt; and Pharaoh subjugates and oppresses the Jews with centuries of backbreaking labor, symbolizing a moral darkness which comes back to haunt him in the form of primordial darkness in the penultimate plague. The message is clear: Pharaoh has sown death and destruction, and he reaps what he sows. In other words, there is a dependent relationship between morality and nature, between ethical and cosmic order.
It is challenging for us, during a time of war, to be trapped in a world that seems to work very differently. As much as we wish that it would, our reality doesn’t seem to bear out this intrinsic connection between action and consequence. Put slightly differently, our perception of this connection is that it is far looser now than it was in biblical times. While it is hard to inhabit a world in which Hashem’s presence is oftentimes subtle and elusive rather than miraculous and unmistakable, we ought to be inspired by all our brave soldiers and the life-affirming citizens of Israel, who have partnered with Hashem to restore morality and order in creation. | 
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