Friday, January 20, 2012

Parashat Va'Era 5772: Frogzilla!

The second plague that God sent to Pharaoh was the frog infestation. Sometimes, the Torah refers to these animals in the plural - tzefarde'im - but in Exodus 8:2, the Torah uses the singular, tzefardeya.  Grammatically speaking, this is not unusual.  In English, some animals are referenced by their singular name even when a plural is intended (e.g. fish, deer, etc.)

The Talmud uses the discrepancy to present us with two similar midrashim on verse 8:2.  Rabbi Akiva says that there in fact was only one giant frog, and it covered the whole land of Egypt like a kind of amphibian Godzilla.  Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says that there was one giant frog, and that the people split it open hoping to kill it, but instead let out swarms of smaller frogs.

These midrashim teach us a lesson for our lives today.  When one has an enormous problem on one's hand, the temptation is to panic and do something drastic.  But when we act irrationally and out of fear, we are liable to make the enormous problem even worse by allowing it to multiply.  It is better to not attack the problem until a sensible, rational solution is found.

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