ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף שמות 7:14

Rabbi Horowitz plays on the word farekh, ruthless, which is commonly read as peh rakh, a soft tongue. He uses this as a means of looking at the inner and outer nature of Pharaoh and the power of circumcision which makes human beings just a bit lower than God. Using a series of literary associations and word plays he finds allusions to the power of the divine for good but also as a means of giving the demonic its own power. The demonic can only exist to the extent that it contains some of the divine sparks which animate the world.
The Egyptians imposed labor upon the Israelites ruthlessly (b’farekh): There are two aspects to Pharaoh’s actions – he acts with a hard heart but he imposes his labor b‘farekh, which the sages read as b‘feh rakh, a soft mouth.
When the Torah says that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened⁸¹Exodus 7:14 it is referring to the inner and outer aspects of his persona. The middle letters of Pharaoh’s name are reish-ayin, ra, wicked. And the outer two letters pei-hei, or peh, mouth. When the sages said that Pharaoh imposed labor b‘farekh, ruthlessly, it means that he did so with a peh rakh, literally a soft mouth. His mouth contained a mixture of divine sparks as well as physical husks. Thus later, the mouth that enslaved the Israelites would be the same mouth that would eventually allow them to go free.
Peh, “mouth” is a reference to dibbur, speech; it is the Shekhinah, the tenth and final Sephirah, the divine presence. As long as Israel was in exile, “speech” was in exile and it could be used to enslave the Israelites. Because God was , in exile Moses also suffered from a kaved peh, “a heavy tongue.”
Like the word peh, mouth, milah (circumcision) has the gematriah of 85. Redemption should have begun with milah, circumcision. Originally, Joseph commanded the Egyptians to be circumcised so that they would all enter into the realm of holiness⁸²In the Sephirotic chart, Joseph is also the divine phallus and is therefore associated with circumcision. Each part of the chart is associated with part of the human anatomy; the final Sephirah is associated with the feminine component. As a result when they are united God is one and God’s name is one. Also each of the Sephirot is associated with biblical characters, colors, and pronouns.; this plan backfired and instead it gave Pharaoh the power to keep the Israelites in Egypt.
Milah contains four of the five letters in the name, Elohim – the exception is aleph. It is through the power of the aleph in the name, Elohim, that Israel was redeemed from slavery. When aleph is added to letters of milah it becomes Elohim. Through the aleph, Elohim becomes the power through which Israel is able to go forth from Egypt and through which impurity is transformed into purity. The divine name that is usually associated with judgment becomes a source of compassion. The aleph is a mysterious letter; when spelled backwards is pele, wonder! Thus, the aleph has the power to change everything. Job said, “Who can take a pure thing out of an impure thing?”⁸³Job 14:4 It is the aleph of tamei that allows this transformation to take place from impurity to purity. The gematriah of the word tamei is fifty; it is a reference to the fifty gates of impurity in Egypt into which the people of Israel nearly fell in Egypt. By taking away the aleph from tamei, the gematriah of the word is only 49 – thus, the aleph has the power to remove impurity!
The number 50 is associated with both purity and impurity. The letters mem and yud (with the gematriah of 50) are the final two letters of the name Elohim. These letters gave Pharaoh the power to enslave Israel. Mem-yud spells mi, who. Pharaoh says: “Who (mi) is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go?”⁸⁴Exodus 5:2 On the other hand the forty nine days between the Exodus and the giving of the Torah culminate Shavuot, the fiftieth day. They represent the fifty gates of purity through which Israel became worthy of receiving the covenant at Sinai.
Milah connects us to God. The Psalmist wrote, “You have made man little less than God.”⁸⁵Psalms 8:6 When a person is circumcised, he literally a little less than God (Elohim)⁸⁶He is lacking the aleph of elohim which means he is milah.; all he lacks is he alpeh of Elohim. Similarly, the verse, “You crowned him with glory and beauty,” is a reference to the revealing of the “crown” in circumcision.
The word rakh in peh rakh is also 220. Together with the word mi, 50, has the gematriah 270, like the word ra, evil. Pharaoh, then, is a combination of mi and (peh) rakh, making him the embodiment of evil. But the aleph of Elohim, the one (echad), has the power to transform the impure into the purity!
⁸⁷Note that in later Kabbalistic thought, an additional Sephirah is often added, Da’at or knowledge which serves as the synthesis between Chochmah and Binah.

but a rod is for the body of one devoid of sense But one who is devoid of sense does not listen until he is smitten, like Pharaoh.

This passage in the Haggadah often troubles readers – the seemingly playful way in which it counts the number of plagues in Egypt and again at the sea. Instead of ignoring the fact that the term “hand” is used to refer to the plagues in Egypt and not just by the sea, the author comes up with an ingenious way of reconciling this seeming contradiction. The math here is a bit sketchy but Rabbi Horowitz seriously plays with the numbers in the spirit of the Haggadah and the sages.
From where can one deduce….how many with a finger? Ten plagues! At first glance, it appears that since each finger is ten plagues, then hand is ten times five plagues which is fifty plagues at the sea, even though the thumb (gudal) and the pinky (zeret) are not really technically fingers (etzbaot). For all practical purpose, all five digits are considered fingers here.
Etzba is the term for the finger adjacent to the thumb. According to the Magen Avraham, one should drip drops of wine with the etzba. But this is problematic since there are several places in Scripture that use the word hand (yad) to refer to the plagues. Also, the term, etzba elohim is used to refer to the plague of lice and not to the plagues in general. But these passages do not contradict one another. Each etzba refers to two plagues: the thumb, blood and frogs, the finger next to the thumb, lice and wild animals, and so on. Thus we read in scripture: “I will lay my hand upon Egypt.”¹²³Exodus 7:14 This seems to contradict what Rabbi Yosi Hagallili said.
We can reconcile what he said through the verse, “Five of you shall give chase to a hundred and a hundred shall give chase to ten thousands.”¹²⁴Leviticus 26:8 Commenting on this Rashi writes: “Is this then the correct proportions? Should it not have said and a hundred shall give chase to two thousand? However one cannot compare the few who keep the Torah to the many who keep the Torah.”¹²⁵Ibid, Rashi This is so because the ones who keep the Torah help one another. Similarly, we learn¹²⁶Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 5b that the deeds of the righteous are even greater than the act of creation (by God)! Regarding acts of creation we read, “Behold, My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has spread out the heavens.”¹²⁷Isaiah 48:13 Regarding the righteous we read, “The place You made to dwell in, Adonai, the sanctuary, Adonai, which your hands established.”¹²⁸Exodus 15:17 the first verse speaks of God’s hand while the second one is plural, ‘hands.’ While each can accomplish some things, two hands can help one to accomplish much more. So too in Egypt Israel experienced the hand of God – each finger representing a separate force - while at the sea, God’s hands worked together and were far more powerful in concert with one another. At the sea, then, each plague was the hand of God, and together they were more like fifty plagues – much more powerful. Just as five has the strength of a hundred and one hundred is ten thousand – 5:100 and 100:10,000 (when it should have said 100:2,000), so if 1 finger is as 2 plagues (5:10 or 1:2) then (ten plagues at the sea) were like as 50 plagues.¹²⁹Here is my best effort at the math here. If five can pursue 100, then mathematically, 100 should pursue 2000. But in the Torah, the larger number increases fivefold to ten thousands. Similarly since each plague equal one finger making ten plagues, then, at sea the larger number here increases fivefold so at the sea the ten plagues are equal to fifty.
Why were the Egyptians punished so severely at the sea; they faced plagues, drowning, and the Israelites plundered the wealth which washed on the shore after they were drowned? According to the law, Noahides who were put to death should not have been fined as well. However the different punishments were for different aspects of their sin. The plunder was back pay for the Israel’s years of service in Egypt. The drowning was punishment for having pursued the Israelites after they left Egypt since one who pursues another to kill him can be put to death to save the victim. The plagues at the sea were punishment for having pursued the mixed multitude¹³⁰The word chamushim usually is taken to mean “armed.” Rabbi Horowitz takes it to be a reference to the mixed multitude that left Egypt with Israel. Since the word chamushim comes from the Hebrew root chamesh, five, he offers his interpretation of the word above. The mixed multitude refers to those non-Jews who chose to join the Israelites when they left Egypt. Horowitz suggests elsewhere that there were divine sparks mixed among the mixed multitude that still had to be freed so Moses took them along. that left Egypt with the Israelites, since the appropriate punishment for this infraction would have been lashings. The Torah says that the Israelites left Egypt “chamushim.”¹³¹Exodus 13:18 Chamushim means that there were five times more people in the mixed multitude than there were among the Israelites. Since the mix multitude was five times more numerous than the Israelites, the Egyptians were punished five times more severely than they were in Egypt.
The sages interpreted the verse, “We add wreaths of gold to your spangles of silver,”¹³²Song of Songs 1:11 as a reference to the plundering of Egypt (spangles of silver) and the plunder at the Red Sea (wreaths of gold). Why did the sages make a connection between these two events? When the Israelites reached the Red Sea, the plunder from Egypt was already in their hands. The plunder that they received at the Sea was theirs by virtue of it being ownerless; according to Jewish law anything that is claimed from the sea belongs to the one who finds it since we presume that if someone lost something in the sea or a flood they despair of ever claiming. That which was taken from Egypt, however, was different. According to the Torah the Israelites “borrowed” objects they took in Egypt. This meant that they had the status of borrowers and therefore could be considered to have certain responsibilities to the ones from whom they borrowed the property. It was for this reason, therefore, that the Midrash claims that the Egyptians did not drown until they could see the Israelites on the shore of the sea. When this happened they despaired of ever getting their possessions back – so the Israelites did not take full possession of the Egyptian plunder until the Egyptians drowned in the sea.