Last week we read Shmot we he read about a new king who arose and enslaved the Israelites. There we read:

Yosef died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them. A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Yosef. ( Exodus 1: 6-8)

What did it mean that he did not “know” Yosef? We will come back to this.

In Vayera, this week’s Torah portion, Moshe who left Egypt having killed a slave master is back. And he is here to liberate the Israelites. There is a strange moment after he and Aaron ask Pharoah to let the people go and before the 10 plagues get underway. Hear we read:

God said to Moshe and Aaron, “When Pharaoh speaks to you and says, ‘Produce your marvel,’ you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and cast it down before Pharaoh.’ It shall turn into a serpent.” So Moshe and Aaron came before Pharaoh and did just as God had commanded: Aaron cast down his rod in the presence of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and it turned into a serpent. Then Pharaoh, for his part, summoned the sages and the sorcerers; and the Egyptian magician-priests, in turn, did the same with their spells: each cast down his rod, and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed their rods. (Exodus 7:8-12)

This all seems to be some perfunctory experience of marvel. What is going on with this sorcery? Why does Aaron need to be the one doing it? Is this just another question of who has the bigger stick?

How might Aaron’s magic dominate the Pharoah’s sorcerers’? On a simple level this seems to be a demonstration of “game”. We would have hope that this would have been the targeted strike the would have preempted all the pain and suffering through the 10 plagues, but it was not meant to be.

I wanted to offer another level of thinking here. Slavery of the Israelites started with the new Pharoah not knowing Yosef, but this did not mean that Pharoah’s sorcerers did not know who him. Remember Yosef came to power when he interpreted a dream that the sorcerers were not able to read. There we read:

Next morning, his spirit was agitated, and he sent for all the magician-priests of Egypt, and all its sages; and Pharaoh told them his dreams, but none could interpret them for Pharaoh. The chief cupbearer then spoke up and said to Pharaoh, “I must make mention today of my offenses. Once Pharaoh was angry with his servants, and placed me in custody in the house of the prefect, together with the chief baker. We had dreams the same night, he and I, each of us a dream with a meaning of its own. A Hebrew youth was there with us, a servant of the prefect; and when we told him our dreams, he interpreted them for us, telling each of the meaning of his dream. ( Genesis 41:8-12)

We follow the narrative of this Hebrew youth who can interpret dreams and Yosef’s assent to power, we forget about the magician-priests of Egypt and all its sages who got passed over. Something tells me they knew exactly who Yosef was. They might have gotten the plagues because these sorcerers could not live with another Pass over. Hell hath no fury like a scorned sorcerer.