Why plagues essay

Imagine. If you really wanted to plague a people, just poison their water. That would be a real plague. And it occurred to me that that’s exactly what happened in the first plague. The water turned to blood. It became undrinkable. And it brought Egypt to its knees.

One of the better things I read during this corona period was a statement that said, “Jewish Irony: Pesach canceled because of a plague.” Indeed we are plagued and in a way that as a people and species we have not been for a long while. And we are compelled to ask why and for what purpose?

Wild pigs roam the streets of Paris; bears have been spotted in California; Thailand has seen hundreds of screaming monkeys take over the streets. And at least one cougar has been spotted in a town in India. That leaves the plagues of Darkness and the Slaying of the First Born. Darkness doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.

That would make the Ten Plagues very relevant and somewhat frightening. And it seems not only that they can happen, but that they are happening. Consider our time. The plagues start with water, but half of them are related to animals – frogs, lice, wild beasts, cattle disease, and locusts. Then consider bird flu, swine flu, mad cow disease corona.