When it comes to plagues, the most famous ones in the Judeo-Christian tradition are remembered in the festival of Passover.
The story of the ten plagues of Egypt, described in Exodus, has been commemorated for centuries. The plagues, which take various forms, including disease, are recounted aloud by the assembled guests at every Passover seder. The Passover seder was also the occasion of the Last Supper in the Christian tradition. In Judeo-Christian history this is the only plague event which has enjoyed millennia of continuous mention in a ritual observance.
Exodus 11:1 begins, “One more plague shall I bring upon the Pharoah and upon Egypt….” The story is familiar to millions of people worldwide — Jews, whether religiously observant or not, Christians of most denominations, others of various religious preferences, and even secularists. Many people around the world know of the ten plagues and especially the final plague, in which the deity claims the life of every firstborn son of Egypt.
Websters defines a plague most broadly as “a disastrous or evil affliction,” though the word also refers to an epidemic disease. In antiquity, the deity in a particular culture, whether Apollo in Greece or Shiva in India, was believed to be the holder of the power to determine the outcome of any plague or epidemic. There is undisputed, copious evidence that plagues and epidemics did, in fact, surge through populations. In Megiddo, Israel, for example, from historical records of 3500 years ago, we can infer that there was an epidemic, by examining pottery in the stratum coincident with a mention of the plague at that time, many centuries before the storied plagues of Egypt.
In antiquity, the issue was, why did epidemics and other scourges occur? And could the deity intervene?
For the tenth plague of Egypt, the Rabbinic commentary offers a possible metaphorical explanation from which we can infer that the biblical reference to Pharoah was inspired by an epidemic. Here’s the text from the Passover Haggadah (Jonathan Safran Foer, The New American Haggadah, translated by Nathan Englander). Readers, please note that there are many versions and translations of the Haggadah. We are citing only one for brevity and to make the single point that, in the ancient times, great power was attributed to the deity.
Rabbi Yossi ha-Galili said: “How do we come to say that the Egyptians were struck with ten plagues in Egypt, and struck with fifty plagues by the sea? In reference to Egypt, what does it say? And the magicians said to Pharoah, ‘It is the finger of God!’ In reference to the sea, what does it say? And Israel saw the massive hand that the Lord used against Egypt, and in Moses his servant. So how many were struck with when God was using only one finger? Ten plagues. Let it be said from now on: In Egypt that were stricken with ten plagues, and by the sea stricken with fifty plagues.”
There is other rabbinic commentary on this expansion of the plague:
Rabbi Akiva said: “How do you come to say that each and every plague that the Holy One, Blessed is He, visited on the Egyptians in Egypt was composed of five plagues? As it is written: And He delivered upon them His wrath, furious, rageful and misery-making — a covey of evil angels. His wrath, one. Fury, two. Rage, three. And misery, four. A covey of evil angels, five. Let it be said from now on: In Egypt they were stricken with fifty plagues, and by the sea stricken with fifty and two hundred plagues.”
In the Book of Numbers, Chapter 16:47–48, a less well-known biblical plague begins and ends with the intervention of the deity in the years after the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.
So Aaron took it [the burning censer] as Moses had ordered and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague had already begun among the people. He put on the incense and made atonement for the people. He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stopped. Those who died by the plague were fourteen thousand, seven hundred…. (NRSV)
Numbers 25: 8–9 describes a later point in the Israelites’ story, when Phineas, grandson of Aaron the priest, follows the directive of the deity, who is angered because some of the Israelites have begun to worship Baal, and he commands that they be killed: “Taking a spear in his hand, he [Phineas] went after the Israelite man into the tent and pierced the two of them, the Israelite man and the [Midianite] woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel. Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.” (NRSV)
We will stop with that grisly intervention.
Of course, religious explanations for epidemics and pandemics certainly persist, and they can be found in many religious traditions. People of many faiths lift prayers invoking divine intervention on behalf of the sick and always will. But, today, conversations about the causes and management of epidemics focus on the evolution of pathogens, their mechanisms for infecting people, and human responses that can protect individuals and populations. Societies seek, in one way or another, to minimize suffering and the disruptions that epidemics and pandemics cause in the activity of human networks.
What we know may help us to succeed if we act on it. What we don’t know, or what we choose to ignore, may hurt us.
We are still in the period of Covid, as we can see by looking around the world. The SARS-CoV-2 virus knows no religious preference; it only seeks to mutate, mutate, and mutate, thereby enabling it to spread. The rest is up to each of us to determine what to do and how to do it when considering our health and our future.
To all those who are celebrating an April religious observance, whether it is this period of a Holy Week, or a Passover seder, or Vaisakhi (Sikh), or something else, we wish you safety and peace.
David R. Kotok
Chairman & Chief Investment Officer
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