[Exclusive] The Manna, Bonus Content

The Egypt-Manna connection is even bigger than we realized, and teaches something even more profound. We invited Michelle Zerykier, the scholar who was the inspiration behind this whole season, to share more discoveries. She convinces us that almost every single plague is connected to manna. Rabbi Fohrman then puts all the pieces together to uncover the meaning behind it all.

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Transcript

Imu Shalev: Hi, and welcome to this exclusive bonus epilogue. This is like the cozy after party of the season just for you guys, our members, and today, we're actually joined by one of you, Michaelle Zerykier, the person who first discovered these parallels that we've been exploring between the manna and Korban Pesach. I actually think, and this is a real treat, she has a couple more connections that we didn't yet discuss to show me. And, Rabbi Fohrman, I'm Imu Shalev, and as always, a book like no other is very generously sponsored by Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum. Welcome, Michaelle.

Michaelle Zerykier: Hi, Imu. Hi, Rabbi Fohrman. It was a tremendous honor to have this accepted by you, Imu, and gone up the chain to Rabbi Fohrman. And have you put the whole jigsaw puzzle together. The way you took it was fabulous. And, of course, they went in a direction that I did not anticipate. And I amazed, in awe, grateful.

Imu Shalev: You're being a little modest, by the way, Michaelle.

Michaelle Zerykier: Why a little modest?

Imu Shalev: Because you found amazing pieces. Actually, when you called me up, you're like, I don't know. I don't know if I found anything. But then Michaelle was like a machine gun. Corner piece, edge piece, edge piece, middle piece, middle piece. So a piece that Michaelle briefly showed me that I think is exciting to show her before is that Michaelle didn't only see the tenth plague and its resonances in Exodus 16. Michaelle started to see a whole bunch of other stuff that connected not just the 10th plague, but some of the other ones as well. So, Michaelle, you want to show Rabbi Fohrman some of what you found?

Michaelle Zerykier: Okay, I'm gonna share a few of the things that I found. Some of them were very strong, and some of them I was counting on you, Rabbi Fohrman, to kind of take the ball and run. And then there's no pressure. So here we go. All right, so the biggest corner piece I think would be the makkat barad plague. Exodus 9:18. It says, "הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר כָּעֵת מָחָר בָּרָד כָּבֵד מְאֹד" – I am going to rain upon you tomorrow. Heavy hail.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Od.

Michaelle Zerykier: When they talk about the manna. Exodus 16:4, God is using the same word, mamtir, from the verb matar. Rain I am raining upon you. Bread from the sky.

Imu Shalev: It's not just mamtir which is raining. It's hineni mamtir. Right. Matar is, like, not that uncommon a word. But hineni mamtir is I am causing to rain. So there's hineni mamtir in both places.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So "הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר כָּעֵת מָחָר בָּרָד כָּבֵד מְאֹד" reminds you of "הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר לָכֶם לֶחֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם" (Exodus 16:4). And then if I would just finish your thought for a moment. If you go back to Exodus 9 when it says that I'm going to cause the hail to come down very greatly and then it says "אֲשֶׁר לֹא־הָיָה כָמֹהוּ" – That was never like it in Egypt. From the moment, right from the moment of its founding until now. The word for the moment of its founding until now is limin, which is the same letters as what they end up calling the manna man, as if it's this little wink to what will eventually become the manna. So you're suggesting there's something about the hail which is foreshadowing the bread before.

Imu Shalev: The pun of min and man. Like just if you're looking at Exodus 16 here, you also have a min that isn't man. You have lechem min hashem in Exodus 4. Right. God says to Moshe, he's going to cause to rain down bread from the heavens. That word from is min. Just like there's three words hineni mamtir and the word min. Man is a separate. To me that's a whole other level. But there's min versus min hayom.

Rabbi David Fohrman: I see. Interesting.

Imu Shalev: The only other thing that I would say about this one which is interesting, which didn't come up, where does it talk about the manna having a frosty quality? "דַּק מְחֻסְפָּס דַּק כַּכְּפֹר" (Exodus 16:14).

Michaelle Zerykier: "כַּכְּפֹר עַל־פְּנֵי הָאָרֶץ."

Imu Shalev: It's referred to as frost on the ground. Barad is ice.

Rabbi David Fohrman: That's interesting. Where is that? 16:14.

Michaelle Zerykier: 16:14.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Like frost. That is interesting. It says I'm going to tomorrow bring this hail. That there was nothing like it ever. It was unprecedented since Egypt was established until now. What does "אֲשֶׁר לֹא־הָיָה כָמֹהוּ" remind you of with the manna?

Imu Shalev: Conceptually reminds me of the manna who of like they didn't know what this was.

Rabbi David Fohrman: The reason why the people call the manna man in Exodus 16, verse 15, because they didn't know what it was. So they said man. What is it? Because it was unprecedented.

Imu Shalev: This has never, never happened before.

Michaelle Zerykier: Right?

Rabbi David Fohrman: It was the first time both the barad and the manna are are unprecedented. The other thing that pops into mind as I begin to just think about this, ask yourself, why in the world should barad be connected to manna like that seems weird. Like, I see these language connections are pretty strong, but conceptually they have nothing to do with each other. Think about it. What's their relationship to one another? In some respects, they're the same. There's ice in both, as you've suggested. There's language that's similar in both.

Imu Shalev: They're both crunchy.

Rabbi David Fohrman: They're both crunchy. In some respects, they're opposites. One is a plague and one is a blessing. If you think conceptually about why they should have to do with each other.

Imu Shalev: Doesn't barad attack the grain?

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yes.

Imu Shalev: The barad attacked the entire land of Egypt.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Right.

Imu Shalev: All the grass and everything that was in the field.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yes. That's, I think, the essential point. Well, the point of barad was its attack on the grain. There's some drama here with barad just from a simple economic standpoint, right?

Imu Shalev: Because it's not just that it destroys the bread. Like, at least they have the beans or at least they have the cucumbers. This is an economic nuclear bomb. The point is, like, Egypt was the breadbasket of the ancient world. It would be like the equivalent of some sort of plague attacking Silicon Valley. Right. All the AI stocks, you know, the Magnificent Seven, are devastated because of the plague. It's even more profound than that because we don't eat AI yet. But, yes, it goes to the heart of Egypt's economic power.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Exactly. And then just to finish that loop, the manna is the blessing of bread coming from heaven. Like, let's say you're a slave in Egypt and you have Moses around the campfire one night, and none of the plagues have happened yet. You're saying Moses, like, what's the plan? You've been talking to God, like, what's his plan? He says, well, I'm just going to tell you, but don't tell any of your friends, okay? We're going to leave Egypt, and we're all going to go in the wilderness. All of us. 2.3 million people. That's the plan. And it's like Moses, are you crazy? Here we got food. I mean, I know it's slavery and it's all bad, but, like, this is a desert. Have you ever been out there? It's 110 degrees out there. The only thing that's keeping us alive is the Nile Delta. This irrigation from the water. I mean, this is the place that the entire world comes to for bread. You're going to the wilderness where's going to be food. Right. The Torah makes a big deal of. You're leaving with just the bread on your backs, the geseida lo asulaim.

And there was no other bread packed for lunch. This is it. And you're going to a place where there's absolutely no possibility of growing anything because you're in a midbar. And so God says, no, I'm turning the tables on you. You think Egypt is the great bread basket and there's a lot of bread there. No, there's going to be hail and there's going to be no bread in Egypt. Well, what about the wilderness? Now? The wilderness is going to be bread where, you know the bread's coming from. It's actually coming from heaven. It's fascinating. Barad and manna are actually complete inverses of each other. Right. The thing about Egypt is there is no rain. Egypt does not need rain because it has the Nile.

Imu Shalev: So Egypt, I'm going to introduce you to rain.

Rabbi David Fohrman: That's right. So Egypt, I'm God. Let me introduce you to some rain. But not the kind of rain that is going to irrigate. The kind of rain that destroys what the Nile delta has given you. All of this bread. Now you get to the wilderness. So along comes God and says, I'm going to give you bread now. How? Through precipitation. The very barad that I use to undo the gifts of the Nile delta in Egypt, I'm going to give an icy form of precipitation in the form of bread that comes with this little frost of ice. And then when the ice is on the ground and the ice dissipates because it's 110 degrees on the ground and you have nice fresh bread that just defrosted from your freezer coming from heaven. It's the gifts that are the inverse of barad.

Imu Shalev: Michaelle?

Michaelle Zerykier: Yes?

Imu Shalev: Can you take us to the next plague?

Michaelle Zerykier: Sure. "וַיְהִי בָעֶרֶב וַתַּעַל הַשְּׂלָו וַתְּכַס אֶת־הַמַּחֲנֶה וּבַבֹּקֶר הָיְתָה שִׁכְבַת הַטָּל סָבִיב לַמַּחֲנֶה" (Exodus 16:13) – And it was in the evening, and the birds came up, and covered the camp. And in the morning, there was a layer of dew surrounding the camp.

Imu Shalev: And what does this remind you of, Michaelle, in the plagues?

Michaelle Zerykier: In the plagues. In chapter 10, verse 5, when they talk about the locusts, it says same word to cover. "וְכִסָּה אֶת־עֵין הָאָרֶץ וְלֹא יוּכַל לִרְאֹת אֶת־הָאָרֶץ" (Exodus 10:5) – It covered the eye of the land below. And it was impossible to see the land. So in both cases there was a flying living being covering the land and it was impossible to see.

Imu Shalev: I think you might have another extension of it. You have vata'al haslav versus "וַיַּעַל הָאַרְבֶּה" (Exodus 10:14). So, like, the flying beings both go up.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Where's vaya'al ha'arbeh 14?

Michaelle Zerykier: Oh, that's.

Rabbi David Fohrman: And you have vayekas there also, by the way.

Imu Shalev: Yeah. So just slowing it down. We see a couple of elements, flying beings that are going up that are covering vatekas et hamachane. They cover the camp versus "וַיְכַס אֶת־עֵין כָל־הָאָרֶץ" (Exodus 10:15). They cover the eye of the entire land. So a whole bunch of parallels here that seem to connect the flying locust to the flying birds that come along with the manna. Oh, what's interesting. Also, I found another one. Can anybody find something interesting? The second half of verse 15 that would remind you of the manna, verse 15 in Exodus 10.

Michaelle Zerykier: Lo notar.

Imu Shalev: Yes, lo notar.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Oh, that is interesting.

Imu Shalev: So in Exodus 10:15, it says that the locusts came and they ate all of the vegetation that the barad, that the hail had left over. But in the manna. Right, there's the law that we talked about. You were not allowed to leave over. Any of the manna that you gathered and collected needed to be consumed. Now, the not leaving over in Exodus 10 is very, very dark. Pun intended. Because the locusts darken the...

Rabbi David Fohrman: Actually, it's a little bit more than that. Look carefully. At 18 going into 19. "אִישׁ לְפִי אָכְלוֹ לָקְטוּ" (Exodus 16:18) – Each one according to what you can eat. "לֹא־הִשְׁאִירוּ מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר" (Exodus 16:19). The lo hish'iru mimenu ad boker is because you have lefi achlo, each one according to what you can eat.

Imu Shalev: Yeah.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Now look at the arbeh, the locust is. That's right.

Imu Shalev: The locusts are the ones who are doing the consuming, and they don't leave over anything. It's actually interesting. The people who consume in both cases don't leave over. But how bad is it that the locusts eat everything and don't leave over? Then I can't eat anything. Whereas God is like, did you eat up all of your string beans?

Rabbi David Fohrman: Don't leave anything.

Imu Shalev: It's making sure everybody's full before they leave.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Remember the people in Egypt with arbeh, they didn't have any food to eat because the arbeh took it all away. So eat up your food.

Imu Shalev: Okay? I'm going to torture you, Rabbi Fohrman. Now we're gonna move on. Michaelle, take us to the next place you want to go.

Michaelle Zerykier: Okay. The next place I want to go.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Oh, no. Oh, no one.

Imu Shalev: I know, I know. Torture him.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Go, go.

Michaelle Zerykier: Well, no, we're just not torturing. We're teasing him so he'll come up with more stuff in his sleep tonight.

Imu Shalev: Exactly. When Michaelle showed me this, I fought it because I was like, barad. Okay, fine. I guess you see something arbeh. Okay, that's cool. But Michaelle was like, Imu, I see something in almost everything. Let me take you to the next one.

Michaelle Zerykier: We're going through a very dark place now. 16:29, Rabbi Fohrman.

Imu Shalev: 16:29. Can you find anything that's darkness, like...

Rabbi David Fohrman: "שְׁבוּ אִישׁ תַּחְתָּיו אַל־יֵצֵא אִישׁ מִמְּקֹמוֹ בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי" (Exodus 16:29). Yeah, I hear you. Okay, there it is.

Imu Shalev: You hear how disappointed he is to find the parallel. He's not, like, jumping out of his seat. He's like, ugh, I hear you.

Michaelle Zerykier: That was an easy one. You threw me a bone.

Rabbi David Fohrman: By the way, it's interesting that it's the language of sitting, right? That's a kind of double entendre there, isn't it? Ro'eh. Sitting, it's the Sabbath. Why do you think you had double the portion of bread? Everyone sit where they are. Nobody move. Don't let anybody go out. So this language of "שְׁבוּ אִישׁ תַּחְתָּיו אַל־יֵצֵא אִישׁ מִמְּקֹמוֹ" is very reminiscent of choshech.

Michaelle Zerykier: I think he's getting a Coke.

Imu Shalev: I don't think so. You fed him way too many hints. Next time, don't tell him the plague you're going to. And just read it in Exodus 16 and say, does this remind you of anything?

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah. All right. So in choshech, we have the following. There's going to be choshech, darkness, over the land of Egypt, and the choshech is for three days. And over those three days, "לֹא־רָאוּ אִישׁ אֶת־אָחִיו" (Exodus 10:23) – one person cannot see the other.

Imu Shalev: So slow down. A person didn't see. Contrast that with 16:29. So we have lo ra'u versus lo ra'u.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah, that's actually good. So one person not see the other, which evokes and the story of the manna. Right. And "וְלֹא־קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו" (Exodus 10:23) – one person did not get up – is very evocative. One person did not get up the ish mitachtav, which I would venture to guess is probably the only two places you have that in Chumash, in the five books of Moses.

Imu Shalev: Ish tachtav and ish mitachtav.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah, I doubt that there's another one.

Imu Shalev: So we haven't translated it yet. I'm just going to say it's a person from under himself. In Exodus 16, it's "שְׁבוּ אִישׁ תַּחְתָּיו," everybody should sit under themselves. Like sit where you are. And in 10:23, "וְלֹא־קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו" – they did not get up each person from under themselves.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah. Lo kamu is just another way of saying shevu. It's the opposite language, but it amounts...

Imu Shalev: But it's the same meaning.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Not getting up from under yourself is the same as sitting under yourself.

Imu Shalev: I think there's one more parallel in this verse. I see. Can you see it? Finish reading the verse in 10:23.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Meanwhile, "וּלְכָל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָיָה אוֹר בְּמוֹשְׁבֹתָם" – all of Israel had light in their dwelling places. There is a direct evocative of shevu ish tachtav in that language, right, shevu.

Imu Shalev: But also Shabbat.

Rabbi David Fohrman: That too.

Imu Shalev: So it's almost like moshvotam is your dwelling places. Shabbat almost like makes a dwelling place. Right. You sit where you are and just enjoy yourself in that day. You don't have to go out. Don't go out isn't a curse in the manna, it's a blessing.

Rabbi David Fohrman: You...

Imu Shalev: It's literally recuperate, have a vacation. But in Exodus 10, it's, you're going to get a dark Shabbat. You won't be able to leave your dwelling places. You'll dwell, surely. Dwell. Not one day, three days. You can't leave the house. You're in quarantine. Essentially. It's very...

Michaelle Zerykier: You're in a lockdown.

Imu Shalev: Yeah.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Right. Now, you've shown connections between barad, arbeh and choshech, which are the seventh, eighth, and ninth plagues. So go ahead.

Imu Shalev: Just for all of you listening at home, if you were looking for something to say at your Seder this year, this is your Haggadah dvar Torah. You don't even have to read the Haggadah. You don't have to watch a single other video. You'll blow everyone at your Seder away. They haven't seen this before. And your mom and your mother-in-law will be so, so proud.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Especially your mother-in-law.

Imu Shalev: We can pull that straight for the promos. Take us to the next destination. But this time don't tell Rabbi Fohrman the next plague. Read in the manna what you find evocative, and let's see if Rabbi Fohrman can guess it.

Michaelle Zerykier: Oh, okay. We'll play that game.

Imu Shalev: There you go.

Michaelle Zerykier: This is an easy one. In 16:20. You with me?

Imu Shalev: Yeah. This is an easy one.

Rabbi David Fohrman: "וְלֹא־שָׁמְעוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה" (Exodus 16:20) – People didn't listen to Moshe. This is in 16. "וַיּוֹתִרוּ אֲנָשִׁים מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר וַיָּרֻם תּוֹלָעִים וַיִּבְאַשׁ" – And they left things over for the morning and the worms got to it. And it stinks. So you want to know, does this evoke another plague? Yes, it evokes the plague of tzfarde'a. Right. So the plague of frogs. We actually have the very unusual word of stink. The frog carcasses stink.

Imu Shalev: It's in Exodus 8. The people gathered the frogs into piles. "וַתִּבְאַשׁ הָאָרֶץ" (Exodus 8:10) – The land stank.

Michaelle Zerykier: Very good.

Imu Shalev: Which I think is a nice segue actually into one more plague, which is the plague of blood.

Michaelle Zerykier: Yes, it's actually the same thing in the plague of blood. 7:21.

Rabbi David Fohrman: 7:21. Vayiv'ash, you are very interesting. So that's that same language, the stinking of the water.

Imu Shalev: Before, what do you make of the connections between the stinking blood and frogs? On the one hand, to the stinking of the manna, when the people choose not to obey the command not to leave over, and the worms come and make the manna stinky.

Rabbi David Fohrman: That's interesting. What do I make of that? But let's think about it this way. Where does the manna come from?

Michaelle Zerykier: Heaven.

Rabbi David Fohrman: What's the Hebrew word for heaven? Shamayim, which is really a contraction of two words.

Michaelle Zerykier: Sham mayim.

Rabbi David Fohrman: There is water. So if the manna comes out of heaven and heaven is there is water, what does that remind you of in these plagues? What comes out of the water in these plagues? Frogs. Frogs emerge from the water, right? From terrestrial water. And when they die, they stink. So too that there is manna which emerges not from terrestrial waters, but from heavenly waters. Shamayim. And they, like frogs, have an expiration date. When they're past their expiration date, they stink. It continues the blessing, curse notion, which is that for Egypt, the frogs were themselves a curse. The manna can be seen as the inverse of frogs, which is there's something that comes from water, but instead of it being to plague you, it is...

Imu Shalev: To bless you, which I think is really interesting. Verse 28 "וְעָלוּ וּבָאוּ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבַחֲדַר מִשְׁכָּבְךָ" (Exodus 7:28) – They get up, they come to your house and into your sleeping room, right to your bedroom.

Rabbi David Fohrman: And...

Imu Shalev: And not only that, they go into your bed. "וּבְבֵית עֲבָדֶיךָ וּבְעַמֶּךָ" (Exodus 7:28) – and not just your room, but also the house of your servant and in your nation. "וּבְתַנּוּרֶיךָ וּבְמִשְׁאֲרוֹתֶיךָ" (Exodus 7:28) – they're also going to go to your ovens and your kneading bowls, which feels very, very relevant when it comes to the manna, they're going to get into your food prep station.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So basically, it gets more and more intense as you read. And the greatest level of intensity is when they not only invade your home and your bedroom, but they invade your food. Preposterous. Because when they invade your food prep, that's a national security issue. If I've got frogs everywhere and I can't knead my dough, my bread is attacked. My bread isn't attacked the way it's attacked later in the plagues, which is a more essential way, which is there is no bread because there is no wheat. Now there is wheat. It's just I have a problem actually making in my kneading trough. It's almost like bread is being attacked in each of these plagues, but in more and more essential ways. Basically, the idea is, is that there's a curse and there's a blessing, right? The curse is there is death coming to you in the form of frog infestation of your bread bowls. And where does it come from? It comes from your waters, which are supposed to be helpful for you. But there's going to be something coming from the waters that's going to mess with your bread. That's tzfarde'a. And what's happening in manna?

Something is coming from heavenly waters which is granting you bread.

Imu Shalev: Oh, guys, can you read Exodus 8, verse 5, which is the leaving of the frogs. Read the very end.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Exodus 8, verse 5. Interesting. "תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה" – They will remain, right? Moses says, when should I get rid of the frogs such that they will only remain in the ye'or? But the word for remain actually is a play off of kneading bowls. The word for kneading bowls is mish'arotecha, which means so the place where your sourdough is. The place where your sourdough is. "רַק בַּיְאֹר תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה" – they will only stay in the ye'or in the water. What's interesting about that word stay also Imu. Why do you think the word stay would be connected to sourdough?

Imu Shalev: We talked about sourdough as being something that happens when you are a settled nation, right? When you're actually sitting by the wheat and by the yeast so that these things have the ability to rise. You can't have chametz on the move.

Rabbi David Fohrman: The whole point of what se'or is, the reason why se'or is sourdough is because of time.

Imu Shalev: Time and abundance. I think we talked about that in this last piece. Time and a lot of leftovers.

Rabbi David Fohrman: A lot of...

Imu Shalev: A lot of extra.

Michaelle Zerykier: Sure, right.

Imu Shalev: Having a lot of leftover dough, she'ar allows it to bloom into yeast. You need time and space.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So it's actually that which is left over in time. And that which is left over in space is sourdough becomes sour is that which is left over with too much time and space. And so "רַק בַּיְאֹר תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה," they will stay, or they will leave themselves over and will stay in the waters, which is where they should be. But when they overstay their welcome outside on land, right then they die.

Imu Shalev: What's really nice about all this is overstaying in time and space is what leads to chametz. It leads to sourdough. It leads to leavening and bread. But what is interesting is it also leads to stink. Let's say I went to the butcher and I got myself a beautiful cut of meat. And then I'm like, let me tisha'arenah, let me leave that out on my countertop, right? I leave it out for an hour, I leave it out for two hours, I leave it out for a day, I leave it out for two days. You know what's going to happen to my beautiful cut of meat? It's going to stink. Time causes things to stink. Doesn't just cause fermentation, it causes stinkiness. That's one interesting thing. But I think if we're comparing this dam and tzfarde'a to the manna, especially seeing everything we saw with Korban Pesach is God doesn't want us to leave over. He wants us actually to eat fresh, eat the thing for that day. We're not going to mix time with our bread. We're going to enjoy it as is. And the attempt to hoard and to do what Egypt tried to do, which is stockpile its grain and to subjugate others so that they could stockpile grain.

That whole business, that was stinky. So you guys, if you try and build your own stockpiles, that will be stinky. But what I'm going to do is going to keep things fresh for you. I think maybe that's a way to see.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So in other words, what Egypt did was they amassed power by leveraging leftovers, which, if you think about it, was the whole plan of Egypt going all the way back to Joseph, the silos of grain and stuff. And that's what made Egypt powerful. And God says, relinquish your power. Don't give in to the idea to let it stay and try to be more powerful. We're getting away from chametz's ideas with this manna.

Michaelle Zerykier: Oh, okay. We'll play that game.

Imu Shalev: There you go.

Michaelle Zerykier: This is an easy one. In 16:20. You with me?

Imu Shalev: Yeah. This is an easy one.

Rabbi David Fohrman: "וְלֹא־שָׁמְעוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה" (Exodus 16:20) – People didn't listen to Moshe. This is in 16. "וַיּוֹתִרוּ אֲנָשִׁים מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר וַיָּרֻם תּוֹלָעִים וַיִּבְאַשׁ" – And they left things over for the morning and the worms got to it. And it stinks. So you want to know, does this evoke another plague? Yes, it evokes the plague of tzfarde'a. Right. So the plague of frogs. We actually have the very unusual word of stink. The frog carcasses stink.

Imu Shalev: It's in Exodus 8. The people gathered the frogs into piles. "וַתִּבְאַשׁ הָאָרֶץ" (Exodus 8:10) – The land stank.

Michaelle Zerykier: Very good.

Imu Shalev: Which I think is a nice segue actually into one more plague, which is the plague of blood.

Michaelle Zerykier: Yes, it's actually the same thing in the plague of blood. 7:21.

Rabbi David Fohrman: 7:21. Vayiv'ash, you are very interesting. So that's that same language, the stinking of the water.

Imu Shalev: Before, what do you make of the connections between the stinking blood and frogs? On the one hand, to the stinking of the manna, when the people choose not to obey the command not to leave over, and the worms come and make the manna stinky.

Rabbi David Fohrman: That's interesting. What do I make of that? But let's think about it this way. Where does the manna come from?

Michaelle Zerykier: Heaven.

Rabbi David Fohrman: What's the Hebrew word for heaven? Shamayim, which is really a contraction of two words.

Michaelle Zerykier: Sham mayim.

Rabbi David Fohrman: There is water. So if the manna comes out of heaven and heaven is there is water, what does that remind you of in these plagues? What comes out of the water in these plagues? Frogs. Frogs emerge from the water, right? From terrestrial water. And when they die, they stink. So too that there is manna which emerges not from terrestrial waters, but from heavenly waters. Shamayim. And they, like frogs, have an expiration date. When they're past their expiration date, they stink. It continues the blessing, curse notion, which is that for Egypt, the frogs were themselves a curse. The manna can be seen as the inverse of frogs, which is there's something that comes from water, but instead of it being to plague you, it is...

Imu Shalev: To bless you, which I think is really interesting. Verse 28 "וְעָלוּ וּבָאוּ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבַחֲדַר מִשְׁכָּבְךָ" (Exodus 7:28) – They get up, they come to your house and into your sleeping room, right to your bedroom.

Rabbi David Fohrman: And...

Imu Shalev: And not only that, they go into your bed. "וּבְבֵית עֲבָדֶיךָ וּבְעַמֶּךָ" (Exodus 7:28) – and not just your room, but also the house of your servant and in your nation. "וּבְתַנּוּרֶיךָ וּבְמִשְׁאֲרוֹתֶיךָ" (Exodus 7:28) – they're also going to go to your ovens and your kneading bowls, which feels very, very relevant when it comes to the manna, they're going to get into your food prep station.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So basically, it gets more and more intense as you read. And the greatest level of intensity is when they not only invade your home and your bedroom, but they invade your food. Preposterous. Because when they invade your food prep, that's a national security issue. If I've got frogs everywhere and I can't knead my dough, my bread is attacked. My bread isn't attacked the way it's attacked later in the plagues, which is a more essential way, which is there is no bread because there is no wheat. Now there is wheat. It's just I have a problem actually making in my kneading trough. It's almost like bread is being attacked in each of these plagues, but in more and more essential ways. Basically, the idea is, is that there's a curse and there's a blessing, right? The curse is there is death coming to you in the form of frog infestation of your bread bowls. And where does it come from? It comes from your waters, which are supposed to be helpful for you. But there's going to be something coming from the waters that's going to mess with your bread. That's tzfarde'a. And what's happening in manna?

Something is coming from heavenly waters which is granting you bread.

Imu Shalev: Oh, guys, can you read Exodus 8, verse 5, which is the leaving of the frogs. Read the very end.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Exodus 8, verse 5. Interesting. "תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה" – They will remain, right? Moses says, when should I get rid of the frogs such that they will only remain in the ye'or? But the word for remain actually is a play off of kneading bowls. The word for kneading bowls is mish'arotecha, which means so the place where your sourdough is. The place where your sourdough is. "רַק בַּיְאֹר תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה" – they will only stay in the ye'or in the water. What's interesting about that word stay also Imu. Why do you think the word stay would be connected to sourdough?

Imu Shalev: We talked about sourdough as being something that happens when you are a settled nation, right? When you're actually sitting by the wheat and by the yeast so that these things have the ability to rise. You can't have chametz on the move.

Rabbi David Fohrman: The whole point of what se'or is, the reason why se'or is sourdough is because of time.

Imu Shalev: Time and abundance. I think we talked about that in this last piece. Time and a lot of leftovers.

Rabbi David Fohrman: A lot of...

Imu Shalev: A lot of extra.

Michaelle Zerykier: Sure, right.

Imu Shalev: Having a lot of leftover dough, she'ar allows it to bloom into yeast. You need time and space.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So it's actually that which is left over in time. And that which is left over in space is sourdough becomes sour is that which is left over with too much time and space. And so "רַק בַּיְאֹר תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה," they will stay, or they will leave themselves over and will stay in the waters, which is where they should be. But when they overstay their welcome outside on land, right then they die.

Imu Shalev: What's really nice about all this is overstaying in time and space is what leads to chametz. It leads to sourdough. It leads to leavening and bread. But what is interesting is it also leads to stink. Let's say I went to the butcher and I got myself a beautiful cut of meat. And then I'm like, let me tisha'arenah, let me leave that out on my countertop, right? I leave it out for an hour, I leave it out for two hours, I leave it out for a day, I leave it out for two days. You know what's going to happen to my beautiful cut of meat? It's going to stink. Time causes things to stink. Doesn't just cause fermentation, it causes stinkiness. That's one interesting thing. But I think if we're comparing this dam and tzfarde'a to the manna, especially seeing everything we saw with Korban Pesach is God doesn't want us to leave over. He wants us actually to eat fresh, eat the thing for that day. We're not going to mix time with our bread. We're going to enjoy it as is. And the attempt to hoard and to do what Egypt tried to do, which is stockpile its grain and to subjugate others so that they could stockpile grain.

That whole business, that was stinky. So you guys, if you try and build your own stockpiles, that will be stinky. But what I'm going to do is going to keep things fresh for you. I think maybe that's a way to see.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So in other words, what Egypt did was they amassed power by leveraging leftovers, which, if you think about it, was the whole plan of Egypt going all the way back to Joseph, the silos of grain and stuff. And that's what made Egypt powerful. And God says, relinquish your power. Don't give in to the idea to let it stay and try to be more powerful. We're getting away from chametz's ideas with this manna.

Imu Shalev: But what's interesting about that also is if you read 8:10 in light of this "וַיִּצְבְּרוּ אֹתָם חֳמָרִם חֳמָרִם וַתִּבְאַשׁ הָאָרֶץ" (Exodus 8:10) – they're gathering piles and piles in the land of Egypt, you'd expect them to be gathering piles and piles of grain, but here you're gathering piles and piles of frogs, and that causes a stink instead of causing sourdough or chametz. Michaelle, take us to the next destination, please.

Michaelle Zerykier: The next destination. The next few destinations are not as...

Imu Shalev: It's okay. We did our corner pieces and our edge pieces first. We can do some middle pieces.

Michaelle Zerykier: Some middle pieces. Okay. Do you want the one that you don't really like?

Imu Shalev: Definitely. Don't introduce that for the podcast. Wherever you want to take us next, Michaelle.

Michaelle Zerykier: All right, 16:4 "וְלָקְטוּ דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ" (Exodus 16:4) – They will gather what they need each for each day.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So you want to know what does that remind me of? So you must be talking about dever.

Michaelle Zerykier: Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So in 16:4, we've got this idea that I'm going to cause bread to rain down from heaven and people are going to go and collect this thing. How are they going to collect it? The thing of each day, on its day. Dvar yom beyomo. And wouldn't you know it, that word davar just happens to be the name of another plague. Daled beit reish dever. And let's take a look and read that. Go to Pharaoh and speak to him and say, here's the deal, Pharaoh, if you keep on holding on to my stuff, "הִנֵּה יַד־יקוה הוֹיָה בְּמִקְנְךָ" (Exodus 9:3) – the hand of God is going to be... By the way, the yad hashem here connects as well. Do you remember that, guys? The yad hashem and manna, right? So the yad hashem is a piece of this. The hand of God is going to be against all of your animals. Dever. There's that word "כָּבֵד מְאֹד" (Exodus 9:3). God's going to distinguish between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt. And none other of B'nei Yisrael's cattle will die. And the language for that is no thing among Israel will die. And the time that this is going to happen is God is going to do this thing, this davar, tomorrow.

So God is very punctilious about doing the thing on the day that it is appointed for it. Now look at the manna. What does Moshe say with the manna now collect davar yom beyomo of according to its day, I can't take tomorrow's thing today. If I take tomorrow's thing today, that would be hoarding. Similarly, back in Exodus 9, God makes a thing for the day, not today, but tomorrow, that is when the death of livestock will occur. That is the plague of dever.

Imu Shalev: I don't know. This is speculative, but I wonder to some extent, as much as, like we talked about hoarding and leftovers being this big deal, we're dealing with humanity not in the age of the technological revolution, the industrial revolution. We're in the agricultural revolution. And there are two really important things in the agricultural revolution where you can hoard and you can build yourself some security. One is in grain, but the other is in livestock. Livestock, right. Domesticated animals is the great technology of the day. This is the plague that attacks the domesticated animals. This is the plague that attacks she'ar or the leftovers of livestock. And it kind of is conceptually parallel that this parallel would show up in velkitu dvar yom beyomo, because the opposite of hoarding is each day according to its need. Your dvar yom beyomo, your matter of each day is going to be your sustenance that comes from the heavens. So this would be not an inverse.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Right.

Imu Shalev: We're actually seeing inverse in style, but equal results. God is going to get rid of your hoarding in the manna's story, and he's going to get rid of Egypt's hoarding in the plague story. Right. He's going to do it through dever, a very violent getting rid of hoarding, going to get rid of all your livestock, and a much more generous and kind getting rid of your hoarding by providing you dvar yom beyomo in Exodus 16. That just hit me as an attempt.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah. I also just want to point out that "מִי יִתֵּן מוּתֵנוּ בְיַד־יקוה בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם" (Exodus 16:3) – this notion of yad hashem, and you asked me, where else do we have yad hashem? And we pointed out that we had yad hashem in two places in the fifth and the 10th plagues. The death of livestock in plague five, the death of humans in plague 10. Right. So I just want to point out that that language, if only would we would have died at the hand of God in Egypt "בְּשִׁבְתֵּנוּ עַל־סִיר הַבָּשָׂר" – when we're sitting on those flesh pots, when we were eating that bread, why did you bring us here that we should die in famine? We're getting the antecedent of that language. Now when we get to dever, when we have "הִנֵּה יַד־יקוה הוֹיָה" (Exodus 9:3), that same yad hashem which we have later.

Imu Shalev: Interesting.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Right.

Imu Shalev: So if you were to connect the plagues. You wouldn't just do it with the word dever. You would have to be yad hashem.

Rabbi David Fohrman: It's not just the word dever. It's also the yad hashem that's connecting the plagues and the idea of yad hashem with death. Because the whole point of yad hashem is the yad hashem brings death.

Imu Shalev: In their worry, their fear. That's nice. That's very nice. So there was a yad hashem that caused death. So they're almost relating. They say, we remember the yad hashem and from the plague of dever that caused so much death. So the response is, we're going to bring a new kind of dever, a davar yom beyomo, one of life, one of sustenance. That's nice. Yeah, very nice. When Michaelle first showed me this, I felt a little too thin for me, but now I feel better.

Michaelle Zerykier: Yeah, right. I know Rabbi Fohrman could flesh it out like the flesh pots.

Rabbi David Fohrman: And by the way, it is really interesting because go back to the beginning of Exodus 16. This is the thing that kicks everything off. Like, look at it in context. 16:3. The people complain "מִי־יִתֵּן מוּתֵנוּ בְיַד־יקוה בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם" – If only we would add death and yad hashem, invoking the language of dever "בְּשִׁבְתֵּנוּ עַל־סִיר הַבָּשָׂר" – when we were hanging out with those flesh pots, when we were eating that bread, why'd you bring us here? To die in famine. And the very next words are, "וַיֹּאמֶר יקוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר לָכֶם לֶחֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם" (Exodus 16:4) – I'm going to rain down bread from the heavens, and people are going to go and collect. What are they going to collect? Davar yom beyomo. They're going to go collect each day's thing. So in other words, hey, guys, you want to die like the way you saw me bring death to the world? In dever. No, I'm going to give your own good, kind dever. I'm going to give you a davar yom beyomo, a good kind of thing that happens each day. I'm going to give you food to eat instead of the death of animals that otherwise might have made it into your flesh pots that you could eat.

Imu Shalev: Beautiful.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah.

Imu Shalev: All right, Michaelle, how many do we have left?

Michaelle Zerykier: We have three left. Okay. 16:12 "שָׁמַעְתִּי אֶת־תְּלוּנֹּת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל דַּבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם לֵאמֹר בֵּין הָעַרְבַּיִם תֹּאכְלוּ בָשָׂר" (Exodus 16:12) – I heard the complaints of the Jews. Tell them between the evenings you will be eating bread.

Imu Shalev: So it's not just that verse of bein ha'arbayim. The very next words is "וַיְהִי בָעֶרֶב וַתַּעַל הַשְּׂלָו" (Exodus 16:13). Or even earlier in verse 6, "עֶרֶב וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי יקוה הוֹצִיא אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם" (Exodus 16:6). And then "בְּתֵת יקוה לָכֶם בָּעֶרֶב בָּשָׂר" (Exodus 16:8). Erev arbayim erev. Everywhere you got it reminds you of arov. Possibly. Arov is in chapter eight, and it begins with 17.

Michaelle Zerykier: "וּמָלְאוּ בָּתֵּי מִצְרַיִם אֶת־הֶעָרֹב" (Exodus 8:17) – If you don't send my people out, I will send to you and your slaves and your people and your homes the arov, the conglomeration of animals. I will fill the homes of the Egyptians with this onslaught of animals.

Imu Shalev: Arov most traditionally is understood as a plague of wild animals. Some people see it as a plague of crocodiles, some people see it as a swarm of flies. That's the most weak one.

Michaelle Zerykier: But yeah, arov, I never heard the flies.

Imu Shalev: Yeah. Now what's interesting is in verse six in the manna story, it says "עֶרֶב וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי יקוה הוֹצִיא אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם" (Exodus 16:6) – in the evening you will know that God has taken you out of the land of Egypt. Somehow the slav and miracles of the manna are going to convince you that God is the one who took you out. Erev vidatem. Can you see anything that reminds you of that in arov, verse 18? Specifically, there are three things.

Rabbi David Fohrman: You should know. That I am God and the whole world.

Imu Shalev: It's three elements.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Three elements. You have bein ha'arbayim and you have arov.

Imu Shalev: It's very, very, very clear.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Together with "וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי־אֲנִי יקוה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם" (Exodus 16:12) – you will know that I am the Lord your God.

Michaelle Zerykier: Oh, it's in order also. Erev yidatem hashem erev vidatem ki hashem.

Imu Shalev: Hotzi'achem me'eretz Mitzrayim vs the arov "לְמַעַן תֵּדַע כִּי אֲנִי יקוה בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ" (Exodus 8:18).

Rabbi David Fohrman: Basically, wild birds are going to come and they're going to feed you. Well, that's the blessing. But the curse would be wild animals come and they don't feed you. They come when they're alive and destroy you. That was arov.

Imu Shalev: Nice.

Michaelle Zerykier: Okay, 16:31, "וְטַעְמוֹ כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ" (Exodus 16:31) – The taste of it they're talking about, the taste of the manna is like tzapichit, I guess. How would you translate it? A fried cookie. A fried thing.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So first of all, let's just point out that tzapichit is what we call hapax legomenon. There it is. Imu. What is a hapax legomenon?

Imu Shalev: It's an original word in the Bible. Original phrase. It only shows up here.

Michaelle Zerykier: That's where I was going without the fancy word.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Do we have any other tzapichit, Michaelle, other than this?

Michaelle Zerykier: We do not.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So in my experience, I think I would just want to validate Michaelle's instinct. I don't know where she's going here exactly, but I know enough to know that when you have a hapax legomenon, a unique word in the Bible, so you have to ask yourself, why is it there? A unique word in the Bible basically means that God just made up this word for this particular moment. So if it's a made up word, it means that God knows that you don't know what it means. So basically it's a way of saying ergleshnorb. Right? Like you can't say the meaning is so important because we don't know what it means. And often it's a connection to some other word in wordplay that actually doesn't mean the same things. May mean something very different. But God is sort of connecting those two and saying there's a residue of that idea over here. So, Michaelle, what do you think this is a word play off of?

Michaelle Zerykier: So if you take the center part of tzapichit, I get pi'ach.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Oh, interesting.

Michaelle Zerykier: And now I'm giving it to you.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Pi'ach kivshan.

Michaelle Zerykier: There you go.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Interesting.

Imu Shalev: Pi'ach means soot of the furnace.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So Michaelle, show me where pi'ach kivshan is. Which plague is this?

Michaelle Zerykier: And where is shechin, boils. Exodus 9:8. God told Moshe to tell Aaron, actually for both of them to take hands full of soot and throw it up to the sky in front of Pharaoh and it will turn into dust.

Rabbi David Fohrman: "קְחוּ לָכֶם מְלֹא חָפְנֵיכֶם פִּיחַ כִּבְשָׁן" (Exodus 9:8) – Take handfuls. Full handfuls.

Imu Shalev: That's interesting. Handfuls.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Why is that interesting?

Imu Shalev: One of the definitions of understanding the omer measurement, which is what the manna was, is a handful. It's a handful of grain.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Interesting. Do we have that language, though? We do, actually. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's interesting. That's very interesting. Here's the proof that Michaelle is right. Look at that word. Keep on reading. After the very next verse.

Imu Shalev: Verse 32, Moshe says this is what God has commanded.

Rabbi David Fohrman: It's right there. Now, I just want to point out that malo is an unusual word. It's not an absolutely impossible unusual word. But the word is only the second time in the Bible that the word malo has been used. Right? Then the very next time malo is used in the Torah is in the "מְלֹא הָעֹמֶר" (Exodus 16:32), when we have this verse with the manna. That really does seem to suggest that the "מְלֹא חָפְנֵיכֶם פִּיחַ" is related to the "וְטַעְמוֹ כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ," vayomer Moshe. So once again, looking at these parallels, you have the notion that the manna is an inverse of all the plagues, an inverse of shechin, right? Let's talk about how it's an inverse. What would be the most delicious thing to eat? A wafer dipped in honey. What do you think would be the worst thing to eat? Soot coming from a furnace.

Imu Shalev: Well, they both come from a cooking source, right? One is fried. It's not just a wafer dipped in honey, it's fried in honey. Whereas here, if you have ash, right, burning...

Rabbi David Fohrman: So in other words, it is a product of fire, a wafer that was fried in honey. You're right. You have a cooking source where the fire itself creates residue. And instead of cooking something good, you have the fire's own residue becomes soot. Right?

Michaelle Zerykier: You know what? It's like Imu's thing. It goes too long.

Imu Shalev: Oh, interesting.

Michaelle Zerykier: The fire goes too long, it burns and your bread starts...

Rabbi David Fohrman: That's very good. That's excellent. Very interesting. That's fascinating. Really fascinating, right?

Imu Shalev: You guys love time. Great. Why don't you leave that in a little longer and it's going to burn, right?

Michaelle Zerykier: Little longer and it's going to burn, right?

Imu Shalev: It'll be better longer.

Rabbi David Fohrman: It'll be better longer. Very fascinating. Now, along those lines, boys and girls, right? Pi'ach specifically goes with something else. Kivshan, right? Goes with something else also. Devash. Can you find something in the middle of devash, in the middle of kivshan that reminds you of each other? If pi'ach is a little piece of tzapichit, then kivshan is a little piece of devash. It's the beit shin of devash. The pi'ach is isolated. Tzapichit isolates pi'ach into pi'ach and devash becomes transmuted into kivshan. So pi'ach and kivshan becomes tzapichit bidevash. Now also, where did the manna come from, boys and girls? It fell from heaven. What would Moses do to create the plague?

Imu Shalev: Read verse, throw it up to the heavens.

Michaelle Zerykier: He throws it up to heaven.

Rabbi David Fohrman: It's the reverse. So the curse and the blessing come in reverse patterns, right? Do you allow something to fall from heaven, or do you throw it back heavenward? You throw it back heavenward and it becomes this terrible thing. It's literally. It's like the plagues. It's very dramatic. They become transformed from curses to blessings.

Imu Shalev: What's interesting to me also is that Michaelle brought up this idea of the bread kind of being in the toaster for too long. Right. And turning into this ash. What's interesting, though, is that specifically the parallel in the manna story is the one that is the closest to leaving something over. In the manna we couldn't leave over. He can't leave over. Can't leave over. When it comes to the parallels with this ash that was left over too long, all of a sudden Moshe tells Aaron, "קַח צִנְצֶנֶת אַחַת" (Exodus 16:33) – go get a jar. We're gonna leave over this manna. It's the exception to the rule that it's not going to get any worms. You're going to put it before God as something that will be protected. What's interesting to me, though, Rabbi Fohrman talks about the kodesh, something that before God as being a place without time. It's a timeless space. If you were to leave over manna and you wouldn't want worms to come into it, the only way to do that is to stick it in the jar before God, because there's no time that elapses in the kodesh or the kodesh kodashim, also where this jar would end up being.

This is a kind of leaving over that isn't hoarding. Its job isn't so that you can accumulate a lot. Its job is testimony to the fact that this was the miracle that God did before us, which I think is also an elegant contrast.

Michaelle Zerykier: That's beautiful.

Rabbi David Fohrman: You're right. There's a kind of irony, which is that inasmuch as the soot comes from leaving something in the fire too long, here we get to do that with manna with impunity. As long as it's next to the aron, it's cool, right? And it's almost as if one of the themes you're seeing is literally the theme of chametz being the issue with Egypt, which is that they just leave things over too long. Their power comes from leaving over bread and silos and storing it and hoarding and making sourdough. So God is like. No.

Imu Shalev: And subjugating the people to create arei miskenot.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah, exactly. See, what we saw in 2017, Imu in our course was that what Pharaoh did was with his business with the straws, he created a hoarding culture to try to create a scarcity of resources that would cause everyone to hoard and kill each other. But what's particularly chilling about that is that Pharaoh wasn't just doing that out of nowhere. He was creating a sort of phantasm of his own culture because his culture was a hoarding culture. His power came from hoarding. So he said, I'll take the hoarding. That is the arei miskenot, the hoarding, that is the letting se'or just stick around for a while and just become sourdough and all. And all of that power.

Imu Shalev: And...

Rabbi David Fohrman: And then I'm going to use that and leverage it against you and turn you into a hoarding culture with scarce resources, like we use hoarding to maximize our resources. That's the purpose of our hoarding. I'm going to create an artificial situation with you, with straw where there's scarce resources, there's not enough straw for anybody, and force you to hoard and watch society come apart where that happens. And God is like, you do that. You took your hoarding, the source of your power, and you used it and you leveraged against these people and made them helpless and made them kill each other. That's awful. I'm going to deliver them and the memories of the deliverance will be never hoard. Like Egypt. The hoarding was poison, what they did. And the midah keneged midah is. I'm going to take their midah of hoarding and turn it against them in these plagues. By the way, the language for what the locusts eat is "מַה־שָּׁאֲרָה לָכֶם מִן־הַבָּרָד" (Exodus 10:5) – that which is left over. That she'ar again, that which is left over. Yeah. This really is a theme, this nishara.

Imu Shalev: Business, which is a real psychological whammy if you think about it. We are so smart to make all these storehouses and to store, store, store, that we even foiled God's plague. So imagine the relief that when we do an inventory on what was left after God's plague. Okay. At least we have hanisha'ret so we can feel good. Almost like we outsmarted the divine. We have so much stored over that we'll be able to outlast him in his siege and then come the locust and eat the nisha'aret.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah.

Imu Shalev: There's so much more to do here. I know that. But what's interesting is we had a whole piece, a whole season we put together on meditations of the 10th plague and its connection. Right. The Korban Pesach. To manna comes Michaelle. And she's like, you think it's just the 10th? No, it's the 9th and the 8th and the 7th and the 1st. We did all the plagues except for one. Right. Michaelle, there's one plague we're missing.

Michaelle Zerykier: That's it. We have a little something, something.

Imu Shalev: Something so small you may not have noticed.

Michaelle Zerykier: Yes, it's tiny. It is so tiny that the magicians couldn't even do it.

Imu Shalev: So tiny that we couldn't find any intertextual parallels.

Rabbi David Fohrman: So let me meditate on that a little bit about all of this. Or a plague that we're itching to get to and haven't gotten to.

Imu Shalev: Oh, I didn't get to the last plague yet. Well, just before we do it.

Imu Shalev: No, we couldn't find anything, by the way.

Michaelle Zerykier: Oh, I found a little.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Little, little.

Michaelle Zerykier: But it's really very little.

Rabbi David Fohrman: The plague which we're missing here is missing. Kinim the lice. Yeah. Can you just give me the... Read the verse?

Imu Shalev: Yeah, here's. He'll get his free Coke if he gets this. I'll deliver it to him before Shabbat. I'll drive to your house and give you a Coke.

Rabbi David Fohrman: They're watching.

Michaelle Zerykier: Chapter 8, verse 12. "הַכְּתֹעֲפַר הָאָרֶץ וַיְהִי־כֵן" (Exodus 8:12) – This is the one plague that after the blood and the frogs, that the magicians in Egypt could not replicate. And I think they say that they couldn't replicate it because it was so tiny. So my thought was just like the kinim were so tiny and the manna was "כְּזֶרַע גַּד" (Exodus 16:31) – like a little seedling. A little weak, I give you. But I combed the whole thing, and that was the best I could comb.

Imu Shalev: She combed for lice and couldn't find it.

Michaelle Zerykier: I was hoping someone would catch that. The other thing was a play on vehechinu. Like, they prepared the manna. Vehechinu la'kinim. Those were the two things I could find.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Can we actually look at that for a minute? Because it feels like there might be something there. Where is that? What?

Michaelle Zerykier: Vehechinu?

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah.

Michaelle Zerykier: Did you like the part that the kinim was so tiny and the manna was so tiny?

Imu Shalev: No. Terrible.

Michaelle Zerykier: Okay.

Rabbi David Fohrman: No, I do like the kinim, though, as hechin. It just seems like there is something there.

Imu Shalev: Yeah, I think that that's more likely there. What do you think about this? I'm playing with the connection between lice and preparing because it's the same root. Right. Lahechin and kinim. What would lice and preparing have in common? Oh, I know you have a theory.

Rabbi David Fohrman: What do lice do biologically?

Imu Shalev: What do they do biologically? They procreate.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Yeah. Why are lice so annoying? Because what lice do is they burrow into your scalp and skin and they lay eggs. You know what they're doing? They're being machin for tomorrow. So God is like, the good version of this is that I'm going to give you something gentle and it's going to be on the ground. You could take it and then you can be making it. The bad version of it is when there's creatures that are making their own procreative power in you. The whole point of lice is they're overstaying their welcome in your body. It's an overstaying theme again. Anyway, so I would just say, like, looking at the whole thing, it's stunning. Michaelle, thank you. Really remarkable and a little humbling that we sat there all confidently making our season by seeing a little, a tenth of what there was to see. But I think what we saw was true. It's just getting magnified, which is over and over again, this leftover theme, keeping something for tomorrow. And it really just dramatically shows you how much chametz is a part of the redemption experience. And, like, you never would have thought it.

I spent so many years of my life trying to figure out what in the world chametz has to do. Like, why would you have a holiday that celebrates your independence from slavery? You decide, we're not eating chametz for seven days. It's the craziest thing in the world. Why? Because I gave. You left so fast that, like, really. Why don't we say that we should have bread that has purple food coloring on it because somebody had a purple sweater on when they left Egypt. Like, it's the most tangential of things that we happened to take you out so fast. The bread couldn't rise, really. Except that, no, the whole point of rising, the whole point of bread the way Egypt did it was on many levels, the key to their power and ultimately their tyranny over you and creating a hoarding society that would destroy you. And God is like, no, we're going to fix all that. It's going to start by not eating chametz and it's going to culminate in the manna. Before. When we first did our season, we saw the manna as a culmination in sweetness being the opposite of sourness. And a kind of separation from the trauma.

And that's true, but it's more than that. It's that that manna is the culmination because it is the way that all of these terrible things, which is a response to Egypt's hoarding, all the curses now become blessings, and they can become blessings with the balance between hoarding and not hoarding. And God says you can save things a little bit. You gotta have a one to seven ratio, right? So every day, like, just trust in God and it's gonna be there tomorrow. Don't hoard most, right? But there are times to save a little bit. Like occasionally it doesn't rain, so you gotta hoard a little bit and save up. But just don't get focused on that and create a whole society around that, because when you obsess about them, they're just gonna take over your society and destroy you. To me, what I take out of this is a single word, humility. This kind of work is excavation, right? It's like archeology. And the same way in archeology, you don't really know what you're excavating until you see the whole thing. You're, like, really excited with your first find and your second find, but you need some humility to understand that.

It's like, I don't know what I'm looking at yet. I only seen a little piece. And the picture is often much larger than you ever imagine. And the thing with this kind of work is you never know when you're done. And at some level, you're never done, because at some level, the Torah is an interconnected system where everything interconnects to everything else. And at some point, your brain explodes because you can keep on going and see its interrelationship to more things, and it's all meaningful. And ultimately, it's a system with infinite information potential because of that. And our brains are finite, so we have to only see pieces and extrapolate from them. But sometimes there are those moments of drama where, you know, you're driving and you get to, you know, the end of the road, and then you get out and it's like, oh, my gosh, that's not just the end of the road. That's the Grand Canyon. And you look over the cliff and it's like you're awestruck. And this is one of those moments, Michaelle. So the first thing I take out of it is humility to see that we only saw a tenth of what was there and maybe even less than that.

Is really something. And the last thing I would say that you see is that, you know, however smart or practiced any individual is in this methodology, there is benefit to collaboration. Always. Michaelle, bringing you into the mix and having you as an impetus for all of this was hugely valuable. Not only would we have never seen this in the first place, but after we saw it and thought we were so smart, we never would have seen the rest of it without you. And I have little doubt that if we brought in more people, we'd see more too. You just see the collaborations of like minds and get to places where no individual would have gotten alone. Me included, Imu included, you included. I don't think any one of us could have seen this much that the three of us saw together. And that's part of humility. And it pays to share and it pays to widen the circle. And I think it's don't hoard that we can learn from. Don't hoard.

Imu Shalev: Yeah, don't hoard.

Michaelle Zerykier: No. It was a wild trip. I do have to say there is another piece and. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I'm going to save it for another time for when you're ready, but I think it's pretty cool. But thank you for the opportunity. This was absolutely just a dream.

Imu Shalev: This episode was recorded by Rabbi David Fohrman, Michaelle Zerykier and me, Imu Shalev. It was produced by Beth Lesh. Our audio engineer is Hillary Gutman. A book like no other is a product of Aleph Beta and made possible through the very generous support of Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum. Thank you, Shari and Nathan, and thank you all for listening.