Parshat Bo Dvar Torah by Rabbi Mendy Eisenberg

Parshat Bo features the culmination of the ten plagues with the final three plagues and I’d like to bring our attention to the plague of darkness. Something that I find absolutely fascinating about the plague of darkness is actually highlighted by the plague just before it, the plague of the locusts.

It’s not hard to imagine the horror of a locust swarm. Locust swarms still plague the same Middle Eastern region today. The locusts completely devastated the Egyptians' food supply, devouring the crops that the hail didn’t destroy; Hashem even says that this was part of His mocking of Egypt: “So that you shall recount to your son and your son's son how I toyed with Egypt” (Shemot 10:2). Something very interesting happens a little bit later while the plague of locusts is occurring, and the pasuk describes the carnage it wrought.  In pasuk 10:15, before even mentioning that the swarm ate the crops, it states, “It covered the surface of all the land and the land was darkened.” The very next plague is the plague of darkness. Yet, the pasuk is telling us that one of the difficulties that this plague brought the Egyptians is literally darkness. That absolutely cannot be a coincidence—but what does it mean? Why is it that a simple symptom of this plague is the next plague itself? It almost seems to take away from the plague of darkness. They’ve seen the darkness plague before, but last time, it came with the additional locust swarm.

In truth, I think that this is actually what made the plague of darkness such a horror. Darkness is usually a result of something else blocking the light. It’s a problem, but it’s not THE problem. One just needs to find the problem that is blocking the light, and work from there. It might not be so easy to fix, but at least you know the direct source of it. The plague of darkness, however, was very different. The darkness was not a result of an external problem. The darkness WAS the external problem. When looking at the darkness from that lens, it sheds a new light on this plague. This can also enlighten the darkness that plagues us in our lives, as well. Sometimes, we get hung up on the secondary problems that are only results from other issues, and we get distracted from seeing possible solutions that are right in front of us. We are left in the dark, but the darkness is not the problem itself. The darkness is just the symptom of a different issue. 

There’s an expression that goes, “Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.” More often than not, the darkness in our lives has a source. If the source is dealt with, the darkness won’t be so blinding. I bless us all that we should be able to see the darkness in our lives for what it is and learn the difference between the causes of our darkness and the darkness itself.