Originally published in the Jewish Journal · Table for Five
Exodus 12:12וְעָבַרְתִּי בְאֶרֶץ־מִצְרַיִם בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה וְהִכֵּיתִי כָל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מֵאָדָם וְעַד־בְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל־אֱלֹהֵי מִצְרַיִם אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים אֲנִי יְהוָה׃
For that night I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down every first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and I will mete out punishments to all the gods of Egypt, I the LORD.
Anochi HaShem.
G-d is personally coming to perform the tenth, most awful miracle Himself.
A midrash says that some Egyptians, hearing the pronouncement, sought refuge among their Hebrew neighbors. G-d plucks them out, too, just as He isolates only firstborn men and beasts from their siblings for doom.
Pharaoh’s wizard-scribes already acknowledged this superior transcendent power after the third plague. They realize they can’t simulate the invisibility, ubiquity, but particularity of lice that afflict only Egyptians and cry, “It’s the Finger of HaShem!”
One humble word in our verse emphasizes this Divine particularity: hazeh. On this night He will pass through personally. The Passover seder repeats it over and over, halailah hazeh: Why is this night different?
We say hazeh at the end of the shehecheyanu prayer, thanking G-d for bringing us to this particular joy of a shared holiday, but also when a child is born or we land in Israel or even at surprising coincidences, like bumping into an old friend. By sanctifying these intimate moments, we dispel the illusion that our lives, that life itself, is merely an accident produced by the simplistic determinism of mechanical forces acting on things. Rather, every tick of life, every hazeh, every quantum possibility in the universe comes to fruition with an infinitely complex artistry and intention beyond comprehension, and so each moment deserves gratitude.
In the tenth plague, G-d also destroys false gods, including the belief that the cosmos is only made of stuff and coincidences.
