What The Hail?

The seventh plague and last plague in Parshat Vae’eira is barad, hail. The Torah states that that 9:24: “there was hail, and fire flaming amid the hail…” Rashi quotes a Midrash that this plague was a “miracle inside a miracle” for the hail that rained down on Egypt had fire inside. Normally fire and ice do not get along, but in order to do God’s will, they made a truce thereby enabling this double miracle.

This year as I read about the hail I immediately began thinking about the difference between a contradiction and a paradox. Under normal circumstances, fire and ice are a contradiction. Yet in Egypt, to serve G-d’s will and in service to the Jewish People, what normally appeared as a contradiction was in fact merely a paradox and actually possible.

As Jews, we are often called upon to tolerate paradoxes- what might appear to other people as outright contradictions. There are many examples of such seeming contradictions: People who appear or claim to be Torah observant and yet dishonor the Torah or the Jewish People. A Torah that values compassion and yet commands the annihilation of the tribe of Amalek. An ancient tradition, yet it demands that we live in the modern world.

How do we deal with these seeming contradictions? In Egypt, this hail destroyed everything. Most of the world has difficulty dealing with paradoxes and nuance. They throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

However we are told that in Goshen, not only were the Jews not damaged by the hail, but in fact “there was no hail”. Even at this early stage of Jewish history, the Jewish People were able to tolerate and deal with paradoxes and nauce, as symbolized by hail. It did not destroy them or even negatively impact them.

There are many examples of such seeming contradictions in today’s Jewish world. We must learn from the plague of hail to persevere, survive- even grow- from these types of paradoxical experiences.