Secrets of The Second Plague Of Egypt

0:11The next plague is the frogs. Once the plague came, it says: But if you refuse to send out, behold, I shall strike your entire boundary with frogs. The river will swarm with frogs, and they shall ascend and come into your palace, and your bedroom, and your bed, and into your house, and your servants, and your people, and into your ovens, and into your kneading bowls, and into you, and your people, and all your servants. will the frogs ascend. So one thing is about the frogs, the frogs were outright torture. There's actually in the parasha, it mentions ten times the word "tzfardeim." The reason why it mentions "tzfardeim" ten times is because it says that the frogs were so bad, it was as bad as all the plagues put together. Because they couldn't go anywhere without having frogs. Even when they would sweat, their sweat, anything that was water would turn into frogs. The sweat would turn into frogs.

1:34Frog, it says the frogs are going into you. The frogs were inside their bodies. And it also would eat part of their private parts and actually make some people not able to have kids. This is some serious punishment. Also, the frogs would literally be everywhere. There would be nothing that they can't have, the frogs wouldn't be. But something very interesting is that once the plague comes, it says, this is in chapter 8, verse 2, it says, Aaron stretched his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frog infestation ascended. Not frogs. It says frog. Lama frog. It says, but it's Tzefardea. Not Tzefarde'im. It's ten times it says Tzefarde'im, but one time it says Tzefardea. With the beginning it says Tzefardea. One Tzefardea. Why? Rashi says that originally, or actually Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Akiva says, originally, the plague started with one giant frog. One giant frog, and every time the Egyptians tried to kill it, this giant frog, and every time they would hit it, millions of frogs would come out of it. And they would hit it again, and more frogs would come out of it. So this, and even though after a while, if you hit it one time, more frogs come out.

3:04You hit it two times; more frogs come out. You hit it another time; more frogs come out. After three or four times, you realize it's not working, right? But they would still hit it, and it got to the point where the frogs filled the entire land, all the way to the border. Why? Because it got to a point where they were so angry, they just wanted to have revenge on the frog. Ever meet somebody that says, "Listen, I don't care if I spend every dollar that I have suing this guy; I'm going to make sure he goes broke?" I don't care what I have to do. Even if I get arrested, I'm going to make sure he gets in trouble or something happens. People that want to take revenge. Revenge is not a good thing. It says only Hashem is allowed to take revenge. So revenge is not for us to take. And when someone lives their life with revenge in their mind, they can't think clearly. That's exactly what happened. It only caused more damage. So one of the things that the frogs uncovered, which made the situation for the Egyptians worse, was that they ended up losing money because the Egyptians and the nation of Cush had a war. They were disputing where the border between Cush and Egypt was. And this plague...

4:30It says that Tzfardeim, all the frogs, went all the way until the border. So they would stop exactly at the border of Kush, which was where Kush thought was the border, not where the Egyptians thought was the border. So in essence, the Egyptians ended up losing some land because of it. So it hurt their pocket also. Next one is Kinim. Oh, I'm sorry, the frogs. Why do we have this plague? Measure for measure, each one of the punishments was measure for measure. One of the ways that the Egyptians would torture the Jews was by waking them up in the middle of the night with a lot of noise to get them to work. At 3 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning, there would be a lot of noise. It says, "Oh, you don't let My people sleep? You're not going to sleep either." So the frogs were croaking, croaking, and couldn't stop the whole night, not allowing anyone to sleep. Imagine that the quack is not just outside. It's inside your body. So now you're Am Yisrael. The frogs are chirping. They're doing their thing. They're jumping around. And you don't hear it. Am Yisrael doesn't hear it. Am Yisrael lives in Goshen. So the frogs would not go inside Goshen. They would stay on the border. They wouldn't go inside Goshen.

5:54just like the frogs knew to go to the border of Cush and not go inside Cush, also spreading even outside of Egypt. The same One that brought them here is the One that controls, and that's why, in the end, once Pharaoh asked and pleaded with Moshe to stop this plague, the frogs... He said that these frogs will only go back to the Nile. The rest of them are going to die. So, a lot of the frogs actually went into the Nile, but many of them jumped into fires, into ovens, and died, as if committing suicide. Why? Because that was the order of Hashem. Hashem said, you need to go; either die or go to the water. So, many frogs died al Kiddush Hashem, doing what Hashem wanted them to do. If the Egyptians went to Goshen, he started going to Goshen, now he's in Goshen. Oh, he's already in Goshen. I think the frogs would be on top of him, inside him, everything, but it still wouldn't affect any Jews. So he wouldn't be able to even make it to Goshen. The same thing with the rest of the plagues. The rest of the plagues did not affect the Jews.

7:18One midrash says that it wasn't just frogs, it was actually crocodiles. Not only frogs, but also crocodiles. And there's an interesting midrash that says there is only one saltwater crocodile today that's a man-eater. It's called an estuarine crocodile. estuarine crocodile. And in the parashah, it says that the only place they will ever exist after this plague is over is in the Nile. And this crocodile, the only place it exists is in the Nile. Did it eat the people, this crocodile? Yeah. What do you think it was there for, to ask them if they wanted to have coffee? No, no, I'm saying this crocodile, was he part of this plague? Yes, yes, there's a Midrash that says that it wasn't just frogs; it was also crocodiles. Because in the movie "Exodus," the first plague they show is the crocodile. And I'm like, whoa, where did they get this from? I didn't see it, but I heard that it doesn't exactly follow the Torah.