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The answer to this question may lie in Moses’ role in the future. While a cursory reading of the Torah might lead the reader to assume
After the people sinned by worshipping the Golden Calf, God initially that the plagues were intended solely to punish the Egyptians or to
said to Moses, “I have seen this people and behold, it is a stiff-necked force them to free the children of Israel, the Ishbitzer Rebbe clearly
people. And now leave Me be and My anger will burn against them states that they were also intended to purify the Jewish people,
and I shall consume them and I will make you a great nation” to smelt out the negative dross of Egypt that had been integrated
(Exodus 32:9-10). Moses responded by pleading for the people and within the Jewish psyche. According to a Midrash cited by Rashi,
succeeding in eliciting God’s mercy. As part of his plea, Moses even four-fifths of the Jews actually died in the plague of darkness as
audaciously tells God that if He will not forgive the people, he should they were too entrenched psychologically to be able to leave Egypt
“erase me from Your book that You have written” (Exodus 32:32). (Mechilta cited by Rashi on Exodus 13:18). The ten plagues symbolize
Rashi explains that when God commanded Moses to “leave Me be” the spiritual purification and growth the children of Israel had to
so that He could destroy the people, He wanted Moses to correctly undergo to realize their potential. In this case, human potential had
infer that he should, in fact, not “let God be”; rather, he should pray to go through the crucible of the ten plagues before it could receive
so that God would not destroy the people. the refined will of God as revealed in the Ten Commandments.

Had God not softened His rebuke at the beginning of Moses’
career, He would have dissuaded Moses from ever questioning him,
and, ultimately, from defending the Jewish people after the sin of the
Golden Calf. Furthermore, He recognized that Moses’ questioning £Patterns in the Torah: Patterns in the Torah: Patterns in the Torah:
Him was actually motivated by the right reason – he sought God’s ££
Ten = Seven + ThreeTen = Seven + Three
compassion for His people. Indeed, right from the beginning of his Ten = Seven + Three
appearance on the biblical stage, Moses manifested this compassion
as he killed an Egyptian in order to save a Jew and by doing so
sacrificed his life of comfort, privilege, and power. Moses’ compassion In addition to the rich number of associations revealed by the Torah’s
for the Jewish people was one of the reasons God chose him to be repetition of the number ten as a whole number, the number ten
the redeemer, for this was in God’s eyes an indispensable leadership can also be interpreted as the sum of seven and three. According to
quality. Kabbalah and Chassidut such an interpretive approach is warranted
The Jewish tradition of challenging, as it were, God’s decrees goes by the frequent division of ten into seven and three in many different
back to Abraham’s plea for the people of Sodom. Significantly, both Jewish contexts. In the case of the ten plagues, the portion of Va’eira
Abraham and Moses combine tremendous audacity with profound contains seven plagues and the next portion, Bo, has three, so this
humility. Both confront God directly and speak what is in their division is supported by the text itself.
hearts, but both demonstrate humility as Abraham adds that he is Although the ten sefirot can be divided according to a number of
but “dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27) and Moses is characterized later different schemes, the most natural division is that of the three higher
in the Torah as “exceedingly humble, more than any person on the and the seven lower sefirot. In general the number seven indicates
face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 12:3). complete cycles and inherent unity. This is manifest in scores of
From Abraham and Moses, we learn an important lesson: God concepts and contexts: the Shabbat; the seven weeks between the
demands our obedience and loyalty, but ultimately He does not holidays of Pesach and Shavuot; the Sabbatical year; the seven fruits
want “yes men” who will fail to stand up to Him when the moment of the Land of Israel; the seven lamps of the menorah (the Temple

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