When Moshe came to Pharaoh and told him to let the yidden go, Pharaoh’s most
obvious question to Moshe probably was “why did G-d send you? What need does a
G-d have to sending messengers? He certainly knows my address and can speak for
Himself. What need is there for a G-d to send a human messenger? Let Him deliver
His message personally.
Moshe turned the stick into a snake thereby implying that The King of Kings has
no reason to make house calls or a personal appearance. He has an infinite amount
of messengers who can do His bidding. For people who speak loshon horah, slander
and dare use their evil tongue to deny His existence or refuse to harken to His voice,
Hashem sends them his trusted messenger the snake to deliver His message.
Scientists have found that a snake has infrared sensors that can detect and find
a human even in total darkness. One cannot hide from a snake. So, too, one cannot
hide from Hashem. Hashem has an infinite amount of messengers that stand ready
to do his bidding. Hashem sent Pharaoh a small sampling of His mighty messengers
that soon proved to him who is running the show. Not only did Hashem send them
out, but He also has full control of them at all times. The wild animals could only go up to where they were permitted. While the animals couldn’t read the road signs, they didn’t step even an inch into the land of Goshen. They did exactly as they were told. “‘lo yomir es d’voro.” (Thillim) When the Yidden in the
midbor dared bad-mouth Hashem and His faithful servant Moshe, it was the snakes
that came to his immediate defense and bit them. This taught them a lesson they
would long remember.
Throughout history, G-d has sent out his messengers that do His bidding with
deadly accuracy. No angel is given two jobs. That’s because there is no limit to the
amount of Angels at His command.
When the Roman General Titus dared challenge G-d’s power and great might,
Hashem sent out a small fly to do battle with him. It made him suffer in horrid agony
for many years until it finally chewed away and destroyed his brain.
And so today too, Hashem sends out His messengers to every remote corner
of the earth. Yet the smallest of all His messengers is probably the deadly virus. For
thousands of years these deadly messengers were invisible. It was only in recent
years that scientists have discovered them.
Every time we catch a cold or get some other sickness we hear someone saying
that it’s probably a virus, yet most of us know very little about what a virus is, how
it spreads, and how we can get rid of it. While we may know that there are many
sicknesses that are caused by some very small germs called bacteria, there are other
illnesses caused by something far smaller and much more deadly called a virus. While
bacteria are very small indeed, and can only be seen with the use of a microscope,
viruses are far smaller and can only be seen by using a special microscope called an
electron microscope that can enlarge things more than a billion times. If we’d put a
virus next to a bacterium, the bacterium would look like a mountain in comparison.
One can put a billion viruses on the tip of a needle and there would still be plenty of
space between them. In fact, they are so small that they defy our imagination. Even
the largest virus is billions of times smaller than a speck of dust.
The only thing we can do about a virus is to try and prevent it from harming our
bodies before it actually attacks us. We do that by giving a person something we call
a vaccine. This vaccine is able to arouse the body to make anti-virus chemicals that
are able to recognize a virus when it dares enter the body, and will seek it out and
kill it along with the cell in which it is hiding, before the virus does any irreparable
damage.
Many times a virus can hide in the body cells without us knowing it is there. Only
much later does it come out of hiding and start causing lots of trouble. What makes
it come out of its hiding place? Scientists still are not sure of the answer. Perhaps
someday they will find out.
Yet, while scientists still haven’t figured it out, Jews have known the answer for a
very long time. The story of what happened in Mitzrayim gave us a clue. G-d has a
powerful army, navy and air force that stands ready to do His bidding. Sometimes
He sends frogs, lice, wild animals, locusts or even the angel of death. We must always
realize that Hashem has myriads of messengers that stand ready to do His bidding.
If we vaccinate the body against one type of virus, the virus can easily change into
another type for which the shot will be ineffective. This is why there is no vaccine
against the common cold. The only way we can truly get rid of them for good is by
doing G-d’s will. As long as we keep the Torah and do His mitzvos, the Torah assures
us that all the sicknesses that Hashem brought upon the Egyptians will not come
upon us. Only by listening to His voice will we be assured that the virus will remain
dead and not come to life! May we all merit many years of good health.