Not so crazy, fren. We are the plague of frogs mentioned in the Bible:
“Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs. The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.”
Exodus 8:1–4
Biblically speaking, frogs were the second of 10 divine plagues unleashed upon Egypt when the Pharaoh refused to free the Hebrews from slavery. Today, frog napkin rings, plush dolls, plastic figurines, table cloths, t-shirts, matzah covers, and candle sticks—all can be found in abundance at the Seder table. But rather than bemoan this amphibious invasion, I’ve begun to embrace it. Why? Because the more I looked, the more examples I found throughout history, science, and the arts of how the frog symbolizes the struggle for liberation—the very liberation Jews celebrate on Passover. But as the Israelites soon learned on their generation-long trek through the desert, the path to freedom is paved with many obstacles—not the least of which is, according to the Torah, the human heart’s resistance to change and its refusal to confront the status quo.
Sometimes this resistance to change takes the form of human stubbornness. A thousand years ago, medieval rabbis wrote a midrash (essentially biblical fan fiction), which imagined that the second plague started out as a single, massive frog that multiplied exponentially every time the Egyptians struck it in their obdurate efforts to drive it back into the Nile. As explained in a commentary to the midrash by 20th century Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, “When the Egyptians saw the result of their beating the frogs, why did they not stop? Rational thinking told them to stop, but they became enraged when they saw the result of their beating the frogs—and they lost control.” In the imagination of the medieval rabbis, the plague of proliferating frogs is a vivid reminder of the danger posed by the humans' resistance to such change—the "hardened heart" the Torah warns of.
Not so crazy, fren. We are the plague of frogs mentioned in the Bible:
“Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs. The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.”
Exodus 8:1–4
Biblically speaking, frogs were the second of 10 divine plagues unleashed upon Egypt when the Pharaoh refused to free the Hebrews from slavery. Today, frog napkin rings, plush dolls, plastic figurines, table cloths, t-shirts, matzah covers, and candle sticks—all can be found in abundance at the Seder table. But rather than bemoan this amphibious invasion, I’ve begun to embrace it. Why? Because the more I looked, the more examples I found throughout history, science, and the arts of how the frog symbolizes the struggle for liberation—the very liberation Jews celebrate on Passover. But as the Israelites soon learned on their generation-long trek through the desert, the path to freedom is paved with many obstacles—not the least of which is, according to the Torah, the human heart’s resistance to change and its refusal to confront the status quo.
Sometimes this resistance to change takes the form of human stubbornness. A thousand years ago, medieval rabbis wrote a midrash (essentially biblical fan fiction), which imagined that the second plague started out as a single, massive frog that multiplied exponentially every time the Egyptians struck it in their obdurate efforts to drive it back into the Nile. As explained in a commentary to the midrash by 20th century Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, “When the Egyptians saw the result of their beating the frogs, why did they not stop? Rational thinking told them to stop, but they became enraged when they saw the result of their beating the frogs—and they lost control.” In the imagination of the medieval rabbis, the plague of proliferating frogs is a vivid reminder of the danger posed by the humans' resistance to such change—the "hardened heart" the Torah warns of.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/04/frogs-the-surprising-star-of-the-passover-table/389186
Very interesting and enlightening. Thank you!