Really ? We need an acrostic to remember those ten punishing plagues visited on the Egyptians ?
Ma ’ aseh Nissim , the 18th-century commentary by Polish scholar Rabbi Yaakov Lorberbaum asks the question , “ What purpose is served in grouping the plagues together in this fashion , and abbreviating them ?” He explains that each acrostic group is a subset of the ten plagues , ” with the final plague [ in each group ] a climax ” to those that preceded them , in theory to teach a particular lesson , working up to the last grouping , Ba ’ achav - hail , locusts , darkness , the death of the first born - acknowledging that the plagues weren ’ t “... just chance or a product of the astrological signs ( Mazel ), but the actual hand of God .”
Rabbi Yehuda makes it clear : the plagues were both fearsome and personal , a punishment meted out by God on the Egyptian people . The ten plagues are then followed by a famous game of numbers , a sort of Haggadic gematria , where words and phrases are assigned numeric values and special powers . Rabbi Yossi Haglili , Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva outdo themselves proving that each of the plagues is really a multiple plague representing God ’ s strength , might , and anger .
Rabbi Yossi speaks of the hand and finger of God , saying :
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