Create Your List of 10 Modern Day Plagues
April 14, 2008 - ט' ניסן תשס"חHow would you answer this question?
If you had to create a list of Modern Day Plagues, what would that list look like?
That is exactly the question I was asked by a reporter from the Minneapolis StarTribune (the major local daily newspaper in Minneapolis), for a story he is writing for Passover.
This is the list I sent to him –with the addition of Reality TV, which one of my colleagues suggested.
The question is so good that I thought I would ask it to you!
1. Genocide in Darfur
2. Fanaticism of any kind (political, religious, secular)
3. Addiction to the screen (cell phone, computer, television, etc.)
4. Poverty
5. Environmental neglect
6. Suppression of human rights
7. Fear of people who are different from us
8. Allowing approximately 45 million Americans to remain without health insurance
9. Denying too many children a chance to thrive physically, emotionally, spiritually
and educationally
10. Complacency with the status quo when we know it should change
While I certainly intend to recite the traditional 10 plagues as a part of retelling the Passover story, I appreciated this reporter’s question. As Jewish community, we have to address our own internal needs. But, out of our deepest Jewish convictions, and with a conscious awareness of Jewish values, we also need to engage with local, national and global issues which are plaguing our society today.
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B’shalom,
Rabbi Hayim Herring
April 15, 2008 - י' ניסן תשס"ח at 5:57 pm
Thanks to my friend, Rabbi David Fine, for adding “fear of complexity” (black and white, simplistic thinking).
And, it was Rabbi Jason Miller who contributed “reality TV” to my original list!
Rabbi Herring
April 16, 2008 - י"א ניסן תשס"ח at 4:49 pm
The greatest modern day plague is that too many of us are living at the effect of others and other things and not taking on the responsibility to instead affect the change that we wish to see in ourselves and the rest of the world.
April 16, 2008 - י"א ניסן תשס"ח at 7:54 pm
Thanks, Rabbi Riter, for your comments. And yes–I think that we sometimes underestimate our own ability to bring about the changes we wish to see in the world.
Rabbi Herring
April 17, 2008 - י"ב ניסן תשס"ח at 4:23 pm
This got my thinking going- how do our modern plagues compare with the plagues in Egypt. Dont’ have a full list, but some of the matches might be chomer l’drush…
Dam- man’s destruction and neglect of the environment- a few years ago, a river actually caught fire; here in Georgia we have gone far beyond the capacity of our lakes and rivers to support us.
Tzfardeah- the chipring, swarming and multiplying distractions (cellphones etc)
Kinim- lice- the ways in which those around us take from us according the the measure of s’dom- a thousand “minor” thefts- stealing time, rounding down by a 1/10 of a cent, “junk fees” that it is not worth fighting.
Arov- “mixed species”- science crossing boundaries like cloning, genetic modification without benefit of ethical discussion.
Dever
Shechin-
Barad-
Arbeh- consumerism and the culture of consumption- the midrash says that the arbeh consumed “ein ha’aretz” the eye of the earth- they ate more than they needed to because they didn’t even look at what they were eating.
Darkness- know-nothingness- refusing to see the problems with one’s own religious faith or political “ism”
Makat Bechorot- geoncide and murder
April 18, 2008 - י"ג ניסן תשס"ח at 11:03 am
Josh–thanks for this very creative adaptation, which I plan to use at my seder. Chag sameach, Hayim