Plagues

It's almost time for Passover, so I innocently began the project of reading my toddlers a Passover board book. It has bright pictures of objects and foods used at a Passover seder, as well as of scenes from the story of Exodus. It was while reading the page with the plagues that my three-year-old son shook my faith.

"What's he have?" he asked, pointing to a boy with obviously fake red spots covering his face.

"It says 'nasty illness'. He has a sickness that makes his skin all spotty. It's one of the plagues," I answer.

"Is he sick?" he asks again.

"Yes," I reply, ready to move on.

"Did God gave him that?"

Silence.

"Did God make him sick?" he repeated.

"Well, God sent the plagues, yes," I answered, suddenly feeling ill myself.

"What did he did?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"What did the boy did that God made him sick?"

I was speechless. "Well," I finally said, "Pharoah was bad, and so God made Pharoah's people sick."

But that wasn't the answer, really. The answer was that the boy with the ridiculous spots was being punished for nothing he had done. He was simply born Egyptian.

Then my son said, "Is God bad?"

"No," I answered quickly, but suddenly I felt uneasy, and I just wasn't sure anymore.

I am a hypocrite for reading the story to my children. I could leave out the part about the plagues, because maybe I don't believe that part, but then do I also leave out the part about the Red Sea and Mount Sinai? And if so, what's left, other than an historical account? And if that's all it is, why do we pray to God?

I am always quick to roll my eyes at people's rantings that this hurricane or that flu outbreak or some earthquake or other is punishment from God, or part of "God's plan". This seems to be the only thing that the radical religious (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) can agree on -- that bad things are deserved. Unfortunately, they can't agree who is being punished and for what.

I guess things must have seemed clearer back in Moses's day. I wonder if being on the right side made it easier to watch as neighbors buried their dead.

No, I suppose not. That's why the Passover seder includes the ritual of removing a drop of wine for each plague to symbolize how the Israelites' joy was incomplete in the face of the Egyptians' suffering. Still, I wonder how one's knowing God sacrificed children for one's freedom is really supposed to make one love God more.

Fear Him more, yes. But love Him more?