Over the past few days a new phrase has entered the popular American political lexicon. According to Heather Richardson, who is a professor of American history at Boston College and who popularized the term in a widely shared Facebook post, a “shock event” is an “unexpected and confusing” incident that “throws a society into chaos.” While everyone is reacting to the event, she explains, “those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event.”
One of the problems with Richardson’s post however, is that she fails to give many examples. She cites the recent Muslim Ban as one and alludes to another that occurred during the Civil War. However, since definitions are inherently less illustrative than stories, I’ve been on the lookout for other instances of “shock events” in our history.
Lo and behold, one of the clearest examples of this phenomenon appears in this week’s Torah portion.
In one particular Midrash, our Rabbis ask an important question. Of all the possible plagues, why did God decide to bring darkness upon the Egyptians? They answered that the darkness was meant to serve two purposes. On the one hand, like all other plagues, it was meant as way to sway the hearts and minds of the Egyptian people. If they suffered enough, they might let the Hebrews go free.
However, one might argue that the darkness served a greater purpose. According to the Rabbis (Shemot Rabbah 14:3) there were many Israelites who were considered unworthy of redemption. Some worked as patrons in Egypt and didn’t want to leave. Others had sinned and had lost their chance to go. In fact, some sources put the number of condemned Israelites as high as four-fifths of the total population. In order to assure that only the “deserving” Israelites got to leave, God had to wipe out these individuals.
Yet, God knew that if the Egyptians noticed such loses on the part of the Israelites they would be less likely to let them go. The Israelite deaths would strengthen their resolve. It would be impossible for the Hebrews to claim the moral high ground; the Egyptians could simply turn around and say “The same thing that is happening to us is also happening to them!'
Therefore, God obfuscated the Egyptians with darkness. Suffering under the burden of blindness, they were unable to see the Israelite suffering before their face. For three days, they were trapped in their houses, unable to move in the blackness surrounding them. Their world was turned upside down but not for the reason they assumed. Darkness was a distraction. When it finally cleared, the Israelites were smaller, their dead were buried, and the Egyptians were none-the-wiser.
Incidentally, this shock event was incredibly successful. Of all the plagues, it was the darkness that broke the spirits of the Egyptians. After the plague, God told Moses to instruct the people to borrow gold and silver from the Egyptians. This would later serve as the materials to build the Tabernacle, God’s dwelling place on earth. The text then reads:
God disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people. Moreover, Moses himself was much esteemed in the land of Egypt, among Pharaoh’s courtiers and among the people. (Exodus 11:3)
Though there would be one more plague, the death of the firstborn, that plague would be directed at breaking Pharaoh's spirit. When the darkness lifted, the Egyptians had given up.
Too bad for them (and lucky for us) the “shock event” succeeded as God has planned.
Richardson concludes her post by explaining that the way to deal with a shock event is to acknowledge its destabilizing effect and use it to our advantage. If it breaks us, perhaps we can remold ourselves to fight harder in a new form.
Thankfully, the Egyptians didn’t do this. But their folly is our lesson. There may be many days of darkness ahead. Each law, each executive order has the ability to surprise us, to paralyze us, to break us. Our job is to light a candle, to illuminate the actions behind the darkness that we are not meant to see. If a shock event is meant to break our spirits, what is hiding behind it can strengthen our resolve. There is much to grab hold of, if only we have the discipline to look.
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