Parashat Bo- 'Nitpicking'
Parashat Bo includes the story of the final of the ten plagues that God brought upon Egypt, the plague of the firstborn, in response to which Pharaoh finally allowed Bene Yisrael to leave his country. In his warning of the impending plague, Moshe declares that God will descend upon Egypt "Ka'hasot Ha'layla" – "at around midnight" (11:4). However, when the Torah records the actual occurrence of the plague, it writes that it took place "Ba'hasi Ha'layla" – "at midnight." The obvious question arises, if Moshe knew that God would strike the firstborn precisely at midnight, then why did he predict that it would occur "at around midnight"? Why did he not warn that the firstborn would die "at midnight," as was in fact the case?
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yishaki, France, 1040-1105) explains that Moshe chose this formulation because he anticipated the skepticism of Pharaoh's astronomers, whose calculations might not have been precisely accurate. Although the plague indeed struck exactly at midnight, Moshe knew that the astronomers might determine the point of midnight as occurring a minute or two earlier or later. Thus, when the plague would occur slightly before or after the moment of midnight as determined by the astronomers, they would deny that the plague was caused by Moshe. They would dismiss him as a fraud, pointing to his imprecise prediction as proof that he did not bring about this plague.
This comment of Rashi reveals an important insight into human nature, namely, the tendency to be overly critical, to nitpick, to find fault in any way possible. Moshe had already accurately predicted nine miraculous plagues; all nine of his warnings materialized precisely as he had predicted. Now he predicted a tenth, and if it would have unfolded two minutes earlier or later than he predicted, the astronomers would have dismissed him as a phony. Did these two minutes really undermine the accuracy of his predictions? Did they make Moshe's record any less impressive or compelling? Certainly not, but this is, unfortunately, how many people approach serious matters: they search for any slight flaw that they could possibly identify, and then use it to undermine the validity of the entire message.
One familiar manifestation of this tendency is the media's nitpicky dissection of addresses by political figures. A politician could deliver a very effective, insightful and meaningful speech, but the reporters will search for one wrong or vague term, a wrong intonation or some slight factual error, in order to mock and ridicule his speech. Even if the address was 99% valid and effective, they view the 1% as sufficient to undermine the entire speech.
The lesson of Rashi's comment, then, is that one mustn't be so cynical. What a shame it would be to dismiss an entire speech or book, or reject the credentials of a person, simply because of a slight flaw. One minor imperfection should not undermine the validity of the overall message. Rather than constantly being critical of everything we see and hear, we should instead focus our minds on absorbing and implementing the positive messages, and not allow those messages to be lost as a result of meaningless trivialities.
