After guaranteeing that G‑d will spare the Jewish homes from the final plague—death of the firstborn—the Torah adds, “And there will be no destructive plague in you.” Rashi explains that these additional words address the query: “What if one of Bnei Yisrael was in an Egyptian’s house? I would think that he would be smitten like him. Therefore, the verse states: ‘And there will be no destructive plague in you.’”
The Jews who lingered in Egyptian homes on the night of the Exodus were in an appalling spiritual state, one more akin to that of their Egyptian oppressors than to that of their fellow Jews. Consider this: Not only had Bnei Yisrael suffered miserably at the hands of the Egyptians for hundreds of years, they had just witnessed the miraculous plagues with which G‑d punished their captors. Now they had offered the Pesach sacrifice to commemorate their imminent redemption, and were explicitly warned, “No man shall leave the entrance of his house until morning.”
We could assume that at this point, a Jew who still chose to spend the night in the home of an Egyptian “would be smitten like him,” in Rashi’s words.
Yet, out of His love for the Jewish people, G‑d Himself descended into the homes of the Egyptians in order to single out the Jews who might be among them. “I will go out into the midst of Egypt,” says G‑d, to save a Jew so spiritually hollow that even on this fateful night he still clings to his Egyptian friends and neighbors.
In doing so, G‑d demonstrated the lengths to which we must go to save a Jew, either physically or spiritually—i.e., to draw him nearer to the service of G‑d. Emulating G‑d’s ways, we must seek to reach even the Jew who is so assimilated that engaging him can require “descending” and compromising (within the guidelines of halachah) our own high spiritual standards. We must search for the Jew who cannot be found in a holy environment and is still “in an Egyptian home,” to rescue him and draw his heart closer to his Father in Heaven.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 36, pp. 50–51
