ויפן פרעה ויבא אל ביתו ולא שת לבו גם לזאת
“Pharoah turned around and returned to his palace unimpressed and did not pay heed even to this”. (Shemos 7:23)
In the first plague, Moshe and Aharon caused the water in Egypt to turn into blood, but after Pharaoh’s sorcerers were able to use kishuf [magic] to duplicate this feat, he returned to his palace unimpressed and did not pay heed גם לזאת – even to this. Rashi writes that the term גם connotes that in addition to disregarding the miracle of changing the water into blood, Pharaoh also ignored the incident in which Aharon’s mateh [staff] became a snake and swallowed the staffs of his magicians. This is difficult to understand, as the Torah already recorded just 10 pasukim prior (7:13) that Pharaoh was unmoved by the miraculous actions of Aharon’s staff. Why is the word גם used to convey this information once again?
The Ichud B’Chidud cites the statement of the Zohar HaKadosh that when Aharon’s stick consumed those of the Egyptian necromancers, Pharaoh was astonished, as he knew better than anyone that sorcery is merely a façade and incapable of changing an object’s fundamental nature. While it is possible through kishuf to make a staff look like a serpent, it cannot make it into an actual snake. Thus, the ability of Aharon’s mateh to swallow the others seemed to prove that his powers were indeed supernatural.
Before Pharaoh’s initial reaction could sunk in, his necromancers argued that there was nothing remarkable about what Aharon had done, for in reality, his mateh was not really a staff but a snake. In other words, they claimed that prior to Aharon’s encounter with Pharaoh, he used kishuf to transform a snake into a stick. When he threw it down, it reverted to its original status as a serpent, which is what enabled it to consume the other staffs, not any special abilities that Aharon possessed. Pharaoh accepted their assertion and dismissed his original feelings of trepidation toward Moshe and Aharon.
The Gemara in Sanhedrin (67b) recounts that the Talmudic sage Zeiri once traveled to Alexandria in Egypt and purchased a donkey, but when he later gave the donkey water to drink, it turned into a plank of wood. He went back to demand a refund from the seller, who said that he would only give back the money because of Zeiri’s stature, for everyone knows that items purchased there must first be tested with water to ensure that they are real and not the product of kishuf. Rashi explains that water reverses the effects of magic and causes objects to return to their true form.
In light of this episode, the Ichud B’Chidud notes that to initiate the plague of blood, Aharon struck the water in the Nile with his mateh (7:20). This shocked Pharaoh in two ways, for not only was the water transformed into blood, but Aharon’s staff remained intact. His sorcerers had convinced him not to fear Aharon’s staff by alleging that it was nothing more than a snake that Aharon manipulated through kishuf. However, if they were right, coming into contact with the water in the Nile should have nullified his magic and caused the mateh to immediately become a serpent, yet it did not. Pharaoh now had two miracles to contemplate – the plague of blood as well as the recognition that Aharon’s staff indeed possessed supernatural abilities – yet he stubbornly returned home and hardened his heartגם לזאת - to both of them. (R’ Ozer Alport)
