Now we can use our correspondence and note that transforming water into blood means moving from the sefirah of loving-kindness into the sefirah of thanksgiving (הוד). This represents the resounding echo of gratitude and acquiescence, which one should feel upon being the recipient of an act of lovingkindness. This is alluded to by the initial of the word “blood,” which is the letter dalet (spelled דַ לֶת), which is explained elsewhere to be an acronym for “know how to give thanks” (דע למַ רותדָ הו).
In life there are particularly extreme cases when a person is required to acknowledge the ultimate benevolence of God in face of personal disaster. Such was the position of Aaron when two of his sons, Nadav and Avihu, were killed while serving in the Tabernacle because they introduced a foreign source of fire to the altar. The Torah describes Aaron’s reaction as: “Aaron remained silent.” Aaron clearly acknowledged that for all his love for his sons, God was just and benevolent. But the Hebrew word for “remained silent” (וַיִדֹּם), which is grammatically related to blood.
When God commanded Moshe and Aaron to transform the Egyptian waters into blood, he instructed that it be Aaron who actually perform the transformation. The sages explain that Moshe could not smite the waters himself, as he was the recipient of their kindness when as a babe he was floated down the Nile in a small ark. So, in a certain sense even the fact that the plague was inflicted by Aaron and not by Moshe reflects the sincerity of water turned into blood, or thanks being given in return to kindness.
When kindness is above and beyond measure, people sometimes say “I owe you my life.” This idiom also expresses how blood, and owing blood, symbolic of lifeforce and vitality, or becoming “blood brothers,” is considered an appropriate due in return for kindness.
