Speed of Lightning, Roar of Thunder and the 7th Plague

Speed of Lightning, Roar of Thunder and the 7th Plague
by YC

I was studying for a test with my daughter and on the prep sheet she was asked: what Rashi said about barad (the hail)

Her school trains them to look for what was troubling Rashi, what the peshat answer could be, and what drash Rashi offers.

With barad Rashi (Ex 9, 24) explains there is fire in each piece of hail. The teacher then asked if this is peshat or drash. My daughter explained it is peshat, and read the pasuk that way.

I told her to stick to her answer on the test but I think Rashi is a drash. The preceding pasuk explains there was hail and thunder, four other times the story speaks of thunder.

***Where there is thunder there is lightning***

Lighting both looks like fire and will cause fire on the ground. What a  sublime site fire in the dry fields with balls of ice all around.

My daughter said isn't it a bigger miracle if the fire was in the hail. I agreed but explained God may not always want to bigger miracle. (Listen to E_fink's podcast on the subject
http://werejustbetter.com/pjc/Connections_01_05_08.mp3 ). As an example the wind by the Yam Suf.

My daughter and I finished studying and she turned to me and said she liked the lightning idea. I told her for the test write the teacher taught. Can't wait to see what she writes, or how it is graded.

---

Search for more information about [topic] at 4torah.com.