In the book of Exodus, we read, "The Lord said to Moses: Extend your hand toward the heavens, and there will be hail throughout the land of Egypt…" (Exodus 9:22). It seems straightforward, right? But the Midrash, specifically Shemot Rabbah, dives deeper, using this moment as a springboard to explore God's power and, surprisingly, God's willingness to bend the rules.
The verse "Whatever the Lord wished, He has done…" (Psalms 135:6) is brought in to illuminate the point. But how do we reconcile this with the idea that God has already set the universe in motion with certain laws? Doesn't it say in Psalms 115:16, “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the children of men”?
Shemot Rabbah uses a powerful analogy: imagine a king who decrees that Romans can't go to Syria and Syrians can't go to Rome. That’s how God initially set up the world – heavens for God, earth for humanity.
But then comes the Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. According to the Midrash, this was a game-changer. God essentially canceled the first decree! God said, in effect, those below can ascend to those above, and those above can descend to those below. And God leads by example, as it says, "The Lord descended onto Mount Sinai" (Exodus 19:20), and "To Moses He said: Ascend to God" (Exodus 24:1).
Think about it: God, in a sense, lowers Godself to meet us, and invites us to rise to meet God. It's a radical act of connection, of breaking down the barriers that were initially in place. This is what is meant by "Whatever the Lord wished, He has done, in the heavens and on the earth.”
This isn't a one-time thing, either. The Midrash continues, pointing to the creation story itself. Initially, God said, “Let the waters be gathered” (Genesis 1:9). But then, when God wanted to act differently, God turned dry land into sea, as it says, “Who summons the water of the sea” (Amos 5:8; 9:6), and "All the fountains of the great deep burst" (Genesis 7:11). And conversely, God turned the sea into dry land, as we see when "the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of the sea" (Exodus 14:29) and "He led them through the depths, as through a wilderness" (Psalms 106:9).
And that brings us back to Moses in Egypt. Moses, a man on earth, is given the power to influence the heavens. "The Lord said to Moses: Extend your hand toward the heavens…" (Exodus 9:22). It's mind-blowing, isn't it?
But why the hail in the first place? The Midrash tells us that the Egyptians had forced the Israelites to become vineyard planters, gardeners, and orchard keepers. So, God sent hail to destroy what they had built.
And the hail fell "upon man, upon animal." Why? Because, as the Holy One saw, the Egyptians didn't heed God's warning to bring their livestock inside (Exodus 9:19). They didn't listen. They deserved the full force of the hail.
So what does this all mean? Is God fickle? Arbitrary? I don’t think so. Instead, it suggests a God who is both powerful and responsive. A God who sets the rules, yes, but also a God who is willing to break them, to bend them, to create new possibilities when necessary. It's a reminder that even the most fundamental laws can be superseded by something even more important: justice, connection, and the ever-evolving relationship between the Divine and humanity. Perhaps the question isn't about whether God can change the rules, but when and why. And what that tells us about the nature of God and our place in the universe.