Rabbi Sacks writes of humor in the Torah: when humanity attempts to defy heaven, God laughs. He reads humor into Pharaoh’s magicians, who could not produce lice with their sorcery, while the lice continued to infest everyone, claiming that it was “the finger of God.” In response, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Satire is an essential aspect of understanding some of the plagues – wherein those forces of nature represented gods of the Egyptian pantheon. Read the article