It seems to me that the magicians actually were impressed by Moses’ miracles, after the third miracle or something like that.
In any case, your significant claim is that they were driven by impulse. (You rejected the initial possibility of a statistical miracle.)
It somewhat reminds me of your claim that when a secular person becomes religious, the religious explain it by saying he discovered the truth (a philosophical explanation), while the secular explain it by saying he was depressed and struggling (a psychological explanation). And vice versa.
But is the Rabbi not being inconsistent? So many Egyptians all falling prey to depression and impulses? Fine, maybe a fifth—but the overwhelming majority?

This discussion is bizarre. The main refutation you found against the Bible is: why didn’t the magicians convert? I already asked you why the people of Israel sinned with the calf after the revelation at Mount Sinai.
Anyone who knows the effect that arguments and miracles have on the public understands this.

It’s not necessarily the magicians, but a significant part of Egypt. This is a much stronger refutation than the average skeptical atheist claims that have no basis at all.

In any case, as is known, in the sin of the calf the people of Israel did not sin through ordinary idolatry, but because they thought Moses had died, so they made the calf, as they said of it: “…a molten calf, and they said: These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” True, it was indeed forbidden to make an idol or image and to embody the divine in a form. But even so, this was not idolatry and heresy in the full sense. They acted in line with the reality in which they lived: all the ancient cultures once worshipped statues and so on. The Kuzari also speaks about this topic.

There is a difference between weak miracles and miracles that robbed all the powers of nature, killed every firstborn in Egypt, the thick darkness, blood that did not affect the Jews, wild beasts, lice, and frogs—species of all kinds—as opposed to other miracles that are not on the same level…..

With God’s help, 28 Kislev 5779

To Meir—hello רב,

After all, many Egyptians joined the people of Israel and went out with them into the unknown, into the desolate wilderness where there is no food or water and no chance of survival by the natural order, as it says: “And a mixed multitude also went up with them.”

Clearly most Egyptians did not dare leave their land and their deeply rooted culture in order to go into the unknown. Even the Jews “broke” whenever they encountered the reality of the arid desert, and cried: “If only we had died in the wilderness”—but the Jews already had nothing to lose.

This is the way of the world: one who lives in his own land, even under suffering and bondage, does not hurry to leave and does not burst out to revolt against the existing order. The ability of people to make a revolution and struggle to create a new order stemmed not a little from the traditions of the Exodus from Egypt and the hope for the redemption of the world, which the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) bequeathed to the entire cultural world.

As Rabbi Kook wrote: “The Exodus from Egypt was the springtime of the whole world”!

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

The story about Khrushchev illustrates the paralyzing fear of one who lives under a tyrannical regime. When Khrushchev denounced the crimes of Stalin’s regime at the Communist Party conference in 1956, someone in the audience stood up and shouted at him: “And where were you?” Khrushchev answered in a threatening voice: “Who said that?” Silence fell. Khrushchev replied: “Now you understand: fear paralyzes!”

Hello S. Z. Levinger,
Thank you very much for the answer. When I read on Wikipedia about the mixed multitude, as you mentioned, two additional thoughts came to me about the topic, this time from a different angle. What do you think of them (and the rest of you as well, of course)?

1. What was the purpose of the miracles in the Exodus from Egypt? Was their purpose to spread God’s honor/power throughout the whole world, or as preparation for the people of Israel? If we argue like option B, then my original question here becomes weaker.
2. More than that: would the average Egyptian, who did not live near the center of events but only got hit by the plagues, connect the reason for all these plagues to the children of Israel? Or would he see it as random?
And even if he did connect it, was he even supposed to change his theology because of it? Or at least feel that he was supposed to do so?

I wanted to bring a quote from a midrash that appears on Wikipedia about this:

“In the Zohar on the portion of Shemot, 191a, it is brought that the mixed multitude was part of the Egyptian people, people of the same language, and that they included among them all the magicians of Egypt. After the Egyptian magicians saw the wonders of God, they asked Moses our Rabbi to let them join the people of Israel. The Holy One, blessed be He, suggested to Moses not to convert the mixed multitude, but Moses asked God to accept them. Moses’ reason was that the cause of their desire to convert was that they had seen God’s might; therefore Moses thought that when the mixed multitude would see God’s might every day, they would know that there is no god besides Him. Therefore Moses converted the mixed multitude and took them under his protection.”

And also: “On the verses (Exodus 32:7-12): ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses: Go, descend, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have become corrupt… And now leave Me be, that My anger may burn against them and I will consume them, and I will make you into a great nation’—Rashi explains: it does not say ‘the people have become corrupt,’ but rather ‘your people’—that is, the mixed multitude whom you accepted on your own and converted without consulting Me, and you said: It is good that converts attach themselves to the Divine Presence—and they are the ones who corrupted and caused corruption.”

A good question in my opinion; I also had not thought of it until now.

In arguments with Christians there is a claim that Jesus performed his miracles (according to them) before Jews, and if the Jews who were closest to the miracle were not convinced, apparently there was nothing to it. That is quite reminiscent of our question.

The Rabbi’s answer—that the Egyptians were influenced by impulses and not by philosophy—does not convince me.
The people of Israel did indeed worship the calf, as a one-time event, but their philosophical and religious outlook changed completely. From then on they educated their children in Jewish faith and passed the Torah on to the next generation. The Egyptians, by contrast, completely denied monotheistic faith; in fact it does not seem that the Exodus from Egypt affected the Egyptians philosophically at all.
A person who experienced the ten plagues of Egypt as they are described in the Bible ought to change something in his philosophical worldview, even if he does not change his actual behavior.

The answer that fear paralyzes also does not convince me. After all, a mixed multitude went up with them—what prevented everyone else from joining?

One possible answer is that the mixed multitude who went up were the magicians, who knew about Moses, whereas most of the people did not know the source of the disasters pouring down on them.

But it seems to me that a more correct answer is that the ten plagues were not supposed to affect the Egyptians’ theology at all.
The Egyptians lived in a world with a broad pantheon of gods. They also fought among themselves from time to time; sometimes this one prevailed and sometimes that one.
So now a new god has arrived, one they had never heard of before—the God of the Hebrews. Fine, one more god for the pantheon. Why should that change their religious outlook?
True, this god turns out to be very powerful—more powerful than all the other gods. Fine. Maybe that is temporary, and in the future the other gods will prevail over him. That is not a reason to go and worship him specifically.
Besides, the God of the Hebrews did not tell them anything; they do not know how to worship him or what to sacrifice to him. He only told them to send out the children of Israel, and they really did that, so from now on he should no longer harm them.
In short—it is quite possible that the Egyptians recognized the miracles and believed that this was a supreme power striking them, but that it did not affect their philosophical or religious outlook.