[Even though I’m not a biblical scholar,] where does it say in the Torah that it was a miracle that the Holy One, blessed be He, distinguished? It says that God in fact distinguished. In Exodus 11–13 it says, “So that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel,” and it says that setting aside the firstborn of animals for the priest and redeeming the firstborn are connected to the fact that God killed every firstborn in Egypt (not to the fact that He did not kill the Israelite firstborn. “And it shall be as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt”). And in Numbers 3 it says, “On the day I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to Myself every firstborn in Israel,” and the reason for that sanctification is not spelled out in the verses and is open to interpretation. Seemingly, one can interpret it all as a memorial to the miracle of the killing of Egypt’s firstborn, which was the decisive blow that brought about the liberation from Egypt, like the other commandments and matters in the Torah that commemorate the Exodus from Egypt.

And speaking of Scripture and different kinds of miracles, it seems to me that the clearest case of a distinction between different types of miracles (which expresses well the argument in column 463, “Prayer for a Miracle”; maybe it was already brought there or in the comments—I skimmed and didn’t notice it just now) is in II Samuel chapter 12 verses 16–23. There David prayed for his infant son not to die (that God should have mercy and not carry out Nathan’s prophecy that the child would die as punishment), and when the infant died David stopped praying: “And he said: While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me, and the child may live.’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I am going to him, but he will not return to me.”

By the way,
there is a phenomenon where the prophets (especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel) dramatize their prophecy in theatrical form, and Nachmanides on Genesis 12:6 suggests an explanation for the matter: “Know that every decree of the heavenly watchers, when it goes forth from the force of decree into some enacted symbolic deed, the decree will in any case be fulfilled. Therefore the prophets perform an act along with their prophecies, as with Jeremiah, who instructed Baruch, etc., ‘Tie a stone to it and cast it into the Euphrates, and say: Thus shall Babylon sink.’ And similarly in the matter of Elisha, etc.: ‘And Elisha said, Shoot; and he shot. And he said, The Lord’s arrow of victory…’ etc. And he said that he should have struck five or six times, then he would have struck Aram until it was destroyed; but now he will strike Aram only three times.”

Seemingly, in the above case with David we see that he received a prophecy: “The son born to you shall surely die,” and it had already begun to come into effect: “And the Lord struck the child,” and nevertheless, “David sought God on behalf of the boy.” All the more so: if Nachmanides says that even a symbolic enacted deed is enough for the decree to be fulfilled in any case, then certainly an actual partial realization—that is, that the child had already become ill—should be enough for the decree to be fulfilled in any case. So why did David pray while the child was dying and not regard the matter as settled beyond doubt? [Still, based on this one might joke that specifically against a prophecy that has already been fulfilled there is no point in praying, and therefore David stopped praying after the child died; but for other clearly miraculous matters David surely would have prayed with vigor.]

To Tirgitz,
13. “And the blood shall be a sign for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall be upon you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
23. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood upon the lintel and upon the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike.
26. And it shall come to pass, when your children say to you, ‘What is this service to you?’
27. Then you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.’ And the people bowed their heads and prostrated themselves.”
Exodus 12
Best regards,

What do you mean to bring from there? I didn’t understand.

Making a big deal out of the distinction there, unlike the other plagues in which there was also a distinction.

I wasn’t trying to answer that question. But just for pilpul one could say that there is a difference between the distinctions in the other plagues (wild beasts, pestilence, hail, darkness), which were local plagues that simply did not occur in the land of Goshen—and that could even happen naturally—and the distinction in the plague of the firstborn, which did not depend on location but on people (since in each house only the firstborn died). So the separation between the Jewish people and the Egyptians is highlighted specifically there. And besides, they didn’t make a special fuss over the distinction there; rather, that was the last and decisive plague, so the events bound up with the passing over of Israelite houses are what sealed the exodus to freedom and the choosing of the Jewish people. Therefore, besides a general memorial to the Exodus from Egypt, special commemorations were also established for that final and decisive moment.

With God’s help, 13 Nissan 5782

To T.G. — greetings,

The plague of the firstborn was intended to punish the Egyptians, but also to make Israel worthy of going out to freedom. Until now they could, spiritually speaking, “sit back with one leg over the other” and watch the Egyptians being struck. Now God says to them: “There are no free distinctions. You want a fate different from that of the Egyptians? Then you must be different from them. Separate yourselves from idolatry and enter into a covenant with God—then you will be worthy of special treatment.”

With blessings,
Ami’uz Yaron, may his light shine

Please clarify what exactly you came to explain with this. Did you mean to explain that commandments were given to the Jewish people (sanctifying the firstborn of animals, the firstborn donkey, and redeeming the firstborn son) in order to remember the covenant and not the choosing of the Jewish people, which is not dependent on anything or on their deeds? Or to explain that the Passover sacrifice is called by the name “passing over” because it testifies to an awakening from below, which is a necessary condition for redemption? In the verses it seems to say only that it is a remembrance that “with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

To T.G. — greetings,

In the earlier plagues the Israelites were not required to do anything in order to be spared the fate of the Egyptians. As I described in my previous comment, the Israelites could spiritually “sit back with one leg over the other” and calmly watch the Egyptians “taking the hit.”

By contrast, in the plague of the firstborn the Israelites had to work hard in order to be saved from the plague: to take the sheep, the god of Egypt, and prepare it openly for sacrifice; afterward to slaughter it and mark their doorposts with its blood; to eat the Passover offering in haste, with “their loins girded,” ready for immediate departure; and to eat the meat only roasted by fire. And not to go out of the doorway of their houses until morning.

Only if they did all this were they promised that God would pass over their houses, as every father says: “Because of this—because of the Passover offering, the matzah, and the bitter herbs—the Lord acted for me when I came out of Egypt.” And from here there is a subtle hint, thick as a beam in an oil press, to the defiant son who says, “What is this service to you?”—that had he been there and refused to take part in offering the Passover sacrifice, he would not have been saved, because only “because of this” did the Lord grant me this “special treatment” when I left Egypt.

With blessings, see there.

Indeed, Rashi brings the statement of the Sages that at the time it actually happened, even a Jew who transgressed God’s command, “None of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning,” and was found in an Egyptian house, was still saved, because in the end God had compassion even on those who violated His will. And in the end it was fulfilled that “He passed over the houses of the children of Israel” without conditions. And that verse, which the defiant son hears at the end of the Haggadah section “Maggid,” is his hope and consolation for the “sting” that blunted his teeth at the beginning.

Nice. (Though Nachmanides interprets it literally: “because of this that the Lord did for me,” therefore we sacrifice in future generations—not that the Lord acted because they sacrificed in Egypt.)

To Tirgitz… about the attempt to answer…
What would you say about the plague of blood, which was a natural event and apparently struck the Jewish people too? (And apparently that is true of all the plagues where it wasn’t specified; it’s just that regarding blood there are explicit medieval authorities.)

If you’re looking for learned explanations, I have nothing to offer. If you’re looking for shallow inventions in the plain sense of the text, I can try as a hobby.
There are plagues that are said to have been carried out by Moses and Aaron stretching out their hand or staff—namely blood, frogs, lice, boils, locusts, and darkness—and there are plagues carried out directly by God (at most Moses only prayed): wild beasts, pestilence, hail, and firstborn. The plagues in which a distinction between Egypt and Israel is explicitly mentioned are wild beasts, pestilence, hail, firstborn, and darkness.
So in the plagues carried out by God it says there was a distinction, and in the plagues carried out by people there was no distinction—except for the plague of darkness, for which I have no explanation in this picture. One could explain this by saying that in the plagues carried out by God it is not clear to the Egyptians that Moses caused them (maybe he only knows the future, but is not the cause of the plagues), and therefore a distinction was needed to prove to the Egyptians that the plague was connected to Israel. Then darkness still remains to be explained, and if we’re already reaching for inventions, one might say that since the Egyptians couldn’t see anything anyway, and whether there was darkness for Israel or not they wouldn’t know it, there was no reason to darken things for Israel. In any case, I have no idea, and the gates of homiletics have not been locked—it depends how far you’re willing to go.

By the way, I hope you checked the plain-sense commentators among the medieval and later authorities before asking (because I didn’t check and relied on you, and if the commentators have already addressed it, then why ask without presenting their answer?)