When I listen to Cuban music, I can recognize the instruments, the rhythm, a voice, but the meaning of the words, the feeling of Cuba, the emotions, lie under the cover of the horns, beneath the beating of the drums, out of my reach. So I try to tap on some surface, move a foot, hum a little, maybe to imitate the power of a music and culture beyond my grasp. If I had magicians at my bidding, I would probably ask them to recreate the strings of the guitar, to bring me my own music that I could fully understand and pretend were my own.
In this week's parasha, the magicians of Pharaoh try to show the Egyptians the same wonders that Moshe is bringing into the world, attempting to undermine the awesome power that is being displayed by a single man following the orders of Hashem. Moshe's goal is simply to warn Pharaoh that if he doesn't agree to allow the Jewish slaves their freedom, their mighty god will bring devastation to the land. What is the goal of the magicians? What is the use of imitating another so mighty? It seems they want to explain-away something that is clearly beyond this world, bring a rational explanation to a power that is not their own. This is a reaction of fear.
However, by the third display, the magicians find that they can no longer keep up - they are unable to bring another, lesser version of what is in fact a real danger to the Egyptians. Some aspects of life, of being in this world, are too much for imitation. There are certain moments that are impossible to recreate. What is true, unbending, sometimes irrational does not leave room. There is really space for only one truth.
If everyday we had someone like Moshe to stand before us with a staff and a might that displays the true will of Hashem, this one truth would be much easier to see. Instead we have, if we are lucky, moments of clarity, of drums that move with horns that sound with piano keys that ring with voices that shout.