Can Great Miracles Be Achieved Through Sorcery?

It is written in Rambam's Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah, Chapter 8, that the faith of Israel in Moses was not because of the signs performed in the Exodus from Egypt, which could be explained by sleight of hand and sorcery, but rather because of the revelation at Mount Sinai where our eyes saw the fire, sounds, and torches, etc. Through this, all believed in Moses without any doubts. I do not understand if the splitting of the sea and all the plagues in Egypt could be done through sleight of hand and sorcery, why couldn't the sounds, lightning, and the voice saying "Moses, Moses" with clouds and darkness, also be considered sorcery??

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Hello and blessings,

Firstly, it is important to note that according to Rambam, sorcery is nothing but illusions and tricks performed by magicians to deceive the masses into believing their nonsense. The Torah aimed to distance us from the lies of idol worshipers who misled the masses with "tricks." According to Rambam, the magicians of Egypt did not truly turn a staff into a snake; it was an optical illusion that made the staff appear to turn into a snake. Therefore, it says "they did so with their tricks" - Rambam explains the word "tricks" as sleight of hand, meaning a trick or magic act.

Thus, it is understood that Rambam does not mean to say that the plagues in Egypt could have been done by sorcery. Instead, his statement is to say that the masses who believed in sorcery could not distinguish between a true and grand divine miracle and the acts of a deceitful magician (such as the Egyptian magicians). Therefore, the masses might wrongly attribute the true divine miracles, which no man can perform, to the deeds of a human.

Of course, the educated person understands that such a thing is impossible, as no sorcery can bring control over the world. As a strong person might be able to lift a rock but not a mountain, so is the case with a magician or illusionist, who might turn a cup of water into blood but certainly cannot turn an entire sea into blood, bring fire and hail together from the skies, kill every firstborn across an entire land in an instant, split the sea in two, sustain a nation for 40 years in the desert, and other such wonders that were done for the people of Israel. The miracles in the Torah could only be performed by the Creator of the World, as only the Creator of the World can control all the laws of nature on a universal scale.

Rambam intended to say that the revelation at Mount Sinai dispelled the doubts even from the masses who believed in sorcery. The revelation at Mount Sinai was more powerful than the miracles of the Exodus because this revelation was prophetic. Anyone who truly hears the voice of Hashem cannot doubt it, as one cannot doubt a divine prophecy that penetrates deeply into the heart, just as one cannot doubt one's own existence. Therefore, the entire nation that collectively witnessed the awesome divine revelation cannot have natural or even imaginary doubts that perhaps it was sorcery. The prophecy is a direct revelation to a person, not through mediators like the laws of nature. This is why there was a complete consensus among the entire nation, as indeed the Torah reveals to us, that the nation who heard Hashem's voice speaking to them was fearful of dying from the intensity of the prophecy. It was not just about the sounds of shofars and lightning; Hashem's voice penetrated hearts in a way that no other natural event could. It was a direct revelation to millions of people, not indirectly. Hashem spoke to each person individually in a mass event, not through nature. Therefore, this event was greater and higher than all other miracles, and even those who believed in sorcery could no longer attribute such a revelation to human acts. This alone is proof that the revelation was indeed genuine, as it even dispelled doubts from the hearts of those who believed in the possibility of sorcery.

Best regards,

Daniel Bess