Our Gemara on Amud Aleph relates an interesting encounter between Moshe and the magicians of Egypt:

“Moses and Aaron’s first meeting with Pharaoh: Aaron cast his staff to the ground, whereupon it turned into a serpent. Pharaoh’s necromancers then duplicated the feat using their incantations, only to then be confounded when Aaron’s staff swallowed up all of theirs (see Exodus 7:10–12).”

“The Gemara relates the conversation that took place: Pharaoh’s two leading necromancers, Yoḥana and Mamre, said to Moses: Are you bringing straw to Afarayim? Performing necromancy in Egypt, the world leader in sorcery, is like bringing straw to Afarayim, which is rich in the finest grains. Moses said to them: It is as people say: To a city rich in herbs, take herbs.”

How do we understand Moshe’s reply? Rashi understands it as a nonsense answer. A scoffer cannot be convinced even when presented with the strongest evidence, because he is not open-minded. Moshe did not bother to argue; he knew that over time these magicians would see wonders and miracles far beyond first-grade magic tricks. It is an interesting strategy—that some people are simply not worth debating.

However, other commentaries understand Moshe’s answer to be more substantive. Rashi Kesav Yad implies a different approach. Moshe was saying, “Bring it on!” Meaning, one often brings trade to a hub in the marketplace because, in the end, there is more opportunity to showcase one’s goods. If the goods are superior it will win out. In a place where people are experts in magic, they will be able to appreciate that the wonders and signs from God exceed any human ability, and so they will know it is true.

The Pri Tzaddik (Miketz 4) offers a most intriguing and creative interpretation. The spiritual forces in this world come about via dual possibilities—for good or evil. Usually, at the same time that a window for evil opens up and becomes dominant, a new positive spiritual potential unfolds as well. Thus, the spiritual power of Egypt’s magic was not a sidebar, but a harbinger of a new spiritual window that was opening for humanity. Its most positive form culminated in the revelation at Mount Sinai, and its most toxic form was the magic used by the Egyptians to control fate without engaging with God via moral behavior and purity.

Likewise, he says, Babylonia was an intellectual center of the ancient world (with sophisticated astronomy, math, and medicine), and at a later time the Greek and Roman empires were as well. In those very locations, the Torah sheb’al peh flourished in the explosion of ethical and legal writings of the Talmud and Midrashim. Pri Tzaddik says this was hardly a coincidence, but rather part of a new potential that the Jewish people employed in the most spiritual and moral manner.

This is what Moshe meant when he responded, “To a city rich in herbs, take herbs.” Egypt was the place to bring humanity to the next step of moral and intellectual development. Magic was an impure expression of this potential to bring more spiritual force into the world, which Moshe actualized via giving the Torah.

In a modern historical sense, we might consider that the development of modern psychology, Chassidus, and the mussar movement all took place within a relatively short span of time. Humanity was in a space where physical prosperity allowed for more introspection into our psyche regarding the motivations and inner nature of emotional and intellectual processes.