As I wrote this, the oil was continuing to ooze into the Gulf of Mexico and Egypt could have been to blame. Not the modern Egyptian state, but the ancient biblical nation.
Our parashah provides a damning statement against those who dig the earth in hubris. Ancient Egyptian agriculture was elegantly simple. Each summer the Nile would overflow it banks, spilling sediment onto the shore. The farmers would sow the rich earth, and irrigate their crops via water-channels from the Nile. Yet there is a flaw.
Egyptian farmers never looked up; never cared if it rained or shined. They watered looking down at their "feet". What happened in the heavens was inconsequential.
Not so Israel. "It is a land of hills and valleys, from the rain of heaven will it drink water." In Israel, climate matters. I remember one summer in Jerusalem, when the lack of rain was front page news for weeks.