“Nothing G‑d creates is for nothing. If not for the frogs, how would G‑d have taken retribution on the Egyptians?” (Midrash)

Now, this is a strange statement. Why should G‑d need frogs, of all creatures, to deal with Ancient Egypt? He's G‑d. He has no shortage of means to accomplish His ends.

The answer: Because, to Pharaoh, the whole world was a frog.

Pharaoh was not like Bilam. Bilam understood there was one great G‑d. Only that he imagined that there were little gods, too. Such as himself.

Neither was Pharaoh like Sancherib, King of Assyria. Sancherib denied G‑d’s existence altogether. He perched himself upon a throne as the supreme deity and scoffed at the notion of any entity being greater than him. (Ezekiel 28:2)

But to Pharaoh, the existence of G‑d was simply irrelevant. He had a nation to run, business to take care of, and this "Let my people go that they may serve Me" annoyance was getting in the way.

The heavens belong to the gods, or maybe even one G‑d. But business is business.

Today, we call that a secularist, a kind of agnostic.

The secularist has no problem with the possible existence of G‑d. The atheist vehemently denies it—and thereby makes himself his own god. Yet, in a way, the secularist sits on a lower plane than the atheist.

At least the atheist has a relationship—albeit a negative one—with something beyond himself. At least he finds it necessary to oppose it.

But this utter coldness of Pharaoh, this notion that he lives in a world that’s “just here,” and that G‑d and all this spiritual business has nothing to do with life on Planet Earth—with him, how can you even start a conversation?

For him, the entire world is a frog.

Why a frog? Some plagues involved domesticated animals that serve their master. Others involved vicious beasts that endanger human beings. But the frog is a seemingly benign creature that neither harms nor services anyone, a creature that appears to be “just here,” without any apparent purpose.

That’s why G‑d’s first cure for Pharaoh's coldness was to enlist the frogs to perform a miracle

To demonstrate that, in truth, there is absolutely nothing in this world without divine meaning, nothing that is not intimately wrapped up with G‑d’s light. That everything in G‑d's world burns with divine purpose.

Even the cold, benign frog.

Likutei Sichot, vol. 21, p. 38 ff.