It would probably be a fair assessment to say that I am not alone in looking at the world today and shrugging in complete puzzlement. It feels like the last 5 or 6 years have brought a bizarre shift in both geopolitics, domestic policy, and economics. It often seems as if we are faced with the bizarre experience of politicians talking out of two sides of their mouths – saying one thing but meaning another.
“That’s what politicians do,”
some of you might be saying, and the proof is right here in this week’s parsha.
In Parshas Bo there is a particularly strange pasuk that easily makes one
hesitate and reread to try to understand what just happened.
The parsha begins with Hashem
instructing Moshe and Aharon to return to Pharoah and describe to the court the
next terrible plague that is to come. They are warned, however, that Hashem will
harden Pharoah’s heart so that Hashem can overturn Egypt in a way to strengthen
Am Yisrael for all of our generations (note: that’s not how it is expressed).
They go to the court and describe the devastation to be wrought by a terrible
swarm of locust. They leave, and the court goes crazy. “Pharaoh’s courtiers
said to him, “How long shall this one be a snare to us? Let those involved go
to worship the ETERNAL their God! Are you not yet aware that Egypt is lost?” (Shemos
10:7). On a side note, it is interesting that this dire reaction is to the one
plague that has any sense of something natural. Perhaps because they knew, from
experience in life, how truly terrible a locust swarm could be…and, of course, their
land and lives were already quite devastated.
Pharoah listens to his
courtiers, which is in itself fairly incredible, and calls Moshe and Aharon
back to the court and offers to let them go to worship Hashem in the
wilderness. When he inquires as to whom they plan on taking with them, he is
told “We will all go—regardless of our station—we will go with our sons and
daughters, our flocks and herds; for we must observe Hashem’s festival” (10:9).
Pharoah’s reaction, when read initially, is truly peculiar:
“So he [Pharaoh] said to them, ‘So
may the Lord be with you, just as I will let you and your young children out.
See that evil is before your faces. Not so; let the men go now and worship the
Lord, for that is what you request.’ (10:10-11).
The Torah does not state any
emotion on Pharoah’s part leading into his statement, and so it could seem that
he is actually seeing things their way. “So may the Lord be with you.” Pharoah
is invoking Hashem’s name, and it almost seems as if he is blessing their endeavor.
More than that, it almost appears as if he is encouraging them when he says: “I
will let you and your young children out.” It seems he is saying that everyone
can go.
It is therefore rather
startling when Pharoah declares that “evil is before your faces.” It seemed
that only a moment ago Pharoah was accepting this request; he’d even appeared
to bless them that Hashem should be with them! Thus we see that Pharoah truly
knows how to speak like a politician, how to couch in his words the poison of
double-speak. The Netziv remarks in Haamek Daver that Pharoah’s wording here is
meant to imply that he is acting from compassion: “Pharaoh asked, ‘Who is going
to provide for your needs in the desert? Will you not die of hunger?’ This is
the significance of his warning, ‘for evil confronts you.’ That is, you are
seeking your own misfortune by taking your little ones into the barren desert.”
Pharoah invokes Hashem’s name
so that he can appear as if he is thinking of their welfare. The implication
that he knows better than Hashem how to protect both Bnei Yisrael and his own
people is his narcissistic vulnerability.
This pasuk can be read as a
statement of sarcasm, that his first two phrases were said drenched in
facetiousness. That understanding hinges on the word k-asher. K-asher, broken
down, means “like that” but is generally used to mean “when.” Hashem will be
with you when I will send you and your littlest ones… but that time isn’t now,
with the implication that that time may be never because he was quite aware
that the Israelites, if they left with their children and their flocks, would
never return. (I mean, duh, why would they!)
One could, however, look at
this pasuk as a critical moment. Perhaps Pharoah’s first phrasing of the pasuk –
“So may the Lord be with you, just as I will let you and your young children
out.” – was genuine. But Hashem has already told Moshe that Bnei Yisrael will
not be leaving Mitzrayim yet. He has said outright that He will harden Pharoah’s
heart. This beat, separated by a little esnachta (the trope mark that looks like
a wishbone and signifies something like a period) is the moment Hashem hardens
Pharoah’s heart. This is the moment that Hashem reminds the world both then and
now, that there is a plan that must be fulfilled.
Do we understand why things are
happening in the world today as they are? I certainly don’t. Watching the incredible
rise in anti-Semitism that followed the attack on October 7th was mind-fuddling,
and it was, to me at least, absolute proof that Hashem runs the world and was fulfilling
His word on what living in galus would be like. When Jews start to feel
comfortable and complacent in their exile homes, the world reminds us that
comfortable and complacent is not the space we are meant to be living in. When
Pharoah starts to feel a tad bit of compassion for his own people and begins to
relent, Hashem hardens his heart…because there is a plan. There is always a
plan - it is just far, far, far too broad for us to see.
Wishing you all a beautiful
Shabbas. For those in Montreal – stay warm! Be safe! For those south of Albany –
stay home! Be safe! For those of you not
expecting the joys of winter…well, I may be jealous.
No comments:
Post a Comment