“Bo el Paro ki Ani hikhba’d’ti et libo v’et lev avodav.”
“Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants”
It has been a wonder throughout the centuries of commentary how Pharaoh can ignore the punishments being rained down upon the Egyptians. Here we are in parashat Bo; seven plagues have already passed, and still Pharaoh refuses to acknowledge that God is more powerful and he must allow the Israelites to go free. But even more unfathomable is the idea that God has made it so. Jews and other believers throughout the ages have had difficulty with this piece of text. How is it that God prolonged our suffering in slavery? How is it that God caused extra suffering to befall the Egyptians? Does this mean that God took from Pharaoh that which makes us human, our freewill?
What does it mean to harden the heart of Pharaoh and the hearts of his servants? Rambam explained that Pharaoh’s heart became hardened in response to the plagues. Pharaoh saw himself as a God. The plagues brought down upon Egypt as punishment were a challenge to this. Pharaoh had his free will. He, and his servants, chose to allow the conditions in Egypt to harden their hearts. They chose to harden their hearts in response to what they saw out their windows each day, in response to the suffering of the Israelites for 400 years and in response to the suffering of the Egyptians under the plagues.
3500 years later the Beatles summed this up beautifully on side two of Abbey Road, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” What we put out into the world will always turn towards us, even when we are too blind to see it. Ain’t karma a kick in the parts?
No comments:
Post a Comment