Vaera: Hardening Our Hearts By Seeing No Evil

Rabbi Mati Kirschenbaum

POLSKĄ WERSJĘ I remember it as vividly as if it only happened yesterday and not almost a quarter century ago. In early January 1999, when I was in fifth grade, my school took us to the cinema to see the newest Disney blockbuster, the Prince of Egypt. While I was familiar with the biblical story of Exodus beforehand, the movie made me relate to it in a new, emotional way. This new sense of connection to this story was enabled by the Prince of Egypt evocative soundtrack. Even today, many years later, I can still recall many of the lyrics of its songs. There is, however, a song that I know practically by heart. It is called the Plagues and describes the growing tension between Moses and Pharaoh following the introduction of each successive plague. This song is the perfect musical illustration of the highlight of this week’s Torah, Vaera.

In the Plagues Moses address the Pharaoh as follows:

Thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Lord

Since you refuse to free my people

All through the land of Egypt

I send a pestilence and plague

Into your house, into your bed

Into your streams, into your streets

Into your drink, into your bread

Upon your cattle, on your sheep

Upon your oxen in your field

Into your dreams, into your sleep

Until you break, until you yield

I send the swarm, I send the horde

Thus saith the Lord

Once I called you brother

Once I thought the chance

To make you laugh

Was all I ever wanted

I send the thunder from the sky

I send the fire raining down

And even now I wish that God

Had chose another

Serving as your foe on his behalf

Is the last thing that I wanted

I send a hail of burning ice

On every field, on every town

This was my home

All this pain and devastation

How it tortures me inside

All the innocent who suffer

From your stubbornness and pride

I send the locusts on a wind

Such as the world has never seen

On every leaf, on every stalk

Until there’s nothing left of green

I send my scourge, I send my sword

Thus saith the Lord.

While the song accurately (albeit summarily) describes the terror of plagues, it does tell us why Pharaoh was so stubborn and proud. This omission is not coincidental. It aims to avoid theological challenge posed by the expression the heart of Pharaoh hardened. Torah describes this process in three ways: Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, Pharaoh hardened his heart, and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The last expression, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, was particularly problematic for our sages. They asked themselves as we can ask today: doesn’t God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart go against the concept of human free will?

Rashi, medieval French commentator,offers an interesting solution to this dilemma. He explains that Pharaoh lost his ability to repent, to change his heart after the first five plagues. Indeed, the phrase God hardened Pharaoh’s heart appears only after plague six, when, according to Rashi, it was clear that he was not able to change. After each of the first three plagues, described in this week’s parashah, we read that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Later in our portion, after plague four and five, we read that Pharaoh himself hardened his heart. We may ask: why was a different expression used? Were the first three plagues somewhat different from plagues number four and five?

In our portion we read that the first three plagues – blood, frogs, and lice – befell all dwellers of Egypt, Egyptian and Israelite alike. Only from the fourth plague onwards were the Israelites spared the suffering that the Egyptians had to endure. I believe that this difference explains the use of impersonal form (the heart of Pharaoh was hardened) in the description of the first three plagues. As long as every inhabitant of Egypt was suffering, Pharaoh did not even consciously react. He was so indifferent to the suffering of all his subjects that his heart was hardened automatically, without him even registering. Only when the plagues started to throw the Egyptian social order out of balance by giving Israelites some respite, did Pharaoh notice. Then he felt the need to get personally involved and hardened his heart to maintain the pre-existing discriminatory social order.

Pharaoh’s instinctive sense of entitlement reminded me of a poem ‘A Medieval Miniature’ by Wislawa Szymborska. I took the liberty to paraphrase it to turn it into a modern commentary on our portion.

An Egyptian Fresco

Along the verdantest of Nile banks,

in this most equestrian of pageants,

wearing the silkiest of cloaks.

Toward a palace with countless columns,

each of them by far the tallest.

In the foreground, a priest

most flatteringly unrotund;

by his side, his wife

young and fair beyond compare.

Behind them, the ladies-in-waiting,

all pretty as pictures, verily,

then a cupbearer, the most ladsome of lads,

and perched upon his shoulder

something exceedingly monkeylike,

endowed with the drollest of faces

and tails.

Following close behind, three warriors,

all chivalry and rivalry,

so if the first is fearsome of countenance,

the next one strives to be more daunting still,

and if he prances on a bay steed

the third will prance upon a bayer,

and all twelve hooves dance glancingly

atop the most wayside of lotuses.

Whereas whosoever is downcast and weary,

cross-eyed and out at elbows,

is most manifestly left out of the scene.

Even the least pressing of questions,

Israelite or peasantish,

cannot survive beneath this most azure of skies.

And not even the eaglest of eyes

could spy even the tiniest of gallows –

nothing casts the slightest shadow of a doubt.

Thus they proceed most pleasantly

through this feudalest of realisms.

This same, however, has seen to the scene’s balance:

it has given them their Plagues in the next frame.

Oh yes, all that went without

even the silentest of sayings.

I am sure that the overwhelming majority of humans are not like Pharoah confronted with the later plagues. We have the ability to change our course so we definitely were not deprived of our ability to repent by Divine decree. Most of us also don’t make conscious decisions that bring suffering to many. However, I believe that many of us resemble Pharaoh confronted with the first three plagues. Just like him, we might take our privilege and resultant inequality for granted. Just like him, we might believe that those less fortunate than us deserve to be in this position. Just like him, we might be deaf to cries of anguish and discomfort.

Both Judaism and Wislawa Szymborska teach us that such behavior is short-sighted, that in the end injustice we help perpetuating will blow up against us, bursting the bubble of our entitlement and self-satisfaction. Today I encourage you to look at the mental picture of you that you draw for yourselves. Is it favorable? If so, is it a realistic depiction of your impact on the world or are you painting some dark stuff over? Once you have answers to these questions, act on them, even if the things that you discover about yourself are hard. They are supposed to be – it is hard to soften a hardened heart. I hope this Shabbat will help all of you open yourselves to the fate of Others. Shabbat Shalom!