My Jewish Guide » bo

Free Choice

RabbiArnie — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 23:01:01 +0000

One of the most powerful questions that arises from the story of the Exodus is how could God harden Pharaoh’s heart without stripping him of his free will to decide between good and evil?

I’d like to convey two answers offered by one of the greatest Torah scholars of the early twentieth century, Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin ZT”L, in his classic “La-torah V’La-Moadim”.

1) We are all born with innate characteristics, or Middot. It is up to us to decide how to apply them. For example, someone who is born with a tendency toward spilling blood, can choose to be a murderer, or a Mohel or Shochet. God instilled Pharaoh with a strong tendency towards stubbornness. He hardened his heart. Pharaoh had the free will to apply his powerful stubbornness to either stand firm against his emotional desire to maintain power and lordship over an innocent nation, or to stand firm against the plagues sent to convince him to release that same nation. Pharaoh freely chose to direct his hardened heart against the Jews.

2) Doing something because you are forced to is not a sign of freedom. It is a sign of powerlessness. If Pharaoh had released the Jews solely as a reaction to the horror of the plagues, he would not have been acting out of his own free will. Therefore, God hardened his heart, in order to neutralize his fear of the plagues, and allow him to decide whether to release the Jews solely based on his own free will and moral character. By hardening Pharaoh’s heart, God actually allowed him to exercise his free will.

Parshat Bo – The Big Difference

RabbiArnie — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:49:35 +0000

The Torah and the Sages teach that the Jews were spared the hardships of the plagues. For example, while the Egyptian was stricken with boils the Jew standing beside him was completely healthy. The final plague, however, presented a different scenario. God tells Moses to tell the Jews to place the blood of the slaughtered paschal lamb on the doorposts of their homes as a sign for Him to pass over them when smiting the first born of Egypt. It follows that those Jews who chose not to place this sign upon their doors were smitten along with the Egyptians. Why was this final plague different than the first nine where the Jews were spared from the fate of the Egyptians? Why was blood chosen to be the sign that would save the Jews from the fate of the Egyptians?
The Torah teaches that God unleashed his complete destructive power (Mash-cheet) against the Egyptians in the final plague. This terminology is not used regarding the other plagues possibly because the other plagues were intended not to kill the Egyptians, but to make them accept God’s supremacy. The Jews already accepted and believed in God so they didn’t need to experience the plagues. The final plague was no longer to teach. Rather it was to destroy and punish. When God’s attribute of strict judgment is unleashed it makes no exceptions. All are judged equally. There is no mercy.
The Sages teach that the Jews were on the forty ninth level of impurity in Egypt, with fifty being the absolute lowest. If they had reached fifty they would not have been redeemed. At the splitting of the sea the angels asked God why he would choose to save the Jews and kill the Egyptians, since both nations worshipped idols and were not much different. Therefore, it is clear that were they to be judged with the attribute of strict judgment the Jews might very well be liable to suffer the same punishment as the Egyptians.
Why was blood chosen as the sign to save them? The Sages teach that the original cause of the Egyptian bondage was the “lashon hara” or “evil speech” that Joseph spoke against his brothers, which began the chain of events that brought the Jews to Egypt. They also teach that the Jews

were redeemed from Egypt because they did not speak Lashon Hara. The Midrash says that the Jews didn’t change their language to that of the Egyptians meaning, I think, that they didn’t speak Lashon Hara.
The Hebrew word for blood is “Daam” which is also the root of the Hebrew word for “silence”. Therefore, the blood that the Jews placed on their doorposts represented their merit that differentiated them from the Egyptians: they didn’t speak Lashon Hara.

Shabbat Bo

RabbiArnie — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:05:50 +0000

In this week’s parsha, Bo, Moshe demands that Pharaoh let the Jews out to worship God. When Pharaoh asks who would go, Moshe tells him everyone, men women, children, and even their animals.
Pharaoh accuses Moshe of trying to “pull a fast one”, and agrees to release only the men, for only they worship.
Was Moshe, in fact, trying to trick Pharaoh?

Not at all. Moshe was teaching Pharoah that everyone can connect with, and serve, the Divine, each in their own unique way. Yes, even animals serve God, usually with the help of man.

This is a fundamental principle in Judaism. Every person has the potential to reach the highest levels of spirituality and holiness. The Jewish People were given a special guidebook that teaches us our own, unique, path, to God. Other nations have other paths unique to them.

Our challenge is to each find our own, personal, way of connecting, within the framework of that guidebook — the Torah.

Good luck on your journey.
Shabbat Shalom,