EXOD114 The question is ancient. If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, then it was God who made Pharaoh refuse to let the Israelites go, not Pharaoh himself. How can this be just? How could it be right to punish Pharaoh and his people for a decision--a series of decisions--that were not made freely by Pharaoh himself? Punishment presupposes guilt. Guilt presupposes responsibility. Responsibility presupposes freedom. We do not blame weights for falling or the sun for shining. Natural forces are not choices made by reflecting on alternatives. Homo sapiens alone is free. Take away that freedom and you take away our humanity. How then can we say, as it does in Parashat Va'era, that God hardened Pharaoh's heart [this verse]? All the commentators are exercised by this question. Rambam and others note a striking feature of the narrative: for the first five plagues we read that Pharaoh himself hardened his heart. Only later, during the last five plagues, do we read about God doing so. The last five plagues were therefore a punishment for the first five refusals, freely made by Pharaoh himself. [Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuva 6:3]. [Continued at [[EXOD130]] Exodus 10:7 SACKS 86 realise].

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EXOD115 [Continued from [[EXOD130]] Exodus 10:7 realise SACKS 86] A third approach calls into question the very meaning of the phrase, "God hardened Pharaoh's heart." In a profound sense, God, author of history, is behind every event, every act, every gust of wind that blows, every drop of rain that falls. Normally, however, we do not attribute human action to God. We are what we are because that is how we have chosen to be, even if this was written long before in the divine script for human kind. What do we attribute to an act of God? Something that is unusual, falling so far outside the norms of human behavior that we find it hard to explain in any other way then to say that surely this happen for a purpose. God Himself says about Pharaoh's obstinacy that it allowed Him to demonstrate to all humanity that even the greatest empire is powerless against the hand of Heaven [this verse, Exodus 14:18]. Pharaoh acted freely, but his last refusals were so strange that it was obvious to everyone that God had anticipated this. It was predictable, part of the script. God had disclosed this to Abraham centuries earlier when He told him in a fearful vision that his descendants would be strangers in the land not theirs (Gen 15:13-14). These are all interesting and plausible interpretations. It seems to me, though, that the Torah is telling a deeper story, one that never loses its relevance. Philosophers and scientists have tended to think in terms of abstractions and universals. Some have concluded that we have free will, others that we do not. There is no conceptual space in between. In life, however, that is not the way freedom works at all. Consider addiction: the first few times you smoke a cigarette or drink alcohol or take drugs, you do so freely. You know the risks and you ignore them. As time goes on, your dependency increases until the craving is so intense that you are almost powerless to resist it. At that point you may have to go into rehabilitation. You no longer, on your own, have the ability to stop. As the Talmud says, "A prisoner cannot release himself from prison" (Berakhot 5b). Addiction is a physical phenomenon. But there are moral equivalents. For example, suppose on one significant occasion, you tell a lie. People now believe something about you that is not true. As they question you about it, or it comes up in conversation, you find yourself having to tell more lies to support the first. "Oh what a tangled web we weave," Sir Walter Scott famously said, "when first we practice to deceive." That is as far as individuals are concerned. When it comes to organizations, the risk is even greater. ... Within nations, especially non-democratic ones, the risk is higher still. ... [lengthy discussion omitted] That is what the Torah means when it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Insulating others, Pharaoh himself became enslaved. He became a prisoner of the values he himself had espoused. Freedom in the deepest sense, the freedom to do the right and the good, is not a given. We acquire it, or lose it, gradually. In the end, tyrants about their own destruction, whereas those with willpower, courage, and the willingness to go against the consensus acquire a monumental freedom. This is what Judaism is: an invitation to freedom by resisting the idols and siren calls of the age.

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EXOD116 [This verse] was understood to mean: you shall distinguish yourselves by your devotion to God and engage in the study of Torah rather than other matters. If a man cannot give the entire day to study, let him study a couple of halachahs in the morning and in the evening. His study in the morning does not exempt him from studying in the evening, any more than his morning prayer absolves him from the obligation to pray in the evening. [Mekiltah, Bahodesh 2; Al Nakawa, Menorat Hamaaor III, 374-5]. The opinion is voiced that if a man study only one chapter of the Torah in the morning and one in the evening he has fulfilled the command of Joshua 1:8, "This book of the Law shown not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night." The view was further expressed that the command is fulfilled even if one recites no more than the Shema in the morning and evening.

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EXOD117 Enthusiasm is one of those soul-traits that is best cultivated by understanding and addressing what obstructs it. The natural tendency of the heart is to be passionate and energetic, so setting free that innate power is more a matter of removing impediments then stoking the fire. What is it that subverts and deflates your enthusiasm? Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto offers his guidance in The Path of the Just. The first major stumbling block to enthusiasm he identifies is its direct opposite, which is laziness. When laziness rules the roost, not much of anything happens, except that we remain stuck in our present circumstances, arrested like a bud frozen on the limb. Laziness may seem benign, but Rabbi Luzzatto warns us about how insidious and dangerous that trait can be: "The bad that comes from laziness does not come about in one fell swoop, but slowly and without notice. It comes in a sequence of one bad deed after another, until you find yourself sunk in evil." Without even recognizing that it is happening, laziness carries us lower and lower until we ultimately become agents of evil: "The lazy man, though not actively evil, produces evil through his very inactivity." What Rabbi Luzzatto has to tell us about laziness that we may not realize is that laziness is characterized by heaviness: "And see that the nature of a human being is very heavy." (Path of the Just, ch. 6). Like many Mussar teachers, he associates his laziness with our physicality. If we were beings of pure spirit, we'd be light and active, but because we live in bodies, we are tied to the physical world. Controlled by the force of gravity, we are pulled down. These are realities over which we have no control, but Rabbi Luzzatto does point out what is under our influence. It is up to us whether we succumb to these forces or, alternatively, make an effort to lift ourselves up into enthusiasm: "If you abandon yourself to this 'heaviness' you will not succeed in your quest," he concludes. The Hebrew word for heavy also shows up prominently in the story of Moses's attempts to get Pharaoh to release the children of Israel from Egypt. There we read [this verse] that Pharaoh refused to pay attention to Moses's entreaties because his heart was literally "heavy," [kaved] though the translation usually says "obstinate" or "stubborn." Here, too, we get an image that helps us understand what it is to be "heavy"-- like laziness, it means to run counter to the way of spirit.

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EXOD118 These two elements [religion and nationalism] have always been both intrinsic and necessary to Judaism, although this concept is often misunderstood by non-Jews and even Jews. For many years, other faiths and other peoples have used the phrase pronounced by God, “Let My people go,” when speaking about national aspirations. But the people uttering these words who yearned for peoplehood always forgot to look up the original text in the Torah. The words “Let My people go” in the Torah are always followed by the words “So that they can serve Me.” Therefore, God is clearly saying that nationalism is indeed important in Judaism, as long as it is followed by service to God, the core religious component of Judaism. Similarly, when G- d chose the Jewish people to be “His” people right before the Torah was given, he clearly defined what Judaism must become: a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. [Exodus 19:6]. Normally, priests are associated exclusively with the religious realm, and a kingdom is part of the political or nationalistic realm. Yet here, God says that Judaism must combine the political concept of the kingdom with the spiritual concept of priests. The very next phrase in the verse projects the same idea. Holiness is usually left to the realm of the religious, while nationhood is usually left to the physical, non-holy aspects of life. Yet God said that Judaism must combine the two and become a holy nation. When Ruth, the ultimate convert to Judaism and great-grandmother of King David, described the essence of Judaism, she uttered just four Hebrew words: “Ameich Ami v’Elkayich Elokai,” “your nation is my nation, and your God is my God.” Ruth 1:16. This encapsulates the essence of Judaism, and one aspect without the other is not truly Jewish.

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EXOD119 We must be grateful to anyone who has benefited us, even if he did so unintentionally. Rashi cites the Midrash (Shmos Rabbah 9:10) which explains that Aharon rather than Moshe was chosen to initiate the plagues of blood and frogs, because the water had protected Moshe when he was cast into it as an infant. It would therefore not be proper for Moshe to smite the water. Water is an inanimate object which does not have free will. When something floats in water and does not sink, it would not occurred us to give thanks to the water for its buoyancy. Nevertheless, we learn from this verse that if a person drives pleasure from an object, he should show his gratitude by being careful not to cause harm or damage to the object, even though it would not suffer pain. As the Talmud Bava Kama 92b states: "if you drink water from the well, do not throw stones at it." Although this advice is basically meant as a metaphor for people who have given you something, the literal meaning should not be ignored (see Shita Mekubetzes, Bava Kama, ibid.). Since this is true concerning inanimate objects, all the more so must we show gratitude towards people who have shown us kindness. (Rabbi Chayim Shmuelevitz). Rabbi Yechezkail Sarna, Rosh Yeshiva of Chevron, wrote that the obligation to show gratitude for a well applies especially to a spiritual well. If you have studied Torah under a certain teacher or if you have stayed in a certain yeshiva, appreciate what you have gained. Be careful not to throw verbal stones at the spiritual wells from which you have drunk. (Daliyos Yechezkail, vol. 2, p. 305).

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EXOD120 See [[EXOD118]] Exodus 7:16 let AMJV 198

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EXOD121 See [[EXOD118]] Exodus 7:16 let AMJV 198

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EXOD122 See [[DEUT41]] Deuteronomy 2:30 hardened SPERO 245-6

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EXOD123 See [[EXOD118]] Exodus 7:16 let AMJV 198

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