Bo
Ex. 10:1 – 13:16

By Rabbi Baht Weiss

In the prior Torah portion, Vaera, Moses has come before Pharaoh seven times asking him to free the Hebrew people from slavery. And each time Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he is stubborn, and refuses to budge.   God brings ferocious plagues to convince Pharaoh to change his mind. God inflicts blood, frogs, lice, insects, cattle disease, and hail upon the Egyptian people.  None of these seven plagues have caused Pharaoh to change his mind. 

In the first line of this week’s Torah portion God says: 

“Bo…Go to Pharaoh, For I have hardened his heart and the heart of his courtiers in order that I display My signs among them…” 

These lines can be difficult to understand.  Is God hardening Pharaoh’s heart so that God can show off his powers? If God has the ability to harden Pharaoh’s heart, doesn’t he also have the ability to soften it, to enable him to feel compassion and let the Hebrew slaves go? 

Centuries ago, Talmudic commentator Rabbi Yochanan was troubled by this.  He reasoned that if God is pulling all the strings, and Pharaoh has no free choice, then the Egyptian ruler could not be held responsible for his choices. This would mean that none of us was truly free.  Reish Lakish responded by explaining that God gave Pharaoh several opportunities to change his mind and allow the Hebrews to leave Egypt.  The plagues were warnings. According to Resh Lakish, God hoped that Pharaoh would repent and free the slaves. “Since God warned him five times and Pharaoh refused to pay any attention and continued to stiffen his heart, God told him, ‘I will now add more trouble to what you have made for yourself. (Exodus Rabbah 13/3). In another words, Pharaoh brought on this condition by his own stubbornness. 

It is said that the longer we develop bad habits, the more difficult it is to break from our accustomed ways.  It becomes muscle memory—we often react as we have in previous situations.  Often, we either need to develop good habits from the start or allow some perspective in order to see things differently.  

During the first few plagues, Pharaoh hardened his own heart, but then the language changes and it says -that it was God who caused his heart to harden.   By the time we get to the final plagues, Pharaoh’s heart has become so conditioned to being heavy or hard, that there was no longer a possibility of appealing to compassion, empathy or even logic.  

Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote, “The more man’s heart hardens, the less freedom he has to change, the more he is determined by his pervious action…there comes a point of no return when man’s heart has become so hardened that he has lost the possibility of freedom.” (You Shall Not Be As Gods, 1966, p101.)  

Habits are formed. Behavior that we engage in at an early age is harder to change as we become accustomed to such behavior.  Like the plaque that forms on the arteries of one’s heart, once there is too much buildup, it is harder to fix. 

We don’t want to become like Pharaoh, so set in our ways that we see that our own behavior is causing harm to ourselves and to others around us. What are we being stubborn and closed minded about in our own lives?  

Each of us has a Pharaoh and a Moses inside of us.  Each of us can be stubborn, hard hearted and unwilling to compromise, and each of us can feel powerless yet determined, faking it until we make it, and propelled by something greater than us.  Are we digging our heels in on the right issues and fighting the right battles or are we, like Pharaoh, losing sight of the larger picture? Are our hearts hardened, heavy or steadfast? Let us think about our motivations, our relationships, and our own personal growth when we face challenges and opportunities outside our comfort zone so that we can receive each other with an open heart.

VaEra
Ex. 6:2 – 9:35 

Rabbi Gary Pokras 

Every spiritual tradition has a primary narrative, a story that defines what it stands for, and how and why it came into being. Ours is this: we were slaves in Egypt, then God redeemed us with a mighty and outstretched hand and gave us laws (Torah) to live by and our own land (Israel) so that we could become a light to the nations. 

In VaEra, Moses is called to challenge Pharaoh, and the first seven Plagues are inflicted upon Egypt. In our weekly Torah study group, whenever we study this passage, the question is inevitably asked: “Did it really happen?” It is a reasonable question, and a deep challenge against the tradition. It is reasonable because there is no real archaeological evidence supporting the Exodus story. It is a deep challenge because if this this story isn’t ‘real’ then how can we trust the rest of Torah? 

My response is always the same: when it comes to Torah, historical accuracy is irrelevant. The only truth that matters is that this is the text we have received, and when we study it, we discover deep and profound wisdom, and Jewish religious truths that transcend history. 

Rabbi Janice Garfunkel wryly observes that, if it is in fact invented, ours is an odd history. Why would we create a history of slavery? Wouldn’t we want superiority?¹ 

Enter the wisdom and religious value of Torah. Contrary to the ancient Greeks who taught that people were born as either gold, silver, or bronze (aristocracy, free people, or slaves) Torah teaches that all of us are created in the Divine image. We were slaves and God want us to be free. When we see ourselves in this way, then we cultivate deep empathy for all people. Slavery is still alive and strong in the world. There is the physical slavery that remains through human trafficking and economic constraints. There is also psychological, cultural (caste systems, gender biases, etc.) and spiritual slavery (religious discrimination, etc.).  

Torah has an overarching focus on justice, and slavery cannot exist in a just society. If we take Torah seriously, then every year we should look at the world and then ask ourselves: are we doing enough?  

And that’s the truth. 

1 Rabbi Janice Garfunkel, “Va-eira,” in Voices of Torah, vol. 2, CCAR Press, p. 106-7. 

Shemot
Exodus 1:1-6:1 

Rabbi Baht Yameem Weiss 

This week we begin the book of Exodus, Shemot. It is the story that made us a unified people.  In this week’s parsha, we meet Moses, who is called the greatest prophet that the Jewish people ever had.  Moses becomes the leader of the Jewish people even though he didn’t grow up among the Hebrews.  Rather, he grew up in Pharaoh’s palace because Pharaoh’s daughter had rescued and adopted him without her father’s knowledge.  This new King, this Pharaoh didn’t have a relationship with Joseph from Genesis, and out of that xenophobia, he was fearful of the Hebrews—that they were becoming too numerous—that they would rise up against him and revolt and so he appointed task master over them and enslaved them with back breaking work. 

Moses could have remained comfortable in his social situation.  He enjoyed wealth, prestige, and freedom.  But somehow within Moses burned a deep sense of justice—of right and wrong.  We don’t know much about his youth–if he was secretly educated as a Jew by his mother Yocheved who is said to have nursed him at the beginning of his life or by his sister Miriam who we are told kept a close watch over him from his early infancy. We don’t know if he was aware of his Jewish roots. 

There are three incidents that happen in this week’s Torah portion that introduce us to an adult Moses.  Moses encounters an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, and looking around to make sure no one is watching, he kills the Egyptian.  Why did he do this?  Was it because he knows that deep down, he too is a Hebrew, or did he feel moved to act seeing someone in power oppress someone who was in a weaker position.  Immediately following this incident, he sees to Hebrews quarrelling and he confronts them asking the offender, “Why do you strike your kinsman?”  The offender retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us?”  The offender continues “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”  Uh oh.  Moses became frightened—it was known that he had killed an Egyptian.  When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and arrived in the land of Midian. 

In the fields of Midian, Moses encounters a third act of injustice.  While Midian women (sisters) are trying to fill up their water at the well, some shepherds came and drove them off.  Coming to these strangers’ defense, Moses watered their flocks. 

Biblical commentator Nechama Liebowitz notes: 

Moses intervened on three occasions to save the victim from the aggressor. Each of these represents an archetype. First, he intervenes in a clash between a Jew and a non-Jew, second between two Jews and third between two non-Jews. In all three cases Moses championed the just cause…Had we been told only of the first clash; we might have doubted the unselfishness of his motives. Perhaps he had been activated by a sense of solidarity with his own people, hatred for the stronger oppressing his people rather than pure justice. Had we been faced with the second example…perhaps he was revolted by the disgrace of watching internal strife amongst his own folk, activated by national pride…then came the third clash where both parties were outsiders, neither brothers nor neighbors. His sense of justice and fair play was exclusively involved. 

Nineteenth century Zionistic essayist, Ahad Ha’am explained what makes Moses so exemplary: 

The prophet knows no distinction between man and man, only between right and wrong. He helps weak women against the shepherds who trample on their rights.  Bearing in mind that their common characteristic is the prophet’s revolt against injustice, we may confidently infer that the intention of the record was to show that the prophetic quality was there from the very beginning.  We may also infer that throughout the long period of his wanderings Moses never ceased to fight for justice, until the moment came for him to become the savior of his people and teach mankind justice—not for his age alone but for all time.   

We are not free until all people are free.  Like Moses, Judaism champions the rights of the stranger, the widow, the orphan, those who are most in need.  May we work to ensure justice for all people-regardless of race, religion or gender.