Scrollers Preview - Parashat Va-eira

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Parashat Va-eira
January 21, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

This week the plagues begin. As we read of the first seven plagues that come in this parasha, we’ll see they come in groups of three, in a symmetrical pattern. The first two in each group are always preceded by a warning, and the third comes without warning. Each time Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, and he does not let the Israelite people go. After the fourth plague of “Arov” (swarms of insects of wild beasts – we are not sure) Pharaoh almost relents, allowing the Israelites to make a sacrifice to God within the land of Egypt; and then to leave the land, but not to go very far. But once the plague ceases, Pharaoh becomes stubborn again. After the seventh plague of hail Pharaoh even admits, “I stand guilty this time. The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. . . I will let you go; you need stay no longer.” But once the hail ceases, Pharaoh’s heart stiffens again, and he doesn’t let them go.

Here we have yet another opportunity to explore the interplay between human action and Divine will.
Commenting on the phenomenon of Pharaoh’s “hardening of heart,” Moshe Greenberg writes:

“Although ‘hardening of the heart’ seems deterministic, events flow naturally from the ambitions and conflicts of a human being, Pharaoh, who is seized with the delusion of self-sufficiency. While events unfold under the providence of God, their unfolding is always according to the motives of the human beings through which God’s will is done without their realizing it . . . Pharaoh conducted himself in conformity with his own motives and his own Godless view of his status. God made it so, but Pharaoh had only to be himself to do God’s will.”

For Greenberg, God’s will flows through human action, in harmony with the interests and motives of the human beings through which God works.

In contrast to Greenberg, A.J. Heschel writes that “Those in whom viciousness becomes second nature, those in whom brutality is linked with haughtiness, forfeit their ability and therefore their right” to the gift of free will. Heschel seems to be saying that once a person has become accustomed to acting inhumanely, that person no longer has a will of his or her own. If I understand him correctly, a person whose ego is linked with viciousness and inhumanity is truly God-less. That person has become his or her own god, and therefore has lost the true Divine gift of free will.

In reading the parasha and trying to understand the relationship between Pharaoh and God, these thinkers each bring a different take on God and evil. I look forward to wrestling with this question with you on Shabbat!