Shabbat Parshat Vaera - 5763
“And I Will Harden the Heart of Pharaoh” (Shemot 7:3)

In describing the operational plan for the Exodus to the individual selected to be its human coordinator, HaShem informs Moshe that it is His intention to harden the heart of Pharaoh, so that he will refuse, at least initially to release the enslaved population of Israel.

Now it is a cardinal principle of Judaism that the human being is granted freedom of choice, according to Rabbi Akiva in Pirkei Avot (3:19), “Everything is foreseen, but permission is granted.” According to this principle, at first glance, Pharaoh should always have had the option of release available to him. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish in Eretz Yisrael, in the third century, may have been the first to deal with this theological problem in the explicit context of Mitzrayim. On the verse in Shemot 10:1, “For I have hardened his heart...” we find “Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘Here is an opportunity for the heretics to say that the Pharaoh was denied freedom of choice.’ Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish responded, ‘Let the mouths of the heretics be stopped up. The principle in play is in accordance with the verse in Mishlei 3:34, ‘To the mockers, he will return mockery.’ He warns the sinner of the consequences once, twice, three times, and if the sinner does not change his ways, then the Almighty locks the Door of Repentance in order to punish him for his sins.

So was it in the case of the wicked Pharaoh, that Moshe was sent to him five times, and he paid no heed to the words of Moshe. Then the Holy One, Blessed is He said to him, ‘You stiffened your neck and hardened your heart - now I will add uncleanness to your uncleanness;’ ” by withholding the ability to repent for the last five plagues (for in the case of the first five plagues, the Torah writes “VaYechezak,” and he hardened his own heart, whereas with respect to the last five plagues, the Torah writes, “VaYechazek,” He (the Almighty) hardened Pharaoh’s heart).

Rabbi Yochanan’s view, as explained by the Ramban, in 13th century Spain, is that freedom of choice was withheld from Pharaoh from the very beginning of the plagues, because of the gross and inhuman, Nazi-like excesses with which the Egyptians carried out the historical mission of enslavement of the Children of Israel during the preceding 210 years, for which they had been appointed by the Hashgachah, Divine Providence.

In the 12th century, the Rambam, at the end of Chapter Five and the beginning of Chapter Six of Hilchot Teshuvah, the Laws of Repentance, deals with this issue, in the general context of Repentance and the specific context of the Pharaoh of Mitzrayim. In (5:5) the Rambam poses the question of the conflict between Freedom of Choice and G-d’s Foreknowledge, and answers that the resolution is beyond human capacity to understand, because G-d’s method of “knowing” is above time and fundamentally different from our method of “knowing.”

For introducing the question without providing an answer, the Rambam is criticized sharply by the Torah critic and discussant Rabbi Avraham ben David (the Ravad), whose comments are printed alongside the text of the Rambam throughout the Mishneh Torah, “This author did not act wisely, in opening a discussion without knowing how to complete it. He begins by asking questions, and leaves the question without resolution, requiring the reader to fall back on faith. It would have been better to leave the entire subject to faith, and not raise the issue, for perhaps he has brought someone to doubt concerning the topic.”

The Kessef Mishneh, Rabbi Yoseph Karo, the sixteenth century author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law, another of the “Nosei Kelim” or armor-bearers of the Rambam, responds to the Raavad. He writes that it is impossible for a thinking Jew not to be bothered by this question. And therefore it is to the credit of the Rambam that he pointed out that the nature of this question, that asks a question concerning G-d, based on human premises, places it beyond the boundaries of human reason.

With regard to the wicked Pharaoh, the Rambam appears to adopt the view of Rabbi Yochanan, cited above. In Mishneh Torah (6:3), we find “It is possible that a human being can sin a very great sin, or very many sins, such that the judgment before the Judge of Truth, for those sins that he committed willingly and consciously, is that the ability to repent be withheld, and permission is at the end not granted to him to repent from his evil ways. Therefore it is written ‘And I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,’ because earlier he had done terrible evil to the People of Israel who lived in his land, as it says ‘Come, let us outsmart this nation.’ (Shemot 1:10)”

Thus, the Jewish People, in possession of the Torah, a moral, legal and historical text of Divine origin, has grappled for all of its history with the philosophical problems raised by the difference between the “Teacher” and the “students.” And in confronting questions that focus on the eternal souls both of individuals and the nation, it has known the intellectual limits by which it is bound.

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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