In every generation they rise against us to destroy us. In every generation God hardens the hearts of our enemies, making them persist in their pathological Jew-hatred to the point of self-destruction. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart that ultimately made him and his people rush headlong into the sea was not a one-time mind game played by God but a salient and harsh feature of the Jewish historical experience throughout the generations. As Pharaoh resisted plague after plague, ignoring the Egyptians’ pleading that he finally realize that Egypt was being destroyed and let the Jews go, Hitler and his SS similarly prioritized the mass murder of the remaining Jews even as the battlefront was collapsing, and Hamas and its many Palestinian supporters continue to celebrate their monstrous attacks on Israel from the ruins of Gaza. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, as Rambam (Teshuva 6:3) taught, is typical of those who repeatedly choose to perpetrate evil until they find themselves hopelessly locked into that terrible choice.
As others (Ramban, Sforno Shemot 7:3) saw it, a hardened heart can be a blessing, a divinely granted dose of fortitude to withstand pressure and fatigue and remain clear-headed. God wanted Pharaoh and the Egyptians to experience an epiphany and come to know God, breaking themselves free from the spiral of Jew-hatred. Pharaoh was never precluded from that choice and the hardening of his heart was what preserved his ability to stay in the game long enough to achieve that rather than simply cave to the pressure and let our people go. That kind of tough clear-headedness may be what we need to ensure that 18 months of cruel imprisonment and exhausting conflict not move Israel to pay an unacceptable price to bring the hostages and its soldiers home now.
But fortitude can bring us dangerously close to the prophet Yechezkel’s description of a nation with a heart of stone. While recognizing the genuine need for clarity, hardening our own hearts to the plight of those bearing the heaviest burdens is not the path through the sea to the song of redemption.
Our sages taught us to see patterns in the stories of the Torah, ma’aseh avot siman l’banim. Thus, we see the story of Avraham’s early descent to Egypt due to famine as a forerunner of the future Egyptian exile (Bereishit Rabba 40:6). Yet there is a great gap between the stories. The Pharaoh of Avraham’s time was struck by a plague after taking Sarah. Not a word was shared with him as to why it happened; he did not even realize that Sarah was a married woman. Yet, when he experienced the plague, he immediately considered its message, realized where he went wrong, and let Sarah go back to Avraham (see Ramban to Bereishit 12:18). The Pharaoh of Moshe’s time reacted quite differently. Plague upon plague was visited upon him and his nation accompanied by a clear narrative as to why it was all happening but he neither learned nor adjusted. His hardened heart knew what was happening but pushed back against it. Why the striking contrast?
In each case, Pharaoh responded in the manner of his Jewish guests. Avraham was awake to the world around him, sensitive and responsive to the needs of others, curiously observing the world until he discovered the God his family and society had hidden. His heart was soft and impressionable, and that was reflected in the heart of the Pharaoh of his time.
The Jews of Moshe’s time were in a very different state. They had become hardened and deadened, displaying little sensitivity to each other and unable to hear even God’s explicit messages “due to their shrunken spirit and the difficult work.” (Shemot 6:9). Moshe was therefore hopeless about the prospects of Pharaoh’s listening and learning (Shemot 6:12); “the Jewish People did not listen to me; how will Pharaoh listen?”
It was Moshe who liberated us from this stoney callousness, emerging as our redeemer through his concern for the people and the world around him and his vigilance in reacting and learning. Whether leaving the comfort of the palace to take in the suffering of his brethren (2:11) or noticing the phenomenon of the burning bush (3:3-4), Moshe’s open eyes and soft heart ultimately unlocked the hearts of the Jewish people and led us through the stormy seas that surrounded and threatened us, bringing us to safety and to the joyous song of redemption. We must continue to follow his lead.
Az yashir Moshe – ala b’libo she-yashir.