Parashat Bo

Erev Shabbat, 26 January 2007
Week of 21 to 27 January
Torah Portion: Ex. 10:1-13:16
Haftarah: Jer. 46:13-28
Sunday Readings, 28 January: Jer. 1:4-5, 17-19; I Cor. 12:31-13:13; Lk 4:21-30

Parashat Bo begins with God instructing Moses to “come” (Bo) to Pharaoh. This translation differs from the NRSV and JPS translations, which has God tell Moses: “Go to Pharaoh (10:1).” Plaut, exploring other possibilities, suggests that Bo would be better translated as “enter,” as Pharaoh is about to enter into negotiation with Moses (Plaut, 448). The Zohar prefers the former translation, however, offering two suggestions for his reasoning. The first is that God recognizes Moses’ discomfort about meeting Pharaoh in his palace and as such offers to come with him. The second is more in line with Plaut’s translation. God is inviting Moses to enter into the “innermost essence” of Pharaoh. In order to liberate Israel, Moses must “enter into the core of Pharaoh, into the very root of his power” (chabad.org).

It is with these thoughts in mind that we shall enter into the body of this sidra/story unit. The confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, which commenced in the previous parashah, continues as Pharaoh and his servants refuse to give in to Moses’ demands or see in the series of plagues the strength of their opponent: God. Even if one were to consider the might and power of Pharaoh and the god-status that is accorded him, one cannot help but note the absurdity of the disparity between the adversaries. What makes this disparity even more pronounced is God’s control over Pharaoh witnessed earlier in the sidra: “I have made his heart…heavy-with-stubbornness, in order that I may put these my signs among them (10:2).”

This is not the first time that God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The motif of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart occurs 20 times in the book of Exodus. After each of the first five plagues it is Pharaoh himself who refuses to show compassion, thus hardening his own heart. It is not until the sixth plague, however, that God announces: “But I, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart (7:3).” This hardly seems fair, as now Pharaoh’s humiliation seems inevitable: the will of God.

Jewish scholars have considered the implications of this dilemma for many years and have come up with a number of explanations for God’s seemingly callous actions. Moshe Greenberg notes: “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” (Etz Hayim, 356).

Other sources note the freedom with which Pharaoh acts when he is first confronted with God’s demands. Each time Pharaoh chooses the option of stubbornness he gives away some of his free will. Through the hardening of his heart, Pharaoh is constructing a narrative that is making the possibility of redemption more difficult. Maimonides notes: “[Pharaoh] sinned repeatedly of his own free will, until he forfeited the capacity to repent” (Etz Hayim, 356). Plaut also notes that Pharaoh seems to be incapable of yielding to God, “even under the immanent threat of fatal disaster” (p. 454).

The consequences of Pharaoh’s inability to give in to Moses’ demands have already been witnessed in the first seven plagues and they will only get worse in the final three plagues. Is this suffering, which is borne by the people of Egypt, God’s will, regardless of Pharaoh’s part in the drama? Are the Egyptians guilty for accepting as truth the narrative in which Pharaoh is seen as both god and high priest, thus resulting in their bringing this suffering upon themselves? The question of God’s will still comes to the fore, however, for surely God could have allowed both Pharaoh and the Egyptian people to see the deadly consequences of their closed heartedness.

The Sefat Emet notes: “all choice, all human actions and undertakings, come about in accord with God’s will” (Green, 94). The Creator knows all that will ever happen and it is the role of humanity to “make clear in this world” this divine knowledge. Discovery of this knowledge, however, serves to negate choice. It was God’s will that both Israel and Egypt know that God is the “only One” and this involved both the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart as well as his eventual capitulation to Moses’ demands to free Israel, both of which were against Pharaoh’s will (Green, 95). Thus it might be said that in discovering (or uncovering) the will of God, one is living the life that God intended. What then can one say of evil?

Earlier I referred to the Zohar’s comment that Bo might be translated in a way that reflects something of Moses entering into the “inner core of Pharaoh.” One might ask what it was that Moses found there. Surely there would be some sense of evil. The Zohar offers the thought that what lies at the core of each person, including Pharaoh, is the “naked ‘I’ that stems from the very ‘self’ of G-d.” Humanity, created in the image and likeness of God, has at its inner core the very self of God.

Having said this, one might then ask why it was that Pharaoh was capable of such evil? To this the Zohar answers that Pharaoh had divorced his ego from its source and, as such, was capable of great acts of capriciousness and inhumanity. Evil, he claims, is the misappropriation of the divine in humanity. In essence, the Zohar is suggesting that evil does not in fact exist. He writes: [God says to Moses] “I will take you into the innermost chamber of Pharaoh’s soul, until you come face to face with evil’s most zealously guarded secret: that it does not, in truth, exist” (chabad.org). There is no other besides God (Deut 4:35).

The Sefat Emet describes this “inner core” as the “divine point within the person; that is “Your truth, O my God.” The person who is in touch with that divine point clarifies that truth. Similarly, claims Green, commenting on the Sefat Emet, “even Pharaoh testified to God’s truth,” unwilling though he may have been (95-96).

For Reflection and Discussion: [1] What was it then that God wanted Moses to see when God commanded him, “Come to Pharaoh?” Was it the divine point that Pharaoh had chosen to ignore up until this point? Was it the truth that God wants each and every human being to experience the liberation that comes with recognizing that divine point in themselves and the truth that can be found within it? [2] How then do we reconcile the suffering that accompanied the liberation?

Bibliography: Dinner, “Bo: Power and Liberation,” in Women's Torah Commentary (ed., Goldstein (Woodstock, VT, 2000); Fox, The Five Books of Moses (New York, 1995); Green, trans., The Language of Truth (Philadelphia, 1998); Lieber, ed., Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary (New York, 2001); Plaut (ed.): The Torah: A Modern Commentary (New York, 1981); Yanki Tauber, www.chabad.org.

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This week’s teaching commentary was prepared by
Mark David Walsh, B.A. (Ed.), B. Theol., Grad. Dip. R.E.; Director of Mission,
St. Patrick’s College, Ballarat, Australia.
Bat Kol alumnus, 2001, 2002 & 2004.