cellio | Va-eira: Justice, T'shuvah, and Paro

In Parsha Va-eira we begin to read about the ten plagues God wrought on Egypt because of a recalcitrant Paro. The first plagues Paro dismisses as mere trickery (he has court magicians who do the same kinds of tricks), but after that it seems like Paro starts to get it. After each plague he promises to relent, but then his heart is hardened and he reneges.

In the first five plagues it is Paro who hardens his own heart. In the latter five it is God who does the hardening, and many have asked how this can be just. If Paro never had a chance, and is instead subject to divine puppet-strings, how can he be held accountable? Further, doesn't this make Paro seem the sympathetic, tragic character? Try as he might, he can do nothing. Or can he?

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (in Midrash Rabbah, cited by Rabbi Ari Kahn) offers the answer that the second five were punishment for the first five -- because Paro hardened his heart and refused to let the Israelites go five times, he was punished with a hardened heart -- the hardened heart, as much as the plagues themselves, was the punishment (assuming I am reading this passage correctly). Paro had free will for the first five and blew it.

Even when we realize we have messed up, we are not absolved of the consequences of our wrong-doing. That I am sorry that I injured you doesn't leave me free and clear; I still have to mitigate the damage and make good on losses I have caused. (We don't just turn the other cheek.) That a law-breaker is sorry does not mean he doesn't have to go to prison. Our actions have consequences both natural and judicial, and if we view the first five incidents as the "messing up" and the ensuing events as the consequences, maybe this is easier to understand.

With that in mind, I want to turn to something that happens during the first five, when Paro is still in control. T'shuvah (repentance) is still possible. We know from the high-holy-day liturgy that t'shuvah has several steps, the first of which is realizing that you have done wrong. Let us grant the possibility that Paro is sincere when he says this. Then he asks Moshe to appeal to God on his behalf -- good so far, and again, let us grant the possibility that it is sincere. (I mention in passing the enormity of the "god" of the Egyptians acknowledging God's superiority. That's a pretty big step if it's real.)

So he's admitted his error and asked for help from God through God's apparent representative. That sounds good. What does he do next? Well, nothing -- or at least nothing positive. That's where his t'shuvah fails. He has not made amends; he has certainly not changed his behavior; and he fails the Rambam test, by repeating the bad behavior when he finds himself in similar circumstances. Paro may have the inkling that he's done something wrong, but it seems to be the kind of inkling that manifests as the voice in the back of one's head saying "you shouldn't do that, you know", not the kind of inkling accompanied by true regret and resolve. When he hardens his heart he shuts out that voice.

The story of Paro does not teach us that t'shuvah is unavailable to some people; rather, it shows that we can't stop with regrets and prayers and expect everything to be all right. We are, each of us, responsible for our own redemption. We can't stop with bad feelings or words; we have to act, hardening our hearts not against our own regrets but, rather, against our less-than-positive inclinations. Paro hardened his heart against those around him; may we soften ours to be able to see, hear, and feel the effects of our actions on the world around us.