This common idiom—so casually tossed off in a moment of surprise—expresses a deep truth. Words do indeed fail us, sometimes to tragic effect.

That is the way the Zohar (the foundational text of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism) understands our exile in Egypt: as the exile of speech, a failure of words. In this reading, the breakdown of speech is both cause and effect of our enslavement, while healing and redeeming speech—finding our voice—is both the process and hallmark of redemption.

How does the exile of speech—failed, unredeemed language—manifest itself? Most commonly, it is what we call leshon hara (literally, negative or evil speech), typified by Pharaoh:

• false language, from outright lies to more nuanced falsehoods like partial truths and oversimplifications; (e.g. Exod. 5:8)
• language used to advance evil ends, such as words that are hurtful and destructive, or that incite fear, hatred or violence; (e.g. Exod. 1:9-10, 16, 22)
• words that limit possibility and prevent growth, or demoralize rather than inspire; (e.g. Exod 5:2, 4-5) or
• unreliable language, such as empty speech and unfulfilled promises. (e.g. Exod. 8:4)

But the Zohar’s notion of the exile of speech points also to a deeper failure of language—not only the presence of leshon hara, but the impossibility of positive speech, what we might call leshon hakodesh (holy language, words of hope, healing and redemption). This failure manifests as a kind of muteness, as language that will not or cannot be spoken—exemplified by Moses’s famous reluctance or inability to speak in God’s name (see Exod. 4:1, 4:10, 5:22–23, 6:12, 6:30). And it may also manifest as a kind of deafness: redemptive language going unheard or unheeded. In other words, failing.

It is this failure that opens our reading this week. God appears with a sweeping promise of redemption, to be communicated to the people by Moses:

I have now heard (shamati) the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelites: I am YHVH. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you . . . And I will take you to be My people and I will be Your God . . . I will bring you into the land . . . and I shall give it to you for a possession, I YHVH.” (Exod. 6:5–8)

But where God has heard the cry of the Israelites, the Israelites are unable or unwilling to hear the word of God:

So Moses spoke accordingly to the Israelites, but they did not listen (velo shame-u) to Moses, because of crushed spirits (mikotzer ���ܲ�ḥ) and oppressive labor (ume-avodah kashah). (Exod. 6:9)

On the surface, we might empathize with a people so beaten down and demoralized by oppression and fear that they are unwilling to take seriously a message of hope. After all, they have listened and trusted Moses once and the result was a worsening of their condition. Their refusal to listen further might be understandable.

But the Zohar’s notion of the exile of speech pushes us to a deeper, more timely meaning. The Exodus narrative is not merely historic but paradigmatic, representative of an ongoing search for lashon hakodesh, Godly language with the potential to free and to heal. Notably, the Hebrew word for “pharaoh” is comprised of the letter peh (mouth) followed by the word ����’a�� (evil). Thus, we can read Pharaoh as a symbol of leshon hara itself. And our exile is thus emblematic of the danger of physical and metaphorical enslavement and exile whenever a society becomes dominated by such negative, evil speech, and redemptive speech is silenced, drowned out, or dismissed.

On this level, the people’s failure to hear is shockingly tragic, and understanding that failure is essential to our own liberation. So how and why did Moses’s message fail?

The verse itself is susceptible of multiple meanings. Velo could mean “did not” (a simple failure) or “would not” (a willful failure). And velo shame-u might mean that they actually did not hear Moses speaking, that they heard him speaking but did not listen to what he had to say, that they heard Moses’ words but did not understand or take in their meaning, or that they understood but did not heed.

The cause of the failure is similarly open to interpretation. The Torah gives us two reasons. The latter, avodah kashah, refers to the hard and oppressive labor imposed upon the people. The former, kotzer ���ܲ�ḥ, is less transparent.

Some commentators translate ���ܲ�ḥ as “breath,” and the failure to hear as a physiological response. Rashi (11th century, France), for example, comments that “one who is under stress is short of wind and breath, and is unable to breathe deeply.” In a remarkably contemporary reading, the Netziv (19th century, Volozhin in present-day Belarus) notes that the physical impact of stress (shallow breathing) limits our attention span: “it becomes difficult to tolerate longer speech, which demands both explanation and an extended period of focus and concentration.”

Alternatively, ���ܲ�ḥ might refer not to a physical but to an emotional, intellectual or spiritual limitation. Ramban (13th century, Spain) translates kotzer ���ܲ�ḥ as “impatience of spirit” resulting from fear, and avodah kashah as lack of time to hear and consider resulting from the pressure of Pharaoh’s demands.

Especially rich is the commentary of the Or Haḥayyim (18th century, Morocco), who writes:

Perhaps because they had not yet been given the Torah they were unable to hear, and this is called kotzer ���ܲ�ḥ, because the Torah expands a person’s consciousness.

Here, the study of Torah—both in its content and in its methodology, its use of words—is seen as offering training in how to hear and understand more deeply, more expansively, more generously, more hopefully.

Taken together, we see some striking and disturbing parallels to our own culture. Stress, overwork, impatience, narrow self-concern, and lack of intellectual and emotional discipline often prevent us from listening deeply, from taking the time to hear and attend to the voices that elevate, and offer genuinely constructive paths forward.

And perhaps it is our growing inability to listen that is silencing the very voices our world most needs to hear. The Torah text suggests that the people’s failure to hear, Moses’ difficulty speaking, and the empowerment of Pharaoh/�ʱ��-�鲹’a�� are all interconnected and mutually causative (See, for example, Exodus 6:12 and 6:30). Speech enables hearing, but the reverse is also true: it is deep listening that makes healthy and meaningful speech possible. And the absence of either amplifies the voice of Pharaoh.

Leshon hakodesh (holy, healing language) is a demanding and courageous act. Words do indeed fail, and speech is always in danger of going into exile. But as the Torah teaches (Exod. 2:24), redemption begins with listening: “God heard.”

This commentary was originally published in 2016.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Parashah Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

In Parshat Va’era, God reveals Himself to Moses and appoints Moses as His prophet. This exchange is a turning point in the story of the Exodus: God has heard the Israelites crying out from slavery and remembered the covenant He made with them. It is Moses who will be His messenger to Pharaoh, Moses who will demand that Pharaoh let God’s people go. Because Moses is nervous about his ability to be a convincing leader in the face of such odds, especially given his speech impediment, God instructs him to bring his brother Aaron. They will use magic to prove the pair’s connection to God: Aaron is to throw his staff down in front of Pharaoh, and his staff will become a serpent. Even though it works and the staff does in fact become a serpent, Pharaoh remains a non-believer. He summons his magicians, and they are able to perform the same feat. Aaron’s serpents—God’s serpents, really—prove to be stronger, and they devour those created by the Egyptians. Yet Pharaoh still refuses to recognize God’s power.

In the Quranic telling of this story, Pharaoh’s magicians are convinced by Aaron’s^[1] staff-serpent eating their own, understanding this means that God is on Moses and Aaron’s side (Surat Taha [20:70]). Pharaoh immediately threatens them with violent amputation and crucifixion if they follow the God of the Israelites. Pharaoh is alarmed; he assumes that Moses and Aaron have come to dispossess him of his kingdom and accuses Moses of having been the magicians’ leader all along. And he does so despite knowing his accusation could not possibly be true: he had made a deal with the magicians to grant them special status should they triumph over Moses and Aaron (Surat Ash-Shu’ara [26:4142]). But that’s the thing about false narratives—they don’t have to be true at all to be damaging.

Like Moses approaching Pharaoh, Jews and Muslims are constantly being asked to prove themselves in today’s world. Harmful stereotypes about the two groups abound: Jews are greedy, Muslims are terrorists; Jews control the media, Muslims oppress women. And neither group is free from the threat of violence. Visibly religious Muslims and Jews are attacked on the street, even in “tolerant” cities like New York; our houses of worship are targeted both by threats and by real physical violence; American politicians and others in power denigrate us to the media. Yet we continue to stand strong with dignity and constantly advocate for ourselves and our religious needs in the face of false accusations and assumptions about us.

As part of the Quranic version of the story, we are privy to God’s guidance to Moses and Aaron. He tells the pair: “Go forth . . . and never falter in remembering Me” (Surah Taha 20:42). Relinquishing our religion, beliefs, or convictions will not protect us. God tells Moses and Aaron to confront Pharaoh, but also to “speak to him mildly” when doing so (Surah Taha 20:43–44). God cautions Moses and Aaron not to panic, but to stand strong in their faith and be dignified. It is not fair or reasonable that Jews and Muslims have to continually prove their worth and importance and yet, it is our reality. And we must find ways to contend with that reality in order to keep ourselves and our communities safe.

One of the most meaningful and powerful ways that we have found to manage that painful reality is through interfaith connection and dialogue. At the Washington Theological Consortium’s Abrahamic Dialogue program, we were able to connect with each other and with other Jews, Muslims, and Christians. We had the privilege of attending each other’s houses of worship, spending Jummah together at a mosque and Shabbat morning at a shul. At the mosque, we visited with the imams and had the opportunity to learn about historical and contemporary challenges facing their communities. So too at the shul we connected with community leaders to discuss that week’s parashah, the Joseph story, and its role in both of our traditions. The two of us even received an aliyah together at the synagogue, an honor of a lifetime for both of us.

Our week of connection was not always easy. Any time different groups get together, there are sore points. As one of our professors put it, there is no such thing as interfaith dialogue conducted on an even playing field: there are always power imbalances, and we have to be aware of how they impact us. Furthermore, there are countless other challenges when it comes to interfaith dialogue: How do people conduct dialogue with those whom their religion preaches are damned? How do LGBTQ people interact with those who do not believe their marriages are legitimate? How do we put aside centuries, or in some cases millennia, of pain and intercommunal violence in order to build trust? The reality is that we must face these hard questions if we want to build any sort of meaningful connection.

Since October 7, 2023, fostering these connections has become increasingly difficult. The heightened political tensions between Jewish and Muslim communities around the world were evident within our group of twenty-odd participants.  Some had lost loved ones in Gaza, others had lost loved ones in Israel or knew individuals taken hostage. The challenge is not just political tension, but also real, deep emotion and heartbreak over our personal and communal losses. What we learned, though, throughout the week is that trying to avoid these conversations would do nothing but strain our communication. It was only by having the hard conversations, those that make all of us uncomfortable, that we could forge meaningful relationships. It was only when everyone could be fully authentic that we could support one another.

We must recognize that Jews and Muslims, though our beliefs, rituals, and some of our politics may differ, are faced with increasing bigotry in our society. Like Moses, we are constantly asked to prove ourselves to an unfriendly audience. And so we should take our lessons from Moses too. We should show up in the world as our authentic selves, remain dignified, and most importantly, rely on each other. In a time like this, when it is harder every day to be a Jew or a Muslim in America, we must rely on one another as siblings, just as Moses relies on Aaron, to get through. We must take our challenges, the things that could divide us and allow them to make our relationships stronger.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

^[1] In the Quranic version, it is Moses who asks God to send Aaron with him, because of his speech impediment.

Rabbinic commentators, in referring to an earlier exegete, sometimes say, “His interpretation requires its own interpretation.” All the more so it can be said that a midrashic interpretation sometimes needs its own midrashic interpretation, for in an effort to solve theological or textual difficulties, the midrash can present us with farfetched, even phantasmagoric, scenarios. Upon deeper reflection, however, we often discover that these phantasms are actually manifestations of profound truths. Let’s consider such a midrash, which both illuminates and is illuminated by a passage in this week’s Torah portion.   

A straightforward reading of Exodus suggests that the Israelites were enslaved by two pharaohs consecutively. First, there was the “new sovereign . . . who knew not Joseph” (Exod. 1:8). Subsequently, after the description of the enslavement of the Israelites and the decrees promulgated against them—including the casting of all male Israelite children into the Nile—we read, “A long time after that, the king of Egypt died” (Exod. 2:23). Moreover, when God commands Moses to leave Jethro’s house and return to Egypt, “for all those who sought to kill you are dead” (Exod. 4:19); presumably, this would include Pharaoh. The plagues were thus not inflicted upon the pharaoh who initiated the persecution of the Israelites but upon his successor, thereby allowing the first pharaoh to evade retribution for his crimes. Perhaps for this reason, the midrash (Exodus Rabbah 1:34) claims that the meaning of Exodus 2:23 is not that Pharaoh died but rather that he became a leper, which for the rabbis was the equivalent of death. The same pharaoh who issued the decrees of enslavement and mass murder was also the one who experienced the full fury of the ten plagues.

The rabbis proceed to make a strange, even horrific, claim in order to deal with a difficulty in the next phrase in the verse: “The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out.” One could reasonably ask: Why would the death—or illness—of the pharaoh be a cause for anguish? If anything, might it not be a reason to hope for relief from bondage? The rabbinic answer: Pharaoh’s magician-priests advised him that he could only be cured of his leprosy by bathing twice a day in the blood of newly slaughtered Israelite infants. It was this that caused the Israelites anguish.

The image of a pharaoh bathing in the blood of Israelite infants seems plucked from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. But further consideration reveals that this midrash is inspired by verses in this week’s Torah portion and is in fact a graphic rendering of their deeper significance.

In Exodus 7:14–18 Moses is told to warn Pharaoh of the imminent advent of the plague of blood, a punishment for Pharaoh’s refusal to release the Israelites from bondage. This warning is to be delivered to Pharaoh at the banks of the Nile (v. 15). With the exception of the plague of arov, whose advent was also announced on the shores of the Nile, Moses would come to Pharaoh’s palace to inform him of a forthcoming plague. Why, then, did God choose this locale for the announcement of the first plague?

God’s command to Moses begins, “Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is coming out to the water, and station yourself before him at the edge of the Nile” (Exod. 7:15). The language suggests that Moses would be meeting Pharaoh in a time and place where Pharaoh was not functioning in his official role but rather engaging in a personal task. Perhaps, and let us imagine that this was the case, he was heading to the Nile to begin his day by bathing in its waters. Moses is to accost Pharaoh where he is neither surrounded by a phalanx of guards nor adorned with all the symbols of his exalted status. It is a meeting of—actually, a confrontation between—two men.

Both men had intimate, but radically different, connections with the Nile. Pharaoh, as his people’s protector, bore responsibility for their economic well-being, which depended on the rising of the Nile at the proper time and in proper proportion. Indeed, Ibn Ezra assumes that the meeting between Moses and Pharaoh took place in the summer, when the Nile floods, and that Pharaoh was checking a nilometer, a graduated structure that was constructed near the riverbank, to see if the Nile had risen sufficiently. In short, Pharoah is closely linked with the Nile as Egypt’s life-source.

Moses had a very different relationship with the Nile; if not for the kindness of Pharaoh’s daughter he, like countless other Israelite infants, would have become its victim. As a survivor of the Pharaonic decree, Moses is able to speak on behalf of those who were never able to do so, and he does so by announcing the plague of blood. “You, Pharoah,” Moses is saying, “blithely regard the Nile as a source of blessing and pleasure. You have no qualms about drinking and bathing in its water even knowing as you do that the Nile is tainted by the blood of countless innocent victims. You are literally bathing in their blood. Somehow, you and your people have managed to shut out this horrible truth. You are now looking at someone who was almost killed as a result of your evil deeds, someone who is here to tell you that feigned ignorance will no longer be possible. All of the blood that the Nile contains as a result of your crimes will now surface. You will have no choice but to behold the evil that you have wrought.”

The Torah is describing a turn of events that victims deserve but are rarely granted—that their suffering is commemorated in a way that cannot be denied. More often, victims not only endure torture and death; they also suffer the indignity of being forgotten and their suffering denied.

Usually, but not always. In modern times, another river has been forced to give up its terrible secret. The Danube, into which countless mortally wounded Jews were thrown by the Hungarian Arrow Cross police in December of 1944 and January of 1945, quickly ran blue after the atrocities of those months. It was only in 2005 that film director Can Togay, together with sculptor Gyula Pauer, created Shoes on the Danube Promenade. In addition to cast-iron signs memorializing the victims, the installation consists of 60 pairs of 1940s-style shoes, true to life in size and detail, sculpted out of iron. Based on the fact that the victims were forced to remove their shoes before being shot—shoes were a valuable wartime commodity—the memorial uncannily evokes both the imagined presence and the physical absence of the victims.

The Jewish people have recently been the victims of atrocities the likes of which have not been experienced since the Holocaust. What will be—or already has been—denied? Will the stream of history continue to flow as if this moment never happened? Will nothing be learned? Or will the voices of the victims be heard and heeded?  

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Moses wonders about this himself when faced with his first task as a prophet, which is to beseech Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage: “How then should Pharaoh heed me—who gets tongue-tied!” (Exod. 6:12). Moses has already pointed this issue out a few chapters earlier, protesting that he has “never been a man of words” and is “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (4:10). And in verse 6:30 he again repeats that he is tongue-tied and wonders how he can get Pharaoh to listen to him.

As surprising as it is for God to choose a prophet who has difficulty speaking, God’s response to Moses after the third time he points out his disability is perhaps even more surprising: God promises Moses, “See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet” (Exod. 7:1). What does it mean for Moses to be in the role of God? And why is this God’s response to Moses’s concerns?

Most classical commentators believe that “in the role of God” refers to some position of power that Moses will hold in Pharaoh’s eyes—for instance, that he will be seen as a judge, according to Rashi, or even as a kind of god or other heavenly being, per Ibn Ezra. I would like to offer an alternative read, however, and suggest that God mentions “the role of God” not because Pharaoh is going to be impressed by Moses, but rather in order to reassure Moses by offering a useful analogy. “The role of God” here, in the context of the verse taken as a whole, is the role of someone who needs assistance with speaking. Just as God is a being who speaks through a prophetic agent, so too will Moses have his own mouthpiece, his brother Aaron. God is thus simply explaining to Moses that just like God can’t and doesn’t speak directly to most people, so too Moses does not have to do all the speaking himself.

God not only reassures Moses that he will have support, but also admits to Moses that God’s own role is one that requires assistance, too. God’s response to Moses is thus a demonstration of true empathy. Consider the difference between a child asking for help and the parent saying “Sure, you can have help,” as opposed to a parent saying “Sure, everyone needs help sometimes—I know I do!” God understands what Moses needs because God needs the same things. In fact, God seems to suggest that, astonishingly, to require assistance is part of what it means to be in the role of God!

This radical theological idea also fits with an earlier exchange between God and Moses. The first time Moses mentions his worries, God responds: “‘Who gives humans speech? Who makes them dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, God?’” (4:11). Again, we might wonder: How is this statement meant to assuage Moses’s concerns? God may have made Moses the way he is, but how does that help Moses feel better about being asked to step into a role that will publicly highlight his speech disability? There is even something potentially disturbing about this verse, in its gesturing at a theology in which people should simply “accept their lot” and not complain or ask for help, as well as its use of categories that do not reflect the experiences of people with disabilities themselves. (The category “dumb” is typically considered to be offensive as well as inaccurate.)

Again, however, I would like to offer an alternate reading of this verse. We know that God reveals God’s glory by making humans who are physically different from one another, as the Mishnah states: “When a human stamps several coins with one seal, they are all similar to each other. But the supreme Ruler of Rulers, the Holy One, Blessed be God, stamped all people with the seal of the first human, and not one of them is similar to another. Therefore, each and every person is obligated to say: The world was created for me” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5). And we also know that God made humans betzelem elohim, in the image of God. Perhaps, then, God is reminding Moses of that: all humans are created by God, humans are physically diverse, and therefore all humans in all their differences are created in God’s image.

Being created in God’s image, then, does not mean that humans are endowed with some kind of divine perfection, but rather that humans are granted both abilities and disabilities, and that this mirrors something essential about the divine as well. It may seem strange to consider God as having a disability, perhaps even a kind of speech impediment. Yet this is also a potentially powerful way to conceptualize a God who gave the Torah through a revelation that was incomplete and in need of human interpretation. To be godly, then, as well as to be human, is to have both power and limitations, to be both abled and disabled. In that case, a prophet with a speech impediment is not a person with a flaw to be overcome, but rather the truest representation of the divine voice.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Rosh Hashanah Torah Reading

The Torah’s Stories…And Our Own (Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz) Reflecting on the very human experiences of our ancestors provide insight into our challenges and hopes.

Life is Good (Chancellor Emeritus Arnold Eisen)

On Judaism and Islam (Chancellor Emeritus Arnold Eisen): “The close kinship of the two faiths and the intertwining of their destinies are fixed at the very moment that the people Israel comes into existence and enters into covenant with God.”

Women of Faith (Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky): “The women of Parashat Vayera remind us of a faith that does not demand human sacrifice or death but recognizes the needs and demands of the flesh, and serves life above all.”

Rosh Hashanah Reading – First Day

Hagar’s Tears and Our Own (Rabbi Ayelet Cohen): Finding connection instead of despair through the story of Hagar

Running Far, Drawing Near (Rabbi Naomi Kalish): Hagar’s response to crisis

A Hand to Hold (Rabbi Joel Alter): Sustaining Hagar through Ishmael’s blessing

Rosh Hashanah Reading – Second Day

Itzik’s Journey (Dr. David Roskies): Reflecting on the Akedah through Yiddish Poet Itzik Manger

What Did Abraham Actually Know? (Rabbi Tim Bernard): Kant’s thoughts on the validity of Abraham’s actions

Ultimate Values and the Akedah Story (Rabbi Leonard Sharzer): The roles the biblical characters played in the binding of Isaac

Short Videos

Webinars

The Sacrifices of Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac
On the Torah Readings for Rosh Hashana
with Dr. Aaron Koller
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Because this was Vermont, my idyllic afternoon gardening only lasted six weeks after arriving on campus. By late October, we had to put the garden to sleep for the winter. Part of this process was seeding cover crops like oats, rye, vetch, and red clover. These grasses would restore nutrients, prevent soil erosion and compaction, and provide beneficial insects a winter habitat. One afternoon in late October, I scattered the oat seed over three bare plant beds that earlier in the season grew fennel, chard, and zucchini. As fall turned to winter, I watched the seeds grow into hearty grasses.

Parashat Va’era is the story of Pharaoh hardening his heart, and the brutal drama of the plagues over Egypt. We see apocalyptic images of water turned to blood, swarms of insects, and piles of dead livestock causing the entire land of Egypt to stink. Yet, at the end of all this drama are two verses about something seemingly minor:

וְהַפִּשְׁתָּ֥ה וְהַשְּׂעֹרָ֖ה נֻכָּ֑תָה כִּ֤י הַשְּׂעֹרָה֙ אָבִ֔יב וְהַפִּשְׁתָּ֖ה גִּבְעֹֽל׃ וְהַחִטָּ֥ה וְהַכֻּסֶּ֖מֶת לֹ֣א נֻכּ֑וּ כִּ֥י אֲפִילֹ֖ת הֵֽנָּה׃

Now the flax and barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud; but the wheat and the spelt were not hurt, for they ripen late.

Exod. 9: 31–32

These two verses describe the impact of the final plague in the parashah, hail. They come in the short thaw between Pharoah softening his heart—for the first time this parashah—and hardening it again, where our parashah ends. Why does our Torah mention these four crops? What do they have to do with the plagues, or in the calculation of Pharaoh’s change of heart?

Our commentator, Ibn Ezra, claims that the word אֲפִילֹ֖ת (afilot), the adjective connoting late ripening, is connected to the word afel, meaning darkness. In his understanding, the wheat and the spelt were still underneath the soil—in the dark—and therefore spared from the damage of the hail. We need this clarification here, because earlier the hail was said to strike down כָּל־עֵ֤שֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה—“all the grasses of the field” (Exod. 9:25). The survival of these crops is a miracle to Pharaoh. They are a miniscule part of his empire that was not exposed and destroyed, that was protected from the plagues. But it is a miracle that makes him turn away from the God of Israel.

Midrash Tanhuma teaches that because the wheat and the spelt did not succumb to the hail, Pharaoh concluded that the authority of the God of Moses and Aaron did not extend to those two crops, thereby giving him reason to harden his heart again. This is why Moses was able to say that Pharaoh had not yet come to fear God because of what �徱���’t happen to the wheat and spelt. Perhaps God spared these crops in order to encourage Pharaoh to remain obstinate, sparing one last sign of hope, a symbolic olive branch after a deluge of plagues. Ramban argues similarly, claiming that Moses uses this to negotiate with Pharaoh. The wheat and the spelt, which are Pharaoh’s livelihood, have been spared, “but it is within God’s power to destroy them if you return and sin again before God.” It is as if the God of Israel wanted to show Pharaoh he had no ground left to stand on. He could not deny God by clinging to these seeds in the ground; he could no longer turn away.

I am so amazed at the extent to which our Torah takes into account the flora of the land. The Torah asks us as readers to look closer, to notice the hidden miracles, inquire the meaning of every jot and tittle. It names the crops that have been ruined as it does the seeds not yet germinated, the hope in the dark. These buds of wheat and spelt, not yet fully bloomed and protected from hail, are core to the arc of a narrative we retell at the Pesach seder every spring.

Similarly, each spring—around the time that Vermonters lovingly call “mud season”—I would walk back to the knoll and look at the oats I had planted the prior October. Somehow, after all of the salt and snow and freezing temperatures unimaginable to an ancient Egyptian, the oat grasses stood tall again, a darker green than before. The crickets were faint but present. The soil was blanketed, protected. These cover crops, their survival and rebirth, much like the spelt and the wheat, were a miracle. What if Pharaoh came to the knoll with me? Would he then let Moses’s people go?

I learned to use a scythe to cut down the oat grasses tickling my ankles. Together, we took pitchforks and shovels and turned the grasses back into the soil of the plant bed, making way for the summer’s crop of fennel, chard, and zucchini.

Seeing the cover crops rise again in the spring, I felt God’s presence even and especially in those small places. Unlike Pharaoh, I experienced God in the shoots that went up despite the cold, the reemergence of grasses after a brutal winter. As we head into the shortest, coldest, darkest weeks of the year–compounded by the unknowns of the Omicron variant–let us be inspired by these two inconspicuous verses about flax and barley, spelt and wheat. What of our “new normal” are we clinging to? And what lessons may be hiding under the surface, waiting to emerge? Planting these cover crops and becoming a learner and lover of Torah have taught me the beauty in looking closer.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

For me, this is one of the most troubling passages in the Torah. First, God assigns Moses and Aaron the task of speaking to Pharaoh, explicitly calling Aaron a prophet. Presumably, a prophet tells people what could come to pass, so that they have the opportunity to repent their sins and turn toward God. One famous illustration of this paradigm is Jonah’s mission to Nineveh. Troubled as Jonah may be that his predictions did not come true for the Ninevites, nonetheless, his mission was a successful one. He managed to convince the Ninevites to end their evil ways, and walk instead on the path of justice and righteousness (Jonah 3).

But here, in our passage in Exodus 7, God seems to take away the possibility of a successful prophetic mission from Moses and Aaron. Instead of allowing Pharaoh to repent his wicked ways, God declares that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart, with the aim of increasing the signs and wonders that He will do in Egypt. This strikes me as an odd Divine pursuit: taking away a human being’s free will so that more spectacular miracles can be done. But as God goes on to describe what He will do to the Egyptians, it begins to feel out and out unjust: He will enact upon them שְׁפָטִ֖ים גְּדֹלִֽים—great chastisements—as he brings the children of Israel forth from Egypt. Indeed, the violence and horror of the plagues that we see in this and next week’s parashah bear out this Divine promise.

It seems that none of the plagues would have been necessary had Moses and Aaron’s prophetic mission to Pharaoh been successful. None of the pain and suffering endured by the Egyptians should have been necessary, had Pharaoh simply been convinced by Moses and Aaron. Put simply, why does God not allow Pharaoh to truly hear Moses and Aaron’s words and repent?

This truly difficult conundrum is actually magnified when we look at the descriptions of the classical prophets’ call to mission. Isaiah 6 is perhaps one of the most important chapters in the prophets. Here the most prolific of the prophets is called by God to his mission as prophet. He receives his call in the midst of a vision of the celestial Temple. God is seated on His throne, the seraphim flying about, declaring God’s glory with the words, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord of hosts, the whole world is filled with his glory.” In the midst of these overwhelming circumstances Isaiah overhears God ask, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” And he volunteers, saying “Here am I; send me.” But what Isaiah hears next is undoubtedly difficult and demoralizing. God says,

Go, say to that people:
‘Hear, indeed, but do not understand;
See, indeed, but do not grasp.’
Dull that people’s mind,
Stop its ears,
And seal its eyes—
Lest, seeing with its eyes
And hearing with its ears,
It also grasp with its mind,
And repent and save itself. (Isa. 6:9–10)

Isaiah is not meant to induce the people to repent with Divine words. Instead, they are to hear his words but fail to grasp them, to see his prophetic acts but fail to understand them. Apparently, God does not want the people to save themselves through repentance. We can almost hear the tears in Isaiah’s voice in his response, “How long, my Lord?” And God’s reply only makes matters worse, “Till towns lie waste without inhabitants / And houses without people, / And the ground lies waste and desolate” (Isa. 6:11–13). It seems that God wants the people to suffer the desolation that results from their sins. It is as if what they have done is so awful that God cannot in good conscience allow them to repent.

And indeed, near the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, in his Laws of Repentance (6:3), Maimonides posits this very reason:

And, it is possible that a man should commit either one grievous iniquity or a multitude of sins so that the Judge of Truth will decree against him that, whereas this sinner committed those sins of his own free will and consciously, repentance should be withheld from him altogether, and grant him no leave to repent, so that he might die and perish in the iniquity he committed. This is what the Holy One said through Isaiah . . .

Some sins are so unforgivably bad, some deeds so without redemption, Maimonides claims, that justice and fairness demand that the corrupt criminal must be forced to pay the piper. Repentance under such circumstances would allow those truly deserving of punishment to escape free of the pain and suffering that they have caused others. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, according to Maimonides, because, “at the beginning he sinned of his own free will, and meted out evil to Israel who sojourned in his land” (Ibid.). The avarice and the deceit, the callousness and the cruelty that Pharaoh displayed against Israel demand that Pharaoh be punished. This may sound harsh, but I think Maimonides would agree with the notion that without justice, there can be no peace. He explains rightly, I think, that the wicked must account for their deeds, especially when they sit on the throne, clothed in great power.

The job of a prophet is not an easy one. Sometimes the prophet’s mission is to induce the people to repent. Sometimes it is to pray on their behalf, so that the Divine anger is quieted and the people can escape God’s wrath. But sometimes the prophet’s job is to overturn and destroy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is credited with saying that the job of religion is to comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable. Neither of those tasks is easy, but at least the first is more palatable. We don’t like to see religion, especially prophetic religion, as a wrecking ball. But sometimes it can be, and legitimately so.

When God first calls Jeremiah to prophesy in the first chapter of the book, the young Jeremiah is understandably frightened. He says, “Ah, Lord GOD! I don’t know how to speak, For I am still a boy!” “Do not say, ‘I am still a boy,” God responds, “But go wherever I send you / And speak whatever I command you. / Have no fear of them, / For I am with you” (Jer. 1:6–8). The young lad does not yet know that he will endure prison, barely escape death, and end his career in exile, but he knows that prophecy is hard, and he knows enough to be afraid. But he clearly was not expecting God’s description of the prophetic mission:

See, I appoint you this day over nations and kingdoms: to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. (Jer. 1:10)

The mission given to Jeremiah is no doubt an incredible burden, but there is also a positive aspiration here—God’s plans go beyond the austere demands of justice. Pharaoh’s punishment taught the Egyptians of the power of God and ensured the Israelites freedom from Egyptian domination beyond the Exodus. Similarly, Jeremiah was reassured that destruction is necessary for the eventual “building” and “planting” of a new future. Though demolition is a sometimes-necessary part of our world, may we be blessed to also taste the fruits that grow from the ruins.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

And yet, near the beginning of the Torah reading, immediately following God telling Moses about the eventual redemption from Egypt, we read the following, “But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage (Exod. 6:9)”. The tragedy is not that the Israelites did not listen to Moses, the tragedy is why they would not listen to Moses. Slavery had beat them down to such an extent that they could not imagine what freedom looked like. Slavery had damaged them so greatly that when freedom was dangled in front of them, they could not for the life of them understand what it truly meant.

At this moment in their collective lives, the Israelites were struggling with an issue that many of us can recognize—they could not see what was right in front of them. Have you ever had that experience? Have you ever finally left a job or ended a painful relationship and then realized that everyone around you saw the truth of the situation long before you could see it? More amorphous than any physical object and yet infinitely more important, freedom is difficult for many of us to grasp, especially those of us who have never lived without it.

In our Torah reading, the ability to not see what is right in front of you is illustrated by the dilemma of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. The Torah tells us that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart during the saga of the ten plagues. If this is so, then how can Pharaoh be held responsible for not letting the Israelites go and forcing his country to undergo undue suffering at the hands of the Israelite God? Why couldn’t Pharaoh see early in the story (after the first or second plague) that the situation was futile and that he should just give up and let the Israelites go?

The Torah provides us with one answer to this question. If you pay close attention to the wording of the plagues, you will see that for the first five plagues, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. God only hardens his heart with plagues six through 10. How does this fact provide us with an answer? In this transition from Pharaoh hardening his own heart to God hardening his heart, maybe we are seeing the ancient equivalent of cognitive dissonance, of Pharaoh going so far down a path of thought and behavior (as evidenced in his choosing to act a certain way following plagues one through five) that he caused himself to lose his free will!

As Rambam wrote in his introduction to Pirkei Avot, “In other words, they sinned of their own free will, till they forfeited the opportunity of repentance.” (Shemonah Perakim, Ch. 8) Have you ever felt that you had gone so far down a road of behavior, making certain choices, that you honestly could not see a way out, that you could not see an alternative? Maybe that is what happened to Pharaoh.

A second answer is supplied by Rashi, who understands plagues six through 10 (in which God hardened Pharaoh’s heart) as being punishment for Pharaoh and the Egyptians. God needed to show Pharaoh that God was in charge. God needed Pharaoh to see that, contrary to Egyptian culture and religion, Pharaoh was not a god, and that the Israelite God, our God, had all of the power.

It is difficult to imagine a world that is different from the world we are currently living in. It must have been extremely painful for Pharaoh to realize that the worldview on which he was raised, the worldview that allowed Israelite slavery and that understood Egyptian power, and especially the prestige of the Pharaoh, to be absolute, was crumbling to the ground. And yet, we still wonder how he could not see the truth. In next week’s Torah reading, Pharaoh’s courtiers say this to him in words that ring out thousands of years later, “Are you not yet aware that Egypt is lost? (10:7)”

He did not realize that all was lost; because Pharaoh could not see what was in front of him, he could not see the truth of the situation that was staring him in the face because it was too difficult to do so, too painful, too harsh a reality for him to face.

When Moses told the Israelites that God would free them, they did not believe him because they had been slaves for so long they could not imagine a reality any different from the one they were living. And yet, courageous people throughout history remind us that freedom is a state of mind that we can grasp on to even when our bodies cannot experience it.

Perhaps we think of the great Jewish hero, Natan Sharansky, who told the story many times of how he felt free many years before he was released from solitary confinement because he had decided that he would be free in his mind, even though his body was held captive by the KGB. Or perhaps we find inspiration in the story of the late Senator John McCain, who was held captive by North Vietnam for several years during the Vietnam War. Senator McCain held on to his sanity, at least in part, by repeating to himself these words from his favorite poem, “Invictus,” by William Ernest Henley, “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

We must never allow ourselves to fall victim like Pharaoh, victim either to our own evil or to losing sight of what is around us. With effort and with the constant search for clarity and understanding, we will hold on to the great human gift of freedom, and decide for ourselves, hoping to have the strength of Sharansky and McCain, to use our freedom for good, and to inspire truth and liberty for ourselves and for those around us.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).