This week’s Parsha is Parshat Bo. This Parsha continues on the story of the oppression Bnei Yisrael faced during their time in Egypt. While Moshe had attempted to negotiate with Pharaoh in a peaceful manner to let them go, Pharaoh wouldn’t budge. So Hashem has no choice but to inflict many different plagues onto Mitzrayim. However, despite these Makkot, Pharaoh still refuses to let Bnei Yisrael go.
The Torah explains this continuous decision of Pharaoh as follows: וַיְחַזֵּק ה' אֶת־לֵב פַּרְעֹה - "And Hashem hardened Pharaoh’s heart" (Shemot 10:1). This phrase certainly makes it seem like Pharaoh didn’t have a choice. If Hashem was the one making the decision for Pharaoh, Hashem basically took away his free will. If this was the case, then how is it fair that Pharaoh is the one who got punished?
The following story helps put into perspective what occurred between Hashem and Pharoah: Once, there was a student who had to wake up early in the morning for school, so he set an alarm on his phone. The first day, the alarm rang super loud, but he decided to hit snooze since he didn’t want to get out of bed and was tired. The next day, he did the same thing. After an entire week, he got so used to the alarm that he barely even heard it anymore. Now, no matter how loud the alarm rang, it didn’t wake him up.
At first, the student had a choice. He could have listened to the alarm and gotten out of bed. But as a result of him ignoring the alarm, he ultimately trained his body not to react to it.
The Rambam explains this idea in a fascinating way. Pharaoh did, in fact, have free will in the beginning. He could have made the decision to let Bnei Yisrael go. But he kept saying no again and again. The more Pharaoh refused, the more stubborn he got, even if subconsciously. It got to a point where he was so stuck in his ways that, even if he wanted to change, he wouldn’t have been able to. It’s at that moment that Hashem decided to “harden his heart”—not by taking his free will, but by letting Pharoah stay in the path he developed for himself.
If you take a step back, Pharaoh is just like the boy with the alarm. Every plague served as a warning, like Hashem saying, "Wake up, Pharaoh!" But by Pharaoh ignoring the warning over and over again, he prohibited himself from being able to change.
Sometimes in life, we are aware that we have to fix something negative in our lives, such as saying sorry to a friend, quitting a bad habit, or simply making better choices. But when we procrastinate and tell ourselves, "Eh, I’ll do it later,” it is a very slippery slope to go down because that later turns into never, and eventually, we don’t even notice the problem anymore. However, it’s still very much there, which is how people tend to get stuck in bad habits or bad choices.
At the end of the day, we can learn from Pharaoh’s mistakes to take the initiative on our own to do the right thing and make the better choices, because waiting until it’s too late is very dangerous.
Good Shabbos!
By: Adina Shagalov (10th)
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