Bo

In this week’s portion, Parashat Bo, the plague narrative reaches its climax with the last three plagues, all of which, as Aviva Zornberg points out, are plagues of darkness (The Particulars of Rapture, p.165).  The plague of locusts blots out the sun, paralyzing the Egyptians, while the sun still shines on the Israelites; the plague of darkness is palpable, so thick that people who are sitting cannot stand and those who are standing cannot sit; and the plague of the first-born takes place at night, midst terror, horror, and the Egyptians’ wails of agony.  Pharaoh finally relents and not only allows the Israelites to go but pleads with them to do so at once.

The plagues are plagues of darkness, but the parasha itself is dark, for God continues to harden Pharaoh’s heart. God unleashes plague after plague upon the Egyptians – and last plague is particularly horrific - until Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go.  God demonstrates his greatness not only in upsetting the natural order of things through the plagues he brings down upon the Egyptians, and not only in bewitching the Egyptians to part with their gold and silver, but also by controlling Pharaoh’s heart.  The thrust of the whole Book of Exodus is to demonstrate the power and glory of an omnipotent God and to provide a triumphant narrative of His greatness to be passed down through the generations.

Where, one asks, is the God of Genesis, who was willing to spare Sodom and Gemorrah if ten righteous men could be found there?  There were not ten righteous men in the small towns of Sodom and Gemorrah, but surely there were ten righteous men in the great empire of Egypt. Nonetheless, the God of Exodus kills the innocent along with the guilty, just as we did when bombing Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.  Ruthess and implacable, He adds plague after plague, finally killing every first-born among the Egyptians.      

God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart has troubled commentators almost from the beginning.  Zornberg states the problem as follows: If it was impossible for Pharaoh to repent – obviously a theologically offensive notion – the plague story becomes a narrative of vengeful abuse, of a morally paralyzed victim bombarded by all the armaments of a powerful but immoral deity (The Particulars of Rapture, p. 142).

Several arguments attempt to explain away the problem.  One is that God punished Pharaoh for ordering the Israelite baby boys to be drowned in the Nile. But at the Burning Bush, God told Moses that all those who wanted Moses dead had died, so the pharaoh who ordered the drowning of the baby boys was no longer alive.  But even if that Pharaoh was still alive, why was it necessary to punish the Egyptian people along with their king?  Because, as some have argued, the Egyptians not only participated in oppressing the Israelites but also rejoiced in their suffering.   That argument, however, is unpersuasive.  All the Egyptians?  Even the infants who had the misfortune of being born first? 

Another argument is that by adding plagues, God was giving the Egyptians time to repent.  Indeed, Pharaoh's courtiers eventually urge him to let the Israelites go.  But since all the Egyptian first-born were killed, including those of the courtiers, we must reject that hypothesis.

Still another argument is that God simply allowed Pharaoh to follow his own inclination, so that God’s locking of Pharaoh’s heart is a metaphor for the outcome of Pharaoh’s repeated abuse of power.  Pharaoh himself, in other words, had become habituated to his status as absolute ruler of the world’s richest and most powerful empire, accustomed to being worshiped as a demi-god, so used to having his own way that he was incapable of change.  But this theory is inconsistent with the text, in which God repeatedly tells Moses that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart in order to demonstrate His power.  God says that he will show His power not only to Pharaoh and his courtiers, but also to Moses and the Israelites, so that the story will be handed down from father to son forever.  It seems that the foundation story of the Jewish people is built upon the suffering of another people, an  ancient precursor, some would say, to the establishment of the state of Israel. 

Zornberg cites R. Shmuel bar Nachman's narration of a dialogue between God and Moses when God was dictating the Torah.  When Moses was writing the Torah and was describing the creation work of each day, he reached this verse: “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” He said, Master of the Universe, why do you give heretics an opening of the mouth? [in other words, an opportunity to discredit the notion of there being only one God.] God answered. Write. And whoever wants

to read wrongly will read wrongly.  Shut up, in other words.

“Let us make man in our image” is sometimes offered as an example of God’s humility, His willingness to consult inferiors, the angels, in the creation of human beings.  But we can also read it as a statement of God’s multiplicity - that He is both the God of Genesis and the God of Exodus, among an incompassable number of manisfestations.  Is it possible then to justify God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart?  Each justification raises new questions.  There is no answer that satisfactorily closes debate.   In my opinion, God’s response to Moses, that whoever wants to read wrongly will read wrongly, is perhaps the best we can do.   The subversive narrative which views God as immoral in the matter of the plagues can never be completely silenced, never completely harmonized with the master triumphant narrative.  The plague narrative, like God, is ultimately inexplicable.

Which reminds me of a story by Shalom Auslander (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/369/poultry-slam-2008?act=5) which I’m taking the liberty to modify somewhat.  An orthodox Jew dies and meets God, who turns out to be a 30-foot tall chicken who speaks perfect English and sits in a golden cage.  The Jew prostrates himself, saying “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord...”  The Lord interrupts him.  “Hero as in hero sandwich?”  It appears that God has never heard of Shabbat or kashrut or the Torah.  "Oh," says the Jew, "if only I could go back and tell my people."  So God sends him back. The Jew goes home in time for Shabbat dinner.  He’s seated at the head of the table.  “God is…” he says, and looks at his children, all washed and in their best clothes, all looking at him expectantly.  “God is…” and he looks at the white tablecloth and the good china, crystal, and sterling set upon it.  “God is…” and he looks at the glow from the Sabbath candles and at little Hanna who has been practicing her favorite Shabbat song.  “God is,” he says finally, “unknowable.”

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