From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:44 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Vaeira, 5765

                                                     
                                              
                                             This Time for Sure

                  By Rabbi Joshua (disparately known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


In this week's parsha, we read that Pharaoh, in reaction to the plague of 'barad,' or hail, admits that he has sinned. He tells Moshe, "I sinned this time. God is the righteous One, and I and my people are wicked" (Shemos 9:27). He asks Moshe to petition God to remove the plague, and Moshe agrees to do so. However, he adds, "And as for you and your servants, I know that you are not yet fearful of the Lord, God" (9:29). Indeed, after God responded to Moshe's prayer and removed the plague, the Torah tells us that Pharaoh returned to his previous intransigent attitude, and refused to release the Hebrew slaves. Although we have discussed, in the past, what it was that Pharaoh saw in this particular plague that led him to recognize it as God's punishment, as well as the reason for his failure to sustain this attitude of contrition (see Netvort to parshas Vaeira, 5763, available at Torahheights.com), I would now like to focus on the wording of Pharaoh's admission as well as on Moshe's response, in an effort to understand why Moshe was so certain that Pharaoh's change of heart would be short-lived.


Targum Yonasan ben Uziel says that when Pharaoh admitted his guilt and acknowledged God's righteousness, he was doing so in regard to each one of the plaques, as well. Rabbi Avraham, son of the Rambam, also takes this approach. He says that we should not understand Pharaoh's statement to mean that he only admitted to his guilt in regard to this particular plague, but, rather, that he was referring to all of them. Thus, Pharaoh made a general admission to his guilt for his treatment of the slaves from the beginning. How, then, did Moshe know that Pharaoh did not yet fear God ? Rabbi Avraham says that Moshe knew this only because God had told him so. In other words, Pharaoh's statement, on its face, appeared to be a genuine act of contrition, and, had God not told Moshe that Pharaoh did not truly fear Him, he would not have responded in the way that he did. Although Rabbi Avraham does not say this, it is possible that his explanation is based on his father's remarks in his Laws of repentance (6:3), that God actually removed Pharaoh's free will after he had continued to oppress the slaves and refuse to let them go. God did this, explains the Rambam, as a punishment to Pharaoh, and to show the world that when God wants to punish someone for his past deeds, He will suspend his free will and prevent him from repenting.

Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, as cited in the Torah commentary "MiMa'amakim," written by his student Rabbi Alexander Aryeh Mandelbaum and based on his teachings, contends that this unique punishment, as described by the Rambam, was reserved for Pharaoh because he witnessed the truth of God's power and chose to ignore it. However, Rav Aharon Kotler, in his Mishnas Rav Aharon (volume one, page 238), maintains that the lesson that the Rambam learned from Pharaoh's punishment has application to everyone. This is, he says, because the midrash, on which Rambam bases his approach, cites Biblical verses to prove its point. Although man has free will, says R. Kotler, God acts towards a person in accordance with his level of behavior. If a person follows the path of evil, divine providence will bring about circumstances that will lead him to continue on that path, to a degree that he would not have on his own. Conversely, if a person follows the correct path, observing the mitzvos of the Torah, God will help him to continue on this path, and achieve more than he would have if left completely to his own devices. This principle is encapsulated in the Talmudic statement (Yoma 29a) that if someone comes to defile himself, the path is opened for him, from heaven, and if someone comes to purify himself, he is helped, by heaven, to do so. Thus, while Pharaoh's fate bears an ominous warning for us, it also contains a positive message, which, hopefully, will act as a spur to a heightened commitment to observing the mitzvos of the Torah.

There is, as noted in Netvort to Vaeira, 5763, another approach to understanding Pharaoh's short-lived acknowledgment of his guilt. Rabbi Boruch Sorotzkin, in his commentary HaBinah VeHaBeracha, points to the fact that Pharaoh said ' I sinned  this time.' Pharaoh was focusing only on the current situation generated by the plague of barad, and viewed it in isolation from the other plagues. He only admitted that in respect to this specific plague, he had sinned, and that God was correct in punishing him. Pharaoh did not recognize that all of the other plagues were also punishments from God, and that his treatment of the slaves and his refusal to free them had been wrong from the every beginning. This is how Moshe knew that his change in attitude would not be permanent. In order for a person to really change, says Rabbi Sorotzkin, he must view events in a total perspective, consider all of his actions, and examine his entire life in order to understand how he reached his current crisis. Pharaoh did not do this, and that is why he quickly reverted to his earlier state after the plague was removed by God.

In Netvort to parshas Vaeira, 5765, I expanded on Rabbi Sorotzkin's approach and explained that the underlying factor that led to Pharaoh's treatment of the slaves, and which he failed to recognize as the cause for all the plagues, was his essential lack of gratitude and feeling of self-sufficiency. I would now like to suggest that another factor was involved, as well. Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, in his commentary to parshas Shemos, notes that when Moshe first told Pharaoh, in the name of God, that he should release the Hebrew slaves, Pharaoh responded, "Who is God that I should heed his voice to send out Yisroel?" (Shemos 5:2). The name of God that Moshe and Pharaoh referred to was the four-letter name, sometimes referred to as the 'shem Havayah, 'or simply "HaShem' (The Name). Ibn Ezra writes that Pharaoh did recognize Elokim, which denotes the One who controls the various powers in the universe, but did not recognize Hashem. Although Ibn Ezra himself writes that this name refers to God as the God of the Hebrews, this name also implies God's unity, as we read in the declaration of faith, the Shema - "God (Hashem) is One" (Devorim 5:4 - and see Rashi there). I believe that it was Pharaoh's failure to accept the notion of the unity of God that prevented him from viewing the events in his life as a continuous unit. On Saturday night, in the Shemoneh Esreh of ma'ariv, we add a prayer for the coming week, in which we ask of God that we should be, in the days ahead, 'medubakim beyirasecha.' The common way of translating this phrase is, 'to be attached to You through fearing You.' However, Rav Zevi Yehudah Kook explained it to mean, 'to be attached to ourselves through fearing You.' By attaching ourselves to the One God, and His unity, we are able to bring together all the disparate parts of our lives and become a unified whole. When Pharaoh told Moshe that he sinned 'this time,' he was, in effect, telling Moshe that he was not a unified personality. Moshe thus understood that Pharaoh had not accepted the notion of the unity of God, and, as a result he understood that Pharaoh had not truly repented.



Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

To subscribe to Netvort, send a message with subject line subscribe, to Netvort@aol.com. To unsubscribe, send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the same address.