This week's Torah portion, Bo, speaks of the last three plagues visited on Egypt, and of the Jewish People's long-awaited departure from there. It begins with G-d's command to Moses that he go to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to warn him of the impending plague of locusts. G-d, however, states that Pharaoh will not heed the warning: "For I have hardened his heart...in order that you tell in the ears of your son and your son's son that which I have wrought in Egypt."
We learn from this that the locusts did not come as a punishment for Pharaoh's refusal to heed the warning; G-d had hardened his heart so that he would be unable to agree to free the Jews. But if such is the case, isn't it unjust for G-d to punish Pharaoh with a plague, when G-d Himself prevented him from acceding to Moses' demand?
Our commentators explain that during the first five plagues Pharaoh had free will to decide his actions, and he could have permitted the Jews to leave. It was only after Pharaoh demonstrated his wickedness and rebelled against G-d--"Who is G-d that I should listen to His voice?"--that his free will was taken away. This punishment clearly fit the crime: Pharaoh questioned G-d's authority and boasted of his own might, so he was shown that he did not even have the power to make his own decisions. Pharaoh was thus fully subjugated to the will of G-d.
Furthermore, Pharaoh's behavior during the plague of locusts underscored his impotence. When even his servants begged him to free the Jews--"Let the people go so that they can serve their G-d. Do you not yet know that Egypt is lost?"--Pharaoh immediately agreed and declared to Moses and Aaron, "Go worship your G-d." But at that very instant G-d hardened his heart and Pharaoh was forced to renege on his promise.
Even with this explanation we are still left with a philosophical problem. Why did Moses and Aaron have to go through the motions of issuing a formal warning if they knew that there was no chance that Pharaoh would agree to their request?
It is explained in the book of Tanya, the central work of Chasidic philosophy, that even a person who is so sunken into evil ways and so deplorable that "he is not provided with a means to do teshuva (repent)," even he can overcome and find his way back to righteousness. Even the most corrupt and abominable sinner can return to G-d.
If Pharaoh, totally self-centered, wicked and deprived of his free will could have prevented the final plagues from befalling his nation by exerting supreme effort to overcome the hardening of his heart, how much more so is it possible for every Jew to overcome his negative character traits and do teshuva.
A Jew's G-dly soul is termed "an actual piece of G-d," and is in his possession always, for the Jewish soul remains faithful to G-d even if the body commits a sin. A Jew always has the power to do teshuva, to return to G-d and live in harmony with his true essence. G-d awaits the return of every single Jew, for he can only sin externally, as his internal nature is untouched and holy.
Adapted from the works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
By Rabbi Shimon Posner
Have you ever heard of Reb Mendel? He smuggled Jews out of the Soviet Union at the end of World War Two. The Communists gave him fifteen years in the Siberian gulags.
Ever heard of Mumeh Sorah? She did the same, but they never bothered sending her away. For decades her family never knew her yahrtzeit; they still don’t know where, if anywhere, the Communists buried her.
Heard of the mother who backed out of the driveway and pinned her toddler under the rear wheel? She lifted the car by herself and saved her son.
When we ask heroes from where they got the strength to do incredible things, they give lousy answers. Inevitably, their answer is “I had to do it,” or to put it differently, they couldn’t not do it. It’s not just modesty that makes them squirm when looking for answers, it is the almost-awkward simplicity. For, regardless of their level of articulation, they cannot come up with any good reason for why they did what they did.
Reasons are powerful motives for doing things. Logic is compelling. But logic is in the head, not the guts. So logic compels our minds to move. A mother’s love is not in the head; therefore all of her moves. Even parts of her she never knew she had move to free her baby from danger. She can’t put it into words, because there are no words in the gut. There is a place so profound that it cannot be made shallow with talk.
And there, right there where the deepest (no, you can’t really even subjugate them to the word) emotions reside, there the Jew has nothing but a visceral connection to G-d. Not a staid, progressive, links-in-a-chain connection, but a reflexive, instinctive, metal-to-magnet connection. You can’t feel it, and you could live a life without ever knowing it was inside of you. Because like heroes, it doesn’t look to present itself. But if the moment calls for it, the response is automatic and Jewish. (Think of sworn atheists who. when it came down to it gave their lives rather than surrender their identity, or the Jew-in-name-only who, when things were counting on him, came through.) Why? I just couldn’t do anything else.
We have mitzvahs that we like. Family Seders with favorite recipes; Chanukah songs and latkes; Purim plays and Sukkah parties. A melody that lifts you to your feet, a Talmudic insight that dazzles in its elegant simplicity, a chassidic story that soothes with its empathy.
They each relate to a different aspect of our personality and strengthen it Jewishly. But all these precious experiences, for all the growth they give us, do not touch our kishkes. Only the aspect of a mitzvah which is beyond our intellectual grasp and not within our emotional embrace can resonate so deeply. These mitzvahs are called chukim, and it is with these mitzvahs that this week’s Torah portion begins.
