Exodus 6:2-9:35
There’s much I can say to this parasha. The idea of escaping the corruption of the city for wilderness especially speaks to me. But today I want to focus on something else.
We learned last week that Pharaoh intentionally made the Israelites’ work more difficult by not supplying hay for bricks but keeping their quota the same. The hay was traditionally supplied by the Pharaoh’s state, allowing the workers to form the bricks faster. Forcing them to gather their own hay and keeping their quota the same is unnecessary and serves only to break their spirits.
We know what happens when people try to break our spirits.
This week, Moses, selected by G-d; and Aaron, selected by Moses, are to implore Pharaoh to free the Israelites so they can serve G-d. Pharaoh, who enjoys free labor, as many in power do, doesn’t want to lose it. Also, just like many in power, he doesn’t just want free labor, but to show off his power. This week it results in the first six, out of 10, plagues. If we’re breaking up 10 plagues, why six and not five? That’s a different drash.
Instead my question is this: what happens when oppressors try to show off their power to us, today? We have Iron Dome, we have the IDF, we have associations and organizations to advocate for us. We are no longer dhimmi, the status the Ottoman Empire gave us, rendering us legally powerless.
What happens when Pharaoh tries to show off his power to us, then? We have G-d, Moses, and Aaron.
It took me longer than I care to admit, which is Thursday, to understand why Pharaoh’s sorcerers replicated the plagues at first. It was to say “big deal, we can make plagues, too.” It was a play to invalidate the power of G-d.
What’s the difference then, between the plagues that Moses directed from Hashem, and the spells Pharaoh’s sorcerers cast? There is, of course, the source. One is divine, one is from mortals. Just like the difference between human ingenuity and AI, one creates, the other is diminutive.
Humans have the amazing ability to create ideas and art. Whether we paint a fresco depicting a wonder or write a melody which leaves us speechless, our hands, our minds, our mouths, and even our entire bodies are able to drive an emotion, story, or thought. This might be for ourselves in the privacy of our space or publicly, for an audience.
AI doesn’t have this ability. It can only take in data, mix it up, interpret it as data instead of emotions, and put out something that incorporates elements of everything else put in. It doesn’t create, it just reassables.
We’re made in G-d’s image. We can create. We have breath, just as G-d has breath.
Back to plagues versus spells. Hashem creates, sorcerers cast. The only thing sorcerers can put out is what is already in the nature that G-d created. On the other hand, the depth of plagues is vastly deeper than anything mankind can direct or conjure up.
Okay, so I’ve talked about plagues and the power that the sorcerers ultimately found lacking against G-d. Let’s talk about something else.
There’s an idea called “‘b’ eating crackers”. The ‘b’ is a diminutive word which rhymes with “ditch” or “stitch”. This phrase is for when you have such a deep loathing of someone that even something as innocuous as them eating crackers will drive you mad. This is, obviously, hardening one’s heart.
And we’ve all experienced the ‘b’ eating crackers. When we’re sitting at the airport or on a plane and can’t stand the person sitting next to us. Or when we’re on the bus. Or when someone says something and we just can’t stand it, that’s the ‘b’ eating crackers phenomenon.
Pharaoh didn’t like us standing up for ourselves. Does that sound familiar?
In her 2021 book, People Love Dead Jews, Dara Horn writes about how people love Jews when they’re dying, but hate the idea of us standing up for ourselves.
I don’t want to get too deep into current events because we all know too much about what’s going on. We all know the insipid, antisemitic response of the UN and the Hamas enabling UNRWA. We all know about how the UN’s commission on human rights is headed by some of the world’s most egregious violators of human rights.
Please bear with me as we take a detour, for context.
Pharaoh hardened his own heart against us during the first five plagues. Moses cast his staff and G-d enacted a plague. Pharaoh’s sorcerers cast their spells and Pharaoh said “see, you’re not special” for the first two plagues. At the third plague, the sorcerers couldn’t create lice. And suddenly they understood their limitations.
At the fifth plague, the sorcerers deeply understood that Hashem, the source behind the nature they used for spells, was out of their influence. During the sixth plague, the sorcerers were afflicted like all their kinsmen. They were unable to recreate the boils because they were in too much pain from their own.
Pharaoh relented, after the swarms of insects, and said he would allow the Israelites to go out of his city to sacrifice and serve G-d. However, as soon as it became convenient and he wasn’t under pressure, he reneged. We were about to escape the corruption of the city to the purity of the wilderness, something I’m deeply familiar with, when Pharaoh decided he didn’t want to let us have respite, after all.
Pharaoh had taken the one thing that those who would oppress us don’t have: he had taken our autonomy.
Let’s come back to eating crackers and hardening hearts.
It was only after the fifth plague that G-d started hardening Pharaoh’s heart. During the first five, Pharaoh made his own choices. He made the decision to hurt us. After that, G-d demonstrated the error of his ways to ensure he couldn’t do it again.
We have entire groups of people who’ve been quietly advocating against us for years. We also have groups of people and countries who have been vocally advocating against us. Both silent and loud people conspiring against us.
Finally, after October 7, for a reason that can only be attributed to the world’s oldest hatred, we were perceived to be eating crackers when we were just standing up for ourselves. All these groups of people who hardened their own hearts should be starting to realize their sorcerers, their advisors, their allies are against something they haven’t been able to imagine.
Then, as Ezekiel, in this week’s Haftarah said
“Thus, said G-d,
“I’m going to deal with you Pharaoh
“Who said ‘my Nile is my own, I made it for me.’”
We have people claiming a river, the Jordan, just as Pharaoh claimed the Nile, is for them, when it’s for all of us. And today, the Jordan River, just as with the Nile, we will not allow it to slip from us.
Somehow, despite the vocal antisemites in academia, despite the vocal antisemites on social media, despite the antisemitism latent in governments, and despite the antisemitic bent in so much media, support for Israel is up. We still have a long way to go, but what we’re up against is not unprecedented.
The danger may not be unprecedented, though luckily we’re able to take unprecedented care of ourselves. Instead of stealing aid meant for others to line our pockets as Hamas does, we invest in each other and ourselves. We strive for a civilization, which takes care of each other, while those who would see us gone fight within each other while fighting us.
Hashem gave a corrupt leader plagues upon his people. We did not suffer these plagues, and I believe deep in my soul that it’s because we operate as a people and as a nation, not as an oligarchy or dictatorship. We’re here for each other and we continue to be.
Only by being here for each other can we get through this. Hashem gave us each other, and we are a nation, as one, alone.
Am Yisrael chai and Shabbat shalom.
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