Bo: Free Will and Human Nature

by Rav Moshe Leib HaCohen Halbershtadt, Founder and Director of YORU Jewish Leadership, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

This week's Torah portion (Bo, Sh'mot 10,1-13,16) is the story of the last three of the Ten Plagues – raising at the same time a fascinating question of Divinely-given, human Free Will. The first verse is this: "G-d said to Moshe, Go to Pharoah, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, in order that I place these signs of Mine in him."

The Medrash asks: "Does this verse not enable the heretics to claim that Pharaoh, in refusing to free the Israelites, did not actually sin, for he had no choice in the matter?" R. Shimon ben Lakish answered as follows:

"G-d warns a person once, twice, and a third time – and if he does not reverse course and do teshuvah, G-d then locks his heart from being able to repent, in order to punish him for that which he sinned. This is what happened with Pharaoh: For the first five plagues, G-d sent him Moshe and Aharon to warn him, but he did not listen to them. G-d then said to him: 'Because you have hardened your heart, I will add impurity to your impurity and harden your heart Myself.'"

Does this truly answer the question? Can it be that Pharaoh, a living and breathing person, has had his Free Will taken away? We know that the Torah commands us to "Choose life" (D'varim 30,19), meaning that we have the ability and obligation to choose our deeds freely. This "Free Choice" is in fact the very advantage that humans have over animals. As the Abarbanel explained:

"When King Shlomo wrote, "man has no preeminence over beast" (Eccl. 3,19), he meant this in terms of their bodies; but there is certainly a difference between their intellects and thoughts. Therefore a person must be strong and distance himself from animalistic behaviors, and cling rather to his intellect – and thus he will acquire lasting [reward] for his soul; if he does not do this, he will end up being like an animal, in keeping with the fact that both man and beast were created on one day… Man's perfection is dependent upon his own choices…"

It occurred to me that the explanation regarding Pharaoh is that regarding the first five plagues, he received warnings, followed by plagues that had one objective: to have him yield to G-d's demand to free the Jewish People. But once he did not do that, his fate was sealed – and he thus reached the end of his line as a human being with Free Choice. (See Medrash Sh'mot Rabba 13,3.) It was as if he was dead – but G-d left him physically alive for the final plagues simply so that the world would learn of G-d's greatness and power.

These last plagues, in fact, symbolize a gradual death punishment, step after step. The plague of Locusts took from the Egyptians all the food that the locusts consumed – and without food, of course, a living being cannot live, such that this was the beginning of the road to death. Then came Darkness, in which they lost their sight – another station along their way to dying. This was followed by death itself: the Plague of the Smiting of the Firstborns – capped off by the deaths of Pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea.

The Power of Habit

But in truth, this entire matter can be explained simply in accordance with human nature, with which G-d runs His world. The Torah is telling us here an important fundamental, and that is "the power of habit."

When a person becomes accustomed to doing negative things over a period of time, there comes that moment when "G-d hardens his heart," at which time, even if he wants to stop acting that way, it has become almost impossible to do so. Pharaoh had become accustomed to subjugating the Israelites and working them cruelly to the bone, and he had also gotten used to withstanding G-d's punishments and refusing His demands to release Israel. But then came the inevitable moment when "I have hardened his heart": Pharaoh can no longer free himself of these bad habits.

The famous 20^th-century Maggid of Jerusalem, the late saintly R. Shalom Schvadron, compared this to one who has allowed himself to become addicted to smoking: After many years, he finds it impossible to quit the habit, even though intellectually he understands its great dangers. The Maggid even told a story of a long-time thief who was caught and imprisoned, and when they brought him his food through the window of his cell, he would jump and snatch it from the window – because he was so used to stealing that even that which he received legitimately he could not take normally without "stealing" it.

As such, it is not that Pharaoh's Free Will was taken from him, but rather that he himself brought himself to a situation of a "hardened heart" where he is unable to control his own actions.

Rav Eliyahu Dessler, in his Michtav Me'Eliyahu (translated into English as "Strive for Truth"), explains similarly: A person sins only because of a "spirit of foolishness" that comes over him. Even when he then regrets this, but still cannot withstand the temptation to sin again, this same spirit settles into, and methodically takes over, his mind.

Rav Dessler said he knew a man who suffered from diabetes (before the discovery of insulin), but who could not stop eating chocolate, although he regretted it. When he saw that he did not die from it, he continued eating it, regretting it less and less – until one day he died. If he had stopped right away, he would have been OK, but because he allowed the "spirit of foolishness" to take over regularly, he was lost; there was no longer room for teshuvah.

This actually works for positive actions as well. The Talmud says (Bava Batra 17a) that our Patriarchs Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were the three men over whom the Evil Inclination had no control. How can this be? With nothing pushing them to sin, did they no longer have Free Choice to choose between good and bad?

The answer is as above: the power of habit. Doing positive deeds became a habit, something intrinsically part of them. Their Free Will was manifest in that they consciously chose to do good, time after time, such that each good deed influenced their next choice, to the point that each juncture no longer provided the need to choose; they simply did good.

The Mishna in Pirkei Avot (5,20) states that we must be "bold like a leopard… and strong like a lion, to do G-d's will." Why does it not simply say that we must be bold and strong, etc., without the comparison to animals? R. Yehuda Tzadkah explained that the Mishna is telling us that we must work to ingrain these attributes within us so that they be as instinctive to us as they are to animals…

May it be G-d's will that we make the right choices, rectify our character and traits, and acquire good habits, to the point that they become part of our very nature.

Vaera: The Blood Libel and the Ten Plagues

by Rav Netanel Yosifun, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivat Orot Netanya, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

The Beilis Blood Libel resulted in a famous murder trial in Kiev in 1913, in which Menachem Mendel Beilis was charged with killing a 12-year-old Christian boy for his blood for Jewish ritual purposes. It was the last great blood libel in history, and took place when the world already considered itself modern and enlightened. Fortunately, Beilis was ultimately acquitted, but the anti-Semitism that brought it about, and that it brought about, must continue to be studied, perhaps especially today. 

During the trial, a separate mini-blood libel took place – related to this week's Torah portion – though it was quickly derailed. 

First, let us note that the Torah portion is Va'era (Sh'mot 6,2-9,35). It recounts, inter alia, the first seven of the Ten Plagues with which G-d struck the Egyptian oppressors of the Jews. 

The prosecutor in the Beilis trial, it is told, arose during the proceedings and announced dramatically: "I have proof, from the very Torah of the Jews, that they mix Christian blood in their matzas (Heaven forbid)! Regarding the Ten Plagues, the Jews' Passover Haggadah states clearly: 'R. Yehuda would give them signs in the form of their initial letters arranged in three groups and pronounced d'tzach adash b'achav. [The letters are:] Daled-Tzadi-Khaf, Ayin-Daled-Shin, Bet-Aleph-Chet-Vet.'"

That is to say, R. Yehuda – Rabbi Judah the Prince, redactor of the Mishna – arranged the initial letters of the plagues into three groups, as an educational tool by which to memorize them, or to impart a deeper lesson, as we will see below. But the evil prosecutor in the trial sought to portray it as an evil Jewish plot, and "explained" it as follows: 

"D'tzach is actually an acronym for the Hebrew words Dam tzrichim kulchem, meaning 'You all need blood;' Adash is an acronym for al dvar sheharagtem, meaning, 'because you have killed;' and B'achav stands for ben el chai biyrushalayim, 'the son of the living god in Jerusalem.'"

The audience was greatly impressed by these words, and things did not look good for Beilis, or for the Jews in general. But then arose Rabbi Yaakov Mazeh, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, and asked to respond. He then astounded those present with his rebuttal:

"On the contrary," he said. "R. Yehuda's acronyms actually show that the blood libel is totally false. D'tzach stands for Divrei tzorer kazav, meaning 'Lying words of a persecutor;' Adash is alilat dam sheker, 'a false blood libel,' and B'achav refers to the one that you said it referred to – but slightly differently: ben ishah chashudah b'znut, 'the son of a woman suspected of adultery.'"

This is a nice story, but of course R. Yehuda actually meant to teach us something somewhat more profound. Many rabbinic explanations for the presentation of these initial letters have been given over the years. Among them is the following, based on a straightforward understanding of the division of the plagues into three groups:

The first group of three plagues, known here as d'tzach, is of those that struck the lowest places on earth: Water flowing on the earth was turned to blood, and the frogs and lice that plagued the Egyptians are life-forms that live very close to the ground.

The second group, adash, includes plagues involving animals that stand tall on the ground: arov (wild animals), dever (an epidemic that wiped out the Egyptian livestock), and sh'chin (boils that attacked both man and beast).

And the final group was b'achav – four plagues that struck in the air, or on a higher level than the others: Barad, hailstones, come from the sky, while arbeh, locusts, fly in the air, and choshekh, darkness, is clearly in the air. The final plague, that of the death of the bekhorot, the Egyptian first-borns, is the taking of their souls – something spiritual even higher than the air, "a part of G-d above."

Thus, the division of the initial letters shows that the plagues were not random, but were quite Divinely ordered. G-d delivered these plagues - designed to teach the world the power of G-d and His involvement in the world - from the lowest levels to the highest, in all expanses of life. 

This is actually the whole point of the Exodus from Egypt. As G-d told Moshe in this weekly portion regarding the purpose of the plagues: “Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt” (7,5). Egypt must know. We traditionally have wisdom, understanding, and knowledge (the concepts that comprise Chabad), yet here the emphasis is specifically on knowledge. What does this tell us?

In addition, when Moshe came to Pharaoh for the first time and told him to free the Israelites, Pharaoh responded (5,2): “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice? I do not know the Lord…”  He is not denying G-d's existence, but is rather saying that he doesn't know Him. Again, the emphasis is on knowledge. What is going on?

The Hebrew word for "knowledge" is da'at, which connotes "union," as in, "Adam knew his wife Chava" (B'reshit 4,1). Wise men have the facts, but they don't always connect them – not to each other, nor to themselves – in order to derive the correct conclusions. Only one with true da'at is genuinely connected to what he knows, and understands how it connects to himself.

Pharaoh understood that there is a G-d Who created the world – but he has not yet seen how He functions in the world and runs it. He therefore said, "I do not know the Lord – He has not revealed Himself here, He doesn't run things, He seems to have left the world to its own devices." Pharaoh is not connected in any way to G-d. In fact, the famous translation of Onkelos explains these words of Pharoah as meaning exactly that: "G-d has not been revealed to me;" He is hiding.

And then come along the plagues, which touch upon every aspect of life, from the ground to the heights of the atmosphere, and even higher – and everyone sees clearly that G-d not only created the world, but also runs it and wants something from it. G-d is revealed, and people begin to "know" Him and understand that He is connected to the world. They realize that He can give instructions regarding how we must act, and we must adhere to His commands. 

May we merit to always know G-d, along with the rest of the world!

Shmot: Anyone Here Who's a Man?

by Rav Hillel Fendel.

This week's Torah portion of Sh'mot, which begins the second Book of the Pentateuch, tells the story of Bnei Yisrael's first years in Egypt, and their first decades under Egyptian bondage. The story largely revolves around Moshe Rabbeinu, who grows up in the luxury of Pharoah's palace, but still feels very strongly the pain of his suffering brethren.  

At one point, Moshe goes out and sees an Egyptian beating a Jew. The Torah tells us his response: "Moshe looked this way and that way, saw that there was no man, and smote the Egyptian and buried him in the sand." Rashi does not explain according to the simple meaning – that Moshe did not wish to be caught in this act. Rather, he says that Moshe looked "this way and that way," meaning at all the harm that this particular Egyptian had done to the Israelite, which went beyond just simple physical harm. 

However, the Netziv – the author of the Ha'amek Davar, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, Rosh Yeshiva of the famous Volozhin Yeshiva – gives a different, straightforward explanation. He says that Moshe looked around in all directions, specifically to see if anyone was there who would respond to this injustice! But, "he saw that there was no man!" He saw no one who was willing to get up and act with simple humanity and right the wrong that was being done! And so, he took action himself. 

This was in accordance with the Mishna taught many centuries later by Hillel the Elder: "Where there are no men [people], strive to be a man!" (Pirkei Avot 2,5)

In short, the first lesson that Moshe our Teacher teaches us is not to wait for others to take action, but to take responsibility ourselves – and especially when our brothers' fate is at stake!

Shabbat Shalom.

Vayechi: The Message from Pharaoh's Egypt: Look Behind the Scenes

by Rav Hillel Fendel.

We conclude the first Book of the Torah this Shabbat with Parshat Vayechi. Unlike every other portion in the Torah, Vayechi is "closed off," meaning it begins neither on a new line in the Torah, nor even after a break of nine spaces. Why is this? Why is there no break between last week's portion of Vayigash and Vayechi?

Rashi gives two answers. One is that Vayechi begins with Yaakov on his deathbed, seeking not only to bless his sons but also to reveal to them the End of the exile – but it was “closed off” (concealed) from him and he was unable to do so.

The second explanation is also based on the fact that Yaakov's death was near, and once he died, "the eyes and the heart of Israel [Yaakov's descendants] were 'closed' because of the misery of the Egyptian slavery" that began, in a way, with Yaakov's death.

What can be the connection between the suffering of the slavery and Israel's closed, darkened eyes? Rav Chaim Druckman often explained that the meaning is that the children of Yaakov became blinded to the very fact that their Exile, along with its suffering, had begun.

This ties directly into the last verse of the previous Torah portion, which succinctly sums up the Israelites' new situation in Egypt as follows: "Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they acquired a stronghold there, and they were prolific and multiplied greatly." Let us explain the connection between this verse and Israel's oblivion to their new, developing situation.

The classic commentary Kli Yakar (by R. Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, rabbi of Prague for 15 years until his death in 1619) explains that this entire verse "is condemnatory of Israel." He says that they never should have put themselves in the position of settling so comfortably in a foreign land: "G-d had decreed upon them that they would be foreigners in [Egypt], yet they sought to be permanent residents there, in a land not theirs. They were so strongly entrenched in Egypt that they did not want to leave, and many wanted to stay even when they were already enslaved."

It is now clear: Because of their attachment to their seemingly good lives in Egypt, they forgot about returning to the Land promised to their forefathers – and did not even notice the suffering that was about to fall upon them.

The parallel to today, and to recent decades, is striking. The Ohr Same'ach, for instance – Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, who died in 1926 – bemoaned in his Torah commentary that there were many Jews in his time who had grown accustomed to their lives and comforts, both spiritual and material, in the Diaspora, forgot their origins, and felt that "Berlin is Jerusalem." This, he wrote, would last for a while – until their lives would be shattered and they would again be exiled. He thus "foresaw" the Shoah that began only some years later, while others of his time did not even realize what was already beginning to happen to them – just as the sons of Yaakov did not realize what was happening to them.

In a similar manner some explain the Fast of the Tenth of Tevet that we commemorated this week. As is known, most of our prophetically-prescribed days of fasting mark one aspect or another of the destruction of the Holy Temple and the Jewish national presence in the Holy Land. The Tenth of Tevet is different: It marks not the destruction, but the beginning of the Babylonian siege on the Holy City, some seven months before the actual razing of the Temple. When the siege started outside the city walls, most Jews did not feel a thing! They went on with their lives as usual – and this raises the question: Why should a day of fasting be instituted for such a non-event?

The answer is as we have said: As we see in the lack of separation between Vayigash and Vay'chi, between the blinding of Israel's eyes and their failure to see and feel the onset of the suffering of Egyptian bondage – the beginning of all tribulations and Exiles is our blindness to what is developing, and our difficulty in realizing our own role in bringing them on.

Let us not repeat the same errors made by our ancestors more than a few times in our history. It should be easier now than ever to grasp that the Diaspora is no longer our home. Not only does the Holy Land and the State of Israel need the entire Jewish nation to return, the returning Jews need the Land and the State!

Never again may we make the mistakes of Bnei Yisrael in Egypt, of the Jews under the Bablonian siege, of our recent ancestors in Europe less than a century ago – and of some Jews living today, in 2026, throughout the comfortable countries of the West.