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Paroh refuses to
recognize Hashem. He was a great believer instead in the magical arts. He
failed to comprehend that despite their ability to “contradict the upper
legions,”[2] they have no
power against Hashem’s express will. We could not expect otherwise of
Paroh. The Bnei Yisrael,
despite a mesorah
from the avos
had ceased truly “knowing” Hashem. Four generations in exile had taken
their toll. How, then, could Paroh have daas
of the reality and nature of G-d. Indeed, daas itself was in exile; the
non-availability of daas
[3] of the Divine was the
most important characteristic of the exile.
With this we have
another response to the familiar question about the justice of Hashem
hardening Paroh’s heart, seemingly removing his bechirah. Is it fair to strip a person of
his free-will? Looking more deeply, however, we recognize that making
freely chosen decisions is a function of daas.
Without daas
– without the full consciousness of Hashem’s existence, ability, and
providence – how can a person possibly accept the Torah’s challenge to
choose life by spurning evil? Without daas,
a person cannot truly differentiate between good and evil! Without daas, then, there is
no genuine bechirah.
When daas is
in galus,
there is no real opportunity for full bechirah.
We now understand
that Paroh’s bechirah
was not taken from him. It was never there in the first place!
If this sounds
familiar to our discussion in previous weeks, it really isn’t so much. We
spoke there of a diminution of daas.
At times, Hashem will pull back on the amount of daas available to a
person, and see whether the impression left by it is sufficient to carry
him through a challenge. Will that person react properly without the usual
complement of daas,
but through the impression that it previously left upon him? That is what
we dealt with in previous parshios.
But this is not the same as a daas-vacuum,
where daas
is generally lacking in the surround.
All of this is
foundational to a deeper understanding of the opening of our parshah. “Bo
el Paroh/Come to Paroh.” Many have asked why the Torah begins with a beis
rather than an aleph, the very first of the letters with which Hashem
revealed Himself to the world. The answer is that the aleph stands for alufo shel olam/The
Chief of the universe. The light and power of that aleph would overpower
anything in physical existence. It could not possibly be displayed without
a beis
masking it, hiding much of its brilliance. Once that beis was in place,
there are quite a few alephs in the first three words of the Torah! That is
what is hinted here. “Bo” is beis,
aleph. First there must be screens and filters, before the
alephs could be displayed. In Egypt, the beis was still dominant. It
preceded the aleph. Daas
was therefore in exile. Therefore, “I have hardened his heart and the heart
of his servants.” They forced the Bnei
Yisrael to work with chomer/mortar
and leveinim/bricks.
(Tikunei Zohar says that the chomer
means the hermeneutic method of kal v’chomer; leveinim means libun/clarification
of halachah. By
this Chazal mean that daas
was entirely in galus. The hard labor of the oppression brought about the
liberation of daas.
When they toiled with chomer
they “liberated” the parts of Torah that employ kal v’chomer from galus. When the worked
with bricks, they allowed more daas
to be available to the world.) “So that I can put ososai/my signs in its
midst.” Ososai can
also be read as “my letters.” The obstinacy of the hard-hearted Egyptians
meant oppression of the Bnei Yisrael. Their weathering the abuse and
emerging with their loyalty to the mission of the avos intact after the
boost of the makos allowed more daas
to enter the world. It allowed the letters of the aleph-beis to become
unsheathed, and to become available in the midst of the community. There
they could combine to form the words of the Torah.
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