Parahat Bo – Gainesville
Do you remember the good old days when we actually had to sit through a movie to find out the ending? Nowadays, with time so precious, we may have a tendency to scroll to the end, see who survives, get an idea as to the end of the story and then maybe, maybe, spend the time watching the whole thing. Such a way of watching a movie is exactly the way the director and producers did NOT want us to do! After all, they are telling us a story so what good is knowing the ending?
So what happens when we read the same story again and again and we already know the ending? One way or the other, regardless of how they learned it, every Jew knows about the 10th plague in Egypt, the death of the firstborn. In fact, when I mention it, how may of you immediately went to the image of Yul Brenner holding his son in the Cecil B. Demille movie? And yet, despite knowing the story, we repeat it every year during Torah study and every year during Seder.
And it is this very repetition that teaching us something. In fact, the Exodus from Egypt is mentioned more times in the Jewish year than any other event, even the giving of the Torah. We mention it everywhere from Torah study to the Kiddush over the wine. We can’t get away from it.
Why? I suggest that it is because there is message in the Exodus that goes beyond simply leaving Egypt. It is not an obvious message, but it is there.
To recap the story for us, in the middle of the night, Pharaoh is devastated by the loss of his firstborn in the 10th plague. All of Egypt is grieving. The god-king is powerless. No slaves can help him. No counselors can advise him. No Egyptian god can intervene for hims. And so, in desperation, he gives in to Moses’ demands of freedom for the Israelite slaves. Pharaoh declares, “Up, depart from among my people, you and the Israelites with you! Go, worship the Eternal as you said!” (Exodus 12:31).
That would be the logical end of the story. And yet, just as Moses is about to leave, Pharaoh yells out to Moses the strangest thing: וּבֵֽרַכְתֶּ֖ם גַּם־אֹתִֽי
- “and may you bring a blessing upon me also!” (Exodus 12:32).
What is going on here? Pharoahs have spent the last 400 years enslaving Jews. Their cruelty knew no bounds. And now, at the end of Egyptian history for this era, the final Pharaoh asks Moses to give him a blessing. Talk about chutzpah. He wants the blessing even though it looks like he did nothing to deserve it. Maybe he wanted it as a trophy to show his people that he was still somehow special. Maybe he wanted to show recognition of God’s power and his lack of real power. Maybe he was just selfish and asked for a blessing for himself but not for the people of Egypt. Either way you look at it, it is a strange, strange request.
There are several ways of reading what this means and this is what helps us dig into the mystery of why read this story again and again. First, you have Rashi, the famous 11th Century French commentator. These are his words: וברכתם גם אתי AND BLESS ME ALSO — Pray on my behalf that I should not die because I am a firstborn
Rashi says that Pharaoh’s request was 100% selfish because Pharoah was also firstborn. And, as a firstborn, he would perish, as well. Rashi is reading the text in a literal way, for sure, but also an acceptably cynical way.
Nachmanides from the 13th Century doesn’t want us to read Rashi so cynically. He thinks that Rashi is right but that the real reading of Rashi is that Pharaoh DID want to include the whole of Egypt.
Then we get to a surprising interpretation of this request for a blessing by Pharoah. In a very old midrash, we have a note on this demand for a blessing with the following words: Pharaoh knew that he was lacking in prayer, and God does not forgive someone until he has persuaded his neighbor [to forgive him as well].1
This sounds familiar, I know. You have heard it at Yom Kippur when, at the beginning of Kol Nidre, the machzor tells us that God forgives us only after we have made peace with our fellow. So what is the midrash saying that Pharaoh said? He is saying a form of repentance, of teshuva. Pharoah, in the eyes of the midrash has reached rock-bottom in his ability to exert power. He has nothing left and now he has realized the pain he has caused since that pain was the same pain he inflicted on others.
This is a whole new twist on Pharaoh. With this comment, Pharaoh is more than the sum of his sins. He is the perfect penitent. Wow! This changes everything.
But the midrash goes on and imagines a world in which future Egyptians will not feel the need to repent as Pharaoh did simply because Pharaoh showed the Egyptians the value of repentance and, since his repentance was so sincere, it overflowed to all Egypt and, one day, that repentance will be embraced by every enemy of the Jewish people. The reward for Pharaoh’s t’shuvah, our midrash suggests, is that one day, God will liberate Pharaoh’s people from a tyrant – just as, in our Torah portion, God is liberating the Israelite slaves from Pharaoh. And what’s more, this role reversal will culminate in the adversaries becoming allies, each nation sharing in God’s beneficence. This is reflected in the vision of Isaiah who said, “In that day, Israel shall be a third partner with Egypt and Assyria as a blessing on earth, for the Eternal of Hosts will bless them, saying, ‘Blessed be My people Egypt … and My very own Israel’ ” (Isaiah 19:24).
And that will be the moment of the messianic era that Jews have waited for.
That is why we keep repeating this story. We repeat throughout the year because it contains in it a glimpse of a world to come in which Jews and their enemies will embrace not because they were conquered, but because they came to understand that their power is limited. It is a lesson that real power is not the ability to repress, oppress and master over. Real power is the power to build together, to lead with empathy, real repentance and embracing peace. This is the image the tradition wants us to see as a colleague teaches: At the very moment when Moses is walking away from Pharaoh, leaving Pharaoh’s presence for the last time to go and lead the Israelites out of Egypt – and at the moment he finally emerges victorious over Pharaoh – Pharaoh is planting the seeds for a future reconciliation. It is an astonishing insight by our Sages.
Perhaps that is a true vision of liberation: not simply overcoming the ones who had oppressed us, not simply escaping from their control, but also glimpsing a future, however far-off, when together, we will serve as a blessing. May each of us see such a day!
