By Bill Seligman, January 26, 2025
The comedian George Burns, who knows a bit about God, once said that the secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, as close together as possible. Well, I’ll try to get to a good ending soon.
In Parshat Vaeira we have the beginning of the 10 plagues. Most of us are familiar with the basics: dam, tzefardayah, etcetera, etcetera. For those who want more singing in their tefillot, I was going to do all 10 of them – but Joel Elkins wouldn’t let me spill grape juice on the amud.
Also well known are the numerous references to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. We encounter this concept first in Chapter 7, Verse 3. If you don’t remember this verse from two years ago when we last read it, Chapter 7 begins
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, רְאֵה נְתַתִּיךָ אֱלֹהִים לְפַרְעֹה; וְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ, יִהְיֶה נְבִיאֶךָ.
Vayomer HaShem el Moshe, R’eh n’taticha Elokhim l’paraoh: v’Aharon achicha yihiyeh n’vieycha.
אַתָּה תְדַבֵּר, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוֶּךָּ; וְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ יְדַבֵּר אֶל-פַּרְעֹה, וְשִׁלַּח אֶת-בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאַרְצוֹ.
Atah t’daber et kol asher atzvecha, y’Aharon achica ydaber el Paraoh, v’shilech et bnai Yisrael me’artzo.
And the LORD said unto Moses: ‘See, I have set thee in God’s stead to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee; and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.
And then, in verse 3, the key language:
וַאֲנִי אַקְשֶׁה, אֶת-לֵב פַּרְעֹה; וְהִרְבֵּיתִי אֶת-אֹתֹתַי וְאֶת-מוֹפְתַי, בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
Va’ani aksheh et lev Paroah; v’hirbeiti et ototai v’et moftai b’eretz Mitzrayim.
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.
So Moshe and Aharon go to see Pharaoh, and Aharon throws down his rod, and it becomes a serpent, and then Pharoah’s team says ‘we’ve got this, boss’, and they do the same – but Aharon’s serpent-rod swallows up the Egyptians’ serpent-rods. And, after this, in verse 13, we read
וַיֶּחֱזַק לֵב פַּרְעֹה, וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֲלֵהֶם: כַּאֲשֶׁר, דִּבֶּר יְהוָה.
Vayechezak lev Paraoh, v’lo shama aleihem, ka’asher diber HaShem.
And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken.
Note a key change between these verses. In 7:3, before Moshe and Aharon go to the palace, the text reads v’ani AKSHEH et lev Paraoh –
וַאֲנִי אַקְשֶׁה, אֶת-לֵב פַּרְעֹה
Aksheh comes from the verb l’Hakshot, which translates to harden, toughen, or stiffen.
But in 7:13, after the first of the ten times Aharon and Moshe confront Pharaoh and his court, the verb used is “VA’YECHEZAK”. In this word, we hear the familiar word CHAZAK, strong, derived from the verb L’CHAZEK: to strengthen.
In case we don’t have enough to talk about with l’hakshot and l’chazek, let’s jump ahead to the 2nd plague – the frogs. In Shemot 8:11, as God is freeing the land of Egypt from the aromatic aftermath of dying frogs, we see again the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart – in yet another way.
וַיַּרְא פַּרְעֹה, כִּי הָיְתָה הָרְוָחָה, וְהַכְבֵּד אֶת-לִבּוֹ, וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֲלֵהֶם: כַּאֲשֶׁר, דִּבֶּר יְהוָה.
Va’yer’ Paraoh ki haytah ha’r’vacha, V’HA’KH’BEYD et libo v’lo shama aleihem, ka’asher diber HaShem.
But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken.
Here, we see the word HA’KH’BEYD – the weight. As a note, kh’beyd – Khaf, bet, daled – is from the same root as the word kavod, spelled Khaf, bet, vav, daled. That which has weight in our lives should be that which we honor and respect, and the behaviors we honor and respect should be given great weight.
But now, we have 3 different Hebrew words for what happened to Pharaoh’s heart: AKSHEH, to toughen or stiffen, YECHEZAK, to strengthen, and KH’BEYD, in this context to make heavy. As an aside, the word כְבֵּד is also used several times in the telling of the 10 plagues, translated by JPS as “grievous”, but referring to large in quantity. For example, the dever – cattle disease, and the barad – hail, both are described as KABEYD.
Can we learn anything from the uses of the different words? (Spoiler alert: if the answer was “no”, this would be a much shorter drash!)
Over the years, more commentators than I could read have looked at the texts around hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. In his weekly commentary on Vaera from 5780, the last time in his life when he commented on this parasha, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks brought a fascinating perspective to the different meanings behind the different words.
Sacks notes that, in the commentary on Shemot 7, Verse 3, of a noted 11th century wine merchant, referring to AKSHEH, Rashi says that God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the last five plagues was a punishment for the first five, when it was Pharaoh’s own obstinacy that led him to refuse to let the people go. Speaking about KH’BEYD, Maimonides, in the Mishneh Torah’s Hilchot Teshuva 6:3, interprets God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart as meaning that “repentance was withheld from him, and the liberty to turn from his wickedness was not accorded to him”. Albo and Sforno offer the opposite interpretation. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart precisely to restore his free will. After the succession of plagues that had devastated the land, Pharaoh was under overwhelming pressure to let the Israelites go. Had he done so, it would not have been out of free choice, but rather under force majeure. God therefore strengthened Pharaoh’s heart – CHEZAK – so that even after the first five plagues he was genuinely free to say Yes or No.
But Sacks notes that it may be that all three are right and are simply responding to the different verbs. AKSHEH, “hardening,” supports Rashi’s reading. Pharaoh was hard on the Israelites, so God was hard on him. KH’BEYD, “making heavy,” supports Maimonides: Pharaoh lacked the energy, the strength, to repent. L’CHAZEK, “to strengthen,” supports Albo and Sforno. The text allows for all three possibilities.
The use of l’hakshot – to toughen or to stiffen – would be very easy to understand in this context. But, this word is only used the first time we read of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart; it does not appear again in the telling of the story of the confrontation with Pharoah, although a related construction – hikshah – appears in Shemot 13:15, where JPS translates it as “stubbornly”. (I did find it interesting that, in Shemot 6, Verse 9, the in describing why b’nai Yisrael ignored Moshe’s prophesy, the text attributes it to “avodah kasha” – translated as “cruel bondage”, but that’s a topic for another drash…)
Many people far wiser and more learned than I have discussed at length the question of free will, and whether God’s role in hardening Pharaoh’s heart means that God – rather than Pharaoh – is to blame for the suffering caused by the plagues. As those of us in the Lipitor generation know, AKSHEH, the hardening of our heart – and our arteries – has no positive side. Perhaps the story of the plagues taught us what doctors learned millenia later: if your heart is stiffened, eventually it will not matter how much strength or how much honor you have, so avoid having that hardened heart.
Shabbat shalom.