They say a lottery is a tax on those who aren’t good at math. If that’s true, then that’s a tax that I really ought to pay. Nonetheless I did not buy a lottery ticket (I’m sure I’ll find another way to pay that tax). I was, however, hoping that one of you – one of you who really likes your shul – had purchased a ticket and won. That would have been thrilling.
Fantasizing about a dramatic change in one’s fortunes can be fun, but that fantasy and that hope can be a distraction from hopes that are not only more realistic but more worthy of our attention. I credit my old friend and colleague Rabbi Aaron Liebman for formulating this in a particularly sharp way:
“I dislike the lottery because it is ‘a vote of no confidence’ in ourselves…It is better to trust that our ethos and our cooperation with others will bring us (eventually) the prosperity and happiness we seek than to hope that a freakish chance will redeem us… In receiving an act of kindness,… I can imagine too a time when I will be a giver not a receiver. In a lottery win only the impersonal and the absurd are on display.”
We are blessed with the dignity to shape our lives and to work in cooperation with others to make an improved and improving society. Better, perhaps, not to buy a ticket so that one can fully live one’s life based on our own choices, and the choices of our community.
That dignity, however, was denied Pharaoh in the course of the plagues leading up to the exodus. Pharaoh was not redeemed by “freakish chance.” Rather, he was punished by a “freakish chance” when God hardened his heart, preventing Pharaoh from conceding to Moshe and releasing his slaves before the process of punishment had progressed to its grim finale.
There are ten separate verses that speak to God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart. How could this be fair? How could Pharaoh be punished when God seems to intervene to ensure that Pharaoh will remain wicked? A straightforward reading of the Torah results in an inescapable philosophical problem. Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem. Maimonides explained, centuries ago, that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart as a punishment. Pharaoh made the free-choice to enslave and oppress and, the Torah is quite explicit about this, he hardened his own heart himself. Only then, was Pharaoh’s heart additionally hardened so that he could not escape the consequences of the actions that he freely chose.
A more holistic reading of Maimonides reminds us that our ability to make free choices erodes over time when we repeat patterns of behavior or harmful ways of thinking. Pharaoh’s heart became hard because that’s what happens to hearts when we harden them ourselves.
But the Torah hides in plain sight another example of hearts being hardened with a very different outcome and this may be one of the most significant elements of our story:
וַיֹ֤אמֶר ה אֶל־מֹשֶ֔ה בֹ֖א אֶל־פַרעֹ֑ה כִֽי־אֲנִ֞י הִכְבַ֤דתִי אֶת־לִבו֙ וְאֶת־לֵ֣ב עֲבָד֔יו לְמַ֗עַן שִתִ֛י אֹתֹתַ֥י אֵ֖לֶה בְקרבֽו׃
Pharaoh’s servants are also characters in this drama. Their hearts as well are hardened, just like Pharaoh. But the servants overcome this impediment:
וַיֹאמְרו֩ עַבְד֨י פַרעֹ֜ה אֵלָ֗יו עַד־מָתַי֙ יִהְיֶ֨ה זֶ֥ה לָ֙נו֙ לְמוק֔ש שַלַח֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֲנָשִ֔ים וְיַֽעַבְד֖ו אֶת־ה׳ א-ֱלהֵיהֶ֑ם הֲטֶ֣רם תֵד֔ע כִ֥י אָבְד֖ה מִצְרֽיִם׃
“Send out these people and let them worship their God .”
Even when the Torah says that one’s heart has been hardened, even when habit, and entranced patterns of behavior lead to callousness and a limiting of our moral imaginations, it is still possible to have a moment of insight. Pharaoh’s servants, who recognize God’s power, redeem for all of us the ability of human beings to turn out better than expected.
Not only does Pharaoh not rise to the occasion and behave better than expected, he actually behaved worse than expected.
Generations earlier when the period of Egyptian slavery was foretold to Avraham, during the brit bein habetarim, it was decreed that Avraham’s decedents would endure a period of suffering and servitude in a foreign land.
וַיֹ֣אמֶר לְאַבְר֗ם יָד֨עַ תֵד֜ע כִי־גֵ֣ר ׀ יִהְיֶ֣ה זַרעֲָ֗ בְאֶ֙רץ֙ ל֣א לָהֶ֔ם וַעֲבָד֖ום וְעִנ֣ו אֹתָ֑ם אַרבַ֥ע מֵא֖ות שָנָֽה׃ וְגַ֧ם אֶת־הַג֛וי אֲשֶ֥ר יַעֲבֹ֖דו דָ֣ן אָנֹ֑כִי וְאַחֲרי־כֵ֥ן יֵצְא֖ו בִרכֻ֥ש גָדֽול׃.
“And he said to Avram, you shall surely know that your dependents will be strangers in a land not their own and they shall be made to work and afflicted for four hundred years. And I shall judge that nation and you shall leave there with great wealth”
Ramban wrote that Egypt was judged and punished because Pharaoh wax excessively cruel, crueler than was necessary for the Divine plan to unfold.
שהוסיפו להרע כי השליכו בניהם ליאור וימררו את חייהם וחשבו למחות את שמם וזה טעם דן אנכי שאביא אותם במשפט אם עשו כנגזר עליהם או הוסיפו להרע להם
My friend and colleague Rabbi Chaim Strauchler explained to me that there are times in history that are fated to be times of cruelty and oppression. We can’t know why but we see that some periods of history are like that. Ramban tells us that Pharaoh was not judged separate from the way things were back then. He was judged because, even in a time of oppression, he went above and beyond in his cruelty.
A few weeks ago, one of my children asked me, with great urgency, whether Napoleon was a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” How would you answer that question? I consulted with a lot of people who know a lot more about Napoleon than I do and I got a lot of complicated answers. Student protesters in Princeton are asking whether Woodrow Wilson was a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” In light of his record of racism, which was extreme and vulgar even in a generation of extreme and vulgar racism, does he deserve to be honored so prominently at the university where he served as president before entering politics?
Pharaoh’s servants remind us that even when our repeated actions and our habitual behavior has made our hearts hard, we are still able to transcend that hardness and break free. People are capable of being better than their times and their context would suggest. Ramban reminds us that some people are worse than their times and context would suggest and Pharaoh’s cruelty was excessive and spiteful even in a context when Jewish servitude in Egypt was a foregone conclusion.
Our rabbis tells us that each one of us must see ourselves as though we personally left Egypt. This could mean that we should experience the Passover seder with a spirit of awe and wonder. This could mean that we should cultivate gratitude as a primary religious virtue. And this could also mean that we must elevate moral freedom when evaluating others and also when evaluating ourselves. We cannot justify cruel behavior or being ethically obtuse by saying that “everyone else does it too” or “this is just the way the world works.” We won’t be innocent in the eyes of history if we merely go along with the flow and avoid using our capacity for moral judgement and ethical evaluation.
I am sorry that we do not have any lottery winners in the congregation. But I’m glad that we all have the more significant and impressive ability to use our own talents and efforts, and to benefit from the kindest and generosity of others, to improve our lives and the lives of those around us. The choices we make, the kindness that we encounter, and the grace that enters our lives, are more meaningful than a freak accident.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 