Hardened Hearts and Remaining Human (Va’era)
Parashat Va’era, the second Torah portion of the book of Exodus, introduces us to the plagues. And when we hear about the plagues, we often imagine them as reactive eruptions of divine power. But the Torah insists that they are not surprises. They are foretold.
God tells Abraham back in the book of Genesis that his descendants will be strangers in a strange land, oppressed and mistreated, and that God will ultimately redeem them with signs and wonders (Gen. 15:13-14). Those signs and wonders are the plagues. History, suffering, and redemption are all woven together long before Moses ever stands before Pharaoh.
But embedded in that promise is something deeply unsettling. God tells Abraham, just as God later tells Moses, that Pharaoh’s heart will be hardened. And that creates a theological and moral crisis for us. Because justice, as we understand it, depends on free will. If Pharaoh cannot choose differently, if he is deprived of the ability to do the right thing, then what kind of accountability is possible? What kind of punishment could be just?
Jewish tradition has struggled mightily with this question.
One way the rabbis approach it is by reading the text very carefully. There are ten plagues, but the Torah’s language shifts as the story unfolds. In the first five plagues, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. That is the Torah’s phrase. He relents under pressure, and then, once the suffering stops, he returns to cruelty.
It is leadership by carrot and stick. When the stick is striking Egypt, Pharaoh says, “Enough. I will let them go.” And as soon as the pressure is lifted, he says, “No. I will not.” This pattern repeats itself again and again. The first five times, the cruelty is Pharaoh’s active choice.
One Midrash makes this explicit.
“Rabbi Reish Lakish teaches that God offered Pharaoh the opportunity for teshuvah, repentance, five times on a catastrophic scale. Pharaoh refused every time. And only then does God say: you have stiffened your neck and hardened your heart on your own, now your heart will no longer be able to receive the words of God. (Shemot Rabbah 13:3, paraphrased)”
There is a terrifying idea here: that repeated choices can calcify the soul. That a person can become so entrenched in cruelty that change is no longer accessible.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, writing in 18th-century Italy, offers another lens. He teaches that our external actions shape our inner world. We have more control over our actions than over our emotions. And if we act differently, if we choose differently, our inner life can follow. But the inverse is also true. Act cruelly long enough, and cruelty becomes who you are.
And this is where the Torah refuses to stay in the ancient world.
We see this pattern everywhere. Power exercised without restraint. Leaders who only relent under pressure, and the moment that pressure is gone, return to violence, to cruelty, to indifference. This “Pharaonic” approach to leadership is alive and well. Cruelty becomes justified in the name of control. Repentance is replaced by pressure. Change lasts only as long as someone is watching.
And the question before us is not only how to confront Pharaoh, but how to resist becoming Pharaoh ourselves.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught that no action is neutral. In moments of moral crisis, neutrality is itself a choice. During the Vietnam War, he said: this is no time for neutrality. Lives are at stake.
Lives are still at stake.
My heart is in Minneapolis.
My heart is in Iran.
My heart is with Ran Gvili’s family.
If Israel moves toward another phase of ceasefire with Gaza, and a family still cannot bury their dead, we are carrying too much to allow ourselves the luxury of emotional numbness.
And that is the danger Va’era warns us about.
The Torah shows us that the first five acts of cruelty were Pharaoh’s choice. After that, he could no longer turn back. The warning is not only about tyrants. It is about human beings. It is about what happens when we become accustomed to the world as it is.
I would never accuse us of cruelty. But I would warn us against becoming calloused. Because when we lose our sensitivity, when suffering no longer pierces us, we allow cruelty to continue.
To be like Pharaoh is not simply to wield power. It is to lose empathy. To lose compassion. To lose the capacity to be moved.
And that is why the rabbis teach: In a place where people are not acting human, strive to be human. (Pirkei Avot 2:5)”
Pharaoh is not an inhuman monster (though other biblical texts depict him as such – see Is. 27:1 and 51:9, Ez. 29:3 and 32:2; Ps. 74:13-14). He is a warning. The tradition, from Midrash Rabbah to Luzzatto, is telling us that these traits live inside human beings. And therefore, so does the responsibility to resist them.
Friends, do not let your heart become scarred.
Keep it open.
Protect your tenderness.
Take the actions, inner and outer, that cultivate compassion.
Because remaining human in a world of suffering is not passive.
It is courageous.
And it is sacred work.
Let us choose it.
