How many of you made a New Year’s Resolution? I don’t any more. I write goals. They are similar but I see them as mile markers. Some years I write something I am looking forward to each month.
This year one of my goals is to run//walk the Disney Princess Half Marathon in February. I am raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Too many relatives and friends have been touched by this horrible disease. If you want to contribute go to http://pages.teamintraining.org/vtnt/dipihalf14/mfrischklein#home . In addition to this great cause, the training is making me physically stronger and mentally tougher. I am hopeful it will help me lose weight and get back in shape. I am hopeful that it will help me heal: from the attack in Israel long ago, from the car accident six years ago and from being a Type 2 Diabetic. While I train on the elliptical I sing to myself. On my play list are these phrases: Ozi v’zimrat Yah, v’hi yeshua. Frequently translated: “The Lord is my strength and my might; He is my deliverance.” But there is a pun there with zimrat–it also means I sing of G-d my deliverer.
Eleh chamda libi, chusa na v’al natitaleh. “These my heart desires. Have mercy on me and do not forsake me.”
And my favorite is “V’taher libenu l’ovdecha b’emet, Purify our hearts to serve You in truth.
With each day my heart gets cleansed. No more plaque hardening the arteries. G-d is somehow helping with the process. This knowledge makes the miles fly by. G-d loves me and wants me to be healthy and will be my strength.
But this past week we read a troubling verse. In Exodus 7:3, it says G-d hardens Pharaoh’s heart. What? I thought the gates of repentance are always open! That’s what we read on Yom Kippur. How can G-d harden Pharaoh’s heart? How can G-d punish all the Egyptians for the sins of one person, one ruler? Where is G-d’s compassion here?
In Exodus 7:14 and 7:22 we read that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, although the text does not say by whom. Then, in Exodus 8:15, 8:32, and 9:34 it is revealed that Pharaoh hardened his own heart by “sinning yet again” and refusing to release the Israelites. Only as the plagues grew worse and Pharaoh became more stubborn does the text begin to say God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. What is going on here? The classical commentaries don’t help me much. Although I was delighted to find this d’var Torah by my thesis advisor, Rabbi Bernard Zlotowitz: http://www.ajrsem.org/teachings/journal/5765journal/zlotowitz5765/. He asks many of the same questions I do. Is this some kind of predestination–smacking more of Dutch Calvinism and my growing up in Grand Rapids? What happened to free will? Doesn’t Pharaoh have a choice? This is some kind of three strikes, five plagues and you’re out rule? Does it help that Pharaoh was warned and he chose to put his people at risk? Can we say that Pharaoh was just plain stubborn? What are the implications for us?
Cassuto teaches that this is just a Hebrew idiom. There is no difference between “Pharaoh hardened his heart” and “G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart” since all actions are ultimately attributed to G-d. I’m not buying it. As no English teacher/professor with a red pen would. “Use the active voice.” Sforno seems to suggest that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was the only way to ensure free will.
In the face of such impressive miracles and signs, had not Pharaoh’s heart been hardened, the latter would have let the Israelites go, but his action would not have then been motivated by sincere repentance and submission to the Divine will, but merely because he could not bear the suffering of the plagues…. But God hardened his heart, fortified his resistance to enable him to endure the plagues and refrain from letting the Israelites go… so that they might thereby acknowledge My greatness and goodness and turn to Me in true repentance. (Sforno on Exodus)
It is Nechama Leibowitz who makes the most sense to me. She shows that there is a pattern in the verses. In the first five plagues Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Only after the sixth plague, boils, does the Torah state “vayechazek et lev Paroh” (“And He hardened Pharaoh’s heart”). So this is what we learn:
At first, Pharaoh sets his own course. However, with every plague, it becomes more difficult for him to change his pattern. His reactions become habitual, until gradually it is impossible for him to change. She bases this teaching on the Talmudic passage: “Said Reish Lakish: What is the meaning of the verse (Proverbs 3:34) ‘If to scorners He will scorn, but to the meek He will show favor’? If a person tries to defile himself, he is given an opening; if he tries to purify himself, he is helped (from Above)” (BT Shabbat 104a).
We learn in Weight Watchers that we need to make our goals routines. Pack a snack. Plan your space. Get up and move. They need to become habits. Good habits. As we celebrate New Year’s Day, with or without the making of resolutions or goals, may we choose good habits, may our hearts be purified not hardened, and may we be helped by the Eternal.
Thoughts and actions eventually form our habits, personalities, and world views. May we each make an effort to direct our thoughts and actions to the way we would wish them to be, permanently.