Shabbat Replay: Could You Forgive Pharaoh?

After Pharaoh loses his firstborn son, he finally lets the Israelites leave. But not before asking Moses and Aaron: "Bless me, too." It's a strange little moment — just three words! — so, of course, the rabbis have written pages about it. Their takeaway? Even pharaohs can change.

This episode is an extended excerpt  from a Torah study led by Rabbi Steven following the Saturday morning service on January 8th. For full Friday services, click here. For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar.

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

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(00:16)
Welcome to Shabbat Replay, a weekly highlight from services at Mishkan Chicago. Last Saturday, after the morning service, Rabbi Steven led a virtual session of Nosh & Drash, where we discussed the parshah, the weekly torah portion. This week’s parshah is from Exodus — the final plague. Pharaoh surrenders and agrees to release the Israelites from bondage. But as he sends them away, he says three strange words to Moses and Aaron: “Bless me too.” Weird, right? Not only is Pharaoh Moses’s enemy, he’s supposed to be a god himself! So why ask his enemies to ask their god to bless him? We considered this enigma in dialogue with some commentaries.

(01:00) Rabbi Lizzi
Raise your hand if you actually read anything or if you just talked to each other. (Laughs) You read things? We didn’t. You did good!

(01:08) Rabbi Steven
Well I’m glad some people read some things. There's Rabbi Lizzi, making things go off the rails.

(01:15) Joshua
Our group read every word out loud. I had Mark and Becca.

(01:23) Rabbi Steven
(Laughs) Thank you for being a good student. (Laughs) Rabbi Lizzi, you and I need to have a word later. You know, I have to say, though, it's amazing. I feel like I know that we're now Zoom pros, because I remember like a year ago, if you clicked closed breakout rooms, you'd have random folks from different rooms coming back at different times. You'd panic and like, hit the button at the wrong time. [But today] everybody was able to finish their conversations. We are Zoom pros, so silver lining for this moment. So what do people think? What did people discover? What was fascinating? What was interesting to you about this? This seemingly throwaway line at the end of Pharaoh’s diatribe/speech, wherever you might call it, these three words that the rabbis wrestled with. What does it mean? Any thoughts came up for people?

(02:21) Joshua
So I'll take a stab. We talked without coming to any conclusion, because in the five different interpretations, a couple of them — like Rashi — Pharaoh was worried about dying, because he was the firstborn, Pharaoh as the king was the firstborn of the prior Pharaoh, so it was just an extension of his selfishness. He was worried about himself: “Bless me, because I'm at risk.” But then the other interpretations were much more human. He was thinking about the death of his people or the security of his people. Do we see the humanity in this evil person who just lost a son and whose kingdom was suffering? Mark or Becca, jump in. I don't know that we resolved it. I'll take that back: I'm sure we didn’t! (Laughs)

(03:15) Mark
Yeah, the other thought I have is [Pharaoh] is this man who is grieving in this moment and who has sustained such personal and widespread loss and is kind of in this bargaining phase of grief for how he is trying to make sense of what has just happened.

(03:34) Rabbi Steven
That's interesting, the idea of it being a bargaining phase of grief, because then, you know, you have to kind of sit with the sincerity of this moment. Right? Because bargaining is one of the phases of grief that precedes acceptance. And acceptance seems like it would be a prerequisite for forgiveness.

(03:56) Paul
How do you reconcile the fact that once the Jews leave he sends the army after them?

(04:03) Rabbi Steven
Maybe that's the anger part of the grief cycle!

(04:09) Paul
Yeah, it was easy to say, when he was trying to negotiate, “bless me,” but the minute they left, he said, I changed my mind I'm gonna kill them.

(04:23) Rabbi Steven
You know, you bring up a good point. Like it's, it's, you know, the process of asking for forgiveness and forgiveness is not is often not linear. It's not linear. Hannah, I see your hand.

(04:34) Hannah
Yeah, I have a thought that sort of adds to that. We talked a little bit about the geopolitical realities of the Pharaoh’s day. Taking into account that like he was a monarch, he was a total ruler, you don't get that role without having a good amount of arrogance. You know, the Pharaohs of that day, they claimed legitimacy because they said they were the descendants of God or one of their gods. So it makes sense to me that a request for forgiveness from an incredibly arrogant person cannot be phrased as a request because they can't allow themselves to be soft and to be humble and to say, “Hey, I recognize I wronged you, I need forgiveness, please, please forgive me,” So he phrases it as a command, “bless me, too,” it's a command… Now how is he going to behave later, when he sends the army after them? Well, after a few days, or hours of cooling off, he realizes he has a real PR disaster on his hands, you know? Here he is, this total ruler, Son of God, who had to let all of his enslaved people go, and he has had this massive catastrophe. He kind of has to save face in a way, otherwise, he really faces being deposed himself. So I can see this as kind of coherent behavior from that person. Josh?

(06:20) Joshua
Question I asked in the group, but it was at the very end: We don't know what Moses and Aaron respond to this request, whether it's a request or an order or command. Do they forgive him? Do they give him a blessing? Do they say, in their heads, “bite me”? (Laughs) And what does God think of this request?

(06:45) Rabbi Steven
Yeah, that's a really good question. Because the, you know, one of the reasons that this becomes such a productive place of debate is that we aren't given an answer to what happens, right? You know, if we look at, it's always good to look at the context of verses…It says, :Bless me also,” and then just straight goes to: “And the Egyptians urge the Israelites on, impatient to have them leave the country.” They're like, “please leave, stop with the plagues.” And so, people take the bread before it’s leavened, matzah, in our kneading bowls, wrapped in clothes on our shoulders, and they go forth into the wilderness. So we're actually not given a response other than the actions that the Israelites take — and the Egyptians take in turn — to facilitate the Exodus, the leaving of Egypt.

(07:44) Rabbi Lizzi
Leave that up for a second. That's so good. I love the section you just showed us because it actually shows how the Egyptians were more psychologically evolved than Pharaoh. Because Pharaoh and the Egyptians understand that the tables have turned, the tides have turned. No good will continue to come from trying to keep these people enslaved. Let them go, push them out, go, go, go, go, go! …Verse 35, “the people took their dough before it was leavened,” right? Like, here's the beginnings of the Passover story: “...kneading bowls, wrapped in their clothes on their shoulders. The Israelites did what Moses said and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver and gold and clothing, and the Lord disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people and they let them have their requests. Thus they stripped the Egyptians.” …But the idea is that the Egyptians were giving them gold and silver and clothes and saying: “Take this stuff, go, take take this stuff so that you won't hate us later.” I mean, this is our friend, David Myers, who's going to come and talk to the Ethical Wills class in a couple of weeks. He is going to talk about exactly this verse. This is reparations. This is the Egyptian saying: “We owe you. Before you can go and look back and hate us forever, we need to give you stuff.” Pharaoh doesn't do that. Pharaoh tries to jump to the step where he's like: “Don't hate me forever, go on your way, but bless me.” And I'm like, Oh, you suck Pharaoh. Guy , like, you want the goodwill of these people and their God that you now understand is powerful, but you have not done the work. You're just sort of asking for it like you deserve it. And then to Paul's point a moment ago, you have not earned it. The second you're made to be uncomfortable again and you realize the results of your choice, then all of a sudden you want to go ahead and unmake that choice. You have not learned anything Pharaoh, you do not deserve to be blessed in this moment. I see that and then I bracket it for a moment by also saying that every person deserves a blessing of some sort, in every moment. So there must be a blessing for Pharaoh. Like, what's the blessing that Pharaoh deserves in this moment? What is the blame? Because it's probably not like, “may you continue to be the warm, generous self that you have demonstrated yourself to be thus far.” But maybe there is a blessing that he needs. Like: “May you accept this moment that has come and allow your heart to be transformed and open.” I think that is actually worth playing with. Because probably all of us know somebody who we find detestable. And rather than holding a festering rage, it would actually behoove us to think: “What is the blessing that I want for this person?” That seems like a worthy, spiritual endeavor for the reader. Anyway, Josh, your hand is still up.

(10:57) Rabbi Steven
Rabbi Lizzi, that sounds like a Yiddish curse. Like, “may you have the blessing you deserve.”

(11:02) Rabbi Lizzi
Yeah, yeah! 

(11:05) Paul
What percentage of Jews actually left? My understanding is a large number of Jews stayed and what happened to the Jews that stayed.

(11:15) Rabbi Steven
That's a really good question. I mean, you know, the rabbis try to make a guess. But we don't actually know. We know that not only Israelites left, right?

(11:22) Rabbi Lizzi
There's a section where it says that the Israelites left “chamushim,” which means “weighted,” which is a word referencing like all the stuff they're taking with them, you know, the gold, the silver, the clothes, the reparations payments. Chamushim. But also that word chamushim is related to the word “hamesh,” which means five. And so Paul, one sort of a wordplay answer to your question that the rabbis come up with is that one fifth of the Israelites left. One fifth. The rest of them stayed, the rest of them didn't want to venture into the great unknown, but one fifth chamushim, left. And that's where they sort of get that the ninth plague of darkness was the plague where if the Israelites who decided not to leave actually went the way of the Egyptians, who were in that plague of darkness, in the plague of the firstborn and all of that. But that the 1/5 who decided to leave left with, you know, this group here. Why do you ask that question, though, Paul? Why is that? What Why do you? Why are you asking the question about how many last?

(12:33) Paul
That very reason, I asked what happened to the ones that stayed politically? You know, what happened? I mean, it's like, the story is all about leaving, right, but there's not a lot of history, about staying and what happened to Egypt? I mean, you don't hear a lot of terrible stories about Egyptians falling apart after this. So is there any history? Um, you know, what happened to everybody else?

(13:07) Rabbi Lizzi
That's interesting. I guess that's not the story the Torah is telling. Like, maybe somebody else shares that story somewhere else. But at that point the camera follows the one fifth and zooms in.

(13:19) Rabbi Steven
It's an interesting kind of cycle that happens often through our history, too. Right? The kind of corollary to that. There's many moments, I think, throughout our history, where a minority continues on, like the destruction of the Second Temple, or this thought that the majority of Jews at the time, right kind of fade into the Roman Empire and only a minority retain this identity. Same with the destruction of the Northern Kingdom. We lose the Ten Tribes and we retain two tribes. I don’t want to call it attrition, but a maybe a distillation, if you will, over time of the ones who are willing to do the work, to take the risk, to make that journey. Which, to extend the metaphor, is the work of reparations and forgiveness and that difficult relationship, right? It's a minority of people who can sometimes do that work. Are you part of the people who is willing to do that work? Or what work can be done is another question. Any other stuff come up for people?

(14:26) Rabbi Lizzi
I really liked the Midrash about [how] Pharaoh understands that basically he was morally bankrupt. I mean, it says here that he was lacking in prayer. But God does not forgive someone until they have persuaded their neighbor to forgive them as well. So this, you know, sort of reminded me of basic Jewish theory on forgiveness, which is: don't expect, like absolution to come from above from God, if you have not done the work with whoever it was that you insulted, hurt, offended, oppressed, you know, whatever it is, and that Pharaoh actually does understand that. It seems like he's still trying to bend the system to his lazy wil but that he does understand that.

(15:16) Rabbi Steven
It’s why confession is not a Jewish institution. You know, as rabbis, obviously, we're always here to talk you through anything that's on your mind. But more often than not, if you come to us and say, “I wronged somebody,” we're here to be an empathic ear, and then we'll probably say to you, “You know, have you considered talking to that person?” Because that's actually where the healing happens — reaching out. The rabbis are really interested in this, right, they create a structure around this idea, that we're supposed to in earnest change behavior and try to ask for forgiveness at least three times. And the idea being that we're supposed to be persistent in our pursuit of forgiveness and repair. The rabbis bring in all sorts of requirements for witness and for and for somewhat of an obligation even on the wronged person. [The rabbis say] “You really need to believe in the capacity of people to change.” Which is really, I think, in the end, what the story is about — do we actually believe in the capacity of people to change? Or do we believe that situations and people are static? And our Exodus story, so much of it is about a system that had been in place for four centuries impossibly being turned over…Within something that seems so stuck and so stagnant, we were able to find the miracle of change and the hope that things could be different. Which is kind of a persistent reminder on a very macro societal level in the story. But I think, within this line, we're challenged to think about [whether] we actually also believe in the possibility of change on the micro level, on the personal level, that people can actually become different people? Any thoughts on that?

(17:12) Joshua
When you were saying that I was reminded that it wasn't that long ago we were studying when Joseph's brothers first came to him in Egypt. And there is the reconciliation. Judah is different: “Take me, but not Benjamin.” There's change in that story — Pharaoh really doesn't change. So I think we really do know the answer. Yes, people can change, but they don't always…And even when the Egyptians are drowning in the Red Sea, which is the result of Pharaoh not really changing, God still rebukes the angels, we are not going to rejoice in that reality. We accept that they have to drown but we won't celebrate it.

(18:03) Rabbi Steven
You know, I think you're bringing up a really beautiful point here. The amazing thing about the Joseph story is that so much time has passed between the original wound, if you will, and the healing of that wound is really that by the point where Joseph encounters his brothers again, it's a scab, right? It's not like a healed wound so much. And Joseph gives them the opportunity to say, you know, have you changed? I'm going to actually put you in a situation that tests you. Are you the same people you were so many years ago? And they give the answer, which is: “No, we've changed.” But the first stage of that, actually, is Joseph having to have the capacity to believe that they could change because he could have seen them come up to his door and just been like: “Nope, I know you. I know exactly how you operate. I remember exactly what you did to me all those years ago, and I'm just gonna I'm gonna send you on your way. And I have the power to sit here in my self-assuredness that I know exactly the kind of person you are. And I refuse to believe that you can change.” But we're actually rebuked alongside the angels at that scene at the Sea of Reeds, right? We don't celebrate a bad person not changing. Actually, that's not a moment where we can sit back and say, “See God, I told you so!” God’s like, “No, you can't do that angels. You can't just sit back like, ‘See God, I told you so! Evil is as evil does.’” God is like, “No, no, this is a sad moment. We're heartbroken that the change that maybe we saw a spark of in Pharaoh hasn't actually taken hold. And we have to retain, as hard as it is, the capacity to believe that maybe eventually, this person could change. We are not allowed the self-satisfaction of crossing our arms and saying: “Nope, that's who you are. And that's you're always going to be.” That’s the Joseph story. He puts some distance between some of the brothers, I'm not saying that you have to always stay close to the people who hurt you, right? Joseph does keep them at arm's length, even while he is testing them. But he does, even while holding them at arm's length, he says, “You know, I do believe that you might have the ability to change and I'm going to be open to that even as I protect myself from being hurt again.”

(20:28) Rabbi Steven, continued
So I'm going to share a really beautiful Midrash with you. This is actually gonna feel like it's coming out of left field, because it's from an entirely different book of the Tanakh. So some of you might know the story of Jonah, the reluctant Prophet, right? Jonah is told by God to go to the great city of Nineveh — which, mind you, at that time, was one of the chief enemies of the Israelites. And this is the capital of the kingdom of Neo-Assyria, which would eventually actually be the same empire that would conquer the Northern Kingdom and scatter the Ten Tribes. Not our best friends! And Jonah's told “Go to this city that is full of people who you probably don't like so much, who are very different from you, and help them repent.” And so Jonah goes much to his chagrin, because he doesn't really like these people so much. He starts preaching in the city, and immediately the king of Nineveh repents and says, “I’ll put on sackcloth and ashes. I'll have everybody gathered together and fast and repent of the harmful behavior that we have been doing. And so the rabbis love this, it's called “conservation of personality,” is the technical term. The rabbis don't like having too many characters in the Tanakh. If there's mystery characters, they like to see if we can match them up and make them the same person. And so the rabbis write this really beautiful Midrash. It's a really beautiful explanation. They're like, “You know who owned Nineveh at the time of Jonah? Pharaoh did. Or at least one of Pharaoh's descendants, but probably the same Pharaoh did! And actually, this is Pharaoh many years later saying, “I know how this goes. And I've learned my lesson. And I've put the work in. And I'm not gonna be hard-hearted. I'm gonna listen, I repent.” Whether we believe that the king of Nineveh and Pharaoh are the same person, I think we can debate about that another time. But what the rabbis are doing is they're saying, “No, we're actually going to challenge you, our people, in believing that even the most wicked person actually has the capacity to change.” And while we can keep people at arm's length, if they're harmful to us, right, while we should protect ourselves, we also have to retain an openness, a belief — even in the most impossible situations — in the possibility of redemption. Not only on a social level, but also on that personal level as well. We never are allowed the satisfaction of crossing our arms and saying, “You're always going to be the same person, you're always going to be this way.” Because we believe that about other people, and what does that say about us? Right? That we actually believe that everybody has that capacity. We have so many examples throughout our tradition. The rabbis love to do this, they take all the most wicked people from Nebuchadnezzar, the king, to Sennacherib, another king who tried to conquer us, and they say: “Actually, you know who their descendants were? Their descendants were some of the greatest rabbis in our tradition. And maybe they didn't change in their lives, but they started to set into motion a process that generations later allowed for change. Not only a small change, but a great change in who these people were. And so my blessing for you is that — as hard as it might be sometimes and as much as we may need to protect ourselves and take care of ourselves — is that we can continue to retain the ability to believe that people can change. Because in the end, that's also a belief about ourselves, that we can also change and become better people, more whole people, kinder, gentler people, in a world that often challenges us, often roughens us up a little bit, that we can retain that ability as well. You all have the blessings you deserve and all of you deserve only boundless blessings.