Cruelty and Compassion -- A Tale of Two Camps: Bo

Cruelty and Compassion:  A Tale of Two Camps

D’var Torah for Parashat Bo

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

This week’s Torah portion, Bo (Ex. 10:1—13:16), relates the final three plagues with which Pharaoh and the Egyptians are inflicted.  At the conclusion of this portion, the People of Israel are given the rules for the Passover—both for the very first celebration, and then for all Passovers to follow, for eternity. For Egypt, the downfall is complete; For Israel, the story of its glory is about to unfold.  Where one ends, the other begins.

The Exodus from Egypt serves as an eternal reminder for Israel of God’s might and role in our history:  God redeemed us in the past; God redeems us in the present, and God will go on redeeming us for as long as we adhere to our Covenant with God.  It’s a lesson we must pass down to our children and their children, to all generations. Its importance is reinforced at the conclusion of the portion with words familiar to us from V’ahavta:  “It shall be a sign upon your hand and as frontlets between your eyes.”

But what is the real lesson here?  Is it just of God’s greatness?  Do we really need an annual reminder that there are forces out there greater than us?

There is, in fact, a huge lesson here about God and what God wants of us.  Indeed, it is so important that it is to be binding not only on us, God’s chosen people as it were, but truly on all humanity. “There shall be one law (“Torah”) for the native as well as for the stranger” (Ex. 12:49).  One God, one law, one earth, one humanity.

What is this law, this lesson, this teaching that stands true for all humanity?

We can find it in the story of the plagues, and particularly in Pharaoh’s reactions to them.

For each of the first five plagues, we are told that after Moses and God offer relief, Pharaoh stiffens his heart (a metaphor for stubbornness).  This reaction is a conscious act on the part of Pharaoh.  It is he who initiates it, he who flexes his muscles as a show of power and strength.

By the sixth plague, however, something changes.  It is no longer Pharaoh who is in charge.  It is God who hardens Pharaoh’s heart.

This act of God is mystifying.  Of course God can do anything God chooses to; but is this an example of the ethics God would have us follow?  Does God have the ethical and moral right to take away freedom of choice—the most sublime gift with which God endows every human being?  Isn’t the lesson of Yom Kippur that a person may change his ways, repent—offer t’shuva—and return to God, even up to the last moment and breath?

This seeming paradox did not escape the rabbis and commentators of the Torah throughout the centuries.  Yet, despite the many explanations, the question still stands, and we still struggle with it today.

My understanding of what happens here is that this stubbornness is part of a process.  It begins as freely chosen behavior.  A bit like alcohol or tobacco, a person tries it out as a matter of choice.  At some point, however, the choice disappears and is replaced by a physical or psychological need.  This need then becomes an overpowering craving, and finally it turns into a force that can no longer be reversed without outside intervention.

Is there a point where an addict no longer has the choice to return and recover?

All too often the answer is, tragically, yes.  At some point, another law takes over.  

So what was this overwhelming addiction that caused Pharaoh’s downfall?

It was cruelty.

In this world, there are basically two camps, two philosophies, two ways of interacting with the world.  One is cruelty; the other is compassion.

Time and time again, Pharaoh showed his zeal for cruelty.  A political and social system founded on slavery and domination is, from its inception, on dangerous footing.  Entrapment, a secret police, gulags and concentration camps, murder and genocide are the hallmarks of any such system.  Insatiable hunger for ever-more power, ever-greater control, combines with fear and paranoia, and ultimately leads to insanity.  Cruelty pervades and even characterizes such a system and its leaders.  But it’s a dead-end street, bound for total collapse within a few years or, at most, decades.

Compassion, on the other hand, is the other camp. Compassion is the bond that unites human to human, that keeps families and nations united.  It strengthens society and prepares us better for the challenges we face every day. 

It isn’t only justice we want from our God.  We want compassion.  We want God to understand what pains us.  Relief from the pain is good, yes; but sometimes, when all we can do is just be there for someone in pain, that is already enough.  Compassion is the opposite of a stiff heart.  It’s listening and understanding; it’s lending a hand; it’s sharing space and time; it’s offering comfort.  Compassion is innate within all human beings, a product of being loved, held and comforted.  Compassion is the greatest gift we can offer to another living creature.

The ancient gods were crafty, unjust, and ultimately cruel.  The God that emerges in Exodus is the total opposite.  He is a God of love, a God of compassion.  It is this God that overpowers and defeats cruel Pharaoh.

Cruelty, however, still abounds all over the world.  We human beings are, after all, the only species that engages in cruelty as a sport.  We don’t just kill for food; we don’t even merely play with our prey, as some animals do.  In some perverse extension of the natural order of survival, we humans engage in cruelty as systemic behavior.  We torture and abuse.  We inflict physical, psychological and emotional pain, sometimes even on the people we love the most.  Often enough we even claim to be motivated by some higher power, some perverse god, as we engage in this cruelty. 

The Ten Plagues were meant as a course of learning opportunities.  At each moment, with each plague, Pharaoh was given a chance to repent.  But only up to a certain point.  And then the law of God took over. 

Cruelty is an overwhelming addiction. Compassion is the only antidote.

Parashat Bo reminds us of this law and warns us to teach it to our children so that they, too, may know and choose wisely between the two camps.  There is no middle ground.  It is the law of God for all of us.  It’s the law of death and of life.

May we always choose life for us and our children, that we may live.

Kein y’hi ratzon—may this be God’s will.

© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman