by Rabbi David Woznica
In a well-known verse that begins this week’s Torah portion, Bo, God tells Moses, “Go to Pharoah: For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers…” (Exodus 10:1)
Why does God harden the heart of Pharaoh and his courtiers? The Torah gives two reasons: so that God can place “signs among them” and so that future generations will recount what God did.
What God did was take the Israelites out of Egypt, an act Jews recount every week. Two events in Jewish history are so central that they are included in the full version of the Friday night Kiddush blessing: the creation of the world and the Exodus from Egypt. Both events reflect God’s power. Each of them also reveals an additional important aspect of God — that God is above nature (as creator of the world) and that God cares about the world (as demonstrated by the Israelites’ liberation from slavery).
God is all-powerful, supernatural and cares.
These facets of God are particularly important when it comes to prayer. While prayer has many forms, we frequently appeal to God to use power to intervene. And we often ask God to intervene to stop nature’s course — to halt a life-threatening disease, for example, or avert a natural disaster. Knowing that God cares about the world is vital to meaningful prayer. After all, if we didn’t believe God cares and has a sense of justice, prayer would seem hollow.
God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to create a more just world. Over 3000 years later we continue to feel the impact.
Rabbi David Woznica
This was also published in the current edition of the Jewish Journal