Parashat: Vaera

Parashat: Vaera
Torah Reading: Exodus 6:2–9:35

“But Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he would not heed them, as the Lord had spoken.”

— Exodus 8:15

Time and again, in the course of this and next week’s Torah portions, we see the imagery of Pharaoh’s heart hardening or stiffening — all of this despite the escalating suffering of the entire Egyptian people. Plague upon plague, loss after loss — none of this seems to matter to a Pharaoh who is solely focused on asserting his own power and primacy. He is blinded to the suffering all around him, deafened to the cries of anguish and injustice. This is not purely a story of yesteryear. In the days of the Civil Rights Movement, as Martin Luther King Jr. played the role of a modern-day-Moses, those who clung tightly to the levers of power were unable to see the ways in which their resistance to justice harmed the whole society and would be their downfall. Throughout history and even in our own day, dictators prioritize their personal grip on exclusive power over the suffering of the people they pretend to care for and represent. However, we remind ourselves as MLK was known to teach: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

— Rabbi Craig Axler