{"id":40897,"date":"2018-09-25T18:04:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T15:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=40897"},"modified":"2022-04-24T18:06:38","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T15:06:38","slug":"pharaoh-himself-became-enslaved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/pharaoh-himself-became-enslaved\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharaoh Himself Became Enslaved"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":50634,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[619,354,438],"acf":{"old_id":"40897","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33923,"related_cahpter":"57","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"We lose our freedom gradually, often without noticing it","content":"<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The question is ancient. If God hardened Pharaoh\u2019s heart, then it was God who made Pharaoh refuse to let the Israelites go, not Pharaoh himself. How can this be just? How could it be right to punish Pharaoh and his people for a decision \u2013 a series of decisions \u2013 that were not made freely by Pharaoh himself? Punishment presupposes guilt. Guilt presupposes responsibility. Responsibility presupposes freedom. We do not blame weights for falling or the sun for shining. Natural forces are not choices made by reflecting on alternatives. Homo sapiens alone is free. Take away that freedom and you take away our humanity. How then can it say, as it does in Ex. 7: 3, that God hardened Pharaoh\u2019s heart?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It seems to me, that the Torah is telling a deeper story and one that never loses its relevance. Philosophers and scientists have tended to think in terms of abstractions and universals. Some have concluded that we have freewill, others that we don\u2019t. There is no conceptual space in between.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In life, however, that is not the way freedom works at all. Consider addiction. The first few times you smoke a cigarette or drink alcohol or take drugs, you do so freely. You know the risks but you ignore them. As time goes on, your dependency increases until the craving is so intense that you are almost powerless to resist it. At that point you may have to go into rehabilitation. You no longer, on your own, have the ability to stop. As the Talmud says, \u201cA prisoner cannot release himself from prison.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Addiction is a physical phenomenon. But there are moral equivalents. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We lose our freedom gradually, often without noticing it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That is what the Torah means when it says that God hardened Pharaoh\u2019s heart. Enslaving others, Pharaoh himself became enslaved. He became a prisoner of the values he himself had espoused. Freedom in the deepest sense, the freedom to do the right and the good, is not a given. We acquire it, or lose it, gradually. In the end tyrants bring about their own destruction, whereas those with willpower, courage and the willingness to go against the consensus, acquire a monumental freedom. That is what Judaism is: an invitation to freedom by resisting the idols and siren calls of the age.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Freewill (Covenant &amp; Conversation, Vaera 5775)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":68448,"id":68448,"title":"is58-break free","filename":"is58-break-free.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/is58-break-free.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/break-every-yoke\/is58-break-free\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is58-break-free","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":68447,"date":"2020-01-12 21:21:56","modified":"2023-09-24 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