I will harden Paroh’s heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Mitzrayim.[2]
Rashi explains the connection between the two phrases of this pasuk: “Now that Paroh has behaved wickedly, and has brazenly opposed me, and it is known to me that the idolatrous nations know no goodness of spirit to set themselves to repent wholeheartedly, it is good that his heart should become hardened, and I will increase my signs against him, so that you, the Bnei Yisrael, will recognize my might.”
The Akeidas Yitzchok[3] questions this. Why is it so obvious that Hashem only accepts wholehearted repentance? Isn’t that setting the bar too high? It might be appropriate to expect us, His people, to keep to such a standard. Surely He has lesser expectations of all others! Partial teshuva might very well be a valuable accomplishment for non-Jews. Why does Rashi dismiss it?
I have a difficult time with the Baal Ha-Akeidah’s question. Sefer ha-Ikarim’s explanation[4] of the mechanics of teshuva suggests why incomplete teshuva can be worthless. Why, he asks, should teshuva ever be effective. Does it ever undo the damage of the transgression? Repentance can never replace the life snuffed out by a murderer; a Shabbos that is desecrated isn’t made whole again by the teshuva of the sinner. The Ikarim is comfortable finding a place for teshuva me-ahavah, where the journey to get there turns the penitent’s aveiros into mitzvos. But why should less perfect forms of teshuva have any effect?
We are forced to conclude, says the Ikarim, that there is no logical explanation. Hashem accepts sub-par teshuva because of his abundant chesed. That chesed lovingly accepts lesser forms of teshuva – but it is a privilege extended only to Am Yisrael. From all others, only wholehearted repentance is acceptable. In regard to Paroh, half-baked teshuva was insufficient – especially considering the enormous violence to which he subjected fellow human beings.
Returning to our pasuk, let’s try to better understand the reason for Hashem hardening Paroh’s heart. Chazal[5] curse the evildoers, who turn midas ha-rachamim into midas ha-din. We can explain this in the following way. When a person deserves some sort of punishment, Hashem does not immediately take his life.[6] He first strikes his property, to inspire him to repent. If he does not, he will be forced to endure periods of discomfort and anguish. Only if this, too, fails to move him, will G-d strike at his body. If he mends his ways after the first warnings, the losses he incurs will have been a form of rachamim, saving him from worse. If he does not, the warnings turn into din, demanding worse punishments ahead.
So it was with Paroh. Hashem did not immediately afflict him with bodily suffering – or death. The opening plagues spared him that. How did Paroh process this? Rather than respond to the warnings, he reasoned that G-d was impotent. He could not remove Paroh from power. Paroh’s very survival meant that he could outlast this G-d! Thus, Hashem initially sparing him from the worst became an instrument for causing more and more plagues!
This was the hardening of Paroh’s heart, i.e. not Hashem messing with his mind, but how the pattern of the plagues itself affected his behavior. Or, as our pasuk puts it, Hashem multiplying His “signs and wonders in the land of Mitzrayim” – gradually increasing their severity, but sparing human life again and again – was the hardening of Paroh’s heart! A real god, he reasoned, would have finished him off by now. The continued unfolding of the plagues over a long period of time increased his resistance.
In the end, he was doomed to suffer all of them.
- Adapted from Divrei Shaul, by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Shoel U-Meishiv ↑
- Shemos 7:3 ↑
- Akeidas Yitzchok, Shaar 36 ↑
- Sefer Ha-Ikarim 4:25 ↑
- Bereishis Rabbah 33:3 ↑
- Vayikra Rabbah 17:4 ↑