I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchok, and Yaakov with [the name] Almighty SHA-DAI, but [with] My name Yud -Hey -Vuv-Hey I did not become known to them. (Shemos 6:3)

But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will increase My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not hearken to you, and I will lay My hand upon the Egyptians, and I will take My legions, My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt with great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am HASHEM when I stretch forth My hand over Egypt, and I will take the children of Israel out of their midst.” (Shemos 7:5)

There is a fundamental question of fairness here. Why is HASHEM punishing Pharaoh for refusing to let the Children of Israel go, when HASHEM Himself is the One hardening his heart?! Pharaoh should at least have the same change as each and every one of us to have the free will to decide if he will deny and defy HASHEM or choose to be obedient. Why is this being taken from him? Why should he be punished if it is not his own choice?

The name of HASHEM “SHA-DAI” literally means enough, sufficient. The Talmud in Tractate Chagiga tells us that at some point during creation, HASHEM said to His world “DAI” – “Enough!” At what point was that?! The Mishne in Pirke Avos (5:1) lets us know that HASHEM created the world with 10 statements even though it could have created with one in order to reward Tzadikim who contribute to a world that was created with 10 ten utterances and to exact punishment from the wick who sabotage a world that was created with ten utterances. What are these 10 original statements? They are really veils that increase in their thickness and darkness until HASHEM is covered to a precise degree. At that point HASHEM declared enough. HASHEM is hidden just enough not to be obvious to evil doers who would like to justify their ways. Yet the world is tinged with enough wonder and dense with “infinite intelligence’ that a curious mind, like Avraham and his children, can arrive at a certainty of The Almighty’s existence.

The “Ten Plagues” are a reversal of that cover up and slow-motion revelation of HASHEM! This helps make sense out of the explanation of the goal of the Makos as told to Moshe. Everyone, even the Egyptians, in the end, will be convinced of the reality of HASHEM. WOW! It will, however, require an ever brightening of the world from HASHEM’s hiddenness to HASHEM’s revelation. The way the sun rises is gradual. Light in the sky, bathing the mountain tops, through the trees till it is glimmering through trees, and eventually midmorning gives way to high noon when the light of the sun is visible to all. All at once would be destructive to the subjects, as the phrase goes, “blinded by the light”.

Reb Dessler explains, therefore, that HASHEM’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was not intended to rob him of his free will and railroad him into a doomsday scenario against his will but just the opposite. Certain types of dark glasses begin to clear up when coming inside until they assume an inside mode. When that person goes back outside, his glasses get darker to shield his eyes from being overwhelmed by excess light. So too, the pupil of the eye expands in dark environs and narrows again in brighter places.

HASHEM was darkening and hardening the heart of Pharaoh with perfect precision, similarly to the way the world was originally organized and designed, in order to preserve free will, and so that Pharaoh should not be coerced by the growing evidence of The Creator. This is the same name “SHA-DAI” that the Avos came to recognize HASHEM in spite of HASHEM’s hiding. The Hebrew word for world is “OLAM” which means hidden. We are never hidden from HASHEM but in this world, HASHEM is hiding in plain sight.