This week, Moshe comes before Pharaoh to warn him of the coming Tenth and Final Plague: So says G-d: at roughly midnight, I will go though Egypt…and every firstborn will die…” [11:4]

Moshe told Pharaoh that at “roughly” midnight— “Ka”-chatzos Halaylah—G-d will go through Egypt. We see later (12:29) that G-d actually went out “Ba”-chatzi Halaylah, at midnight, precisely—and isn’t it obvious that G-d is more accurate than the Bureau international des poids et mesures (BIPM), the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Rolex? Why does Moshe not say it will be at midnight, and leave it as the exact time?

This little detail provides a profound insight. In the Talmud (Brachos 4a), the Rabbis explain that G-d did indeed say that the plague would come at midnight, meaning exactly midnight, but Moshe, when he spoke to Pharaoh, expressed it as roughly midnight instead. Moshe did so because he was afraid that Pharaoh’s advisors would err in their calculation of midnight, and were they to make a mistake, thought Moshe, they would conclude that Moshe or G-d was a liar.

Wait, seriously? They would say G-d was lying because of their own miscalculation? Every firstborn in Egypt has died, and they would argue about the second hand on the dial?

Actually, yes. This is the same Pharoah we learned about last week, who, in the middle of an argument, reached the point that no new evidence would change his mind. Even with one unnatural disaster after the next proving that Moshe knows what he’s talking about, Pharoah refused to accept reality. It’s a part of human nature that is difficult to fight, even when the truth is staring us in the face. Moshe felt that Pharoah’s timekeepers were liable to overlook the obvious conclusion—that they miscalculated—in favor of the comfortable one—that Moshe was lying, and G-d has no control after all.

Lest you think that this is untrue today, let us look at a current event. There is a particular organization, previously storied among conservatives in the U.S., whose leader proclaimed that the group would stand with a particular person (accurately) accused of antisemitism, and even dismissed critics as a “venemous coalition.” A news agency recently reported that, in the wake of this terrible announcement at the end of October, 60 senior staff members, fellows, and trustees have now deserted the group.

“Fake news!” cried the organization. “We have repeatedly asked… [for] a correction… We have a current workforce of over 300 employees… only 30 have departed since November, and we have brought on 14 new employees… since October.”

The media report said “senior staff members, fellows, and trustees,” not employees alone, had left. Interns given the opportunity to work for a prominent organization for a semester, of whom there are apparently 50, are not going to leave a few months early because the President says something they reject. Nearly half of the trustees have quit, plus people with titles like Senior Research Fellow, Director, and Vice President. So the group both omitted trustees and fellows, and minimized the importance of those who left. And for that matter, losing 10% is the dictionary definition of “decimation!”

So the president’s statement, and refusal to apologize, has decimated the group… but no, it’s “Fake news!” if the report exaggerated the raw number of those who left.

This is exactly what Moshe taught us. When a person decides upon a particular stance, he or she can abandon all objectivity. In the world of psychology, “cognative dissonance” happens when someone tries to reconcile two conflicting beliefs—for example, when reality does not fit a desired narrative. The result is the person can reject and explain away objective reality, rather than changing his or her beliefs.

For this reason, Moshe changed “at midnight” to “at roughly midnight,” so there would be no room to dodge the reality. May we internalize what he taught us, and not require special changes to language to convince us when we’ve erred!

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Yaakov Menken