Parasha: Shemot · Aliyah: Seventh (Malchut)

ואחר באו משה ואהרון ויאמרו אל פרעה, afterwards Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and said, etc. The word "afterwards" means after the people had believed that G'd had despatched Moses to them as their redeemer. The verse refers to fulfilment of what G'd had told Moses in 3,18. We now appreciate the dividing tone sign etnachta under the word לקולך in 3,18; we would have expected the words "and you will proceed to Pharaoh" to be part of the same sequence. Inasmuch as some considerable time passed between what was mentioned in the first half of that verse and the completion of what it was meant to lead to, the Torah repeats here that now the second part of verse 18 in chapter 3 was being played out.

אשר אשמע בקולו, "that I should listen to His voice." Pharaoh challenged Moses regarding his G'd's great power. Surely the Jewish G'd was not so powerful that He could demand such obedience in a matter of such overriding importance! He added gratuitously: "to dismiss the Jewish people," meaning that however great His power it would surely not suffice to liberate the Jewish people. Pharaoh did not mean to concede that he did know of the Jewish G'd after all, but that the latter was not great enough to make such a demand; rather he said: 1) "I do not know of Him;" 2) even if I would be told that He does indeed exist this would not mean that He could demand the freeing of the Jewish people." The word גם refers to a hypothetical situation.

ויאמרו אלוקי העברים ..פן יפגענו "The G'd of Israel…. lest He punish us." The last words were spoken by the Israelites. Even though our sages in Shemot Rabbah 5,14 told us that the elders melted away on the way to the first confrontation with Pharaoh, the Israelites expressed fear of being punished by G'd. The elders were punished for not accompanying Moses and Aaron. Perhaps the entire nation went to see Pharaoh and told him it would be in Pharaoh's own interest to excuse the Jewish people from work for three days and to take the chance that they would return; otherwise, if they would be punished by their G'd, Pharaoh would lose their labour altogether if they were to die of a pestilence. Perhaps they even implied that such a pestilence would also pose a problem for Pharaoh himself who might become infected. They used the well known method of describing such a plague as afflicting them rather than Pharaoh, as they did not want to threaten Pharaoh outright.

ויאמר..למה משה ואהרון תפריעו את העם, He said: "Why Moses and Aaron to you deter the people, etc.?" After Pharaoh had first faced both the elders and Moses and Aaron and they had told him about the demands of the Hebrew G'd, Pharaoh now turned to Moses and Aaron telling them that he had no complaint against the elders who were obviously motivated by their fear of pestilence. His complaint was directed against Moses and Aaron on two counts. 1) Seeing that Moses and Aaron had brought a message from their G'd, it appeared that the decision was up to him. They had therefore not been entitled to threaten the people with punishment by their G'd for something that was not up to them but up to him! 2) If Moses and Aaron had told the people that they could simply leave Egypt without being granted permission, why had they come to ask his permission at all? Perhaps this is what our sages had in mind in our Midrash when they said: "why does the Torah write אתם and why the word למה? This may mean that Pharaoh asked why they came at all, and why they told the people in the name of G'd that they could leave. Pharaoh then turned towards the Israelites and told them: לכו לסבלותיכם, "go and do your work!"

ויאמר פרעה הן רבים עתה עם הארץ, Pharaoh said: "now the people in the land are very numerous, etc." Pharaoh meant that in view of the large numbers of people involved it was impossible to convince all of them that they did not face a danger if they did not march to the desert to offer sacrifices to their G'd. This was why he held Moses and Aaron responsible for the work stoppage if it would occur. He directed this accusation exclusively at Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh meant that even a brief work stoppage was a major economic disaster considering the number of people involved.

ויצו פרעה ביום ההוא, On that day Pharaoh issued orders, etc. This directive was to be effective only on that particular day. He hoped that by forcing the people to concentrate on their immediate and overwhelming problem they would forget about their fear of what might happen if they failed to offer sacrifices to their G'd in the desert. Any intelligent person understands that an immediate and pressing problem is apt to push other problems that are not so immediate into the background. Pharaoh hoped that a single day of the new decree would suffice to accomplish this objective.

On the other hand, the Torah could have indicated with the words ביום ההוא that there was only a single day left on which the Israelites performed slave labour, seeing that on the morrow Moses and Aaron would turn the life-giving river Nile into blood. According to our tradition no more slave labour was performed from the day the plague of blood occurred. Not only that, but the Egyptians would pay the Israelites good money to obtain some drinking water from them seeing that water did not turn into blood once the Israelites held it in their hands (compare Shemot Rabbah 9,10). The expression כתמול שלשום, poses no problem as the Israelites did not complete their quota on the day prior to Moses' interview because it was a public holiday.

כי נרפים הם, "for they are lazy!" Who had ever suggested that the idea to sacrifice to their G'd originated in the relatively light burden of work that Pharaoh had imposed on the Israelites up until then? Perhaps what Pharaoh meant was that the Israelites felt that now that Moses had arrived their lot would become easier and that therefore they wanted to thank their G'd for that by offering up thanksgiving sacrifices so that He would cancel out the servitude altogether. Pharaoh countered this euphoria by making the workload heavier so that they would not even entertain any idea of their servitude being near an end, i.e. those lies that Moses had fed them.

Pharaoh also reacted to the Israelites having said: נלכה נזבחה, "let us go slaughter, etc." He understood this as an implied promise that the Israelites planned to make up the time lost by working extra hard after their return. He reasoned that if they could really do this it was proof they had not been working hard enough thus far. This is why he withdrew the supply of straw which had been provided up until then and referred to them as lazy. Eventually, their holiday would backfire and the would cry out, i.e. צועקים that they had to work too hard. Pharaoh wanted to head off all these complications by ordering now that the straw would be withdrawn so that the people would stop dreaming about all kinds of improvements in their lives.

The expression ואל ישעו reflects weakness. Pharaoh interpreted the people's weakness as stemming from the "illusions" (in his view) which Moses had come to feed them. As a result they had expressed fear of punishment by their G'd if they did not offer the sacrifices their G'd demanded. When people live in fear they are weak and it undermines their ability to perform good work. Pharaoh wanted to stop this process at the source, hence his decree to suspend the deliveries of straw.

כי אין נגרע מעבודתכם, "for your workload will not be diminished." Why did the taskmasters say: כי אין נגרע "for it will not be reduced" instead of ואין נגרע? "and it will not be reduced?" When the taskmasters had first said: "go and get your own straw," the Israelites had thought of this as a welcome diversion. They considered collecting straw as less demanding than either building, or forming bricks. The taskmasters "dropped the second shoe" by adding that it was not as the Israelites thought that collecting straw was instead of their other work; rather it was in addition to their regular work. They explained that the reason for the decree was precisely so as not to diminish the Israelites' workload.

וישב משה אל השם, Moses returned to G'd, etc. The verse must be understood in this order: "Why did You G'd not tell me at the time when You told me that You would harden Pharaoh's heart that this would involve additional hardship for the people? If You were to answer that the appointed time for relieving the burden of their servitude has not arrived yet, why did You send me already at this time? Moses implied that G'd should have waited with sending him on this mission until the actual slave labour of the Israelites had come to an end.

We have a reaction by Moses to what G'd had told him previously, namely that the end of the redemption process was not yet at hand but that He, G'd, would advance the time for rescuing the Jewish people by saving them from their oppression. At the end of twelve months the Exodus itself would take place. Moses now asked: "why did You bring harm upon this people?" He meant that if G'd were to tell him that this suffering would advance the redemption, "why did You send me already now? You Yourself have told me that the only reason to commence the mission now was to relieve the people of having to perform slave labour. If as it now appeared, my mission was to be effective only at the time of the Exodus, why did You send me ?" The word זה (numerical value 12) in Moses' question was an allusion to the 12 months the people still had to wait for the redemption. Moses was clearly afraid that Pharaoh's most recent decree would be in effect for the 12 months until the redemption.

Perhaps Moses also referred to the fact that amongst the Israelites there were those who had to perform slave labour, and others, such as the the tribe of Levi, who were free from that burden. Concerning the former group Moses asked: "why have You brought harm upon them?" Concerning the latter group he asked: "why did You send me on this mission?"

Moses may also simply have asked: "why did You cause harm to Your people?" G'd's answer would have to be that the harm was the result of Moses' mission. To this Moses retorted: "Why is this (זה) that You have sent me on this mission?" Moses' adding of the word זה was his way of saying that this was why he had been unwilling to undertake the mission in the first place.

לדבר בשמך…והצל לא הצלת את עמך. "to speak in Your name…but You have not saved Your people." Moses added another argument to his previous ones. He wanted to know how it was possible that since he had spoken to this wicked king in the name of G'd, not only had He not responded but He had actually made things worse for the people whom Moses represented. He emphasised the word מאז to point out that Pharaoh's obstinacy appeared to have been a direct consequece of G'd's intervention through Moses. Clearly what Pharaoh did was motivated by his hatred for G'd. He was unparalleled in his rebellious behaviour against the king of the universe. Moses was amazed at G'd's apparent lack of jealousy of His reputation. Surely G'd now had an additional reason to redeem Israel immediately. Even if Israel did not merit redemption at this time due to its own merit, it had to be redeemed as a gesture against the blaspheming Pharaoh! The words והצל לא הצלת should be read as a question expressing Moses' amazement that G'd had not yet saved His people. Moses spoke of two "salvations," i.e. the one due to Israel's merit and the one due to Pharaoh's excesses.

עתה תראה אשר אעשה לפרעה, "Now you are about to see what I shall do to Pharaoh, etc." The word עתה was G'd's answer to Moses' ומאז באתי, that G'd had made things worse for Israel than prior to Moses' appointment. G'd told Moses that not only would the additional hardships cease forthwith but also the hardships endured by the people up until then would come to an end immediately. We have already mentioned that slave labour ceased from the time the river Nile was struck and turned into blood. G'd made it plain to Moses that not only had he been wrong in assuming that the most recent decree of Pharaoh would last for twelve months, but even his previous decrees would become inoperative at once.

G'd also answered Moses concerning what Moses had perceived as G'd's failure to respond to the way Pharaoh had slighted Him. This is why He told Moses that He would smite him until Pharaoh would dismiss the Israelites because he had experienced G'd's strong hand. We explained already that G'd delayed the final plague in order to punish Pharaoh for his blasphemy.

וביד חזקה, "and with a mighty hand, etc." This second reference to G'd's mighty hand was a preview of the consternation G'd would cause at the time of the killing of the firstborn when the Torah reports that there was not a single house in Egypt in which not at least one person died at that time (compare Yalkut Shimoni on Exodus 12,30 where it is explained that if there was no actual firstborn in a specific house at the time, the oldest would be killed). As a result of all this the Egyptians would not only dismiss the Israelites but would actually יגרשם, "expel them," as each Egyptian feared for his own life every minute (compare Exodus 12,33). G'd answered Moses' other argument as to why He had allowed things to get worse in the next פרשה.