Parashat Va'era: How We Are Like Pharaoh

In what ways are we like Pharaoh?

There is some truth out there that keeps knocking at our door – plague after plague, sign after sign– and we stubbornly refuse to hear it. And this stubbornness, this refusal to change, to shift our views and actions based on experience, this refusal to “let them go,” to let go of whatever it is we are too tightly holding on to, this stuckness is the source of our own suffering. Pharaoh creates his own demise through his deafness and blindness. And so do we all. We are too confident to hear, too scared to let go, too busy to hear and see. Our hearts have become too heavy, too habituated to be able to shift gears. And so we suffer. We suffer because we can’t let go of our old habits, can’t admit that we were wrong, can’t hear the emerging truth that beckons.

Again and again, the call comes. It is a determined call, hoping beyond hope to be heard once and for all. And mostly, we are not like Moshe, turning toward the burning bush. Mostly, we are like Pharaoh, unable to turn aside, mired in the comfort of our castles.

The story of the exodus is not just a story about the Israelites. It is also a story about Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s many attempts to let go. He lets them go and then changes his mind. He lets them go and then runs after them. This, too, is familiar to us – we achieve momentary freedom, we do heed the call, we do let go, but only to return quickly to our confident postures of stuckness.

What voice, what truth, what signs are we not heeding? Where are we being stubborn? What do we need to let go of in order to shift, to achieve redemption, to free ourselves from suffering and thereby also free others?