Pharoah Looks for a Blessing

Once the Egyptians comprehend the nature of the tenth and final plague Pharoah realizes that he has been defeated. God is no longer interested in hardening Pharoah’s heart, but rather allows him to grant the Jewish people their request, i.e., to leave Egypt in order to worship HaShem. It is at this point that Pharoah makes a strange appeal. (Shemot 12:31-32) “And he (Pharoah) called to Moshe and Aharon in the night, and he said: Rise up and go out from among my people, you and the children of Israel and go and serve ‘Yud-Keh-Vav-Keh’ (God) in accordance with your words. And also your sheep and also your cattle take, as you have said, and go ‘U’BEIRACHTEM GAM OTI’ (and bless me also).”  Egypt was in shambles, the rivers polluted, the animals decimated, the crops destroyed, the people having suffered all sorts of indignities, including the deaths of all of Egypt’s firstborn; why would Pharoah think to ask for a blessing from the Jews who ostensibly were the cause of all of Egypt’s ills?

            Even more curious is the view that Pharoah sent along with the Jews Egyptian animals to be sacrificed for his sake once the Jews reached their intended destination and worshipped God, as Moshe requests in 5:3; 8:23; and 10:26. According to this line of interpretation, the appeal for a personal blessing in 12:32 was not merely a desire that words be pronounced; the ruler also intended that sacrifices be offered to appease God’s Wrath that was directed towards him. The assumption that sacrifices were included in Pharoah’s request is based upon 10:25, in which Moshe, responding to Pharoah’s reticence to allow the Jews to take their animals into the desert, states caustically that not only will the Jews leave with their herds, but “Even you will put into our hands sacrifices and whole burnt offerings and we will offer them to our God.”(1) Can such a complete turnaround be imagined, with Pharoah now proactively desiring that the God Who he has so resolutely opposed should accept prayers and offerings for his benefit? (2)

RaShI, based upon the Mechilta, suggests that Pharoah’s request that Moshe bless and atone for him was purely a matter of self-interest. (3) Knowing that he himself was also a firstborn—12:29 suggests that just as the future king of Egypt was a firstborn (4) and therefore died during the tenth plague, this is true of Pharoah himself—Pharoah imagined that the final plague had yet to run its course. He thought that unless something extraordinary was done to protect him and a special request made of God to interrupt the effect of the plague, Pharoah too would die. Pharoah concludes that praying for a plague to end was within Moshe’s power since with regard to at least some of the other plagues, Moshe had been able to make them cease—see 8:8, 26-27; 9:33; 10:18-19 (5) –and therefore he could reasonably expect Moshe would be able to halt the plague of the firstborn as well. While God, via Moshe, already had told Pharoah in 9:16, prior to the plague of hail, that He Was Interested in keeping Pharoah alive in order to witness the Divine Power behind the various plagues, Pharoah could reasonably think that the demonstration was now complete, and there was no longer any purpose being served by his continued survival. (6)

HaKetav VeHaKabbala understands the mentioning of the blessing not as a request for some sort of ritual performance, be it verbal or the offering of sacrifices, but rather as a description of the state of affairs for Pharoah and his nation. once they are rid of the Jews.  The cessation of the punishments associated with the Jews continued forced-presence in Egypt, in itself would be a blessing, without Moshe having to do anything additional. A certain symmetry will then have been achieved, with the Jews being blessed by no longer being in servitude, and Pharoah being blessed by being free of the destructions and punishments that have plagued him and his people for so long. Pharoah’s sigh of relief upon being finally left alone is all the blessing that he requires.

R. S.R. Hirsch understands the request for blessing as the hope that once the Jews leave, “all the wounds that I and the land have suffered on your account will be healed.” As opposed to HaKetav VeHaKabbala who understands Pharoah’s minimalist wishes to simply entail the removal of the Jews from his country, R. Hirsch attributes to the Egyptian ruler the desire for a return to the state of affairs prior to when all of the plagues began. In this sense, Pharoah hopes for a reprise of what took place in Beraishit when Sara was first taken for a wife by Pharoah and then again by Avimelech. In order to defend Sara’s virtue, Beraishit 12:17 describes how God Sends plagues against Pharoah and his household. While the text never states explicitly that these plagues come to an end once Sara is returned to Avraham, there is no reason to think that the Divinely Induced discomfitures persist past that point. The Tora even more clearly conveys the cause-and-effect relationship between the removal of the objectionable situation and the cessation of the miraculous punishments with respect to the incident in Gerar. In 20:7, Avimelech is told by God in a dream that only if he returns Sara, will Avraham pray for him and thereby spare him from the death that he has incurred by taking this holy man’s wife. It is possible that the first symptoms of the disease that was to lead to his death had already begun to be noticed, and that these infirmities disappeared once Avimelech released Sara. However, the relatively small scale of Divine punishments in the two cases in Beraishit is hardly comparable to what would be required for Egypt to be returned to normalcy. Does Pharoah expect the dead to be brought back to life, the herds of animals automatically replenished, the crops regenerated, and the army replaced, simply because he wishes it to be so? Yet he could think that it is worth asking, in the spirit of “wonders/miracles never cease.”

The most psychologically interesting explanation focuses upon how Pharoah understood his relationship with his subjects. RaMBaN on Shemot 12:32 mentions that despite the fact that Pharoah only refers to himself when requesting Moshe’s intercession with God, a blessing for the king constitutes a blessing for the entire country. Therefore Pharoah’s mentality was “as goes Pharoah, so goes all of Egypt.” This approach would suggest that Pharoah not only regretted what he had done to the Jews, but also for the pain that he had caused his subjects. Not only would he like to return to God’s Good Graces, but also he desires his people to similarly benefit.

Ta’am VaDa’at, however, is far less charitable vis-à-vis Pharoah. Picking up on the theme that RaShI cites with respect to the possible continuation of the plague of the firstborn, the commentator writes, “Here also we see the egocentrism of Pharoah, in that he requested that he be blessed, since his main concern was his personal welfare, lest he be punished as a firstborn. But for his people he asked nothing, because he did not care about them in the least.” According to this view, Pharoah continues to consider only himself. Had he been the least bit empathic, he could never have hardened his heart during the first five plagues, not because of any humane sensibilities regarding the Jewish slaves, but rather due to his compassion for the Egyptians that were suffering as a result of his obstinacy.

Pointing out the dimension of compassion and empathy with regard to the phrase in question raises the issue of the dichotomy between individuals being concerned for themselves in contradistinction to their concern for their family, community, and nation. Is self-preservation of the leader and his/her power an ultimate value, even when extreme hardship is thereby caused for his/her fellow citizens? How sacrificial is a leader expected to be? Was Pharoah’s reluctance to give in a result of not wishing to forgo his personal power and public image, or was the principle of the preservation of Egyptian sovereignty uppermost in his mind? All of us face dilemmas of this sort in one form or another and the Tora could be challenging us to assure that we take the high road with regard to such questions as much as possible. 

Shabbat Shalom, and may we be motivated by doing what’s best for Tora and Kellal Yisroel, since at the same time this is also best for ourselves and our families