“The Power of Children”
It is certainly a scene acted out on
many previous occasions. Moses and Aaron plead with Pharoah to allow
the Jews to leave for a temporary period of time in order to worship
G-d in the wilderness. The threat of locusts is made for failure to
accede to the request. But this time around, not only does Pharoah
deny the request, again, but he also drives the leaders from his
midst, “….va-ye-goresh otom…” It is as if he physically manhandles
them to eject them from his presence.
This brazen act of Pharoah provokes the
question asked by Rabbi Yochanan Luria in his Sefer Meshivat Nefesh
as to why this time around, Pharoah is driven to take such action?
What was done this time that was missing on previous encounters when
Pharoah just allowed them to go? He avers that when an ambassador is
invited into the palace to deliver a message of his ruler, protocol
demands that he be treated according to diplomatic standards of
behavior, which means that, whatever the contents of the message,
good or bad, the status of the ambassador is inviolate, and cannot
be mistreated. That is because he is only a representative, a
messenger, and because of who he represents is to be accorded with
dignity and respect.
This had been the behavior of Pharoah to
Moses and Aaron thus far, for in all previous meetings, Moses and
Aaron had asked for the release of the Jewish adults, and despite
the fact that Pharoah refused again and again, he saw them as
messengers from a spiritual ruler, G-d, even though he did not know
Him . But as ambassadors, their physical welfare was uppermost.
However, this time around, at the beginning of the parshah, Moses
adds to the previous demands. “…Bin-ureinu- v-vizkeneinu nelech.”
Children have become the latest addition. And Pharoah’s behavior
worsens. For, until now, as long as the demands were limited to the
adults, Pharoah could possibly believe that this demand was
reflecting the wish of the Power they represented. But when children
were added into the equation, Pharoah automatically assumed that
Moses and Aaron had added this on their own, without having
consulted their Ruler. In which case they were no longer
representing anyone other than themselves. And so Pharoah, in his
anger, treated them, not with the respect accorded ambassadors, but
with disrespect towards ordinary people who were just staking their
own claims unsupported by any royal request.
With a slightly changed nuance, children
also play their part when, three chapters later, Moses describes the
implications of the tenth plague, which will then be followed by all
of Pharoah’s servants bowing down to Moses. Asks the Ohr HaChaim:
But if they are firstborn, won’t they all be dead? How would they be
able to escape the ravages of this plague? And the statistical
likelihood of none of these servants being first born would be close
to zero.
The answer, he suggests, is that, going
back to the time Moses and Aaron were manhandled by Pharoah, the
text states that they left “bechori af,” with anger. They had been
humiliated publicly by their treatment, and the halachah is that in
the same manner that one humiliates another in public, so one has to
apologize. Since the original embarrassment of Moses and Aaron was
committed in front of these servants, they also had to be around to
witness the public apology.
To fulfill their halachic requirements,
even the lives of these servants would be spared. So lays the power
of the children.
Shabbat Shalom!
