Pharaoh’s Big Lie©
Exodus/Shemot 5781/2021
Rabbi David Baum
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| Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash |
Pharaoh’s Big Lie©
Exodus/Shemot 5778/2021
Rabbi David Baum
I just finished my 7-day trial subscription to 2021. Can I cancel now?
The first week of 2021 has been historic, both highs and lows. Regardless of your political leanings, it was a historic fact to see a black Reverend and a Jewish man elected to the Senate in Georgia, the heart of the old Confederacy. And then, we saw the desecration of the Capitol by domestic terrorists, something that hadn’t been done since the War of 1812 when British soldiers burned Washington in 1814. A Confederate flag was paraded around the Capitol, something that did not happen during the Civil War. Feces were literally spread on the walls by these special people. Rioters were wearing anti-Semitic shirts with titles, Camp Auschwitz, and Six Million Wasn’t Enough.
As was said by many, the temple of Democracy was defiled. As I saw this happening, I thought back to the destruction of our own holy Temples. Can you imagine what it must have been to see the Greeks and the Romans defile the Holy Temple? To enter the Holy of Holies like they were entering a bathroom and put their feet on the ark?
And this was the feeling most of our country had watching these scenes. It was worse not because of the cost of violence, not because of the loss of life which was horrific especially the killing of a police officer, but because of the symbolism.
How did we get here?
During this historic week, the first week of 2021, we turned the page and began a new book of Torah, Exodus/Shemot. The Exodus narrative is our people’s core narrative, our sacred story.
It is a story of slavery to freedom, but it actually began in freedom. Remember, Joseph was the second in command in Egypt to Pharaoh. He saves the Egyptians and his family with his economic policies, but he dies, and so do his children, and this is where our story picks up:
“Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them. A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.” So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor; and they built garrison cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the [Egyptians] came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians ruthlessly imposed upon the Israelites.” (Exodus 1:6-13)
You might be wondering, well, that was fast! How did the Egyptians turn on the Israelites who were their neighbors with one another. What we see, if we look at the language closely, is the first example of disinformation, Pharaoh’s big lie.
I wanted to focus on the one line where everything changes, Exodus 1:10
הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה לוֹ פֶּן־יִרְבֶּה וְהָיָה כִּי־תִקְרֶאנָה מִלְחָמָה וְנוֹסַף גַּם־הוּא עַל־שֹׂנְאֵינוּ וְנִלְחַם־בָּנוּ וְעָלָה מִן־הָאָרֶץ׃
Pharaoh says, “let us deal shrewdly with him.”
Who is Pharaoh dealing shrewdly with? There are actually two possibilities. The first are the Hebrews. The Midrash imagines that Pharaoh asks the Israelites to build the cities of Pithom and Raamses so the country will be able to defend themselves from invaders, if there were invaders at all, and he says that they will get paid at the end of the day. He paid them, but he devised a plan to stop paying them. When they rose up for pay, the Egyptians who worked with them became their taskmasters (Bamidbar Rabbah 15:20).
But there is another possibility - perhaps Pharaoh had to deal shrewdly with his own people. He scares them into believing that the Hebrews were like insects - they multiply and covered the land, a fifth column. He talks about invaders coming in, if there ever were invaders, and then we have a crisis.
Slavery began with the first propaganda campaign in history. The word used for ‘deal shrewdly’ is Nithachkma. The root of this word is Hochmah, wisdom or intelligence. He uses their own intellect against them. Interestingly enough, the text says let us deal shrewdly with ‘him’. If I were to write a modern Midrash, I would say that Pharaoh developed a personalized system of disinformation for each and every person, and he did this without the smartphone.
Fast forward to today, we already see evidence that the rioters were planning this in plain sight - on their social media feeds. For years, they have been radicalized with conspiracy theories from Qanon and other sources, and some of them have been picked up by some more mainstream media outlets as well.
And I believe that is how we got here.
There is a teaching I’ve gravitated towards during these months from Yalkut Shimoni, a collection of Midrashim. It talks about the relationship between truth, Emet, and lies, Sheker. Truthful actions stand firm; actions based on falsehoods do not. The letters of Emet are far apart (the first middle and last in the alphabet) whereas the letters of sheer are bunched together. Truth is hard to attain, but falsehood is readily at hand.
The lies that Pharaoh uses are based on truth. Yes, they were a lot of Israelites, but he turns the truth into a lie, the first conspiracy theory in the Torah.
If you scratch the surface of the conspiracy theories, they ultimately fall apart like a house of cards. This is what the midrash means when it says they cannot stand firm, but they are more readily available.
So who is responsible, is it Pharaoh, is it the Egyptians? The answer - both. Leaders are responsible for the lies they tell their followers. This includes President Trump, Senators and Representatives who incited and misled their followers, and media personalities who peddle in lies for ratings and profit.
But the people who rioted are also responsible for their own actions. Everyone must be held to account.
The work of stamping out conspiracy theories is more important now than ever. Social media companies must be held to account, but we also have a responsibility. When lies run rampant, it leads to what we saw at the Capitol, and if we do not stop it, scenes like that will happen again. It is why we must stand for truth.
Within this story, we find people who stand up for truth, Shifra and Puah. They are called Hebrew Handmaids or Handmaids for the Hebrews. They were the ones who were charged with killing the newborn infant Hebrews by Pharaoh. Instead of following orders, they risk their lives and save the Hebrew children.
During this disgusting scene of violence in the Capitol, there was one scene that gave me hope. There was a picture I saw of female staffers who, during the terrorist attack, when congressmen/women and staffers were running away for their lives, saved the boxes that held the electoral votes, and by doing so, protected the democratic process under threat of violence so our country could certify the 2020 presidential election.
The Midrash gives two different interpretations of who these two female heroines are. One opinion is that they were Hebrews themselves and that Shifrah and Puah were Miriam and Yocheved, Moses’s sister and mother (BT Sotah 11b). Without them, Moses would never have survived. Moses was placed in a teiva, an ark, the same word used for the vessel that Noah builds to save humanity.
Among the terrible things we saw, there were other heroes, stories that will unfold in the coming weeks, but Eugene Goodman is one of them. The Capitol Police officer and U.S. Army Veteran were confronted with a rabid mob and lured them away from the Senate floor, likely saving the lives of Senators and staff. At the beginning of our story, Moses plays the role of hero by killing an Egyptian taskmaster who is brutally beating a Hebrew slave.
I truly believe that better times are ahead because of the heroes we witnessed, the heroes whose stories will emerge, but it will not be easy. We went from freedom, and then to slavery, and we were there for hundreds of years, but then, the light of freedom came.
When the Maccabees took the Temple back, the first thing they did was clean and purify the sacred space, and then, they lit a lamp, the Menorah. The Menorah not only gave light to the Temple, but also to the entire world. America has been a shining beacon of hope and light to the world. We will light the fire again, we will return, but only if we stand for truth, stand up against the voices of hate and injustice among us. It’s much easier and faster to destroy a home than to build one, but our legacy is to be creators and builders, and we will rebuild.
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