Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh
In my experience as a rabbi, calling someone out from the pulpit usually goes - poorly. The one and only time I thought to do it, the person I was addressing, let's just say, didn't appreciate the lesson about teshuvah (repentence), I thought I was offering.
It's not a sermon topic I've tried again.
Back in January, we were reading in synagogue of the encounters between Moses and Pharaoh and facing the eternally perplexing question of how it could be fair for God to "harden Pharaoh's heart," וַיֶּחֱזַק֙ לֵ֣ב פַּרְעֹ֔ה.
It was also the time of the second inauguration of President Donald Trump. And the week of the sermon in the National Cathedral of the Right Reverend the Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde who called out the returning president for the policies he had enunciated, asking him to act with more mercy.
If the Bishop had wanted to change the President's mind in that moment, I think she should have chosen a different strategy. Given the public impression of the President, one might have assumed he would not respond positively to being chided in public the week of his return to office. Certainly, no policy changes took place.
It made me wonder, what the goal for Bishop Budde really was. As one of the country's leading clergypeople, based in the nation's capital, getting the ear of the leader of the free world, I have to imagine, wouldn't have been impossible for her. One can imagine sitting in the Oval Office discussing a change to immigration and other policies that could have more successfully changed the returning President's mind.
Nor were her comments the beginning of an ongoing campaign to shift policy decisions. All that seems to have happened was a "one-off" that may have only solidified, "hardened," the very positions it would seem she didn't want him to promote.
My purpose in bringing this up is because it was the first time I could understand how it could be "fair" for God to harden Pharaoh's heart. Wasn't it taking away his autonomy his free will? Didn't God know how he would act?
When you are in some kind of position of, if not authority, then at least publicity, and in public you call out some other important-type person - like me with my congregant, or Budde with Trump, or God and Moses with Pharaoh, it is the rare sort person who can hear in that confrontation the strength to repent and transform. All the moreso if they think they are right and you don't know what you're talking about, they will bristle, they will become defensive, they will double-down; in short, their hearts will harden.
And if at that point, you, the truth-speaker, just stop, then you probably haven't done anything but make the situation worse. Far better to take a different, probably more private, approach to changing things.
Or else you must be ready, like Moses, to continually confront the Pharaoh. To know that in so doing you are going to harden his heart. That questioning his authority, his power, his competence, is going to make him harden and resist. It wasn't at all that God took away Pharaoh's free-will, it was that Pharoah was a person who when he was told, when he was shown over and over, that he was acting against God's will, could do nothing but refuse to change.
In everyday situations, we can learn from both sides of this story. We can learn to be more open to criticism, even when it is public and embarrassing. Even when it might be humiliating. If we are doing something wrong, we should want to hear the truth and get better, fix things. It is a huge task, but worth it.
And if we are in a position to influence someone's behavior for the better, let us not bring our own egos, our own agendas into the mix but discern the way to act that will truly bring about the desired change. Recall that Moses did not want the mission of going to Pharaoh. He knew how difficult it would be to confront the Pharaoh head-on. How it would be a prolonged struggle to do so. That is an example of true courage and leadership.
Be brave, be determined, persevere, and also, be open to hearing criticism and most of all, be kind.
Have a Shabbat Shalom and a blessed end to our Holiday of Freedom - Chag Sameach!
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