Meeting a Sadist

“Be gone from me! Take care not to see me again, for the moment you look upon my face you shall die." (Exodus 10:28)

Pharaoh had banished Moshe from his palace.

Moshe responds that he surely will never see Pharaoh again, but more intriguingly is Moshe's feelings upon leaving Pharaoh's company. 

"And he left Pharaoh’s presence in hot anger." (Exodus 11:8)

Why was Moshe so angry? 

Rashi states that it was Pharaoh's vitriol and biting rhetoric, "for Pharaoh had said, do not persist in seeing my countenance." 

Why, in the name of God, was Moshe Rabbeinu angry - or embittered - by Pharaoh's words? 

Pharaoh was an evil man. His predecessor had killed all the Jewish males born in Egypt, and he, his heir, had exacerbated the plight of the Jewish people, with backbreaking labor that knew no end. Generations of Jews had been born into slavery, and the role of a Pharaoh was no less than that of a sadist. The previous Pharaoh had bathed in Jewish blood, this one was as errant in his way, giving the Jews no respite, no reprieve or hope of ever being free. So, what was Moshe so distraught about?

It would seem that Moshe saw himself as doing a job, and for him, that job was incomplete until he brought Pharaoh full circle. Pharaoh was to recognize that Hashem was the Master of all of the land, and until now, that mission hadn't yet been accomplished. 

It's like taking the star quarterback out right before the last play in the Superbowl, 4th and 9, the clock ticking, and suddenly, the quarterback's booted, about to miss his hour in the sun, what he had sacrificed for and worked so hard for, year-in-and-year-out. 

What Moshe didn't know at that time was that the awe he would inspire in Pharaoh and the entire Egyptian nation would be all the greater after the miracles performed at the sea, like the Hagaddah states, that the miracles Hashem carried out at the sea were manifold greater than those performed in Egypt itself, and, I'd like to add parenthetically, that part of Moshe's greatness was his humility in accepting that his role, had seemingly, at this point come to an end. 

 






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