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Pharaoh: The ruler as an idiot
By Yossi Sarid

Tonight, when we are all gathered around the table and telling about the Exodus, let us pay attention to Pharaoh, whose story is the story of the folly and shortsightedness of rulers. So much attention has been devoted to the leadership of Moses, who was one of a kind, that the leadership of Pharaoh, who was one of many like him, is shunted aside. Did the scriptures intend to compare two types of leaders so that those who are led would see? We hereby recommend reading the Haggadah this evening as a present-day text.

If the leadership of Moses was based on a great vision of saving a nation from its oppressors, the leadership of Pharaoh was based on a petty accounting of how to profit from the enslavement of another nation.

The Egyptians embitter the lives of the Israelites with hard work, and force them to build Pithom and Ramses. Imperial history has always built treasure-cities, which immediately surround themselves with a security fence for defending against the fury of the forced and overworked laborers.
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Moses opens his national and personal march toward freedom with an attack. He strikes an Egyptian man from the civil administration or the border police who is beating a Hebrew, and inters his body in the sand. Moses flees to the land of Midian, and from that moment he's a wanted man.

From the time the uprising erupts, it becomes clear the king is an idiot, and not much time will pass until the slaves go free in spite of him. He conducts a losing battle and trips on every bump on the road. When Moses and Aaron come to him for the first time, urging him to let their people go, he dismisses the two authoritatively: "Get you to your burdens." The king is still certain that if he only makes things hard for the Hebrews, they will prefer survival and a livelihood over sacrifice and redemption. From now on, he won't even give them straw for the bricks.

God is familiar with these foolish types who have no idea where they and their subjects are living. The more he hardens their hearts, the blinder they become. The 10 plagues begin to land on Pharaoh one after the other, but he refuses to be impressed. Blood floods the entire land of Egypt, Pharaoh and his magicians swallow frogs, the lice suck the marrow of man and beast, and the king does not give in. He does not agree to allow the Israelites to leave. As soon as the threat of one plague is removed, Pharaoh immediately refuses once again. He still does not understand that the next plague will be more lethal.

Only when Egypt fills up with wild animals does Pharaoh begin to sober up, but there is still a long way to go. And before the landing of the locusts, protest demonstrations begin. The citizens of Egypt want the affair to end. "How long?" they ask. "Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed?"

Like his fellow rulers, Pharaoh knows how to count demonstrators and to read surveys. He offers additional gestures: The men will leave, but without the children. And when the plague of darkness falls he offers another concession: "Let your little ones also go with you," but without the flocks and cattle. When Moses and Aaron reject this offer too, the king gets furious, stops the negotiations and threatens to prevent them from leaving: "See my face no more, for on the day you see my face you shall die."

And then the last and terrible plague strikes, the plague of the first born. "And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead." And what common sense failed to achieve was achieved by bereavement.

Only now, after a fateful delay, does the king agree to a general exodus from Egypt - men, children, flocks and cattle. Up to the bitter end those blind rulers will never understand that anger is not appeased with miserly concessions and stingy gestures, and that national aspirations for independence cannot be destroyed.

And even at the last moment, when the tortured nation was already on the way to its independence, the enslavers change their minds and chase the new situation as though the wheel of history could be turned back. Then the sea sweeps over them, and they plummet like lead in the mighty waters.

What is left to us when we don't read the story of the Exodus properly? We are left with a belly full of matza balls and with "Pour out thy wrath."
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  1.   Great Article 11:16  |  Basheer 02/04/07
  2.   TRY AND PIECE TOGETHER THE REAL FACTS 11:27  |  paul harris 02/04/07
  3.   And what is your point,Yossi Sarid? 11:30  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  4.   @3 Hastaroth 12:29  |  Mark B. 02/04/07
  5.   "we don`t read the story of the Exodus properly" 12:37  |  Yonatan 02/04/07
  6.   Yossi is with no doubt reading Exodus from the Koran 12:55  |  Joseph E . 02/04/07
  7.   ugh, you are missing the point! 13:06  |  AF 02/04/07
  8.   ONE IS MORE IDIOT THAT THE OTHER 13:17  |  indrajaya 02/04/07
  9.   So Who is acting like the Pharoah now? 13:18  |  Dave Smith 02/04/07
  10.   # 5 Yonatan 13:31  |  Lynn 02/04/07
  11.   Sarid,the dead because of your Oslo don`t have "the belly full" 13:51  |  Absolute Sweden 02/04/07
  12.   Exodus 14:09  |  Naim S. Mahlab 02/04/07
  13.   Who is Pharaoh? 14:40  |  Gene 02/04/07
  14.   #4 Mark B.,is it so hard for you to understand my post? 14:43  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  15.   Rabbi Sarid doesn`t make his point clearly 14:47  |  Sharon 02/04/07
  16.   One need look no further 14:54  |  Mark Lincoln 02/04/07
  17.   When did the Israelites say they will throw Egypt into the sea? 15:15  |  Ronnie Wolman 02/04/07
  18.   Judaism is foreign to Sarid 15:17  |  Ilan 02/04/07
  19.   How many plagues will it take to convince Israel to let "Samaria" 15:28  |  Apartheid 02/04/07
  20.   Sorry, Naim #8 it is not the correct source 15:31  |  Chanan 02/04/07
  21.   #16 Only Mark B. sees slavery in the West Bank 15:32  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  22.   #8 THE ARBS ARE FREE INDIE TO GO ANYWHERE IN ARAB LANDS 15:36  |  paul harris 02/04/07
  23.   great bedtime story 16:01  |  VIPER 02/04/07
  24.   To Hastaroth 16:03  |  Mark B. 02/04/07
  25.   17 Ronnie There are a lot of modern day Israelites who threaten 16:19  |  Apartheid 02/04/07
  26.   good point, Ronnie (#17), - no threats to Pharao 16:35  |  Ivo 02/04/07
  27.   to the idiot in Jakarta 16:55  |  bo 02/04/07
  28.   Pharaoh: The ruler as an idiot 17:26  |  k.herzallah 02/04/07
  29.   Indrajaya - the Pals have always been free #8 17:56  |  William 02/04/07
  30.   Naim - which "study" did you use? #12 17:59  |  William 02/04/07
  31.   Exodus 18:00  |  Naim S. Mahlab 02/04/07
  32.   Sorry to disagree with you in Saudi Arabia - #27 18:12  |  William 02/04/07
  33.   Pharaoh compared to who? 18:38  |  paul 02/04/07
  34.   The author as an idiot 18:40  |  17 02/04/07
  35.   Sharon 18:42  |  Connie 02/04/07
  36.   Pharaoh compared to who? 18:45  |  paul 02/04/07
  37.   Indrajaya`s Timor Problem 18:48  |  Bill 02/04/07
  38.   What a Great new Legend (Aggadah) 18:59  |  Benlolo 02/04/07
  39.   Sorry Hastaroth, we`re not obligated to commit suicide 19:07  |  Jacob Blues 02/04/07
  40.   Did Moses really exist? 19:18  |  Isaiah 02/04/07
  41.   Ivo Czech Mate!: Kings,Rooks and Castles 19:46  |  Ronnie Wolman 02/04/07
  42.   Pharaoh # 32 20:19  |  k.herzallah 02/04/07
  43.   who`s an idiot? 20:37  |  peter 02/04/07
  44.   Just one problem.... 20:40  |  Blogowitz 02/04/07
  45.   the idiot pharoh 20:45  |  Dan 02/04/07
  46.   answer to Hastaroth, Athens 21:10  |  sol 02/04/07
  47.   Who are the true idiots? 22:00  |  Randle Bate 02/04/07
  48.   PROBLEMATIC ANALOGIES 22:10  |  Mark of Lewiston 02/04/07
  49.   The G-d of Israel made and does own the earth 22:15  |  Tsivi 02/04/07
  50.   PROBLEMATIC ANALOGIES - 2 22:27  |  Mark of Lewiston 02/04/07
  51.   Sarid is too late, for Khalid Amyrah has already delcared Israel 22:31  |  Jacob Blues 02/04/07
  52.   Yes # 40 Moses did exist 22:32  |  Lynn 02/04/07
  53.   indrajaya...why not try... 22:44  |  maria 02/04/07
  54.   Pharoah 22:58  |  Chunfla Burlbe 02/04/07
  55.   apatheid....samaria and judea 22:59  |  maria 02/04/07
  56.   isaiah.....you can only believe it by faith... 23:03  |  maria 02/04/07
  57.   1 pharaoh goes another comes along-no end 23:10  |  yahn goodey&virginia 02/04/07
  58.   #39 to Jacob Blues 23:17  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  59.   Answer to sol from Rochester,Minnesota 23:19  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  60.   Answer to Mark B. re #24 23:26  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  61.   To Mark of Lewiston 23:40  |  Hastaroth 02/04/07
  62.   to the Saudi in Daharan 23:48  |  bo 02/04/07
  63.   Moses was Pharaoh Akhenaten 23:58  |  Peter Eriksen 02/04/07
  64.   Maria baby..... 00:21  |  Mario 03/04/07
  65.   maria 00:23  |  Moses 03/04/07
  66.   Another Jewish Nitwit 00:42  |  Tod Zuckerman 03/04/07
  67.   It takes the atheism of a socialist crackpot like Sarid.. 00:47  |  Dr. L. Brnd 03/04/07
  68.   The very core of the story for me are not ... 01:35  |  Karl 03/04/07
  69.   61 Hastaroth - Peace Can Become Habit-forming 02:11  |  Mark of Lewiston 03/04/07
  70.   We build, others destroy 02:12  |  Efox 03/04/07
  71.   to Karl in Germany 02:17  |  bo 03/04/07
  72.   mario.....you`re civilized,but.... 03:19  |  maria