Musar zu Schemot 5:9

This is similar to the wicked Pharaoh's advice saying "intensify the men's labor..." (Ex. 5:9). His intention was to leave them no time whatsoever to oppose him or plot against him. He strove to confound their hearts of all reflection by means of the constant, incessant labor.

The first: that he contemplate what is the true good for man to choose and what is the true evil for him to flee from.

The second: on the actions which he does, to determine if they are in the category of the good or the evil.

When we follow the approach taken by the Zohar we realise that G–d never interfered with Pharaoh's decision-making process at all. Pharaoh duped himself. The cause of his obstinacy was אני, G–d saying: אני י-ה-ו-ה. When G–d said to Moses early on in Exodus 7,3: ואני אקשה את לב פרעה, I shall make the heart of Pharaoh obstinate, the implied meaning is: "My revelation to him that I am י-ה-ו-ה, will harden his heart." When the magicians acknowledged that the plague of כנים, lice, was not the result of superior magic by Moses or Aaron (8,15), they limited their acknowledgement of its origin to אלקים, thereby excluding י-ה-ו-ה. Pharaoh had learned the meaning of אלוקים from Joseph; he acknowledged this deity as superior to other deities. His acknowledgement did not extend to such a deity's control of what he considered the laws of nature. We have a rule in Berachot 48 אין מלכות נוגעת בחברתה, "since G–d has assigned sovereignty to a certain king, or kingdom, another king or kingdom must not infringe on the sovereignty of such." [The Talmud illustrates this principle by pointing out Saul's artificially delayed arrival in order that the commencement of his kingdom should not shorten by as much as a minute the period G–d had designated for the leadership of the prophet Samuel. Ed.] Pharaoh understood that the existence of the kingdom of אלקים, though presumably greater than that of his own or other kings, would not interfere with the sovereignty of other kingdoms. There are many kingdoms in this world which co-exist although some are more powerful than others. It is also possible that Pharaoh acknowledged G–d as the Master of the Universe, but did not consider the Universe as G–d's creation, but rather considered Him part of the Universe. Other philosophers conceive of G–d as inseparable from the world, much as they view light as inseparable from the sun. For all these reasons, i.e. limiting G–d's possible domain, Pharaoh was angered when Moses pointed out that there was an added dimension to G–d. Pharaoh reacted by increasing the workload of his Jewish slaves, as we read in Exodus 5,9.

However, it would be doing Moses a grave injustice to believe that he erred in the language he used vis-a-vis G–d, especially to have made the same mistake on four separate occasions! I therefore believe that what Moses wanted to know on those four occasions did not concern something in the future, but he wanted to make sure that G–d would explain something to him which He had told him previously but which Moses was not sure he had properly understood. When Pharaoh had decreed that the workload of the Jewish people be increased (Exodus 5,9) Moses suddenly entertained doubts whether he had properly understood G–d previously when He had told him to take the people out of Egypt. He thought that possibly G–d had not referred to a process that would take place immediately but only after some considerable time. He therefore wanted to know from G–d when this redemption would occur. G–d reassured him that he had understood quite correctly, i.e. that the redemption would occur עתה, now. When G–d suddenly afflicted Miriam without even telling Moses anything about the cause of it all, i.e. "G–d suddenly told Moses Aaron and Miriam: go to the Tent of Meeting," Moses was not sure why he had become involved in all this. There could have been two reasons for this: 1) They (Aaron and Miriam) were not considered fit to receive prophetic communications due to their ritual impurity, as suggested by Rashi on Numbers 12,4, and that on account of this they could hear a communication from G–d only through the mouth of Moses. 2) G–d meant to put down Aaron and Miriam, and by having Moses present at that time their embarassment would be commensurably greater. If that had been G–d's purpose their very embarassment would constitute part of their atonement. We have an example of such a consideration in Exodus 32,14 when the very fact that G–d had said that He would wipe out the Jewish people and replace them with a new nation based on Moses was part of the Israelites' atonement. The shame of having been found so unworthy compared to Moses was part of their punishment. As soon as Moses saw that Miriam had become afflicted with לפניהם he asked G–d to explain why he had been called out also, seeing that G–d was not satisfied with merely shaming Miriam in his presence. Once G–d told Moses that Miriam had to remain quarantined for seven days Moses realized that he had erred in his earlier assumption that maybe his presence was Miriam's atonement, but that the first possibility, Miriam's ritual impurity at the time, was the reason Moses had to be called out to be the intermediary for a communication from G–d to her and Aaron. Something of a similar nature took place when Moses appealed to G–d regarding his successor. In Exodus 21,1 G–d had told Moses to place the various laws before the Jewish people. The word לפניהם used by the Torah there is understood to refer to legal experts, Torah scholars, as opposed to laymen. If the process was initiated by G–d giving Moses סמיכה, ordination, then it could be presumed that from that time on this ordination would be conferred by one scholar on his disciple, etc. On the other hand it was possible that just as G–d had chosen Moses to be ordained for this task in his generation, so G–d would ordain other leaders each in their respective generations. Now that the time had come for Moses to pass from the scene he wanted to know from G–d how this process of ordination of a future leader would be handled. G–d therefore told him in Numbers 27,18 that he, Moses, was to confer this ordination on Joshua by placing his hand on him. In our פרשה, too, Moses had thought that there were indications that G–d had rescinded His decree that Moses would not lead the Jewish people into the Holy Land. Moses therefore asked G–d for clear guidance as to the true state of affairs. We note that in all the instances when Moses used the word לאמור when addressing G–d there was a perfectly legitimate reason.