Pharaoh's Feather and the Catharsis of the Seder

A new appreciation of a well-known verse about our Exodus.

Along side Qontroversial Questions on the Parashah I’m also going to be sending out eight Haggadah ideas in the run up to Pesaḥ

The final verse we read in the passage of Arami Oved Avi – the verse read just before we transition to discussing the Ten Plagues – describes our redemption: how God brought us out of Egypt, “by a strong hand, an outstretched arm and awesome power, uv-’otot uv-moftim, and with signs and wonders” (Deut. 26:8).

And of all the verses in the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim itself, this always strikes me as a callback to the opening verses of Parashat Bo:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs (’ototai) among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your child and of your child’s child how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs (’ototai) among them – in order that you may know that I am the LORD.” (Ex. 10:1–2)

Because the very same signs we celebrate at Seder night are the ones God promises to display so that we will pass down the story from generation to generation. I think it’s all causal: the whole purpose of Seder night is to relive the story of our Exodus, thus continuing the tradition of passing down our national story to the next generation – by celebrating the signs and wonders He promised at the beginning of Parashat Bo that are referenced in Arami Oved Avi.¹

But this means that we quickly hit a bump when we start referencing this focal verse from Parashat Bo that includes God’s statement that he has hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Because we end up getting derailed by questions about the nature of free will – which not only has little to do with Pesaḥ but is hardly the best topic to start chatting about at any Seder that hopes to end before 2:30 AM.

But it seems like we just can’t help it. After all, while the Torah often tells us that Pharaoh “hardened his heart” (Ex. 7:14; 8:11, 28; 9:7, 34) to describe his stubbornness in the face of God’s wrath, we interpret the beginning of Parashat Bo as meaning that no matter how willing Pharaoh might have been towards letting the Jewish people go, God made Pharaoh stubborn in order for Him to display His signs and wonders before Egypt and the Jewish people – the very same signs and wonders we elaborate upon in Maggid and celebrate at the Seder.

So, how can we not start talking about free will when the very Seder is premised on its absence?

I think the answer lies in a closer look at the words of the Torah itself, which reveal much more depth to God’s statement here than we realize – and something that moves us away from discussing free will and into a discussion far more relevant and powerful for our Seder.

The most important thing to recognize here is the choice of the word k-v-d – which literally means “heavy” – in the opening verse to Parashat Bo, because the Torah actually uses three different words to describe Pharaoh’s stubbornness.

The most significant is ḥ-z-k – which literally means “strong” – as it occurs the most, both to characterize Pharaoh’s stubbornness in the phrase va-yeḥezak lēv Par‘oh, “the heart of Pharaoh was strong, vĕ-lo shama‘ alēhem, and he did not listen to them” that appears four times in the story (Ex. 7:13, 22; 8:15; 9:35) and also a whopping five times to describe God hardening Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 4:21; 9:12; 10:20, 27; 11:10).

And the least significant is the word, k-sh-h –which literally means “hard” – as it is only used once by God Himself in declaring that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart: va-ani aksheh et-lēv Par‘oh (Ex. 7:3). Ironically, despite the fact that the most popular English phrase to capture all of these verses refers to a hardened heart, it’s the least utilized in by the Hebrew itself.

So, thus far you have a legitimate theological question to ask about free will (though I recommend you don’t do it at the Seder) as God clearly forces Pharaoh to have certain emotions throughout the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim.

But crucially, the free will question is just sparked by the general plot. Despite what we think, it has nothing to do with the specific word k-v-d – the term that I think is most relevant to the Seder given its use at the beginning of Parashat Bo.

And this emerges from a few quirks to the Torah’s use of k-v-d that demand our attention. First, while it’s used in some form or another five times to characterize Pharaoh’s stubbornness (Ex. 7:14; 8:11, 28; 9:7, 34) a proper translation results in a very strange turn of phrase.

While the Torah’s use of ḥ-z-k in va-yeḥezak lēv Par‘oh simply means “Pharaoh’s heart was strong/stubborn” – a perfectly normal way of describing stubbornness – most of the instances of k-v-d are best translated really weirdly, with phrases like “Pharaoh made-heavy his heart” or something similar.

Second, unlike the five times ḥ-z-k is used to refer to God’s acting upon Pharaoh, k-v-d is only used in this one instance at the start of Parashat Bo. And while that might not seem such a quirk – after all, k-sh-h is also used only once – this is also the only time that the Torah doesn’t just tell us that God acted upon Pharaoh.

Because here we also get God’s stated purpose: for us to appreciate the signs and wonders He wielded in freeing us and for us to thus retell that story to subsequent generations – i.e., He is acting upon Pharaoh, specifically with k-v-d this one time, for us to retell at the Seder.

And, just as with Pharaoh, the conjugation of k-v-d here is key: because God uses that same weird term, saying that He will hikhbadti et libbo, “make-heavy [Pharaoh’s] heart.”

All of which brings us to a much more confusing question than free will, probably best summarized by “huh?”

The answer, I think starts with a subtle adjustment to our understanding of a crucial halakhah of Seder night – one mentioned by the Mishnah itself and quoted by the Haggadah: “In each and every generation we are obligated lir’ot et ‘atzmo, to see ourselves, as though we left Egypt” (mPes. 10:5).

Because I think that we tend to focus on the part of this obligation that demands we see ourselves as having been freed – as Jews celebrating our redemption at the Hands of the Ribbono Shel Olam. But I think there’s an added dimension: we must first see ourselves as Jews in Egypt, as slaves in Egypt. But to do that, we have to absorb the mentality of an Egyptian slave.

And here, if there’s one aspect to the slave-mentality we rarely think about, it’s the all-encompassing belief in your own inferiority. A Jewish slave might know his ancestry – he might recognize that he is the descendant of those who worshipped the Ribbono Shel Olam – but it doesn’t count for much when the Egyptians are your overlords. It is their gods and their way of life that reigns supreme.

And this is why – as I explored several weeks ago in Qontroversial Questions on the Parashah – it is crucial for God to defeat the Egyptian pantheon and to make a mockery of Egypt. By redeeming the Jewish people with a very specific set of plagues and actions, God shows that He is the true power.

To put all this another way, part of Yetziat Mitzrayim is transparently theological – the destruction of the enslaver’s gods – but a crucial part of it is also catharsis: for the Jewish people to see the theological system of Egypt that was quoted as justification for why the Egyptians ruled over the Jews, why the Jews had to be slaves, used against Egypt. Ra is no longer the all-powerful Egyptian god but blotted out by God.

But as dramatic as the plagues are in doing so, there is a more subtle but equally powerful additional dimension going on in the story.

Because being slaves in Egypt, the Jews would have been well-aware of one of Egypt’s fundamental beliefs: that the Egyptians believed that their ability to enter the afterlife hinged on the worth of their life on earth – which was determined via a ceremony in which the god Anubis weighed their heart against a feather. Only a person with a heart lighter than the feather entered the afterlife.²

And this makes the specific use of k-v-d in the story far more than just one of three ways to characterize Pharaoh’s stubbornness. Because when the Torah specifically refers to Pharaoh making heavy his heart, it’s not primarily trying to describe his stubbornness – other words could have been used for that – it’s making a moral claim. Every time in which Pharaoh's refusal resulted in his making-heavy his heart, it meant that his heart got that bit heavier, with the final kicker coming from God Himself – who makes Pharaoh’s heart so heavy that he has no chance of making it to the afterlife.

Thus the signs and wonders we celebrate at the Seder. It wasn’t just our redemption – as magnificent as that was. It wasn’t just the defeat of the Egyptian pantheon, as majestic a moment as that was. It was also a moment of ultimate catharsis: God used the Egyptian belief system against them.

If we truly see ourselves as Egyptian slaves then the catharsis of this moment – of God not just destroying Egypt on His own terms but also on their terms – rises to the fore as we celebrate our redemption.

1. I’m aware that it’s somewhat more complicated than this as the obligation of Seder comes a little later. For what it’s worth, a lot of the Pesaḥ-related aspects of Parashat Bo are incredibly confusing – which is why my Shabbat Ha-Gadol Derasha this year is devoted to parsing it. Wondrous understandings and appreciations of the Seder will hopefully result

2. All agree that the most technically correct and most scholarly explanation of this belief is found in Moon Knight on Disney+.