Va`eira
Do we acknowledge our humanity?
Reflection by US Community Manager Carrie Watkins:
"Moshe and Aaron’s first attempt to free the Israelites - in the incident with the staffs turning into snakes - does not go well, as Hashem predicted. Pharoh’s heart was `יֶּחֱזַק֙` stiffened, or strengthened, and he did not heed Moses and Aaron. So God instructs Moses to meet Pharaoh, `in the morning, as he is coming out of the water` of the Nile (Ex 7:15) and to say to him the famous words, `Let my people go` (7:16).
Why in the morning and at the water, specifically? Rashi offers an incredible commentary from the Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 9). Pharaoh went every morning to the Nile, before anyone else was around, to relieve himself, to use the bathroom, so to speak. Pharaoh saw himself as a God, says the Midrash, and Gods don’t have physical needs. To keep up the illusion, Pharaoh had to hide himself.
By meeting him in that moment, Moses is uncovering Pharaoh's illusion. As much as Pharaoh wants his heart to be hard and his body to be as impenetrable as a deity, he is human.
Jewish tradition has a practice to directly support us in avoiding this pitfall of denying our humanness. It’s a prayer for after we leave the bathroom, in which we thank God for our bodies. It’s a moment of integrated mindfulness, a bringing awareness to what we otherwise might try to ignore, that allows us to see the vulnerabilities of our bodies not as weaknesses but as wonders.
In gratitude for our soft, vulnerable human bodies and hearts."