Vaera Torah Commentary

Rabbi Melanie Aron

January 26, 2001

In the movies, Moses stands before Pharaoh and demands: "Let my people go", and you know he means, go, leave, depart, be set free, never to return --but the Biblical text itself is not so clear.

Look with me at Chapter 5 of Exodus, where Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh.

They say: "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go that they may celebrate a festival for Me in the wilderness." "The God of the Hebrews has manifested himself to us. Let us go, we pray, a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He strike us with pestilence or sword."

Wait a minute. This is something totally different. This sounds more like a long weekend: its not liberation.

So I wondered: was Moses afraid to come before Pharaoh and ask for freedom, was that why he introduces this festival idea?

But no, check back with me to chapter 3 where Moses is getting his instructions. God tells Moses: "I will take you out of the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey."

But he continues, this is what you should say to Pharaoh:

"The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, manifested Himself to us. Now therefore let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God."

Is this a trick? Was Moses negotiating in bad faith? Was he asking for one thing, with the intention, at the final moment of the clinching of the deal, of escalating his demands? What is it that they want- freedom or a short vacation?

The idea that Moses was not being honest in his demands to Pharaoh bothered me. It seemed to me, with my modern sensibilities, that if they were seeking freedom, than that's what they should have asked for.

This year I learned something that makes this repeated request for a chance to go on a short trip, a little more understandable.

The request for a three day festival, a pilgrimage to some sacred spot was not exceptional in terms of corvee labor in the ancient world. State organized forced labor gangs, which is probably what the Israelites were, made such limited requests as proved by entries in existing logs of Egyptian work supervisors, for the 15th and 14th centuries BCE. There is also archeological evidence for pastoral nomads, which the ancient Israelite people were, making periodical pilgrimages to scared shrines in the wilderness.

Asking for liberation, for freedom, would have been incomprehensible in the ancient world. Why should Pharaoh grant these foreigners what his own people didn't even have? But the request to go off for three days to worship their own God was something else, something familiar. When Pharaoh asks: "Who is Adonai that I should heed him... I do not know Adonai"- one can almost imagine the work supervisor looking down the list of approved requests and their related gods. Asking for this three day festival and being denied their request showed the particular unfairness of Pharaoh towards the Israelites and thus justifying their redemption. The denial of this request, which was reasonable in that time period, showed the true character of the Pharaoh towards them and the brutal nature of his tyranny.