Lary Bloom
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Saturday, February 11, 2006
Pharaoh Bush
Yesterday morning, in our weekly session of Torah study, known with some irreverance, as the Holy Scrollers, one of our more astute participants offered a new spin on Exodus's evil Pharaoh. The matter of God hardening Pharoah's heart several times has always been, for us, problematic -- making the Pharaoh a mere stooge and stripping him of free will. More than once, God's motives have been questioned in our group, and the whole story seems farfetched and unnecessarily cruel. In all the years we've been reading this, Pharaoh seems less and less like a believable figure.But then, perhaps Pharaoh's hardened heart is nothing more than, well, George Bush's stubborness. Our commander in chief finds it implausibe, once he has put forward a position, to admit error. His war on terror, for example, is rightly centered in Iraq --a circumstance that underscores his failure at Yale and in other places at geography and common sense. There's no backing away once a position is taken, particularly on national defense and the "foreigners" who are a threat. No evidence otherwise makes any difference.
So, put Bush in Pharaoh's place. Plague after plague have come upon the Egyptions, yet the man in charge "stays the course." And when the 11th plague, Katrina, hits, even many of those who have been taken in by Pharaoh are beginning to feel as if we will all soon be at the bottom of the Sea of Reeds in our chariots.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 11:52 AM
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