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A Short Word of Torah: Va’era (January 16th, 2010)
Look, Pharaoh, it’s pretty simple. These two hairy dudes, Moshe and Aharon, have come to you with a proclamation that unless you change your ways, you and all yours will soon be devastated with the force of the natural elements around you. The frogs are coming. So are the locusts. Even the hail.
Pharaoh, I know you’re confused about the hail. Your minister-magicians have informed you about the beginning of what they call Shlimate Shlange. “We predict doom within fifty years,” they prophesied: “The river’s water will become undrinkable. The livestock will die en masse with the invasion of foreign insect species. There will be desert heat like you’ve never felt it before.”
How, then, could there be hail? Surely the effects of Shlimate Shlange must be to make the desert even hotter! Well, if you thought you understood the Shlimate, you were wrong.
But, Pharaoh, I know how you feel. And the good news is that I have some advice for you. Some tried and tested advice. First, ignore the prophets. Ignore your magicians. Argue about the scientific reality of Shlimate Shlange. Humans were put on the earth to dominate, not to tend and to guard. The longer you put off thinking about your personal effect on the water people drink, the smaller the problem will be.
Oh, you’ve done that. Well, then, agree to some small concession. Let those hairy naturalists go out and pray to their G-d and nature. But not too far. Keep them on a short leash, and make sure they return to the city after three days. You know as well as I do that if they really saw nature in its beauty for any extended period of time, they might be convinced to care. Which would be the end of your cheap foreign labor and large capitalistic gains. It would really topple your pyramid scheme.
You’ve done that too? Wait, pharaoh, you’re not as stupid as I had thought! Or maybe I’m not as smart. Well, then, the only advice I have left to give you is this: remember, you da man. You Egyptians, you sure know everything. The immigrants in your land, those Hebrews, can barely speak your language, and most of them probably don’t have citizenship or naturalization. Think about global justice, Pharaoh. Think about how your people matter, and the rest of the world might as well not exist. The billion people without clean drinking water every day? They’re just clogging your pipes, so to speak.
Cultures other than your own, Pharaoh, have nothing to teach you. It’s your job to enlighten them, to help them progress to your high moral and ethical standards. Because you do have moral and ethical standards, right?
I mean, it was G-d who made the Nile undrinkable, wasn’t it? It wasn’t you?
