Pharaohs Aren’t the Problem. We Are.

The Passover story I was taught in the ultra-Orthodox yeshivas of my youth was that of a villainous Pharaoh, a heartless tyrant who ruled with an iron fist.

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” (Exodus 1:22)

I wasn’t surprised.

Exodus was only Book Two of the Furious Five, and I was only eight years old, but it was already clear to me that leaders - Pharaohs, Kings and Emperors – tended to be heartless. The more powerful they were, the more heartless they became, and so God was even crueler than Pharaoh. Pharaoh threw Israelites boys into the Nile, but God killed boys and girls, God killed mothers and father, God killed cows and sheep.

God struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, goes the story. There wasn’t a house in which someone wasn’t dead. (Exodus 12:29-38)

I wasn’t surprised.

What surprised me about the Passover story wasn’t the heartless leader I was taught about in yeshiva, rather it was what I saw on a school field trip one year, a few weeks after the holiday, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Because as our rabbis led us through the grand, spot-lit, marble-floored Egyptian Wing of the museum, hung with ancient carvings and etchings and paintings, I looked up at the hieroglyphs of common Egyptians - mothers and fathers, farmers and scribes – and wondered, “How could they?” How could ordinary non-leader Egyptians go so blithely about their day while so much suffering and anguish was taking place just down the road? The sad answer, I would later learn, was “Easily.”

The Egyptians of the time were nervous. Their world was changing. Their kingdom was ending. Old methods were being replaced, and new empires were rising. As anxiety rose, so did discontent, fear and xenophobia (“Let us deal shrewdly with them,” said Pharaoh of the Israelites, “lest they multiply… and fight against us…” Exodus 1:9. The Great Replacement Theory isn’t great - it isn’t even new).

So sure, the Egyptians thought, Ramses II was cruel and vindictive, but hey - the borders were strong, unemployment was down, and the Cairo S&P was humming.

“Of course I don’t like Pharaoh as a person,” said one, “but he’s strong on defense.”

“I disagree with him on the whole throw-boys-into-the-Nile thing,” said another, “but my 401K is through the roof.”

As it turns out, Pharaohs aren’t the problem.

We are.

We the fearful. We the expedient. We the “Yes, but he protects us.”

I confess: after 9/11, I wanted a Pharaoh here in America. Someone strong, someone heartless, someone who would protect me at all costs, and maybe spill a little blood in revenge. After the Hamas attacks of October 7^th, I wanted an Israeli Pharaoh. I got my Pharaohs, and I got my blood. But I didn’t get my security. I only got more fear.

Today the world is changing again, and so around the world, people are turning to Pharaohs. They are turning to hardliners and podium-pounders who promise to hold back the sea of change. “The paradise that once was,” Pharaohs promise, “will soon be again.”

As a result, we’ve got Pharaohs up the wazoo. We are neck-deep in Ramses. This year, the playbill of this ceaseless Grand Guignol reads, the role of Pharaoh One will be played by Benjamin Netanyahu. Pharaoh Two will be played by Yahya Sinwar, and Pharaoh Three by Ali Khamenei. Pharaoh Four will be played by Vladimir Putin and Pharaoh Five will be played by Viktor Orban. Recent polls suggest we may be looking at our own American Pharaoh in a few short months. Again.

“Say what you want about Ramses, he builds a helluva Sphinx.”

Perhaps Hannah Arendt got it wrong. Perhaps it’s not so much the banality of evil as it is the cold-blooded pragmatism of it. A regular at a local café told me recently that he believes that what America needs most right now is a dictator, a Josef Stalin. “Just for a month,” he said. “Just to fix things, just to get things back in order. Then we can go back to democracy.”

As if Pharaohs peacefully transferred power.

And so in this time of fierce, fulminating, foaming-at-the-mouth Pharaohs, perhaps it’s worth our remembering that the true villains of the Bible story were the Egyptian citizens – the mothers and fathers, the farmers and scribes - who sat by, who looked the other way, who stuck “Pharaoh 2024!” stickers on the back of their chariots and drove past foreign babies being drowned in the Nile saying, “Yes, well, something had to be done, they were taking our jobs.”

This year, the playbill continues, the role of the Egyptians will be played by us.

According to Exodus, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. That’s worth remembering, too. As far as guilt goes, Pharaoh got a pass.

The Egyptian people had no such excuse.

And neither will we.

Yours in the Fetal Position,

S.

(illustrations by Orli Auslander)