For those of us who have been around for more than a few Easters or Passovers, Cecil B. Demille’s movie ‘The 10 Commandments' is an enduring feature of the holiday ambience, in ways both quaint and epic. Demille’s film is an entertaining spectacle, portraying the great struggle between good and evil, with God and Moses as the good guys, and Pharaoh and his minions as the villains who get what’s coming. (The movie doesn’t strive for ethical complexity in its telling.) One fine point of the story of Exodus that the movie doesn’t take note of is the assertion that God is actually the one who manipulates Pharaoh’s bad behavior vis-a-vis the enslaved Jewish people. God, it is written, has ‘hardened Pharaoh’s heart’ leading to a series of bad decisions that end in personal and national catastrophe. How then, is this a fair outcome, for a leader whose own will has been overpowered, and who should not therefore be called to account for the actions he subsequently takes? The Jewish scholar Avivah Zornberg, a master of Midrash (the interpretation of Torah in a dialogue with layers of exegetical thought, accumulated in tradition over centuries) took up this enigmatic aspect of the story in a recent conversation with 'On Being' host Krista Tippett. In Zornberg's reading, Pharaoh’s heart condition is an irremediable and intractable state, accompanied by a deafened ear toward any surrounding voices (divine or oppressed) that might suggest an alternative to his hardened state of mind and being. This state is the consequence, she suggests, of a series of decisions and actions that have brought him to an existential dead end. It's a view of human nature as capable of reaching a point of no return. Pharaoh has abdicated his own freedom, by persisting in actions that eventually spring this inescapable trap. The result is a darkened state he can no longer see, hear or think beyond. Leaving questions of irreversible human destiny aside, this view recapitulates the maxim: thought begets habit - begets character - begets destiny, in a gradual process that unfolds over the course of a life. This way of understanding the evolution of human character implies a perspective on freedom that’s not reducible to black and white alternatives - as either completely unfettered or totally determined. It's a view in which freedom is significantly conditioned and constrained by inner circumstances that gradually take shape as experiences accumulate. Furthermore, while the experience of freedom is an essential aspect of subjective consciousness, it can become irretrievably lost in time. In this loss, the moral landscape contracts, hardness of heart becomes the normative inner reality that constrains possibilities for seeing and engaging the world. Who’s responsible for this mess, a God who has ultimate responsibility for the kind of beings we are, or Pharaoh, (standing in for a humanity that is subject to such unfortunate outcomes), who brought it upon himself? Figuring out that problem is about as promising as counting the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin. But Zornberg's reading of the story evokes other questions, more relevant to living - aspects of psychological experience that didn’t enter Mr. DeMille’s imaginative depictions of plagues and parting waters. These questions pertain to human will, the transient nature of mind, and the traps they weave around us. All part of the picture of human consciousness, at a scale more manageable than the search for metaphysical scapegoats.
Regarding free will, I've avoided dwelling on whether it exists, or engaging in endless debates with computer scientist colleagues about what it is, whether AIs have free will, etc. I learned about the Existentialist philosophers in high school and have adopted their thinking. Basically, I just assume that free will exists, and that it is up to the individual to make their life meaningful. In other words, everyone decides whether their life has meaning.
But, I can relate to Pharaoh. Thought begets habit begets character begets destiny. I think that's definitely true for many people. As we age, we get more hardened in our habits. Many of us become jaded, almost Scrooge-like characters, with little feeling for humanity as a whole. I cling to my love of my family and friends, and of good courageous heroes that I can admire for the good they do, but I generally, honestly hate most of American society. It's not just the latent aggression and violence. For me, most of all, it is the greed, cowardice, and dishonesty (especially of the Evangelical religion). I'm going to stop here before I explode into another rant. Maybe that can help me avoid the fate of Pharaoh.
The inner battle just to avoid cynicism and despair takes up a lot of energy. I think you just have to constantly work against those currents so as not to drown in them. That's the first order of business and how you act in the world is a reflection of that.
Yes, so sad and true. Then, when someone follows the natural trajectory of this gun glut of our culture, out from our influencers comes this hypocritical hogwash of "Thoughts and prayers." Ugh!
Also, I would add to the list, the gratuitous posture of hatred towards transgender or two spirit people which is only acknowledged in the attempts to cast it as something other than hatred, in order to justify it. I think it's a good litmus test for the hardened hearts of our own society in it's contrast with Indigenous societies that often revered such people.
'Thoughts and prayers' in response to a mass shooting is what Bonhoeffer called out as cheap grace, and God doesn't smile on that. As Jim Finley likes to say 'with God, a little sincerity goes a long way'.
Regarding free will, I've avoided dwelling on whether it exists, or engaging in endless debates with computer scientist colleagues about what it is, whether AIs have free will, etc. I learned about the Existentialist philosophers in high school and have adopted their thinking. Basically, I just assume that free will exists, and that it is up to the individual to make their life meaningful. In other words, everyone decides whether their life has meaning.
But, I can relate to Pharaoh. Thought begets habit begets character begets destiny. I think that's definitely true for many people. As we age, we get more hardened in our habits. Many of us become jaded, almost Scrooge-like characters, with little feeling for humanity as a whole. I cling to my love of my family and friends, and of good courageous heroes that I can admire for the good they do, but I generally, honestly hate most of American society. It's not just the latent aggression and violence. For me, most of all, it is the greed, cowardice, and dishonesty (especially of the Evangelical religion). I'm going to stop here before I explode into another rant. Maybe that can help me avoid the fate of Pharaoh.
The inner battle just to avoid cynicism and despair takes up a lot of energy. I think you just have to constantly work against those currents so as not to drown in them. That's the first order of business and how you act in the world is a reflection of that.
Yes, so sad and true. Then, when someone follows the natural trajectory of this gun glut of our culture, out from our influencers comes this hypocritical hogwash of "Thoughts and prayers." Ugh!
Here's a link to the interview with the poet Ocean Vuong. I think you'll like it very much.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-being-with-krista-tippett/id150892556?i=1000566672857
Also, I would add to the list, the gratuitous posture of hatred towards transgender or two spirit people which is only acknowledged in the attempts to cast it as something other than hatred, in order to justify it. I think it's a good litmus test for the hardened hearts of our own society in it's contrast with Indigenous societies that often revered such people.
Thanks, Markus.
'Thoughts and prayers' in response to a mass shooting is what Bonhoeffer called out as cheap grace, and God doesn't smile on that. As Jim Finley likes to say 'with God, a little sincerity goes a long way'.