Parshas Bo sees G-d telling Moses that “at midnight” he will kill the firstborn, whereas when he related this to Pharoah, Moses said “around midnight” the firstborn will die. We learn from here a very deep lesson about human nature; if the firstborns of Egypt would have all perished miraculously, no matter who or where they are in egypt as predicted (and after 9 plagues occurred which were foretold accurately 100%) – yet Pharoah, looking at his watch saw 11:59pm – he would have said “No, just a coincidence…you didn’t tell it 100% right…therfore G-d doesn’t exist”. Moses knew that given even the slightest chance, no matter how silly the reason, no matter how obvious everything else is – the slightest chance would have led him to be intellectually dishonest and deny the truth. So often, we are presented with real arguments (about anything) yet, if it doesn’t fit into what we believe already, or how we live then we look for that one thing that we can say “Ah, that bit doesn’t make sense to me…therefore I can’t accept the whole lot”…open your eyes – weigh things up objectively and be intellectually honest – and then you can’t go wrong. Moses knew that Pharoah was set in his ways and would cling to anything that he could do justify his beliefs despite all objective evidence – it’s our job in any decisions we make to search for the answers, not in order to justify what we know but to search for the truth for its own sake(even if that is a bit uncomfortable to our way of life).
Good Shabbos – Bo -selecta!