Why do human beings dig into their beliefs precisely when the evidence is against them?
Parshat Vaera uses Pharaoh’s stunning obstinacy to explore this question. At the outset of his face-off with Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh clings to his pagan beliefs. When they turn a staff into a snake, the palace magicians replicate the feat. And after the first two plagues—blood and frogs—they do the same.
But the illusion collapses with the third plague. When the magicians fail to reproduce the lice, they concede, “This is the finger of God.”
Yet Pharaoh himself still refuses to yield. Why?
The Torah offers a striking explanation: “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Now, Judaism insists on human free will, so it’s unlikely that God simply overrode Pharaoh’s agency. Instead, the verse points to a subtler dynamic: Pharaoh’s resistance had become self-reinforcing. He was so invested in his prior beliefs that the more they were threatened, the more fiercely he clung to them. Under pressure, Pharaoh did not pause to reflect. He doubled down.
This isn’t just about Pharaoh. His stubbornness mirrored the structure of Egyptian society itself. Ancient Egypt was a rigid hierarchy, a civilization built on fixed roles and absolute power. Rabbinic tradition sharpens the image by portraying Egypt as a place where no slave ever left or changed status within a lifetime. Pharaoh’s refusal, then, is not just psychological. It is the defense of a system in which power flows only downward and Jewish freedom is unthinkable.
Seen this way, the ten plagues are not simply punishments. They function as a systematic dismantling of Egypt’s theology. Each plague strips away another illusion of control, demanding an acknowledgment that power itself has limits and is accountable to a higher power.
This is the demand Pharaoh cannot meet. To change would be to admit that his understanding of power is wrong. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once observed, tyrants are often prisoners of their own power, dragging others down with them. Through entrenchment, Pharaoh traps himself—and his people—in a prison of his own making.
Read this way, Parshat Vaera feels uncomfortably familiar. Entrenchment is not confined to ancient rulers. It appears in everyday life: in strained relationships we refuse to repair, in roles we cling to even when they constrict us, in communal positions that once served real needs but now persist out of inertia. We notice the warning signs, like burnout and built-up resentment, and, like Pharaoh, we persuade ourselves that the cost of change is too high, gradually losing the capacity to imagine another way.
Judaism pushes in the opposite direction. Shabbat compels us to stop working even when we feel indispensable at our jobs. Jewish law limits what we may say and do even when we are certain we are right. Being part of a community obligates us to make space for others—and for the beliefs of others, too—even when it feels like an imposition.
Pharaoh could not change because Egyptian power recognized no limits. Jewish life is built to teach the opposite. And so Parshat Vaera leaves us with a stark question: where in our own lives are we digging in when what is needed is the courage to change? Redemption, the Torah suggests, begins when we are willing to loosen our grip on certainty and allow ourselves to grow.
Hass Robinson is carrying out Doctoral research into the attitudes of teenage Jewish Day School students. She is a member of the first cohort of Rabbi Sacks Scholars.
This essay was written as part of our collaboration with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Sacks Scholars.
