Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law (1659), by Rembrandt. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the process through which Moses and Aaron try to persuade the Pharaoh that he should let the children of Israel go. After all, Pharaoh was the absolute head of the most powerful state and civilization of that era. He had every reason to feel confident in his assumptions. When faced with a people who had no state, no power, and no authority, why would he take them seriously?

Initially, Moses and Aaron simply approached with an argument and a request. But when that was rejected, they began to use what we might look at as tricks, or magic, to get Pharaoh to change his mind — which is strange given that magic comes to be specifically forbidden by the Torah.

Aaron, as the spokesman, starts the process by using Moses’ stick, and turning it into a snake. Then Pharaoh called his magicians, or more accurately, necromancers, and they are able to do exactly the same thing. Except the snake that Aaron threw down swallowed theirs and Pharaoh was not persuaded. The next act was to strike the river so that everything would turn into blood. Once again, the magicians were able to do the same thing. The plague of frogs was also replicated by the magicians. Only this time, they were not able to remove the frogs, which was something that Moses was able to achieve. But Pharaoh was still not impressed.

Aaron then hit the ground, turning the dust into lice. This time the magicians were unable to replicate it, and for the first time, they admitted that there was something more powerful. Even so, Pharaoh was still not persuaded. Then the plague of wild beasts which does not affect the Israelites but still no progress. Plagues followed that struck Egyptian livestock, along with hail and boils, which finally convinced Pharaoh to think about freeing them.

One is bound to ask why Aaron and Moses started with signs that could be replicated? Why not start right away with the big ones?

One answer lies in how to break down prejudice, and get people to change their minds. You rarely get somebody who has an entrenched point of view to concede quickly. It is a process that takes time. Secondly, the basis on which Egyptians made decisions through magic or necromancy is non-rational and based on superstition. Most human beings are both non-rational and superstitious, so the first thing you have to do is to break down their certainties.

I think this lesson in persuasion is applicable to our current times, where we have witnessed how a whole generation of academics and teachers has turned against the Jewish State – and then encouraged their students to do the same.

It started slowly and imperceptibly, with contributions to universities to set up departments that would present a specifically anti-Israel narrative and appoint staff in other areas who would share such an agenda, until it became the accepted narrative. Then people who were focused entirely on race and an oppressor vs. oppressed mindset twisted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fit their agenda.

Pharaoh was never convinced he was wrong. Let us hope that this time, it might be different. We were commanded in the Bible not to hate the Egyptians for their destructive policies. However, we were encouraged to establish an alternative narrative. And that remains true to this day.

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.