free will use it or lose it in parshadva era we read for the first time not of pharaoh's hardening his heart

but of god doing so i will harden pharaoh's heart say god to moses and multiply my signs and wonders in the

land of egypt and so indeed we find in the sixth plague boils the eighth locus and the

tenth the firstborn. In each case the hardening is attributed to God. Hence the problem that

troubled the sages and later commentators, if God was the cause and Pharaoh milly his passive

vehicle, what was his sin? He had no choice, therefore no

responsibility, therefore no culpability. The commentators give a broad range of answers.

One, Pharaoh's loss of free will during the last five plagues was a punishment for his obstinacy

in the first five where he did act freely. Or two, the relevant verb, Le Chazek,

doesn't mean to harden, but to strengthen. God wasn't taking away Pharaoh's free will,

but to the contrary, preserving it in the face of overwhelming disasters that were hitting Egypt.

Third, very ingenious, says that God is a partner in all human action,

but we only usually attribute an act to God if it seems inexplicable in ordinary human terms.

Pharaoh acted freely throughout all the ten plagues,

but it was only during the last five that his behavior was so strange

that it was attributed to God. Note how reluctant the commentators were to take the text at face value,

rightly so, because free will is one of the fundamental beliefs of Judaism. My monody explains why.

If we had no free will, there would be.

He says no point to the commands and prohibitions,

since we would behave as we were predestined to do,

regardless of what the law is.

Nor would there be any justice in rule or punishment

...