In a midrash, the rabbis teach that Pharaoh was punished for claiming to be a god (Exodus Rabbah 8:2). In a case of "let the punishment fit the crime," God sent Moses to Pharaoh with the instructions from this week's Torah portion (Va'eira): "See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh" (Exodus 7:1). The punishment for pretending to be a god is to be brought down by a human being whom God has designated to act as God. Poetic justice.

There is nothing that Judaism seems to despise more than human beings who believe that they can take the place of God. That is a dire warning for an age in which we constantly play God. We manipulate DNA to create new life forms. We kill people on the other side of the world by pushing buttons. We carry access to the world's largest libraries in our pockets. We scoff at the stories of miracles in the Bible, not because they seem unbelievable, but because they seem so puny compared to what we can do with our technology. (Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls come tumblin' down? A single B-2 Stealth Bomber armed with precision weapons could do the job undetected in under a minute.)

So, the question we must be wondering is this: What shepherd dressed in Bedouin's clothes will come walking into our halls of power to bring us down, acting as God's agent? There are plenty of candidates. If we so insist on playing God, taking all of our power for granted, how will that power be turned against us in another case of cosmic comeuppance?

Perhaps, it is time for us to be less focussed on what we can do and more concerned about what we should do with our power. There is a man with a beard and a staff at the door and he is asking us to let his people go.


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Vayikra: Should I Bow to a Block of Wood?