Parashat Vaera: 

Here we begin the 10 plagues in Egypt. How silly were the Egyptians; how non-sensical Pharaoh's reaction? Why, seeing the approaching death with ever worsening plagues, did Pharaoh not avoid inevitable disaster by giving in and doing from the outset what he would have to do at the end: let the people go? 

I had the good fortune last week of reading The Collapse of Western Civilization: a View From The Future, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. It's a fictitious account (complete with maps!) of the history of Western civilization's collapse from global warming from the perspective of 300 years from now. Oreskes and Conway write: "... virtually all agree that the people of Western civilization knew what was happening to them but were unable to stop it." (p. 11) The monograph documents the process of global warming since the start of the industrial revolution, and how beginning in the 1980s-90s we knew exactly what was occurring to the planet but refused to take the steps to accomplish what was needed to prevent disaster.

Last week four children of the Paris slums, two of them orphaned in childhood, all four recruited and co-opted by radical Islam, murdered 16 innocent people in the name of their God and their vision of the world. We know that impoverished, neglected, forgotten, unemployed youth are subject to radical political movements. But the news has focused on Islamist attacks on France instead of the results of human neglect; and that a European nation, France, suffered horrifying deaths even as Boko Haram, another Islamist murderous sect, murdered thousands in Nigeria.

How silly was Pharaoh not to heed the plagues? And how ridiculous will we look to future generations, for laughing at Pharaoh while walking in his shoes? The means of averting disaster lie within our grasp, but they are expensive. What would it cost in dollars and change of lifestyle to halt global warming? What social workers, job creation, tax structure, education system and integration of minorities would it take to close the slums of the major cities of our nation and around the world? God indeed requires payment for our sins. Taxes wouldn't just go up; they'd go way up. But we might prevent future disaster.

Pharaoh didn't believe because believing would have been inconvenient and an admission that he was not omnipotent like God. What's our excuse?

Shabbat shalom.