I first met Menachem Mirski when I and my wife Judy went to Poland in the fall of 2010 to help in a Jewish revival. Mirski was not a Rabbi then. He had only recently converted to Judaism then. Now he is a wonderful Rabbi. I offer my readers his insight into the miracle of Jewish life.

In our parasha for this week (Exodus 6:2–9:35), we encounter one of the Torah’s most profound explorations of human agency amid divine intervention. As God unleashes the first plagues upon Egypt to liberate the Israelites from bondage, Pharaoh’s response reveals a chilling dynamic: the hardening of his heart. The text alternates between Pharaoh hardening his own heart and God doing so, raising timeless questions about free will. Does divine involvement negate human choice? Or does it illuminate the consequences of our repeated decisions?

Drawing from the wisdom of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, in his Covenant & Conversation essays on this parasha—such as “Freewill” and “The Weighing of the Heart”—we can uncover a powerful message: while from the social and political perspective individual freedom is or should be a fundamental human right, this right does not guarantee it will become a reality. Our individual free will is a delicate capacity that can erode through our own actions, turning us into prisoners of our choices.

Rabbi Sacks teaches that Pharaoh’s journey begins with full agency. During the first five plagues—blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, and pestilence—Pharaoh hardens his own heart freely. While at the beginning of the story God says: I will harden Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 7:3) the Torah states explicitly, “Pharaoh’s heart stiffened” (Exodus 7:22,

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