The Inner Pharaoh and Truth Within (adapted from previous versions) Torah Portion Bo 2025

The Inner Pharaoh and Truth Within (adapted from previous versions)

Torah Portion Bo 2025

The Jewish tradition loves serious play with words. This week’s Torah portion begins with God’s telling Moses, “Go to Pharaoh” (Exodus 10:1) to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. The problem is, the Hebrew for “Go to Pharaoh” is “bo el Paro,” which literally means “come to Pharaoh,” not “go to Pharaoh.”

Instead of explaining away this grammatical oddity, the spiritual tradition focuses on the literal meaning of “come to Pharaoh.” “Come to Pharaoh” is understood as God saying to Moses, “Come – to me – but you’ll have to go through Pharaoh.”

Pharaoh is interpreted here as forces of destructiveness, especially the world of the lie, that stand between us and the Divine. If by “Divine” we mean at least the world of truth, we have to work through the world of the lie to get to truth, truth itself as being a component of human flourishing.

One thing that the World of the Lie (represented by Pharoah) does is hide forces of negativity that lurk within. To find the Divine, we will have to go through a force that resists self-knowledge.

There is a holy spark within us that tells us there is well-being to be had, a spark that can give us initial direction for our own, singular path. The lie of resistance sometimes tells us that the good is unachievable because we are not worthy or able. Sometimes, the lie of resistance tells us that the good is unachievable because the world around us is so bad.

The Inner Pharaoh is a liar. There is some good that can be done and nothing in the world can stop us from doing some good, even if only a little, and even if only within.

We can’t just step around the Inner Pharaoh, though. He will ambush us.

“Face your inner destructiveness” sounds like a spiritual platitude. People nod and say, “Sure, obviously!” and then allow those destructive forces to take over their thoughts, feelings and emotions. People admit, “I have this bad habit of . . .” or “I couldn’t help but get . . .” (fill in the blank – angry, self-attacking, accusatory, defensive, hopeless, fed up, etc.). I agree.

Our inner destructiveness can take us over. At times, we can’t help giving in to the negative forces of the unconscious ego self.

To fight the Inner Pharoah we must train. To train, we start with honest and courageous self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is the beginning of the path to redemption. The Inner Pharaoh does not want us to truly know ourselves, because if we did, we might change our lives and escape the exile and slavery of Egypt. A step on the path of redemption is to name precisely the nature of the trap you are in.

Perhaps you never discovered the path. Perhaps something pushed you off the path. Perhaps you pushed yourself off the path. That happens. The main thing is to dust yourself off and get back on the path and not pretend that your old path to perdition is a new path to truth.

We tend to imagine the inner Pharaoh as in a biblical depiction, sitting on his throne. This archetypal image is, for me, a cardboard figure that hides the entryway into a howling wasteland. Once you push aside the cardboard figure and see a mirror, you have a choice. You can step back into your prison cell, or you can begin to chart your path through the wasteland of the inner Pharaoh. You can go through the mirror and get to work. There is no other path to come to God.