Parshat Va'era: Why was Pharaoh Punished?

While sitting at our Pesach Seder reading through the story of the ten plagues, we confront a difficult question: Why was Pharaoh punished for not letting the Jews go? After all, we find by numerous plagues that Hashem hardened the heart of Pharaoh, effectively removing his free will. So then why was he punished?

The Ramban suggests a novel idea; Pharaoh’s initial acts of killing Jewish babies was so bad that his ability to do teshuvah was removed. Without the ability to do teshuvah, he was judged and punished on his initial acts of killing the babies and in actuality he was NOT punished for anything he did after Hashem hardened his heart.

What does this mean? He was punished for his original actions?

Rabbi Andi Yudin, a dear friend of mine, recently told me this: it is quoted in the name of Rav Yisrael Salanter that when it comes to mizvot, we know there is a principle of לפום צערא עגרא. The more effort you put into a mitzvah, the more reward you shall receive. When you do a mitzvah that seems simple or easy, you are rewarded as if you did a challenging mitzvah. For example, at first davening every day with a minyan may seem challenging, but one who commits himself to it will get used to it, eventually it becoming second nature. Rav Yisroel Salanter states that you still get rewarded as if it was still hard for you to perform. Essentially, you earned the fact that it has become easy by doing it over and over.

The same is true about aveirot. In the beginning it is not so challenging to overcome a sin and correct your ways. But, as you get used to performing aveirot it becomes harder to stop doing them. So how does Hashem view us and choose to punish us? Since at the beginning it was easier to stop, I am punished for things as it were in the beginning, since I could have stopped them from reoccurring.

For Pharaoh, included in his end game was his beginning game. Since he committed terrible aveirot in the beginning, he was punished for his original aveirot; he could not be punished for his later actions which were done without free will.

There is a powerful message for all of us here. Some mitzvot are harder for us than others. The effort you make in the beginning allows you to continue to be rewarded later on, even if it gets easier to do that mitzvah. So Lefum Tzara Agra goes both ways. Pharaoh was punished at the end for what his actions were in the beginning, when he should have stopped, but he was not punished for his later actions after Hashem removed his free will.

Let us all remember that unlike Pharaoh, we have free will to choose good and to keep the Torah and Mitzvot. We will be rewarded for our efforts, even after mitzvot become easier to perform!