Parashat Va'era: Pharaoh's Tell-Tale Heart

In this week's Parashat Va'era, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik draws a fascinating parallel between Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and the biblical narrative of Pharaoh's hardened heart in Exodus. The story of Pharaoh is not just about the plagues that befell Egypt but also about the moral and spiritual implications of a heart that refuses to heed divine warnings. Pharaoh's heart, described as "heavy" and "hardened," symbolizes his moral guilt and resistance to change, much like the murderer in Poe's tale who is haunted by the beating of his own guilty heart. This narrative invites us to reflect on the tension between intellect and conscience, a theme that resonates with the Egyptian belief in Ma’at, where the heart's weight determined one's moral worth in the afterlife.