At the urging of his advisors, hoping to avert the threatened plague of locusts, Pharaoh calls back Moses and Aaron and again attempts to bargain with them concerning the departure of the Israelites.  He enquires who exactly is intending to go on this religious excursion and when told that everyone including children are included, he explodes. ‘See that evil is before your face’ he exclaims before he drives them out of his presence.

The meaning of this statement of Pharaoh’s has been discussed by the commentators over the centuries. There seem to be two main approaches to understanding what Pharaoh is implying. One takes the words as a simple accusation of bad faith and nefarious intentions. Pharaoh is essentially intimating that he has unmasked the true meaning of Moses’ request for a religious festival in the desert. The fact that he wishes to take the children along with them clearly shows that his true aim is flee with all the people and never return.

The other approach, based on a midrashic tradition, sees Pharaoh’s words as a warning. Not that you are intending evil, but that literally evil is before you. This excursion in the desert will not end well and he sees a grim fate awaiting the departing Israelites. The Midrash, quoted by Rashi, understands Moses’ various intercessions with G-d in the wilderness as referencing this warning. If G-d destroys the Israelites, Moses explains, this will show Pharaoh to have been right.

As we contemplate anti-Jewish hostility, past and present, we can often find these two motifs represented. On the one hand, there are those who accuse the Jews of acting in bad faith and having nefarious purposes. The current accusation of ‘weaponising antisemitism’ is a prime example of this type of accusation. Then we have those who pretend to be solicitous for Jewish welfare. They want to protect us from manipulation by ‘Zionist forces’ and others who use us as a human shield and thus put us in danger. As if they know far better what is good for the Jews than the Jews themselves.

Both of these accusations were on display after the attack on Jews in Bondi. There were those who accused ‘Zionist and hardline Jewish organisations’ of exploiting the attack to further Netanyahu’s nefarious purposes. Then there were those who expressed dismay at the ‘misuse’ of the victims and the Jewish community to further the same evil designs, as if they had suddenly become solicitous for Jewish welfare. The Jewish approach then as now is that of Moses. We do not need to reply to these statements, rather just continue to state our case. The truth in the end will prevail.