The Eternal said to Moses, “Early in the morning present yourself to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Eternal, the God of the Hebrews: Let My people go to worship Me. (14) For this time I will send all My plagues upon your person, and your courtiers, and your people, in order that you may know that there is none like Me in all the world... This time tomorrow I will rain down a very heavy hail...Therefore, order your livestock and everything you have in the open brought under shelter; every human and beast that is found outside, not having been brought indoors, shall perish when the hail comes down upon them!’”
Those among Pharaoh’s courtiers who feared the word of the Eternal brought their slaves and livestock indoors to safety; (21) but those who paid no regard to the word of the Eternal left (וַֽיַּעֲזֹב) their slaves and livestock in the open.
ו +עזב
to depart from, leave behind, leave, let alone
to leave, abandon, forsake, neglect
The extra letter ו in ויעזב is [there] to draw to our attention that those people who had up to now refused to heed God's warning added to their previous sin by continuing in their ways, deliberately exposing their livestock and servants to death by hail despite God's warning. Their obstinacy was such that though they could have saved their property by the simple expedient of bringing it indoors for a while, they defied God and did not do so... [they] preferred to demonstrate their defiance by risking their property.
When someone wants to fight with his companion and overcome him, he comes upon him suddenly, kills him, and takes everything he has. But the Holy One said to Pharaoh: "Order your livestock and everything you have in the open brought under shelter."
How is it possible that the Egyptians continued to be in such blatant denial to the extent that Pharaoh’s own servants left their servants and livestock out in the fields to be destroyed? V'asher lo sam libo (וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא־שָׂם לִבּוֹ) - they simply did not take the word of God to heart... They simply did not ‘pay attention.’
God didn’t simply bring the Israelites out of Egypt and leave the Egyptians behind, which [God] surely could have done. [God] brought out the people who chose to come by marking their doorposts with blood. We can guess that some Israelites did not mark their doorposts and stayed behind with the Egyptians. We can also guess that some Egyptians marked their doorposts and left with the Israelites; they were the ‘mixed multitude’
(6) If you sin, what do you do to God?
If your transgressions are many,
How do you affect God? (7) If you are righteous,
What do you give God;
What does God receive from your hand? (8) Your wickedness affects people like yourself;
Your righteousness, mortals.
Right now people live in terror in Iraq and Darfur, and in other places around the world. To look closely at their situations is so painful it is overwhelming. We have to step back, distance ourselves enough not to be paralyzed by the horror.
There has to be a balance, though. If we become too distanced, we stop caring. We stop looking for ways to help, we stop looking for ways to end these situations. It is important that we feel outrage, sadness, and pain on behalf of other human beings, so that we feel invested in creating a better world for all of us. Judaism, sensibly, tells us we should help whether we feel compassion or not, because our tradition recognizes that we can become overwhelmed and consequently inured to the violence and tragedy in the world. However, it is good to feel the compassion, to sometimes open ourselves enough to feel a little of the pain and terror others live with all the time. It helps us to remember how privileged we are, and that we have a responsibility to others.
With their livelihood destroyed and survival in question, we would expect an outcry from the Egyptian people. Gradually, we see Pharaoh’s magicians, courtiers, and the general population realize that the problems are not going away any time soon and that action must be taken before it is too late... Reading and retelling this narrative, this cycle seems almost farcical. Why is Pharaoh so obstinate, even in the face of far-reaching consequences of the plagues? How could a leader repeatedly make such damaging choices, when the consequences of ignoring the evidence are clear and the remedy is available? And why do the Egyptian people not demand immediate action when the plagues threaten their survival?
Had the Egyptians demanded action sooner, perhaps the crisis of the final plague, the death of the firstborn, could have been averted. We can learn from this story and choose to take a different path. Let us not wait until it’s too little, too late. We can choose to confront our reality head on and demand that our leaders take action. When our story is written, let us be the generation that spoke out and made all the difference.
Anyone who is in a position to effectively protest the sinful conduct of the members of his household and did not protest, he himself is accountable for the sins of the members of his household and punished. If he is in a position to protest the sinful conduct of the people of his town, and he fails to do so, he is accountable for the sins of the people of his town. If he is in a position to protest the sinful conduct of the whole world, and he fails to do so, he is accountable for the sins of the whole world.