If God is omniscient, how does it come that the Human Being has free will?

This question stands before us in the first quarter of Parshat Va-Era and will go with us all along the next parshiot, until the crossing of the Yam Suf. God said to Moshe: “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt” (Ex. 7:3-4). Pharaoh has apparently no possibility of accepting Moshe’s request. Even if he would have wanted to do that, God’s would harden his heart. Where is there the justice, here? God not only requires something the person cannot possibly accomplish, but He punishes him because of the stubbornness God Himself causes!

The interpreters dealt extensively with this problem. There are some who say that Pharaoh would have had to resist God’s decree, since the Human Being has the power of changing a little what is innate (Ibn Ezra, commenting on Deut. 5:26). Others consider there is no strict fate here, but a plain prophecy, as if saying: “You shall see, this is exactly what he is going to do, I know him”. (Pesika Zutarta, Midrash Sekhel Tov). Another group of interpreters think that Pharaoh was being punished because of former sins (Rashi, Rav Hayim Paltiel).

In midrash Shmot Rabbah (13:3) we are told in the name of Shimon ben Lakish: “[God] warns him once, twice, thrice, but if he does not reconsider his deeds, God closes the gates of repentance”. Resh Lakish teaches us here that the person has many opportunities to do well and to chose a positive way, one of construction and of respect of his/her fellowmen. The person has many opportunities to amend his/her mistakes and to change the destructive choices he or she has made by good and constructive choices. It is the personal experience of Resh Lakish, who demonstrates, not only by means of theory, but by concrete facts, that one may transform a life of destruction into one of building. He did it himself. He does not speak from the arrogant heights of a preacher moralizing according to a perfect theory, but from the practical experience that illuminates the abstract idea.

However, when the person stubbornly remains in a closed position that does not respect the others, a position of powerful egocentrism; he or she loses the capacity of change. At a certain point the decline is inevitable and unstoppable. The strongest of the wills shall not succeed in modifying the trend of destruction and loss – of self destruction and loss.

This is what happened to Pharaoh. His bullheadedness, his obduracy, led him to lose the capacity of overcoming and managing his destructive tendencies. He turned into an automaton and conducting himself and his followers into a catastrophe.