The rules are an illusion as G-d rules the world

One of the strangest dialogues in the entire Torah occurs in Va’Era, this week’s portion. At the behest of G-d, Moshe shares with the Jewish people that their redemption is at hand. But “they do not listen to Moshe from their despair and hard labor.” (Exodus 6:9)

Then, Hashem tells Moshe to go to Pharaoh and tell him (again) to release the Jewish people from Egypt. 

Moshe struggles with this command. After all, he reasons, if the Jews did not listen to me, why should Pharaoh? (6:12). It’s a good question, which G-d does not seem to answer. Eventually, G-d repeats his command to Moshe to seek an audience with Pharaoh, and again Moshe questions whether Pharaoh will listen to him (6:30), at which point (7:3) G-d repeats his command adding that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not listen! (6:3-4)

Why is Moshe being sent to Pharaoh if G-d’s plan is that Pharaoh will not set the Jewish people free?

This story actually reminds us of one of the first stories in the Torah, in the Garden of Eden. 

G-d tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge, but they do and are consequently expelled from the garden. G-d knows they will eat from the tree, and so also knows they will be expelled from the garden, so why put them there in the first place? Why would G-d place them in the Garden of Eden just so they would be kicked out? 

Obviously we were meant to experience Eden, but not to stay there. And we were meant to see Moshe communicating to Pharaoh, so we would see Pharaoh refuse and experience the resulting plague; the goal was never the immediate release of the Jewish people. So what was the point of all this? 

We live in a world where it is easy to imagine that the mighty empires with their powerful armies dictate how the world should run. But Judaism says that is an illusion.