The high price of not listening: What Pharaoh teaches us about power and humility

The signs were already there. At first, Pharaoh claimed ignorance. He had never heard of this God and dismissed the demand to release millions of slaves. From his perspective, it made no sense. Why surrender the backbone of Egypt’s economy for an unseen deity and a powerless people?

But denial could not last. God began to act, and Egypt was struck again and again. Plague followed plague, weakening the land, shattering the economy, and draining the country of its strength. Once confident and stable, Egypt became barely functional. Ordinary people understood what was happening. They could see where this was headed. Hold on any longer, and there would be nothing left – no economy, no stability, no value even in the slaves Pharaoh was desperate to keep.

Still, Pharaoh would not move. He refused to listen. Not to God. Not to Moshe. Not to his own people, who pleaded with him to stop before everything was lost. He was convinced he knew better. He held out until the very end, even as the cost became unbearable.

His certainty was absolute – and it destroyed him.

Pharaoh could not listen because he was trapped behind a powerful barrier: the combination of success and absolute authority. Egypt had flourished for centuries. Joseph’s foresight and careful planning had turned it into a regional superpower, capable of withstanding drought and famine and sustaining the surrounding world. Ironically, it was by listening to Joseph’s counsel that Egypt first rose to greatness. The tragedy is that success eventually erased the habit of listening that had made that success possible.

Success breeds arrogance, and too much success breeds excess confidence. Egypt could do no wrong. Its leaders were seen as infallible – chosen by the gods, blessed with higher wisdom, beyond ordinary judgment.

That success was paired with absolute power. No one dared disagree with Pharaoh. The royal cupbearer was lifted from prison, while the royal baker was executed. Infants, even Egyptian infants, were cast into the Nile to ensure that no Jewish redeemer could rise. The population recoiled, but who would dare object? Any dissent was silenced by fear, often by execution.

This is the danger of absolute power fused with unchallenged success. It cuts leaders off from honest input and valuable counsel. Rulers grow accustomed to always being right. Their victories convince them of their own infallibility. They stop listening, and by doing so, they doom their country, their society, and their people to ruin.

Our tradition built in checks and balances meant – at least in the ideal – to prevent Jewish monarchs from closing their ears. The navi (prophet) serves as a moral conscience to the king, confronting him when power drifts into moral failure. Nathan played this role with King David. Isaiah did the same with Hezekiah toward the end of the First Temple era. A king who wields supreme authority must keep his ears open and allow space for healthy self-doubt.

Differing views cannot be silenced or smothered by intimidation. These safeguards only work when leaders remain willing to hear voices that challenge them.

Unfortunately, the son of King Solomon fell into precisely that trap. He inherited too much success and too much confidence. After his widely admired father passed away, he assumed he had the loyalty of an entire nation and believed he could squeeze it even further. He increased an already heavy tax burden and refused to listen to any advice. He could not imagine that the people might reach a breaking point – that they would rather secede than submit.

They did. His stubbornness tore the nation in two, and we have never been whole since.

History is studded with rulers who wielded supreme authority, tasted success, and silenced any dissenting voice. In every case, that combination proved fatal. Cut off from criticism and correction, they steered their societies toward ruin.

The modern era offers darker and more devastating examples. Figures such as Hitler and Stalin assumed that their judgment was flawless and crushed all opposing views. Expressing disagreement under their rule was often a death sentence. Each achieved early success, but their warped logic and refusal to listen led to catastrophic decisions that ultimately sabotaged their nations.

This pattern did not disappear with ancient empires or 20th-century dictatorships. We are now witnessing a contemporary version unfold in Iran. For decades, ruthless rulers have governed through fear. Protesters are shot in cold blood, and public disagreement is crushed. This has produced disastrous decision-making, turning what should be one of the world’s wealthiest countries into a financial cripple. The current leader appears increasingly isolated and paranoid, unable – or unwilling – to see the writing on the wall as his regime slowly crumbles.

The danger of not listening is not limited to elected officials or absolute rulers intoxicated by their own success. It confronts all of us.

Who are we listening to?

This past Shabbat, I sat with several students who asked about the idea of Da’at Torah – whether exceptional Torah scholars should be consulted on matters beyond Halacha. Should their guidance extend to political judgment or even to financial or medical decisions?

It is therefore fair to ask whether granting any person – no matter how scholarly or religiously impressive – unquestioned authority in areas far removed from their expertise risks narrowing perspective and drifting away from lived reality.

I then pivoted to our own community. I asked the students – rhetorically – whether a community that does not generally follow Da’at Torah or submit absolutely to rabbinic rulings listens enough to rabbis and other moral voices.

Are we too confident in our own opinions? Too certain of our moral reasoning, until we become moral self-arbiters?

Ideally, our identities should be anchored in enduring values and character traits, shaped by moral commitments and religious experience. Political views and ideologies should remain just that – views, not identities.

Have politics and ideology become so tightly woven into who we are that we can no longer question them? When a position hardens into an identity, challenging it feels like an assault on the self. Convictions should remain positions we hold, not definitions of who we are – ideas we can examine, refine, and even revise without feeling undone.

Life demands conviction, but it also demands openness – to rebuke, to doubt, and to voices beyond ourselves.