Owning Up to Your Mistakes: The Tragedy of Pharaoh's Pursuit

Rabbi Zweig analyzes the perplexing narrative in Parshas Beshalach where Pharaoh, after suffering the ten plagues and losing Egypt's firstborn children, suddenly decides to chase the Jewish people to the Red Sea. This decision seems completely irrational—three days earlier, the Egyptians couldn't get rid of the Jews fast enough. Every family had lost a child. Why would they now risk losing everything by attacking a people protected by God who had just demonstrated His overwhelming power? The shiur distinguishes between two types of business failures. In the first type, a person makes intelligent decisions but loses due to circumstances beyond their control—recession, war, inflation, market changes. A religious person can accept this as God's decree, cut their losses, and move on. In the second type, a person makes foolish decisions—overexpanding, excessive inventory, poor judgment—and the failure is self-inflicted. The critical difference: in the first case, a person can admit what happened and cut their losses. In the second case, admitting failure means admitting stupidity, which people find nearly impossible to do.