Just as dictators will try to keep their narrative, the true believers in them will make every excuse why the system isn’t working as it should. It is harder to shake their belief with the truth. But it is our duty to try.
True Believers and the Power of Narrative
Yesterday I spoke about Pharaoh’s desperate attempt to keep his narrative alive even as the facts were collapsing all around him. As we know, narratives can be powerful—but eventually, facts win out. Or as the modern phrase goes, facts don’t care about your feelings. I’ve heard that somewhere.
One of the biggest problems Moshe faces, however, is not Pharaoh himself—but the fact that some of Pharaoh’s most committed true believers were the slaves themselves: the Jewish people.
This is not unique. History shows us again and again that even when a system is clearly failing, some people cling to it until the bitter end. Think of young boys defending Nazi Germany as Allied forces closed in on Berlin—long after it was obvious the war was over. Or Jews who continued to support the Soviet Union even when it was clear that the system was corrupt, oppressive, and that even its leaders no longer believed in it. They were in it for power and money, not ideology.
There’s a remarkable example from Israel after the Soviet Union collapsed. Someone at Israeli television had the inspired idea to interview members of Kibbutz Yad Hanna, the only kibbutz officially aligned with the pro-Moscow Communist Party of Israel. They were asked to explain the collapse of the Soviet Union. What followed was unintentionally hilarious: an elaborate attempt to explain—within their ideological framework—how the Soviet Union hadn’t really collapsed. The facts didn’t matter; the system had to be preserved.
We see this same phenomenon today. During Israel’s recent war with Hamas, much of the mainstream media treated Hamas statements as credible, reporting them as fact and then adding, “Israel says otherwise—we don’t know who to believe.” This despite the overwhelming evidence that Hamas lies consistently and deliberately. But facts didn’t matter, because many of these commentators were true believers in their own ideological framework.
They believed that the poor are always righteous, the wealthy always evil; that people of darker skin must always be victims and others must always be oppressors. The Torah explicitly rejects this worldview. When judging a case, the Torah commands: Do not favor the poor and do not favor the rich. Justice is not emotional. Justice is factual.
Pharaoh ruled by edict, fear, and propaganda. Moshe did not lead through fear—he led through integrity and truth. What Moshe said came true. That is why the people eventually followed him: not because they were coerced, but because he earned their trust.
And yet—even after leaving Egypt—some Jews still cried out in the desert, “We had it so good in Egypt.” Slavery, beatings, degradation—forgotten. This too is familiar. To this day, there are people in Russia who say they miss Stalin.
This is the enduring danger of narrative: when people become so emotionally invested in an idea that they cannot abandon it, even when reality disproves it.
Our task is different. The Torah demands intellectual honesty. Even when the facts are uncomfortable—even when they don’t support our preferred story—we must follow them anyway. We cannot explain reality away just to protect our beliefs.
That is the difference between Pharaoh and Moshe.
That is the difference between propaganda and truth.
And that is something worth thinking about.
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