Parshas Bo: The AUdacious Ego

 Parshas Bo: The Audacious Ego

Dedicated to a Refuah Shelaima for Moshe Aharon ben Necha Itta and Tanchum Shlomo ben Rayza Bryna

This week’s parsha describes the terrible events of the last three plagues and the ultimate downfall of the great Egyptian monarchy (although it would, we know, rise again). This week’s parasha explains great and mighty events such as the blackening of the sky by a sea of locust who landed on the fields and devoured everything in their path. This week’s parsha is full of darkness and death.

This week’s parsha contains the unmistakable calamity of absolute narcissism.

                                                                                                                                                

There is a fascinating verse buried amidst all the chaos of the final plague: “Take also your flocks and your herds, as you said, and begone! And may you bring a blessing upon me also!” (12:32).  After the Death of the Firstborn, Pharoah is finally ready to send the Israelites – all of the Israelites – to go to the Wilderness to worship Hashem. After generations of slavery, after trying to kill their babies, after all the extra inflicted hardship, how does he possibly have the audacity to ask for a blessing! As if setting them free is no big deal.

 

It’s audacious. It’s outrageous. It’s… well, when we really stop and think about it, perhaps it isn’t so surprising. The easy response is to say, “Well, we all know people like that.” People who are do oblivious to clues. We all know people we want to label as narcissists, who put themselves before everything and take no responsibility for the messes they may make. Pharoah is just perfect profile of the personality – although one could argue that his royal life made it so he could be no other way. Pharoah’s ridiculous ego is present throughout the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim. He reacts to Moshe and Aaron by stating that he doesn’t know who Hashem is. He deliberately toys with them about whether he will send them to the wilderness. More significantly, even as his land and people are plunged into chaos and despair, Pharoah doesn’t care.

 

Indeed, one can see how the Egyptian people felt by their immediate reaction to Pharoah’s release of the Israelites…… “The Egyptians urged the people on, impatient to have them leave the country, for they said, ‘We shall all be dead’”  (12:33).

 

The fact that the Torah includes this detail of Pharoah asking for a bracha allows us to examine the significance of what he did. Obviously, it is included for us to really understand who Pharoah was and just how flawed he was. It serves as a warning about autocrats who rule a country based on a sense of their own personal power. Warnings about such a grandiose concept, however, is really a warning about who each of us has the potential to become. We can say it’s human nature to focus on ourselves, but Jewish tradition constantly reminds us that we need to be above base human nature.

Parshas Bo. – Negated Negotiations are Part of the Plan

Last week we passed the 100 day mark of the hostages being held in Gaza and the turmoil of outright war. We have watched in shock when the most simple and obvious international requests – the return of the hostage, getting medicine to our hostages, recognition of truth – are consistently denied or reinterpreted with modifications. But why are we surprised? Is this not, yet again, something we have seen before, something we have seen over and over throughout history.

In the world of our forefathers that we consider ancient times, Egypt was the dominant world power. They set the tone of the world, and the tone they took was that of the upper hand. The Israelites were their slaves. The Israelites were the potential enemy they were controlling. Slowly but surely, however, the Egyptian people realized that the price of keeping the Israelites was not worth it. But their leaders refused to relent. Their leaders refused to offer compromise that could be acceptable. Go for three days but leave your source of sustenance or offerings. Go for three days but leave your elderly and little ones. And even when Pharaoh’s ministers were telling him that it was over, that the time to relent had come, Pharaoh remained obdurate. He compromised and reneged, agreed and broke faith.

Villainy remains villainy throughout time. We are not the first to witness it, but, please Gd, we shall be the last.

In ancient days our forefathers must have looked about and wondered what would be. After all, when Moshe first spoke to Pharaoh, their load was made even harder. Things were tough and getting tougher. It is not rare to hear people question how Gd can allow bad things to happen in the world. If one were in ancient Egypt, one might have wondered why life was so horrid, why slavery and oppression was happening to them. Throughout history we ask why bad things happen to good people, or, on a larger scale, why bad things happen to the Jewish nation if we are Hashem’s chosen people. Certainly, right now, when 90-some percent of the world seems to be wanting to harm our nation, that question sparks beneath the surface. How do lies promulgate when they are so obviously untrue?

At the beginning of Parshas Shemos, Hashem tells Moshe “Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst, and in order that you tell into the ears of your son and your son's son how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and [that you tell of] My signs that I placed in them, and you will know that I am the Lord" (10:1-2).

Hashem hardened Pharaoh’s heart is just a statement of Hashem’s omnipotence. The story of the Jews in Egypt was just the start of the necessary journey of all of humanity.

What do the Jewish people represent? We represent God in this world, but not in the way that that sounds; The Jews are the people who taught humanity that we, as creations, owe true fealty to the Creator and not to created gods that appease our need for worship without challenging our morality or, as more recent history has shown, to our own whims and will.

The world has free-will, and the way the Jewish people are treated in the world represents humankind’s metaphysical battle with accepting the fact that Hashem, and not they, are in control. For there to be that free-will, Hashem has to let the world run its course, has to let humankind think that it has power until… until He makes a mockery of them, until he breaks every rule of logic in order to remind us, the people who have dedicated themselves to Him, that there is always a bigger plan that Hashem is involved in.

What does it mean to make a mockery of something? It is to reveal its falsehood. God, through Moshe, showed Mitzrayim just how little power they had and that their Pharoah was as far as could be from a powerful god.

The Jews of the 21st century have the benefit of the Torah and the centuries of history to help us stay strong. Our faith must be stronger than the will of our enemies. Our faith must be stronger than feeling and whims. Our faith must be more than faith; it must be knowledge that Hashem is always in control.

Parshas Bo - Dark Times

This week’s parsha has much to unpack, but given the world in January 2022, this Dvar Torah will focus on Mitzrayim and Choshech, Egypt and Darkness. While darkness was the penultimate plague that punished the Egyptian people, choshech seems particularly significant to Mitzrayim.

 

Mitzrayim is the Hebrew name for Egypt. Egypt is a place, a country on the Northern edge of Africa. Mitzrayim, however, is far more than a place. It is, according to Jewish tradition, like a state of mind. At the heart of the word is tzar, which means narrow, and tzara, which means trouble. The end of the word, is a pluralization, and the mem at the beginning is the preposition “from.” Mitzrayim, then was a place of narrow troubles.

 

Mitzrayim was a terrible place for Bnei Yisrael. We faced almost complete physical and spiritual oblivion, and then came Moshe and the ten makkos (plagues). It is quite clear in all of Jewish learning that the Children on Israel were not affected by the plagues. They had water to drink when the Nile turned to blood. There were no frogs in their beds or lice on their heads. And, according to the Midrash, during the plague of darkness, they could see. Indeed, it is generally understood that during the darkness that was so oppressive that the Mitzrim could not even move, the Israelites followed the Divine command given by Moshe to go into the homes of their Mitzri neighbors and assess what silver and gold they had. They took none of it during choshech but went back to ask for it in the hours leading up to their departure.

 

There is another significant Midrash about Mitzrayim that tells us that during the plague of darkness many Bnei Yisrael died. Shocking as this may sound since the plagues were meant to be part of the vehicle of redemption, these were the men and women who did not care enough about their natural heritage to take the risk of faith. These were the people who, even after sign after sign after sign, could not or would not believe that the Divine hand would protect them. These, according to the midrash, were a large majority of Bnei Yisrael. They had the ability to have light and vision, but they chose darkness.

 

Just a few years ago, most people rejoiced in the idea that we were becoming a global economy. Commerce, culture, travel, and information knew no physical bounds. It seemed the best of times.  In just under two years, however, we are mired in the opposite, in what feels like the worst of times. The world has narrowed immensely. Travel prohibitions, supply shortages, and government regulations have pushed us back into the tzarim, into the narrow places.  Personal travails, negative media portrayals, and national devastation by a seemingly endless parade of unveiled scandals have made us aware of our tzaras, our troubles.

 

In Mitzrayim, we were slaves. In Mitzrayim, we were loathed by the people around us. As the horrors of the plagues mounted, as life became more and more difficult for the Mitzrim but not for the Israelites the antipathy only grew. Yes, by the later plagues the Mitzrim were telling Pharoah to let the Israelites go, but it was from fear and anger and resentment. And then came choshech. Three days of unfathomable darkness. We cannot understand what that darkness was, physically, as it is not something anyone else has ever experienced, but we can certainly understand the metaphorical meaning of darkness.

 

As noted earlier, the tzar of mitzrayim means both narrow places and trouble. Perhaps some of Bnei Yisrael were trapped in Mitzrayim spiritually. They were drawn to the taivas (desires), to the physicality, to the sexualities, to the idolatry, and etc, that were rampant in the culture of Mitzrayim. Others of Bnei Yisrael, however, were trapped in MItzrayim physically, by the slavery and their inability to pull themselves out of a place they knew was bad. These Bnei Yisrael suffered from tzaros, from troubles. When the plague of darkness came, those Israelites who were deeply connected to Mitzrayim were the ones who could not leave their narrow places, who could not envision living a completely different type of life, one dedicated to kedusha.

 

It often feels like we are living in the worst of times. The last generation or two of North American Jews found it improbable to believe that anti-Semitism was still a real problem. And yet as the world has constricted, as political unrest and pandemic decline has made its impact, anti-Semitism is on the rise. The world has entered a period of darkness, a period of chaos and distress. And now we must realize the metaphoric statement that not all of us will emerge from the darkness.

 

The Midrash specifies that only 1/5^th of Bnei Yisrael went out of Mitzrayim. That means that eighty percent of Bnei Yisrael died during choshech. Eighty percent of Bnei Yisrael, refused to metaphorically see the light, to choose to walk in the ways of their forefathers and live by the anthropological term “ethical monotheism.” Eighty percent of the people were stuck in the narrow confines. This idea does not help us understand why people we expect to be honest and good and holy do bad things, but perhaps it helps us put into perspective how times of darkness can shape the future.

 

According to Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch (I believe), when the Mitzrim came out of the darkness and saw that the Israelites had been able to move but none of their possessions had been taken, they became aware of the moral distinction of Bnei Yisrael. Let us clarify that – they became aware of the moral distinction of 1/5^th of the Israelite slaves whom they had loathed and oppressed. Because of this new awareness, they freely gave the gold or silver that the Israelites then requested because they were now aware of the harm they had done to them.

 

Yetziyas Mitzrayim, the way in which Bnei Yisrael was removed from Mitzrayim, had purpose. Hashem could simply have changed the mindf-rame of the Egyptian nation just as He hardened the heart of Pharoah. Indeed, Hashem could have frozen the Mitzrim on day one and had Bnei Yisrael walk straight out of Egypt, taking the necessities as they left. But every part of Yetziyas Mitzrayim had purpose that echoes through the generations.

 

In times of travail, in times when everything seems to be terrible, we are given a choice. We can choose to be like those Bnei Yisrael who were stuck in their narrow ways, or we can be like those Bnei Yisrael who knew that they were suffering but chose to see through the darkness. It isn’t easy. Imagine three days of walking about with many of your neighbors frozen and watching many of your brethren falling to their lack of faith. Hold strong my friends, for after the darkness comes freedom.

 

This Dvar Torah is dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Rivkah bas Golda, and lilui neshama Dovid Chaim ben Shmuel Yosef HaCohen.

Parshas Bo: History and the Future

 Anyone who pays attention to the weekly Torah portions will tell you that the overall text of the Torah is a mosaic of recorded history, genealogical records, and the giving of the law. What many may not have noticed was when the transition from history tome to guidebook begins and the lesson one can learn from it.

This week’s parsha, Parshas Bo, famously contains the first commandment given to the entire Jewish people – the commandment of Rosh Chodesh. As significant as that commandment was – in its historic place, in the important weight Rosh Chodesh plays in Jewish life – it is a surprisingly brief commandment. It is one simple pasuk: “This month shall be for you the beginning of the months, it shall be for you the first of the months of the year” (Shemos 12:1).

Looking at the commandment of Rosh Chodesh, particularly in contrast to the next verses which delineate the time frame of the taking of the lamb and the slaughtering of that lamb for the night that would become Pesach, it might seem that the purpose of telling them that this shall be the counting of a new month is only to mark time for the upcoming mitzvot and miracles. For the Israelites in Mitzrayim, however, this was perhaps a more wonderous command. The mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh given at this time was not simply about setting up a calendar. It was a foundation for envisioning a future. Not an easy thing to do coming out of slavery.

The next set of verses are very specific commandments for the moment, for the time of leaving Mitzrayim. These are the commandments to buy the lamb, to examine it, to slaughter it and mark the lintels with its blood, etc. But they are followed by a long set of verses that discuss the first commandment of a holiday, of a day on which no work shall be done, when one’s leavening has been taken from one’s house, and when there is a week-long celebration. The Israelites had not yet even made their matza. They believed freedom was coming, but they were still slaves. Why are these instructions here, especially as they are repeated later several times?

The fact is that these commandments are not wholey part of the law book of Torah but part of the history book. These verses are a recording of the words Hashem gave Moshe to inspire the Israelites to hope. Take the lamb, follow these special instructions, and know that in time to come your children will commemorate your actions with this festival following these laws. The revelation of the mitzvot of Chag Hamatzot is of similar value as the revelation of the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh. They are declarations of the future, reassurances that there is purpose to their actions.

The narrative then continues with Makkos Bachuros, death of the firstborn, and Pharaoh and the Egyptian people finally telling the Israelites to leave. After that night, after those who held forth in faith, are evicted from Mitzrayim, finally set free, their travails are far from over. But following the same fashion of providing eternal laws as an assurance of the future, Hashem adds further rules to who may or may not eat from future Pesach offerings. These rules, which apply to alienated people, slaves, sojourners, hired labour, and prostelytes (12:43-48), make little sense when told to the just freed Israelites who have barely gotten themselves out of Mitzrayim and can certainly not think of how they will bring the Pascal offering on this same night the next year. Realistically, Hashem should have given these details the next year, at the approach of their second Pesach, but here again Hashem is giving them a sense of hope for the future… someday you will have people dwelling amongst you who can’t eat the Pesach lamb, and someday you will have people who are not from your family but whom you shall embrace as if they have always been of Bnei Yisrael.

Perek 12 concludes: “It happened on that very day; Hashem took the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, in their legions” (12:51). This is a statement of narrative conclusion, and indeed, the next section begins with a series of commandments that close out the Parsha. The transition is over. From here on out, the “storyline” of the Torah is woven between segments of law and the details of the Mishkan.

The significance of this transition is one each person must determine for themselves. However, one might say that the fact that the beginning of the Torah’s law book begins as part of the narrative is a poignant reminder that Bnei Yisrael is not a people simply because we share a common history but because our laws, our Torah, is our constant reassurance of our future.

Bo! Thoughts on the Word (Parshas Bo #2)

Bo is the first primary word of this week’s parsha, and so it is the one after which it was named. It is the simple, singular, third person, male imperative of the verb la’vo – to come, a word that provides rich complexity to the text of the Torah because it often appears to be used for the opposite of what it means. For example, take this very first primary pasuk. If translated literally, it should read “Come to Pharoah,” which would be situationally normal if the speaker was addressing someone at a distance. From the narrative, it seems clear that Hashem is speaking to Moshe from somewhere other than in Pharoah’s presence. One would therefore expect the text to read lech el Paraoh “Go to Pharaoh.”

From the perspective of an English major, the question that begs to be answered is what the difference is between to come and to go.  One might say that the act of going is about the process of getting from one place to another. Its about the journey and the taking action to move. Thus we have Hashem telling Avraham “Lech Lecha,” go for yourself, because Avraham’s movement was what was important.

The act of coming, on the other hand, is about the destination. Hashem told Moshe “Bo el Paraoh,” because what was important was appearing before Pharaoh, not how he got there and not how he was affected by the act of getting there, but actually making himself present there.

Making oneself present, bo, is actually subtly counter-posed throughout the narrative of the plagues with the other primary ways in which Moshe (with or without Aharon) is instructed to warn Pharaoh.  The other is hashkem baboker vhityatzeiv get up in the morning and be present (although a slightly different version of the verb, vnitzavta, is used before the very first plague). The difference between the two seems a fine line, but being present and making oneself present are slightly different, and both were important for Hashem making a statement to Pharaoh. When the term bo is used, Moshe is coming into Pharaoh’s royal presence; he is making himself present in a way that makes an entrance and acknowledges Pharaoh’s role as Melech Mitzrayim. When vhituatzeiv is used, he is not making himself present with an entrance. It is an appearance before Pharaoh that demonstrates that Pharaoh is just a man.

"Come to Pharaoh" and a version of "Present yourself before Pharoah" are used equally, and the Torah does not record a precursor for the other plagues. The verb lech Go is only used as a directive from Hashem in relation to the plagues at the very beginning, when he instructs Moshe to go to Pharaoh in the morning and present himself for the first time, a prelude to the plague of blood. Only at the first plague was the journey of going to appear before Pharaoh important, for Moshe and for Bnei Yisrael.

Before he approached Pharaoh with knowledge of the plagues to come and the fact that Pharaoh would harden his heart, Moshe worried about being heard. Once he had appeared before him and saw his own capability. He did not need the journey. Everything thereafter was about the actual coming before Pharaoh. And it was significant that his last appearance was at the command of Bo, come. For Moshe entered the court with the full knowledge that he was now the harbinger of the fate of Egypt.

We often put great significance to lech, Go, to the journeying and getting to a place or a position. But when we change our viewpoint, reverse our position to see where we have come to, we have the opportunity to see ourselves and the world around us in a new light. So many of us struggle with where we think we are heading, perhaps we should come to where we need to be so we can really see where we are.

Little Lamb (Bo)

I don’t like lamb. I think I initially had this thought when I was a kid and the idea of a cute, little lamb for dinner was more upsetting than a not-so-cute cow. But it was a dislike solidified numerous times in adulthood. I don’t like the taste of it, and I really don’t like the smell of it.

This may seem an odd way to start a Dvar Torah, but there are some people out that for whom the thought of the aroma of all that lamb on the mizbayach (altar) is a bit terrifying and who are delighted that the laws of the Paschal lamb require us to eat is as a group. Whatever one’s feelings are toward the eating of lamb, the description of the Paschal lamb in this week’s parsha, Bo, is fascinating.

The Paschal lamb is the second mitzvah given to Bnei Yisrael and the first one given in-depth (the first mitzvah is to mark this month as the first of months). In quick summary (Exodus 12:3-13), God tells Moshe to tell the people that on the 10^th of the month they should take an unblemished male lamb or kid for each household and keep it in their homes until the 14^th, when the lamb would be slaughtered, its blood used to mark the lintels, and its flesh prepared to be eaten that night with matzot and bitter herbs. Then God gets really specific: “You shall not eat it partially roasted or cooked in water, only roasted over fire – its head, its legs, with its innards. You may not leave any of it until morning, any of it that is left until morning you shall burn in the fire. This is how you shall eat it – your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is a Passover offering to the Lord” (ibid 12:9-11).

Within these details provided for the fulfillment of mitzvot delineated in just three interesting verses, perhaps there is something more.

On a natural level, Hashem is describing the Exodus. Bnei Yisrael were left in Egypt even as they cried out from their suffering. Hashem could have struck with just one plague, but the situation had to be completed. The Egyptians had to be ready to send them on their way, and Bnei Yisrael had to be really ready to go. Those who weren’t ready – spiritually – were completely lost to the Jewish people. They needed to be ready to go in every way, both spiritually and physically so as not to be leftover.  

These verses can also be interpreted on a similar personal message that we can learn from even today. Hashem does not want us to be “partially cooked” – partially committed to Torah and mitzvot – or boiled in water – diluted by the world around us (er um distracted by media/technology). The roasted lamb is a reminder that we must find real passion in fulfilling our mitzvot. Thus Hashem states that the leftover – the things we are all working on ourselves to improve – must be burned in the morning, meaning that we must find a way to stop ourselves from going backward. Thus we must “gird our loins” and be ready to escape the different slaveries of our yetzer harah.

I don’t know if there are any commentaries like this or if, indeed, my remarks make sense to anyone else but myself. The Paschal lamb is an essential mitzvah, and one who does not (when possible) fulfill the mitzvah is eligible for the punishment of kareit (being cut off from the Divine source). Such a significant mitzvah is well worth some extra exploration.