Bo

Summary of the Sidra

Last week’s sidra Va'era covered the first seven plagues (blood, frogs, lice, swarms of insects, pestilence, boils, hail and fire) that had been visited on the Egyptians. This week’s begins with God telling Moses "Bo el Pharaoh," "Go to Pharaoh," in order to warn him of yet another plague, that of locusts.

Unless he lets the Israelites leave Egypt to worship God, more plagues will come. Although his advisors beg Pharaoh to consider the warning and the request to leave, Pharaoh still doesn’t seem to realise what he has got himself into, and tries to negotiate with Moses and Aaron that the children should stay behind in Egypt. The offer is refused and locusts indeed come and devour the trees and grasses. When Pharaoh pleads with Moses and Aaron the plague is lifted, but then once again God hardens Pharaoh’s heart and the Israelites are not allowed to go free. Without warning, thick Darkness envelops Egypt for three days – but the Children of Israel do have light.

Pharaoh again tries to negotiate, telling Moses that he could take out his people, but he has to leave the cattle behind. Moses refuses and Pharaoh forewarns Moses that he will not come to him again.

Before the tenth plague, God tells Moses and Aaron that this month (Nissan) will be the first month of the year, and that they should instruct the Israelites that on the tenth day of that first month, the people are to take a year old male unblemished lamb for each household (or shared household if theirs is too small), keep it till the fourteenth day of the month, and then at dusk it should be killed. Its blood should be put on the two side posts and the lintel of the outer doors of the houses where it is eaten, and it shall be roasted and eaten that night, with matza and with bitter herbs. All of it should be eaten and any remainder should be destroyed. It should be eaten in haste, in outdoor clothing, for God will go through Egypt in that night and will destroy the first born in the land of Egypt, except where the blood is on the doorways.

The anniversary of this day is to be a memorial, a fest to God throughout the generations. For seven days the Children of Israel are to eat unleavened bread, and anyone who doesn’t will be cut off from Israel. The first and seventh day are to be special festivals in which no work is to be done. It is to be observed as the anniversary of the day that God brought out the mass of Israelites from Egypt.

And during the seven days of Pesach there is to be no leaven in anyone’s house, and nothing leavened must be eaten.

Moses so instructed the Elders of Israel.

The Israelites did as Moses told them, and in the middle of the night, God killed all of the first-born in the land of Egypt - from Pharaoh's first born to the first born of the slaves and even the cattle.

In enormous distress, Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron to bless him and to go immediately - with all the people, their flocks and herds, in order to worship God. They leave hurriedly, before their dough can rise, though they follow Moses’ instructions and ask of the Egyptians items of value – jewels, gold and silver and clothing, which the Egyptians give to them.

They journey from Rameses to Succot, six hundred thousand men on foot, let alone children. A mixed multitude goes out with them as well as many cattle.

The bible tells us they have been in Egypt for 430 years.

The people are told again that this day will be a day of remembrance throughout the ages, to be celebrated down the generations. For seven days the people shall eat unleavened bread and shall tell their children that this observance "is because of what Adonai did for me when I went free from Egypt (Exodus 13:8)." They will also redeem their first-born children and animals in remembrance of their salvation.

D’var Torah

The final three plagues that occur in this week’s sidra, appear on first reading to be difficult to categorise. Until we see a thread that connects them – that of darkness itself. The swarm of locusts cut out any light from the sun, forming a thick cloud of living destruction. The bible tells us “they cover the eye of the land so that no one can see it”. The three days of darkness of the ninth plague meant that the Egyptians could not see each other or to move around at all – “they could not get up from where they were”. And the last terrible plague, that of the killing of all the first-born, took place at midnight.

What is the nature of darkness that links these events?

The ninth plague of darkness lasted for three days, imprisoning the Egyptians in their homes and completely isolated from each other. The Egyptians had refused to allow the Israelites three days of freedom to journey into the wilderness to worship God (Exodus 5:3) were now being given a sort of measure for measure punishment. The darkness is so thick as to be tangible, a suffocating total absence of possibility; no connection, no sense of self or other, can be experienced within it.

Darkness seems to be a metaphor for slavery, for whatever is the opposite of freedom to be. It is the metaphor for isolation, for fear and complete helplessness. The first thing that God does at the Creation is to bring about Light, separating it from the primordial swirling atmosphere. Without light nothing else would be possible.

The Midrash, commenting on the first verse of psalm 22, which reads:
"To the chief musician: upon the rising of the morning star, a psalm of David:
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
[Why are You] so far from saving me, from the words of my roar?”

tells us that it is darkest immediately before the dawn:
“At night, though it be night, one has the light of the moon, the stars, the planets. Then when is it really dark? Just before dawn! After the moon sets and the stars set and the planets vanish, there is no darkness deeper than the hour before dawn. And in that hour the Holy One answers the world and all that are in it: out of the darkness God brings forth the dawn and gives light to the world.” (midrash Tehillim)

It goes on to play with the words ‘shachar’ meaning ‘dawn’, and ‘shachor’ meaning ‘blackness’. The worst state to be in, spiritually and emotionally, is in the place of deepest darkness, yet it is also the place from which God responds to us, and from which we can begin again.

All of us have times when we feel the lack of freedom to be, when we are isolated from others or anxious or hopeless or depressed. We all understand the words of the psalm, when we feel forsaken and drowned out by the roaring in our minds. This is never a good feeling nor one we want to stay in for any length of time, but it is part of the human experience and something we can use on our journey to understand ourselves and our lives.

It took the darkness – the three different kinds of it – to bring Pharaoh to an understanding of the power of God. It takes the darkness in our own lives to really help us understand how good so much of our lives actually is.

Rabbi Milton Steinberg, in his essay “to hold with open arms” wrote:
“After a long illness I was permitted for the first time to step out of doors. And as I crossed the threshold, sunlight greeted me. This is my experience; all there is to it. And yet, so long as I live, I shall never forget that moment…The sky overhead was very blue, very clear, and very, very high. A faint wind blew from off the western plains, cool and yet somehow tinged with warmth - like a dry, chilled wine. And everywhere in the firmament above me, in the great vault between earth and sky, on the pavements, the building- the golden glow of sunlight.

It touched me too, with friendship, with warmth, with blessing. And as I basked in its glory, there ran through my mind those wonder words of the prophet about the sun which some day shall rise with healing on its wings.

In that instant I looked about me to see whether anyone else showed on his face the joy, almost the beatitude I felt. But no, there they walked – men and women and children in the glory of a golden flood, and so far as I could detect, there was none to give it heed,. And then I remembered how often I, too had been indifferent to sunlight, how often, preoccupied with petty and sometimes mean concerns, I had disregarded it, and I said to myself, how precious is the sunlight, but alas how careless of it are we. How precious- how careless. This has been the refrain sounding in me ever since.”

Darkness and light. We need each of them to understand the other. And with an awareness of both, we are able to reach out towards a deeper understanding.

Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild