Parashat Bo, Exodus 10:1-13:16

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When does Redemption Begin?

Study with Baruch Sienna


The ten plagues conclude this week with the final three: locusts, darkness and the slaying of the first born. The parasha includes the actual exodus from Egypt so often referred to in the Torah, and the Israelites' journey from Ramses to a place called Succot. The remainder of the parasha describes in the detail the holiday of Passover, and ends with the commandment (described twice- verse 13:9 and the final verse, 13:16) to wear a sign on the hand and forehead as a reminder that God redeemed us from Egypt. This is understood to be the mitzvah of tefillin. The parasha's final chapter connects existing rituals to the exodus from Egypt: so the consecration of every first-born is connected to God's redemption of the Israelite first-borns when the Egyptian first-borns were slain. The seven days of eating Matzah (probably a pre-existing Spring farmer's festival) is now to remember 'what Adonai did for me when I went free from Egypt' (Ex. 13:8).

All these mitzvot (tefillin, redemption of the first born, Passover) are the first real commandments given to the Jewish people. There are only a few mitzvot the Rabbis identify in earlier portions. The entire book of Genesis has just three (to procreate, circumcision, and the prohibition against eating the thigh vein (Gid hanashe)). It is really in our portion (and beyond) where we get the remainder of the 613 mitzvot (twenty in this week's parasha). So, the famous Rashi on the very first verse of the Torah is, why start with 'Breishit... In the beginning...'? Rashi asks why doesn't the Torah start with this week's verse, "This month shall be for you the head of the months, the first for you of the months of the year" This is the first mitzvah addressed to the Jewish people (ignoring those pesky three from Genesis). If the Torah is a 'guidebook' on how to live, why don't we start here, with the beginning of the instructions on how to live. Rashi's answer is that Torah needs to establish God as Creator to provide a legitimization for the Israelites to possess the land of Canaan- since after all, the whole earth belongs to God, and God can give it to whomever God wants.

But wait a minute! There is another problem with the verse Rashi cites. What do you mean this month of Passover (later called Nisan - the Torah doesn't have names for months) is month numero uno? That makes the new year holiday we call Rosh Hashanah (also not named in the Torah) the seventh month! Confusing, isn't it! It seems that there was a controversy as to when the world was created. According to Rabbi Joshua, the world was created in Nisan, but according to Rabbi Eliezer, the world was created in Tishrei, the month of Rosh Hashanah (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 11a). Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of the world, but we don't know when the world was created exactly. Was it in Tishre or Nisan?

Rosh Hashanah celebrates creation, Pesach celebrates redemption. The Rabbis even say, "In Nisan the Israelites were redeemed, and in [a future] Nisan they will be redeemed. But even though we know that Pesach and the Exodus from Egypt occurred in the Spring, the Talmud's question 'when does the year start?' turns out to be similar to, 'when does liberation begin?' Because even though Pesach (and therefore Nisan) is the time of liberation, Rabbi Eliezer says that it was actually on Rosh Hashanah that the slavery of our ancestors in Egypt ceased [six months before redemption]. In other words, before the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt, they were first freed from slavery. This surprising revelation (for me, at least) is not hard to believe when you think about it. Redemption rarely happens overnight; even the verse that is often quoted as the source for the four cups of wine uses four verbs for redemption. God's promise in last week's parasha (Ex. 6:6-8): I will free you... and deliver you... I will redeem you... I will take you.. (and some include the fifth: I will bring you to the land of Israel). So when can we say redemption begins exactly? When slavery ceased, or when we were taken out of Egypt? A parallel and opposite question can be seen in the Haggadah's 15 couplets of Dayeenu: when is the end of redemption? When is the Passover story over? After the 10th plague? After the splitting of the sea? After the miraculous manna from heaven? After the giving of the Torah? After our entry into the land of Israel? How far do you want to go?

The Spanish medieval commentator Abravanel says the significance of parshat Bo beginning with plague number eight (locusts) is because here the negotiations begin in earnest that ultimately end with the Exodus. According to Abravanel then, liberation actually begins here, before our being hauled out of Egypt. But is the plague of locusts really the beginning of our liberation? No- after all, plague number eight comes after numbers seven, and six etc., all the the way down to Moses' staff being turned into a snake (or crocodile). But it begins even earlier than that. What about the burning bush? Isn't that the real beginning, when God announces that God has 'heard' the cry of the Israelites? Or does it begin with Moses defying the injustice of the Egyptian taskmaster? How far back do you want to go?

This process works in both directions. We think we are far from Passover, the festival of redemption. Winter has arrived in North America, and (even with global warming, it's a toasty minus 25 degrees Celcius in Toronto). Next week is Tu BiShevat (another New Year, by the way - for the trees), so it seems premature to be thinking of Spring. Passover and liberation is fourteen weeks away - I don't even have my Purim costume ready! But Parashat Bo (as Rashi recognized) is significant because it marks the midpoint. It turns out that there are fourteen weeks from the beginning of the Torah, parshat Breishit (and the creation of the world) until today, parshat Bo (the exodus from Egypt), just like the fourteen weeks remaining from this Shabbat to Passover (insight from Rabbi Marc Sirinsky, in Learn Torah With... 5755). Parshat Bo, the exact middle, was the beginning of redemption on one level. But on another level, it was a continuation of everything that came before.

When does the year start? Every day is a kind of 'New Year' with the potential for new beginnings.
When does redemption begin? It began with creation. And every act of kindness helps bring redemption closer.

 

Shabbat Shalom.

BDS