Bo 5776 - English

By Rabbi Daniel A. Kripper

Beth Israel - Aruba.

This Parashah, Bo, describes the dramatic events that led to the end of the Jewish people’s stay in Egypt: the final three plagues (locusts, darkness, and death of the Egyptian first-born) and the korban Pesach, the sacrifice of liberation.  

The devastating plagues finally work and Pharaoh yields to the demands of letting the people go.  

The focus of the tale centers on the Exodus, the foundational event of Jewish history.  This becomes the starting point of a new time of freedom for the children of Israel.  If the Exodus could happen, everything else could have been possible.

The expression “In remembrance of the exodus from Egypt” is tied to the celebration of Shabbat and to the other great festivities of the Jewish calendar.  Time and again we remember the long night of oppression our ancestors went through.  But beyond the particular historic note, the Exodus became a universal paradigm of the inalienable right of every human being to self-determination and to live a life with dignity.  

The second historic post-liberation milestone was the Matan Torah, the handing over of the Torah on Mount Sinai.  

For our sages, these two tales do not compete with each other in importance; on the contrary, they complement each other.  The word game in the well-known midrash between the words “charut” (the words scribed on the Tablets) and “cherut” (freedom), refers to the importance the event on top of Mount Sinai gave to the Exodus, by providing it with spiritual direction and meaning.

Because of the Revelation on Mount Sinai, the Jewish people take on the transcendental mission of representing and realizing the ideology of ethical monotheism, of serving as a “light to all nations” by spreading these principles around the world. Sinai gave freedom a purpose, not only to be but to serve as well.   

Undoubtedly, this implies a constant challenge, that of living up to the Commandments, as well as a permanent calling towards self-reflection.  

Ironically, remembering the Exodus on Pesach, with its many rituals, has become the most memorable moment in the Jewish calendar, while the celebration of receiving the Torah in Shavuot has been relegated to a second place.  

In fact, even though Shavuot represents the spiritual culmination of the Exodus, its finishing touch –the march towards Mount Sinai- was only possible after the real emancipation from Egypt.  

The permanence and physical continuity hold an intrinsic value.  Jews must exist so that the legacy of so many generations does not disappear.  Without the Exodus, all that came after would not have been possible.  

The conjunction of both events teaches us that the physical preservation of a people goes beyond mere survival.  

We encourage the hope that the spirit of Judaism flows from existence itself.  The goal: to reduce as much as possible the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be.  

Rabbi Daniel Kripper

Beth Israel Aruba