In this parashah, Bo (Go), we will hear about the increasing levels of darkness in the three final plagues, with the last one being total spiritual darkness. This was a battle for the championship between two powers – the earthly powers represented by the Pharaoh and the power of God, the Creator, represented by Moses. On one side, Israel, totally oppressed, had lost the desire to fight, and on the other, the very proud people of Egypt, with their great Nile river, their pyramids and castles, who felt superior to these poor shepherds. Then comes the battle. Our Creator would now show everyone that He was the only true God who would defeat all their gods one by one.
The seventh plague, the locusts, turned the light of day to darkness. This was followed by “choshech” –חֹשֶׁךְ, a thick darkness that blotted out their great “sun god,” and last, the death of the firstborn. This last plague has caused much controversy….for how could a just and loving God be so vindictive as to kill the innocent children and people who did nothing wrong? The many illustrations for us to interpret and understand rose like a crescendo from the lowest and most common gods to the highest, represented by Pharaoh, in whom all the gods were concentrated.
In Egyptian culture, the firstborn male always occupied a position of superiority with its rights and special honour. The firstborn males were believed to be reincarnations of their gods and endowed with the god-like qualities of their fathers. The idea of this reincarnation of their gods would later appear in various religions, including Christianity. No matter how theologians try to sanitize it, it remains an ancient pagan concept.
The Torah teaches us that this was not the case with the Hebrew people. Their firstborn had certain rights, such as the right to double inheritance, but the position didn’t carry the same weight as in pagan cultures. The understanding within Biblical Judaism shows us that the firstborn son wasn’t necessarily considered Number One; it was about merit. When we examine the characteristics of Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Reuben and Judah, Joseph and his brothers, down to the shepherd boy David, who became king, we see that the Almighty gives preference to those who possess the qualities and characteristics to fulfill the special roles.
It is not a coincidence that this festival, or “chag,” חַג will start with the death of the firstborn. Moses asked Pharaoh to let them go to celebrate a “Chag l”Adonai” – festival for God, חַג־יְהֹוָ֖ה. These civilizations already observed their own festivals, chaggim, including the spring equinox for a new life, the rebirth of nature, new crops, the earth’s renewal, and the birth of humans and animals. This idea was born from the goddess of fertility, and from which evolved the Easter bunny and the Easter eggs. That was the old pagan religion involving the goddess of fertility, Astarte, mixed in with the new religion. But if we say it out loud, people get upset. They need to go back to the Scriptures.
The Creator would now demonstrate to all that first, He was the only true God, and there were no other gods besides Him. Second, all their gods and goddesses, created by humans, held no power. This is how myths and legends are produced and, truthfully, don’t work; they are only ideas. God was destroying all these ideas, and showing not only the Hebrews but also the very proud Egyptians, that there’s no other god but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pharaoh remained reluctant, yet he finally allowed them to leave because he was defeated; then he said, please also bring me a blessing.
In the next parashah, however, we’ll see that he changed his mind once again, and he will continue to persecute them. We will also see the reality of the Israelites who weren’t convinced that leaving Egypt was their best choice. They actually left because the Egyptians threw them out; they gave them money, gold and silver to literally buy them out of Egypt. If the Israelites weren’t forced to leave, they would have stayed.
From the beginning, they complained that Pharaoh had made things worse for them to the point that Moses, the Reluctant Leader, was ready to quit. We tend to go from myths to legends, making our heroes bigger than life. It is time we open our eyes and see them through the lens of who they were. Moshe Rabeinu was neither God nor a miracle worker. Everything he did was under the supervision and authority of the Creator. He was the humblest of men. He never directed the attention to himself. This is exactly how Yeshua was. He never told the people, “I am God”; rather, he directed them to his Father in heaven. That is the lie of the theologians and religious people who put ideas into our heads that are not true.
The final blow to Pharaoh was the death of the firstborn as it relates to the sign of blood. A very interesting point that can easily be missed is that the Creator is showing us two very important elements. The first is the brit milah, the circumcision. In Ex. 12:43ff, He tells us that no uncircumcised person can partake of the “Chag”. If there were foreigners (gerim) who wanted to participate, they would have had to be circumcised. What does it mean? We saw that Tzipporah became the bride of blood when she circumcised her son in front of Moses. In Gen. 17, we learn of the covenant that the Almighty made with our father Abram, who would become Abraham through circumcision. Why? What does this mean? This covenant is about commitment, loyalty – “if you want to be part of Israel’s Covenant with God, you need to be obedient to the Brit Mila, Covenant of circumcision”.
The second element is the blood of the lamb smeared on the lintels and doorposts of the homes. By the way, the word Pesach doesn’t mean pass over; it means that the Creator would be our shield, our protector. Pasach means “lame”, someone who cannot move… in other words, “You shall not pass.”
The people were to kill either a lamb or a goat, removing the theological idea of “lamb of God”; we never hear about the goat of God! It was not because the Israelites were accustomed to eating this special animal. These goats and sheep were meant to show the Egyptians that their constellation in the Egyptian zodiac, their god Aries, held no power over the God of the Hebrews. In Exodus 8, Pharaoh told Moses to go and offer his sacrifices and worship his God. Moses said they couldn’t do it in front of the Egyptians because it would be an abomination to them, and now they were no longer afraid of them. So, what was the challenge? The challenge was killing and roasting an animal in front of the Egyptians. They didn’t care anymore because they knew that their Creator was greater than Pharaoh and all his gods and that they were eating their gods. The blood is the symbol of the Covenant. Why…. because the blood means life. That’s all it means, nothing more. The Creator speaks to our people through pictures. Today, there is too much mysticism attributed to the blood, which clouds over the simple message of the covenant. God was telling us that the continuation of life doesn’t depend on these animals. God is the “giver of life” – not the animals, nor their blood.
Then our Creator exchanged the Aviv, the Chag, the Spring Solstice celebration for the Pesach, redirecting the focus toward Him as the true “giver of life”. It was not fertility or abundance through birth. He wanted to sanitize many of the pagan ideas. I like how Rabbi Maimonides clearly wrote about how the Hebrews needed to be weaned away from paganism. Little by little, we had to be transformed and look to the only One who is capable of creating life. Nobody else can create life; we can only continue it.
I am so upset watching what is going on in the world today. Applying these principles of liberation begins with whom we trust for our principles and values. If we as a nation lack the sense of basic human rights, of caring for life, and the understanding that we don’t have the right to take anybody’s life, then who are we?
Yes, we can complain that people in the world are crazy and they kill at the drop of a hat, but let’s ask ourselves this question: how many abortions are there in the civilized world today? Abortion has become just a medical procedure, but what about the lives of the babies? And what about Euthanasia for those of us who are considered too old to be productive in society, and are not good for anything? We prefer to eliminate anything that bothers us. We’ve become so sophisticated that human life means very little, while the same people who are crying out not to kill the whales are killing human beings. Are we more worried about animals than human beings? That’s the true hypocrisy of the world. And politicians and religious leaders are standing by doing nothing but being “holier than thou”. Why don’t they all look at the Scriptures for the Truth? You shall not commit premeditated murder. As long as they are ok themselves, they let people do whatever they want. We are living in times similar to those in the Book of Judges, when “everyone did what was right in their eyes”.
When I look at the news, I see so-called liberal people, who are supposedly the most open-minded, blaming those with conservative values for being narrow-minded. But the Liberals don’t allow anyone else who doesn’t agree with them to speak; they’re afraid of the truth. They tell those of us who know the Torah that we are backward.
Our Creator chose a humble man to lead our people out of the mess that they were in. Today, we need leaders to help us get out of the mess we’re in, but a leader who lacks respect and reverence for the Creator and for the basic principles of the Torah is not a good leader; instead, he becomes a dictator. Today, we are all crying out for justice for ourselves, but when it comes to justice for others, most say, “It’s not our problem.”
Our Creator chose a man, Moses, to take people out of their own limitations. He doesn’t want us to give up. He wants each of us to be active in transforming the world. He leads us, but we have the responsibility to speak out for those who cannot defend themselves, as Proverbs 31:7-8 says. The Torah teaches us to take care of the widow, the orphan and the foreigner. That doesn’t mean that we can allow anyone into our country, like those terrorists who think they are now free to create the chaos they left behind in the countries they escaped. We need to check them, to be wise and discerning. It is one thing to help others and another to be naïve.
Moshe was waking up the Hebrews, but they didn’t always act as they were supposed to. We, the people of Israel, are not saints, but when we understand our calling, we can choose to do what is right and what is good. That’s what will save the world.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Netanel ben Yochanan Z”l