15: Bo
Welcome to TLDR Torah: a synopsis of the weekly parsha based on Robert Alter’s translation, plus a question to spur your Shabbat dinner (or any!) conversation.
Parsha Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16)
TLDR:
Bo kicks off with Moses threatening Pharaoh with plague (8): locusts. Pharaoh’s servants beseech him to give in, and while Pharaoh agrees to let the men go, he refuses the women and children.
The locusts come and eat everything, including trees. Pharaoh doesn’t relent. Enter (9) darkness for three days.
Enough! Pharaoh allows all the Israelites to leave now, except their animals. Moses, though, gains confidence. His speech becomes flowery and he knows Pharaoh is close to capitulating, so he holds his ground. The animals must go too! But, alas, God stiffens Pharaoh’s heart.
The narrative breaks for two long pre-ambles, one delivered to Pharaoh and the other to the Israelites. God, through Moses, explains plague (10), the slaying of the first born. Every first-born will die: men, women, and cattle. [This will be familiar from the Passover seder, which draws on many of the passages that follow].
The speeches occur before the main event, and already focus on commemoration. The Israelites are told to now take a lamb, slaughter it, and place the blood on the doorposts as a sign to God to pass over it. And in the future, they should eat unleavened bread (Alter translation: flatbread), bring a Passover offering, and explain the rite to their children.
God slays the first-borns and the Egyptians cry out. Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron to leave, and after 430 years in Egypt, 600k Israelite men and their families start their journey away from Egypt.
The narrative breaks. Again, God commands the people to celebrate Passover every year. This section later becomes the derivation for Tefillin.
Question:
We’re halfway into the story, and already God is giving instructions about how to commemorate things that have not even happened yet. The Passover story is the foundation of peoplehood for the Israelites, and has various rituals to reinforce it. What other important event(s) do you or your family commemorate that has been passed through generations, and how have you maintained it?
Other food for thought: the language about putting the blood on the doorposts is similar to the language used previously when Zipporah circumcises her son on the way back to Egypt. Why?