In this Shabat Parashat Bo we will learn about the saga of the struggle for liberation with the slaves. At midnight, God will strike all the firstborn of Egypt and make judgments against their gods. In this way, the signal will be given for the people’s departure from the land that has become a slave’s home for them and where they lived for many years.

The event is very important for the religious battle between the worship of the God of Egypt and the worship of the one God, creator of heaven and earth, who revealed himself to Moses and entrusted him with the redemptive mission. The exodus from Egypt is also a definite ritual event,

a moment of preparation and observation, functioning and stabilization.

With courageous standing and full Jewish identification, such as the smearing of blood on the mezuzahs of the doors’ lintel, preparing to eat the sacrifice together with Matzah and Maror, marks the future to happen in the coming hours, when the dream of going to freedom will begin to come true. And indeed, God promises, if these ritual acts advance the impending redemption, then they will be mentally and spiritually ready for what is to come. They will be ready to meet what is happening with all their hearts and minds, to rise to the greatness of the challenge before them.

This ritual system is called in the language of the Sages the ‘Egyptian Passover’. Its application was limited to that year, to the people about to go to freedom. For us this information is not practical.

We are not supposed to directly apply any part of what is said in the Parsha on this matter.

The Torah shapes a religious ‘work’ that will guide each and every family, in each generation and establishes the texture of the educational-cultural discourse of this ‘work’. Its purpose is to arouse our sons and daughters, to raise questions and difficulties in them. What do these rituals mean? Why do you stick to it? What should be the message emerging from it for our lives?

The answer to this question is not a theoretical ideological statement, but a story; The story of the miraculous exodus, of God’s passing over the houses of the children of Israel while he ‘struck’ the houses of the enslaved. The memory of the story, the return to it time and time again, the holiday that marks this memory and roots it in the life of each generation – this is the core of the ‘work’, the heart of the religious and moral identity that is established here.

In the fact that the commandment of ‘Passover for generations’ appears for the first time even before the Exodus itself, lies a deep and fruitful idea. We are used to thinking of memory as that which comes after the event that is remembered, which acquires its value and importance from the value and importance of the event. And here in our parasha the order is alternate. The memory of the exodus from Egypt precedes the exodus itself. If we want to say: the Exodus will take place so that we can remember it, so that its memory will shape our lives, consolidate our religious and social identity, be the foundation for the mitzvah we are commanded to do. In every generation, a person must see himself as if he came out of Egypt, at any time and in any context, this will be the basis for shaping our world. The realities of life change, the challenges of history and culture change. The exodus from Egypt remains the basis for our jewish life.

When we come to this week’s Parsha, we are required to internalize the memory of the traditional Jewish past, to see ourselves as Exodus from Egypt, and by virtue of this vision to implement the commandment of freedom in our lives. We are also called to establish our lives and examine the application of this mitzva within them in our social, historical and moral tools today in the present.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Refael Cohen