Bo

With God's help, you and I will begin studying the weekly portion Bo today. This is the third weekly portion of the book of Shemot. We continue reading about the confrontation between Moshe and Pharaoh.

A very unusual use of the verb lavó, to come (in the imperative – bo). It can mean to come somewhere, to arrive at some destination, to complete a journey. But it can also mean a suggestion to go. Here one can understand that the Most High is saying: “Moshe, let us go together, let us go to Pharaoh.”

That is, in other words: “All this resistance that I allowed Pharaoh, when he says: well, let's see what you do next, well, let's see what else you will do – all this was so that I could show him all My power. I did not want to keep some interesting miracles in reserve, I wanted to reveal Myself in all My power.” And then the Most High continues and explains an amazing thing.

Let us note the word hit'allálti (taunted, mocked). The root of this word is alilá – action, one could say, leafing through pages. But when the prefix it- is added, this means that the verb becomes reflexive. For example, lichtóv – is to write, lehitkatév – to write to one another. This Russian -sya is rendered in Hebrew by the prefix it-. That is: “I taunted, I mocked, I displayed My power over Egypt. I gave Pharaoh strength, as he wanted, so that he could feel himself strong and so that this clash of two powers could be seen. And partly this was, of course, mockery, because Pharaoh chose so. Thus I was glorified, I acted and I mocked Egypt.”

What does the Most High reveal to us here? He gave this whole situation and allowed this whole situation to develop, in order to perform many miracles, in order to show a long confrontation with Pharaoh. And all this so that we could write memoirs, so that we would have something to remember and pass on to our children, so that we could tell how great, mighty and wondrous our LORD is, and pass this on to our children.

Notice, something completely amazing is happening here. The Most High did not tell Moshe what to say to Pharaoh. The Most High did not command which plague exactly to announce. And Moshe speaks about locusts. Is he speaking of his own will, did the Most High tell him, did the Most High allow him to try, just once, to come up with a plague himself? Well, generally speaking, of course, why not. But we began with the Most High saying to Moshe: “Bo el-par'ó (let us go to Pharaoh).” The Most High came together with Aharon and Moshe, the Spirit of God is present upon them. And by the Spirit of God (this, probably, is how one can understand it) Moshe announces that the next plague in this educational program will be locusts. And we remember how the Most High said that He does all these miracles so that there would be something to tell for us and our children. In the prophet Yoel (1:3–4) there is a mention of locusts: “Tell your children about it, and your children their children, and the children of those children the next generation (this is, in essence, a quotation from the Torah). What the gazám left, the locust ate (this is one of the possible translations, in fact four different kinds of locust are mentioned here), and what the locust left, the yélek ate, and what the yélek left, the chasíl ate.”

So, we know that there is the locust, in Hebrew it is called arbé. This word comes from two meanings: arbé in the sense of a multitude, some huge cloud, a swarm of something, and érve, which means to destroy, to ruin. Locusts have several different stages of development. As soon as it hatches, it is called yélek or hoppers. These are still such undeveloped creatures, they do not have developed wings, they cannot fly far. Then they turn, actually, into what we call arbé, simply locust. And the next step of their development is chasíl, from the word lechasél, to destroy everything down to the root. This is the most powerful locust, the swarming locust, uniting into a swarm. Depending on the season and the features of the climate, the locust develops one way or another. It may never begin to swarm at all if it has enough food.

Here simply locusts (arbé) are mentioned. But it is interesting that in Tehillim, when the authors of the psalms recall the plagues of Egypt, they name two additional kinds of locust: in Tehillim 78:46 it is chasíl and arbé, in Tehillim 105:34 it is yélek and arbé. So what is amazing here? Locusts are usually found in one of the kinds. Here, as in “The Tale of the Twelve Months,” what is separated in time and space has wondrously come together. The wind drove from the whole region several different kinds of locust that usually do not go together and that, having gathered together, fell upon the country. And this event is so grandiose that centuries later the prophet Yoel too says that such a thing can be retold to children and grandchildren. And it may well be that he speaks by the very same Spirit as Moshe. And perhaps we see here an example of how Moshe shows himself in practice as God to Pharaoh, as the Most High had promised him (7:1), and can himself proclaim a plague, led by the Spirit. This is an amazing phenomenon.

 So, locusts of all four kinds will pounce and destroy, eat up everything from the tops to the roots or from the roots to the tops. Such is the threat that sounds from the mouth of Moshe against Pharaoh. And what about Pharaoh? Pharaoh stands with his retinue or sits enthroned among his retinue: after all, the Most High said that He had made the hearts of the servants heavy too. And Moshe continues the account and says:

That is, locusts will cover the whole horizon. That is how it happens, it really does swoop in this way, attacks in a swarm. A swarm of locusts is 100 billion individuals. It is hard to imagine such a number. And they destroy 100 thousand tons at one sitting, in one squat. There is no way to fight locusts, people are still searching for ways to fight them. And in ancient Egypt there were all the more no means for this. And it was clear: everything the hail had not finished off, everything that had been saved, everything that had not yet ripened, everything that had been stored up with backbreaking labor – all this will perish. The locusts, first, will eat everything clean. Second, we need to pay attention to a rather important detail: it will be impossible to see. The plague of locusts already contains from the outset the plague of darkness as well, which will be spoken of later. Already here problems with orientation will begin, because it will be impossible to see the land. And Moshe continues to paint a vivid picture before Pharaoh.

This is the end of Moshe's speech. Moshe said: “If you do not send the people away, a great invasion of locusts will come together.” It must be said that in chronicles, from ancient times up to the present years, people love to record invasions of locusts. The people remain hungry, more time appears, and very many verses and poems are composed on the theme of what a pest the locust is. The invasion of locusts is immortalized in Eastern creative writing, we see this in the prophet Yoel, and there is a lot about locusts in other Jewish prophets. And here Moshe adds: “And this will be something such as you have never seen at all!”

And Moshe goes out, well, almost slamming the door. He does not wait for any answer from Pharaoh. On the one hand, he said: “If you do not send away…”, on the other hand, he does not wait for an answer: “Just a minute, you have not heard me out, and I wanted to say…”. No, Moshe waits for nothing, turns and leaves. Perhaps this is a side effect of that state of closeness with God which began with the words bo el-par'ó (let us go to Pharaoh), as we have already noted.

Mokésh in modern language is a mine (a weapon), but here it is an obstacle, what we stumble over, a trip-up and so on. That is: “Until when will we keep throwing ourselves at the embrasure that is called Moshe? Until when will we ‘cry like mice but keep eating this cactus’? Maybe that is enough already?”

In Hasidism (and one can say that this is also the pshat, the simple meaning of the Torah here), when an unbelieving person resists the Most High and thinks: “I will not listen yet, I will still act my own way, I do not accept these reproaches,” then he begins to fuss about, to look for some ways of his own, and for everything that will happen he will find a rational explanation, as Pharaoh too found – until he hears, until he understands that “Egypt is perishing,” that without the Most High there is ruin, that war with the Most High is doomed to ruin. That is when he will be able to change something. This is, actually, the test to which Pharaoh's servants are now subjecting him. Notice, although the Most High made the hearts of the servants heavy too, they are not deprived of freedom of choice, they can say: “Well yes, of course we don't want to either, but this whole business with the locusts we want even less.”

In today's language mi vamí is “Who's Who,” short biographies of famous personalities by country, all the celebrities. In biblical language it is who and who, that is, with what party you will want to go. After all, we know that when the people of Israel went to bury Yaakov, the whole people went, but they left the livestock and the children; this was reasonable, but at the same time it became a precedent. And now Pharaoh asks: “Who will go, with what party do you want to go?”

Pharaoh's words can also be understood like this: “Look, trouble will be with you if you go with the children and with the women, with the weak part of your people. After all, you did not take them that time, back then it was logical not to take them.” And that time the Torah told us that they did not take the children to Yaakov's burial, because children are weak at walking. Here, however, Pharaoh says: “Look, nothing good awaits you.” Because of this the Hasidim love the commentaries which say that par'ó (Pharaoh) – is by its letters pe (mouth) ra (evil), since Pharaoh says evil things to a person all the time: “You are not needed anywhere, you are to sit as a slave in Egypt, why should you even budge, where would you go, nothing good will come of you.” And this too is a possible layer of understanding. The simple commentary is that Pharaoh says: “Where are you off to with all your property, with wives and children? My heart tells me that you are up to no good!” And he has another idea.

Pharaoh, in essence, said: “If you really want to go to serve, to bow down – that is a good thing. But what is a woman to do in church? There is nothing for her to do there, no business for a woman to take part in a festival. Off you go, men, leave everyone behind; that way you will get there faster, and your worship will be of good quality, and the children will sit in safety, and I will be at ease.” Pharaoh too would not listen to any objections and with that drove them out. He tries to behave just as impolitely.

Let us note that the Most High says to Moshe: “Stretch forth your hand together with the staff, stretch it forth for the locusts.” That is, even when we act according to God's will, there must be an intention inside: “I am not simply raising it, I am not doing some gymnastic exercise, I am raising it with the command that this will be locusts. And God makes me a co-worker in this, so that by my word this very intention of mine leads to there being an invasion of locusts.”

And so, this is one more occasion to remember that the word “all” does not mean all; after every “all” there is still a little bit, something remains. All is almost all. Why? Because the Most High, as we said, makes Pharaoh's heart heavy, leaving him hope all the time; all the time he has some possibility of dodging the punishment, all the time he is hoping for something.

It is very frightening to see this; I have had occasion to see it in the Negev, when locusts attacked Jewish farms. It happened even more frighteningly in modern Egypt a few years ago. Locusts really do destroy everything, leaving nothing behind, and it is impossible to poison them, because the swarm multiplies very fast, flies away faster than it manages to die, eats everything in huge quantities, and even after hail there are no such losses as after locusts. That is why we say that this invasion of locusts in four kinds, at all four stages of development, is a legendary story which (as Moshe says here and as the prophet Yoel says) will be passed on from mouth to mouth.

The word sa means both to forgive and to carry on oneself. Precisely in this case the word forgiveness is used in the sense of forgiveness of sin: take it upon yourself, negotiate, deal with this sin yourself, be the advocate of an agreement on the forgiveness of this sin. It is in this sense that the expression sa na chattatí – bear, carry away my sin stands here.

In other words: “I admit that I have sinned; bear my sin, take my sin and stand before the Most High.” At no stage does Pharaoh himself communicate with the Most High. One could, it would seem, see and try to talk without negotiators, but Pharaoh is clearly tied to the scheme by which the LORD said to Moshe: “I will make you God to Pharaoh.” Pharaoh cannot speak directly, he has no strength for it, not even an inner possibility for it, and Pharaoh asks that someone pray for him. I do not know what the result would have been if Pharaoh had prayed himself, but here Pharaoh says: “I have sinned, I admit my guilt, the measure, the degree, the depth – I admit everything, only take this death away from me.”

It would seem that here Pharaoh should already give up, but the Most High will strengthen Pharaoh's heart yet again.

Last time we stopped at the point that Pharaoh, although he did offer certain compromises (after Egypt was struck by the locusts), still did not let the people of Israel go. And next we read the continuation of this confrontation.

Remember, the very first phrase that the Most High says in the Torah is yehí or – there will be light! Here – a direct antonym: vihí chóshech – and there will be darkness. And this darkness, apparently, is not a simple one: the darkness became tangible to the touch. The darkness began to be felt. When Rivka persuades Yaakov to go and receive the blessing from Yitzchak, Yaakov says: “Perhaps my father will feel me (yemushéni).” And here it is the very same verb: it became possible to feel the darkness. Many commentators say that vihí or – vihí chóshech (and there was light – and there was darkness) – this parallel does not exist for nothing. Just as the Most High set aside for the righteous the light of creation (we read this in Tehillim), the hidden light for the righteous one, there is likewise a hidden darkness for the wicked one – that very darkness which is “over the deep,” which hides hell from the wicked. This is one of the understandings of why the darkness thickened. After all, darkness is not physical, not material – it is really hard to touch it. But this darkness is like the one that comes together with all childhood fears, together with the fear of darkness. There is such a disease or psychological phenomenon called nyctophobia – the fear of the dark. And it is connected, in turn, with the fear of death. A person in the dark begins to think about death and, accordingly, to fear death. And so the darkness thickened, a sensation as if death were touching a person. A good plot for a horror film, only the Egyptians saw it in real life.

In Judaism there is such a concept as words spoken in boldness (something that, if I were not afraid to say it, I would say, roughly like that). Baruch Epstein, a rabbi, the author of the commentary Torah Tmima (The Complete Torah), which has been translated into Russian as well (unfortunately, Rav Baruch perished in the Holocaust), wrote that perhaps this darkness was in fact an eye disease. There is a midrash, an ancient midrash, which says that the darkness was as thick as a denarius. And so Rav Baruch asks the question of what thickness darkness can have. And he says that perhaps this darkness is a disease of the eyes. There is such a disease, when the eye seems to become overgrown. It is widespread precisely in the Middle East. And in its radical case it leads to blindness. But it can also be a cataract, when something presses on the eyes. One way or another, we can imagine that this is not ordinary darkness, not an absence of light. It is not a classic night that dragged on for three days and nights, otherwise everything would not have been so difficult. In the end, after a long break, after there had been all kinds of plagues, three days of darkness – well, what's the big deal, in three days you can even catch up on sleep. But no, here there was great fear, just as the Most High had promised.

The word afelá is more like the word gloom, fog, some kind of dense masses of air, that is, darkness and fog come together.

The commentators say: “Well, here is the result of the complicated relationships between the Egyptians, who did not care for one another, and they came to the point that they did not see one another, they stumbled over one another. And, as it is written here, ‘a man did not get up from his place.’” Ish mittachtáv – this is literally a man from his bottom, a man from his seat. But in general it means that a person did not go out of his house. For three days they did not get up, for three days this went on in Egypt, when people were wrapped in a terrifying darkness.

But this plague did not touch the Israelites. Here it would have been a reasonable idea (the Most High did not suggest it to Moshe, and it did not occur to Moshe himself), while the Egyptians were sitting in the dark, to gather and leave for a three days' journey. But no one ran away. The people wait for Pharaoh, as the Most High said, to send the people of Israel away himself. This fear of darkness worked faster than any other plague.

Here Pharaoh already knows the name of the Most High, he has become acquainted with Him. Before, he said: “I do not know who this is,” now he says: “I know, go, serve Him.”

And he adds that not everyone goes, that your livestock will represent you here, in essence, it will remain as a pledge. The word leyatzég means to be a representative, natzíg – representative, tetzugá – exhibition, hatzagá – performance. That is, something that will be a pledge that you will return here. From Pharaoh's point of view, this is quite logical. We remember that when they went to bury Yaakov, the whole people went, but they left the livestock, they even left the children. Now Pharaoh lets the children go and keeps only the livestock. In essence, this is a fulfillment of what the Most High commanded. The Most High said: “Let my people go for three days' journey,” and Pharaoh says: “Here, I am letting you go, and, so that we both know that it is for three days' journey, you will leave the small and the large livestock here.”

Pharaoh adds for clarity that your children go with you. Taf usually means not only little children, but also those who look after them, in other words, children and nursing mothers, that is, the weakest part of the people. Pharaoh puts them on the list after the livestock: “You will go, the livestock will not go, the taf will go.” Usually these women also looked after the livestock, sitting in the tents, and the children from a young age looked after it too. We know that there were very many girl shepherds, even in the Torah shepherdesses are mentioned.

So, Pharaoh in essence says: “I accept what the LORD demands of me, go and serve Him, but leave your livestock here as a pledge.” Moshe cannot agree to such an offer.

Moshe says: “And not only will we go, but you will also give us our livestock in addition, all our household. I do not agree that you let us go on the principle: well, all right, go, only leave the livestock. With a good heart you will let us go, and you will give us your livestock too, so that we may offer a sacrifice, among other things, on your behalf as well. And we will go together with our livestock and will not leave even a hoof here.” This is a counteroffer, this is what Moshe proposes to Pharaoh.

 After this, Pharaoh may get the feeling that here Moshe has worked up a little courage or impudence. Before, they spoke about letting the people go, Pharaoh is ready to let the people go, and here, perhaps, Moshe is acting on his own, personally. Pharaoh felt that he was being deceived. This, apparently, is the feeling he had in his heart, because further on we read, on the one hand, an old familiar phrase, on the other hand, it is formulated a little unusually.

If earlier we read that Pharaoh refused (me'én) to send them, that is, there was an active stance in life – not to send away the people of Israel, then here he lacked good will, he did not much feel like sending the people away. There is a saying: there is a difference between a person who feels like it and a person who wants. A person who feels like it – for example, I feel like learning Chinese or learning to walk a tightrope – this is like I want to, but I will not do anything for it. But when a person does what he wants, this is like really I am doing it. Here Pharaoh did not want to show even a small gesture of good will. The word avá is precisely to deign, to show a small, the slightest desire to do something in order to demonstrate good will. It is no longer about an active refusal, but about a “half-hearted” consent. And moreover, Pharaoh probably felt bitter and heavy. He had in fact admitted that he had lost the argument. It is hard to admit that you are wrong, and therefore Pharaoh, as it were, says: “I offered what your God wants. After long conflicts I went for a full compromise. Now you, Moshe, apparently, are adding something of your own.”

Many ask: how is it that Moshe and Aharon, and in general anyone who wants to, simply show up at Pharaoh's? According to Egyptian rules, Pharaoh has reception days, reception hours, when he receives the population, and special hours when he receives the elders, so it was prescribed. Pharaoh is the head of the court, and he really sat in court. And so, to appear before Pharaoh was called to see his face, since he is king and sovereign in Egypt.

Let us note: our King and Sovereign, our LORD, also commands us to appear before His face three times a year, we will still read about these commandments. The people too came before His face, and at that moment they even opened the curtain in the Temple, so that people could see the ark of the covenant, which stood in the Holy of Holies, that is, people, passing by, could see the Holy of Holies.

Pharaoh is a king of much, much lower rank, but in his tradition it is quite permissible that subjects can see his face. Here Moshe becomes a persona “non grata,” he has used up, so to speak, his limit, and Pharaoh in essence says: “See me once more – I'll kill you. Show up here once more with your civil lawsuits – I'll put you in jail.”

The word ken usually means yes, a simple yes in the language, but it can also mean right, correct.

Here chapter 10 ends, and we will read a little further, the beginning of chapter 11. The Most High tells Moshe that the finale is already approaching. One action remains.

The word néga can mean both leprosy and some other stroke (calamity, scourge). Nagúa means stricken, it comes from the verb lagá'at – to touch. To strike means to deal a blow, to hit. And here: “One more stroke, one more leprosy, one more sore, one more blow I will deal to Egypt.” If anyone had doubts whether Moshe was engaged in “making things up on his own,” extorting livestock from Pharaoh, then the Most High says: “Everything is right; Pharaoh's decision must be not political, but wholehearted. Therefore I will strike Egypt once more, and strike it in such a way that Pharaoh himself will very much want you to leave, in whatever makeup you like. No longer like this (well, all right, go), but with his full, whole heart he will want to send you away.”

We remember (6:9) that the people did not want to listen to Moshe and Aharon because they had hard slave labor. Then the Most High “switched on” the people, said to the whole people: “You prepare yourselves here, and I, the LORD, Moshe and Aharon will prepare the ground for the exodus.” Now the LORD commands Moshe to turn to the people again. The people, who had been waiting all this time, are in action again after a long break.

This is the beginning of what the Most High spoke of back in Midyan (3:21–22), when revealing Himself to Moshe. He said: “I will give this people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they will ask for much.” The Most High says that the people must show an act of faith and turn to the Egyptians, ask them for gold and silver vessels.

Despite all this long confrontation between the patriotic forces of Egypt and the cosmopolitan Israelites, it turned out that in the eyes of the Egyptians there is favor toward Israel. So the LORD ordained. All this clash, which took place publicly, Moshe's struggle for the historical right of the Jewish people to return to their homeland, all this did not embitter the Egyptians against Israel. One could have blown this up and said: look how many plagues we have endured because of these Jews, look how many troubles, the Jews are to blame for everything. But just as the Most High leads Pharaoh along the path that Pharaoh wants, gives him strength to set new records on the road which he has chosen, in exactly the same way the Most High helps and acts in the hearts of the Egyptian people and in the hearts of his servants. The servants at first also “dissipated” their heartsiThe Russian uses an unusual word here that literally means “dissipated” or “squandered” (perhaps meant as “hardened”). It is translated literally., but as soon as they turned in the other direction, we read about this, the Most High leads them, the Most High strengthens them, and by a wondrous miracle Moshe becomes a popular, great, authoritative man in the eyes of the Egyptians, and the whole Jewish people finds favor in their eyes. The Egyptians did not become embittered, did not go mad with patriotism, did not start shouting: “God save Pharaoh!” but were filled with favor toward the people of Israel – strangers, slaves – be that as it may, but they were filled with favor.

I want to warn you right away that this is one of the deepest, most complex passages of the Torah, a foundational passage of the Torah, a passage that speaks about the formation of the people of Israel, about the first commandments given to the people of Israel, about the first deliverance through which the people of Israel will pass. All this has a mass of parallels both with the prophets and with the messianic books, and for the far, far future. And one can talk endlessly about every verse of this passage, and much has been said about it, and a sea of ink has been poured out on the explanation of each of the verses. And we, unfortunately, do not have endless time for discussion. Therefore let us try again to read the pshat, to read the simple meaning of the Torah – what those who had not read the continuation saw and understood. Of course, everyone reading knows the continuation, and parallels will arise. That is, strictly speaking, why I again try to toss firewood into the fire of your thought. If thoughts have appeared, then that is wonderful. So, let us begin with verse 4 of chapter 11.

Let me remind you of the mise-en-scène. Moshe is speaking with Pharaoh for the last time, this is, in essence, his farewell address to Pharaoh. Moshe has already promised Pharaoh that the latter will not see his face. We will yet have to talk about this, once again. The LORD Himself, independently of anyone, will descend into Egypt, will go out into Egypt.

Here we need to stop, and take a breath, and understand what a firstborn is. Well, it is clear that a firstborn is the eldest son, the first son of every man and the first son of every woman. If a person is not the firstborn of his father, but is the firstborn of his mother, he is still a firstborn. The firstborn of the mother is also called not only by the word bechór, but also the one who breaks open the womb, the one who comes out first from the mother's womb. In the tradition of the East all peoples had this understanding, that the firstborn is the first gift of the Most High, it is the first, the very first blessing with which the Most High blesses the family. It is the firstfruits of a new generation, the pledge of blessing in the family in general, a kind of little bridge through which the family communicates with the Most High. This can be traced among all the peoples around Canaan. That is why, actually, we see this too, the priesthood of the firstborn is often spoken of. A priest is one who connects with the Most High. Of course, it was not always a connection with the Most High. Different peoples believed in different gods, but they assigned priestly powers to the firstborn. The firstborn is the head of the clan, he receives special rights in inheritance. Among practically all peoples he was prepared for these functions from childhood, often he was raised in a special way. The firstborn of the clan is its pride, its symbol. It is not simply and not only the eldest son. Among many peoples around Israel there was this tradition: in case of disaster, in case of some danger, to offer the firstborn as a sacrifice. We read a terrible story: when Israel was at war with Moav, the king of Moav offered his firstborn as a sacrifice on the gates of the city. And as a result wrath was kindled precisely against Israel. The firstborn is, one could say, the most precious thing a clan has. And this most precious thing the Most High promises to put to death. This will happen at midnight, at the darkest time of day, darkness is present here too.

When we read no longer about the promise but about its fulfillment, we will talk about how just this is, and about righteous indignation, and about understanding why this is just in the design of the Most High.

the like of which there has not been and the like of which there will not be.

This is amazing. Here we read a mention of a dog, but when it comes to the fulfillment of this prophecy, we will not read about dogs. Why is that? Because here we have a set expression, that is, not a single dog will yap at the people of Israel. What is meant is not dogs as such, but the Egyptian gods, all kinds of powers, principalities that guard Egypt – at least, so it is in the opinion of the Egyptians themselves. No one will dare to open their mouth wide at Israel, from man to beast.

And by what mark did the LORD separate Israel and Egypt? He separated by the intention to serve the Most High, we will read about this further on.

 One can draw a conclusion from this, and it is logical to draw it, we will read about this once more, that not only the people of Israel will go out, but also a multitude who joined them, both people of conviction and simply adventurers. There will be people who will follow Moshe, having seen in him a leader whom one can follow.

This is the last thing Moshe said to Pharaoh, and he went out from him in anger. The conversation is over. And in verse 9 we read that now the LORD tells Moshe that, as in the previous times, this will not work.

 And further on we read the summing up of the dealings of Moshe, Aharon and Pharaoh.

From the very beginning Pharaoh said: “I do not know the LORD.” And he came to know the LORD. His second request was: “Give me a mófet, give me a sign.” We said then that there is the word ot, which means a heavenly sign, and the word mófet, which means a sign on earth. Pharaoh received a whole heap of moftím, a whole heap of signs, but this had no effect on him, and he still did not send the people away. And the Most High turns to Moshe and instructs him what to do, how to prepare the people of Israel for going out of Egypt now without permission, without Pharaoh's consent. We read about this from verse 1 of chapter 12.

This is the very first commandment, with which, in essence, the teaching of the commandments begins. As we remember, the Torah begins with the words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and one of the commentators gives this interpretation: “And why begin everything with stories at all? Begin with the commandments, begin with this very verse: ‘This month is for you – the beginning of all months.’”

 So, the very first commandment of the Torah, which is given not to individual people but to Israel as a people, is the commandment: “This month is for you – the beginning of all months.” The first commandment given is not: “I am the LORD, your God, keep My Sabbaths.” The commandments “do not kill,” “do not steal,” “do not commit adultery” are not given, a multitude of other commandments that could have been placed ahead of everything. The first commandment: “This month is for you – the beginning of all months.”

What does it mean that this month comes before everything? Well, we know that the exodus was in Nisan, that the Most High speaks with Moshe on rosh chódesh, on the new moon of Nisan, shows him (this is how the commentators try to reconstruct the pshat) this month and says: “Here, this month for you – the head of all months.” The word chódesh, which is translated as month, means renewal and comes from the same root as the word chadásh (new). Well, and the word new moon itself also contains newness in it. The first commandment is connected with likening oneself to the moon, with its ability to renew itself. Without a person being able to renew himself or change, he cannot follow the Most High. A person – he is an idol worshipper; how will he accept the LORD if he cannot change? This is the foundation of everything – before “I am the LORD, your God,” before “be holy,” before “keep the Sabbath.” This month, this principle of renewal, it is “for you at the head of everything, it is the first for you of the months of the year.”

The word shaná, year – is a repetition, the constant repetition of something; lishnót, leshanén – is to repeat, that is, a year is a repeating cycle. The whole Torah, the whole teaching will consist of repetitions, of repeating cycles of renewal. Without the ability to renew oneself it is impossible to come to the service of the Most High. One can learn to keep the commandments and to fulfill them. There are also unbelieving people who keep the commandments because they live in such an environment, it is habitual and convenient for them, but they do not serve the Most High. I will repeat again: without renewing oneself, it is impossible to serve God. And further on the Most High says this to Moshe and Aharon:

Here for the first time the concept edá is mentioned – those who become witnesses. Community, assembly in Hebrew is connected with the word testimony.

We are speaking now (this must be remembered all the time) about the first Pesach, about the Pesach that was at the time of the exodus from Egypt. At that time there was the commandment to take the lamb on the tenth day. For the years, for the following generations, this commandment does not exist. This is the first Pesach, which is celebrated precisely in Egypt, this is its particularity. On the tenth day the lamb is taken into the house, and those who bought it are the ones who will eat it. It will be impossible to come in from the street and join in; it will be eaten by “reckoning.” What kind of lamb must it be?

And what must be done with it?

That is, for three full days the lamb will be in safekeeping. What does safekeeping mean? It is said that safekeeping is inspection, so the commentators say. It is inspected, whether it is pure, whether there are any defects in it. And if there are some defects, perhaps they are temporary and will pass, or perhaps something else will show up and be seen. In general, three days are a testing of the lamb before the lamb becomes the Pesach sacrifice, for three days it is with those who will offer it as a sacrifice. The word lemishméret, as we have read, also means under guard. One could say that the lamb will be in confinement, in prison, and the parallels that exist, they exist. We have read that when Pharaoh is angry with someone, he puts them under guard (lemishméret).

Because of the translation of the expression ben ha'arbáyim, a great deal of confusion arises. This is the time at the beginning of twilight, when the day begins to decline toward evening, the time after noon – the time of the afternoon snack, let us say, when the daylight is just beginning to leave. That is, at the end of the fourteenth of Nisan the lamb is slaughtered, and when evening comes on the fifteenth day it is eaten. So it was at the time of the exodus from Egypt, and everything we are reading now is a command concerning the very, very first Pesach.

And in verse 7 we read something very important:

They smeared the two doorposts and the upper crossbar with this blood. The commentators say (and there is reason in this) that in order to eat the Pesach offering, one had to perform circumcision, which the people perhaps no longer kept by that time. The blood here symbolizes both the blood of the lamb and the blood of circumcision. And very many questions are asked – why, what is the blood needed for?

Ibn Ezra, whom I often quote, who concentrates precisely on pshat, on the simple meaning, says: “This is blood because the Pesach offering is a sin offering. In what sense is it a sin offering? It is not a sin offering for some specific sin. It is a sin offering for the sinful nature, for the abandonment of the Most High.” And the readiness to smear the doorposts with blood, the readiness for circumcision symbolizes entering the path of faith. This is a testimony that will be revealed in the world.

Moreover, in the opinion of many commentators, the blood is applied on the inner side of the house, not outside but inside, because the main part of the work is inner work, and there are disputes about this. Further on (12:12–13) we will read that the LORD will pass through Egypt and see the blood. Does He need to see the blood literally in order to know that it is there, does He really need such little crosses on the houses? Many say that the blood will be visible anyway, even when it is inside. And it is important that the person himself sees it in this process. Many different opinions, there is a lot of everything on this matter, but it is important to know that blood is blood. And the Most High says through the prophet Yechezkel: “I saw you in your bloods.” And it is explained that this is the blood of Pesach and the blood of circumcision. We can also add the blood of Mashiach here.

So, if we come to a neighbor, that is, I left my house and went to my neighbor, we chipped in for a lamb and decided to eat it at his place, then I do not need to smear the doorposts and the lintel with blood at my own place.

We read many times: why is matza eaten on Pesach? For example, because their dough did not have time to sour, and many other explanations. Here we see that the Most High commanded in advance that Pesach would be eaten with unleavened bread.

This is no simple matter, Moshe spoke about this more than once. In Egypt it is dangerous to sacrifice a lamb, because they might stone you. And here the Most High says: “Not only will you slaughter it, but you will roast it so that it smells – not in a little pot, not in a pressure cooker, not in a multicooker, so that no one would notice the smell, not raw, so that, God forbid, no one would sniff out anything at all. You will eat it so that it is clear to everyone, smellable, that right here lamb is being eaten on coals with bitter herbs.

There are some contradictions here. It says: do not put anything aside for yourselves for the morning. You eat this offering, but you cannot say: “And this I will finish later.” No. The offering must be eaten completely, it is not for satiation, it is not eaten on a full stomach. And therefore one cannot set some of it aside and say: “I will finish it later, I do not like this portion.” No, one must eat everything, and if something remained until morning, then it may be burned on the following morning. Many note here: do not burn the leftovers in the morning, on the festival, burn them on the following morning.

It is clear that nothing is clear. Usually a person comes to a meal, even to a simple meal, and he takes off his shoes, takes off his outer clothing, loosens his belt, and all the more puts his staff, his umbrella against the wall, hangs his hat on the coat rack. Here, however, one must eat this offering in a form that is most disregarding toward it. It is intended so that one could eat it in just such a “traveling” state. It would seem that when you touch something so holy, one could ask to have tailcoats and evening dresses sewn for this purpose, but the Most High says: “No!” The Pesach offering is an offering that is received in the most-most everyday clothing. This is an offering in regard to which, during the stay in Egypt, everydayness was commanded, it may not be eaten in festive attire. Why? Because this is Pesach to the LORD. The word pesach comes from lifsoach, which means to jump over, to dance, to step over, to skip over, to limp over. And here one can say that bringing this offering is a leap toward the LORD.

With God's help, you and I continue reading the weekly portion Bo. We stopped at the point where the Most High gave Moshe the most detailed instruction about how to eat the Pesach offering – Korban Pesach, and Moshe was to pass this on to the people. The Most High continues to give Moshe instructions.

We read that the Most High promised that all the firstborn would die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the slave woman who is behind the millstones, that is, down to the firstborn of the common people. And people are often indignant: “How unjust the Most High is! It would be one thing to kill the firstborn of Pharaoh, who conducted the policy. Why kill the firstborn of the slave woman who is behind the millstones?” And how is all this connected with what the Most High says here: “And upon their gods I will execute judgment”?

Many commentators note that precisely this, perhaps, was happening in Egypt. When the plagues were being carried out, far from everyone believed that this was connected with the activity of Moshe and Aharon. Many said: “Look, this is the power of our god, this is our god manifesting himself in Egypt, he punished the Egyptians for this and for that.” Very often this happens in our world too, we ourselves act this way, or the people around us act this way. When a misfortune happens in some country or in some family, we say: “For this and for that God punished them.” The pagans also acted this way, they did not differ much from us. Many of them rejoiced at the victories of their gods when the plagues took place in Egypt, and attributed these victories to their gods. And for this, punishment overtakes them. Thereby the Most High executes judgment both upon them themselves and upon their gods. And since, as we have said, each people's connection with its god is carried out through the firstborn, this is one of the explanations of why the destruction of the firstborn was just.

The polysemous verb pasáchti can be translated as to dance, to prance, to jump over, to skip over (we talked about this), that is, the LORD says: “I will skip over you.”

 Why must the Most High see the blood, does He personally need such a sign? And we have already said that this sign is needed for the person himself as a symbol of his crossing over from the Egyptian gods, from the Egyptian beliefs to the side of the Most High. Whose victory is it, who becomes the victor in the war? – The Most High. We attribute it neither to ourselves, nor to chance, nor to other gods, and the symbol of this is the blood, which will be a sign for us.

Négef is an evil gust of wind, it is a wind that wipes out everything in its path; from the same root comes magefá – epidemic, that which is brought by the wind. The Most High says: “The blood will be a sign for you.” We read that the blood will be on the doorposts (the mezuzot of the buildings) and on the lintel, and we will talk about this a bit further on.

The word chag, we have already said, is connected with the word chug – circle, movement in a circle. Every year we complete a circle, on this circle there is a point in the month of Nisan, a feast to our LORD. A feast is not idleness, but a milestone, an epoch, we count off a date, we check ourselves against it, we examine ourselves. A feast is also called mo'éd – a day of testimony, a day of examination. As people come to a hospital, undergo a medical checkup, so we too have days of our spiritual checkup, when we come to the Most High with certain reports, with a certain self-examination, in this case – concerning the exodus from Egypt, concerning liberation from all worldly influences. We are speaking not so much of the historical event of the exodus from Egypt as of a tradition: every person in every generation must feel as though he is going out of Egypt (we will read in the next chapter why).

So, there is a command to mark this day from generation to generation in our kindreds. The word chukká (chok) – law is connected with what is carved in stone, that is: “Make yourselves an eternal notch, in order to celebrate this day and this period in general.”

To the readers at that time, apparently, there was no need to explain what matzá is. We know that matza was a common food, a quick food, we remember that Lot prepared it for the angels when they came to him. Later we will read about matza in the story of Gidon, in the story of Sha'ul and the witch, in several more stories. Daniel also said about fasting that he did not eat rich sweet bread. The alternative to this is matza, the simplest, the most modest bread that is baked, one of its names is léchem óni – bread of poverty. In part this is an attitude toward this world, which, like leaven, leavens us. The bacilli of the world get into our dough and spoil our leaven for us. Once a year there is an opportunity to destroy all the leaven, to check where and how the Egyptian “microbe industry” has penetrated into us, and to pull it out over 7 days on matza.

But on the first day, when we are still preparing the sacrifice, we already destroy all the leaven (chamétz) that is in our houses, no leaven must remain. Many people who constantly make bread kept bread leavens. Among many peoples they are considered the better, the older they are. We, however, are supposed to reset all our leavens to zero every year. By se'ór is meant specifically grain leaven, this word means oats, cereals. This does not include anything fermented from grapes, much less anything dairy – only grain.

It would seem such a temporary punishment, a temporary (for a week) cutting off (karét) from the people. Yes, temporary, but one that turns into a permanent one, because during this time the people leaves, and one has to catch up with it by one's own strength, and spiritual life becomes noticeably, noticeably more complicated. There is a great deal about this in the drash, in the commentaries on these commandments that speak of the spiritual aspects. It is important to be joined, attached to Israel when Israel goes out of Egypt. It is not only a particular person who goes out of Egypt – the whole people goes out. Moshe is commanded to speak to the whole community of Israel, the whole community of Israel will go out of Egypt. And here the Most High speaks of commandments for the future. This is not Pesach Mitzrayim, not what we have already described; this is about how to celebrate Pesach in our generations, in our time. The Most High already then gave Moshe the command. What else must be done?

A holy assembly (mikra-kódesh) is a day that is dedicated to abiding in holiness, a day when all work is forbidden, as on Shabbat. But, unlike Shabbat, on this day one may prepare food – what is needed for that day. Usually a fire is lit in advance, on an open fire one may prepare food. Some comrades derive from this also a permission to smoke on these days, because tobacco is what the soul desires. For me this is a rather debatable question, but here you have the difference between the concepts mikra-kódesh, said of the feasts, and kodésh, said specially of the Sabbath.

Here one can read mitzvót (commandments) instead of matzót (matza, unleavened bread), because these words are written the same way.

Even when the Most High gives instructions to the following generations, to you and me, He nevertheless says: “I brought you out, not your fathers, but you.” Each time, each Pesach one can go out of Egypt, find in oneself the influence of the world, find in oneself a harmful influence – that by which we are still enslaved, and free oneself from it.

If earlier we read that the soul will be cut off for seven days, here – no, since every generation carries out the exodus from Egypt, every year the train leaves, and if one does not get on it, one can turn out to be a cut-off soul.

By the stranger here is meant one who has joined the people of Israel. For example, an uncircumcised person from outside, of course, has no right to eat this sacrifice, and he does not go out anywhere.

This is the instruction that the Most High gave to Moshe. Moshe must pass it on to the people, but Moshe does not always repeat the words of the Most High word for word, like a loudspeaker. We will see what it is that Moshe says to the people, and we will pay attention to some differences.

The word mishchú means literally pull. There is an important detail here. When a person acquires a goat, a cow, a bull, a donkey, some livestock or other, there are two stages to buying it. From what moment is the animal considered bought? Not from the moment the person gave money for it, but from the moment he pulled it: either he called, and it went, took a step; or he pulled, and it went, took a step; or, the third option, he drives it from behind with a switch, let us say, and it takes a step. And the commentators say: “Here there is not only a law about how an animal is acquired, but also a certain pattern of the Most High's relationship with us.” The Most High can call us. If we respond with the cry “hinéni (here I am)!”, good. He can pull us, and then we take a step – that is good too. If neither this way nor that way it works out to acquire us, then the Most High may begin to drive us with a switch, and we may wonder: what did we get this for?

Moshe could not come and just say all this to the elders like that; for that it would have been necessary for them to have already read chapter 12 of the book of Shemot, which you and I are reading now, and to have heard everything the LORD said. Or they would have read the Talmud, tractate Pesachim, and would have known what Pesach is. But here, most likely, the concept Pesach is familiar to them as a sin offering, an offering of atonement, which will allow the Most High to “pass by.” There are commentators who say that the concept Pesach itself was familiar to shepherds, and although far from all of them offered it specifically to the Most High, the concept Pesach as “may it pass me by,” it existed at that time.

In verse 22 Moshe also says something that the Most High did not tell him.

The word saf is translated as bowl or as threshold. In thresholds (this exists in some houses in the Middle East) such a hollow was made for blood. There, on this threshold, they slaughtered animals so that this animal would also guard the house, many different things are connected with this. The animal was slaughtered so that a little stream of blood spread over the threshold. There was, as it were, such a bowl on the threshold, and the word saf can mean threshold. The second meaning is bowl, pour it into a bowl. There is a midrash which says: “The Jews in Egypt had four altars: the threshold, the two doorposts and the lintel.” An interesting commentary, because we will still talk about the fact that the two doorposts symbolize the community of the people of Israel, the lintel – the Most High, and the blood – the sacrifice, it symbolizes, strictly speaking, sin that has died, in a certain sense the netherworld, the grave, death. I lean toward the variant of translation that is connected with the threshold.

If we go back and read (12:7), the Most High said: “Smear the doorposts and the lintel.” Moshe says: “…the lintel and the doorposts.” What, actually, is the difference here? There is one variant: “Return, return, My sons, and I will return to you.” That is: first you, first the doorposts, then the lintel, first the people of Israel (the doorposts symbolize it) returns, then the Most High (the lintel). There is another variant: “Call us, and we will run after You, bring us back, and we will return.” Moshe asks the Most High to be the first and to draw the people of Israel. Moshe stands in the breach, this time facing the Most High, and says: “Draw us, lead us out, You act first,” therefore he symbolically swaps the lintel and the doorposts.

This is what Moshe charges them to tell their sons, if they ask.

An important remark, I love to make it and I will make it once more. It is often said that the people of Israel is the people of the book. We are the people of the book, we have very many books, and I receive a mailing that contains a review of practically all the books on the Torah. They come out every week, 300–400 books are published on the subject of the Torah, commentaries on the Torah, the Law and so on. We read very much. But the Torah constantly says: “Repeat to your son, say, tell, repeat, pass it on, if he asks, answer, and all that.” We are a people not only reading, but also speaking, telling the son, prompting the son to ask, willingly answering him, so that the son hears the father's voice, so that the son knows the father's gaze, feels the father's thoughts, perhaps also thinks together with the father.

And next we read:

Today we will read from verse 29 of chapter 12 and once again we will be going out of Egypt.

who is in the house of the pit, and every firstborn of the cattle.

When we read at midnight, we must understand that this is not modern midnight, not 12 o'clock at night. According to the Jewish calendar (in general according to ancient calendars) the night was divided into 12 equal parts from the time the stars come out until sunrise. The day was divided in exactly the same way. Accordingly, in summer, when the days are longer, the daytime hours were longer, a longer day was divided into 12 longer pieces, and the night into shorter ones. In winter – the other way around, the night hours were longer. We are at the time of Pesach, roughly in such a period when days and nights are equal. If we talk about Egypt, then at midnight is roughly 2 o'clock at night by modern time, the very, very middle of the night.

As Egyptian tradition says, only the firstborn could sit on Pharaoh's throne. The firstborn, he is always the heir too. Pharaoh's firstborn is the most important firstborn in Egypt: just as there is a first lady, so there is also a first, as it were, “youth,” Pharaoh's firstborn. And the captive, who is in the house of the pit, works somewhere, practically sits in prison. A captive who is in slavery is put into a pit for the night, or else he is a prisoner in confinement, that is not so important. All the firstborn, without any social distinction – from Pharaoh with the highest status to the captive with the lowest status – suffered, perished. We have already spoken about the fact that this is connected with the judgment on the gods. When some disasters happened, different people attributed this to their gods, saw in this their victory. If some firstborn of the strangers, of the pagans, had been saved, there would have been an opportunity for them to say: “Our god saved us, our god is stronger than yours.” The Most High carries out here a judgment on the pagan gods, and therefore all the firstborn turn out to be destroyed.

If we translate literally: “And Pharaoh rose night.” Usually Pharaoh rises in the morning, we know that he has his water procedures, he goes out to the water. His morning, if one believes the papyri, comes at 3 o'clock of the dayiThe Russian literally says “at 3 o'clock of the day”, which could also mean 3 p.m. The next sentence (8–9 in the morning) points to the third hour of the day by the ancient count, so the wording is kept literal.. That is, he rises somewhere around 8–9 in the morning by our time, and some say that he rises before dawn. It doesn't matter. At night Pharaoh usually sleeps, but here is an emergency: Pharaoh rose at night.

One may ask: how can it be that there is no house in which there were no dead? Perhaps there is a house where the firstborn went away somewhere or died earlier. Or a house where a mom and a younger daughter live, and there are no firstborn there at all. But the eldest in the house is also called the firstborn, we encounter in Tehillim the word bechór in the meaning of the eldest in the house, the head of the house. Therefore it is possible that in every house the eldest died (except Pharaoh's house, as we see). Another opinion says that the Egyptians set up peculiar sorts of tablets for the dead in their homes, somehow immortalized the dead, there are traces of this in Egyptology. But still, this opinion should be set aside as an unhistorical midrash, and we should assume that the head of the house is also called the firstborn, and he also died. In every house there was someone who was the head, and in every house there are dead, when Pharaoh woke up and rose in the middle of the night.

But Moshe and Aharon, as we remember, they have a commandment: on this night not to go around visiting Pharaohs, to sit at home and not go out beyond it. How could Pharaoh call them? Well, some say: “He came under the windows, threw a pebble at the window, waited,” that is, somehow he came and called them in such a way that they would not go out of the house. But Pharaoh not only came to them, but also said something to them, and here there is a second difficulty. Moshe promised Pharaoh that Pharaoh would no longer see his face, that Moshe would no longer see Pharaoh's face. They promised each other that they would not meet again. And here we see that they do meet after all. Is there a breaking of promises in this? Many times in childhood I asked this question, and here is the answer a person once gave me. He told about his relative, who at one time quarreled with another Jew and promised never again to see his face. And he tried hard, he stopped going to the synagogue that this Jew went to. Even when he saw him on the street, he would cross over to another place in advance, he stopped going to the general assembly. And, although the dispute was, on the whole, somehow petty and unimportant, this man very carefully kept his promises, until that Jew, by then grown old, was almost on his deathbed. And this man who had sworn suddenly thought that the dispute was petty, that in the face of death a person changes, he is already changed even in his face, and he asked his teacher for permission. The teacher said: “Of course, you can go and speak with him.” Mortal circumstances sometimes change the situation. Here, though, the situation is critical, although Moshe does not even have a dialogue with Pharaoh. Maybe Pharaoh is simply shouting all this into the window of Moshe's house? It is hard to imagine how these events actually take place.

This means that Pharaoh here not only gives Moshe and Aharon a kind of carte blanche for leaving, but also sends them off already with his own government mission. They are not simply going because some Israelite God, little known to the Egyptians, is calling them somewhere, they are also going to pray for Pharaoh. Pharaoh, one could say, does not simply send them away, but sends them away with diplomatic passports.

This idea of Pharaoh's, the idea to send away the people of Israel, met with deep support. And the people went out, apparently, very hastily. We read about this further on, in verse 34, and we read a strange thing. It must be said that in this fragment of the portion Bo there are many verses, many places that are very unclear, and for each of these places dozens, if not hundreds, of different explanations have been given, but we cannot reproduce them all here. I will speak about one of those understandings which is closest to the simple meaning of the text, and whoever wants to go deeper, of course, has somewhere to study.

A very strange action: the people carry dough on their shoulders, and it does not have time to sour. If we look, they covered the distance from Ramses to Sukot, that is somewhere around 120 kilometers, they covered a great distance. How did the dough not sour, what is this about? Some commentators say that each had a huge measure of dough, three measures of dough, and they sour very slowly, that is, the more dough, the less leaven, the more slowly it, accordingly, rises. Others say: “As long as dough is being kneaded, it does not sour.” Dough cannot rise when it is being kneaded. And the people walked so fast, carrying these bundles with dough, that it was kneaded all the time while walking, and it could not sour, because it was constantly shaken in these bundles, on the shoulders. This is the most likely simple commentary.

In verses 35–36 we learn about what happened before this.

Some say that Sukot is not the name of a place but a kind of journey. God made heavenly booths, such cloud tents, such cloud wagons, and on these wagons carried the sons of Israel to the nearest stopping place, as it was said, as if on the wings of an eagle.

And of them there went out six hundred thousand people, men on foot. One can suppose: if this number is correct, then in total about two million went out, at a minimum. This is a huge number of people. And since this number of people is huge, and it is difficult to suppose that during the years that the people of Israel were in Egypt they multiplied so much, many commentators try to find different explanations. For example, one can say that the word élef (thousand) actually means military unit. That is, six hundred detachments went out, six hundred large families went out of Egypt. There is another understanding: “It is written keshesh-me'ót élef – like six hundred thousand.” Six hundred – this number also appears in many places in the Tanach, it is the count of a combat unit. If we look, very many detachments consisted of six hundred men. And one can say that here there is such a metaphor: the Israelites went out with a strength of thousands of regiments, a huge number of people went out. And there are many more different views. Indeed, it is very hard to imagine how it all was, because two million people – that is a medium-sized city. How to communicate information to everyone, how to gather everyone, by which roads and in what way to lead them all without human traffic jams, without a human crush? We, of course, know that the Most High is Wondrous. We know that He is the Creator of wonders. We see that the events which took place in Egypt are wondrous. And still there is simple human nature, which wants to make the task easier for the Most High and to reckon that this is not six hundred thousand people, not two million people, but somehow, in some way, fewer. The first and obvious, simple meaning is that it was nevertheless six hundred thousand men, excluding women and children. On top of everything, this was only the number of the sons of Israel. And besides this:

The combination érev rav, or mixture, gathering, acquired a bad meaning, something like rabble, various lumpen who joined, and so on. But here, in the Torah, this word has no negative connotation, here it is a multitude of peoples. Many representatives of other national minorities in Egypt, seeing what was happening, took their fate, took their future into their own hands and joined the people of Israel, and went out together with the people of Israel, seeing, perhaps, a path to a bright future. Perhaps they do not have such spiritual preparation as the Israelites have. Perhaps they are not so educated, not so attached to the inheritance of the fathers. But in this case they went out together with Israel. A grandiose event takes place at the exodus from Egypt, if one imagines two million people plus also those who joined them. This is, perhaps, a huge migration of peoples for that moment, and perhaps also for this one. Possibly this is the largest migration in history.

That is, the people walked fast, and when they stopped, the dough had not even soured yet. They had no other supplies, and therefore, despite the fact that they had covered a huge distance, they nevertheless baked unleavened bread.

This is also a very difficult verse. We have already calculated that, taking into account the years of Moshe's life, it comes to 210 years of slavery. And the figure of 430 years comes out if you count from the making of the covenant with Avraham at the cutting apart of the bodies, and in other sources it is written that this is exactly how one must count. But the plain meaning says here that the people lived in Egypt 430 years, and the commentators tried in every possible way to make the math fit here. There is one more interesting place in the Tanach, in the book of Yechezkel (4:4–6): “You will lie on one side 390 days, and on the other side 40 days, you will bear the guilt of the house of Yehuda, a day for a year, as I have appointed for you.” That is, 430 days when Yechezkel lies on his side, against 430 years of atonement, and it is hard not to see a certain parallel here.

Some commentators say: “Perhaps 430 is such a symbolic number. The Jews went out, one could say, released early on parole.” When the Most High wants to work salvation, He does not look at the terms, but simply does it. Other commentators say that 430 years are not simply years, but “person-years.” If you add up the years of life of, for example, Levi and his sons, and count each age in full, without overlapping one another, then in one generation you get the total “person-years,” in this case with Levi – 430 years. There are very many different ways to understand how 430 years fit in here. And still one can accept that the exodus from Egypt takes place 430 years after the making of the covenant with Avraham.

That is, it all began at midnight, when the Most High passed through Egypt and destroyed the firstborn. And here we read “in the middle of this day.” Not at night, not “on the quiet,” not stealthily – in broad daylight the people of Israel goes out of Egypt, at the end of that very night when the Most High was destroying the firstborn. About this night it is said further on, in verse 42.

What does night of preservation mean? Some understand that this is the night when the Jews did not sleep and remained with the Most High, if one understands the word shimmurím as standing on guard. Others understand that this is a night that is, as it were, canned, from the word shimmúr, canned goods. Every year this very night can be opened and one can feel, sense the exodus from Egypt, this is the night of canned goods for the Most High for Israel. In any generation we can open the “can of the exodus from Egypt,” feel the exodus from Egypt on ourselves. This is a great miracle, a great mercy toward us.

In modern Hebrew the word chukká means constitution, it comes from the word chok – law; lachkók – is to carve something, to write, to engrave in stone. But the word chukká in the Tanach is often understood as that which has no logical explanation underlying it. So the Most High established it – and that's it!

That no son of foreigners will eat the Pesach, this was observed for many years. There is a story in the tractate Kiddushin about a man, a rabbi, who lived in Babylon. And there was one pagan who came to him and said: “And I, you know, ate the Pesach sacrifice.” He said: “And did you try that piece, the tastiest one? Next time ask for it.” When the next year the man went and asked for this piece (and this very piece is not allowed to be eaten), they asked him: “Who taught you?” He said: “Well, Rebbe so-and-so told me that this is the tastiest.” And this man was executed because he, being a pagan, ate the paschal sacrifice. This was already in the times of the Second Temple. That is, we see that this tradition, that a foreigner cannot eat the paschal sacrifice, was preserved for many years.

Only if the man bought for money is circumcised, brought into the covenant of Avraham, only if you have acquired him, if he has become a part of you and you have circumcised him, as all the sons of Israel are circumcised, only then may he eat this sacrifice.

That is, the meat is eaten with undamaged bones, one could say, they are gnawed clean. The Pesach can be eaten only sitting in the house, it cannot be eaten in the yard, it cannot be taken along to guests. We have spoken about the fact that the Pesach is eaten according to the number of the people counted, that is, in essence, under a commandment.

The word ezrách in modern Hebrew means citizen, as a citizen of the land, as a permanent resident of the land. If he decides to make the sacrifice, then he must be circumcised, take upon himself all the laws that relate to the citizens of the land, and only then may he eat this sacrifice.

What, then, is this rule? If a person wants to eat the paschal sacrifice, wants to bring the paschal sacrifice, then he must be circumcised. He must take upon himself the Torah the way all Israelites take it upon themselves – the whole Torah, one Torah, and then he may be circumcised. There are no culturological references, to say: “Well, the Arabs, they are like that, it's in their culture, they cannot accept this. Such-and-such peoples cannot do without pork, such-and-such peoples cannot do without horse meat, without mare's milk, without this, without that…” And all this may not be done, no cultural concessions. Today this is very much accepted, such multiculturalism, when they say: “These people – well, that's their culture, they are not primitive, they are just different.” The Torah says: “The Torah is one for all, either everything or nothing.” Every person who takes upon himself the paschal sacrifice must fulfill all those commandments that he is obliged to fulfill, everything that the Torah tells him, and this is the same for all. One cannot make a concession to someone and say: “We allow such-and-such a people to bring the sacrifice, even though they do not accept everything from the Torah.”

We have to stop at verse 50. On this verse a great deal of different theology is built, beautiful and not so beautiful, the essence of which is that, supposedly, in the Torah there is no difference at all between Jews and pagans, neither male nor female, and a great deal of everything is built on it. But it is not worth “reading into” this place what is not here. Midrashim, interpretations – that is good, but here we are examining the very simplest, direct meaning of the Torah.

The LORD does not simply bring the people of Israel out in a hurry. On the one hand, the dough does not have time to turn sour, on the other hand – in terms of property, in terms of cattle, in terms of the fact that jewelry, garments are taken along – all this is gathered, all this goes out with the sons of Israel. The sons of Israel go quickly, but not traveling light. The Most High brings the people out with great property, brings them out with a strong hand, by day, before the eyes of all, not stealthily, not only with permission, with Pharaoh's blessing, but, as I have already said, with a request to bless him himself. In fact Pharaoh issues Israel diplomatic passports. Pharaoh, as was expected, loses the battle with the Most High.

With God's help, today you and I are finishing the study of the weekly portion Bo, and we will read from verse 1 of chapter 13. We continue reading about the exodus of the people from Egypt and about the historical significance of this event for the whole people.

Let us stop at the first word, sanctify (kadésh). The word kadósh (holy) is connected with the word kódesh (holiness), lekadésh – to sanctify, it means to set apart: “Set him apart for Me.” We know the story of Chana (1 Shmuel 1:27–28), who prayed and promised that her firstborn would be set apart to the Most High, and at the age of three she brought him to the temple. The Most High here commands that every firstborn among the sons of Israel be dedicated to Him, set apart for Him. We cannot make plans, as was customary, perhaps, among the people: this one will feed me in my old age, this one will delight me by becoming a lawyer, a dentist, he will fulfill my dreams. No, this boy, the firstborn, from the very first day of his life is dedicated to the LORD, destined for the service of the Most High, set apart for service in the Tent of Meeting, then in the Temple, and so on. Today this does not happen, because the Most High also gave the commandment of the redemption of the firstborn. And we will also talk about this in our discussion, we will get to this commandment too.

Hatching first from every womb – a very literal medical description. At the exit of the womb there is a place that is called the “external os,” at the first birth it changes shape, the infant as it were hatches out of it, and its original shape is no longer restored. This, in fact, is how it is determined whether a woman has given birth or not. And so the one who pecked through, the one who hatched – this is precisely the firstborn, the one who as it were broke the egg from inside. And this refers to the firstborn of a woman, that is, the first child that a particular woman bore, and the first child that was born to a particular man: the first son, if he was born first to the woman, and the first son, if he was born to the man. If a daughter was born first, then there is no firstborn in the family.

The firstborn is entirely in the service of the Most High. You cannot ask him to run out for bread, to paint the fence or something else, he is entirely dedicated to the Most High as something devoted to the Most High (nothing may be taken from it), and he may be used only in holiness in the temple. Such is the original commandment.

What is the connection, and what does all this mean? Here there is a commandment – to remember this day constantly, to remember constantly that the Most High has already pulled us out by the strength of His hand. Year after year at Pesach we remember this, and we renounce the old leaven, we prepare for renewal, we prepare to throw off everything old that pulls us back, that brings us back. Every year there is a renewal.

And further on we read an amazing verse. It would seem that it has a very simple meaning, but the verse is amazing. Here Moshe says:

Everything before this, all the conversations, everything takes place either in the future tense or in the past tense: and he said, and he did, and you will come, and you will say. And only in this verse does the action take place in the present tense: today you are going out, this is still relevant for you. Today you are going out, today I am going out, today we are going out, they are going out. Well, and those – they are not going out, because they did not want to. The month of aviv – the month when the buds begin to open, in this month we go out. There is a renewal of the year, there is a renewal for us, there is a renewal for humanity. We must remember that the Most High is able, is strong to renew us, to free us, to heal us, all this already happened in Egypt, and all this is the power of the Most High. This means that the Most High is interested in us, that we are important to Him, that He acts in us and that He is able to free us. He will not throw us out for recycling, will not reject us as some spoiled ones and make new ones, no. He will bring us out, save us, deliver us. He is the Savior, He is the Deliverer, such is His nature. And this is what Moshe begins his conversation with the people with.

First of all, what service? “Go out of Egypt, remember that the LORD brought you out” – this is the beginning of the service, further on – the forms of this service.

That is, everything leavened must be removed. Not only not to eat it, but also not to see it, to remove it from one's possession altogether, to remove it beyond the bounds of one's camp, to remove from all your borders everything leavened and the leaven itself.

This is what we must tell the children: “This service is not only in memory of the fact that back then my fathers, my great-grandfather, the great-great-grandfather of my great-great-grandfather went out of Egypt. This service is in order to remember what the LORD did for me when I went out of Egypt. And in order to say this and not lie, in order not to speak in slogans, not to deceive our children, we must really carry out the exodus from Egypt, look at where something holds us, where something binds us. Not to say in slogans that we are freed from everything, we are free, we are not under anything, but really to examine ourselves. How free are we for the service of the Most High? How far can we follow the Most High, and what holds us? Do we keep this faithfulness when we are driving a car and someone cuts us off? Are we free in this? Are we free when someone has deceived us, when someone does not meet our expectations? In general, each person has his own test.

The sages derive from this the commandments about laying tfillín. But we are speaking here now about the simple meaning. The simple meaning is this: “In every action of yours, in everything that you do, remember that the Most High is God, the Liberator from all dependencies, God, the Bearer of freedom. This means that He is interested in others being freed: carry this with every action of your hand. When you are guided by some deed of yours, when you decide which deed to do, then look at what action the Most High produces in the world. Does this give freedom or enslavement? Does this bring freedom to other people or put them in dependence? Does it bring them nearer to the Most High or remove them from Him?”

Between your eyes – in the ancient tradition this is understood as above the head, as a kind of peculiar antenna, as the way in which we perceive the world. And at the same time it is also like glasses for us, like that through which we look at the world. We look at the world through the exodus from Egypt, through the fact that the Creator, our God – He is the Liberator. And not only the Liberator, but He has a design, He has a plan, His name is the LORD, the Fulfiller of promises, He has a design and a plan. It is through this that we look at the world, this we constantly remember.

What is this needed for? When we act according to the Torah and perceive the world according to the Torah, only then will the word of the Torah be in our mouths. Only then will we be able to speak, and teach, and answer our son according to the Torah. That is when we will say: “For the sake of this the Most High brought me out of Egypt.”

We are all warriors of the Most High, warrior-liberators. Therefore you must know where you are making efforts toward liberation, where you are acting for the sake of the liberation of others, for the sake of bringing others nearer to the Most High, for the sake of spreading this very understanding, for the sake of telling about salvation, about the exodus from Egypt; that is where the strong hand of the Most High acts.

Every year, from day to day, this must be renewed. Miyamím yamíma (from day to day) – this means to repeat it constantly, consistently, time after time. It is impossible to do this ten times and learn it, twenty times and learn it, we cannot develop a reflex in ourselves. No, we must constantly teach ourselves this, we must constantly repeat it.

The donkey in this case has a special status. Although the donkey is an unclean animal, we see that it takes part very much in the life of the Patriarchs, it is the faithful companion of the Patriarch and the companion of every deliverance: Moshe rides on a donkey, Mashiach enters Jerusalem on a donkey. And the donkey is man's friend (like the dog, too), therefore it has a slightly different status, it too can be redeemed, like the firstborn of a man. And if you do not redeem it, then you must somehow put it to death, because it will not serve you anyway. On the one hand, it is a firstborn, and it is, as it were, the LORD's, on the other hand, it is unclean. It ends up on this kind of neutral territory, it can only be redeemed or destroyed. Today (and in general from generation to generation) it is customary to redeem it, this is done with a very beautiful procedure. A rare commandment that one can fulfill and watch being fulfilled.

At the time when there were not yet any kohanim, when the kohanim had not yet been set apart for the service, people brought money to the Temple as the redemption of the soul of the firstborn, so that he could live both for the sake of the family and for the sake of the clan, so that he would be not only on that side, on the side of the Most High, but would be like a ladder that connects the Most High and the family into which he was born. And so that he would unite in himself the heavenly and the earthly for his family, would be a gift of the Most High for the family, he is redeemed for five séla (or sacred shekels, 20 gera in a shekel), we read about this in the book of Bemidbar (3:47). Today the tradition is that the firstborn is redeemed from a kohen. Five séla is somewhere around seventy grams of silver.

There are different views among believing people on the subject of redeeming or not redeeming. There are those who say that everything has already been paid for us, we will not redeem anything from anyone, everything already belongs to us. I don't know who ransomed whom from the service of the Most High and how such a thing can be.

Since I am a kohen by descent, I often have to accept the redemption for a firstborn, and this money is set aside by me for some ministries. When some people want to give this contribution for the redemption of the soul, I receive from people testimonies of great blessings that they see in life when they redeem the firstborn. And I can say that there is fruit to this. I do not want to say (God forbid, that is not so) that whoever is not redeemed is under a curse. We do not curse anyone, and, of course, a person who acts by faith also lives by his faith. But those who redeemed, those who did this, turned to the kohanim and performed the redemption of the firstborn, many of them speak of the blessing that they saw in life as a result of this. As has already been said, we are talking about the value of seventy grams of silver. Often, when I meet with people, when it happens in person, I simply first give them this money as a gift. I say: “This is a gift to you so that you can redeem,” so that it does not look as though I am somehow earning from this, God forbid. There are people who simply want to donate, and that is also wonderful.

The son, who does not yet quite understand what is going on at all, will ask: “What is this?” Again, we have spoken about the fact that very much in the Torah is built on conversation. The Torah encourages conversation between father and son. When he asks me, I will not say to him: “Please read chapters 11–12 of the book of Shemot, and the tractate Psachim of the Talmud, and the Paschal Agada, and some other talks about Pesach.” No, when my son asks me: “Ma-zót?”, I must say to him, I must tell him, I include him here: “The LORD brought you and me out with a strong hand from the house of slavery.” I must repeat this to my son, my son must hear it from me, from his dad, and each of us must repeat it to our sons. This is a commandment. Oral conversation is more important than reading Scripture. We are often afraid that we will retell something wrongly, God forbid, depart from the text of the Synodal translation or from the Masoretic original, but the Torah itself commands that we give our testimony.

Of course, we, God forbid, do not offer children in sacrifice, therefore we redeem them.

And with verse 16 the weekly portion Bo actually ends:

There are very many different versions about the word totafót, it is unique here. Women had an ornament that hung down to the nose from the middle of the forehead, a peculiar kind of pendant that was hung on the forehead. In Egypt it was called totafót, also a kind of GPS in the spiritual world. And glasses, that through which we perceive the world, our compass, our direction finder – this is the Torah, this is the action of the Most High in mercy toward us, that He did not destroy our firstborn, that we have the possibility to redeem them and have the possibility of salvation, of the exodus from Egypt for the whole people. In this lies the essence of the nature of the Most High, and He begins to be revealed to the people as the Deliverer, as One Able, Strong and Willing to deliver from every evil, from every enslavement.

Our remembrance, the main thing in our faith – is that the LORD saved us, that we are saved, we are accepted into His people, have become part of His people, also through Mashiach. And all who are accepted, who have set out on this path, the LORD leads. He is strong to take, to lead, to bring into the land of rest. We have the Strongest, the most Glorious, the Greatest Trainer and Teacher, and He will lead us to holiness and will lead us to the point that we will all be dedicated to Him.

The conversation began with Moshe coming to Pharaoh and saying: “My firstborn is Israel, let my firstborn go, otherwise I will kill your firstborn.” And this whole dispute went on all the time around the firstborn. And the Most High testified to the whole world: “My firstborn is Israel, and the firstborn belong to Me.” As the people of Israel is set apart, so the firstborn are set apart, but there is a possibility of redemption. With God's help we will yet talk about this when we study the book of Bemidbar.

From the title of our passage from the weekly portion Bo it is clear that I wanted to talk about Pharaoh, wanted to humanize the figure of the human being who was king of Egypt at the moment of the Exodus of the people of Israel. I did not use the tautology “to humanize the figure of the human being” for nothing: the point is that Pharaoh the human being is very hard to make out in the Torah. He looks like some pitiful caricature of a human being, a caricature deprived of any individuality, any personality. Like some puppet put on the hand of the Most High, he acts as a man deprived of free will, not at all on his own. And I would like to understand – a little, one could say, to knock on this puppet and ask whether anyone alive is there, whether there is someone inside, someone human behind this image of Pharaoh that is drawn in the Torah, and what this means for us, what we can learn for ourselves from this humanized image of Pharaoh.

Let us begin, perhaps, with another, “inhuman” image of Pharaoh (7:14–15): “And the LORD said to Moshe: ‘Pharaoh's heart is stubborn, he does not want to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, here he goes out to the water, and you stand opposite him on the bank of the river, and the staff that turned into a serpent, take in your hand.’” The commentators explain why Pharaoh goes out to the water in the morning like this: “Pharaoh proclaims himself a god, he is not a human being, he is a god. A god, naturally, has no necessities of any kind, no needs of any kind. So he is forced to hide his needs, and therefore before dawn he goes out to the Nile to relieve his human needs.” Of course, this is only a midrash, but that Pharaoh proclaims himself a god is also said by the prophet Yechezkel in chapter 29, verse 3: “Thus said the LORD: ‘Behold, I am against you, Paro, king of Mitzrayim, great crocodile, lying among his rivers, who said: “Mine is my river, and I (myself) created myself.”’” The self-created Pharaoh, of course, cannot go to relieve himself, so he is forced to hide when doing it. And in this context it looks tragicomic that here Pharaoh goes to the river in the morning, he has finally lived to see the moment when he can ease his physiological existence, and at that moment Moshe catches him and delivers some long speech. If this were not Pharaoh, one would even feel sorry for this man, who considers himself a god and is forced to live up to what he has taken upon himself.

What can this mean for us? How often each of us sets some high bar for himself and tries – no, not to reach it, not to grow up to it, but to pretend to measure up to this bar. We can pretend to be infallible people, we can pretend to be very strong people, very smart people, who have no right to weakness, no right to a mistake, no right to be unable to do something. How much energy is spent on not being, but seeming to be who we are not, how much energy we spend on hiding some of our weaknesses, our infirmities. How much energy, how much – I am not afraid of this word – life we spend on keeping some family mysteries, family secrets. And sometimes it seems to us that if we now tell, share these secrets, the world will collapse. When suddenly someone learns about them, he says: “Well, it's nothing, it's an everyday matter, that's life.” And, avoiding life, we proclaim ourselves to be who we are not. This enslaves, takes hold, this deprives of freedom. This is what happened to Pharaoh.

When we, God forbid, also force those around us to be the way they are supposed to seem – not the way they are, but the way they are supposed to seem – this gets in the way of enjoying simple life. I often come across situations when a girl or a young man before a date, a first date in a religious environment, asks me how to behave, what image to take on for this date. You do not need to take any image with you – be yourself. If you are cheerful, be cheerful, if you are quiet, be quiet, if you are a leader, be a leader, if you are a follower, be a follower, each according to their own character. There is no need to begin with wanting to seem to be someone. This is what took hold of Pharaoh, what, in fact, made him a puppet on the hand of the Most High.

And look now how much Moshe as a human being is the direct opposite of Pharaoh, when the Most High turns to him and tries to load onto him the most important mission in history at that moment. No one before him had been granted such an important mission. Moshe does not say: “Oh, how great, I happen to have all the leadership qualities, I am the most suitable. I will write a résumé right now for the position of leader of the people of Israel, and spell out in it all the points, all the leadership qualities.” Moshe writes the Most High an anti-résumé. He says: “I am not a man of words, I am heavy of mouth, heavy of tongue, I am the most unsuitable man for this position.” No, he does not make it up, he speaks of his real shortcomings, he describes what he is. But the task here, once again, is not to slide into “Pharaoh-ism” in another way, that is, to invent a bad image for oneself and say: “How unworthy I am, how weak I am, how stupid, dull, dishonest and so on.” No, there is no need to deceive in this direction either. Moshe tells the truth about himself, lists his shortcomings, and this speaks of Moshe's humanity.

In connection with this there is a very interesting moment in the Torah, in chapter 6 of our book Shemot. When Moshe is about to go to Pharaoh, the Torah suddenly, unexpectedly interrupts the story of Moshe and begins an account of his genealogy (6:14): “Here is the head of their fathers' houses…”, and further on (6:20): “Amram took Yocheved, his aunt, as his wife, and she bore him Aharon and Moshe. And the years of Amram's life – 137 years.” At the moment when we met Moshe, we knew (from 2:1) that someone without a name, from the tribe of Levi, by the family name Levi, went and took himself a wife from the same tribe, but we knew nothing about Moshe's origin. And here, now, when Moshe takes the mission upon himself, the Torah tells of his human origin: look, here is the man Moshe, a man to whom nothing human is alien, with all his human shortcomings. It is precisely this man who goes and carries out the Divine mission. And, as we read in our portion, he takes with him the staff, the instrument of the signs of the Most High, that is, the Most High passes His authority to a human being, with all his human shortcomings.

And so this human being, endowed with Divine authority, crosses paths here, on the bank of the Nile, with Pharaoh, who proclaims himself a god and is forced to pretend to be a god. And now he cannot wait to get past Moshe without hearing his speech to the end, to get to the Nile as quickly as possible and relieve an entirely physiological, excuse me, human need. This is what is in each of us, what can come out in each of us, when we take on obligations that do not fit us, when we want to look, seem, be considered who we are not even in our own eyes, all the more in the eyes of our family, God forbid, in the eyes of those close to us, in the eyes of our friends. And this is what can take from us time, strength, energy, life itself. And when it is said, as in the Russian fairy tale: “Once there lived and was Alex…”, it may turn out that he was, all right, but he did not live, because all the time he wanted to seem to be someone.

In this story, in this situation with Pharaoh, there is another human side as well. It seems that everyone around, over time, begins to understand that God is acting in Egypt, that God is sending blow after blow upon Egypt, that Egypt is being destroyed. The Egyptian economy is collapsing, and people are already saying to Pharaoh: “How long will you keep on being stubborn? Look, don't you see that Egypt is perishing?” Does Pharaoh not see? Pharaoh sees! But it is very hard, not only for Pharaoh but for each of us, to admit one's mistake.

Let us recall the operating principle of so-called financial pyramids. Having once invested money, a person somewhere in his subconscious feels that he is losing the money, that he is being deceived here, but they tell him: “Invest more money to save this money. Invest more, and then we are just about to, right now you just need to invest a little more. It's all of them, the fools, who don't believe. You believe, you believe and invest, invest, invest, only, God forbid, don't admit your mistake.” And the person invests again. How many business projects there are that collapse, and those who run them do not want to notice that they are collapsing, and keep investing and investing until they are completely ruined, so that they can no longer take on anything new. How many of our ideas, our thoughts, some of our projects – no, not business projects, but life situations – are destroyed when we cannot stop and admit: “I made a mistake, I am a human being, to err is human: like Moshe, son of Amram and Yocheved, so also I, son of so-and-so and so-and-so, a human being of blood and flesh, I can make a mistake, I made a mistake. Even if I have done damage to myself, to my family, I have lost time, strength, perhaps health, money, now I will stop, I will not wait until this situation grows like a snowball.” It is often very hard to admit that you are wrong. These are parts, perhaps, of one and the same problem: when you proclaim yourself a god, like Pharaoh, or when it is hard for you to admit that you are not only not a god, but sometimes not even very smart, sometimes not very educated, sometimes you miscalculate your strength.

King Shlomo said in the book of Kohelet: “He made everything beautiful in its time, even put eternity into their hearts, but so that man cannot grasp the works done by God from beginning to end.” God has given us very much, and, indeed, this is an enormous, enormous potential. With this enormous potential – feeling this potential, feeling this daring, this possibility to move, to do – one sometimes so much does not want to admit: “I made a mistake. I spent a year, two, three on the wrong thing. I went to get the wrong education, I was building a career in the wrong place. Maybe I was trying to build a relationship with the wrong person, maybe I was studying Scripture in the wrong place, with the wrong teacher.” It is so hard to stand up, say: “I made a mistake!” and leave, but thereby save your life, save the remainder, what is left, give yourself the possibility to realize yourself, to realize your potential. And this is hard when you are simply a human being, when you are simply Alex, who is responsible for Alex's life, when you are simply Boris, who is responsible for Boris's life, and so on, when you answer only for yourself. It is even harder when you are the head of a family and you are responsible for the family. It is hard to say: “I took on this job in vain, we have lost a lot here. I decided to move here in vain, we have lost a lot here.” And it is very hard to admit your mistake when you are Pharaoh, and you will have to say: “All this enormous damage that has been done to Egypt was done through my fault. It is my fault that there were problems here with irrigation, with water. It is my fault that a heap of food was spoiled by frogs,” and so on. To admit that you are to blame for all these misfortunes, that you destroyed the country's economy – this, you will agree, few in history have been able to do. And, of course, this is hard for Pharaoh globally, and it is hard for us locally. Therefore let us turn again to King Shlomo, who (now in the book of Mishlei, 28:13) says: “He who conceals his transgressions will not have success…” You will not be able to move, will not be able to be happy, if you are hiding something, if you are afraid to admit that the path you have chosen is based on a mistake, that you have chosen a mistaken direction. And further: “…But whoever confesses and forsakes – he will be shown mercy.” If a person admits: “I made a mistake, I sinned here, I did a wrong deed here, went in the wrong direction.” No, not necessarily sinned, it is not necessarily a sin. It may simply be a wrongly made decision from a wrong understanding, a lack of common sense or something else. Simply a human mistake that needs to be admitted. And when we read the word yeruchám (will be shown mercy) – it means the Most High will begin a process. We have already said more than once, and in this case both the word yeruchám, and the word rachamím (mercy) are connected with the word réchem (womb). The Most High will begin a process of, as it were, growing the person (as a fruit, as an embryo), will begin the complex process of his correction.

Again, why is this important? Not from the moment when you said: “I made a mistake, now I will live rightly,” not from this moment will everything in your life immediately go like clockwork, will you have only positive emotions and so on. You need to be ready for the fact that a long process of, perhaps, small changes will begin, the result of which will be a new human being. You have to believe in this, you have to be ready for this. This is one more difficulty. Fine, let me say: “Guilty, I repent!” – and the economy of Egypt, as at the snap of a finger, will get back on track, my life, as at the snap of a finger, will get back on track; it does not work like that.

It is in such situations that we ourselves end up in Pharaoh's position, and he no longer seems so tragicomic to us, because, probably, anyone in these situations can recognize himself somewhere, at least partially, and understand that it is not all that funny. It really looks like a caricature if you look from the outside, but from the inside it is very sad, painful, sorrowful. Pharaoh is not punished for nothing, and the question here, probably, is how these human, these “Pharaonic” qualities show up in our “non-Pharaonic” life; whether we want to be Pharaohs, whether we want to remain Pharaohs (if we suddenly turned out to be them) and to exist in such an image. 

Let us talk a little more about the weekly portion Bo. In the book of Bereshit we read the story of the Fathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who received from the Most High the name Israel. In our book Shemot, in the portion Bo, we read the story of the sons, the sons of Israel (bnei Yisrael), who became the people of Israel. And our weekly portion is remarkable in that in it the Most High, through Moshe, for the first time speaks with the people of Israel and gives the people of Israel the first commandment. And what is this very first commandment that the Most High gives the people of Israel?

It could have been a commandment like the first commandment on the tablets: “I am the LORD, your God, you shall have no other gods before Me.” It could have been a commandment about circumcision, or about the Sabbath, or about other aspects of the relationship with the Most High. It could have been commandments that define the relationships between human being and human being: “Do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not kill.” But it is something completely different. The first commandment that the Most High gives the people of Israel sounds like this (12:2): “This month is for you the head of all months. It is the first among the months of the year.” What is such a commandment needed for? Rashi at the beginning of his commentary on the Torah writes: “Rabbi Yitzchak said: the Torah ought to have begun with (the verse) This month is for you the head of months.” Rashi at the beginning of his commentary on the Torah writes: “Rabbi Yitzchak said: the Torah ought to have begun with (the verse) This month is for you the head of months.” Why should the Torah begin with some calendar phenomenon? Isn't it all the same which month will be the first – nisán, the spring one, or perhaps elúl, the summer one, or tevét, the winter one? The Most High, as the commentators say, showed Moshe the new month being born. The word month (in Hebrew chódesh) comes from the same root as the word chadásh (new). Thus chódesh is renewal. Every month the moon is born again (it emerges small), grows, becomes full, decreases (becomes small), disappears again. The Most High says: “This month is for you the head of all the months of the year.” The word shaná (year) means a constant repetition of something. The whole Torah, your whole life according to the Torah will consist of constant renewals. If you do not believe that you can become better, if you do not believe that you can draw near to holiness, then you are not in the commandments of the Torah, you are not fulfilling this very first commandment. And if a person does not believe that he can become better, if he is a pagan, then it is useless to give him the commandment “I am your LORD.” He will not be able to accept it, because he does not believe in his strength, in his ability to change, in the divine gift of changing that has been given to him. That is why the very first commandment that is given is – you can change, you can renew yourselves, you can become better, you can draw near to the Most High.

It is interesting that the Most High gives this commandment as if digressing from the topic. The Most High began to tell Moshe that he would destroy all the firstborn in Egypt, would pass through and destroy all the firstborn and would even execute judgment on the gods of Egypt. According to the words of the Most High, not only Pharaoh's firstborn will suffer – the firstborn of the slave woman who stands at the millstones will suffer too. And, it would seem, this is a monstrous injustice – to punish the firstborn of the slave woman, what does she have to do with it? And the commentators say: “Very often people (both pagans and believers), when they see that misfortunes happen to someone, some calamities fall upon a person, say that it is God who punished him for this and for that, that it is our God who punished him, his misfortune is the victory of our God.” When some misfortunes come down, people say: “This is our god, our Aztec Quetzalcoatl, our Udege Sangia-Mama, our whoever it may be, any pagan god, our god is punishing him.” And the slaves in Egypt, pagans of all sorts and all denominations, often did exactly the same. And over these gods the Most High here executes His judgment. The judgment also concerns the slave woman who is at the millstones, because she, too, rejoiced in the victories of her pagan god; this is a judgment on the gods of Egypt, which include her as well.

What to do, how to be saved from this judgment? The answer – to acknowledge the authority of the one God, the God of Israel. Therefore the Most High says: “First of all I gave you the possibility to change. I am God, Who wants a human being to change, and not to suffer. I am the God of people who grow in holiness. Simply believe that this month is for you the beginning of all months, this is renewal for you, the beginning of an endless number of renewals.” Every day doing teshuvá (repentance) – means every day becoming one step better in something. And as a sign of this faith one must take an animal, a lamb (the Pesach offering), and place it under guard, as it is written (12:6): “…for safekeeping, or under guard.” This same word (lemishméret) is used when Pharaoh places his servants under guard. To take the lamb under guard (just as Mashiach was taken under guard three days before Pesach), to take it, to keep it, in order to offer it as a sacrifice on the 14th.

What is a sacrifice for? The word korbán (sacrifice) – has the same root as the word likróv (to draw near), that is, to draw near to the Most High. This is the foundation of our faith. If we believe that there is renewal, that there is the ability to change, then there is also the possibility of drawing near to the Most High. The Most High wants to draw us near, wants us to draw near to Him, and offers us to follow Him. Pharaoh says to Moshe: “I will let you go and all your followers; not all your people, but all your followers.” There were many Egyptians who recognized the power, the glory of the God of Israel, became followers of Moshe and afterwards went out of Egypt together with Moshe. And one can say that their deliverance began with their understanding, their acknowledging that life in following the Most High is a chain of renewals.

And for us this is the understanding that the Most High wants to change our life, that He loved this world, and that faith in His love, it comes before faith in a sacrifice for Him. He loved this world, therefore He gave His only begotten Son, therefore He commanded us to bring the Passover sacrifice in the desert, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, so that the spirit of destruction that passed through Egypt would not touch the houses of Israel, would not touch those houses in which the lamb is eaten. And to learn how to eat the lamb, one must acknowledge that renewals have a beginning, but renewals have no end. And this will happen from generation to generation.

That is why the first commandment of the Torah is not a calendar commandment, not an astronomical trifle, it is the beginning of the path, the marking of the name of the path. To follow God, to learn from Mashiach means to change, to be renewed, to become better, every day to become closer to Him, to grow in faith, in holiness, to renew one's mind daily and hourly. And this is a lifelong process, this is the essence of the first commandment of the Torah. It is all-encompassing, and all the other commandments are in no way possible without it, because without it there is no change, without it we are captives of our old, decrepit selves. If God cannot change us, cannot renew us, as He renews the moon, then complete hopelessness sets in. Precisely for this reason the Most High begins communicating with the people of Israel with this commandment.

In this passage I would like to talk about one of the most significant historical events in Jewish history (and in world history, I am not afraid to say it), namely about the plagues of Egypt. The story of the plagues of Egypt extends over two weekly portions, over two whole weekly portions of the book Shemot: these are the portion Vaera and the portion Bo. This principle of reading the weekly portions arose a little more than a thousand years ago, or rather, became established a little more than a thousand years ago. Before that there were two divisions into weekly portions. There was the division into portions accepted in the land of Israel, when the Torah was read through in three and a half years; and there was another division (this is the Babylonian tradition of reading), when the Torah was read through in a year. This was connected with the fact that in the land of Israel they gave far more explanations, commentaries in the course of the reading, far more women and children were drawn into study, in order to explain the Torah to them, therefore it was customary to read shorter passages, so that the Torah could be explained better. In Babylon the reading and study of the Torah was intended for more advanced people, women rarely came to the synagogues, and therefore in academic circles they managed to read through the Torah in a year. And so, when we say that our discussion of the plagues of Egypt extends over two portions, we mean the Babylonian division into portions, the Babylonian tradition. This division has its own reasons why seven plagues, the first seven plagues ended up in one weekly portion, in the weekly portion Vaera, and the last three plagues – the locusts, the darkness and the plague of the firstborn – ended up in the next weekly portion, the portion Bo.

First of all, it is worth noting the purpose of the plagues, since the plagues are divided according to their purposes. Let us pay attention to several verses from the weekly portion Vaera (6:2–9:35).

So, chapter 7, verse 5:

“And the Egyptians (mitzrayim) will know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand over Mitzrayim and bring the sons of Israel out from their midst.”

And further, chapter 8, verse 6:

“… And he said: ‘Let it be according to your word, so that you may know – you, Pharaoh, may know that there is none like the LORD our God!’”

And further, verse 18:

“And I will set apart on that day the land of Goshen, on which My people stand, so that there will be no aróv there (a mixture, a swarm of animals or of dog-flies, whatever you call this aróv), so that you may know – you, Pharaoh, may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the land!”

And further, chapter 9, verse 16:

“But for this I let you stand, to show you My power, to proclaim My name throughout all the earth!”

We see throughout the whole portion Vaera that one of the tasks of the plagues that are taking place, the importance of this task, is to show Pharaoh who is master in the house. And, naturally, we will write down a question in our minds: why should God educate Pharaoh, who will die anyway, who has death ahead of him (or does not have it ahead of him, depending on how one looks at the midrashim), death in the sea.

The series of, one could say, plagues ends with Pharaoh's confession, strange as it may seem. We read this in verse 27 of chapter 9:

“And Pharaoh sent, and called Moshe and Aharon, and said to them: ‘I have sinned this time, the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are guilty.’”

    It all began very beautifully, let us recall how paró (Pharaoh) said at the very beginning: “Who is the LORD, that I should know Him, I do not know any LORD! He did not come to me, He did not send me gifts, He did not bless me, He did not reveal Himself to me, I do not know Him and do not want to know Him.” After all, he is, as we read in the prophet Yechezkel (29:3) – “Pharaoh, like a great crocodile on the banks of the Nile, who says: ‘my Nile, I created it.’”

At the end of the weekly portion Vaera, however, Pharaoh acknowledges the authority of God, but he not only acknowledges the authority of God – he acknowledges his sin before this God.

The second part, the second series of the plagues of Egypt begins (this is already the weekly portion Bo) with the Most High turning to Moshe, in verses 1–2 of chapter 10:

“Go in to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart and the heart of his servants unapproachable, so that I may perform these My signs in his midst; so that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your son's son how I mocked Mitzrayim (Egypt), and about My signs that I performed among them, and so that you may know that I am the LORD.”

That is, the purpose of the second series, the second part of the plagues, which are set apart, moved into a separate portion, the purpose is that we should have something to tell our children and the children of our children. And even though so many generations have already passed from the time of Moshe to our time, we constantly talk about the Exodus from Egypt, we constantly mention the Exodus from Egypt. And if we look at the whole Torah, we will see that the creation of the world is not mentioned as many times as the Exodus from Egypt is mentioned. The Exodus from Egypt, the liberation of humanity – this is the most important moment in world history, the whole story of the Torah is a story of liberation. The Exodus from Egypt is a typical story, it is an image and a reality of a human being's deliverance, and the whole teaching about the Exodus from Egypt is a teaching about the liberation of a human being from under the power of Egypt.

We find this in various midrashim, both in the simple sense and in the mystical sense, if we see that the word paró (Pharaoh) consists of the same letters as the word afár (dust). The dust from which man was created, the dust that became the nature of man after the fall, and the dust that became the food of the serpent as punishment for having seduced man. That is, if one looks from the point of view of Jewish symbolism, Pharaoh symbolizes dust, and some midrashim, some commentators go further and say that Pharaoh symbolizes the primordial serpent, that very serpent who seduced man. This does not mean that he is a serpent, or does not mean that the serpent became Pharaoh, God forbid, or that Pharaoh was a serpent. It means that they represent one and the same power.

Another understanding of Pharaoh, which we have already spoken about once: the word paró can be explained as pe ra'á (evil mouth).

Pharaoh says to Moshe in our weekly portion Bo, in verse 10 of chapter 10:

“…Where will you go, nothing but evil is ahead of you!”

One of the manifestations of Pharaoh as pe ra'á (evil mouth) – is that he says: “You will not be able to free yourselves, you will not get out anywhere, nothing good will come of you.”

We have a commandment, it is like an instruction of the sages, but we can also see it in the Torah: we say that the Exodus from Egypt is constantly repeated in history. The sages say that in every generation a person must see himself as if he himself were going out of Egypt. Every person has in himself some part of Egypt, has in himself some Pharaoh, and must overcome this, must strive to go out of his own Egypt. And we, of course, have an enormous advantage compared to previous generations. This advantage is that we have the Deliverer Yeshua, and in Him we break free, rise above Egypt, rise up from the dust, from that very dust which is Pharaoh.

It is worth noting here that, of course, it is much easier to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt than to bring Egypt out of the people of Israel. And therefore the Most High divides his influence on Pharaoh, divides the exodus from Egypt into ten parts. One could have struck Egypt with heavy artillery right away. We know that when Yarovam, the king of the kingdom of Israel, raised his hand against the prophet Ido, the king's hand withered instantly (1 Melachim 13:4). We know that the Most High can turn all of Egypt into cardboard toys in a single moment, but then this would not lead to the people of Israel being ready for deliverance. The power of the Most High, the manifestation of the Most High, is in that He, through many stages, gradually brings a person out, prepares him for deliverance.

And what is happening in Egypt? We can see some examples of what these plagues meant for the Egyptians, and compare them with what these plagues can mean for us. Seven of the ten plagues fall in the portion Vaera.

The first plague of Egypt is connected with blood. The water in the Nile turned into blood, everyone knows this. Everyone also knows that Egypt lives by the Nile flooding, carrying silty fertile soil, making all the soil in the Nile delta, in the delta of its flooding, fertile, suitable for farming. All the farming of Egypt, all the water supply of Egypt – everything is built on the Nile, and one can say that the Nile gives Egypt life. One of the supreme rulers of Egypt, and accordingly one of the supreme deities in the pantheon of the gods of Egypt, was the god of creation and of water, including the Nile, the god Khnum. He ruled all the other, so to speak, gods, he was one of the main gods in the hierarchy of the gods of Egypt. But we will not go deep into Egyptian mythology, we need it here only as an example.

 So, God begins with one of the main values of Egypt: God touches Egypt “to the quick,” God takes Egypt by the Nile, turns all the water into blood. For several days all the water becomes blood, that is, the Egyptians have no water. The midrashim say (we also read about the plagues of Egypt in Tehillim 78 and 105) that the Most High struck their water, that is, the water of the Egyptians. He did not strike the water that the Israelites, the Jews, had, and, apparently, the Egyptians had to turn to the Jews for water. Here two directly opposite properties meet: on the one hand, the turning of water into blood, on the other hand, the turning of blood into water, that is, it is about the ability of the Jews to turn the blood from the Nile back into water.

Blood symbolizes the soul, the fleshly soul, the Torah says this directly. Blood is what supplies the whole organism with nutrients. In the end any of our food, the greater part of it, all the useful nutrients become blood. Everything that we consume becomes blood at some stage, enters the blood or passes through the state of blood. Blood is that, which takes, water is that which gives. In a certain sense, turning blood back into water is what the deliverance of the Jews began with: the ability to turn the desire to take into the desire to give.

Already to Noach (Bereshit 9:4) the Most High gave the prohibition on eating the blood of a slaughtered animal. And further, in other places, for example, in the book of Devarim (9:12), it is said: “Only do not eat the blood, pour it out on the ground like water.” One could simply have said: “Pour the blood out on the ground,” but the Torah says that one must “pour out the blood on the ground like water.” There is a certain mystical action, some sacred act in shchitá (the slaughter of livestock), which allows us to rise above its animal soul, so that we do not eat the soul of the animal, the beastly quality of the animal, so that we can consume that Word of God by which this animal was created.

It is interesting that many primitive peoples had beliefs like these: when a person eats the heart of a brave person, the heart of a brave enemy, he becomes brave; when a person eats brains, he can become smart; when eyes – become sharp-sighted, and so on. Of course, we can say that these beliefs are primitive. And therefore very many have said that the Torah's account that the soul is contained in the blood of an animal and that some bad qualities will be passed on with the blood – that this is some primitive account, a reflection of those very beliefs that existed at that time.

 When we turn to science, it is very hard to say anything unequivocally, and we will not say now “scientists have proven,” because so far what we are going to say is not proven, it is a very interesting hypothesis, very interesting facts that have been noticed recently. A Japanese psychiatrist, Tsuyoshi Miyaoka, whom it is hard to accuse of religiosity or of adherence to ancient beliefs, was treating a certain patient. The man thought that his thoughts were leaking out of his head like water, that others could see his thoughts and that when he watched films the actors were giving him some secret signs. This is a very terrible state, when a person believes that actors are making some secret signs to him. He does not understand them, suffers from this and thinks that something is wanted from him, and he cannot do this “something.” The doctor diagnosed this state as paranoid schizophrenia and prescribed a course of neuroleptics, drugs that somehow suppress schizophrenia. A year later the man's condition sharply worsened: on examination he was found to have one of the varieties of blood cancer. One could say a misfortune was added, but as the proverb says: “There would have been no happiness, but misfortune helped.” To save his life he was given a bone marrow transplant. What is a bone marrow transplant? In the past they really took a small piece of marrow from a donor and transplanted it into the patient, and today there are hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells, the very earliest precursors of blood cells, and the transplant essentially looks like a blood transfusion.

Well, so let us continue this story. The man received a bone marrow transplant from a healthy person, his immune system was regulated and the schizophrenia went away. And the group of Japanese specialists who studied this case recorded that this is not a recession, that the disease did not temporarily go underground, but that it really went away. They found that new blood, the renewal of hematopoietic stem cells, can bring about healing from schizophrenia: the blood of a healthy person can make a patient healthy. This case was published in a scientific journal of psychiatry. This is not some popular-science magazine, not some religious magazine. And when this study was published, other studies began to appear, other evidence began to appear. Medicine is based on collecting evidence. And evidence appeared that once upon a time there lived in the Netherlands a mentally healthy man who fell ill with leukemia and received donor stem cells from his brother. His brother did not have leukemia, but he had schizophrenia. As a result the patient was cured of leukemia, but, having received donor cells from his sick brother, he also fell ill with schizophrenia. Thus we see that today research is being carried out to show that receiving donor blood can affect, among other things, mental illnesses too.

Of course, this should in no way be understood as a war on medicine, one should not raise the flag of a fight against blood transfusion. I am simply noting here now the essence, the essence of the plague of Egypt connected with blood, noting that blood determines human consciousness, really determines the human soul.

If we look a little earlier still, the LORD decided to stand up for the Jewish people after Moshe saw injustice and stood up for a Jew. When intercession appears from below, intercession also appears from above. The deliverance itself began with someone paying attention to his neighbor. Yosef's deliverance from the Egyptian prison began with his paying attention to the sad faces of the baker and the cupbearer. It would seem, people are sitting in prison, why ask them why they are sad? They are sad because they are in prison. But Yosef paid attention, and with this the deliverance began. Thus blood is the beginning, the beginning of overcoming some egoism, the beginning of overcoming that state when a person is ready only to take, only to consume, and the beginning of accustoming him to the state that one must become ready to give.

It is interesting that when a proselyte underwent giyur, (the process of converting to Judaism), he had, by tradition, to perform a ritual immersion, to immerse himself in a mikva. And during the immersion rabbis came in and told him simple and difficult commandments, that is, they reminded him what exactly he was taking upon himself. He absolutely had to be told about the commandment of the tithe and about the commandment of the edge of the field, which must be left for the poor. The transition into Judaism, the transition into the service of the Most High, begins with a person being ready to see, love, understand, feel in this world something or someone besides himself. This is an interesting lesson.

Pharaoh sees that there is some authority besides him, that he is not alone in this world, that there are some forces he has to reckon with. But this is a lesson not only directly for the Pharaoh of Egypt, it is also a lesson for that Pharaoh, that evil inclination, that serpent – call it by whatever symbol you like – which sits in each of us. The path to the Most High, the path of sanctification, begins with our becoming able to love, understand, feel our neighbor, to make water out of our blood. Such is one view of this plague.

The second plague, in my opinion, the most, so to speak, mysterious of all the plagues that took place in Egypt – is the plague of frogs. In modern Hebrew the word tzfardéa does indeed mean frog. But researchers argue, and there is an opinion – it is supported by Ramban and Ibn Ezra, that is, by people who knew Hebrew (Ibn Ezra, in particular, was an expert in Hebrew grammar), that the word tzfardéa, in fact, means not a frog, but a crocodile. In confirmation of this one can cite an example from Tehillim 78:45, where David speaks about the plagues of Egypt. There it says that the Most High sent upon the Egyptians aróv (either a mixture of animals, or an invasion of mosquitoes, or of dog-flies: the word is mysterious and is understood in different ways), the aróv bit them, wounded them, and the tzfardea (frogs or crocodiles) killed them, destroyed them root and branch. A very interesting remark. Probably mere frogs cannot destroy a people like that. And nevertheless we hold to the classical, established understanding that the word tzfardéa here, as in modern Hebrew, means frog.

Let us go back a little bit, as a small introduction. A midrash tells an interesting thing: “In all of Egypt the water turned into blood, and the only one who could take a shower, drink water and cook chicken broths with clean water was Pharaoh.” God did not touch Pharaoh's house, because Pharaoh's house is the house where Moshe grew up, and in this there is a certain gratitude that we should learn from. But Pharaoh thought: “Aha, so they can't get me! Even if you get all of Egypt, you won't get me!” And therefore, when Moshe proclaims the plague of frogs (7:28), he says: “Everything will begin with you: they will come into your house, into your kneading trough, onto your bed, into your bedroom, onto your marriage bed.” This is very important, because the Egyptian goddess Heket, goddess of moisture and rain, of fertility, symbol of the woman in childbirth, symbol of conception, was depicted in the form of a frog or with a frog's head. Many women wore little medallions in the form of frogs in order to conceive, in order to give birth and so that the birth would be easy. The frog-headed goddess Heket was considered the patroness not only of everything connected with childbirth, but of a certain intimacy too. And Moshe proclaims that Pharaoh will be struck at his proudest point, in his most intimate part, in his ability, in his creative principle (that is, in his generative principle), that one of the most important Egyptian goddesses will be struck.

We see several interesting details in this plague. First, if before this Moshe had to strike the Nile with the staff, here it is enough simply to stretch out the staff over the Nile.

Another interesting detail. When Pharaoh says to Moshe (8:4): “Take away from me, take away from me these frogs!”, then Moshe goes out of Pharaoh's palace, and further on (8:8) it says this: “…and Moshe cried out to God….” The word yitzak, which is used here, literally means cried out. What did Moshe cry out about? And it is written: “…al-dvar hatzfardeím,” that is, not simply about frogs, but al-dvár. This dvár means word, logos. This has very many meanings. And one can tentatively translate this (as a midrash does) as: Moshe cried out for the logos of the frogs that God sent to Pharaoh. In general, a person cries out when he is in pain. Pharaoh asked Moshe and Aharon: “…ha'tiru el-adonai…”, asked them to pray, to complain to God about the fact that he was being plagued with frogs. Moshe, however, cries out to the Most High, and here is an interesting question: why does he cry out? Another interesting question – why, actually, frogs? This is a plague that did not end right away. After Moshe proclaims that the frogs will be removed, the frogs do not roll up, do not “collapse” back into the Nile. They die in the fields, in the gardens. They are gathered up, and a stench comes from them for a long time, it is very hard to get rid of them. And these are all very interesting questions.

As for the fact that the plague came through frogs, the commentators explain this by understanding the word frog as the Aramaic word tzáfar (morning), in other words, knowing the morning. The frog is an animal that (according to the midrashim, according to the views of the sages) croaks, makes noise and sings only at night. In the morning it falls silent. Besides that, some kinds of frogs can puff themselves up, increase in volume, in order to frighten others. Therefore the frog is often cited as a symbol of pride. It is used to singing at night, singing when there is no light, when the Divine light is not revealed. Yeshua says: “He who walks in the day succeeds.” The day lasts twelve hours – go, act in the daytime, you will succeed, go with the light. And night is a symbol of darkness, of gloom. The frog shows its I (like the human ego as well) when there is no presence of God, in darkness. Just like us: if we do something and say at the same time: “Yes! I managed this, it is I, I succeeded!”, then we too are acting in darkness, and this is, in other words, pride. From the point of view of Hasidism, from the point of view of Hasidic teaching, pride, arrogance – is one of the hardest human qualities to overcome; it is considered that pride is the hardest of all to overcome. And Moshe saw that this problem of pride, of arrogance, exists not only in Pharaoh, that it is the problem of all humanity. That is why such an outcry sounded from Moshe to the Most High, on behalf of the whole people of God, for the words of pride. And although Moshe, according to the testimony of the Torah (Bemidbar 12:3), is the meekest of men, he too still has this after all.

One of the founders of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, spoke all his life, taught about pride, and his last words were: “Sovereign of the world, heal me of pride.” Pride is a problem that probably sits in every person, even when a person gives Torah lessons. I think that any person who looks inside himself understands how great the problem of pride is. And so the frog is a blow to pride, it is the destruction of Pharaoh's pride, which prevents him from acknowledging the Most High as God. Pride often prevents one from acknowledging that in the world it is not you yourself who act on your own, but the Most High who acts.

Something else can be said here in parentheses. Often people ask: what am I lacking in order to have a relationship with God? But here we are shown that we need to ask differently: what is superfluous in me, what is there in me of my own that blocks God from me, that hinders my relationship with God?

That is about the plague of frogs. Much more could still be said about it and, in particular, about frogs, because they are very interesting creatures. For example, there is the goliath frog, the largest frog in the world. The length of its body (together with the hind legs) can reach 98 centimeters, its weight – up to three and a half kilograms. There is the Nile frog, there is the smallest frog, the length of an adult is 7-8 millimeters, it lives in New Guinea. And frogs, unlike toads, have teeth, they really bite. Why does David say that the frogs destroyed the Egyptians? Because they broke their pride. This is a very terrible, very destructive breaking, for any person at all. I also think that this is one of the most important stages in working with our “old man.” The death of the “old man” is the putting to death of pride.

Further we can get acquainted with yet another hero of Egyptian mythology, a certain comrade, the god Ptah. According to Egyptian mythology, the god Ptah (from the Egyptian sculptor) is the creator of the world and of everything that exists in it, which he conceived with his heart and named what he had conceived with his tongue (with the word). With his thought he molded from the dust of the earth animals, plants, people, cities, temples, crafts, arts and so on. And the third plague – kiním or lice – is a manifestation of creativity from the dust of the earth. God showed what He can create from the dust of the earth, showed who is really the Creator in the world. We began with the words of the prophet, with Pharaoh's claim: “My Egypt, and I created it.” And so lice appeared and swarmed everywhere and all over. Kiním – this is the first case where Pharaoh's priests could not repeat anything. As tradition says, and also many ancient books on magic, which people once practiced (charlatans, and Satanists, and whatever else you might call them), so then, they said that magic does not work on objects that are smaller than an oat grain. So it turned out to be hard to affect the little lice by magic in any way, and the Egyptian magicians did not succeed in this (so says the midrash). Thus another value of Egypt (namely: who is the maker and creator of the world) was destroyed, another myth debunked.

Now we will talk about the fourth plague, which takes place through the mysterious aróv. One of the midrashim defines this word as mixture of animals. Another midrash says that these are mosquitoes or dog-flies, some kind of biting gnats, poisonous midges, as they say in Russian fairy tales. In support of this view speaks such a concept as urbátu, this is a Sumerian and Akkadian word, which could have been used in Egypt and meant mosquitoes or, again, poisonous midges. Small golden flies were given in Egypt to heroes, given to those who had particularly distinguished themselves; there was even, so to speak, an “order of the golden fly.” In this sense one can say that the fly is a blow to the heroism of Egypt, to Egyptian military valor, or a blow to the Ministry of Defense of Egypt.

Rashi and other authors of midrashim speak about yet another approach to understanding the word aróv. They explain the origin of the word aróv from the word reév (to mix). That is, all the animals, as one, came upon Egypt, this is a mixture of all the animals. Usually animals are separated, they are hostile to one another. It is hard to imagine wolves, and hares, and lions all coming somewhere together at once. Thereby the Most High manifests his presence in the world. What does this mean for us? When the Most High tries to bring us to Himself, to get through to us, we notice in our life whole chains of events, coincidences, which seemingly are not connected with each other, but suddenly connect and line up against us. So we say: circumstances are lining up against us. However, circumstances cannot line up by themselves, there is Someone Who lines them up. In these circumstances that have lined up we can see that some kind of force seems to be acting against us.

Let us go on. In the Egyptian pantheon there is the goddess Hathor, a goddess who is responsible for property. She was depicted with a ram's head, sometimes with a cow's head, because the main property is livestock. And in the fifth plague we see a blow to the livestock. We see throughout all, all, all the plagues that the Most High destroys worldly values, all the “B” options, all the backup options. A person says: but I still have this left, I still have this hope. But all worldly hopes collapse, so that Pharaoh would come to know that the Most High is the only God. For our inner ego, for the inner Pharaoh who sits in us and who knows us better than others, for him too the Most High finds an approach, to convince him, to break these false values of ours, so that everything superfluous is cut off and so that we see the Most High. So that the Pharaoh in us would also come to the readiness to submit and to serve the Most High. So that even the klipá (shell), even the impure part in us would be purified through knowing the Most High. Yaakov speaks of this in his general epistle (2:19): “…even the demons believe and tremble.”

One more interesting detail. In general, the possibility of serving foreign gods – this is the sixth plague, sores or unclean sores, they made even Pharaoh's priests unclean. When the priests are in uncleanness, they cannot serve. And indeed, when the priests in Israel were unclean (although this is not at all one and the same thing!), they also could not serve. On the priests, on these very “untouchable” spiritual and material neat freaks, the sores also fell. The minister of health in Egypt is the goddess Sekhmet, a warrior goddess, the goddess of Pharaoh's protection, but among other things she can also send and heal diseases. If an example is needed of a goddess with a capricious, unpredictable character, then it is Sekhmet. And so here this unpredictable, unbridled warrior and healer was, as it were, flicked very, very hard on the nose. That is what concerns the sores.

And the last hope, the last piece of bread was taken away when the seventh plague – hail came, when already at the level of the elements, when fire and water – everything mixed together, and all of it fell on Egypt. And here Pharaoh said: “I have understood everything, I have understood everything, I have understood everything.” And Pharaoh's servants will also soon say to Pharaoh (10:7): “Don't you be stubborn, you understand that Egypt is perishing.” Gradually all of Egypt comes to the understanding that one cannot resist the Most High. With the understanding of this a person's path of repentance begins.

With this the portion Vaera ends, and the portion Bo begins, in which the people of Israel is told: “you will see” and “so that you may tell your son.”

What special thing happens in the last three plagues, in those plagues that are mentioned in the weekly portion Bo? There is one important feature. The LORD says: “…so that all may see how I toyed with, how I mocked (hit'alalti) Egypt.” In the Aramaic translation there is no word mocked, here the word did (alal), is used, that is: “You will all see what actions I performed in Egypt, what was unusual in Egypt.”

Locusts. All day and all night the wind blew, and the locusts came, and the locusts also leave at the appointed time – in the morning. These are the actions of the Most High with regard to the locusts.

Then – darkness. Regarding the darkness it is said that three days, and it is repeated twice, that for three days and three nights there was darkness throughout all Egypt, and in Israel there was light.

And then – the plague of the firstborn. It happens exactly at midnight, precisely on schedule.

Why is this important? Precisely these three plagues, these actions of the Most High, precisely about them we must tell our children. And one more interesting thing, one more detail: during these plagues the people of Israel for the first time take part in the process of their own deliverance. We are told that this month, the month of the exodus from Egypt, is for us the beginning of all the months of the year, commandments are given about preparing for the exodus and so on. The counting of time, the whole calendar that is given, begins to unfold from this place, from this event. Here the Most High shows Israel and gives us the opportunity to tell our children that He is King, that He governs time, that He is the Sovereign of time. On the one hand, He acts according to a certain schedule. On the other hand, there were not four hundred thirty years of punishment in Egypt. It is said: when God shows his love to the people, set times do not matter, He acts outside of set times. Time has no power over the Most High, it is He who is the master of time, and not the other way around. On the one hand, God always acts on time. On the other hand, He can show mercy, and the people of Israel can be released early, can be pardoned. And these three plagues show both global control – control of the gnats, control of the locusts (which, as it is said, have no king, yet they go in formation, something has been built into the locusts from the beginning), and changes on a world scale, when the whole Earth is covered with darkness, with palpable gloom. That is, from the most minimal to the most global processes, from “the sprouting of the vine in the vale below” (as in Pushkin's “The Prophet”) up to the Heavens – God has power over everything, and everything is subject to His schedule. And therefore He gives us certain set times for the LORD's festivals, the counting begins, and, actually, here for the first time the LORD's festivals appear.

I will repeat what has already been said many times, that the word festival in Hebrew does not come from the Russian word idleness, but comes from the word mo'éd or edút, that is, it is a time of testimony, a time of accountability. And God establishes these set times, demonstrating there, in Egypt, that He has power over time, that He is the source of all set times, that He fulfills His promises, that He is God who not only promises but also fulfills.

Let us return to verse 3 of chapter 6, to the very beginning of the weekly portion Vaera, when God says to Moshe: “I was revealed to them (to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov) by the name Shaddai, but by the name Adonai, by the name HaShem (the four-letter name of the Most High) I was not known by them.” Why so? Because one of the meanings of this Name is the One who fulfills the promise. Yes, they knew and believed that He fulfills the promise, but now there is testimony that it is so, that God is able to govern time, that God establishes the times. And therefore all His set times, all those festivals, all those commandments that are connected with time (and almost all of them are connected with time), we can and must fulfill. He confirmed this and testified it to us, so that we too would testify to others of His power over absolutely all times and set times, and this practically means His Omnipotence.

If we try to look briefly at what these plagues mean not in the history of Egypt and not in Egyptian mythology, but in our own life, then we can see two stages. That is how Moshe asked of Pharaoh, he asked for two stages: “Send away My people” and “They will serve Me in the wilderness.”

The first stage, “Send away My people,” the first seven plagues, – these are blows, flicks on the nose to that Pharaoh who is inside us, the putting to death, the death of our “old man” and the resurrection in Mashiach Yeshua. And further – life with Mashiach in his time, when He governs our time, the handing of oneself over into his governance. And further begins what we have been commanded: “This month is for you the beginning of months.” Further the schedule of service begins. When the first stage falls to a person's lot, he is freed, and people say: “God also freed me at one time from drugs, from gambling addiction, from alcohol, from something else, but I did not go any further,” then this means that the first has come true: “Send away My people.”

The second, “They will serve Me in the wilderness,” will come true when both parts have worked, when all 10 plagues have been carried out, have passed over the “old man,” and the service has begun, and the person has grown into the service. Then we too have life with the Most High, then “...out of the belly will flow rivers of living water” (Gospel of Yochanan 7:38).

A person comes to God, often stands before God sick, and he needs a Healer. And what does he need a Healer for? So that he could, as a normal, as a healthy person, live by the Torah, keep the Torah and teach the Torah to others, and, actually, that is why the people were brought out of Egypt, this is the goal of the deliverance. God does not simply want to bring us out, God wants to bring us into the land, so that we serve Him, so that we fulfill His purpose for us, because then and only then are we called His people.

Let us reread a short passage from the weekly portion Bo, verses 25 to 27 of chapter 12 of the book of Shemot:

25. And it will be, when you come into the land which the LORD will give you, as He spoke, keep this service (what is meant is the service of Pesach).

26. And when your children say to you: “What is this service of yours?”

27. Then say: “It is a sacrifice – Pesach to the LORD, Who passed by the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt, when He struck the Egyptians, passing over our houses.”

This is, actually, the end of Moshe's address to the people. It is very important for the Torah (we will see this also in the book of Yehoshua ben Nun (4:6), when stones are set up in the middle of the Jordan) that the children see and ask. It is very important for the Torah not only that a father tells something to his son, but also that the son asks questions. It is very important, when a child, when a son, when a disciple (we will say child, but this is also a disciple, what is meant is a newcomer to the congregation), that he knows how to ask. It is very dangerous when he does not know how to ask. And there are different reasons why a child does not know how to ask.

For example, there is the righteous child. And he does everything correctly, he is obedient in everything, he is always in the right groove, with him everything is on time. An obedient, good boy, well, simply a huge blessing for the parents. Only there is a question: does he himself exist behind all this correctness? The boy does not ask and does not know how to ask, but does he know how to want? Does he have desires? Does he know how to reflect? Or is some kind of automatism hiding behind all this righteousness, and he himself, the boy, is not there? Of course, I will say again, this is a very convenient boy, a very convenient disciple, a very convenient congregant: he does not ask questions, he listens, he serves, he does everything to the full. And asking a question is actually dangerous, because to ask a question means to widen your horizon a little bit, and maybe this will give some new turn: a question can lead a person away, lead a person far. On the other hand, it is precisely a question that gives birth to involvement.

Let us imagine a person who studies Scripture, who understands, who goes deep into God's design, through the example of two images.

The first is a young man or a young woman who have ended up at a concert of classical music. They are listening, for example, to Vivaldi's “The Four Seasons.” Wonderful music, and they sit and listen. If they are experienced listeners, they know when which part begins, and can somehow respond to this music. At the end they will applaud the performers, and with that their interaction with this music will end.

The second is a young fan who has ended up, well, let us put it this way, at a stadium, and he is emotionally invested in his team. For him what is happening is the unknown, because soccer, hockey, boxing, wrestling have no score. He exists in a world without a score, he constantly has questions, he is emotionally invested, he constantly has some kind of criticism. He is a fan, he roots for what he sees. And in exactly the same way one can root for Scripture.

That is, one can come to lessons, listen to what the rabbi says. Well, and since the rabbi said it, then it is right, we do not subject it to doubt at all. How can one doubt what the rabbi says?! Or one can be emotionally invested, one can ask. Not ask in order to argue, not ask in order to humiliate, not ask in order to come and impose some opinion of one's own, one's own teaching, one's own understanding, or in order to test the teacher for some kind of professional fitness, for compliance with some criteria. I am not talking about those questions, I myself do not like such questions. I am talking about questions that are born from a thirst to understand and a thirst to deepen one's knowledge. And these questions are very necessary for a person, but, as a rule, not everyone likes them. And I know very many people who were driven out of communities, out of houses of study because of uncomfortable questions they asked: questions from a sense of lacking Scripture, from a sense of lacking understanding, knowledge, and from a thirst to know more. And these are not those convenient children who do not ask questions.

It is clear that at the very initial stage, when a child is just born, things are divided for him into black and white. And – yes, at the very initial moment of a child's existence, dad and mom are almost like gods for him? They decide everything for him, know all the answers to his questions, know what is good for him and what is bad for him. But the child must grow, and his growth is based on questions. A small child needs absolute knowledge. But when he grows up, when he begins to wonder, when he begins to doubt, one must not let him become afraid of questions. After all, one can ask a question and, maybe, on top of that look like a fool. And the task of the teacher is to support the one who asks the question, so that he is not afraid of those around him. In Judaism there is a rule: the bashful one does not learn, and the strict one cannot teach. That is, if a person is shy to ask a question, he will not be able to learn anything; if a person is strict toward those who ask questions, he will not be able to teach anything.

There are such problems that torment people, including among the disciples of Mashiach. But even the Most High answers questions. It happens that the Most High leaves something without explanation. But we see that when a person turns to the Most High with a question, the Most High answers.

And what gives rise to a ban on asking questions? Either there is no truth in this teaching, this teaching is afraid that superfluous questions will lead to some truth becoming known, something coming to light, or some inconsistencies that exist being exposed. Or this teaching is based on total obedience, on the suppression of a person, and this too is, generally speaking, a grief for a person, because in the absence of free will, in the absence of freedom of choice, he has no opportunity to express himself. And there are also teachers who are afraid of questions. Questions are such a heavy thing. One of the teachers said that a rabbi, a mentor, is like a huge log. In order for him to flare up, in order for him to burn, he needs many small burning splinter-questions. That is, it happens that the absence of people who ask turns the teacher into a damp log that does not catch fire from anything. So it is also useful for the mentor when he is asked questions.

Learning to ask questions, encouraging children to ask questions, being ready to answer children's questions and rejoicing in children's questions – this is one of the elements of the very first instruction that Moshe gives to the people of Israel.

Together with the weekly portion Bo, a prophetic passage is read from the book of the prophet Yirmeyahu, from chapter 46, verses 13 to 28.

But before we read, it is necessary to give a certain historical introduction. At the end of the seventh century BCE, in the long-standing historical confrontation between Babylon and Assyria, a shift in favor of Babylon emerged. In 612 the Babylonians managed to conquer the capital of Assyria, the city of Assur, and in 610 – another large Assyrian city, Ninve. Probably everyone knows about this city, because it is mentioned in the book of the prophet Yona. The Assyrians, headed by Ashur-uballit II, were forced to retreat beyond the Euphrates. Beyond the Euphrates they could find an ally, another regional superpower, in the person of Pharaoh Necho II. Necho II did indeed bring troops up into the region, positioned himself in the area of Kumush. This is the present-day border of Syria and Turkey, so imagine how far this is from the territory of Egypt. And the Egyptian troops themselves were in the city of Karkemish. From Karkemish the Egyptian army made several successful raids on Babylonian territory, which forced Babylon to begin military action against Karkemish too. And in 605 BCE the grand Egyptian-Babylonian (with a small participation of the Assyrians) battle at the city of Karkemish took place, where the Egyptian army was utterly routed. And one can say that this became the beginning of the decline of Egypt as a superpower in the region, that very Egypt which Israel saw as its ally in the confrontation with that same Babylon.

The prophet Yirmeyahu at this time, that is, approximately in 605 – 604 BCE, prophesies about Egypt and says that this whole affair will not end with the defeat on the distant frontiers, and this story will have a continuation.

Here is what we read from verse 13 of chapter 46 of the book of Yirmeyahu:

And here is what the prophet Yirmeyahu says:

Migdol is a city in the north of Egypt, it is mentioned in 14:2 of the book of Shemot at the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Nof is another well-known Egyptian place, Tachpanches is also a large Egyptian city.

The word nischáf – as if washed away by water, as if knocked down flat on one's back. Why did your knight not hold his ground? – this is a rhetorical question.

An interesting expression – chérev hayoná. Some translate it as a deadly sword, as I translated it here. But others say that the Babylonians had a dove on the hilt of the sword, as a symbol of some kind of Babylonian power or valor. And chérev hayoná is a sword decorated with a dove.

The word shaón means loudmouth, shrieker or windbag. He turned out to be a windbag, he tried, as they say, to defeat the enemy with slogans, proclaimed grandiose ideas, held forth about strength and invincibility.

Go and say – this is possibly an address to those Egyptians who are still on the distant frontiers, in other words: “Retreat and go, because you are now somewhere in Syria, you are now somewhere in Turkey, and disaster is coming upon Egypt. Get ready, run to the cities and proclaim there.”

Chay-áni – this is the form of a Divine oath, that is, “As surely as I live, so surely also…”

We know, I want to say this once more, that the names of countries and cities in Hebrew are always feminine. Therefore one says: the beauty Egypt, the beauty Jerusalem and so on. Here the word yefe-fiyá means a sweet little beauty. One can say this today about a girl too: bachurá yefe-fiyá (a most beautiful girl). This addition -fiyá, the repetition of the last syllable, happens when denoting an increase, an elevation. In modern Hebrew such a form also exists: katán (small) – ktantán (teeny-tiny), through the repetition of the last syllable -tan; matók (sweet) – matakták (sweetish). In our case the word yefe-fiyá means delightfully beautiful.

But, in spite of all this beauty, kéretz (this is some kind of evil, nasty, insect), ruin, will come from the north, will truly come upon the beauty, in spite of all her beauty. 

They will not stand and will flee not because they are weak, untrained, unprofessional or cowardly. Not for that reason. The day of Egypt's punishment has come, and no strong Egyptian warriors, no might of the Egyptian army will stand. 

That is, if we were saying that Pharaoh is a windbag, that he made some grandiose speeches, uttered pompous slogans, then now he will hiss like a snake.

Possibly, there is no number to this forest. Indeed, the land in Egypt in those times was very wooded. But most likely what is meant here is that there is no number to the woodcutters who came to cut down the forests in Egypt.

No – this is the name of a city which apparently was the capital of idol worship in Egypt, the central place of worship of the god Amon.

After this prophecy for Egypt there are words of comfort to Israel:

The LORD says: “I will destroy those nations among which you are scattered, but you I will not destroy.”

One may ask: why is Yirmeyahu suddenly sent specifically to the Egyptians? Why should an Israelite prophet speak to the Egyptians? Of course, this is an address not only to the Egyptians, this is an address first of all to the Israelites, to Israel, which tries to lean on Egypt and to see in it an ally, just as the Assyrians also saw in it an ally. And the Most High says: “The end of Egypt is soon, do not lean on Egypt, lean on Me. I can deliver you.” This is, of course, not simply a historical sketch from the 7th century BCE which the Most High suddenly decided to preserve for us: what if we become interested in Necho, and Ashur-uballit, and Nevuchadnetzar. And who are all these people anyway? This is about how it goes when we try to maneuver our way out, to resolve some situations of ours without having a covenant with the Most High or forgetting about the covenant with the Most High. About how it goes when we lean on someone else, perhaps someone just as strong as Pharaoh Necho II, with the same fattened knights, warriors, with the same beautiful empire, a beautiful heifer. But it may turn out that the Most High will destroy it in an instant. In any case, this is one of the conclusions that can be drawn.

Read also: Vaera, Beshalach and the weekly portions of the Torah.