Two Minute Torah Podcast

Bo 5771 by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Shalom. This is Abe Fried-Tanzer, KOACH fieldworker. Welcome to KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of the college department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Parshat Bo contains many familiar stories from Jewish tradition, including the last of the ten plagues, the description of the Passover offering, and the commandment to eat unleavened bread. The plagues continue, from locusts to the slaying of the first born, due to God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Repeatedly, Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron, "go, worship the Lord your God," and then, inevitably, God stiffens Pharaoh's heart and he does not agree to let the Israelites go free. At the very beginning of the parshah, God explains to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them." The plagues are meant to be a demonstration of God's power and might. God continues, "that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and of your sons' sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them - in order that you may know that I am the Lord." There is special emphasis put on the majesty of the events that transpire in Egypt. When Moses recounts God's plan to slay the first-born children of the Egyptians, he says that "there shall be a loud cry in all the land of Egypt, such as has never been or will ever be again." This brings to mind a line from the Adon Olam prayer sung at the end of Shabbat morning services: "ve hu hayah ve hu hoveh ve hu yiheh betifarah" - "God was, God is, God always will be glorious in eternity." That verse is preceded by "ve aharey kikhlot hakol levado yimlokh norah" - "When all is ended, God alone will reign in awesome majesty." This idea of God's lasting, eternal might is present in two of the most commonly known and practiced Jewish traditions. The Israelites told their sons and their sons' sons of what happened in Egypt, and every year at Pesach time, we retell the story of the exodus and of the ten plagues that God sent down against the Egyptians. Not only that, but at the end of every Shabbat morning service, we remember and declare God's eternal power. And as the last line of Adon Olam says, "ve'im rukhi geviati, Adonai li ve lo ira" - "God is with me, I have no fear." Shabbat Shalom.