Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1 - 13:16)

by Rabbi Janet Burden, Ealing Liberal Synagogue and West Central Liberal Synagogue

Summary
The first seven plagues have brought calamity to the Egyptians, but their suffering is not yet complete.   This week’s portion opens with locusts and darkness.  We hold our breath for the final blow that we know will come, as we listen to the laws of the Passover sacrifice.  We learn how our houses will be skipped over by painting lamb’s blood on the doorposts, and also how we are to observe the festival of Passover in time to come.  Then doom falls upon the first-born.  There is mourning in every house in Egypt, and the Israelites go free.

Commentary

Do you have friends who find your interest and involvement with religion just a bit odd?  I certainly do.  Oh, they’ll be quiet about it for awhile, but sooner or later, it comes up again.  My secular Jewish friends are probably the most difficult.  A favourite question of theirs is, “Do you REALLY find the Torah meaningful?”   

It is sometimes difficult to make them understand that I don’t think ANY text is inherently meaningful.  I absolutely accept that for many people, the Torah is nothing more than a miscellany of various folk tales and laws of questionable relevance.  It means nothing to them.  But, in my opinion, their disappointment is completely predictable.  They find nothing in Torah as they bring nothing to it.

Meaning is not something that exists ‘out there’, waiting for us to ‘discover’ it.   Meaning is something we create for ourselves as we engage with our tradition and with our holy texts.  I was reminded of this again recently by Sophie, who is to be bat mitzvah this week at Ealing Liberal Synagogue.  Having been given Parashat Bo for her big day, she found it troubling.  Why would a benevolent God strike dead the innocent first born of the Egyptians?  This led her to choose the topic of theodicy (the problem of evil) for her bat mitzvah project.  Through her research, she discovered that this was exactly the same sort of question people were asking in the wake of the Holocaust. Of course, her bat mitzvah also will coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day. Realising the connection and taking time to contemplate the ultimate questions led her to conclude that perhaps we need to rethink our notions of God and how God works in the universe.

If a thirteen year old girl can take a sophisticated stance like this, the question I am left with is this:  why is it that so many Jewish adults never make the effort to arrive where Sophie has? OK, so God doesn’t work in the way they were taught as small children.  Why does that lead so many to turn their backs on a framework which has sustained our people for millennia?  I wish I knew - but at least I know what they are missing. And, I hope, Sophie does too.

Rabbi Janet Burden

Ealing Liberal Synagogue and West Central Liberal Synagogue