Category Archives: Bo

5784, AI art, Bo, Exodus, Kli Yakar 2, Parsha

How shepherds destroyed the sheep god (Bo)

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How shepherds destroyed the sheep god (Bo)

 A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed. -E. M. Cioran

Ancient Egyptians never liked the Jews. Already from the days of Joseph, as honored as he was and despite the fact that he saved their civilization, they wouldn’t even sit with him at the same table (school lunches were probably not much fun for Joseph’s kids). The reason mentioned back in Genesis was because the children of Israel were shepherds.

Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Prague, the Kli Yakar (1550-1619), on Exodus 12:2, explains that the ram, an adult male sheep, was a prime Egyptian god. As such, the Egyptians felt it unseemly that other humans should rule over their gods, by being shepherds, by controlling their holy rams, together with the other sheep. The sheep were holy animals for the Egyptians, not to be tended by people. Hence their intense dislike and anti-social behavior towards Jews, who made a living as shepherds.

The Kli Yakar finds astrological interest in the exact timing of the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt. Nissan, the Hebrew month of the Exodus, and the month that we commemorate Passover, astrologically, was also the month of the Ram (Aries).

In the middle of the month, when the moon is ascendant and the sheep-god is supposedly at the height of its power, God commands the Children of Israel to publicly and en mass slaughter young male sheep (and goats). One of the purposes, it seems, was to demonstrate the lack of power of this so-called sheep “god” of the Egyptian astrologers completely and unequivocally, and the ultimate power and supremacy of the Jewish version of God. The ostensibly powerful Egyptian sheep god was unable to protect itself from oppressed Jewish slaves. The Jewish Pascual sacrifice in Egypt destroyed their “gods” and the entire false theology around it, including their astrological beliefs.

So, may we not take astrology or horoscopes seriously, and realize the uselessness of false gods.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the memory of Beverly Marks z”l.

5783, Bat Ayin, Bo, Exodus, Parsha

Cultivating Calmness (Bo)

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Cultivating Calmness (Bo)

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. -Thomas Carlyle

Nine plagues have devasted Egypt. There is one more plague coming. But this plague will be the deadliest. It will leave no home unscathed. The Death of the Firstborns. Every firstborn in every home in Egypt would be stricken. This plague would be so rampant, that even the Jewish slaves were warned about it. Even though the plagues had come to Egypt for the purpose of freeing the Jews from their bondage and they had been spared so far from the effects of the plagues, they were nonetheless warned about this one.

God warns the Jews to take a most unusual precaution. They are to slaughter a sacrificial lamb, the Pascual Lamb (Pesach) to be specific. They will take some hyssop, dip it in some of the sacrifice’s blood and spread it on the doorposts and lintels of their homes and not leave their homes the entire night, while the plague would ravage the rest of the country. They would roast and eat of the lamb, together with unleavened bread (Matzah) and bitter herbs (Marror). That moment is what we have celebrated continuously for more than three millennia at the Passover Seder. That moment of devotion and first moment of obedience and worship of God is when a multitude of slaves become the Jewish nation.

The Bat Ayin on Exodus 12:7 delves into the wording of “blood” (dam in Hebrew) and “homes” (Batim). The Hebrew word “dam” has the same etymology as “quiet” or “silent.” He refers us to the description of God’s encounter with Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-12) which uses the same root of “dam” or in this case “demama” to describe the quiet voice:

“And lo, the Lord passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind—an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake—fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire—a quiet murmuring sound.”

Elijah found God in the quiet. The Bat Ayin explains that whenever a thought occurs to us to speak, our first reaction should be to pause, to be quiet and ponder the impact our proposed words will have. In that pause, in that moment of silence, is where we find God. And there comes the connection between the word “dam” silence and the word “batim” homes. By calmly thinking through what we will say, we build the letters in our mind. We are building homes for those thoughts and words and ideas. We are building a more thoughtful communication that takes the unique advantage of having a moment of divine contemplation.

May we learn the value of quiet and use it to enhance our communications.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the hospitality of the community of Young Israel of Hollywood-Ft. Lauderdale.

5782, Bo, Chidushei HaRim, Exodus, Parsha

Powerfully Powerless (Bo)

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Powerfully Powerless (Bo)

Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper. -Thomas Fuller

Pharaoh is the most powerful man in the most powerful empire of the world in his day. He decided who would live and who would die. He decided who would be wealthy and who would be poor. He decided who would be free and who would be enslaved. It is no wonder that not only was he worshipped as a god, but he even thought of himself as a god.

Enters Moses, the self-proclaimed leader of the lowly slave race of Jews, claiming that there is some unseen God who demands obedience. Pharaoh quickly and cruelly laughs him out of the palace while cracking down even harder on the enslaved Jewish nation.

Moses together with his brother Aaron become the agents of the famed Ten Plagues. Before each series of plagues Moses asks Pharaoh to let the Jewish nation go serve their God. Pharaoh consistently either declines to let them go, or reneges on his promise to let them go after a plague has passed.

Pharaoh is unwilling to bend to the attack of the plagues to the point of ludicrousness and national oblivion. His stubbornness would seem almost comical if it weren’t so devastating. The Chidushei HaRim on Exodus 10:2 states (as do a number of other commentators) that after a certain point of Pharaoh hardening his own heart against the Jewish people and not letting them go, that eventually God steps in and hardens Pharaoh’s heart as well to give Pharaoh the strength to continue to resist the onslaught of the plagues. A normal human being, even one as narcissistic and self-adoring as Pharaoh, unaided, would eventually succumb and give in to the divinely ordained plagues and free the Jewish people. God wanted Pharaoh to have the strength to continue to resist until all the plagues had been unleashed.

The Chidushei HaRim adds that God had another reason for giving Pharaoh additional power to withstand the devastation of the plagues. God wanted to show the Jews and the world that there is no power, there is no force, there is no situation that God can’t save the Jewish people from. Even the most powerful man of the most powerful empire, with divinely reinforced stubbornness is as nothing for God to affect salvation when and how He chooses.

May we realize that power is so often just a façade, a temporary mirage.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the Webb telescope and all those involved in its planning, construction and launch, including my friend Michael Kaplan, recently interviewed here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/space-is-changing-webb-is-just-the-start-says-ex-israeli-who-was-in-from-its-dawn/

5781, Bechor Shor, Bo, Exodus, Moses, Parsha, Pharaoh

Calling God’s Bluff (Bo)

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Calling God’s Bluff (Bo)

It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation. -Hilaire Belloc

There is a common misconception about what Moses requested from Pharaoh. We’ve heard the popular “Let my people go” refrain, implying that Moses was asking for complete freedom from slavery and permanent departure from Egypt. That is not accurate. Though freedom was the final intention, what Moses repeatedly asks from Pharaoh is much more limited and specific. He asks that Pharaoh let the people go on a three-day journey into the desert where they will worship God and celebrate.

At some point in the discussions, Pharaoh gives in and says, “ok, you can go to the desert to worship your God,” but he asks, “who is going?” Moses answers: “Everyone, men, women, elderly, and children.” Pharaoh’s response is “no way. Just the men can go.”

The Bechor Shor on Exodus 10:10 wonders as to what’s going on. Why does Pharaoh care who goes to worship? He answers that Pharaoh saw through Moses’ façade. He understood that they didn’t intend to just “worship”, but rather that they planned to completely escape. That’s why Pharaoh stubbornly refuses. In one sense he’s calling Moses’ bluff. “You want to go worship? Fine. You’re free to go, but you need to leave your women and children behind until you return.” Moses couldn’t accept the offer which is why he doubles down and insists that everybody needs to go.

Having God on his side didn’t hurt Moses either, so when subsequent plagues strike Egypt culminating in the devastating Death of the Firstborns, not only does Pharaoh finally agree to Moses’ terms, but he and the Egyptian people can’t get them out fast enough. The entire Jewish people are freed to go on the three-day journey to the desert to worship God. Only after that does Moses activate the next step of the plan, to take the Jewish people out of the Egyptian empire entirely.

May we see clearly through the facades in front of us.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To Eitan Orbach and Tzivya Graff on their marriage. Mazal Tov!

5780, Bo, Exodus, Meshech Chochma, Parsha

Breaking Bad Habits (Bo)

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Breaking Bad Habits (Bo)

Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are. -John Ruskin

On the eve of the exodus of the Jewish people from the bondage of Egypt, on the night that would forever be known as the beginning of Pesach (Passover), the proto-nation of Israel is commanded by God to take a lamb (what would become the Pascual Lamb), slaughter it, serve it to their families and uniquely enough, smear the blood on their doorposts as a sign. God, recognizing the sign (or more likely the act of identification with the Jewish people and God’s command) would not kill the firstborns in those homes but would go on to kill the Egyptian firstborns in the tenth and final plague that He brought upon Egypt.

The Meshech Chochma on Exodus 12:21 connects this account of sacrifice and obedience to God to a much deeper significance as to how to tackle and control both our physical desires as well as our erroneous notions.

He goes on to quote an unusual line from the Talmud that reads as follows:

Rav said: The cry that one says to lead an ox is “hen hen.” The cry to lead a lion is “zeh zeh.” The cry to lead a camel is “da da.” The cry to laborers using ropes to pull a ship along a river is “heleni, hayya, hela, vehilook, hulya.” -Tractate Pesachim 112b

The Meshech Chochma explains that when one wants to lead an animal, or in our case wants to break an animalistic desire, what is needed is one line, one dictum to be repeated over and over. He suggests for example repeatedly saying the dictum from Chapter of our Fathers (Pirkei Avot 4:21): “Envy, lust and the desire for honor take a man out of the world.” Regular repetition is the best way to break our physical, animalistic habits and desires.

However, to change ones thoughts, notions and philosophies requires a more subtle approach. It cannot be altered by brute force of repetition. It requires a variety of arguments (as in the variety of words used for the laborers). It needs to be tackled by different angles until the combination of inputs succeeds in turning a person away from failed or mistaken ideas and paths and back to the ways of reason, of wisdom and good sense.

May we find both the direct strategies to break our negative desires and the more nuanced arguments to keep us on a straight intellectual path.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the important Holocaust memorials.

5779, Berdichever, Bo, Exodus, Parsha, The Times of Israel

The Kabbalistic Body (Bo)

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The Kabbalistic Body (Bo)

It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. -Marcel Proust

On the eve of the Israelite exodus from Egyptian slavery, the Torah interrupts the dramatic narrative to discuss the rituals of Pesach which will be kept for generations, including the Pesach sacrifice which would be offered thereafter in the Temple. The description is quite specific, including details which were unique to the Pesach in Egypt, as well as to those that are meant to be continued for generations. The Torah even goes so far as to describe the positioning of the body parts of the sacrifice.

The Berdichever chooses that description for an explanation of the deeper meaning of human body parts, and how the human body is in some fashion a mirror of God’s divine attributes. Following is his explanation of a Kabbalistic view of the body:

The legs represent the attribute of “Emuna” (faith), which itself can be distinguished by two different characteristics. The first characteristic of faith is the belief that God is the antecedent of everything in our reality, and that our reality was created and is constantly sustained by God’s will. The second aspect of faith, specifically for a Jew, is the belief that we are His people, that He is close to us, that He listens to our prayers and is able, ready and willing to fulfill our needs.

The reproductive organ represents the bond, the connection which we need to create with our own faith.

The torso represents “Tiferet,” the glory or the splendor that we need to pursue, for God to be pleased with us, proud of us, to thereby bring glory to God.

The arms represent “Ahava,” love, and “Yirah,” awe. The right arm is “Ahava,” the love we must have for God; the left is “Yirah,” our need to be in awe of God.

The head, the seat of the intellect, represents our need to explore and consider the greatness of God, the myriads of ministering angels at His beck and call who themselves serve God with tremendous love and awe.

When a person brings all his body parts to bear in serving God, in all its representations, he then gains humility, to the point of basically reducing the ego and annulling oneself by comprehending the true spiritual reality of our existence.

That, the Berdichever assures us, leads directly to happiness.

May our body parts work healthily and in concert to fulfill divine goals, and indeed, lead us to greater happiness.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To Chaya and Jason Kanner on their amazing hospitality.

 

5778, Bo, Exodus, Paintings, Parsha, Pharaoh, Rabbeinu Bechaye, The Times of Israel

Self-inflicted Escalating Punishments (Bo)

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Self-inflicted Escalating Punishments

Every guilty person is his own hangman. -Seneca the Elder

                                                                     John Martin, The Seventh Plague, 1823

God pours his wrath over the people of Egypt. Plagues of blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, boils, hail, locust and more devastate the mightiest empire on the planet for refusing to let the People of Israel go. Pharaoh stands firm against this onslaught, consistently denying the Hebrew nation its freedom. He insists on keeping them enslaved, not allowing them their requested three-day journey to worship God.

In the end, it is Pharaoh’s stubbornness (which at some point may have been augmented by God) that dooms Egypt. Had he let the Jews go at the first request, he and his country would have been spared from all the pain, death and destruction.

Rabbeinu Bechaye on Exodus 12:33 (Bo) explains that Pharaoh’s thick-headedness, his denial of God and his refusal to send the Jews as requested were reciprocated in the harshest terms in a way that he would irrefutably acknowledge God, by being on the receiving end of the plagues, and he would ultimately be forced to send the Jews out of Egypt.

Rabbeinu Bechaye gives an example of a minister who asked his servant to buy him some fish; the servant went and bought him a putrid piece of fish. The minister, as punishment, gives the servant three options:  “eat the fish yourself, get one hundred lashes, or pay one hundred pieces.” The servant says: “I’ll eat the fish,” but halfway through it he says, “I can’t eat anymore, I’d rather get the lashes.” They lash him, but halfway through he says, “I can’t handle it, I’d rather pay the one hundred pieces.” The servant ended up inflicting on himself all three punishments.

So to it was with Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They were lashed with all the plagues, they sent the Jews out, and they also sent them with gold and riches.

May today’s stubborn enemies of Israel receive their comeuppance speedily and in our days.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To Judge Mchaim Lieberman on his 50th birthday. May he continue to mete out justice when he can.

5777, Bo, Exodus, Hirsch, Parsha, The Times of Israel

Unexpected Admiration

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Unexpected Admiration 

To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind. -Theophile Gautier

ballet

The Exodus narrative is reaching the climax of the Plagues. The Egyptians suffer months of strange, unusual and miraculous attacks by the Hebrew God and His agents, Moses and Aaron. Blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, boils and hail afflict the Egyptians. While painful and highly disruptive, they can recover, life can continue.

That is until the coup de grâce, the plague of locust. The locust invasion is so massive, that it blots out the sky. They consume every grain, every vegetable, every fruit. The entire agricultural production, the entire industry, the entire economy of the mighty Egyptian empire is reduced to nothing. Their situation appears hopeless. Then they are hit with the plague of Darkness. The darkness is so thick, so pervasive, so petrifying, that the text testifies that the Egyptians did not move, did not physically budge their bodies the entire three days that they were subject to the plague.

After these divinely orchestrated attacks for the purpose of freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, the reaction of the Egyptians is nothing less than unexpected: they admire Moses and the Israelites.

Rabbi Hirsch explains on Exodus 10:2 that the Egyptians realized after the plague of darkness that the Israelites had not suffered the blindness as they had. The Hebrews were able to move around unimpeded for three days, while the Egyptians remained unmoving the entire time. Every Egyptian house was open, every possession was revealed for the taking. Yet the Egyptians found nothing missing. The Israelites had not taken advantage of their master’s vulnerability. Nothing had been taken in what otherwise would have been a thieves dream – a completely accessible target with no chance of being identified or caught.

Rabbi Hirsch elaborates:

“For three days their oppressors, blinded and rooted to the spot by darkness, had been completely at their mercy. For three days all the possessions of the Egyptians had lain unprotected in their homes. But no Jew took advantage of this opportunity for revenge; no Jew touched an Egyptian or even the least of their possessions. It was at this moment, when sight was restored to the Egyptians and they found all their possessions untouched where they had left them, that God caused the Egyptians to comprehend the moral greatness of this people. This realization at last overcame the antipathy the Egyptians had felt for the Hebrews, and, even more than all the miracles he had performed, the moral greatness of his people made also Moses, as a man, great in the eyes of the Egyptians.”

As a response to this admiration, when the people of Israel, as per God’s request, ask to borrow the possessions of the Egyptians, without any qualm, the Egyptians give them gold, silver, utensils, garments. In the divine calculation, it is part of a long overdue compensation for the harsh slavery the Hebrew nation suffered. And even after the final plague, the Death of the Firstborns, when Pharaoh and the entire Egyptian populace is clamoring for the Israelites to leave, yet again the text mentions both the Egyptian admiration for Moses and the Israelites and their giving them gold, silver and garments as they depart.

Our enemies may yet learn to admire us.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the complete and speedy recovery of Shlomo Eliezer ben Ita.

5776, Bo, Exodus, Parsha, Sfat Emet, The Times of Israel

The Secret of Ten

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 We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time it will make itself known to us. -Thomas Merton

NO.-10

When God creates the world, He doesn’t do so in one fell sweep. It’s a process. He takes His time. The narrative of Genesis has God creating our world via ten different utterances. Ten divine statements are what brought everything into being.

The Sfat Emet in 5631 (1871) explains there is a deep and intrinsic connection between the Ten Utterances of Creation, The Ten Plagues of Egypt and The Ten Commandments of Mt. Sinai.

The Ten Utterances created the world. The Ten Plagues afflicted the world, but in some metaphysical way the affliction refined the Ten Utterances and revealed the Ten Commandments that illuminated the world. Creation was completed only when the revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai took place and the powerful Ten Commandments were given.

There is an essential connection between the creation of the world, the Exodus from Egypt and the Revelation of Sinai. The confluence of Ten hints at that.

May we appreciate the confluences in our lives.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the convergence of many friends and family for a wonderful celebration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5775, Baal Haturim, Bo, Exodus, Moses, Parsha, The Times of Israel

Circular Assistance

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First posted on The Times of Israel at: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bo-circular-assistance/

Baal Haturim Exodus: Bo

Circular Assistance

In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us. -Flora Edwards

According to the Midrash (old post-biblical accounts and stories of biblical events and personalities), Jethro, future father-in-law of Moses, was one of Pharaoh’s counselors. The Midrash states that Jethro argued for the benevolent treatment of the Jews at the time when Pharaoh ordered the drowning of all male babies. When Jethro saw his advice ignored and noticed the growing anti-Jewish climate, he escapes from Egypt and resettles in neighboring Midian.

Years later, Moses flees Egypt, after Pharaoh seeks to kill him for the murder of an Egyptian. Moses ends up in Midian, meets Jethro’s daughters and is invited to eat in the home of Jethro. The Baal Haturim on Exodus 10:12 states that in the merit of having fed Moses, Jethro’s crops were spared from the effects of the plague of locust (I guess he still owned some land in Egypt). He furthermore explains that even an evil person will merit protection because of feeding the righteous. What goes around comes around.

May we always be the vehicle for blessings and protection.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To all those who assisted our family during our stay in Montevideo. May you be blessed many times over.