This week’s parsha breaks form. We know there are ten plagues coming, but after the ninth and the introduction to the tenth, the Torah diverges to tell us of the laws of Passover. From the sacrificial lamb to chametz (unleavened bread) the laws are dictated to us. Why are these laws here, between the warning of the tenth plague – the death of the firstborn – and the actual execution of the plague?
In regards to most of them, Sefer Hahinnuch states: “At the root of the precept lies the purpose to have us remember the miracles of Egypt.” The author goes on to provide some other reasons specific to each mitzvah, but this seems to be the underlying reason throughout. God certainly knows that, just as “man’s life is like a fleeting shadow” (Psalm 144), so too is our memory. On a national level, just as the descendents of Ya’akov quickly forgot the God of their forefather’s while in Egypt, the Jewish slaves in Egypt and their redemption were liable to be forgotten by their descendents. And on a personal level, just as Avraham repeated his “mistake” of calling Sarah his sister and the twelve brothers repeatedly immerse in sin, we too are liable to resort to old habits and forget about the path we should be taking in life. So God provides a framework for us to remember, a framework to strengthen our connection to our history, and a framework to upkeep the moral fiber of our nation. Adam and Chava lost what they were given in the Garden of Eden. The generations leading up to Noah forsook their creator. And the Jews in Egypt forgot the ways of our forefathers. No longer, says God, will the world be “started over” by a flood or a change of location (out of Gan Eden). Rather, it is now up to God’s most admired creation – adam (man) – to take responsible for the world. In order to be charged with this responsibility, however, we must have a guide and the Torah is our guide. God does not leave us empty-handed. We do not accept His guide until Mt Sinai, but the commandments by which we must live are given to provide us structure in our first few days alone, in the desert, after leaving Egypt.
On the surface, the “structured” commandments that we are obligated to follow are just that: structure for a nation that doesn’t know what it means to be free. But there is also a framework of morality behind them all. We sacrifice the Passover offering to recall that we were slaves. We eat the Passover offering to remind us that we were not always free to make such an offering. We eat roasted food to eat like kings, to bathe in our freedom and remember that we are meant to be a holy nation. We don’t eat chametz to remind us to be humble, to be grateful for what we have and not let our stature go to our head. And we retell the story of the Exodus to remember that we were slaves and should always be a voice against slavery, and certainly never enslave another nation.
So that explains the placement of these Passover-related commandments. But then, after the plague, our parsha ends with another commandment: the redemption of the firstborn. This is something I have never understood. Although the “redemption” of the firstborn is mostly symbolic – you give your child to the Kohen (priest) and then pay money to get your son back – it never seemed like a healthy practice. Today, and likely for most people in the past, it has no practical effect on our life. But I think my problem, or skepticism, about this commandment and practice was due to the lack of context I had for it. In context, with the right intentions, it is actually a beautiful act to give up your firstborn child. We receive the commandment on the heels of the tenth commandment, where God slew all Egyptian firstborns. The commandment reminds us of the value of life…the life that Hashem has given to us and the life that He can take away. Our life with which we have so much potential and so much distraction, so much room for growth and so much temptation to remain stagnant, so much ability to do good and so much ability to rationalize away our actions. It is this life that God has endowed us with and will endow our children with. For this, we pay just a small tribute to Him. We dedicate the life of our firstborn child to Him who has blessed us to have that child.
This entire parsha is, on the surface, a dictation of laws amidst the remaining plagues. And with this stance they are, for that matter, outdated and irrelevant laws. But a true reader of the Torah is always able to sense something deeper. The text is just the waves on the shore with an entire ocean beyond it, ready to be explored. This week, we are given mitzvoth that are meant to give us a healthy mental state of being, a necessary reminder of where we come from and where we are going in life, and the inspiration to make a difference in the world.
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