Parshat Bo: “And all the Israelites did so”

This week’s parsha is loaded with action, from the last of the Ten Plagues to the laws of Pesach and the redemption of the firstborn.  Amongst all of this, though, something relatively small stands out to me: The Israelites’ response to God immediately after they leave Egypt.  Their response to Him in this week’s parsha stands in stark contrast to what I discussed last week (See Parshat Va’eira: “The Israelites would not listen” here).  In last week’s parsha God promises us, who are at the time mere slaves in Egypt, the Four Expressions of Redemption (Shemot 6:6-7).  They are expressions that we remember each year at our Pesach Seder and provide us comfort in knowing that God is with us no matter how lowly our situation in life may be.  With Him in our life, there is always hope.  But when the Israelites were slaves to Pharaoh, they lacked this hope.  They were so oppressed that they had lost faith in the promise that God had made to our forefathers that we would ultimately be saved from slavery and brought to Israel.  And therefore they were not comforted by God’s promises, as the Torah tells us,

…When Moses told this [God’s promises] to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.  (6:9)

I proposed last week that the reason for this reaction by the Jews shows us that the plagues were not merely punishment against Pharaoh, but that they also served to restore the Jewish people’s faith and trust in God.  Indeed, even Moses was lacking at times, as shown through his reluctance to accept God appointing him as leader of the nation.  But after the ten plagues, as the Jewish people are leaving Egypt, Moses and Aaron again speak to the Jewish people on behalf of God.  This time the response is much different. 

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: This is the law of the Passover offering: no foreigner shall eat of it.  But any slave a man has bought may eat of it once he has been circumcised.  No bound or hired laborer shall eat of it.  It shall be eaten in one house: you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house; nor shall you break a bone of it.  The whole community of Israel shall offer it.  If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised; then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall that be as a citizen of the country.  But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.  There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.

And the Israelites did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.  That very day the Lord freed the Israelites from the land of Egypt, troop by troop. (Shemot 12:43-51)

“And the Israelites did so.”  Through the course of the ten plagues, the Jewish people rose up from the depths of despair, from having seemingly forgotten God’s promise of salvation, to become God’s chosen people…the people that God redeemed from slavery to become His people, to enter into the covenant with Him.  From this we can see the internal transformation of the Jewish people, which stands in stark contrast to the transformation that Pharaoh undergoes due to the plagues.  Pharaoh’s transformation is only out of necessity.  Only when his life is in danger or the plagues are too much to bare does he cave in to the pressure and agree to let the Jewish people go.  But each time, his heart is hardened and he refuses to let the Jews go.  Even after the last plague, when the Jewish people are freed, Pharaoh again changes his mind and chases after the Jewish people in an attempt to return them to slavery.  The Jewish people, however, underwent a more thorough transformation, becoming people that recognized God’s hand in their lives and were responsive to his laws in a positive way.  [The Jews, too, had set backs such as the Golden Calf, but those set-backs do not necessarily imply a lack of transformation.]

And the transformation was so thorough that even to this day, we suffer through 8 days of matzah to “remember this day [the 14^th of Nissan], on which [we] went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how the Lord freed [us] from it with a mighty hand: no leaven shall be eaten” (13:3).

Shabbat Shalom.