Bo 5766
Exodus 10:1-13:6
By Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Congregation B’nai Israel
Toledo, Ohio
For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will strike all
the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the
gods of Egypt I will execute judgment; I am the Lord. And the blood shall be
to you for a sign upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I
will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you,
when I strike the land of Egypt. …Exodus 12:13-14
God knows everything, right?
God does not need to consult GPS or Mapquest for directions, right?
So why, in this week’s Torah portion, does God seem to need road signs to
find the Jewish houses?
In this week’s parsha, Bo, we read the exciting climax of the encounter
between God, Moses, Pharaoh, and the Jewish people. The people of Egypt are
struck with the dreaded tenth plague, the death of the first born.
God tells the Jewish people that He will pass through the land of Egypt and
will strike all the first borns, both man and beast. God tells the Jewish
people that every house should sacrifice a lamb, and put some of the blood
on the doorposts and on the lintel. Then the Torah tells us “And the blood
shall be to you for a sign upon the houses where you are; and when I see the
blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy
you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”
God says when He sees the blood, u’pasachti, and I will pass, over the
houses (hence the name of the holiday, Pesach or Passover) and leave the
Jewish homes intact.
Why does God need this sign? Doesn’t God know where the Jews live?
For the preceding plague, darkness, the Torah tells us that it was
completely dark in the homes of the Egyptians—so dark people couldn’t move.
Yet in the homes of the Hebrews, there was light. And this was done without
any blood on the doorposts. So we have established that God definitely does
not need directions to the homes of the Jews. So why were the Jews
instructed to put blood on their doorposts and lintels before this final
plague?
It must either mean that the message is for someone other than God—or that
God is learning something else from the blood on the doorposts than simply
who is a Jew.
Ha-ketav Veha-kabbalah (19th century, German) tells us that putting the
blood on the doorposts was a test. The people had to demonstrate they had
given up their impure and idolatrous ways and they had truly accepted God.
If they were willing to place their lives in danger in order to carry out
the wishes of the Almighty, it would show they were serious. According to
Rambam, the Egyptians worshipped the Zodiacal sign of the lamb, and forbade
the slaughter of cattle, and despised shepherds. So when the people brought
their lambs through streets, slaughtered them by the doors of their homes,
and then put blood on the doorposts, they were really rubbing their
objections in the face of the Egyptians. They had to brave the possible
vengeance of their former prosecutors.
Ha-ketav Veha-kabbalah disagrees with Rashi on one detail of the story.
Rashi tells us that the blood was put on the inside of doors—inside the
homes, not outside. So it was not something that the Egyptians would have
seen, so the message wasn’t for them.
The Slonimer rebbe says the blood was indeed a message for God – but it
wasn’t there to tell God who was Jewish—THAT God knew. The blood was there
to show God who was “onboard” with God’s program. The Slonimer says that
there were two distinct aspects to the plague of the first born – the first
being the redemption of the people of Israel from a life of servitude in
Egypt, and the second being the election of the Jewish people to the status
of a “Chosen People.” He finds an allusion to this in the verse from Numbers
8, “On the day that I struck all the first born of the land of Egypt
hitkadashti, I sanctified the people to me.”
God knew who was Jewish—but God wanted a sign to see who had faith. God
wanted to see who was willing to follow God’s directions. He wanted to see
who would obey His commandments. Some people might have received Moses’
instruction and said “why bother? God was able to find us to give us light,
surely he can find us to spare our first born?” Or they may not have
believed Moses that this was a requirement from God. Or they may not have
had a sheep handy, and were too lazy to go out and get one.
One might be tempted to say that if God knows everything, God surely also
knows who has faith. So there is still a question of why a sign.
The Jewish tradition is very pragmatic. We believe actions speak louder than
words. When former President Jimmy Carter called himself a sinner because he
had lusted in his heart, he was expressing a very Christian view. In the
Jewish view, just because you’ve lusted in your heart does not make you an
adulterer. We believe that until the moment you actually commit a sin, there
is always the possibility you will do teshuva, you will repent. So God
wanted to see that sign because He knew that physically doing something
speaks volumes more than talking about it. God’s attitude you might say is
like the parent who tells his child “I’m not interested in your excuses, I
want to see you do your homework.”
The Slonimer says God asked for blood instead of some other sign for several
reasons. First of all, blood is the sign of our covenant with God – a
circumcision is not valid if it does not draw at least a drop of blood. When
we convert a man to Judaism who has already been circumcised, we ritually
draw a drop of blood from the site of circumcision in a ceremony called
“hatafat dam brit,” drawing a drop of the blood of the covenant. He also
says that God doesn’t want us to come to him too easily—we should make some
effort to draw close to God. Blood is symbolic of great effort – we talk
about “sweating blood” in a very difficult situation. “He bled me dry” is an
expression of having used someone up, of having taken all their energy.
Blood symbolizes being willing to hand everything over to God. Someone who
is willing to give his all to God, as symbolized by the blood, is of
sufficient faith and courage to merit being part of God’s nation of priests
charged with bringing His word to the world.
But I would suggest that REAL audience for the blood wasn’t God. And as
stated earlier, it wasn’t the Egyptians. The real audience was the people
inside the house. The Midrash Mekhilta points out that the verse says
“v’haya hadam lachem la’ot,” the blood will be to YOU a sign—“lachem la’ot,
v’lo l’acaharim la’ot,” a sign to you, and not a sign to others. Not to
Egyptians, and not even to God.
The blood was really for the benefit of the people who put it there. The
blood was a way to deepen their faith in God. It was a way to make a
statement that they wanted to be counted in.
The Torah gives us a similar message about the blood of circumcision. It
tells us that someone who is not circumcised is “cut off from his people.”
And he is. Not because God kicks him out. Rather, he has kicked himself out
(or his parents have done that for him). By not being circumcised, he is not
brought into the covenant of Abraham. He’s not willing to make that
sacrifice—to give that blood—to be part of the covenant.
A fundamental assumption of the observant Jew is that God is benign. The
Torah is good for us. God does not give us commandments to harm us, God
gives us commandments to benefit us. We don’t always understand what the
benefit is—but we do it anyway.
When our ancestors put the blood on the lintel, they affirmed they want to
be part of the group. They affirmed their subservience to God and His
mitzvot. They may have said, “boy, this is weird,” but they did it anyway.
They were willing to give God a sign – and in the process give themselves a
sign – that they were serious. That they were committed. That they had faith
that God would take care of them. And they didn’t care what the Egyptian
neighbors might have thought.
To truly be redeemed – to be saved – you need to first be truly free. Free
from worrying about what others might think, free from influences pulling
you in the direction of idol worship. And you need to have faith, and more
than faith, you need to be willing to put that faith into action.
May we all be inspired to put our faith into action, and to give God and
ourselves a sign –whether it’s putting on tefillin, observing Shabbat, or
giving to charity.
Amen
And be grateful that God’s not asking us to slaughter sheep on our front
doorsteps!
