TORAH'S MESSAGE  -  by Rabbi Daniela Szuster

This week’s parashah tells us about the last three of the ten plagues that the Egyptians suffered for not setting Israel’s people free from slavery.  The parashah begins saying: “And the Lord said unto Moses: Go in into Pharaoh…” (Shemot 10:1).  Many wisemen ask themselves why it says “Bo”, “go into”, which could mean “come” too, and it is not written “Lech”, “go”, which will be the most proper term in this situation and is used frequently.  Rabbi Janoch Tzvi De Vendin wrote in his book “Ijaen Peer”:  “My wife, rabbi Feigue, is of the opinion that the text says “Bo”, “come” instead of “Lech”, “go” because G-d tried to calm Moshe in the difficult duty he had to accomplish, and we could imagine that in this way G-d told Moshe:  “come with me and together we will go and meet with the Pharaoh”, to convince him to set Israel’s people free.

There are times we feel lonely, with fear of facing the new challenges life brings unto us.  At those moments it is important to remember that as G-d accompanied Moshe, He is not reluctant to go with us and help us feel his protection and warmth.  Let us receive the strength and energy that comes from the Divinity to travel life’s uncertainties.

            Shabbat Shalom

SERMON  -  by Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky

            On this week's parashah, Parashat Bo, we read about the three last plagues that whip the land of Egypt, and ended with the wonderful departure of the children of Israel.  As the whole Torah text, the story of the plagues has a literal and a metaphorical meaning, not always clear.  Today I would like to speak about one of the possible meanings of the ninth plague, darkness.

            The Torah says: “And the Lord said unto Moses: Stretch out thy hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.  And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days; they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”  (Shemot 10:21-23).

            The classic commentators of the Torah, based upon different text proofs, try to explain what this darkness was.  Some believe that the natural darkness of the night remains during the following day, and each night darkness increased, adding the darkness of the previous nights to the current night.

            Others think it was a strange phenomenon that produced a type of darkness thicker than the one we perceive normally by night, what made it impossible to see anything or to produce light.

            Finally, others believe that darkness was so concrete that it could be touched.  To say, it was not just lack of light, but a kind of dense material that descended over Egypt.

            Whatever it was, the facts result of this darkness was that one could not see his neighbor nor get up from his place, according to the verse I read before.  To loose the capability to see who is in front is seen by the Torah as a great punishment, one of the most serious.

            What does it mean to be able to see the neighbor?  Why it is a punishment not to be able to see him?  I believe that to have the capability to see the other is to be able to distinguish in him something more than a human figure that is just there.  To see the other is to recognize in whom I have in front of me another human as me, sensitive, with joys and sorrows, with values and miseries.

            It is not strange that ancient Egyptians have been punished with the impossibility to see their fellowman.  Indeed, in some way they decreed this punishment to come over themselves.  When a nation enslave another and build over it an empire, with difficulty they can see a slave as a human being.  Slavery is a clear way of dehumanization, is to convert a man in an animal or a machine.  It is not difficult for me to imagine that the ancient Egyptians could see their Hebrew slaves as human beings who needed to love and be loved.  Maybe that happened with their Egyptian fellows, carried by habit.

            The Torah tells us that to loose the ability to recognize our fellowman as a human is a great punishment.  It also adds that it is the same to be unable to get up from the place you are seated.  It seems that the metaphor here is clear:  when we loose our ability to recognize the human being we have in front, we can loose the internal sensitivity to see his needs and get up to help him.  We paralyzed in our seat, insensitive to others suffering.

            Life gets another sense when we change our eyeglasses with which we look at the world.  It is a true blessing when we put into practice our immense ability to recognize the sensitive human being hiding behind the person in front of us.  To see in the other one his needs, his virtues, his tenderness.  Understand that every human being was created to the image and likeness of G-d, that each one has a divine spark hidden in his interior.  To be sensitive to the other… and to ourselves.

            The opposite is absolute darkness, is to be alone in the midst of a dense darkness that not even allows us to see ourselves in the mirror.

            Let’s learn to see with the heart.  Let’s add light to our world

Shabbat Shalom.