Bo – Once Upon a Week

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Yehuda Bachana.

We continue with Ten Plagues of Egypt, including the last and the hardest one — the death of the firstborn: “makat bechorot.” After this, the broken and hurt people of Egypt release the children of Israel, who leave, ironically, with great wealth.

But for some reason, Egypt, and Pharaoh, who leads it, again refuse to release the children of Israel. And we do not understand why, since the official reasons for all the oppression of Israelites in Egypt were matters of national security.

Pharaoh, and Egyptians, claim that the Israelites are dangerous. This is what Pharaoh claimed at the beginning of the book of Exodus:

So if we are a threat, and we want to leave, then let us go! But we understand that this claim of “security threat” is false.

The children of Israel became very successful in Egypt. Too successful. The Torah is clear about it. The Israelites possessed great wealth and property, and Egyptians wanted what they had.

Pharaoh wants to continue exploiting the Israelites. He places tax collectors over them. He wants the Hebrew working force to continue building his empire.

I think that the moment Pharaoh tasted the oppressive and profitable system he created; he was not willing to let it go, was not willing to lose a nearly free workforce. That’s what caused his heart to harden. That is why he refused, again and again, to let the children of Israel go.

Our portion starts with the following verse:

In our Torah portion, we learn of God’s plan to harden Pharaoh’s heart. But we already know it, and Moses knows it. As already at the burning bush, God revealed to Moses his plan!

However, there is a problem with this statement. What happened to Pharaoh’s freedom of choice? Can God influence our desires and feelings? Can God decide for us how to act?

If it was God who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, then why did He punish Egypt? One of the classic interpretations holds that Pharaoh and Egypt crossed the line of acceptable wickedness, and the hardening of their heart was actually a part of the punishment, causing Egypt to face the fullness of God’s wrath.

Others point out that people don’t really have a free choice, that everything is predestined and nothing is in the hands or by the choice of men. This point of view is found in traditional Judaism, in Christianity, and in Messianic Judaism as well.

However, I see it differently, and again, I ask you: If it was God who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, why were Pharaoh and Egypt punished for it?

Now, Pharaoh sinned, no doubt. The possibility of doing evil, of hurting someone, or choosing to do nothing is always there around us.

Taking control of your impulses and desires, actively choosing to do what’s good and right in the eyes of God and men, is a sign of great strength. It is not always easy or convenient; it requires effort and willingness to follow the will of God.

Every person is responsible for his own decisions. We can’t blame others for the choices we’ve made.

In Genesis we read that God created man and placed him in the garden of Eden. And there, in the garden, God commanded man not to eat from the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.

Meaning that there was a possibility and a prohibition. God created man with an ability to choose evil or to make a bad choice. At the same time, as humans, we also have an ability to choose good, to make a right choice, to bless and serve God, to help those around us.

Let’s go back to Pharaoh. When God hardened his heart, did it reduce his ability to choose?

As we said before, the first possibility to understand this is that it was punishment, after Pharaoh and Egypt crossed the threshold of wickedness. Hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was the punishment.

But, in my opinion, God is using here a different technique. At the burning bush, God commanded Moses to gather the elders of Israel, go to Pharaoh and proclaim to him, “the God of the Hebrews revealed Himself to us, and this God demands that we take a 3-day journey out of Egypt to worship Him.”

Now… it is clear that the plan was not to come back to Egypt afterwards, and Pharaoh, as any other person, doesn’t like to be lied to or cheated. We are annoyed when someone treats us as idiots and lies to our face.

So… Pharaoh is angry and he orders to force the Israelites to work even harder. In this way, from one plague to another, Moses, in the name of God, places doubts in the heart of Pharaoh, who, from the start, didn’t want to let his workforce go.

And even if they must go, let them leave him a guarantee — the elderly, or the children, or at least their property. At the end Pharaoh said to them, “Go, but at least leave your belongings here in Egypt.” As I said before, there are economic reasons behind the Egyptian decisions.

We see it in chapter 10, verse 24, when Pharaoh said, all of you can go, but leave your property as a guarantee. How did Moses answer that? He told Pharaoh — no, not only will we take with us all our property, but in addition, it will be you, the Pharaoh, who will give us offerings and sacrifices… Pharaoh’s reaction is not hard to guess!

But the question I want to ask is, why was it all needed? The answer is found in the beginning of our Torah Portion:

The Torah tells us that it happened for the sake of our children. We have to tell them; we have to teach our children that it is a miracle that we are here today.

There is a God in heaven. He is faithful; He fulfills His promises; He brought us out of Egypt; He redeemed us with a strong hand and an outstretched arm; He gathered us from the farthest corners of the earth and brought us back to the land of Israel against all odds. He is the One who sustains us till this very day!

This commandment, to tell or to teach children, to educate the next generation, is central in our Torah portion, and is repeated over and over:

And:

And:

Through all these commandments, we see the great importance and the emphasis on the education of children. Yeshua also tells us in the New Testament:

Our attitude towards our families and children receives here a status of commandment. It is no longer a question of parental preferences. It is not what we would like to do, but it is our obligation as parents.

And one of the parental responsibilities is to teach our children the Word of God. The Exodus from Egypt, the Torah, the Old and the New Testaments.

The Bible orders us to teach our children, but what if I do not know how to teach them? That is why the holidays and the biblical feasts are celebrated as an activity, as an event. The holidays tell and teach our story.

The Scriptures ask us to encourage our children to ask questions, not to be shy to ask. I believe that this approach encourages curiosity and the desire to learn in children, when they ask and we, the parents, answer patiently.

At the end, everything that we do, we do for the sake of our families and our children. They are our whole world, and we care for them not to lack anything, care that they study well, eat healthy, have good clothes and a good social environment.

And we also have to teach them about who they are, who created them. We have to help them to build their identity, to be part of God’s people.

We need to teach them how to listen, listen to their teachers, to their parents, and especially, how to listen to God. It is not easy to listen; it is even hard to really listen to others. Our minds tend to wander away or to adapt a story to our own experiences and preconceptions.

It is also true about the Word of God. It is hard for us to listen to its message without automatically “translating” it to ideas that we already have in our head.

As people, parents, friends, spouses and also as believers and disciples of the Word, we have to learn how to listen. It is hard for us all, and we all need to improve in it.

This week we are commanded to listen to our children’s questions, to understand where are they coming from and to talk to them on their level, to answer them with certainty, “Because of this, the Lord made me go out of Egypt”. Whatever our personal Egypt is.

Our children are also commanded to listen, to listen and to take an active part in building the family booth on Sukkot, in cleaning the house before the Passover, in offering our first fruits on Shavuot. To listen to us, to why we are doing the Biblical feasts, and to learn what God did for us here.

But the responsibility is on our shoulders. As parents, we have to give priority to the education of our children, priority to invest in them.

If we want our society to have high moral standards, we need to have a common ground, a common narrative, and to be part of it, we need to know who we are. Where we came from, and what is our purpose in this world!

Our story began with God’s outstretched arm, with hope and freedom, and we tell our children about our responsibility, about our hope and redemption. The Book of Exodus begins with the rise of a Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, who did not remember him. We, the descendants of Jacob, here and now, do remember.

We remember, because God commanded us to remember. And teach our children to remember.