When you Choose Shabbat, you choose to learn that every Shabbat is different and special. This week I learned that Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1 through 13:16) is the 15th weekly Torah portion in the annual cycle of Torah readings.
According to Wikipedia, Bo contains 6,149 Hebrew letters, 1,655 words, 106 verses and 207 lines of the Torah Scroll. The underlying narrative of Bo, (בֹּא), translated as the command form of “go” or “come“, continues the narrative of the last three plagues that befell Egypt (locusts, darkness, slaying of the first born) and the story of Passover.
Rabbi Michael D Klein of Temple Torat Emet offers his insights on this week’s Torah reading, Bo for Shabbat January 20, 2024 aka 10 Shevat 5784:
“This week we celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of Maya Arden – Mazel tov to her and her family. This week we also celebrate rebirth. Sedra Bo contains the final chapters of liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt and this week we will celebrate the rebirth of nature by sharing the Seder for the coming holiday of Tu Bishvat.
G-d afflicts Pharaoh and the Egyptians with the final plagues – locusts to destroy the remaining crops, darkness which covers Egypt so that no one could even see someone standing next to them, and finally, the death of the firstborn. All of these were designed to demoralize Pharaoh and those Egyptians who still stubbornly clung to the hope of keeping us as slaves. The story of the redemption is basically a story of rebirth of the Jewish people as a unified national entity derived from a group of wandering tribes.
We will now have a national home and a destiny to be solidified by the coming revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Just so, each year, nature experiences a rebirth, emerging from the cocoon of hibernation to blossom again as we approach spring which is celebrated by the lovely holiday of Tu Bishvat. We also celebrate this holiday by planting trees in Israel- never more important than this year of crisis. Let us plant thousands of trees in honor of the brave soldiers of the IDF and in memory of those who have fallen while fighting the Pharaohs and the cruel dictators of today. May the world be reborn by shedding evil and establishing justice and peace. AMEN“
Questions to Discuss:
- Why is Passover called Chag Hamatzot instead of Chag Hacherut? (Festival of Freedom)?
- How does Matzah compare to bread on spiritual level?
- How does the plague of locusts represent the phrase Middah kneged Middah (Measure for measure)?
- What other purposes did the plague of darkness serve?
Rabbi Michael D. Klein attended Yeshiva College of South Florida and served as Torah Reader, Hebrew teacher, Chazzan and spiritual leader of various synagogues throughout South Florida. In January 2015 he became Ritual Director, Bnai/Bnot Mitzvah instructor and 7th grade Hebrew instructor for Temple Torat Emet of Boynton Beach. In October 2019 he was accepted into an accelerated track and received his shicha from Yeshiva Adath Wolkowisk and has been the Rabbinic leadership of Temple Torat Emet since August 2020. In September of 2022 he was appointed Rabbinic and Spiritual Advisor of the Florida Region of FJMC.
Choose Shabbat; choose to celebrate, to light candles, sing songs and learn a little Torah.
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