~ One Hundred Words on the Parsha - Bo

The Rasha in the Haggada famously challenges his father with the question, מה העבודה הזאת לכם – “Why are you doing this service of ה'?”

The Rasha is uncomfortable with avodas Hashem, which takes hard work and perseverance. He doesn’t see the point of the self-sacrifice (mesiras nefesh) that avodas Hashem requires.

The Haggada continues, “And you shall answer him: Because of this Hashem took me out of Mitrzaim.” The Alter of Novardok associates this response to the famous pasuk in Yirmiyah (2:): כה אמר ה' זכרתי לך חסד נעוריך אהבת כלולתיך לכתך אחרי במדבר בארץ לא זרועה “So says Hashem: I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your bridehood; how you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.”

Out of their love for Hashem, the Jewish people willingly followed Him into a barren desert, an act that required great mesiras nefesh. The Alter from Novardok explains that this mesiras nefesh was the crucial factor that enabled them to be redeemed from Mitzrayim. Otherwise they would not have been redeemed.

~ One Hundred Words on the Parsha – Bo

"ואז יקרב לעשותו"

“ and then he will come close to be מקריב (the קרבן פסח)”

The בעל הטורים compares the term “ואז” “and then” to the only other three places where it is used in תנ"ך: • "ואז ירצו את עונם" “and then they will be forgiven for their sins (ויקרא כ"ו מ"א) • "ואז תשכיל" “and then you will become wise”(יהושע א' ח') • "ואז חיל מלך בבל צרים על ירושלים" “and then the king of בבל was attacking ירושלים” (ירמיה ל"ב ב')

By bringing קרבנות, we will be forgiven for our sins, and then we will become wise so we will be able to defeat enemies that attack.

I would point out an interesting aspect: the קרבנות are offered in ירושלים! How appropriate that this is where we will be protected from attacks.

Only B’Simcha Parshas Bo

The Haggada shel Pesach quotes a famous passage in which Chazal point out that the makkos in Mitzraim are described with the term etzba – “finger” – whereas קריעת ים סוף (the splitting of the Red Sea) is described as a yad – “hand”. This is interpreted to mean that there were five times as many makkos at Yam Suf than in Mitzraim.

In Tehillim (121:5) it says, ה' צלך – “Hashem is your shadow”. Midrashically, this is interpreted to mean that, just as the movements of a person’s shadow are controlled by his own actions, so too the way Hashem behaves towards us is directly connected to how we behave towards Him. In Sefer Madreigas HaAdam, the Alter of Novardok cites this teaching saying that if a person puts forward a finger, this his shadow also puts forward a finger, and if he puts forward his full hand, then his shadow puts forward a full hand.

Perhaps this idea can be used to explain the fivefold increase in miracles at the Yam Suf over Mitzraim. By the time the Jewish people came to the Yam Suf they had grown a great deal in their emuna (as expressed in the pasuk, ויאמינו בה'). As such, they merited a greatly increased number of miracles.