Parashat Bo

There is a mantra in this week's Parsha, articulated with slight variations, that we will speak of the events of the Exodus throughout the generations. When our children will ask about the events, we will tell them. We will prompt their questioning by ordained rituals and symbols that will be an eternal reminder.

 It seems that at the point of the most significant rescue in history, when the Jewish people were released after centuries of slavery, there was a preoccupation with the need to tell the story in the future. The text suggests that being present for the momentous rebellion of the Passover feast, the terror of the final plague on Egypt and the miraculous opening of the Red Sea was not sufficient to ensure that one would relate these events. Additional and specific commandments were required to make sure that we did.

Jewish life is replete with reminders about our past. We are commanded to 'remember' events which happened to our ancestors. More than that, we are commanded to speak in personal terms, 'This is what the Lord did for ME when I came out of Egypt' (XIII:3).

Integrating the history of our people into our own experience has been a hallmark of Jewish culture and perhaps an ingredient in our survival. It is not natural to feel that events of thousands of years ago have happened to us but our rituals and ceremonies have succeeded in inculcating not a sense of 'history' but a sense of a 'living past' in us. On the other hand, when our people in subsequent generations have suffered great trauma or even experienced wonderful miracles, they have sometimes felt that their children could not possibly understand or relate to the experience. Therefore, they have been silent. In the absence of a specific requirement to talk of events, human nature silences us and prevents people from speaking about that which is out of the ordinary and beyond the mundane. Bringing ourselves and encouraging our children to feel 'present' during the Exodus and at Sinai may be a challenge but there are ordained mechanisms to help us do so; learning to extend this sense of 'presence' to the entire experience of our people is a greater challenge.