Torah Portion: Parashat Bo

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheynu melech ha olam,
sh'cheyanu, v'kimanu, v'higianu lazman hazeh.

This is the prayer for new beginnings.  I have never written a blog before but I do not want to get left behind as we move into the teens, although I am not sure what to call the years between 2011 - 2019, as there is no "teen" that goes after the numbers 11 or 12.  But I definitely do not wish to be left behind.

So for the most part I hope to use this blog to ruminate about the Torah portion of the week, which is called "Bo," from early on in the Book of Exodus.  The material covers the last three of the ten plagues visited God on Pharaoh and the Egyptians: locust, darkness and death of the first born, moves on to the establishement of the first Passover seder, and concludes with laws regarding the redemption of the first born child.

I am most concerned with the affect on the meaning of the plagues and the suffering of innocents.  The rabbinic tradition holds that the Egyptians were not so innocent, in the same way that the German people living in the years 1933 - 1945, were no innocent either. The idea is that neither Hitler living almost 80 years ago, nor Pharaoh, living almost 3200 years ago, could not have achieved their destructive goals without the cooperation of ordinary people.  In this vein, the rabbis understood each of the plagues by the Hebrew phrase, middah k'neged middah -- one good turn deserves another, or perhaps, one goes around, comes around, e.g. just as the Egyptians darkened the lives of the Israelite slaves, so too did God make the lives of the Egyptians with three days of tangible darkness. 

If we apply this idea, middah k'neged middah    to our own lives, it is most empowering.  The idea is that we can shape our own destinies, how people will react to ourselves by adjusting our own behavior.  In scientific terms, for every action there is an equal reaction.  And if you do not like the reaction then adjust the initial action.

This is the basis of Jewish thought: we are responsible for our own behavior, there is no one to blame but ourselves, and within ourselves, with God's help of course, we have the power to be better than who we at the moment.

Shabbat shalom!