This week’s parsha (portion) was called “Bo” in Hebrew which means come. The name comes from the first sentence of parsha that says: “And haShem (god) said to Moshe (moses), “Come to pharaoh because I have caused his heart to be heavy, and the heart of his servants, for the sake of my two signs that I am bringing close.” I have heard a lot of talk about why use the word “come” instead of the word “go.” Before I share with you why I think the word “come” is used, I want to share an idea from Rebbe Nachman (a Jewish shaman from 200 years ago). He says that when you are down, the best thing that can happen is for you to get pulled into a dance circle and let the joy take you over. He then continues to say that whatever is making you sad will flee because it can’t live with the joy. Rebbe Nachman says that you must then pursue this pain and bring it into the circle and find the spark of joy inside it, so as to transform the sadness into happiness and blessing; for if you don’t, the sadness will just sit outside the circle and wait for you to leave the circle and then bring you down again.
This idea from Rebbe Nachman, I think, can be applied here. The parshas of the last couple of weeks have been a clinic on how to get out of slavery. The first step (in last week’s parsha) is to be so down that you cry out for change. By the time we get to this parsha, we are pretty much breaking out of the habit we are enslaved to. But it is not enough to say we are free. We must now pursue and come to that part of us that still wants or enjoys that old way of being and confront it – it must not be allowed to continue to live!
A few years ago, I was listening to a Professor Green who was visiting Eugene, Oregon from Israel. He was involved in the Mars Pioneer project that landed in 1976. One of the things he mentioned was that before you can look for life, you need to define what life is. I am not going to go into all that he said, but one of the criteria they arrived at for life was the ability to procreate, to pass on something from one generation to another.
As I said at the end of the previous paragraph, we need to come to our task-master, our internal pharaoh and dis-empower him at his source, and NOT allow him to continue to live. In the torah, this is represented by the killing of the first born.
Our parsha continues, saying that it is not just enough to kill that impulse that drives the habit – we must remember and tell our children. In essence, the Torah is telling us that we must remember how to grow and change and not get stuck. For if we forget, we will again be enslaved to habit or addiction. It is very easy to fall into habit, good or bad, and if we forget that we are strong enough to over-COME these habits, we will become depressed and give up trying and we will again becomes slaves.
Now it is on to the promised land! I look forward to seeing you all there, be it in spirit, growth, or in person. Blessings everyone.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.