In this second role, I am often in conversation with faculty about the pedagogical value of bringing their students into the Beit Midrash—a space designed for learning out loud and in partnership, where students’ thinking becomes visible and professors gain opportunities to offer more targeted and nuanced feedback. I am also in constant dialogue with students about how to upgrade the physical space to better support their learning: Can we bring in more light? Provide different kinds of seating for different bodies? Create quieter corners for those with auditory sensitivity? What kinds of textual aids should we be adding to the shelves?

Such attention to relationships and environment draws on David Hawkins’s pedagogical framework, often referred to as the relational triangle. Originally developed to help educators evaluate and improve learning experiences, this framework has since been extended beyond education to other professional areas as well—wherever two people (or roles) stand in relationship to a shared object of work, inquiry, or concern, such as community organizing, counseling, and supervision. Even in our daily roles as family and community members, the framework offers a shared language for attending not only to the individuals involved and the task at hand, but also to the context—and to how that context either facilitates or impedes the unfolding of relationships and shared purpose.

The relational triangle can also help us reflect on the surrounding environment in which God chose to deliver to Moses and Aaron the first mitzvah, inviting us to consider how context shapes even moments of divine instruction. In Parashat Bo, the Torah introduces what Rabbi Yitzchak (Yalkut Shimoni, 187) considers to be מִצְוָה רִאשׁוֹנָה שֶׁנִּצְטַוּוּ בָּהּ יִשׂרָאֵל/the first mitzvah given specifically to the Israelites, the commandment to sanctify the new month (Rosh Hodesh):

הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחׇדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

This month shall mark you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (Exodus 12:1)

Why begin with Rosh Hodesh?

One possible answer is that through the commandment of sanctifying the new month, God was empowering the Israelites to partner in determining the calendar that would set their new shared occasions and shape their common history. In this way, Rosh Hodesh marked the beginning of the Israelites’ transition from slavery, where others controlled their time, to freedom, in which they became masters of their own time.

Yet before the Torah tells us what this first mitzvah is, it is careful to tell us where it is given—and it is this emphasis on place that troubles the commentators. Exodus 12:1, the preamble to the introduction of the mitzvah of Rosh Hodesh, says:

 וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל־אַהֲרֹן בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֵאמֹר��

“God said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt“ (Exodus 12:1). 

Given that the Torah had just stated that God “had stiffened the heart of Pharaoh so that he would not let the Israelites go from his land” (Exod. 11:10), it seems obvious that they were still in Egypt. Why, then, does this verse emphasize this context again in relation to the first mitzvah? 

The Mekhilta interprets this apparent redundancy as meant to convey that God gave the first mitzvah specifically in the אֶרֶץ /land of Egypt, as opposed to the כְּרָך/city. Just as Moses went outside the city to pray for the cessation of thunder and hail (Exod. 9:29), so, too, God would not speak about mitzvot within the city, a place filled with idolatry. 

According to this midrash, the handing over of time, granting the Israelites ownership of their own calendar, would be less distracting and more effective in an isolated space, away from the modus operandi of the surrounding culture that had been so deeply ingrained in them.

In his early collection of sermons, Derekh Hamelekh, the Piaseczno Rebbe (Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Poland, 1889–1943) rejects the Mekhilta’s interpretation. According to the Rebbe, by emphasizing that the mitzvah of Rosh Hodesh was given בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם—in the land of Egypt—the Torah wanted to teach that being within the city, and not outside it, was essential in order to show that changes can start anywhere, גַּם לַמָּקוֹם שֶׁאַתֶּם נִמְצָאִים/even where they are currently located. God k new that this was only the beginning of the challenge. For many years to come, the Israelites would need to learn how to organize their time in a new way, different from the patterns of life they were conditioned to and from those that would continue to surround them. So, according to the Piaseczno Rebbe, rather than introducing Rosh Hodesh in ideal conditions, away from everything and everyone, God wanted to show that it was possible to begin imagining this new way of life and working toward it even while they were still embedded in the old Egyptian patterns.

Later, while living in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Piaseczno Rebbe revisited the expression בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם and offered a slightly different interpretation. As he himself was trying to find new meanings in the Torah to offer consolation and hope to the Jews locked with him inside the ghetto, the Piaseczno Rebbe understood that God was especially concerned about Moses’ ability to transmit and guide the people into the implementation of this mitzvah, כֵּיוָן שֶׁלְּצֹרֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁבְּמִצְרַיִם לְבַד דִּבֵּר ד׳ מִצְוָה זוֹ/since this commandment was spoken solely for the sake of the Israelites who were in Egypt. So, God wanted to make sure that Moses himself heard it, בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם. If Moses were to understand the wisdom of Rosh Hodesh and be an effective leader, he needed to receive it from God while very much connected and attuned to the plight and suffering of the people he was guiding.

Whether through a safer and more secluded space—where the Israelites could focus and feel comfortable experimenting with new ways of living, as suggested by the Mekhilta—or through immersion in challenging circumstances—where the Israelites could begin to imagine incremental change and Moses could remain attuned to the lived realities of the people he was meant to lead, as suggested by the Piaseczno Rebbe—these interpretations of בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם in Exodus 12:1 converge on a shared insight: Even God—the teacher par excellence—understood that excellent students (Moses and Aaron) and an excellent lesson (the mitzvah of Rosh Ḥodesh) were not sufficient, on their own, to guarantee effective transmission. Careful attention to the surrounding environment in which that transmission would take place was essential to its success and for God’s words to take root and endure.

Bo

All Class of 2025 Senior Sermons

What plague do you see outside your window? Fire and smoke, drought, disease, or gun violence? Or perhaps you, like the Israelites, are spared while your neighbors experience devastation. Deportation, infestation, or discrimination—whether natural or human-made, these experiences evoke the same fear that the Egyptians felt. Is our darkness as dark as their darkness? Are our plagues as terrible as the ones that the Egyptians experienced?

In Exodus 11:5, Moses tells Pharaoh of the final, most horrific plague:

  וּמֵ֣ת כׇּל־בְּכוֹר֮ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֒יִם֒ מִבְּכ֤וֹר פַּרְעֹה֙ הַיֹּשֵׁ֣ב עַל־כִּסְא֔וֹ עַ֚ד בְּכ֣וֹר הַשִּׁפְחָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֖ר אַחַ֣ר הָרֵחָ֑יִם וְכֹ֖ל בְּכ֥וֹר בְּהֵמָֽה׃

And every [male] first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the first-born of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; and all the first-born of the cattle. 

The death of the first-born son would strike all Egyptian families from the richest and most powerful to the slaves who labor alongside the Israelites. The Torah: A Women’s Commentary suggests that “the intent of this act is to affect all Egyptian households, from the highest male aristocracy to the lowest female slave. The Torah is not concerned with the guilt or innocence of any specific victim, nor with the ethical implications of blanket punishments; the focus remains resolutely on exemplifying God’s supreme power.” It doesn’t matter that Pharaoh is the one calling the shots, refusing to let the Israelites go. The plagues impact all Egyptians. 

Furthermore, the Torah does not tell us how each plague impacted different groups of Egyptians. We don’t know if the locusts were as bothersome to Pharoah’s courtiers as they were to the Egyptian slave girl behind the millstones. However, we do know the plagues were “the most severe they had ever been” and “the most severe ever will be.” Regarding the locusts, Exodus 10:14 states:

לְ֠פָנָ֠יו לֹא־הָ֨יָה כֵ֤ן אַרְבֶּה֙ כָּמֹ֔הוּ וְאַחֲרָ֖יו לֹ֥א יִֽהְיֶה־כֵּֽן׃

[N]ever before had there been so many, nor will there ever be so many again.

If the locusts in Egypt were “the worst locusts of all time,” all subsequent human experiences with locusts must be less bad, right? 

Rashi and Hizkuni both wrestle with later examples of really bad locusts in Tanakh, such as those in Joel. Because Rashi and Hizkuni need Tanakh to be correct in stating that the Egyptian experience of locusts is “the worst of all time,” they need to solve the inconsistency of Joel having horrific locusts. Hizkuni quotes and agrees with Rashi’s take, saying:

ואחריו לא יהיה כן, “and there will never be a plague of locusts like this;” according to Rashi, the meaning is “a single type of locust.” Seeing that the Bible records other plagues of locusts at least as severe (Psalms 105:34, Joel 1:4), and Rashi was surely aware of this, we must understand the words of Rashi as referring to a single species of locusts at the same time. In the days of Joel ben Patuel each type of locust came separately, one after the other.

By distinguishing between different species of locusts, Rashi and Hizkuni allow all locust plagues to be “the worst of all time.” 

Perhaps Rashi and Hizkuni are right to narrow the definition of the plagues. While we need to understand that what the Egyptians experienced was “the worst possible” experience of locusts and that their collective cry over the deaths of the first-born sons was “the loudest cry there could possibly be,” the depths of their despair do not diminish the depths of our despair today. The Torah needs to be clear that the Egyptians experienced horrible pain so that we understand that our freedom came at a cost to others. That clarity doesn’t take away from the pains we experience today. We face “different species of locusts.” Our cries of mourning hit a different pitch. Just as their grief was “the worst possible” grief, so too, our grief is “the worst possible grief.” We don’t have to compete for who has it hardest during a plague because we all do. 

Of course, those with the least power and privilege face the hardest recovery from plagues. The Egyptian slave girl likely starved when the locusts devoured the crops, while Pharaoh remained well-fed. However, Rashi and Hizkuni’s insights remind us that grief and despair do not need to be qualified to be valid. Losing a home is materially harder to recover from for a low-income family than a celebrity family, but the grief for both families is “the worst that has ever been” and “the worst there will ever be.” We can acknowledge privilege without diminishing pain. 

By illustrating the depths of the Egyptians’ despair, Parashat Bo allows us to feel the depths of our own. When we give ourselves permission to feel our pain and acknowledge its reality, we can move through it and beyond it. Living a life filled with plagues can harden our hearts. Honoring our grief—and the grief of others—can soften them again. 

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

My answer to the first question is always: no, they are not meant to be so tight that they hurt you!

My answer to the second question usually goes something like this: tefillin are comprised of four essential sections from the Torah taken from the books of Shemot (our parashah, in particular!) and Devarim. Housed inside little boxes that are bound above the forehead and on the bicep, these verses are declarations of faith and peoplehood.  

My answer to the third question is a little more complicated.

Twice in our parashah, we are introduced to what we now know as tefillin:

וְהָיָה֩ לְךָ֨ לְא֜וֹת עַל־יָדְךָ֗ וּלְזִכָּרוֹן֙ בֵּ֣ין עֵינֶ֔יךָ לְמַ֗עַן תִּהְיֶ֛ה תּוֹרַ֥ת יְהֹוָ֖ה בְּפִ֑יךָ כִּ֚י בְּיָ֣ד חֲזָקָ֔ה הוֹצִֽאֲךָ֥ יְהֹוָ֖ה מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃ 

“And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead —in order that the Teaching of יהוה may be in your mouth—that with a mighty hand יהוה freed you from Egypt.

(Exod. 13:9)

וְהָיָ֤ה לְאוֹת֙ עַל־יָ֣דְכָ֔ה וּלְטוֹטָפֹ֖ת בֵּ֣ין עֵינֶ֑יךָ כִּ֚י בְּחֹ֣זֶק יָ֔ד הוֹצִיאָ֥נוּ יְהֹוָ֖ה מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃

“And so it shall be as a sign upon your hand and as a symbol on your forehead that with a mighty hand יהוה freed us from Egypt.”

(Exod. 13:16)

Our sages explained that the placement of our tefillin as a “sign upon our hands” and a “reminder on our foreheads” is meant to represent the intellect (tefillin shel rosh) and the physicality (tefillin shel yad) of a person. For Keli Yakar, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, both the tefillin that sits on our arm and the tefillin that sits above our eyes are meant to represent the dichotomy that is at play between thought and action.

Since October 7, many of our reactions have oscillated between thought and action.

Like so many of us, I have been checking in with family and friends in Israel daily. I feel helpless, the most I can offer being an “I’m thinking of you” or “I love you.” And yet, my simple “thoughts and prayers” have been most welcome and appreciated.

My cousin who lives in Jerusalem has spent many days in the home of Jonathan and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh remains in captivity by Hamas in Gaza. Sometimes, my cousin can help the Goldberg-Polin family by running their social media channels and organizing interviews for them to share their story. I know he feels helpless. He wishes there was more that he could do for this family. We all do. But his small actions have made a huge difference. Not only has he offered comfort and presence to Hersh’s family, but he has taught those around him (including me!) what it means to physically show up for others in a moment of immense pain and vulnerability.

Recently, I caught up with an old friend whom I haven’t seen in over six years. He asked what I’ve been up to since we last saw each other. I told him about the past three out of six years that I’ve spent living in Israel, studying first toward a master’s in education at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and then as part of my rabbinical training at JTS. He blushed, and shyly admitted that he wanted to ask how I was doing since the events of October 7, but that he didn’t know how to bring it up. “I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but my thoughts are with you and the Jewish community,” he told me. His thoughts, though a seemingly small gesture, meant the world to me in a moment of rising antisemitism and divisive narratives.

Then there are stories like that of Vivian Silver’s funeral. Silver, a Canadian-Israeli peace activist, was murdered in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. At her funeral in Kibbutz Gezer, Silver’s sons honored her memory by recalling her peace activism, including stories about how she helped transport Gazan children to Israeli hospitals. Palestinian and Israeli women alike, and many members of Women Wage Peace—a women’s grassroots peace movement in Israel founded by Silver—showed up to Silver’s funeral. Kafaia Massarwy, one such member of Women Wage Peace, stated, “We are all here together with love, with all the pain—Arab, Jewish, Christian—it does not matter who we are. We are all human.”

Our thoughts and our actions have the power to create change, to offer love, and to be a force and source of positivity and goodness. Our tefillin, and these stories, teach us that our thoughts and actions are both important, and can exist in balance. We don’t have to allow our thoughts to excuse us from action, and we don’t have to allow our action to be guided without our thoughts.

Keli Yakar explains that the tefillin shel yad should be placed on the weaker hand to illustrate that a human’s hand—the power of a human’s action—is weak compared to God. Human beings need God to help strengthen their hands.

On this point I disagree with Keli Yakar. As humans made betzelem elohim, in the image of God, we are partners in creation. We are powerful agents of helping God make this world a just and kind one. Our thoughts, and our actions, matter. And our tefillin remind us that we are partners with God in creating a healed world through our thoughts and our actions.

So, what do the straps and boxes that we bind to our bodies every day do? Tefillin are an ot, or sign, to remind ourselves to remain closely bound to our deepest values, and to allow those values to guide our cognition and our behavior. Our tefillin remind us to think, with our hearts and with our minds, and respond through our actions with generosity, love, and compassion—for ourselves, and for the world.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Before the Israelites have been freed and Moses announces the final plague, God makes a prediction in Exodus 11:1–3 that seems completely unattainable:

“And Adonai said to Moses, “I will bring but one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt; after that he shall let you go from here; indeed, when he lets you go, he will drive you out of here one and all. Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold. Adonai disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people. Moreover, Moses himself was much esteemed in the land of Egypt, among Pharaoh’s courtiers and among the people.”

(Exod. 11:1–3)

Is this to say that after the devastating plagues and Pharoah hardening his heart, the Egyptians all of a sudden will treat the Israelites “favorably”? That Moses, the key figure in the destruction of Egypt, will become its most adored leader? At this point in the narrative, this vision could not be farther from the reality on the ground. In the verses that follow, Moses must snap back to reality to deliver the most devastating news a parent can ever hear to Pharoah, that God will soon exact the Plague of the Firstborn.

Biblical scholar Robert Alter also struggles with the narrative purpose of these three verses, observing that they “do not seem smoothly integrated into the narrative progress” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: The Five Books of Moses, 257). He points out that chapter ten concludes with Moses saying he will never see Pharaoh’s face again (Exod. 10:29), yet Moses appears before Pharoah in verses 11:4–8 to announce the final plague. He cites Umberto Cassuto, the 20th-century Italian and Israeli Biblical scholar, “who sees it as kind of a flashback in Moses’s mind—of God’s initial promise to confound Egypt and to liberate Israel before the annunciation of the last plague” (ibid.).

Indeed, Moses had good reason to expect favorable treatment and great wealth. At the Burning Bush, God assured Moses that God “will dispose the Egyptians favorably toward this people, so that when you go, you will not go away empty handed” (Exod. 3:21). God even promised Abraham that God “will execute judgement on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth” (Gen. 15:14). Sometimes when real-life is hard, visualizing a more ideal reality for a few seconds can help us feel grounded. Perhaps this “flashback,” which validates the valiant and just nature of Moses’s original intentions, and certainty of God’s promise, helped him cope with disappointing feelings from unmet expectations of freedom. That short dream keeps Moses’s eyes on the prize, reminding him to do whatever it takes get his people to the finish line, even if it may not look exactly the way he dreamed it.

Moses falls short of his goals many times as a leader: he probably asks Pharoah to let the Israelites go at least a dozen times before he succeeds in securing his people’s freedom. Moses’s ability to “flashback” to a vision of a better future powers his relentless drive. Psychologist Angela Duckworth would call this , “passion and perseverance for long-term goals . . . a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do.” In order to maintain his grit in a moment where reality has yet to meet his expectations, Moses takes a second to reflect and dream about the better future that he and his ancestors have worked tirelessly to procure.  

We can learn from Moses when our own lives take unexpected turns. By keeping himself grounded in the bigger picture, Moses helps the Israelites endure the slow path to redemption. While this is no antidote, taking a step back to remind ourselves about our larger goals can provide a temporary spark of motivation or sigh of relief. Shabbat Shalom.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Let’s start by examining three of these verses:

And when you enter the land that the Lord will give you, as God has promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your children ask you, “What do you mean by this rite?” You shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord because God passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when God smote the Egyptians but saved our houses.” The people then bowed low.

Exod. 25–27

It is clear that the phrase that opens verse 27, “וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֡ם—You shall say,” is a response to previous verses. That is, the answer you are to give to your children when they inquire about the ritual they are witnessing is, “It is the Passover sacrifice because God passed over the houses of the Israelites . . . ”  Moshe is envisioning a future time—after the people are settled in their land—when this ritual will be unknown and remarkable to the children and will need “unpacking.”

But what ritual will these children be asking about? The simple answer is the ritual described in the immediate antecedent to their question, verses 22–24, which speak about dipping the hyssop branch in the Paschal lamb’s blood and smearing it as a sign on the doorframe. The plain meaning of the text is that future generations of children will ask about the unusual doorpost-daubing they are witnessing. The only problem is that the ritual of placing blood on the doorpost is, according to our tradition, limited to that first Passover in Egypt.^[1] As medieval commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (Spain, 11th-c.) wrote:         

This interpretation [that the children’s question is about the placing of the blood on the doorposts] would be correct from a logical point of view were it not for the true tradition which states otherwise . . . The [correct] meaning of the children’s question is: when your children will see their family in a group eating an entire lamb . . . they will question you.

We limit our engagement with the blood ritual to mere remembrance. In fact, it has been suggested that the multiple “dippings” of the seder are a nod to this central rite of the Passover of Egypt. Thus, according to rabbinic tradition, it is the eating of the Pesah offering that will provoke the curiosity of the children. It is this act that we are instructed to explain and frame in the context of our covenantal connection with God. Of course, food in our tradition, as in many other cultures, is more than just nutrition; it has rich semiotic significance. Naming that significance is one way we pass on our tradition and values.

But eating the Paschal lamb is—post-Temple—also just a remembrance; a remembrance that is reified in Rabban Gamliel’s famous dictum in the Haggadah:

Rabban Gamliel would say: Anyone who has not said these three things on Pesah has not fulfilled their obligation. And these are them: the Pesah sacrifice, matzah, and marror. The Pesah sacrifice that our ancestors were accustomed to eating when the Temple existed, for the sake of what [was it]? For the sake [to commemorate] that the Holy One, blessed be God, passed over the homes of our ancestors in Egypt, as it is stated (Exod. 12:27) “And you shall say: “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord . . . “

The Haggadah’s version is, in fact, an embellishment of Mishnah Pesahim 10:5, which reads^[2]:

Rabban Gamliel says: Anyone who did not say these three things on Passover has not fulfilled their obligation: The Paschal lamb, matza, and bitter herbs. The Paschal lamb [is brought] because the Omnipresent passed over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt. Matza [is brought] . . .

There are numerous subtle differences between the Haggadah and the Mishnah. One obvious difference is the Mishnah’s lack of prooftexts.^[3] Nevertheless, it seems evident that the intertext that Rabban Gamliel of the Mishnah is referencing is our verse, Exod. 12:27. Furthermore, Rabban Gamliel frames the passage in typical Mishnaic legal style: Anyone who did not say these three matters on Passover has not fulfilled their obligation. This exemplifies the Rabbis’ proclivity to crystalize, legalize, and institutionalize the ethos of more amorphous Torah mandates. Ultimately, the idea is that we must make our actions clear and meaningful to our children.

There is also a historical context for this Mishnah. Who is Rabban Gamliel?  Most scholars are in agreement that he is Gamliel II of Yavneh, the great-great-grandson of Hillel the Elder, who lived at the end of the first century CE. This means that Rabban Gamliel lived after the Temple was destroyed and the sacrifices had fallen to desuetude. Rabban Gamliel is, then, asserting that despite the absence of the actual ritual of the Passover sacrifice, the act of ascribing meaning is, in and of itself, essential.

The historical context makes Rabban Gamiliel’s statement contemporaneous with the writing of the Gospels, where foods are also ascribed symbolic meaning, most famously in the Last Supper:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them.

Mark 14:22–24

The fact that this Last Supper was most likely a Passover celebration makes it all the more intriguing. The notion that Jesus’s words might reflect a transformation of an extant Jewish ritual has been explored by a number of scholars.^[4]

We know that consuming ritual foods and explaining their meaning are significant practices in many cultures. Ultimately, it may be our human need to make meaning out of the actions of our lives—to live with intention, as it were—that informs both instances as well as the Torah’s instructions to explain our actions to our children.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

^[1] It is interesting to note that the Samaritan community of Israel continues to practice this lamb-slaughtering, blood-dipping ceremony using a hyssop branch.

^[2] Kaufman manuscript

^[3] This should not surprise us given the generally terse style of the Mishnah and its tendency to not cite explicitly exegetical material, leaving that job to the classical Midrashim.

^[4] An alternate approach cited by some scholars goes in the opposite direction. They read Rabban Gamliel’s dictum as an anti-Christian polemic, a heresiology. Aware of the Gospel’s account of Jesus’s Passover seder, Rabban Gamliel’s injunction to declare the historical significance of these symbols in their Exodus narrative context is a means to assert that correct Jewish belief precludes any other understanding.  As the anthropologist J. Z. Smith notes, “Ritual is, above all, an assertion of difference.”

The weaker arm (left, for most of us) is strengthened by contact with Scripture, as if to say that true strength comes not from muscles but from virtue. This gesture recalls Deuteronomy 17:18-19 where the new king is commanded to write a copy of the Torah, to read it and keep it close by so that they will learn to revere God and guard the divine precepts. This pose also reminds me of wearing tefillin, with the left hand linked to the divine word, and the right ready for resolute and righteous action.

Those who take an oath—whether of testimony, of office, or of military commission—raise their right hand, alluding perhaps to Isaiah 62:8, “the Lord has sworn by His right hand, by His mighty arm” (NJPS translation). In the civic oath ritual, the President commits to guard our American covenant with faithfulness, to draw strength from the people, and to hold nothing higher than their constitutional duties.

The raised right hand is open and empty, which to me implies transparency and readiness for action. One cannot commit fully to a new task while clinging still to an old one. This point is made in our Torah portion, just before the people of Israel commences its duties in worshipping God. Chapter 12 of Exodus contains instructions for the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, beginning with the designation of the animal. Moses calls the elders of Israel and says to them, “Draw out and take yourselves sheep according to your clans and slaughter the Passover offering” (Exod. 12:21, trans. Robert Alter).

The phrase opens with two imperative verbs: mishkhu, “draw out,” (your hands) u-kekhu, “and take” (the offering). This strange doubling has yielded numerous interpretations. Robert Alter suggests that the two verbs may indicate haste, but Rashi cites Midrash Lekah Tov to assign distinct meaning for each one. If you already own sheep, then “draw out” one from the flock. If not, then go “take” or purchase one from the market. Rashi’s interpretation works as peshat, or the contextual reading, but for nearly two millennia our sages have squeezed more interpretive derash from the verbs.

The first imperative, mishkhu, can mean “withdraw,” indicating that something must be released before the new thing can be grasped. What must the Israelite release before offering the paschal lamb? Two answers are offered, one related to idolatry, and the other to theft. According to Midrash Shemot Rabbah (Bo 16:2), followed by Ramban and others, this verse means that before the people of Israel can commence their worship of Adonai, they must relinquish the grip of idolatry. By sacrificing a sheep, an animal venerated by the ancient Egyptians, the Israelites make a dramatic shift to their new faith.

Alternatively, the Israelites must remove stolen objects from their hands and purchase the sacrificial lamb with their own property. This reading, based on the rabbinic claim that “the righteous keep far from theft,” is applied to our verse by Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (Baal Haturim): First purify yourselves of dishonesty and theft, and then commit to worshipping the Lord. Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz says that preventing theft is the foundation of faith, and therefore it must precede even the first command given to Israel in Egypt, the paschal sacrifice ().

Americans should demand integrity from our elected officials, and especially from the President. They must divest themselves of conflicts of interest and of any compromising commitments so that they can devote themselves fully to the Republic. Conflicts of interest are a perennial challenge for public officials, as exemplified dramatically in recent years. The Torah portion instructs officials, mishkhu u-kehu, withdraw your hands from selfish and unworthy causes, and then stretch your hands forward in dedication to your country and its highest principles.

As President Biden and Vice President Harris raise their hands and swear to protect our nation, how can we help them fulfill their duties? Only with collective effort can we construct a wise, strong, just, and righteous government. The undemocratic force of chaos and violence that recently defiled our Capitol demonstrates the danger of neglecting these duties. As Parashat Bo depicts a transition from plagues toward freedom, so may America and the world escape the grip of injustice and build more equitable and compassionate societies. This is the blessing that we seek, and this is the cause to which we should all lend a resolute right hand.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (Exod. 12:2)

In Parashat Bo, God instructs Moses to formally begin the counting of months, with the month of Aviv (later Nisan) kicking off what we now know as the Hebrew calendar. This injunction represents the first commandment given to the Children of Israel, and only the third or fourth in the entirety of the Torah. It might seem odd that this, of all the many commandments the children of Israel will eventually receive, is handed down first, even before the exodus from Egypt was completed. However, the institution of this uniquely Hebrew calendrical system (its overlap with other frameworks aside) was a necessary precursor to support both the communal-religious practice and mental emancipation of a newly (or rather, soon-to-be) free people.

The medieval commentator Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno offers a straightforward answer for the chronological primacy of this commandment, saying that slaves have no control over use of their own time, a slave’s “days, hours, and minutes even, were at the beck and call of your taskmasters.” Going further with this idea, the management and recording of time are not only fundamental characteristics of free people but of a free people in control of its own destiny.

The effective administration of a calendrical system is a feat shared by the great civilizations of human history. From Babylon to Rome to China in antiquity, Islam and Christendom in the Middle Ages—among countless others—the careful consideration and measurement of the phases of time reflected in the natural world provide the order and framework that facilitate all other societal achievements. Moreover, months are of special importance as an intermediate measure of time, serving as the container for the hours and weeks that make up our day-to-day existence, and comprising the years by which we measure the longer progression of the lives of ourselves, our families, and our wider communities.

Nahmanides’s understanding of the inaugural commandment of the book of Exodus also speaks to the civilizational nature of the commandment. Of special concern for him is the phrasing that “this month shall mark for you the beginning of months” הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים, whereas in the following verse Moses and Aaron are instructed to speak to “the whole community of Israel” (12:3) about acquiring a sacrificial lamb. For Nahmanides, the wording “for you” (which follows the description in the preceding verse that God was speaking to Moses and Aaron) denotes that the calculation and recording of months is a task that must be overseen by leaders and experts. The specific connection of the counting of months to legal or technical expertise reinforces the connection between an effectively administered calendrical system and an organized community.

Hizkuni further stresses how this particular counting of months is relevant in the collective development of the Jewish people, explaining that the words “for you” imply this lunar (later lunisolar) calculation of months is exclusively for Jews and not for the gentiles among whom solar calendrical systems prevail. This seems to be even more significant when we consider two later mitzvot of no small importance that relate to the calculation of time: the observance of Shabbat and of Rosh Hashanah.

The counting of these smaller and larger measures of time relate not specifically to an experience or characteristic of the Children of Israel, but rather to the entirety of existence—with Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat respectively drawing our attention to the commencement and consummation of the work of creation. Even though the Rabbis of the Mishnah indicate four “new years” (Rosh Hashanah 1:1), it is from this “first of months,” that all Jewish festivals are calculated. The ability to openly practice such communal observances is the exclusive province of free people and it is therefore no coincidence that the timing of major holidays is determined in relation to זמן חרותנו, the time of our liberation.

But it is not only for reasons of societal cohesion and communal observance that the institution of a calendrical system was given primacy among the mitzvot. An orderly calendrical system is equally important for individual conceptions of time and one’s own sense of agency as a free person. In line with Nahmanides’s aforementioned commentary, to enslaved subjects the progression of time is to a great degree, if not entirely, imperceptible. Amidst the drudgery of forced labor, days, months, and even years might easily bleed into one another so as to present a static, unending, and immutable present in which the concept of personal or historical progress is unthinkable.

In a similar vein, the political scientist Benedict Anderson draws a direct link between the rise of modern self-determined national communities and changing perceptions of time in his seminal work, Imagined Communities. In the world of religiously justified dynastic realms, he argues, the human masses who were the subjects of these regimes perceived time (and by extension, their own lives) as unchanging, rather than dynamic, fluid, and capable of radical change or evolution. This is reflected in the static depiction of human activity and appearance over time—think of Medieval Christian imagery presenting ancient figures such as Mary or the Apostles in contemporaneous European dress and skin.

This was also evident in the apocalyptic “messianic” conception of time put forth by church and state alike, i.e. that the end of days was imminent and therefore any progress was both impossible and futile. “[T]he medieval Christian mind had no conception of history as an endless chain of cause and effect or of radical separations between past and present.” (Anderson, 23) For similar reasons, many Orthodox Jewish figures who rigidly adhered to the messiah-centric conception of Jewish time opposed Zionism in its early days (and a few still do), claiming that the activities of early Zionist settlers constituted a challenge that human progress, rather than divine preordainment, could bring about the redemption of Israel.

For Anderson, only in infinite-yet-ordered “calendrical time” could societies of former subjects conceive of new egalitarian civilizations built upon the idea of the nation. Similarly, in our case, the newly liberated Israelites needed their own calendrical time, and not the doom-filled present and future of the slave, to envision a path forward for themselves in time and space. Only with this new mental framework could former subjects conceive of a world based on progress and change brought about through individual and collective agency.

These relatively recent parallels add another layer to the importance of a new calendrical structure for a previously enslaved people, and another reason for the primary placement of this mitzvah among the 612 others. It not only gave nascent Israelite society a civilizational system that was uniquely their own, but also a framework through which each Israelite could conceive of themself as a free person moving forward in time and influencing their own future and that of their society. In receiving the system of the month (חוֹדֶש/hodesh), the former Israelite slaves now possessed a particularly Jewish societal organization and a new understanding of their capacity for innovation (חִדּוּשׁ/hiddush) and progress as free people.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).