Parsha Bo

​This week, we read Parsha BO, and the content of this Parsha is probably some of the most familiar that we read in the Torah. Here we see the continuation of the plagues, from eight through ten, when Pharaoh finally relents and releases the Israelites.  Not just the “menfolk,” as he once promised, but everyone. Not just all the people, but the people and all their animals. And, finally, not just the people and the animals but also an incredible supply of gold and silver.
I’d focus a little on those well-known plagues.  We recite the list at the Pesach seder, and we probably know them by heart. This is all so familiar, isn’t it?  Maybe even too familiar . . . I’m sure you know that there are even kids’ toys that are supposed to represent each of the ten plagues.  Like anything very familiar, there may be ways that we are missing some questions that don’t occur to us because we take this narrative for granted.
          So let me see if I can raise some questions about this list that might not be so obvious to everyone.
First question:  why are the plagues in the order that they’re in?  In other words, why are frogs TWO and locusts eight?  Why is “Bloody water” the first plague?  Well, the sages tell us that these plagues go from least bad to the worst.  That makes sense, if we think about the last plague, the deaths of the first-born sons.  It’s hard to know what makes locusts almost the worst, except that we know from Eytz Hayyim that a swarm of locusts can contain as many as 50 MILLION insects and that they can consume 100,000 TONS of vegetation.  That had to be far more devastating than some bloody water and some frogs, however tough that must have been.  Rashi tells us that it was one particularly destructive species of locusts that was never seen before in Egypt and will never be seen again. If we imagine an agrarian economy like Egypt’s, that plague could have spelled famine for years to come. 
Second question:  what changes with the eighth plague?  Well, we read that, for the first time, Pharaoh’s courtiers begin to challenge him.  As they say, “How long shall this be a snare to us?  . . . Are you not aware that Egypt is lost?”  Those words pose a real challenge to Pharaoh’s power, and it must have taken courage for these minions to argue against Pharaoh’s might.  We can only imagine how frustrated and terrified they must have been, and how Pharaoh’s stubbornness had to seem completely irrational and likely to doom the country.  Sidebar here: this moment reminds me of Hitler’s completely irrational attempts to destroy all the Jews, even when it was clear that Germany could not win the war. In fact, his hatred of the Jews was so consuming that he took scarce resources that could have gone to the military and used them to try to wipe out the remnants of our people.
Third question:  how is the last plague—the deaths of the firstborns—different from all the other plagues?  I know that the answer might seem obvious: people die in the last plague. But I’m guessing that people died from hail or from diseases carried by vermin or from the swarming locusts or even from falling in the dark.  So that answer doesn’t seem to work. Thoughts? Well, according to some scholars, the last plague was significantly different because it was the ONLY PLAGUE THAT COULD NOT HAVE OCCURRED THROUGH SOME NATURAL MEANS. In other words, perhaps an eclipse caused the darkness. Perhaps the frogs appeared because the Nile overflowed its banks.  But there’s NO explanation for the inexplicable deaths, not only of a large group of people, but a very purposeful group, namely the first-born.  It’s possible that Pharaoh, with all of his sorcerers and magicians on staff, could have believed that any of them could have cast a spell to make the waters bloody; but there was no way any of them could possibly have caused such a divine act of retribution.
Final question:  Why is the darkness the next-to-last plague?  Remember that I mentioned that the plagues get worse as we go from one to ten.  Wouldn’t you think that, after vermin and bloody water and locusts and boils (sh’chin), that a little darkness couldn’t have been so awful?  Couldn’t they have just lit candles?  Couldn’t the Egyptians simply sit tight until the plague ran its course? And this plague, unlike the others, doesn’t seem to cause any tangible harm. 
I think we could think about this in a couple of ways. The first is very practice—without light, everything around us is reduced to an obstacle. Anything, even vast riches, can trip up a person who walks in darkness.  In other words, the very objects that might have helped us to improve our lives become dangerous threats to us. 
        And another reason:  light motivates us to action.  Darkness breeds depression and passivity. Think about how happy we all are to add a minute or two of light to each of these days!  When we are “in the light,” can raise about ourselves and move beyond our own immediate needs. The Egyptians were in a state of total spiritual darkness.  They couldn’t even see their “brother,” meaning that they couldn’t care about anyone but themselves. And even candles couldn’t save them.  The   Israelites didn't suffer from the plague, because their light was provided for by Torah and mitzvot—As Proverbs tells us, "A mitzvah is a candle and Torah is light".  When we have the illumination of the Torah and its mitzvoth, a whole new world comes to light. Obstacles are no longer obstacles; instead, they become God’s creations meant to assist us on our spiritual journey. 
The ninth plague teaches us that it is in our hands to brighten our lives; we have all the tools we need to do so. And when we manage to live in light despite the darkness that surrounds us, we are able to see our brothers and sisters, to rise above our own immediate needs and instincts to become a community, a true people.