Emerging Into the Light

This week’s Torah portion is Bo, which means, Come. God commands Moses to go to Pharaoh to warn him of the last three plagues. Later in the portion, the Israelites are given instructions about the Pesach offering to God, in preparation for departure; the protection of marking the doors with the blood from the Pesach offering; and also staying inside, away from danger. We are given our own calendar and the commandments concerning Passover, to celebrate it with matzah and bitter herbs as an eternal decree; the first borns are consecrated to God. Then Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt.

After the ninth plague, Pharaoh is ready to let the people go for a three day period to bring offerings to God in the wilderness. But when he hears that the people will take even their herds and flocks, there is an exchange between Moses and Pharaoh that reads like a page from a super-hero comic book. Pharaoh says: “Go from me! Beware! Do not see my face anymore, for on the day you see my face, you will die.” Moses then says, very evenly and with dead seriousness, “You have spoken correctly. I shall never see your face again.” But just then, God gives Moses more instructions for Pharaoh. I imagine that perhaps Moses is halfway down the hall when he has to go back and warn Pharaoh of the last plague, the only one that the Torah calls a plague: the killing of the firstborns. After carrying out this terrible task, telling Pharaoh about all the death that will occur, the Torah says, Moses “left Pharaoh’s presence in burning anger.”

We can only imagine why Moses was so angry. Here are some possibilities: 1) Because he had to go back on his word? 2) Because he was so frustrated with Pharaoh? 3) Because there was to be so much death and it was all avoidable? 4) Because he sensed that he was a pawn in a game he did not understand? 5) Because he had agreed to be God’s voice to improve the lives of people, and here, the longer he speaks for God, the worse everything has become? 6) He is caught in what to him may have been a hopeless situation, in which he is impotent: unable to bring about any positive change. No wonder he was so angry. God then explains to Moses, maybe to calm him down, that “Pharaoh will not heed you, in order to increase my wonders in the land of Egypt.”

Immediately after that, God says to Moses and Aaron: This month shall be for you the beginning of the months, or in Rabbi Hirsch’s translation, “This renewal will be for you the beginning of renewals.” This year, Rosh Chodesh, the new month and the new moon occurred yesterday, on the evening of January 1st. In both the secular and the Jewish calendars, there was a new month, a renewal, and the renewal of the New Year. Rabbi Hirsch has a wonderful teaching about the new moon and for us, the New Year. He says: “In the land of the most stubborn paganism…did God call forth the future leader of God’s people (to) show them the sickle of the moon struggling to emerge from darkness into renewed light….Every time the moon reunites with the sun, and receives new light from it, God wants us to find our way back to Divinity and receive new irradiation from God’s light, no matter where we may be and through what periods of darkness we may have to pass.”

Moses did not know that just one week later, all the people would have left Egypt, the Sea of Reeds would have parted, and the people would be freed from bondage. He didn’t know that a few months after that, God would reveal the Divine Presence to over a million people, giving them the Ten Commandments: a body of Law that has stood for all time. We have no idea what renewals await us, just a few days, weeks, or months away. In the Hebrew calendar, the first month, Nisan, corresponds to the beginning of the spring: April, the time in Israel of the first plant growth: the time of maximum hope and beautiful renewal for us all. This is what we call God’s daily continuing and renewing the work of creation, the words of which we pray in the Shacharit service, the morning service each Shabbat, which itself is meant as a weekly renewal.

We know that in this new year, there will be challenges as well as blessings. May we be patient through any frustrations we may experience, knowing that the difficulties are the prelude to our emergence into the light. May we be hopeful and secure, knowing that what we encounter are part of the process of Divine renewal, allowing us to play a part in the unfolding of goodness and blessing by striving to move out of darkness into renewed light. May each of us have a year of marvelous growth, increased understanding, and great blessings: of good health, prosperity, and happiness. May our renewal, as part of the Divine Plan, bring more Divine light to all.