Parashat Bo

Services Friday night, 1/23, at 7:00 pm
Services Saturday morning, 1/24, at 9:00 am with the Torah Service around 9:50.
Parashat Bo – Rabbi Gisser will be giving the D’var Torah

Unveiling for Elinor Pusin z”l will be Sunday, January 25, at 2:00 PM in Pflugerville at Cook-Walden Cemetery
14501 North IH-35
Pflugerville, TX 78660

Ma’ariv services every Wednesday at 7:00 pm with Rabbi Gisser’s Class on Death and Afterlife following services on 1/28, 2/4, and 2/11

Movies in the Shul – The Pawnbroker – Saturday, January 31 at 6:30 PM
Movie will be shown followed by a discussion led by Rabbi Gisser

Rabbi Tarlow’s Weekly Parashah from the
Center for Latino – Jewish Relations.
Due to a busy travel schedule this week we study two sections that normally are not studied together. We look at Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16) and also next week’s section, Parashat B’shalach. (Exodus 13:17-17:16). Although these two long weekly sections seem disconnected, if we read them carefully we can see that in reality the two sections are, in many ways interconnected.
Parashat Bo speaks of the last three plagues to consume Egypt, culminating in the death of Egypt’s first-born sons. It is a time of liberation for Israel and a time in which the average Egyptian saw the collapse of his/her society. Perhaps no one was ready for the changes that would take place. For Israel, this would be a time of freedom; for Egypt the realization that its leaders had taken the nation on a catastrophic path of destruction.
Perhaps we can understand this “divergence of history” by the two forms of bread found in these two Bible sections: matzah and manna. Why did the Israelites have to bake bread at the last minute? Did they not know that the time of their liberation was soon to come? Perhaps the answer lies in the way slaves versus free people understand the concept of “time”. Slaves live in an eternal present; free human beings develop collective pasts and futures. Thus, the leitmotif found in the first of these two sections may well be a “constant present of fear” without hope for a better future.
The second section studied, Parashat B’Shlach, on the other hand, is about the act of taking risks as part of life. Reading this parashah, there is the clear sense that our future is never separated from our past, rather the future is our collective past and projected into time. This parashah is the first section in the Bible where Israel is now a free nation and faces the need to become responsible for its collective future. Israel can no longer cling to the “flesh pots” of Egypt, it must now enter the “Midbar” meaning the “wilderness of time and space”. It is the emptiness of space and time that now becomes Israel’s responsibility to fill.
Both Bible sections deal with bread, known in the Bible as the “substance of life”. In parashat Bo, the bread is “matzah.” baked in haste and without leaven. It is called the bread of affliction, the bread of slavery. In the second section, Parashat “B’Shlach”, the bread is called “manna.” This is the bread of freedom, the miracle bread, the bread of many different tastes. Manna is a gift of G’d, and unlike matzah that tastes the same to each person; the manna of freedom offers uniqueness of taste to all who eat it.
Perhaps these two types of breads symbolize the difference between slavery and freedom, between being an infant and becoming an adult. The slave, is the eternal child afraid to plan for the future, he/she lives shackled by the past and in an ever-present state of fear. The free person, the adult, sees the present as gift and just as artist does, the free person sees the emptiness of time as a way to sculpt an ever-evolving future.
These two Biblical sections pose a challenge to each of us: are we slaves in an “Egypt of our own making,” shackled by our lack of reality and fearful of building a future as partners with G’d? Are we G’d’s partners building bridges upon which we cross the Red Sea, and begin our own journey across the desert of fear toward the redemption of the Promised Land? What are you?

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week we observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when we celebrate the life and legacy of the great leader of the Civil Rights Movement. King of course drew his inspiration from the story in our parshah this week, Parshat Bo. The narrative of Israel’s liberation from Egyptian bondage was of course an example for King and the other heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in their struggle to liberate African-Americans from the bondage of segregation. We should be proud that our story inspires others to seek their freedom – and we should be proud that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and many other Jews marched with King and joined the Freedom Riders. Our Torah teaches that God wants human freedom – let us continue the legacy of Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Teacher, and of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and always work for the freedom of all. Shabbat Shalom. Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe