TORAH PORTION: BO

Parshat Bo

January 28, 2023 | 6 Shvat 5783

Torah: Exodus 10:1-13:16 Triennial: Exodus 10:1-11:13

Haftarah: Jeremiah 46:13-28

In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the parashah by Bex Stern-Rosenblatt called "The Eye of the Earth", Vered Hollander-Goldfarb offers observations in her d'var haftarah titled "When Egypt Falls, Do We Rejoice?", and Ilana Kurshan reflects on Mishnah in a piece called "Pre-Pesach Pepperoni Pizza".

The Eye of the Earth

Bex Stern-Rosenblatt

Parashah

Was the earth created for us? Were we created for the earth? Is there a necessary order of primacy for us and the earth? Genesis 1 seems to suggest that humans are meant to rule over all the earth. We read, “fill the earth and conquer it.” Genesis 2 seems to suggest that humans are meant to be the caretakers of the earth. We read, “God took the human and set him down in the garden of Eden to till it and watch it.” 

These questions play out in the plague narrative. As has often been discussed, the plagues can be read as an undoing of creation. There is death where there once was the breath of life and darkness in place of light. The fiery hail reverses the separation of water from water. The Nile becoming blood makes this separation even more murky. Plant life is destroyed instead of created. Animals - the frogs, lice, and insects - have dominion over humans. 

Creation leads to destruction which leads to a new creation. We see this repeatedly in the opening of Genesis with Seth in place of Cain, the flood and the new world, and the babbling of languages. Here it plays out again - the old Egypt is destroyed in order to create the new nation of Israel. Destruction means destruction of people, animals, plants, and the earth itself. The creation of Israel, however, at first means only the creation of the people, the forming of the nation. The distinctive ways of existence for animals and plants of Israel are not mentioned until we get to the laws of sacrifice. Most strikingly, the earth, the land of Israel, will not be created, be brought from word and idea to physical reality until after the Torah finishes. 

In this reading, humans seem to be created for the earth. We are to be the caretakers of the Land of Israel. We have strict instructions to follow, given to us as the Torah, so that we know how to do a good job. When we do a bad job, the land will vomit us out. However, there are still remnants of Genesis 1, still remnants of the earth being created for us. In the description Moses gives to the Reubenites and the Gadites about their responsibilities to help the Israelites out before settling across the Jordan, Moses talks of the land being “conquered,” using the same word as we saw in Genesis 1. By taking possession of the land, the Israelites are conquering it, subduing it. The land is there for us to take, to use. It was created for us. 

A reading of the eighth plague helps to unify these perspectives. Moses tells Pharaoh of the locusts to come, explaining that they will cover the “eye of the earth.” This is a very weird term. Rashi explains that it means the ability to see the earth. The earth will be obscured from view because the locusts will have covered it. Thus, the eye of the earth is something external to earth, above the earth, that normally can view it but cannot when the earth is covered by locusts. This idea brings up the existential question about a tree falling in the forest. If the earth cannot be seen, is it still there? Ibn Ezra offers an alternative reading, explaining that the locusts actually covered the eyes of the inhabitants, the people. The earth’s eye is then the eyes of all people. Humans give reality to the earth by viewing it. Targum Onkelos offers a third reading, explaining that the eye of the earth is the sun. The locusts swarmed so thickly that there was no longer any light. This reading returns us to Genesis 1, the creation of the heavens and the earth. Here, the eye of the earth itself is in the heavens. 

In each reading, the earth is obscured as a punishment for the Egyptians. The earth is used in order to teach people, suggesting that that is its purpose. However, the eye of the earth is also inextricable from the people, from the heavens, and from God. In the neverending flow from creation to destruction to creation again, the boundaries might not be as firmly established as we had thought. The chaos of before creation is evident even in creation. It is impossible to declare that humans have primacy over the earth or vice versa. After all, from the dust we were taken and to the dust we will return.

HAFTARA

When Egypt Falls, Do We Rejoice?

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Haftarah

Modern Jews can afford to love to hate ancient Egypt.  It was clearly an evil place, enslaving our ancestors and killing our babies.  It is less clear that our biblical ancestors shared our clear and unambiguous view of the empire to the south.

The navi (prophet) Jeremiah speaks harshly against Egypt in this week’s haftarah, predicting a disastrous defeat by the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. While Nebuchadnezzar tried to conquer Egypt, it is not known whether he ever succeeded in doing so (based on the knowledge that exists today from the Babylonian Chronicles.) He did succeed in defeating the Egyptians in 605 BCE at Carcamish on the Euphrates River in a battle that settled Babylon as the controlling empire of the region.

The time was that of King Jehoiakim of Judah. Jehoiakim had been appointed by the Egyptians who had removed his pro-Babylonian brother Jehoahaz from the throne in 609 BCE.. The global turmoil did not leave Judah indifferent.  In the beginning of the chapter (in the verses that were not included in the haftarah) Jeremiah predicts the failure of Pharaoh at Carcamish.  Some Judeans cheered the failure, others still pegged their hopes on Egypt.

At this time Jeremiah speaks out against Egypt, predicting doom and exile. It is not clear that the Egyptians ever heard his prophecy. It might not have been intended for their ears, but rather for the ears of those in Judah who believed that in the end the still-fledging Babylonian empire would collapse and Egypt would come back to rule. For them, Egypt was not about the memories of the enslavement and birth pangs of the nation of Israel. For them Egypt was an empire whose control and culture were felt through the region.  It was a natural ally against the foreign Mesopotamian invader. 

In Jeremiah’s description “Egypt is a fairest-fair heifer; But the gadfly out of the north is come, it is come.” (Jer. 46:20). The image brings to mind the well-fed cows of Pharaoh’s dreams which Joseph understood to mean seven years of plenty before the gadfly of seven years of famine.  Egypt was a land that evoked images of plenty, a land its neighbors dreamt about at times of deprivation. It is to this land that Jeremiah says, “Prepare for yourself captivity furnishings, dweller of the towns of Egypt; For Noph shall become a desolation, And shall be laid waste, without inhabitant” (46:19.)

Some who heard Jeremiah probably cheered, others saw it as a calamity for all the surrounding nations. The choice of this chapter as the haftarah should leave us wondering about the reaction of the Israelites in Egypt to all that the Egyptians suffered.  While they may have had many hard feelings against Egypt, it was also the culture they knew and place they had grown up in, making leaving it difficult. Ambivalence, rather than hatred, might be the dominating emotion among the Israelites towards Egypt both on the eve of the Exodus and on the eve of the destruction of Jerusalem.

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Pre-Pesach Pepperoni Pizza

Ilana Kurshan

Adventures in Mishnah with My Kids

Pesach is still a long way off, but my twins and I have begun working our way through tractate Pesachim. Now into the second chapter, we are learning about the difference between the status of hametz that belongs to a Jew and the status of hametz that belongs to a non-Jew once the holiday of Pesach is over. We already know that it is forbidden to own hametz on Pesach, as explained in the biblical injunction that “Nothing leavened may be found among you” (Exodus 13:7). As a result, it is common today for Jews to symbolically “sell” any remaining hametz in their homes to non-Jews just prior to the Passover holiday, and then to symbolically buy it back once the holiday is over. If the hametz was in the possession of a non-Jew over the course of the holiday, then a Jew may eat it once the holiday is over.

We are learning this mishnah over a dinner of homemade pizza, which is most certainly hametz. The mishnah considers the case of a non-Jew who lends money to a Jew shortly before Pesach. “If I lend something to you,” I explain to the twins, “I want to be sure that you’re going to pay me back. And so I can take something of yours and tell you that I will return it only once you pay me back. That’s called a mashkon – collateral.” 

I reach over to Liav’s table setting and snatch her plate of pizza. “So let’s say you borrow money from me, and I don’t completely trust you to pay me back. So I take your pizza, and I tell you I’m going to keep it until you pay me back. But then Pesach comes, and your pizza is in my house the whole holiday. At the end of the holiday, when you pay me back and I give you back your pizza, are you allowed to eat it?”

“No,” Liav answers correctly. “Because it was in your house on Pesach, and you’re Jewish.”

“Exactly,” I tell her. “So long as the hametz is in a Jew’s property on Pesach, it is forbidden to benefit from it after Pesach.” 

For the next example, I turn to Tagel. “Tagel, pretend you’re not Jewish.” 

Tagel looks down at her pizza. “I’m not Jewish? Can I have some pepperoni?”

I recently explained to the twins about pepperoni when it came up in a novel I was reading to them. They know it’s something non-kosher that many non-Jews like to put on their pizza. I guess Tagel was trying to impress me with her newfound knowledge.

“OK, here’s some pepperoni,” I say, passing her the salt shaker. She pretends to salt her pizza generously, though the lid is still on.  

“OK, now let’s say Liav lends you money, and she takes your pizza until you pay her back. After Pesach is over, Liav pays you back, and you give her back her pizza. Is she allowed to eat it?”

“No, because I put pepperoni on it.”

“Oh… right,” I say. “OK, we have to forget the pepperoni. Let’s say you didn’t put any pepperoni on it. You thought you were adding pepperoni, but it was just salt.”

“OK, so yeah, I guess she could eat it, because it wasn’t in her house on Pesach. It was in my house, and I’m not Jewish.”

“Right,” I tell her. “You got it.” 

“But Ima, what actually is pepperoni?” To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. I have to consult Wikipedia before I can answer her. “It’s a kind of spicy pig meat,” I tell her. 

“Ew, that sounds disgusting!” Tagel exclaims, and Liav wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Pig pizza? Yuck!”

“Well, you think it’s disgusting, but do you think a dog would like it?”

We’ve already learned that in order to qualify as hametz, the food item has to be something that a dog would want to eat. If the food is so spoiled or rotten that no dog would ever want to go near it, then it doesn’t count as Hametz. The girls decide that pepperoni pizza would probably be rather appetizing for a dog, and hence it’s still hametz. I turn to the last part of the mishnah.

“What happens if a huge avalanche of rocks landed on your pizza, and you knew it was under there somewhere, but you couldn’t find it. Would you have to dig it out when you search your house for hametz?”

“That would be really smushed, flat pizza,” Liav says. 

“But I think a dog would eat smushed, flat pizza anyway,” says Tagel.

I explain to the girls that according to the Mishnah, as long as a dog would not be able to sniff out the pizza from under the avalanche, then there’s no need to dig it out and burn it. “So we can hide a pizza under a giant pile of rocks and leave it in our house all through Pesach?”

“I guess so,” I tell them. “But if you’re going to have flat pizza anyway, why not just have matzah pizza?” 

The girls look down at the pizza on their plates. Maybe next time we’ll make pizza from the leftover matzah we still have in our pantry. Hold the pepperoni, please.