Parshat Bo
Parshat Bo is the third sedra in the Book of Sh’mot, the 15th sedra of 54 in the Torah.
It is one of three sedras with a two-letter name. See how fast your family and guests come up with the other two when you ask the question at your Shabbat table. (The answer is No’ach and Tzav.)
The word Bo and its anagram Av each have a gematria of three, the lowest gematria of any words in the Torah (or all of Tanach, for that matter).
That means it is the smallest gematria of any sedra-name. What do you think is the sedra whose name has the largest numeric value? That’s another question to throw out at your Shabbat table, and should take the people there more time to answer than the first question. (B’reishit, with 913, is the correct answer, with To–l’dot in second place, with 842. Second lowest on the list is Vaychi, with 34. You might challenge your more number-friendly children, grandchildren, or friends.)
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Way back at the end of the summer, we read Ki Teitzei with 74 mitzvot and then Ki Tavo with six. From that point on – from Nitzavim, Vayeilech, Ha’azinu, and V’zot HaB’racha and the 12 sedras of B’reishit, and the past two weeks of Sh’mot and Va’eira – we’ve read 18 sedras that contain only five mitzvot of the 613 in the Torah! Think about it: 18 sedras of 54 is one-third. Five mitzvot is less than one percent (.81566%) of the Torah’s mitzvot, contained in 18 sedras in a row.
Well, that begins to change with Parshat Bo and its 20 mitzvot. (11.35 mitzvot per sedra is the average.) And Bo’s list of mitzvot is topped by the first command given to the not-yet-freed nation of Israel – not commanded to each individual member of Klal Yisrael, but to the nation as a whole, as represented by Moshe and Aharon at the time, and becoming the responsibility of the Sanhedrin later on.
The command is in Sh’mot 12:2 – “This month [Nissan] shall be to you the head of the months; to you it shall be the first of the months of the year.”
The mitzvah is to create a Jewish Calendar which is based on sanctifying each month by Sanhedrin’s declaration of kedusha of the first day of each month, and the periodic decision of Sanhedrin to intercalate the year (with an extra Adar) in order to adjust the years so that Pesach will always be in the spring season (and Sukkot in the fall).
These are the two components of our calendar. Ramban considers each component as a separate mitzvah, each with its own pasuk – notwithstanding Rambam’s insistence that both should be considered part of a single mitzvah of making the calendar.
It is important to also look at the pasuk that introduces the mitzvah of Kiddush HaChodesh – namely, Sh’mot 12:1: “Hashem spoke to Moshe and to Aharon in the land of Egypt, saying…”
We learn from the wording of this verse that the command is carried out by the heads of the nation – Moshe and Aharon, at that time, and the Sanhedrin thereafter. And we also note the unusual inclusion of the location where Hashem spoke to them: in the land of Mitzrayim. That highlights that the mitzvah serves as one of the foundations of our nationhood, and that it is not “just” one of the many mitzvot in the Torah.
And what happens when there is no Sanhedrin?
To answer that, we turn to Hillel (son of the third Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the son of the third Rabban Gamliel, who was the son of Rabi Yehuda HaNasi).
This Hillel, sometimes called Hillel HaSheini, was the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Hillel HaZakein, the Hillel who was paired with Shammai, the last of the Zugot. That refers to five successive pairs of Nasi and Av Beit Din. The Zugot are considered the earliest Tana’im, forming a bridge between the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (Men of the Great Assembly) and the full body of the Tana’im.
Just to clarify (or further confuse): The Tana’im are those rabbinic authorities who contributed to the Mishna. Their period spans about 400 years (approximately from 200 BCE to 200 CE). But I digress (something I do often) …
To Hillel and his Sanhedrin is attributed the revealing and/or fixing the rules for the calendar in use to this day (and until we have a Sanhedrin again).
The major components of our current calendar (I like to call it Plan B, recognizing that Plan A is what G-d commanded in the first place) are the calculation of the molad (which we discussed last week), the 19-year cycle for inserting an extra month into the year, and the rules for setting the (first) day of Rosh Hashanah.
Hillel’s Sanhedrin also sanctified every month that the calendar set – until such time as a new Sanhedrin will exist. His calendar has been in effect for about 1,700 years!
Returning to our sedra, through the mitzvah of setting up the calendar, we became junior partners with HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the process of kedushat z’man, the sanctification of time. He sanctified the Shabbat on His own (so to speak). When it came to the yearly cycle of holy days, G-d commanded his His Chosen People to further sanctify time.
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The other 19 mitzvot in Parshat Bo are all related to the Exodus from Egypt, in some way or other.
Before looking at the list, let’s get something clear. The story of our time in Egypt began back in Parshat Vayeishev with the sale of Yosef. It finds us plunged into slavery and oppression in Sh’mot and Va’eira and continues into this week’s sedra of Bo, and will continue further into B’shalach next week. But things get complicated here in Bo. That is because this story is mixed with mitzvot. And, sometimes, it is difficult to separate the mitzvot from the story.
In general, we can divide the Torah into three parts:
- Stories, from which we learn values but no specific mitzvot;
- Mitzvot that have no story context.
- And, like in Parshat Bo and others, mitzvot given a context of a story background.
Let’s list the mitzvot of Parshat Bo, after the mitzvah of setting up the calendar.
- Korban Pesach: to bring it, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nissan; to eat it on the night of the 15th; not to eat its meat other than roasted, not to leave over any for the next morning; not to let an apostate or a non-Jew or an uncircumcised male eat of the Korban Pesach; not to take it outside of the home in which it is eaten; and not to break a bone in Korban Pesach.
- Chameiz: to get rid of all chametz on Erev Pesach – selling, searching, and destroying by fire; not to have any chametz in our possession during Pesach; then not to eat anything with chametz in it on Pesach and not to eat chametz on Pesach (these are two aspects counted separately).
- Matzah: to eat matzah on Leil haSeder.
- Haggadah: to tell over the story of the Exodus and discuss its related mitzvot.
- Sanctity of the Firstborn (obviously related to the story of the Exodus and serving as a reminder of plague number ten, which was in the initial message by Moshe and Aharon to Par’o, right up front): to sanctify the firstborn – human and animals; to redeem a newborn donkey or the alternative.
There are other mitzvot related to Pesach elsewhere in the Torah. Not for our discussion now, but just be aware of it.
The confusion I mentioned earlier is based on how to know what details belong to that first night, known as Pesach Mitzrayim (that first time, back in the year 2448 from Creation), and which details are part of Pesach Dorot (every year thereafter – as long as we had a Mizbei’ach (Altar) on which to fulfill the mitzvah).
For example, blood on the doorposts applies only that first time. Not breaking a bone in the Korban Pesach applies always. Taking the lamb or kid on the 10th of Nissan – just the first time. Preparing the Korban by roasting only – always.
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Now let’s discuss the timing of Parshat Bo and its sister sedras. The subject is Pesach, Pesach, Pesach – even as Sh’vat is hardly on the front page of our refrigerator calendar.
This out-of-sync situation between the calendar and the cycle of Torah readings gives us a great opportunity to study the holiday of Pesach from a perspective that is not clouded by the hectic preparation for the holiday in question. This opportunity is partnered with the concept that 30 days before the Chag, one should begin reviewing for the Chag.
Which means that we have at least three times to learn, study, and see things from different perspectives that can enlighten and enrich us.
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Finally, a Sh’vat review.
Sh’vat has 30 days. Tevet had 29 days. The 59 dates in these two months are different from the other dates of the year, in that each date of these 59 can fall on five different days of the week, and each has two days of the week on which they cannot fall. This is in the fixed calendar that we use while we have no Sanhedrin. It will not necessarily be so when we will have a Sanhedrin.
Specifically, the 1st, 8th, 15th (Tu BiSh’vat), 22nd, and 29th of Sh’vat cannot fall on a Friday or a Sunday.
The 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th cannot fall on Monday or Shabbat.
The 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th cannot fall on a Sunday or a Tuesday.
The 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th cannot fall on a Monday or a Wednesday.
The 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th cannot fall on a Tuesday or a Thursday.
The 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th cannot fall on a Wednesday or a Friday.
The 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th cannot fall on a Thursday or on Shabbat.
If you have been counting – that’s it. All 30 dates in Sh’vat are covered.
Remember that there are 385 possible dates all told, including a two-Adar year.
295 of them (don’t worry, I’m not going to list all the possibilities) belong to the LO ADU pattern. And Kislev 1 through 29 have their own pattern.
That’s 59 + 295 + 29 = 383. Two more dates to go.
The 30th of Marcheshvan is on its own. And so is the 30th of Kislev.
That’s the whole year.
Why tell you this week? Because in this week’s sedra is the mitzvah of HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem… And, as I’ve mentioned in more than one previous column, knowledge of the workings of our calendar – both Plan A and Plan B – is part of the spirit of the mitzva. And that is no small thing.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov.