Parshas Bo
Why Do Children Rebel?
After a series of plagues that crush the country and subdue its king, Pharaoh finally surrenders.
After mercilessly torturing, abusing and murdering the Hebrews for decades, they are set free. On the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, the Jewish people, at last, experience a mass exodus from a genocidal regime and a tyrannical monarchy.
They have embarked on the path to freedom.
More than three millennia have passed since that day. That is quite a long time. Yet the children and grandchildren of the slaves who departed Egypt still commemorate this event annually. To this day, Passover remains the most widely observed and celebrated Jewish holiday. Many Jews who deem themselves as remote as can be from tradition and religion are still compelled to participate in some sort of Passover seder.
The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is easy to celebrate the miracle of freedom when you are free. Yet for most of their history the Jewish nation found itself exiled, oppressed, dominated—physically, emotionally and religiously—by tyrants and dictators of all stripes. If Passover represents the journey from slavery to freedom, what became of it after the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple and Israel’s subsequent exile? Or after the Greek and then Roman conquest of the Jewish land and the exile of its inhabitants? What happened to the celebration of liberty following the destruction of the Second Temple, the failure of the Bar Kochba rebellion, the horrific Hadrianic persecutions and the long, tragic series of events that led to the greatest exile in Jewish history? Could Jews celebrate emancipation under oppressive circumstances? Could Jews still sit down annually and sincerely declare, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and G-d has liberated us?”
To finish reading this very interesting portrayal, visit Rabbi YY Jacobson
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