From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 1:14 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Bo, 5768
Teach the Children Well
By Rabbi Joshua (celebratorily known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With
gratitude to the Almighty for sustaining me, and a prayer that He continue to
do so, this week's message marks the completion of ten years of Netvort. Thanks
to my readers for their comments, criticisms and suggestions, and a special tip
of the Hoffer hat to my editor/distributor (gabbai) for his continued
assistance.
This week's
parsha begins with God telling Moshe, "Come to Pharaoh, for I have made his
heart hard and the heart of his servants stubborn so that I shall place these
signs of Mine in his midst : and so that you may relate in the ears of your son
and your son's son, that I have amused Myself with Egypt and My signs that I
placed among them - that you may know that I am God" (Shemos 10:1-2).
Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neriah, in his Ner LaMaor, raises an interesting
question. Who, he asks, were the sons to whom the Israelites were to relate
what happened in Egypt? All of the children alive at the time saw the events
themselves, so what was there for the parents to relate? Rav Neriah answers
that there were two children who did not witness these events. They were
Moshe's two children, Eliezer and Gershom, whom Moshe had sent, with their
mother, back to Midian after first returning to Egypt. But why would God issue
a command to the entire nation to relate the events to their children, when
this only had relevance to Moshe and his children? Rav Neriah mentions the
explanation of an unnamed Chassidic Rebbe, who said that Moshe's great belief
in God would inform his account of the events, and he would then stand as an
example of how future generations would relate these events to their children.
That is why God brought it about that his children would not be in Egypt to
witness the miracles that occurred there, so that Moshe would implant in the
nation the seeds of belief in God's providence by relating them to his own
children. While the idea expressed in this explanation is, indeed, inspiring, I
find the interpretation of the verse to be highly unlikely. The simple reading
of the verse is that, in every family, the parents should relate the miraculous
events of the redemption to their children. Still, the question remains, why
would they need to relate these events if their children themselves witnessed
them? I believe that a Talmudic passage can help us answer this
question.
The Talmud in
Sukkah, 56b, tells us that during the time of the Chashmonaim, Miriam bas
Bilga, the daughter of a kohein, became an apostate and married an officer of
the Greek kings. When the Greeks invaded and entered the Temple, she entered
with them, and kicked the altar, saying "lukas, lukas" (wolf,
wolf) how long will you consume Jewish wealth?" When the rabbis at the
time heard of this, they fined the entire family, curtailing its scope of
activity in the Temple. Why, asks the gemara, did the entire family have to
suffer for the actions of only one person? The gemara answers that what a child
says outside the house reflects what she heard in the house. What is noteworthy
here is that Miriam, having grown up in a family that served in the Temple,
must have known of the constant miracles that occurred there. Still, she ended
up going to the altar in the Temple and striking it with her shoe, and
condemning it for causing hardships for the Jewish people! How could she so
blatantly deny the holiness of the altar, on which Jews daily brought
sacrifices to God? The answer of the gemara, which tells us that what a child
says outside reflects her parents talk, teaches us that no matter how awesome
and holy an experience a child sees, the negative attitude of the family to
this experience can negate any positive effect it may have had, to the extent
that the child could enter the holiest place on earth, the Temple in Jerusalem,
and hit the altar with a shoe and blame it for Jewry's troubles. In a similar
way we find the Jews in the wilderness complaining of the manna received there,
even though its miraculous nature was manifest to all. They took the very
miracle provided to them daily by God and turned it into a hardship. Similarly,
it would have ben possible for parents in Egypt who had, along with their
children witnessed the miracles of the redemption to put a negative spin on
them, as well. Therefore, God told Moshe to command the Jews to relate these
miracles in a way that deepened their faith, rather than weakened it.
This mitzvoh of
relating the events of the redemption was to be carried out on the night of the
fifteenth of Nissan, along with the consumption of the Pesach sacrifice that
had been brought on the fourteenth. Rav Amnon Bazak, in his Nekudas Pesicha,
points out that the korban Pesach had all the elements of other sacrifices
described in the Torah, except that one detail, usually found in the other
sacrifices described in the Torah, seemed to be missing. A sacrifice
needs to be brought on an altar, and we do not seem to find any altar mentioned
in regard to the korban Pesach. Rav Bazak concludes that we must, therefore,
view the house as the altar on which the korban Pesach was brought. Each
household was to serve as an altar on that night, impressing all members of the
group with the need to recognize God's providence in the world, and to be
grateful to Him for the miracles He performed for them. On a symbolic level,
the altar represents the spirit of sacrifice that is necessary in a Jewish
home. Bringing the Pesach sacrifice in Egypt consisted of slaughtering and
eating an animal that was held sacred by the Egyptians, and required a
certain level of mesirus nefesh, or self-sacrifice, on the part of all who
partook of it. It was that spirit of self-sacrifice and commitment to God that
was to be communicated to the children on the night of redemption, so that the
message of the miracles would be properly assimilated by them. The holiness
that imbues the Pesach seder even today, as parents teach their children of the
miracles that occurred in Egypt, and how to relate to them, if done properly,
help maintain the holy character of the Jewish nation thousands of years after
the events occurred, and help prevent a tragedy such as that of Miriam
bas Bilga from repeating itself.
Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman)
with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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