Bo 5774
Darkness and Light
As parashat Bo
opens, God and Moses bring the final three plagues upon the Egyptians. While
the Torah is generally ambiguous about the Israelite experience during the time
of plagues, during the next-to-last plague, Darkness, the Torah tells us very
clearly that the Egyptians did not see
one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the
people of Israel had light in their dwellings (Exodus 10:23).
While the verse would seem to suggest that Israelite homes
were lit while Egyptian homes remained dark, Rashbam (Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, a
grandson of Rashi; France, 1085-1158) offers a very different reading of this
verse: “The people of Israel had light in
their dwellings, even if [the Israelite] was sitting in an Egyptian house.”
In other words, according to Rashbam, wherever an Israelite went she could see;
and no matter where the Egyptians were located, they experienced only darkness.
Here we find an important lesson from God’s contact during
the plagues: despite God’s great anger and desire to punish the Egyptians for
their cruelty, God was still extremely careful to be sure that God’s anger –
and its tangible consequences – only affected the Egyptians. The plague of
darkness – and, presumably, the other plagues as well – did not reach the
Israelites in their own homes; but more than that, even if an Israelite went
into an Egyptian neighborhood or home, the darkness did not affect him. Only
the Egyptians, whose evil deeds brought the plagues upon them, suffered the
consequences of God’s wrath.
While the parshah
focuses on God’s actions, I know that sometimes I react to negative or
uncomfortable situations by taking out my frustration on others who are really
not part of the problem. The challenge presented to us by the plague of
Darkness – difficult to apply, but vitally important – is to cultivate an
awareness of our feelings and our reactions, and to discern when we are
expressing those feelings appropriately and when, perhaps, we might be bringing
negative reactions from one sphere of life – work, family, friendships – and
letting it out in a different area, impacting people who bear no responsibility
for our misfortune. Of course, such behavior is “only human” – but as humans
who were created in the Divine Image, we must strive to be more than “only
human,” to be Godly; and one piece of that puzzle is to stay aware of how our
reactions affect others.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman
