Mark Call

The story of the plagues of Egypt and the Exodus continues with Parsha Bo (Exodus/Shemot 10:1 – 13:16).

Much of the story is familiar, but this week the final ‘set of three’ plagues concludes, setting up the finale, with the ‘Death of the Firstborn,’ and more importantly, the Passover event that we are to remember, and teach our children, forever.

The Erev Shabbat overview of the whole parsha tells us WHY, more than once, this is so important:

Mark has to ask a question to set up the Sabbath day midrash: With the whole world poised on the brink of nuclear conflagration – arguably at a more dangerous point than any of us have EVER seen in any of our lives – why are we talking about an event, and a feast to commemorate it, that happened so many thousands of years ago?

And the answer, for reasons that will be clear, but may sound a bit familiar anyway, is that understanding His “signs,” and the reasons for them – not just then, but ESPECIALLY now, have never been more vital.

The judgments on the fake gods of modern Egypt are just as real, but His point hasn’t changed, and neither has He.

He “put a difference” between those who were His that first time. But those who became the ‘mixed multitude’ had to make a choice to do so.

“Bo: Signs Memorials and Circumcision “