Parashat Bo
Rabbi Dr. Y. Luchins
He Who Creates Both Light and Darkness
Toward the beginning of this week’s Torah-reading (“Bo,” Sh’mot 10:1-13:16), a puzzling dialogue takes place (10:8-11). Mitzrayim had already suffered through a series of increasingly devastating plagues. Moshe Rabbainu had just finished announcing in the presence of the Egyptian royal court that yet another plague, Arbeh—voracious locusts, was about to be unleashed. Par’oh is convinced by courtiers that allowing B’nai Yisrael to go attend to their long-requested service of HaShem (5:3; 8:23) would be much preferable to further destruction. Moshe and Aharon are, therefore, called back to the court, and Par’oh publicly accedes to the request. After emphatically stating that B’nai Yisrael are to go serve HaShem, the Egyptian king asks—in what seems to be a pragmatic follow-up as to procedural detail—just who among the Hebrews would actually be journeying out into the desert to participate in the service. When Moshe answers Par’oh’s question with the list of categories of those who would be going, Par’oh responds angrily, rescinding his offer (locusts notwithstanding!) and abruptly terminating the audience. As we shall see, it was not just the bold tone of Moshe’s answer nor even the length and completeness of the list presented that elicited the enraged response. A much more fundamental chord had been struck—an idea that, according to the thinking of Par’oh and his people then (and of most people still now), was fundamentally discordant and deeply disturbing.
It is instructive to focus in on that dialogue, starting with Par’oh’s question (10:8) “Me va-me haho-l’chim?—‘who and who’ [‘precisely who’] are those going?” MALBIM (R’ Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel Weiser, 1809-1879) provides the following historical/philosophical subtext: Par’oh and all the early idolaters subscribed to the concept of dualism, that there exist both a good, benevolent force and an evil, malevolent force. They would worship and serve the force of benevolence so that it would render good unto them; and the force of malevolence, to placate it so that it would not do them evil. The forms of worship-service of these two forces were distinctly different: They did not slaughter sacrifices to the benevolent force because it had no desire for bloodshed or for the killing of sheep and cattle; rather, they would come before its presence with their women and children—even with their babies—to rejoice before it with musical instruments and dance; for, it was desirous of goodness and happiness. The malevolent force, however, they served with slaughtering and sacrifices to appease its wrath with blood; babies and the young were not brought before it, lest it lash out and harm them in its evil, or wish that they be slaughtered upon its altar; for, it was desirous of bloodshed. Thus, Par’oh asked not “who and who are those going?” but, rather, “who or who are those going?” For, if the worship-service that you, Moshe, have repeatedly asked for is to the benevolent force, the young children and women should also go but you will not be bringing cattle and sheep. On the other hand, if your worship-service is to the malevolent force, the cattle and sheep should be brought but not the women and children. To this question, Moshe Rabbainu responds, “With our youth and our elders we shall go; with our sons and our daughters, with our sheep and our cattle, we shall go.” While that may be a contradiction in your eyes, it is not so to us; “for, it is our holiday in service to HaShem”—our Lord is a singular, unitary force; from Him derive both the good and the potential for evil.
As presented in Tractate B’rachot (11b), the first of the two blessings preceding the twice-daily recitation of Sh’m’a is structured so as to contain mention also of night during the day and mention also of day during the night. Commenting on the reason for this, Rabbainu Yona (circa 1180-1260) cites a 2nd-3rd Century CE conversation between a heretic and Rabbe Y’huda HaNassei [for interesting technical details, see Gilyon HaShas Chulin 87a] in which the heretic claimed “[The force] that created light, did not create darkness; that created darkness, did not create light.” Rabbe Y’huda HaNassei’s response underscores the idea proclaimed by Hashem through Isaiah (Y’shayahu 45:7), cited in Talmud, that HaShem fashions light and creates darkness, makes peace and creates the possibility of evil, that HaShem does all. With the breakdown early in civilization’s history of full comprehension of that pure monotheistic principle, there devolved the idea—simpler to grasp for the limited human mind that is informed by the even more limited individual human experience; horribly detrimental to human development, and directly threatening to true human progress and enduring peace—of dualism, that the potentials for and actualizations of good and evil, peace and war, light and darkness, sweet experiences and bitter experiences, do not derive from the same unitary and single Source, HaShem, the Master of all being. To counteract the pernicious precepts of dualism, twice a day before affirming in the Sh’m’a the basic monotheistic principles of our faith, we declare in an introductory blessing that, indeed, the Creator of light—i.e., of all that we see as positive—is the selfsame Creator of darkness—i.e., of all that we see as negative (or, more correctly, of all the positive that we do not see). That same Creator fashioned humankind in that very image, combining within the human the potential for great good and horrible evil—and that Creator and Lawgiver charged human beings with the responsibility for which of those two potentials is actualized. How much more convenient, how much more comfortable to ease the conscience, to pretend that the potential for evil and even the potential for good are forces outside of us, fighting over us, vying for mastery of us! It would, then, not be our doing and certainly not our fault if evil triumphs over good; we would be mere victims caught in the crossfire of those raging forces, just pawns in the game of life that we do not control. (TaNaCh does clearly present a concept of blocking [see the infinitive verb-form “l’satan” in B’midbar 22:32], of an obstacle that we work against so as to grow stronger and better, as being one of the many modalities that HaShem utilizes “to test the mettle” and spur forward the self-improvement of humans. This idea is most dramatically presented in Job—see Iyov 1:6—where opposition or obstacle is presented as a noun, satan; but, here too, as just one among the many “b’nai Elokim,” of HaShem’s agents/aspects for administering reality. In early Christian doctrine, perhaps reflective of a holdover from pagan beliefs, that pristine TaNaCh concept became externalized and personified as a satanic anti-good/ anti-god figure, “Satan.” For much of Christian history, that satanic evildoer upon whom could be blamed all manner of human tribulation seems to have been conveniently further externalized and personified as the Jew. Perhaps, HaShem, in His infinite humor and infinite mastery of history’s flow, expecting B’nai Yisrael to serve as better examplars of the “dual” human capable of channeling both our good and our evil potentials into constructive activities—so as to demonstrate that those potentials are, in fact, internal and not external, and neither out of our control nor out of control—has been none too gently reminding us Jews, in a most dryly droll fashion, of our mission and potential.)
Moshe’s answer to Par’oh’s question, Rabbe Y’huda HaNassei’s response to the heretic, Isaiah's proclamation of HaShem’s “character” and “image” in which all human beings are crafted, provokes an enraged response because it wrenchingly reopens the once-oh-so-painful but long since conveniently buried-by-dualism question of each human's—Par’oh’s, the heretic’s, our—ultimate personal responsibility for all our actions. Confronted with that terrifying thought, Par’oh—like so many a tyrant before and since in the world at large and in the exceedingly more complex world within our hearts and minds—recoils, lashes out, breaks promises and resolutions, loudly declares his faith in an external evil (10:10)...anything but admitting and then honestly, humbly trying to live according to the demanding truth.
