 My 12-year old son asked me a great question. We find so many examples of how perfectly the designated weekly parsha fits into the events on the calendar. The best example of this is Chanukah. Numerous insights relating to Chanukah
can be found in Parshat Mikketz – the parsha generally read around Chanukah time.
Why, then, are the parshiyot relating to Yetziat Mitzrayim read now, in the middle of winter, and not around Pesach – the holiday that commemorates Yetziat Mitzrayim?
It would be too easy to argue that Parshat Bo and Parshat Beshalach could not be read specifically around Pesach because Sukkot, too, is about Yetziat Mitzrayim. Sukkot may be about Yetziat Mitzrayim, but it is not nearly as identified with the Exodus as is Pesach. And even if it were, either holiday would be a better candidate to host these parshiyot than wintertime. How are we to understand the calendar arrangement in light of my son’s question?
I would suggest that the reason Bo and Beshalach are not read around Pesach is not because Bo and Beshalach are not about Yetziat Mitzrayim, but rather because Pesach – at its heart – is not actually about Yetziat Mitzrayim.
Yetziat Mitzrayim, like Maamad Har Sinai, was a unique, one-time experience that set the tone for Jewish life as we know it. It exposed the existence of God in all His mighty capacity and passion for His people. It taught the world that no mistreatment of Israel will go unpunished. And it laid down the framework for all future slave peoples longing to be free.
Pesach is about the WHY of Yetziat Mitzrayim. That God is powerful enough to do it does not speak to His purpose in orchestrating Yetziat Mitzrayim. That is the question Pesach explores. Pesach says “Baavur zeh” – “It is because of these reasons, wrapped up and encapsulated in the stories and “props” of Seder night, that God took you out of Egypt.” It was to dedicate a new era of history, one that would feature the developing covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people, an epic story that would grip the world until the end of its natural history. That relationship would become the model for relationships of any kind – parental, marital, master-disciple, and all meaningful relationships between friends.
Bo and Beshalach belong in winter, because winter’s desolation needs the message these parshiyot bring. No situation, no matter how bleak, can be termed hopeless if God could bring the people of Israel out of Egypt.
But our ongoing observance of the holiday of Pesach speaks more to the way we are to use the fact of Yetziat Mitzrayim to inform our daily lives for all time. It occurs during the parshiyot of the Book of Vayikra, whose varying forms of korban offerings address the multiple and varied ways in which we express deep methods of connection and relationship to the Almighty. When carefully studied, these methods constitute a veritable handbook for relationships of all types. Indeed, I would argue that Vayikra is the surprising choice for the Chumash most relevant to our daily lives. To underscore this aspect of Yetziat Mitzrayim, we recite the third paragraph of Shema, mentioning the Exodus twice daily, linking us not to Parshiyot Bo and Beshalach, but to Pesach and the relevance of Seder night to our entire year.
The real message of Pesach is found only in the underpinnings of Parshat Bo and Beshalach – the inner strength revealed to us as God exposes His strength in Egypt, and the trust we learn to grow into and develop as we venture out into the wilderness. Now we set the stage. Come Pesach, we begin to act upon it.
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