A Sign For YOU

Parshat Bo

by Rabbi Avi Billet

When one reads through Shmot Chapter 12, it becomes quite clear that blood will play a significant role in bringing about the salvation of the Hebrew slaves at the midnight hour when Egypt will be struck its most devastating blow.

Verses 7, 13, 22 and 23, when run together, read something like this.
"They must take the blood and place it on the two doorposts and on the beam above the door of the houses in which they will eat [the sacrifice]. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are staying. I will see the blood and pass you by (pasach). There will not be any deadly plague among you when I strike Egypt. {Instructions to the elders are to tell the people to] 'Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it into the blood that [will be placed] in a basin. Touch the beam over the door and the two doorposts with some of the blood in the basin. Not a single one of you may go out the door of his house until morning. God will then pass through to strike Egypt. When he sees the blood over the door and on the two doorposts, God will pass over that door, and not let the force of destruction enter your houses to strike.'"

The Ktav V'Hakabalah asks a seemingly obvious question. Does God really need the blood as a sign? If He wants to distinguish between the Egyptians who suffer in the plague and the Israelites who are spared, could He not just say "My wonders will be proven by the fact that Egyptians will die and Israelites will not"?

Ibn Ezra rejects the notion that the blood was a derivative of a public process aimed at showing the Egyptians who is boss. Were it so, he argues, the blood would have been put on courtyard gates instead of on the doorway of homes recessed from the street, and the slaughtering of the lamb would have taken place in the daytime, instead of closer to nighttime when people are already in their homes. Ibn Ezra even derives from "The blood will be a sign for you" that you, who cannot go outside all night, will be able to see the blood because it will be on the inside of your home.

But the Ktav V'Hakabalah has an entirely different perspective, which introduces much deeper symbolism than a mere "sticking-it" to the Egyptians. The Israelites had many obstacles to their own redemption. They were idolators! They needed to achieve a spiritual purity (taharah) that had eluded them for a very long time.

The Korban Pesach (Paschal offering) was meant to serve as a first step in their stepping away from and rejection of Egyptian idolatry of the sheep. The second element of their return to God was a complete rejection of their former fears of their Egyptian masters. And the last element of their return to God was the public nature of their actions.

He brings four examples of the how they publicized the deed: First, the animals were led through the street, before the slaughtering was done publicly (#2), while the gathering of families providing the third ingredient in drawing attention. The nail in the coffin, so to speak, was placing the blood on the doorpost for all to see.

Didn't the Ibn Ezra say the blood was placed inside the home, as a sign for the Israelites alone? He did. But the Ktav V'Hakabalah is one step ahead when he quotes the Mechilta who says the blood was placed on the outside. This public display of the blood of the lamb was another step in the rejection of the sheep-as-god mentality.

All this is very nice insofar as the process through which the people go. But it does not answer whether God needed a sign! The answer is that of course God did not need a sign. If God could distinguish between which animals were Egyptian-owned and which animals were Israelite-owned, He could surely distinguish between Egyptians and Israelites.

The reason for the blood, then, is that it is through blood that covenants are forged. A blood oath involves the mixing of bloods, "The process usually provides a participant with a heightened symbolic sense of attachment with another participant." (Wikipedia, "Blood Brother")

The Shakh claims that as males who are not circumcised may not participate in the eating of the korban pesach, a major circumcision festival needed to take place (based on 12:50). As such there were ample samples of blood available to be mixed together – blood from the lamb, from the circumcisions, and from the removal of the mucosal membrane (not from metzitzah!)

The blood, therefore, becomes highly symbolic. Putting it on the door is an indicator that those in the home fulfill the will of God. But the placement of this particular mixture of blood, stands to serve as a "reminder," so to speak, to God, of the mark of the covenant that connects this people to Him for eternity. This reminder is what prevents the death force from making its way into the homes of the Israelites.

In this respect, the sign-on-the-door for humans is significant for them because their own blood is in it. But it really is for God, who reminds the people over and over that each plague was meant to make His name well known in the land. This goal is further represented by the blood on the door, a mark which is fresh, which will last long beyond when the Israelite's leave town, and will be seen by those who explore the ghost town of Goshen.

It is the symbol of God's dominance over the Egyptian deity, combined with the covenant He forged with Abraham, that brought about the creation of the nation that left Egypt with a strong hand.

Jewish Pride = Knowing Yourself

Parshat Bamidbar

When one looks at synagogue décor, one often notices odes to the 12 tribes. The specific images on the stained glass window or other artwork is inspired by something in the Torah, but they differ from shul to shul. This causes us to wonder, perhaps, if we are missing something, if artists know more than us, less than us, or if people are just looking at different sources to arrive at the image that best depicts the tribe in question.

There is no question that some look to the blessings Yaakov gave his sons in Parshat Vayechi for inspiration. Many of his children are compared to different animals in Bereishit 49, which are always nice ideas for artistic imagery.

But the Midrash Aggadah on our parsha speaks of the flags each tribe carried — each one bearing a symbol that represented the family patriarch whose tribe bears his name.

• Reuven’s symbol is the “duda’im” flower (often translated as mandrake), because of the role he played in bringing them to his mother. According to the Torah, that episode directly brought about the births of Yissachar, Zevulun and Yosef.
• Shimon’s is represented by the image of the destroyed city of Shchem, based on the role he played in destroying the city (along with his brother Levi).
• Yehuda’s image is a lion and Yissachar’s is a donkey — as per Yaakov’s blessing.
• Zevulun’s sign is "a home" based on the word Leah used when naming him, which is translated (by the midrash) to mean “a dwelling place.”
• Ephraim, one son of Yosef, has an ox (shor), as his symbol.
• Menashe, Yosef’s other son, has a “re’em” as his symbol. The identification of the re’em is unclear. In “Mysterious Creatures,” Rabbi Natan Slifkin concludes that it is either the oryx (a kind of gazelle) or an aurochs (a type of huge wild cattle - original version is extinct, though a "new aurochs" has been genetically created), while Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan includes other animals as possibilities, including a unicorn or rhinoceros, the white antelope, the wild ox, or bison (for many reasons, Rabbi Slifkin assumes the unicorn as we imagine it never existed)

Binyamin, Dan, Naftali and Gad are all inspired by Yaakov’s blessing.

• Binyamin is a wolf; 
• Dan is a serpent; 
• Naftali is an “ayalah” — which Rabbi Kaplan translates to be a hind or gazelle (though this is usually a “zvi”), and interestingly records the possibility of it referring to a tree or plain;
• Gad had images of armed soldiers on their way to battle.
• Asher is represented by an olive, or olive tree, because Devarim 33:24 describes Asher as dipping its feet in oil.

In addition to each tribe’s sign, the forefathers were also invoked on the chief flag of each three-tribe group. On Yehuda’s flag were the letters Alef, Yud and Yud איי, the first letters of the forefathers’ names. On Reuven’s flag were the second letters of their names, spelling the word “Betza" - בצע. Ephraim had the third letter of their names, “Rachok” - רחק. Dan had the word “Mekev” - מקב - in his case, the fourth letter of Avraham’s name was skipped (the “heh” which was added by G-d).

Each of these three-letter words has a lesson embedded in it. The term on Yehuda’s flag means “About me” — which is a reminder to comprehend G-d as best as possible.

Reuven’s hidden message is Betza, which means to gain profit — often in an unkosher way (see Bereishit 37:26) — which is a reminder not to profit from thievery.

Ephraim’s message is to “distance oneself from idolatry,” which is related to the message on Dan’s flag, a mekev — piercer or hatchet — which is to be used to destroy idols.

These images and phrases are meant to teach us to know ourselves. We have to know our history, from where we came, and what we stand for. If our people have certain tendencies or leanings, we ought to be proud of them and carry them as banners with pride.

Every Jew needs to know what Judaism has said about Judaism, what our religion stands for, and what our people stand for. We should not look to the general society, or to people who want to redefine what Judaism is all about, in order to kowtow to the demands of people who only want to take advantage of our natural tendencies of tolerance and care for underdogs.

When the world will allow the Jews to live in peace, we will respond in kind. We honor and respect the  laws of tolerant and civil societies. We march to the beat of the Torah’s drum — which mandates ethical living and following the law of the land when its morals and ethics are in consonance with our own — and we carry the character traits our forefathers defined for themselves and held with pride as they marched toward the Promised Land.