22 | JANUARY 21 • 2021 

SPIRIT

Lessons of the Past
T

his week’s parshah, Bo, 
contains what I believe is 
one of the Torah’s most 
important mitzvot: It is a dedi-
cation to education, to knowing 
our past and ensuring that our 
history informs our future. 
Having just won their free-
dom from Egyptian 
bondage, the Israelites 
are instructed by 
Moses on the laws of 
Passover, which they 
are to observe for all 
time. As they prepare 
for their sojourn in 
the desert, Moses says, 
“
And when your chil-
dren ask you, ‘What 
do you mean by this 
rite?’ you shall say ‘It is 
the Passover sacrifice 
to the Lord because He passed 
over the house of the Israelites 
…
” (Exodus 12:26-27). Here, at 
the most climatic moment in 
the people’s history, standing 
on the edge of freedom, Moses 
demonstrates a most important 
skill for any religious leader - 
bringing the ritual to life and 
making it relevant. 
More than 2,000 years later, 
the Passover seder is the most 
observed ritual in Jewish life. 
According to the Pew Research 
Center, more than 70% of 
American Jews attend a seder 
annually. Here, in the retelling 
of our story, every generation 
has the opportunity to find itself 
within the history of the com-
munity. We are inspired by the 
past as we chart out the future. 
Teaching history is not 
simply a process of repetition. 
History is a critical endeavor 
that asks that each time we 
return to the same story we do 
so with new eyes, new questions 
and an openness to learning 
new things. That is why we 

encourage our children to ask 
questions and why in answering 
them we point to the text from 
which we seek our answers. 
When we look at this week’s 
portion, we read v’gam erev rav 
alah itam (a mixed multitude 
went up with them.) While 
these five words don’t 
change the essence of our 
story of liberation, they do 
expand it. In the erev rav 
(mixed multitude) we find 
not only ourselves and the 
people who look like us, but 
a people inherently com-
posed of multiplicity. 
In the midst of a struggle 
for liberation, it can be easy 
to narrow our conception 
of who is “with us.
” Each 
year, when we return to 
parshat Bo, we have the oppor-
tunity to expand it again and 
remember that not only are we 
more diverse than we may have 
thought, but that our story is 
also not ours alone. 
In the midst of a year when 
the forces of oppression are 
more apparent than ever, we 
can all be buoyed by another 
five-word phrase. Not from the 
text of the Torah but painted on 
the windows of our houses and 
signs in our front yards -“We 
are in this together.
”
As we move into a new year 
in the shadow of a rhetoric of 
hatred and division, let us not 
forget that sacred command-
ment to teach our children the 
history of our liberation - that 
we walked to freedom hand 
in hand as an erev rav, a mixed 
multitude. Ever knowing that 
just as it was in the past, so, too, 
will it be in the future. 

Rabbi Ari Witkin is the director of 

leadership development at the Jewish 

Federation of Metro Detroit.

TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Ari 

Witkin

Parshat 

Bo: Exodus 

10:1-13:16; 

Jeremiah 

46:13-28.

MEL DRYMAN
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