Quick Thoughts on the Parsha

In the third aliyah of Parshat Bo, Pharaoh agrees to let B’nai Yisrael go as long as their flocks and cattle remain behind. Moshe responds that this is unacceptable, כִּ֚י מִמֶּ֣נּוּ נִקַּ֔ח לַֽעֲבֹ֖ד אֶת־ה’ אֱלֹקינוּ וַֽאֲנַ֣חְנוּ לֹֽא־נֵדַ֗ע מַה־נַּֽעֲבֹד֙ אֶת־ה’ עַד־בֹּאֵ֖נוּ שָֽׁמָּה, “For we will take from it [the livestock] in order to worship the Lord our God, and we do not know how we will worship the Lord until we arrive there” (Shemot 10:26). The Pshat of the text is clear: B’nai Yisrael must take their livestock with them because they will need to use the animals for korbanot, sacrifices. To leave the animals behind would impede their worship of God. And yet, Moshe’s language of לא נדע, is strikingly and unexpectedly familiar. Twice daily at the very end of Tachanun, we say ואנחנו לא נדע מה נעשה, “We do not know what to do”. The words are almost identical to those in our pasuk, but the context of ‘not knowing’ is markedly different. In Tachanun, we express that we are forlorn, distant, and unaware if anything we are doing is right and accepted by God. While in Parshat Bo, לא נדע is a sign of infinite possibility-- we cannot know how many opportunities there will be to worship God until the moment comes. What is the link then between these two moments of לא נדע? When we are in the midst of ‘not knowing’, having fallen on our faces in the characteristic disconnection and supplication of Tachanun, the liturgy subtly reminds us of a time in our history when לא נדע pointed to redemption and Divine connection. Now more than ever, in our post-Chorban Bayit world in which we offer our sacrifices in the form of prayer, we greatly need to overlay this pasuk from Parshat Bo onto our personal moments of supplication. May we embrace the moments of ‘not knowing’ not as sources of loneliness and disconnection, but instead as innumerable points of hope and connection.

--Rabbanit Alissa