Parashat Bo 5786
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites
The reading of Parashat Bo presents us with a dramatic reality. After seven severe plagues, Pharaoh and Egypt remain stubborn. Three plagues still remain: locusts, darkness, and the plague of the firstborn.
When redemption already seems within sight, we read of a surprising statement, like the settling of an old account. Thus God commands Moses:
“Speak, please, in the hearing of the people, and let each man ask of his fellow and each woman of her fellow vessels of silver and vessels of gold”
(Exodus 11:2)
And indeed, this is how it is later described. Just before the departure, and the sudden freedom from bondage, at a moment when the Israelites are surely rushing to leave for fear the Egyptians might change their minds, the Torah relates:
“And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses, and they asked of the Egyptians vessels of silver and vessels of gold and garments”
(Exodus 12:35)
The question is obvious: why the urgency to deal with silver and gold precisely at this moment? Would it not have been preferable simply to leave, and quickly? It is like a person imprisoned in jail who is told: in a month you will be released and also receive great wealth. He would surely reply: let me out today, and I ask for nothing.
To understand this, we must go back many years. Abraham our father, the father of the nation, experienced a powerful prophetic vision. God revealed to him the future of his descendants, their enslavement, suffering, and redemption:
“And He said to Abram: Know for certain that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall serve them and afflict them four hundred years. But also the nation whom they shall serve I will judge, and afterward they shall go out with great wealth”
(Genesis 15:13-14)
Abraham is told a difficult message: his descendants are destined to endure harsh and prolonged bondage. Yet the suffering will not be in vain. His children will go out to freedom, and after a process of refinement and trial, will be ready to become a nation. Moreover, they are destined to leave “with great wealth.” This promise was meant to be a source of consolation, and the Talmud comments on its meaning:
“‘Speak, please, in the hearing of the people’ – the school of Rabbi Yannai said: ‘Please’ is nothing but a term of request. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Please, go and say to Israel: Please, ask of the Egyptians vessels of silver and vessels of gold, so that that righteous one should not say: ‘They shall serve them and afflict them’ – You fulfilled for them, but ‘afterward they shall go out with great wealth’ – You did not fulfill for them.”
(Berakhot 9a)
The exile is indeed coming to an end. Two hundred and ten years of bondage are ending. Within hours, the children of Israel will leave Egypt on their way to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai. Yet precisely now, the emphasis is on fulfilling the promise. Abraham is no longer alive, the people are not eager for the money, but a word that was spoken must be fulfilled.
There is also a deeper layer here. The holy Alsheikh explains that the “great wealth” is not necessarily material wealth, for it is unthinkable that a person would endure prolonged slavery and suffering merely for the sake of monetary gain. What comfort would that be? Rather, the intention is spiritual wealth and true gain: preparation to receive the Torah, and the attainment of inner freedom from subjugation to earthly powers.
Now the understanding deepens further. In truth, when Israel left Egypt they had no real need to take silver and gold. There was no essential necessity for it. Even Abraham did not expect such physical wealth. However, not everyone grasps this depth. Some understand the promise to Abraham in its literal sense, as actual silver and gold.
Then the question could arise: where is the promise? We received the bondage and the affliction in full, but what about the wealth that was promised? This claim could be voiced, and even attributed to Abraham himself. This concern is not trivial. It could undermine faith, and even the smallest crack must not be allowed. Therefore, it was of great importance to fulfill the promise also in its simplest sense.
We can learn a profound lesson for our time from this. There is a familiar cynical saying by a public figure: “I promised, but I did not promise to keep it.” Yet in Jewish tradition, a word is a commitment. What is said must come to pass. In the modern world, we have grown accustomed to people saying one thing today and the opposite tomorrow, without shame and without damage to their credibility. “That’s how it is,” they say. “We didn’t really mean it.”
But a healthy society cannot exist this way. Keeping promises is the foundation of trust between people, of educating children, and of building a moral future. Even if you intended something else, if the other party understood it as a promise, you must make every effort to keep your word.
For example, it is very easy to promise something to a child but then not keep it. Sometimes it is merely a way to achieve an immediate goal: to get the child to go to sleep, get up, or stop interrupting. But a child who grows up accustomed to a parent who makes promises but does not keep their word will grow up and apply the same pattern to his life and relationships.
Perhaps it is better to adopt the advice given by Ecclesiastes, “It is better that you not vow, than that you vow and do not pay it.”
