Summary: The name of the Parshah, “Bo,” means “Come [to Pharaoh]”. This is God commanding Moshe to “come to Pharaoh” and tell him of the next set of plagues, the last three of the Ten Plagues: a swarm of locusts devours all the leftover crops and greenery; a thick, palpable darkness envelops the land; and all the firstborn die. The protion tells us about the first Passover, the first Pesach, in Egypt, and the process of going out: at midnight, the death of the firstborn happens and the exodus begins. The portion ends with several mitzvot attributed to this moment: the seder every year, not eating hametz during the days of Pesach, eating matzah, wearing tefilin, redeeming the firstborn.
“People could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where they were; but all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.” (Exodus 10:23)
The plague of darkness in parashat Bo is terrifying in its totality. The Torah describes a darkness so thick, so complete, that people couldn’t see each other or move from their places for three days. But then comes that stunning contrast: ul’chol b’nei Yisrael hayah or b’moshvotam – “but all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.”
The obvious question: Why did the Israelites have light? What made their homes different?
Rashi, quoting the midrash, offers a fascinating answer: they had light because they were meant to see where their Egyptian neighbors kept their valuables, so they could later ask to “borrow” them during the exodus. But that feels almost… transactional. Surely there’s something deeper here.
Rabbi Israel Yitzhak Kalish of Vorki, the 19th-century Hasidic master, offers a striking interpretation. He teaches: “There is no darkness or gloom greater in the world than this: that people do not see, and do not want to see, others, their neighbors – they each worry only about themselves. When no one sees the Other, and worries only about themselves, then ‘no one could get up from their place,’ for there is no hope.”
The Vorker Rebbe is reading the verse carefully. The Egyptians “could not see one another” – lo ra’u ish et achiv. Their darkness wasn’t just physical. It was the darkness of isolation, of being so consumed by their own suffering that they couldn’t see each other. And that spiritual blindness left them paralyzed, unable to move.
But the Israelites had light. Why? Because they saw each other. They maintained connection even in Egypt’s darkness.
Here’s what strikes me: The Torah doesn’t say the Israelites had light outside. It says they had light b’moshvotam – in their dwellings, in their homes, in their inner spaces. When the world outside is dark – and sometimes the darkness feels so thick we can barely move – the question becomes: where are we cultivating light inside?
I think many of us know what that Egypt-darkness feels like. When illness strikes. When we lose someone we love. When we care for those who are slipping away from us. When antisemitism feels emboldened. When we’re just… running on empty. The darkness can feel so complete that we can’t see each other, can’t move, can’t find our way forward.
But here’s what the Israelites teach us: Even in Egypt, even in slavery, even surrounded by darkness, they maintained light in their homes. How?
I think it’s this: They stayed connected. The Torah emphasizes they could see each other while the Egyptians could not. In darkness, we forget we’re not alone. We become frozen, isolated. But light begins when we reach out, when we let others see us, when we remember we’re part of something larger than our individual suffering.
They held onto hope. Not naive optimism, but that deeper thing Viktor Frankl wrote about – the ability to find meaning even in suffering, to believe that this darkness is not the final word of our story.
They did the next small thing. They prepared their homes. They taught their children. They observed Shabbat. When we’re in darkness, we don’t need to find a spotlight – we just need to light one candle, do one mitzvah, take one step.
The Hasidic masters teach that the Hebrew word for Egypt – Mitzrayim – means “narrow places.” We all have our mitzrayim, those tight, dark, constricted spaces where we feel trapped. But parashat Bo reminds us: Even there, especially there, light is possible. Not necessarily outside in the public square, but b’moshvotam – in our dwellings, in our inner lives, in our homes and hearts.
So when life is dark and hard, we do what the Israelites did: We don’t wait for the darkness to lift on its own. We create light in our dwellings. We see each other. We gather together. We do the next small sacred thing. We remember this is not forever. We prepare for redemption even when we’re still in Egypt.
And sometimes, that’s enough. Sometimes, one home with light in it is exactly what the world needs.
Shabbat shalom.
==
Morning: We will read the plague of darkness.
~ it’s only a few verses. Why is this a miracle? How do you understand this specific plague? Look at the commentary. Make your own.
~ A general question: why do we need these 10 miracles at all? If God could take out the Jews from Egypt in a flash, why this? And – do you think it worked?