Parshat Bo — Leaving Egypt Isn’t the Same as Living Free

How Time, Boundaries, and Home Make Redemption Sustainable

Introduction — After the System Cracks, a New Life Must Be Built

Parshat Bo is not just the parsha where Egypt gets hit harder. It is the parsha where the Torah starts showing us what redemption actually requires.

Breaking an oppressive reality is not the same thing as building a free life. A person can be taken out of slavery physically and still carry slavery inside them — in their nervous system, in their instincts, and in the way they stop expecting things to get better.

But slavery also takes something even deeper: it takes a person’s time. A slave does not own his pace, his rest, or his future. He lives inside someone else’s schedule, and over time he stops living with a sense of direction. He starts living to get through the day.

That is why the Torah describes Bnei Yisrael earlier as unable to absorb Moshe’s words: “וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֶל מֹשֶׁה מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה” They could not hear Moshe because of constriction of spirit and crushing labor. (Shemot 6:9)

Parshat Bo is where that constriction begins to loosen. Not because the pain is already over, but because the world that once felt permanent starts to crack and there is finally room for something new to be built.

And Hashem does not wait until they leave Egypt to begin that process. Before the final plague and before the Exodus, He gives them their first mitzvah as a nation: a new relationship with time.

He gives them a calendar, a shared identity, clear boundaries, and a home-based practice that teaches them how to live differently even while they are still inside Egypt.

That is what Bo teaches. Hashem does not only rescue His people from the outside. He begins rebuilding them from the inside, so that freedom can last.

Section I — “Bo”: Entering the Domain Without Losing Yourself

Parshat Bo begins with a phrase that is easy to miss if you read it quickly. Hashem does not tell Moshe, “Go to Pharaoh.” “וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל מֹשֶׁה בֹּא אֶל פַּרְעֹה…” Hashem said to Moshe: “Bo el Paroh” — come to Pharaoh… (Shemot 10:1)

The Torah’s choice of words matters, because Moshe is not being sent into a simple conversation. He is being sent into Pharaoh’s world — a place built on intimidation, control, and fear. Anyone who enters that environment risks being affected by it.

That is why the Kedushat Levi highlights the word “Bo.” Hashem is not only giving Moshe instructions. He is communicating that Moshe is not entering alone. The message is, “Come with Me.” Moshe is being asked to step in, but he is also being held.

The Nesivot Shalom adds a second layer that is central to this parsha. Sometimes a person has to enter a place of darkness or tumah. Sometimes they have to engage with something emotionally destabilizing. The question is not only whether they can survive the encounter. The question is whether they can enter without losing their inner identity. Entering does not mean becoming. Being present inside a difficult space does not mean surrendering yourself to it.

This becomes a foundation for the rest of Parshat Bo. Redemption does not only mean that Egypt will eventually fall. It also means that Bnei Yisrael can begin separating from Egypt internally, even while they are still physically inside it. Moshe’s “Bo” is the first model of that inner freedom. Moshe is stepping into Pharaoh’s domain, but he is not letting Pharaoh’s domain define him.

That is exactly why this matters. Pharaoh’s power is not only what he does to people. It is what he convinces them to believe about themselves.

Parshat Bo begins by teaching a principle that applies far beyond Moshe and Pharaoh. There are times when you must step into someone else’s world, but you still need to remain yourself while you are there. Presence is not agreement. Entering is not submitting.

Section II — Arbeh: When the System Can No Longer Sustain Itself

After seven plagues, Egypt has already been damaged. But in Parshat Bo, the tone changes. The plagues are no longer only disrupting Egypt’s comfort. They begin dismantling Egypt’s ability to function with stability and control.

That shift becomes clear with the eighth plague, Arbeh.

Hashem warns Pharaoh: “הִנְנִי מֵבִיא מָחָר אַרְבֶּה בִּגְבֻלֶךָ… וְכִסָּה אֶת עֵין הָאָרֶץ…” I am bringing tomorrow locusts into your borders… and it will cover the surface of the land… (Shemot 10:4–6)

And when it arrives, the Torah emphasizes the totality: “וַיַּעַל הָאַרְבֶּה… וַיְכַס אֶת כָּל אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם…” The locusts came up… and they covered the entire land of Egypt… (Shemot 10:14–15)

Arbeh is not simply another painful blow. It targets something Egypt depends on even more than its crops. It targets Egypt’s illusion of control.

The Ramban explains that the makkot are not random punishments. They are undoing Egypt’s worldview. Egypt is built on the belief that it is permanent, untouchable, and self-sustaining. Pharaoh presents himself as the ultimate authority, and the culture is organized around mastery and dominance. Each plague removes another layer of that false certainty.

The Maharal adds that Mitzrayim is not only a country, but a structure that turns human beings into function. People are valued for what they produce, not for who they are. A system like that survives through predictability, because predictability trains people to stop resisting. When a system feels unchangeable, people stop expecting change.

Arbeh breaks that illusion. It overwhelms the environment in a way that cannot be contained or planned around. Egypt can no longer guarantee basic stability, and once that happens, the entire structure begins to weaken from within.

And notice the language Hashem uses: “מָחָר” — tomorrow. Arbeh is not only a plague of destruction. It is a message that Egypt can no longer secure the future.

This is what Arbeh represents in the process of redemption. It is the moment when control stops being believable. It is not only that Egypt is hurting. It is that Egypt is no longer reliable.

Arbeh is what happens when the system can no longer protect itself. The ground beneath control begins to crumble.

Section III — Choshech: When Constriction Turns Into Paralysis

After Arbeh, the next plague is Choshech, and the Torah describes it in a way that makes clear this is not just a lack of light. It is a reality that shuts life down. “וַיְהִי חֹשֶׁךְ אֲפֵלָה… לֹא רָאוּ אִישׁ אֶת אָחִיו וְלֹא קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים…”There was thick darkness… a person could not see his fellow, and no one could move from where he was for three days. (Shemot 10:22–23)

The Torah highlights two results of this darkness. People could not see one another, and they could not move. Chazal describe this darkness as tangible and heavy, but the Torah adds something even more revealing: they were not only in the dark. They were stuck inside it.

That detail changes everything. The plague is not just that Egypt lost light. The plague is that Egypt lost motion. People could not move forward, could not move out of place, and could not even reach one another. In a deep sense, time itself stopped functioning.

The Nesivot Shalom explains that this kind of darkness is not only external. It is also an inner imprisonment. There are states where a person is not simply struggling, but trapped. They cannot shift emotionally, they cannot access flexibility, and they cannot reach the part of themselves that can imagine a different future. They lose not only sight, but movement.

The Sefat Emet connects this to the deeper meaning of Mitzrayim itself. Mitzrayim is constriction. It is not only suffering, but the way suffering shrinks inner space. Under pressure, the human capacity for response narrows. Perspective collapses. Possibility feels inaccessible. Even when a person wants to change, the system inside them can feel locked.

This is also why the Torah earlier described what prolonged oppression did to Bnei Yisrael. They were unable to hear Moshe: “וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ… מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ” They could not hear, because of constriction of spirit. (Shemot 6:9)

That was the inner shutdown of slavery: they could not absorb hope.

Choshech shows a different version of shutdown. This time it happens to the people of Mitzrayim, and it is described in physical terms: “וְלֹא קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו” No one could move from where he was. (Shemot 10:23)

The Torah is showing that constriction can appear in different ways. Sometimes it looks like people who cannot take in words of redemption. Sometimes it looks like people who cannot move at all. Either way, it is not a moral failure. It is what fear and pressure can do to a human system over time.

Sometimes the hardest part of darkness is not what you see. It is that you cannot move.

Section IV — The First Mitzvah: Time Returns Before Freedom Arrives

At this point in the story, we would expect the Torah to move straight into the final blow and the rush toward the Exodus. Egypt is collapsing. Pharaoh is weakening. The moment is approaching.

But instead, the Torah pauses. Before the Jewish people leave Egypt, Hashem gives them their first mitzvah: “וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אַהֲרֹן… הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים…” Hashem said to Moshe and Aharon… This month is for you the beginning of months… (Shemot 12:1–2)

The first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a nation is not about leaving Egypt. It is about time. Rashi comments that the Torah could have begun here, because this is the first mitzvah given to us as a people. In other words, the Torah is telling us that becoming a nation begins with time.

Because slavery is not only physical captivity. Slavery is living inside someone else’s time. Someone else decides your pace, your rest, and what you are allowed to hope for. Over time, you stop living with a sense of direction. You stop planning. You stop building. You start living to get through the day.

And the Torah hints to that shift in one word: “לָכֶם.” “הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם” — this month is for you. Time now belongs to you.

A slave lives in someone else’s schedule. A free person lives in “לכם.” This month is yours. That is what changes first.

This is also what happens emotionally when a person lives under chronic fear or instability. Trauma collapses time into “right now.” It becomes difficult to imagine a future that feels safe, and difficult to trust that tomorrow can be different from today. Constriction does not only affect emotion. It affects the way a person relates to the future.

That is why the first mitzvah is HaChodesh. Hashem is not only giving a command. He is restoring the possibility of renewal. He is giving Bnei Yisrael back the ability to live with forward movement again.

Rav Tzadok explains that the ability to renew is one of the deepest expressions of freedom. When a person can begin again, they are no longer trapped inside what has been. And that is also why mitzvot are not only obligations placed on a free nation. They are a gift given to a free nation. They shape an inner identity that can endure even when conditions outside are still unstable.

The Torah then immediately moves from time to community: “דַּבְּרוּ אֶל כָּל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל…” Speak to the entire congregation of Israel… (Shemot 12:3)

Time is not only personal. It becomes shared. A people is formed when they begin living inside the same rhythm.

And that is why this mitzvah comes before the Exodus itself. Before Hashem takes them out of Egypt, He gives them back their future.

Section V — Korban Pesach: Building a New Home for Freedom

Once the Torah gives the first mitzvah of time, it immediately moves to the next step. Hashem does not only tell the Jewish people that they are about to leave Egypt. He gives them a structure to live inside while they are still there. This is the mitzvah of Korban Pesach.

What is striking about these instructions is that they are precise and practical. Hashem gives them a concrete framework to follow: they take a lamb, prepare it, mark the doorway with blood, eat it with readiness, and stay inside until morning. (Shemot 12:5–13)

And then the Torah adds an instruction that grounds the entire moment: “וְאַתֶּם לֹא תֵצְאוּ אִישׁ מִפֶּתַח בֵּיתוֹ עַד בֹּקֶר”No one should leave the entrance of his home until morning. (Shemot 12:22)

The Jewish people are still surrounded by Egypt, but inside the home they are being taught how to live like people who already belong to something else.

If HaChodesh is the moment time becomes “לָכֶם,” Korban Pesach is the moment the home becomes “לָכֶם” — not Pharaoh’s space, not Egypt’s atmosphere of fear, but a protected place where identity can hold.

The Nesivot Shalom explains that Pesach is the beginning of inner freedom and identity. A people does not leave a fear-culture by simply escaping it. They leave it by building something different inside themselves, with new habits, new clarity, and a new sense of belonging. Korban Pesach is the first time Bnei Yisrael begin living as a nation with its own structure, rather than as slaves reacting to Pharaoh’s demands. Before freedom can be sustained on the outside, it has to be practiced on the inside.

The Maharal adds that the doorway is not incidental. The entrance becomes the place where identity begins to form, because it draws a boundary between what is inside and what is outside. That is why the blood is placed on the doorposts. It marks the home as a protected space, and it marks the people inside as no longer owned by Egypt. The threshold becomes the dividing line between two worlds.

In practical terms, Hashem is creating a protected domain inside Egypt. They are still surrounded by danger, but they are being given a space that can hold a new life. They are not being asked to wait passively for redemption. They are being taught how to live it.

That is why Pesach comes before the Exodus itself. Hashem is not only rescuing them from the outside. He is building freedom from inside a home.

Section VI — Makkat Bechorot: When Egypt’s Future Ends and Ours Begins

After the mitzvah of Pesach is established, the Torah moves to the final plague. Makkat Bechorot is not described as another escalation in pain. It is described as the turning point where Egypt finally breaks and yields. “וַיְהִי בַּחֲצִי הַלַּיְלָה… וַיָּקָם פַּרְעֹה לַיְלָה… קוּמוּ צְּאוּ…” It was at midnight… Pharaoh rose in the night… and he said, “Get up, leave…” (Shemot 12:29–31)

For the first time, Pharaoh is not negotiating. He is not bargaining, delaying, or trying to manage the outcome. The power that defined him has collapsed. And in that moment, Egypt stops acting like an empire in control. It starts acting like a system that cannot hold itself together anymore.

The Torah describes it clearly: “וַתֶּחֱזַק מִצְרַיִם עַל הָעָם…” Egypt pressed the people… (Shemot 12:33)

Until now, the Jewish people have been trying to leave and Pharaoh has been refusing to release them. Now the reversal is complete. Egypt itself is pushing them out. The society that once depended on holding them in place is suddenly driving them away, because it can no longer tolerate what is happening inside it.

The Ramban and Malbim both explain that this is the culmination of the entire process. The earlier plagues weakened Egypt, exposed its limits, and dismantled its worldview. But here the collapse becomes final. Egypt no longer presents itself as stable or untouchable. It yields completely.

But Makkat Bechorot is not only the moment Egypt breaks. It is the moment Egypt loses its claim on the future.

The firstborn represents continuity. It represents tomorrow. It represents the next stage. Egypt built itself on permanence. Pharaoh ruled as if his control would never end. This plague strikes more than Egypt’s present. It strikes Egypt at the level of what it believed it owned. Once Egypt cannot guarantee tomorrow, it cannot continue presenting itself as the ultimate reality.

That is why the Torah frames this night differently than the plagues before it. It calls it a night that is watched over and guarded: “וַיְהִי… יָצְאוּ כָּל צִבְאוֹת ה׳… לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים” All the legions of Hashem went out… it is a Leil Shimurim. (Shemot 12:41–42)

The Kedushat Levi emphasizes the closeness of Hashem in this moment. This is not a departure that happens through human force or strategy. It happens through Divine protection. The marked doorway, the boundary of the home, and the guarding of the night all communicate the same message: the Jewish people are not leaving as refugees running for their lives. They are leaving as a people being carried through the most dangerous threshold of the entire redemption.

This is the deeper shift that Parshat Bo is showing. Egypt does not end only when Pharaoh gives in. Egypt ends when it can no longer claim tomorrow, and when it can no longer sustain the illusion that it owns the future.

And once that illusion breaks, freedom becomes irreversible.

Parenting Reflection — Entering Your Child’s World Without Losing Yourself

Parshat Bo is not only describing what happens between Moshe and Pharaoh. It is describing a kind of encounter that many parents recognize in a very different setting.

There are times when a parent has to enter their child’s world. Not the behavior on the surface, but the emotional space underneath it. A world that can include anger, shutdown, fear, defiance, or numbness. And when you step into that space, it can feel unfamiliar and, at times, frightening.

This is where the language of the parsha becomes more than a story. Hashem tells Moshe, “Bo el Paroh.” Moshe has to step into the domain where intimidation and pressure live, but he cannot step in and lose himself while he is there.

The Nesivot Shalom teaches that sometimes a person must enter a place of darkness without losing inner identity. In parenting terms, this is one of the hardest skills to develop. Your child may be struggling, and you may need to come close. You may need to listen, stay present, and be willing to hold tension with them. But the goal is not to be pulled into the chaos. The goal is to bring steadiness into it.

This is where many parents get trapped. They assume that compassion means softening everything. They assume that connection requires letting go of clarity. They assume that empathy means absorbing their child’s emotional state until they themselves become flooded.

But Parshat Bo teaches a different model. Acceptance is not agreement. Presence is not permissiveness. Empathy is not collapse. You can acknowledge pain without validating destructive behavior. You can validate emotion without surrendering values. You can stay calm and close without stepping out of your role as the parent.

This is also why the mitzvah of Pesach includes a boundary that seems almost strange: “וְאַתֶּם לֹא תֵצְאוּ אִישׁ מִפֶּתַח בֵּיתוֹ עַד בֹּקֶר” No one should leave the entrance of his home until morning. (Shemot 12:22)

In moments like this, the deepest thing you can give your child is not another argument — it is time: time to settle, time to come back to themselves, and time to feel safe again.

The message is not isolation. The message is containment. There are moments when the safest thing is not to expand outward, not to chase, not to panic, and not to escalate. The safest thing is to stay anchored, hold the boundary, and wait until the danger passes.

That is often true in parenting as well. When a teen is dysregulated, pulled into destructive choices, or overwhelmed by pain, a parent may feel the impulse to pursue harder, talk louder, explain more, or demand change immediately. But the deeper work is often the opposite. It is staying present without chasing. It is staying clear without becoming harsh. It is being close without becoming reactive.

That is what it looks like in real language. For many parents, this is the language they are learning to speak: I can be with you without being pulled under. I can stay close without surrendering clarity. I can enter your world and still be your anchor.

This is not a small thing. For many parents, it is the work of years. It requires emotional regulation, restraint, and the ability to tolerate discomfort without trying to force immediate resolution. But when a child has even one adult who can do this consistently, something begins to shift. A child who feels seen begins to soften. A child who feels safe begins to open. A child who feels soothed begins to settle. A child who feels secure begins to trust. And a child who feels significant begins to imagine a future again.

Parshat Bo describes a people moving from constriction toward freedom. In parenting, we often see the same progression in smaller, quieter ways. When the home becomes a place where steadiness is stronger than panic, and presence is stronger than control, a child can begin to move again. And once they can move, they can begin to rebuild.

Closing — Hashem Doesn’t Only Break Egypt. He Builds Freedom

Parshat Bo shows that redemption is not only about what happens to Egypt. It is also about what happens inside the people who are leaving it.

Egypt is being struck again and again, but the Torah is not only describing punishment. It is describing the collapse of a worldview that once felt permanent. Arbeh exposes how fragile control really is. Choshech shows what happens when fear becomes so heavy that people cannot move. And then, before the final blow, something shifts. Hashem begins forming a nation.

And the first thing He gives them is not a route out. He gives them time.

 “הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם”

is not only a mitzvah. It is Hashem returning ownership. Slaves do not live inside “לָכֶם.” They live inside somebody else’s pace, somebody else’s demands, and somebody else’s urgency. By giving them a calendar before He gives them the Exodus, Hashem is teaching that freedom is not only about leaving a place. It is about becoming the kind of people who can live with a future.

And then He gives them Korban Pesach, because freedom cannot begin in the street. It has to begin in a home. They are told to gather, to eat with readiness, to mark a doorway, and to stay inside until morning. In the middle of chaos, Hashem creates a protected space where identity can hold.

That is the deeper meaning of what happens here. Hashem does not only take His people out of danger. He teaches them how to live with boundaries, with belonging, and with a future. He builds the inner structure that makes freedom sustainable.

And in a quiet way, that is also what so many parents are trying to do every day: to become a steady home their child can live inside, even before the child is ready to step fully into freedom. Sometimes the first sign of healing is not a dramatic change, but a little more space inside the relationship.

That is how Hashem redeems — not only by breaking what enslaves, but by giving us back what is ours. Because freedom begins when time belongs to you again.

Have a Wonderful Shabbos!!!

Yaakov Lazar