Shabbos Parashas Bo - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Bo - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

The blood will be a sign for you upon the houses where you are, and I will see the blood

then I will skip over you. There will not be a plague to destroy when I strike in the land

of Egypt. [Shemos 12:13]

How could some lamb blood on the doorpost have such effect? Does G-d not know,

without looking at the doorpost, who is faithful and who is not? Why does the verse say

that "the blood will be a sign for you", and then implement with "and I will see the blood"?

On the latter phrase, Rashi acknowledges that "all is revealed before Him," so He would

not need to "see" the blood. Instead this means that G-d will "focus My attention" on the

fact that the homeowner is doing what he was commanded.

A few verses on, Moshe tells this to the people, and specifically refers to G-d seeing the

blood. Could the purpose of our verse be to provide support to Moshe when he deals with

the people who are not yet sold on the concept of an all-powerful G-d? Did they think G-d

would need such a sign? Or is there something peculiar to this blood that leads to all this?

The beginning of our verse tells that the blood will be "a sign for you". Who is the "you"

referred to here? Moshe? That's who G-d is speaking to in our verse. Why would Moshe

need a sign? He is not going to separate out the believers from the non-believers, the

upcoming victims of the plague from the non-victims. Was G-d hinting that Moshe

should run through town during the night to either convince people to get with the program,

or to put blood on their doorposts himself?

More than likely, the "you" is the individual householders whom Moshe will instruct

shortly. So what does "a sign for you" mean, if the sign seems to be for G-d and His

Destroyer? Rashi says, "a sign for you, but not a sign for others." This means the

Jews are still G-d's chosen people despite all they have done wrong to this point and

are about to do in the future. Rashi also explains that this is why they applied the blood

to the inside of the door, since others had no need to see it. If they applied it inside, though,

how could the Destroyer see it? This is why the verse says "and I will see."

But why blood? We can learn from the commandment of mezuza, which is applied in

much the same way. Although we can guess that having the writings of holy verses on

our door imbues the house with holiness, we don't know that as fact. Although we can

guess that the lifeblood of animals the Egyptians treated as gods makes a statement

when the Jews applied it in Egypt, we don't know that as really relevant. In fact, it makes

more sense to say that there are no such reasons, rather we do these only because we were

told to do so. Our doing these commandments without understanding is a demonstration

of our faith. That is what sanctifies the house, in both cases. That is what G-d wanted

in return for His leaving us alive that night, and for separating Israel out from Egypt.

The signs on the door are to remind us to keep to the commandments. They also

serve to let others know that our continued existence is proof that G-d lives.

We separate ourselves even today, whether with mezuza, tzitzis, or living al kiddush

Hashem. Our role is to lead by example of faith in G-d.