Parshas Bo - Time is the Answer

From the very beginning G-d had warned Moshe that Pharaoh would not listen to him. Why then did Moshe have to trek to the Egyptian tyrant, warn him of the plagues, only to be dismissed, over and over again?

At the beginning of Parshas Bo, G-d finally tells Moshe the reason. "So that you may tell your children and grandchildren..." Throughout this whole process, Moshe and the Jews had been rooted in the present while G-d was speaking of the future. Here, G-d pulls back the curtain and reveals that the struggles of the present will inform and shape the Jews people throughout time.

Often in our struggles, we feel stuck in the moment. The answer in Parshas Bo is to think of the future.

Time is a theme in Parshas Bo. 

The plague of the firstborn is visited at midnight. It is I believe the first explicit mention of time in the Torah, not in terms of broad measures like day and night, but a very specific measure of time.

Likewise the first Mitzvah, that of the new moon and the calendar, are introduced. 

The Sforno commentary points out that as slaves, the Jews did not have control over their own time. As free men, they now control their own time, and can decide how they will apportion it and what they will do with it.

Parshas Bo contains another example of a commandment preceding the reason for it. 

G-d commands the Jews to observe the seder complete with matzos. But what is the reason for matzos? Only after the seder and the plague of the firstborn will the Jews be driven out of Egypt so rapidly that instead of bread, all they will have is matzos. The commandment to have matzos appears inexplicable, only once the redemption has come does everything fall into place and it all makes sense.

Time is the missing element and it is also the answer. Parshas Bo shows us that what G-d does may not make sense in the moment, but can be understood when we take into account the element of time.

G-d transcends time. And when we think of the future, the inexplicable can begin to make sense.