Moonshadows - Parsha Bo is replete with contradictions between local historical events and meta-history – e.g, between a leil shimurim that guards against demons on the night of Yetziat Mitzrayim, and a leil shimurim that existed from the six days of Creation; between tricks that make a laughingstock out of Pharaoh, and the real meaning of freedom; between the need to smear blood on a doorpost, and an omnipotent God capable of goy mikerev goy; between the exceedingly personal and protracted interactions between Moshe and Pharaoh, and the transcendent "Anochi Hashem Elokecha...” If meta-history stands outside time - i.e., is not bound to cause and effect (and therefore Yetziat Mitzrayim is not a response to events, but is the justification for them) - then what meaning is there to anything we do locally? An answer emerges from the story of Rehovoam. There, we discover that if the broader conceptual structure of Malchut remains intact, it can be applied to local realities. Thus, it is only when we come to Har Sinai and are given a vision of ultimate significance, that the local events which brought us there have import; only in the context of Kabbalat HaTorah can we claim a historical narrative of freedom that can be told to our children. Witnessing Moshe hearing the words spoken to him at Sinai, b’nei Yisrael obtained the clarity that allowed them to relate their local experiences to the nature of Existence.
(MY) We have come to recognize that גאולה is a 3 pronged process: on the simplest level going from the nature of פקידה and the conceptual base of the excitement of possibilities that are involved – going on to וארא nested levels and consequences of these events – coming here into בא to something more important for moral choice: the provision of space that is broad enough not just for moral choices but those that go back to משומר ובא מששת ימי בראשית . However we also find a clear cut paradoxical relationship of the purely local to what appears meta historical things that go beyond any level of the local – such as the relationship of לילה משומר ובא מששת ימי בראשית to מן המזיקים , such as גוי מקרב גוי which becomesדם אל הפתח and אני ולא מלאך to אל תצאו איש מפתח ביתו – and such as in most fundamental way the תורה of בראשית ברא אלקי"ם to the תורה of החודש הזה לכם which of course interrelated in beginning of תורה itself *two completely different visions of history one meta-history (*) which goes out of this particular planet or universe the other so absurdly local as to be dependent on rock which cannot be predicted due to its locality שמש ידע מבואו. These are such clear cut contradictions that they must in the end afford a dual level understanding of the nature of יציאה which it turns out is precisely the reason משה ואהרן “retired” here from גואלים and here become the teachers of ישראל the two breasts that tell us החדש הזה לכם where the רמב"ם uses אהרן as the source of בית דין which is the ultimate local לכם אפילו שוגגים אפילו מזידים מכל מקום החדש הזה לכם these נסים ונפלאות which are meaningless not just because the whole thing an עלילה but more deeply because nobody believes in tricks and in the end it is either הר סיני or bust—in that case what is the point of והגדת לבנך if the things that happened are meaningless?
If you take into consideration that for a child they are indeed meaningless and only meaningful when רמב"ם introduces אותות של משה רבינו such that mneat history destroys the typical cause and effect in terms of מצה וחיפזון and how these things are important only ex post facto where אנכי השם אלקי"ך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים becomes the מקור of the meaning of events of יציאת מצריםit then becomes clear that it all boils down to centerpiece in the פרשה: the exceedingly local more than it has ever been interaction between משה ופרעה – once that is understood using רחבעם בן שלמה as template and understand that it is question of relationship of particular event and structure of מלכות as whole we understand that that is the meaning of the two events happening here* one which is meta vision expressed in קבלת התורה as שמיעה of מהשמשה רמב"ם one in בריאה itself -- or in pharaohs terms his sense of what מצרים stands for his willingness to risk all but never ever to give in Churchill– in the end individual left with his question of his own relationship of סדרים in the face of צלמות –as מדרש תנחומא puts it – as result astonishingly of this פרשה itself!

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