Parshat Bo - Lessons in the Dark

Bo kicks off with 8^th plague – locusts.  Then what? 9^th is DARKNESS.  The joke goes that the plagues were only things Jews would think bad – lots of people would love all you can eat frogs legs and for a lot of people, even locusts is a tasty treat.  So what’s up with Darkness?  What was so bad about it?

The Midrash tells us God sent the darkness so that Jews who had thoroughly assimilated and entered Egyptian society, who would never leave Egypt if given the chance, might die and be given funerals by the Egyptians without them seeing -lest they come to believe that the Plagues were no big deal since it might appear the Jews were being struck down by them as well.

Today we might ask ourselves, what transgressions are there that are so bad for a Jew to commit that she or he is beyond the community, beyond saving?  Think about that. 

To me, the Midrash suggests an answer.  Even for the “bad Jews” there was consideration that their deaths not be “public” and that furthermore, they were given “proper” funerals by the community. 

My thinking is that for us today, as it was then, it is ethical behavior more than anything else that ties us together, makes us proud of each other, and scandalizes us when we hear how some fellow Jew has acted immorally. 

We don’t want others to “take it out on us” or apply the mistakes of one to the whole community – just as in the story, but more than that, we don’t want to be “that guy” who does the bad things – we want to be the ones helping, bringing light, as it were.

Let us learn this lesson “hidden in the darkness” of this week’s parshah!