Thought of the Week: Bo - 5777

THE JEWISH HOME

Pareshat Bo, the portion of the actual exodus, is all about the home.  For starters, the Paschal Lamb is taken together by members of the home.  In addition, the children of Israel were told that during the night of the final plague, they were not to leave their home.  So too, they were warned not to take from the meat of the offering out of their home.  All this was done for them to remember that Hashem took them out "Mibeit Avadim" from a home of slaves.

The first step in building a Jewish nation starts with a home.  The nuclear family structure is the bedrock of a functional society.  The experiment of the Kibbutz, with the concept of a collective community, where children grew up in a Children's house, is not the Jewish way of building a healthy society.

The Seder night is what makes us who we are.  When children hear from parents about the past, they are equipped to deal with the future in a productive way.