In this week's section, Bo The Torah recounts the last three plagues, the laws of the first Passover, the Exodus from Egypt, and the laws of the Passover festival as we know it today. While other important issues appear throughout the narrative, the central focus is Passover.
Everyone is familiar with the Passover festival, with its traditional Passover Seder (festive meal) and Matzot. However, what is the conceptual meaning of Passover? The first time this word appears in the Torah (Exodus 12:11), Rashi, the classic Torah commentator, says: “[...] Passover means skipping over, because God skipped over the houses of the Jews from among the houses of the Egyptians [...]”. In the last of the plagues, the death of the firstborn, God skipped over the houses of the Jews.
As we have mentioned many times, the Torah is not merely a history book, but primarily a book of teachings. If the Torah recounts how God bypassed Jewish houses, it must be trying to teach us something useful in serving God.
The concept of skipping (Passover) implies a form of service to God. While it is generally related to Teshuvah (return to God and/or repentance), it also has another meaning. Skipping means that, without considering the intermediate levels, a person "skips" to another level. It's as if one were climbing a staircase in an orderly fashion, step by step, and suddenly skipped one or more steps to quickly ascend to a new level that has no direct relation to the previous one. On a staircase, each step maintains a relationship with the one before it: it is the step immediately above it. Skipping means disregarding this relationship and, even if it doesn't correspond to the current level, setting aside that correspondence and ascending to a higher level, unrelated to the previous one.
One way to express this idea is through Torah study. Torah study aims at practical action; in fact, our sages debated whether study or action is superior and concluded that study is indeed superior, but only if it leads to action. Now, one can study sequentially, gradually growing in one's relationship with God, in which case the study would be like climbing a ladder step by step, in order. Or one can study subjects that lead to a completely new perspective on the world around them and on life in general, in which case the study would be like skipping a meal.
In this spirit of generating a “leap,” we recently began offering an explanation of the Tanya, the foundational book of Chabad thought, in a way that is accessible even to children. The Tanya was written by the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), and in it, he introduced answers to the questions that every person might have in the service of God. It is a very profound and complex book, and although there are Spanish translations and commentaries, it remains a challenging text. The idea behind this explanation is not to be a complete translation or explanation of the Tanya, but rather to serve as an entry point to its concepts. Currently, only 12 chapters are available; God willing, we will add more over time until the complete book is available. To access, Click here.
May Hashem give us strength to study in a "skipping" way, and may we skip over our limitations to quickly bring the Messiah.