Friends of Itamar

Leah’s Blog Parashat BO 2024

Parshat BO

Not too far from our house here in Itamar, torches were lit in the Jordan Valley on the Sartaba (Alexandrion) every Rosh Chodesh to usher in the New moon. The first sightings set the striking of signal fires that lit up from the Mount of Olives to Mount Scopus all the way up to here and then across the Jordan River, even to Babylon to let everyone know the new moon had arrived. In those ancient times, oak trees stood in forests here contrasting to the small stark tan desert of Shomron. In the night here now, the porch made up of mountain has our eyes on the fine silver moon and a million stars – just like then. It has been a long way. Though so much has changed through the thousands of years, the ticking of time continues month after month. Now I am here on that mountain watching the night sky. Jews have always been time minded, starting with the chronology of the world, of the turn of events that brought us back to this mountain, to the future time we are now living in.

The first mitzvah is one of counting time; now it is here because it is needed.

You feel the ebb and flow of time in these Torah portions. How long and drawn out a time did Sarah have to wait to have Yitzchak? How long did Yaakov wait to see the face of Yosef? How long did we groan in slavery? But then the eleventh hour arrives. The crunch, the moment of truth. We are commanded to eat the Pascal sacrifice swiftly and immediately. A rapidity enters the narrative loaded with urgency. At the stroke of midnight everything changes. Fulfilling the promise made to Avraham that his descendants would leave Egypt loaded with back wages, the boiling point came briskly even after all those years, carrying silver- the exodus.

When the moment comes there is no waiting anymore without delay. As Shabbat is ushered in early, 18 minutes before the sunset, FIRST- things require time in preparing for Shabbat. The time we light the candles of delight ends the time of preparation, all things led up to this moment. Friday afternoon is that rollercoaster in time. You can’t do things fast enough. When the sixth day meets the seventh as night time approaches, when yesod and malchut meet at that licht benching, בעיתה- אחישנה- , as it says in the book of Isaiah- “I, the lord will hasten it in its time”. When Shabbat arrives time sits still; we can finally sit down.

There is a difference between the concept of “now” (like peace now), and “the time has come”. Now is a lack of patience. The time has come means you are delivering. It’s like a pregnancy- nine months of development and then the birth. You can’t have a baby “now”- it takes nine new moons. It’s like that song- “עם הנצח לא מפחד מדרך ארוכה”- the People of forever are not afraid of the long way”. Forever reaches the zero hour as well- AFTER all the preparation has been made for it, painstakingly and miraculous

On October 7 in half of a second, half of our country was in uniform.

Yes, a son was born to Sarah and she was 99 years old when she gave birth to him. Yaakov did finally see the face of his beloved son Yosef HaTzaddik, after the text tells us-  “and they brought him HASTILY out of the dungeon”. The Jewish people are compared to the moon- we are destined to be renewed like it, therefore the hour of delivery happens now, in the same parsha with the sighting and announcing of the new moon. The moon seems closer here, rising in the east. We are preparing Eretz Yisrael for the end time now and hope to turn the places made barren into the birth of restoration and progress. Time is vanishing- do you feel that? In that all that we are experiencing now in the direction, movement and changes we all now feel.  We are entering the Shabbat of time, a time of renewed light. If you too want to see the heart of Israel fortified and revived please consider FRIENDS OF ITAMAR a place to visit and support.

Hashem’s love endures.

Blessings and Shabbat Shalom! Leah