In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Bo, the Egyptians experience the death of the firstborn. The last of the 10 plagues compels Pharaoh and the Egyptians to free the Israelites from slavery, but was that really the purpose of the plagues? Were they just meant to punish the Egyptians? Or were the Egyptians meant to get something else out of these destructive plagues?
Join Tikva Hecht and Beth Lesch as they challenge a classic answer to these questions on the 10 plagues and develop a new understanding of what it means to “know God.”
Check out Rabbi Fohrman’s course “Why Did God Choose Israel As His Chosen People?” to explore these questions further: bit.ly/3vCSLqp
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0:00 Intro
01:26 Why Did God Need 10 Plagues?
4:15 The Hole in the Classic Answer
5:52 What Does Pharaoh Want This Time?
9:00 Who Else Wants a Blessing?
10:22 Warring Nations, Fathers’ Blessings, and Deception
13:19 A Great Cry
15:25 Things Are Not Adding Up
17:36 Firstborn Drama
20:54 Things Still Are Not Adding Up
24:18 A Closer Look at the Blessings Story
28:12 What Was the Great Cry All About?
30:25 Esau Asserting His Role As Firstborn
35:19 Returning to the Exodus Story
38:38 Where the Stories Overlap: Remarkable Transitions
40:06 What Does It Mean to Know God?
14 янв 2024