Hashem tells Moshe that He is hardening Pharaoh's heart so that, through miraculous plagues, the world will know for all time that Hashem is the one true G-d. Pharaoh is warned about the plague of locusts and how severe it will be. Pharaoh agrees to release only the men, but Moshe insists that everyone must go. During the plague, Pharaoh calls for Moshe and Aharon to remove the locusts, and he admits he has sinned.

G-d ends the plague but hardens Pharaoh's heart, and again Pharaoh fails to free the Jews. The country, except for the Jewish People, is then engulfed in a palpable darkness. Pharaoh calls for Moshe and tells him to take all the Jews out of Egypt, but to leave their flocks behind. Moshe tells him that, not only will they take their own flocks, but Pharaoh must add his own too.

Moshe tells Pharaoh that G-d’s going to bring one more plague, the death of the firstborn, and then the Jews will leave Egypt. G-d again hardens Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh warns Moshe that he will be put to death if he appears again before Pharaoh.

G-d tells Moshe that the month of Nissan will be the chief month. The Jewish People are commanded to take a sheep on the 10th of the month and guard it until the 14th. The sheep is then to be slaughtered as a Pesach offering, its blood put on their doorposts, and its roasted meat eaten. The blood on the doorpost will be a sign that their homes will be passed-over when G-d strikes the firstborn of Egypt. The Jewish People are told to memorialize this day as the Exodus from Egypt by never eating chametz on Pesach.

Moshe relays G-d's commands, and the Jewish People fulfill them flawlessly. G-d sends the final plague, killing the firstborn, and Pharaoh sends the Jews out of Egypt. G-d tells Moshe and Aharon the laws concerning the Pesach sacrifice, redemption of the firstborn (pidyon haben, etc.) and tefillin.

PARSHA INSIGHTS

The Home of Holiness

“…and touch the lintel and the two dooposts with some of the blood…” (12:22)

Parshas Bo marks a decisive moment in Jewish history. Until this point, the redemption from Egypt is solely through Divine power imposed from above through the plagues. But in Parshas Bo, something new takes place: human participation.

For the first time, Bnei Yisrael are commanded to act — to bring the korban Pesach, to mark their doorposts with blood, to eat matzah, to sanctify time themselves through the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people: Kiddush HaChodesh, the sanctification of the month.

Redemption comes not merely through miracles. Redemption begins when we choose to align ourselves with the Divine will. The Jewish people are still physically in Egypt, surrounded by impurity and oppression, yet they are already living a different reality.

Egypt represents a world where nothing changes — a civilization locked into nature, habit, and inevitability. Torah represents the opposite: the ability to step out of what is and move toward what ought to be. That is why the first mitzvah is not belief, but action — the sanctification of time itself. A Jew does not merely endure history; a Jew shapes it.

The korban Pesach. Taking a lamb — the chief Egyptian deity — and openly designating it for a mitzvah was an act of quiet but absolute inner freedom. It was rebellion not through violence but through action, through commitment. That is the essence of Jewish redemption.

When I became religious, my mother did not merely tolerate my decision. She entered into it. When I told her that I was keeping kosher, she decided to kasher her entire kitchen. Her friends were baffled. “What do you need to do that for?” they asked. “If he wants to be a meshugener, that’s up to him.” My mother answered with quiet clarity:
“I don’t want a house where only half of my grandchildren can eat at my table.”

She called up Rabbi Danny Kirsch from the JLE/Ohr Somayach in London, and together they kashered the whole kitchen.

But it didn’t stop there. As she saw more of my life, she saw not extremism or withdrawal from the world, but values, dignity, and meaning. The more she observed a life structured by Torah, the more she recognized its truth. In time, she herself began to keep Shabbat and to pray as much as she could. And eventually she would say, almost in disbelief: “Why isn’t everybody doing this? This is what Jews are supposed to be doing, isn’t it?”

In Parshas Bo, redemption begins not with thunder, but with a home. With a doorpost. With a decision that says: this space belongs to something higher.

And that, perhaps, is the deepest lesson of Parshas Bo: that true geulah begins when a person chooses to let holiness enter their home, their time, and their life.