Parashat Bo: Freedom Propelled by the Pesach Sacrifice

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Parashat Bo: Freedom Propelled by the Pesach Sacrifice 

How is Redemption Initiated Through an Act of Eating? 

Why Would an Uninhibited Hippy Exchange Her Overalls for Long, Modest Skirts?  

From my early teens, I was an advocate – even a harbinger – of freedom. I questioned every restriction I had been raised with. Why should people be bound by societal norms and empty etiquette that do not foster true morality? Why should students sit rigidly in rows of chairs rather than on the floor in a circle, where learning could become more alive and interactive? I longed to free myself from limiting conventions so I could express my creativity fully. Whether dancing in the street, singing on the bus, or handing flowers to strangers I passed along the way, I tried by every means to liberate myself from caring about what others might think. I felt blessed with boundless creative potential, and I was determined to live life on my own terms – “I did it my way!” 

During my hitchhiking journey of discovery throughout Europe, I met like-minded people – young and old – who were also breaking boundaries, testing how far we could fly beyond accepted propriety. Our newfound freedom carried a force of its own, pushing through any obstacle and dissolving limits as we sought to express what had long felt suppressed within us. 

It is therefore not surprising that my old friends were shocked when they heard I had made what appeared to be a 180-degree turn from my uninhibited hippy life, choosing instead to observe a strict ancient code of laws that required me to exchange overalls and jeans for long, modest skirts, to move from singing freely on the bus to maintaining distance from the opposite sex – even placing a briefcase between myself and the man seated beside me. My newfound religious path extended as far as dressing with full modesty at the beach. Little did the people of my past know that, although it may not have seemed that way on the surface, I had finally discovered the true inner freedom I had been searching for all along. 

 

How Can Keeping Ancient Laws be an Expression of Freedom? 

What my old secular friends in Denmark didn’t fathom was that the freedom I had pursued until then was largely reactive – a constant pushing against boundaries, expectations, and norms imposed from the outside. As long as freedom meant doing the opposite of what was demanded, I remained defined by what I was resisting. After embracing the Torah lifestyle, I realized that what I used to call freedom often left me scattered, driven by impulse, self-expression, and the need to prove my independence.  

In contrast, the ‘ancient laws’ of the Torah did not feel like another set of constraints layered on top of society’s rules. Rather, they helped me shift my perspective on what true freedom is all about. Instead of a freedom that leaves everything hanging loose, I discovered a freedom rooted in conscious choice, self-discipline, and intention. The Torah introduced me to a radically different understanding of freedom – one rooted not in separating from others, but in learning to take others into account. This kind of freedom is expressed in the laws of the Pesach sacrifice. Rambam teaches that the Korban Pesach is ideally not slaughtered for an individual alone (Hilchot Korban Pesach 2:2), and Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter of Ger explains that this requirement cultivates humility, connection, and the capacity to think about and care for another (Imrei Emet, Parashat Bo). The Torah thus reveals that freedom is not lived in isolation. True freedom is the ability to step beyond one’s own needs and expression, and to make room for responsibility, relationship, and shared values. This shift allowed restraint to be experienced not as oppression, but as liberation – a freedom that gathers the self inward into alignment, rather than dispersing it outward. This is what prepares the ground for redemption to unfold. 

 

Why Must the Korban Pesach be Eaten Together with Matzah and Maror? 

In Parashat Bo, redemption does not begin with a journey, a miracle, or a dramatic escape. It begins with eating. Before B’nei Yisrael leave Egypt, before Pharaoh’s power collapses, and before the sea will ever split, they are commanded to eat the Korban Pesach. Redemption is first internalized, quite literally, through physical nourishment that embodies profound spiritual impact. 

 

ספר שמות פרק יב פסוק ח וְאָכְלוּ אֶת הַבָּשָׂר בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה צְלִי אֵשׁ וּמַצּוֹת עַל מְרֹרִים יֹאכְלֻהוּ: 

“They shall eat the meat on that night, roasted in fire, with matzot; with bitter herbs they shall eat it” (Shemot 12:8).  

 

Rabbi Chayim of Kosov explains that matzah and maror represent opposing spiritual forces that must be unified. Matzah alludes to pure chesed – undiluted, refined kindness, likened to purified silver, free of chametz and se’or that emerge from din (judgment). Maror embodies bitterness and judgment. Eating them together enacts the sacred inclusion of the left within the right, the sweetening of judgment through kindness, producing the most complete and chosen harmony for good (Be’er Mayim Chayim). Ibn Ezra adds that Egyptians regularly ate bitter herbs as a physical remedy for the damp Nile climate. Yet, Israel eats maror not as medicine for the body, but as memory for the soul – a conscious remembrance of how their lives were embittered (Ibn Ezra). What dulls awareness in Egypt sharpens consciousness in Israel. 

Eating the Korban Pesach is therefore not merely symbolic; it marks the inner turning point of redemption. The Pesach offering, the matzah, and the maror are deliberately eaten together to hold three realities at once: the bitterness of slavery, the haste of redemption that leaves no room for inner inflation, and Hashem’s passing over Israel at the decisive moment when slavery gives way to redemption. Rabbi Yosef Bechor Shor explains that since redemption requires wholeness, these elements are not meant to cancel one another out, but to be consciously unified within a single act of eating. Rabbi Chayim Attar deepens this insight by teaching that redemption cannot occur through only one of these dimensions. Without suffering, there would be no refinement; without haste, Israel might have sunk back into Egypt; and without Hashem’s passing over the houses of the Israelites during the plague of the firstborn, redemption could not take hold. All three must occur together, embodied and internalized. This inner turning point was enacted openly and without fear, as the lamb roasted whole sent its scent throughout Egypt, proclaiming Israel’s break from idolatry. It was at that very moment that redemption was activated (Chizkuni, Shemot 12:8).  

 

Eating Our Way Out of Egypt – Why is Freedom Born in the Darkness of Night?  

The Korban Pesach may not be cooked in water, symbolizing blurred intention, nor may it be left until morning, symbolizing procrastination and spiritual delay. Even the order of eating matters: bitterness first sharpens the palate so the taste of redemption can be fully received, while matzah and Pesach complete the triad of exile, haste, and Hashem’s passing over (Ohr HaChayim, Shemot 12:8). “They shall eat the flesh on that night” teaches that judgment itself is consumed within the darkness of exile. Flesh alludes to din, and night alludes to galut (exile).  

Redemption does not wait for morning. It begins in the night through tzli esh – roasting in fire – which alludes to prayer that rises straight and clear, without dilution or ulterior motive (Noam Elimelech, Parashat Bo). Through eating the Korban Pesach in this way, Israel learns that freedom is not achieved by escaping darkness, but by sweetening it from within – turning judgment itself into a vessel for geulah. 

 

How Does Eating the Korban Pesach Mark the Beginning of Redemption from Within? 

Chazal teach that Israel was redeemed through two embodied mitzvot performed on that night – the Korban Pesach and brit milah – both involving blood and sanctifying the body itself: “By your blood you shall live” (Midrash Shemot Rabbah 17:3). These mitzvot freed Israel not only from physical bondage, but also from spiritual enslavement to bodily desire. The lamb, worshipped as a god in Egypt, embodied a culture ruled by instinct and licentiousness, for idolatry served as a pretext for sexual corruption (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 63b). Redemption required the sanctification of desire and the restoration of holiness to marital life. By commanding each household to take the lamb and bind it to the bedposts – the place of intimacy – Hashem demanded a confrontation with the misuse of desire at its root (Mechilta, Bo). Slaughtering and eating the Egyptian god in obedience to Hashem thus became an act of inner purification, severing Israel from the lust-driven worship of Egypt and restoring holiness to the covenant of the body, a rectification completed through brit milah on that very night. 

Redemption, therefore, began not with escape or movement, but with an act of eating – an embodied integration of bitterness, haste, and Divine presence. Through consuming the Korban Pesach, Israel internalized redemption within the body itself, aligning desire, home, and human intimacy with Hashem’s will. Freedom was not postponed to the journey outward; it was initiated by inward, conscious, sanctified eating.