Ten-year-old Sara came storming into her home and headed straight to the
kitchen. "Mother!" she cried, on the verge of tears, "I just can't stand that
Deborah! I'm sure she's the MEANEST person in the whole wide world!" Deborah,
the class bully, had once again made life miserable for Sara in school that day.
"Come now, Sara," her mother reassured her. "Don't get yourself so upset
about silly Deborah. I'm sure that by later on tonight, the whole incident will
be forgotten.
"Come on cheer up," her mother continued, noticing Sara's still disconsolate
expression. "Why don't you help me make a special treat for tonight's dinner?
That ought to make you feel much better...!"
This week's Torah reading, the parshah of Bo (Exodus 10-13), describes
the last plagues visited upon the Egyptians, culminating with the resulting
exodus of the Jewish people. The parshah's name, Bo ("Come"), is derived
from the reading's opening verse, in which G-d instructs Moses to "Come to
Pharaoh..." to warn him of the upcoming plagues and to demand that he release
the Jewish nation.
The name of each Torah section conveys the primary message and the common
theme of its narrative.
Why, then, is Bo not titled "Freedom," "The Exodus," or some other
name connoting the extraordinary event of the exodus of the Jewish people from
their many decades of servitude in Egypt?
In fact, the name, "Come [to Pharaoh]," seems to remind us of the very
opposite--of the Jewish people's slavery. The Jewish leader needed to petition
Pharaoh and appeal to him to release his people from their misery. Why should
the Parshah's name seemingly reflect the antithesis of the joyous liberation it
describes?
Commentaries also question the usage of the term "come to Pharaoh"
instead of the more appropriate form, "go to Pharaoh."
But perhaps, hidden within this curious phrase is a psychological key to help
us help our children to find liberating solutions to their problems and
challenges.
The Zohar explains that by instructing Moses to "come to Pharaoh," G-d was
inviting Moses to confront the essence of the Egyptian ruler. G-d is telling
Moses to enter into Pharaoh, in the sense of entering deep within the mind and
character of Egypt's arch-idol.
In order to liberate the children of Israel from the shackles of their
servitude, it was not sufficient for Moses, their leader, to merely "go" to
Pharaoh and have a peripheral vision of this leader's strength. Moses needed to
fully confront Pharaoh within Pharaoh's "home base." He needed to enter into
Pharaoh's mindset, into the bowels of his psyche, into the innards of his
consciousness. He needed to truly comprehend the root of his power and the basis
of his tenacious, tyrannical hold on the Jewish people.
This was the first step to liberation. Without this pivotal action, the rest
of the parshah of Bo--the great, joyous and miraculous liberation of the
Jewish people--could not have occurred.
Moses was the "shepherd" and the ultimate "parent" of our people, tending to
our every need, large and small. His love for us was like a parent's
unconditional outpouring of love to his child.
So Moses' conduct can demonstrates to us the necessary first step in helping
our own children through their own respective enslavements, constrictions or
challenges.
Do we dismiss our child's issues as insignificant? Do we reassure him that
this "little" incident will pass, without validating what he is experiencing in
this moment? Do we try to distract him from his problems without trying to truly
understand and deal with them?
As parents, we all want to help our children. We want to free them from the
shackles of their problems, fears and insecurities.
The Torah teaches us that to do so, we must "come to Pharaoh."
Enter into your child's mindset. Intimately experience his pain, his
frustrations and his insecurities. Explore his feelings and validate the
difficulty of his challenges. Survey the boundaries of what is suffocating his
growth. Immerse yourself within the confines of what is oppressing him. Picture
his monsters and feel his fears. Face his obstacles, rather than avoid them.
Only then, after you have fully and deeply entered into the domain of what is
oppressing your child, can you hope to succeed in providing the solutions for
his liberation.
