Rabbi Eve Posen

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from living in uncertain times. Not the “I stayed up too late binge-watching something questionable” kind of tired, but the deeper fatigue of waking up each morning to headlines that feel heavier than the day before. The world feels loud. Everything feels urgent. And somehow, we’re expected to hold strong opinions, stay informed, care deeply, and remember where we left our keys. 

Parshat Bo meets us right there, in the thick of it. 

This parshah doesn’t begin with calm or clarity. It begins in chaos. Plagues still raging. Pharaoh still stubborn. The Israelites still stuck. And yet, it is precisely here that God introduces the ritual that will define the Jewish people forever: Pesach. This is before freedom, before the sea splits, and before anything is actually resolved. That timing matters. 

God doesn’t wait for things to settle down before teaching the Israelites how to mark time, how to gather, or how to tell their story. The first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a people is the sanctification of the new moon: “this month shall be for you the first of months.” In the middle of disruption, God says to pay attention to what truly matters. Mark it. Name it. Share it. 

And then comes the very Jewish instruction to eat together. Not alone, not in silence, but together. Whether it’s families, neighbors, or community, and with questions, with storytelling, or with ritual, liberation, the Torah seems to insist, is not a solo act. 

There’s a line that always gets me in this parshah: “And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.” Nothing is fixed yet. Pharaoh hasn’t let them go. The future is uncertain. And still, the people pause. They ground themselves. They show up for one another. That feels like a roadmap for us. 

We don’t get to control the chaos of the world, but we do get to choose where we focus our energy, how we build community, and who we refuse to abandon along the way. We get to keep telling our story, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy. 

Parshat Bo reminds us that strength isn’t found in pretending everything is fine. It’s found in gathering anyway. It’s found in marking what matters. It’s found in trusting that community, because that imperfect, caring, stubbornly hopeful community is how we make it through the darkness and toward whatever light comes next. 

And maybe that’s enough for now.