Summary of the Parasha
“Come to Pharaoh” (Bo). God tells Moses He has hardened Pharaoh’s heart “so that you may tell your son and your son’s son”. The eighth plague: locusts, which devour everything the hail left; Pharaoh’s servants beg him: “Do you not yet know that Egypt is lost?” The ninth plague: darkness, so thick it can be felt, for three days; but “all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings”. Pharaoh drives Moses away: “Do not see my face again”.
God then gives the people the first mitzvah: “This month shall be for you the first of months”, sanctifying the new moon and the calendar. Then the laws of the Pesach offering: a lamb taken on the 10th of Nisan, kept until the 14th and slaughtered in the afternoon; its blood on the lintels and doorposts; eaten roasted, with matzot and maror, at night, “with loins girded, sandals on your feet, staff in hand”. God will “pass over” the houses of Israel. Then come the laws of the festival for all generations: seven days of matzot and the prohibition of chametz.
At midnight, the tenth plague: the death of the firstborn, from Pharaoh’s son to the son of the maidservant. A great cry rises from Egypt; Pharaoh drives the Hebrews out that very night. They leave so quickly that their dough has no time to rise; they take with them the gold and silver requested from the Egyptians, as promised to Abraham. Six hundred thousand men leave Ramses, with a mixed multitude (erev rav), after 430 years. This is the “night of watching for Hashem”.
The parasha then gives the laws of who may eat the Pesach, the consecration of the firstborn and the redemption of the firstborn donkey, and the command to tell your son about the Exodus: “Vehigadta levincha”, the mitzvah of the Haggadah. It ends with the first two passages of the tefillin (“Kadesh li” and “Vehaya ki yevi’acha”), “a sign on your hand and a remembrance between your eyes”.
Summary of the Haftara
“HaDavar Asher Diber Hashem” (“The word that Hashem spoke”)
Text in Jeremiah 46:13–28
Eight centuries after the Exodus, Jeremiah announces that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, will strike Egypt: “Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; destruction comes from the north”. Its gods and its Pharaoh will be handed over. But the haftara ends with comfort for Israel: “Do not fear, My servant Jacob, do not be dismayed, Israel, for I will save you from afar… I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but of you I will not make a full end.”
Parasha-Haftara Connection
As in the parasha, Egypt is struck and its gods judged. But where the parasha describes the miraculous Exodus, the haftara speaks to an Israel in exile: God promises He will once again be with Jacob for a new redemption.