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The word “bo” is spelled, bais-aleph, which is the opposite of aleph-bais, which happens to spell “av,” or father. In fact, the aleph can allude to av (father), while the bais can be said to refer to “ben,” or son. Hence, from the start of the Aleph-Bais, with which G-d made all of existence, there is an allusion to the essential and correct relationship: father-to-son (or mother-to-daughter).
If you think of it, the concept of rebellion is a reversal of a relationship in which authority is usurped, like a son who tries to play the role of the father and treat his parent like a child. We usually refer to this as “chutzpah.” The concept of sin is similar, in that we, the children, play G-d by taking our own lives and actions completely into our own hands and do what we want to do it, when we want to do it. We usurp G-d’s authority.
That was Paroah. Paroah reversed the father-son relationship and treated G-d as if He was subservient to Paroah’s will. This is why G-d visited destruction upon him with the word “bo,” measure-for-measure for reversing the “av-ben” relationship.
Thus, we tell our children at the Seder Table, “Do not act like Paroah and put the ‘cart before the horse.’ Always respect authority, especially those, whom according to Torah, are to be over you. When it is time to be a “parent,” be the parent. But when it is time to be the “child,” be the child and don’t reverse the order.”
This is, perhaps, why the Talmud says:
The Four Cups [at the Seder] correspond to the four cups of Paroah … (Talmud Yerushalmi, Pesachim 68b)
With respect to Paroah, his cups of wine symbolized his kingship, and the four cups at the Seder also correspond to the four sons mentioned in the Haggadah. This is all part of the Haggadah’s way of transmitting the message of freedom from Egypt and the Paroah-mentality to all the generations of Jews that would eventually follow throughout the millennium–the freedom that comes from assuming the role at any given moment in time that is meant to be ours.
http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5759/bo.html?print=1
very nice vort ty of course
no its not overdoing it, thats what we should hang on our walls divrei torah
frame it!! it’s a good one
get a life…….a picture of a rebbi or gadal hador is ……..
the aleph can allude to the av (father), while the bais can be said to refer to ‘ben’ or son… Hence… there is an allusion to the essential and correct relationship: father-to-son (or mother-to-daughter).
My wife pointed out that aleph can also stand for ‘aim’ (mother) and the bais can refer to ‘bas’, daughter, hence also alluding to the relationship between mother and daughter, and also in all directions; father to daughter and mother to son seeing as both father and mother begin with aleph while both son and daughter start with beis.
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