The fruit is finally ripe for the picking. The Torah’s pre-occupation since creation with birth-order comes to a head in Parashat Bo. While in previous encounters with the privileges and problematics of primogeniture, the first-borns have been displaced one by one – Kayin, Yefet (perhaps), Yishmael, Esav, Reuven, Zerach, Menashe, Aharon – now the firstborns suffer the ultimate displacement – death. Even the firstborn of Yisrael would not have been spared, were it not for the Korban Pesach. No Egyptian firstborn is spared, however – from the firstborn of Par’oh, sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave-woman sitting at the grindstone and the prisoner in the dungeon. Ironically, equality finally comes to all in Egypt, that stratified, ossified, firstborn of all ancient nations. As a result, we are instructed twice in this parashah to redeem our firstborns sons throughout all generations, as we offer the firstborn of our flocks as a sacrifice to Hashem.
What’s wrong with the firstborn that they are forever displaced? Complete disclosure requires me to reveal that I am a firstborn son of a firstborn son, father to a firstborn son (may he soon follow in our footsteps), so I have a very personal interest in uncovering what the Torah has in mind – and in store – for us!
To understand this, we start by how the Torah explains this plague against Egypt. Hashem says to Moshe on several occasions that he knows that Par’oh will not change, will not let Yisrael go, until He smites the firstborn. And, in speaking to Moshe as he heads down to Egypt in Parashat Shemot, Hashem puts these words in Moshe’s mouth to speak to Par’oh: “Thus says Hashem, ‘Yisrael is my son, my firstborn, and I say to you: release My son that he may serve me, yet you refuse to release him? Behold, I am killing your son, your firsborn!’ ”.
But wait, Yisrael is not the most ancient of peoples, we are amongst the youngest! Therefore, R. Meir Simchah of Dvinsk explains (in Meshech Chocmah) that we merit being called firstborn in the sense that we are the first people to proclaim Hashem as One in the world, thereby admitting Him, as it were, to the realm of dimensionality. This is what Rashbi says in the Talmud, on the verse, “you are my witnesses…and I am Hashem, where he says, “as it were: if you are My witnesses, then I am Hashem, but if you are not My witnesses, then I am not Hashem”). A firstborn effects a transformation in the parent by making him into the parent, and thus the impact of the event of first birth is almost literally earth-shaking. It is so tempting to equate the wonder and newness that one feels inside oneself with the arrival of redemption and perfection. After all, didn’t Chavah say, upon the birth of Kayin – I’ve created a man – with G-d! The HUMAN active of procreation, as reflected upon from within our humanness, seems to be the fulfillment of the promised Divine Image in which we are created.
But we live on the plane of limitations, in the world of limitation, of “”this and not that”. Our first efforts are often premature, beautifully expressive of initiative and hope, of effort and belief, but, it must be said, imperfect. Physicality IS imperfection, even as it is the substrate for our strivings toward perfection. And yet that squirming, little ball of beauty IS perfect, is ME (O.K., and her), my first effort has to be right, perfect, doesn’t it, or else…
Or else, we’ll have to retool, and take the long shorter way to redemption. Every parent knows the blessings of the first time at every stage of growth granted them by their first-born, and the nightmarish fears of getting it wrong – time and time again. A crazy mixture of feelings – of undeserved blessings and of terror of messing things up irredeemably – visits itself on the new parent of any newborn, be it child of body, mind or heart. The temptation, turned into practice and custom by not a few societies in various ways throughout history: give it up, give it back ,give it away before you spoil it, before it’s all-too-human-therefore-imperfection spoils what YOU need from that child.
“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression, and the question thus become not rhetorical, but real – perhaps such a sacrifice is indeed called for? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark than can only be its own atonement?
“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark?
Hashem “demonstrated that there is another way. In creating the universe, He came on too strong, as it were, and shattered vessels unprepared for His too-much-perfection. But far from discarding His firstborn world, He redeemed it by a process of Tikkun that will ultimately achieve more than could possibly be imaged in a moment of rapturous firstborn perfection. And thus, though Canaanites might give their firstborn to Molech, we redeem our firstborn, we give five silver coins to the Kohen in charge of the realm of the Holy, and he restores our firstborn to us, no longer devoted to a realm beyond our ken, but now of this world. We re-understand the role Hashem has in mind for the firstborn, apropos of his/her particular set of talents and potentialities of body, mind and soul, and the trajectory set for him by his/her circumstances.
In doing this act, in first giving over the firstborn to the realm of the unblemished and then buying him back by giving over our silver – (kesef – yearnings – in Hebrew) for the gold of as-yet-unrealized potential that transcends the need for perfection now, we ultimately redeem ourselves. Or, more correctly, that first-born, pintele yid, soul-root, piece of G-d inside which is His firstborn, sitting stiffly, imprisoned on the Pharaoh-throne of need-for-me, waiting to recline amidst the leisurely plainness of each unsalted chew of matzah, each simply roasted taste of korban pesach, each moment releasing its savor, as we enter deeply into understand Hashem proclaimition: “I am first and I am last, and besides Me there is no god”.
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