By Aaron Kay

Parashat Bo covers the middle chapter of the Passover story. By this point, the first seven plagues have already hit Egypt, and Pharaoh's heart has gone through one complete cycle of softening and hardening. Now, God is instructing Moses and Aaron to once again come to Pharaoh and demand emancipation, as well as to deliver a warning that if Pharaoh denies the Israelites their freedom again, Egypt will be struck with more plagues. Pharaoh responds with stubbornness and proceeds to contradict his own advisors by repeatedly refusing the Israelites’ pleas. After three more plagues of locusts, darkness, and the slaying of the first born, Pharaoh finally agrees to let the Israelites go.

As educators, we Habonim Dror folk often use this story to focus on the leadership qualities of Moses. Our peulot examine how he (with the help of one gorgeously named brother) was persistent in standing up for the Jewish people and how he brought revolutionary change to Egyptian society. Habonim educates that we should strive to embody such qualities in our own leadership.

However Moses is not the only leader in the parasha. I want to take a look at Pharaoh. As the reigning monarch over all of Egypt, Pharaoh can be held responsible for the state of the Israelites. Ignoring direction from Jewish voices and continueing to oppress the Jewish people may have been economically beneficial for some time, but these actions ultimately led to the ten plagues and seriously damaged the lives of all Egyptians.

For us in 2014, how can we strive to be unlike Pharaoh? We must act and educate to take seriously the voices of oppressed identities. We must push ourselves to view how systems from which we may appear to benefit actually are harmful in our communities. Institutions of oppression are often misconstrued as relevant for only a select group of people. For example, racism is construed as harmful only for racial minorities, classism is deemed problematic only for the lower class, etc. This mindset relieves responsibility from those in privileged positions and results in an individualized world where the struggles of others are peripheral to our personal goals.

Pharaoh marginalized the struggles of the Israelites and allowed his society to crumble beneath the plagues. Whose voices are we responsible for listening to, and how can we enrich our communities by doing so?