Things are escalating between Moses and Pharaoh. When the Exodus epic began, Moses didn’t ask for the people to be permanently freed, although that was always the end game. He just asked for the people to be allowed to go into the desert to worship God.

Pharaoh now says they can do that as long as they leave their sheep and cattle, their assets, back in Egypt. But Moses says not only do they need to bring everything with them, but they want reparations for slavery too — Egyptian animals to offer up. So Pharaoh’s heart is hardened once again which ultimately leads to the tenth plague, the death of the first-born.

Why did God want to cause so much suffering? Couldn’t God just have softened Pharaoh’s heart? Rabbi Shefa Gold suggests that we need to think of this story as a metaphor and that a clue is in the name of the parashah, Bo, which means, “Come”. God says to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh”.

Why use the word “come”, and not “go”? Because, she says, God is waiting for us inside Pharaoh’s heart and Pharaoh’s heart is inside us. It’s the place that has grown heavy with life experience, hardened by cynicism and filled with fear and unhealed grief.

We must work our way through this heart of Pharaoh if we want to know God and if we want to find our freedom, which is waiting for us.

Within this metaphor, we are all the characters in the story, the Egyptians led by someone whose heart is closed and the Israelites seeking their freedom. We can identify with both the Egyptians and the Israelites and acknowledge how much this pandemic has affected all of us and how dangerous it is to react too late, as Pharaoh does, when he finally tells the Israelites to go.

It is Mental Health Awareness Shabbat this weekend, named after the ninth plague of darkness. The last couple of years have been acutely stressful as, like the Egyptians, we have had to navigate one wave of epidemic after another. But it’s important to keep our hearts open, look out for each other and to remember that, like slavery, this will not last forever.