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DON’T CRY OVER SPILT BLOOD

Spilt blood; what image conjures up in our mind? Is it death and destruction or is it joy and vitality? In this week’s Parsha, Bo, we are taught that the Jewish perspective is the latter.

Pharaoh tells Moshe that it is not a good idea for the people to leave Egypt because his astrologers see the sign of blood on the path of the Jewish people. The implication is that there will be destruction. However, there was no destruction. Instead, that blood was the blood of our people’s performance of the mitzvah of Bris Milah in the desert just prior to our entry into the Land of Israel. It was a life giving blood not a destructive blood. What appeared to be our demise turned out to be the source of our life. We were only able to enter the Land of Israel once we were circumcised. Without the blood of our national Bris Milah we could not have entered our Land.