The Weekly Shtikle - Bo

A special Weekly Shtikle mazal tov to my cousins Yona & Libby Seliger on the birth of their new baby girl, Rachel, born this week. Mazal tov to the extended Seliger, Fordsham and Jakobovits mishpachos.

Another oldie but goodie, especially pertinent to those who are currently learning the Dirshu Mishnah Berurah cycle:

    The pasuk in Bemidbar 3:13 states "Ki li kol bchor byom hakosi kol bchor b'eretz Mitzrayim". In the hakdamah to maseches S'machos (found in the back of maseches Avodah Zarah) it is asked that the pasuk in this week's parsha states "vayehi bachatzi halayla v'HaShem hika kol bchor..." If the plague occurred at night, why does the pasuk in Bemidbar say "b'yom?" The answer given there is that the makah was initiated at night, and they were struggling until the morning when they died. Maharsham states that it is because of this that we find that pidyon haben is usually performed during the day, because the actual death of the first born was during the day.

 

    Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, zt"l, points out that this concept may answer an interesting discrepancy between the birchos keriyas shema of the morning and that of the night. In the morning we say (after shema) "mimitzrayim ge'altanu... v'chol bechoreihem haragta". At night we say,"hamakeh v'evraso kol bchorei mitzrayim, vayotze es amo Yisrael mitocham..." At night, the term haka'ah is used, whereas in the morning, harigah is used. Furthermore, at night the exodus is mentioned after the killing of the first born, whereas in the morning it is mentioned before. The explanation is that at night we refer to what happened at night. The initial haka'ah, smiting took place at night and the exodus followed after. The actual demise of the first born occurred in the morning and that is what we refer to. By then, the geulah  had already begun because B'nei Yisrael were already on their way out.

 

Have a good Shabbos.

Eliezer Bulka
WeeklyShtikle@weeklyshtikle.com

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