G-d tells Moshe that He is hardening Pharaoh's heart so that through miraculous plagues the world will know for all time that He is the one true G-d. Pharaoh is warned about the plague of locusts and is told how severe it will be. Pharaoh agrees to release only the men, but Moshe insists that everyone must go. During the plague, Pharaoh calls for Moshe and Aharon to remove the locusts, and he admits he has sinned.

G-d ends the plague but hardens Pharaoh's heart, and again Pharaoh fails to free the Jews. The country, except for the Jewish People, is then engulfed in a palpable darkness. Pharaoh calls for Moshe and tells him to take all the Jews out of Egypt, but to leave their flocks behind. Moshe tells him that not only will they take their own flocks, but Pharaoh must add his own too.

Moshe tells Pharaoh that G-d’s going to bring one more plague, the death of the firstborn, and then the Jews will leave Egypt. G-d again hardens Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh warns Moshe that if he sees him again, Moshe will be put to death. G-d tells Moshe that the month of Nissan will be the chief month.

The Jewish People are commanded to take a sheep on the 10th of the month and guard it until the 14th. The sheep is then to be slaughtered as a Pesach offering, its blood put on their doorposts, and its roasted meat eaten. The blood on the doorpost will be a sign that their homes will be passed-over when G-d strikes the firstborn of Egypt. The Jewish People are told to memorialize this day as the Exodus from Egypt by never eating chametz on Pesach.

Moshe relays G-d's commands, and the Jewish People fulfill them flawlessly. G-d sends the final plague, killing the firstborn, and Pharaoh sends the Jews out of Egypt. G-d tells Moshe and Aharon the laws concerning the Pesach sacrifice, pidyon haben (redemption of the firstborn son) and tefillin.

PARSHA INSIGHTS

One Jet of Water

“It happened on that very day: Hashem took the Children of Yisrael out of the land of Egypt, in their legions” (12:51)

One spark can start an inferno, and one jet of water can put it out.

During the recent terrible fires in Los Angeles, 65-year-old John Carr defied evacuation orders to save the home that had been passed down to him by his parents.

He said, “The house was built by my mother and father in 1960. And I lived here my whole life. There's a lot of memories here. And I think I owed it to them as well to try my best to save it. Some things in life are worth fighting for. I was hosing the house down and getting ready, and when the houses started to burn, I didn't see one single fire truck out here at all. Zero. If they had some fire trucks, just put a squirt here, a squirt there, and kept an eye on things, all these houses would be here.”

One small jet of water can put out an inferno – but only at the beginning.

The gemara in Sukkah: Rabbi Yehudah said: “In the future, Hashem will take the evil inclination and slaughter it in front of the Tzadikim and the Resha'im, the righteous and the wicked. Both the Tzadikim and the Resha'im will cry; the Tzadikim will cry when they realize that the evil inclination they overcame was like an enormous mountain; the Resha'im will realize that what they failed to overcome was like a tiny thread of hair, and they will cry, ‘How were we not able to conquer such a small thread of hair?’”

The uncontrollable inferno of the evil inclination starts off with a little spark. All one needs is one or two jets of water to put it out. But only in the beginning. If one doesn't stamp out that fire at the start, it will grow and engulf the person.

The Torah calls Egypt, “The nakedness of the land.” (Ber. 42:9) Egypt was an entire culture dedicated to the pursuit of infinite variety and potential. By definition, such a society is incapable of, and scorns, fidelity. When Hashem took the Jewish People out of Egypt, He took us out of a worldview that glorifies immorality.

If John Carr was prepared to fight for his legacy, his house, his memories, how much more we, the children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, should be prepared to fight for ours.

Carr said there were no fire trucks in the area. He was on his own. You know, that's our world today. Relatively few people care about holiness in the world.

But the Jewish nation does, and we're preserving generations. We’re preserving a legacy infinitely more valuable than any house. We have to do for ourselves and the world what John Carr did for his house. We have to stand up and rescue a world, burning, out of control with physicality.

It only takes “a small jet of water.”