We Will All Go, Parashat Bo:
Women’s March 2018

These winter weeks, in our Torah, we read the story of our people’s liberation from Egypt; the triumphs and setbacks, the twists and turns. This Shabbat, in Parashat Bo, after many asks of “Let our people go!,” as locust swarm all around, frozen-hearted Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron back to the palace.  

He says to them – “Alright already. Go. Go worship your God.” 
And then he asks, “But who are the ones who will go?” 
Moses responds, “We will all go. We will go with our young and our old: We will go with our sons and our daughters. We will go with our flocks and our herds.” 
All of us. We will all go. We will leave no one behind.

And like so many Pharaohs we know who try to hold onto power by tearing others apart, Pharaoh won’t have it. 

Moses and Aaron insist,
We will all go.
They know that this is the key to liberation.
As the Jewish woman poet, Emma Lazarus wrote,
“Until we all are free, we are none of us free.”