PARASHAT BO DESCRIBES a number of rituals surrounding the Exodus that allow us to see a connection between blood, sacrifice, and family ties. Sacrificial blood in 12:1–13 is protective, separating the Egyptians who are about to die from the Israelites who soon will hurriedly flee the “house of bondage.” As an expression of the life force, the blood is also symbolic of the fertility of the family that offers it as a sacrifice and then applies it to the doorposts and the lintel of their house.
In addition, the blood symbolizes the connection between past and living generations. The living and the deceased should not be seen as mutually exclusive, but instead can be considered as part of a chain of human existence connecting ancestors and their descendants. Thus for readers of the story, the passover sacrifice acts as a link to generations past, a way to recognize the plight of those who first left Egypt and to offer gratitude to God for their liberation. The passover sacrifice also connects the past to the future, as one generation teaches the next the lessons of the Exodus: “And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to יהוה, who passed over the houses of the Israelites.…(12:26–27).
Furthermore, the consumption of the communal Passover meal provides a map of the social structure of the family network. Eating the roasted lamb (or kid) with unleavened bread and bitter herbs determines the boundaries of the people who share in the event, indcating who is inside and outside the group. With all family groups eating their paschal lamb on the same evening (vv. 6–8), the act of eating becomes symbolic of continuity and unity. However, the separate groups consume their own sacrifices, “a lamb to a household” (12:3), with no foreigners allowed to eat of it (12:43–45). Thus, the rite also symbolizes discontinuity and differentiation. In these various ways, the Passover sacrificial ritual is about identity and how we solidify family ties through this ancient ritual.
—Naomi Steinberg