This past week, people around the world were counting down to midnight. As the clock struck exactly 12:00, people celebrated the beginning of 2022. Today, with modern technology, we know the exact moment to celebrate. However, if you do some research, you will learn that the question of exactly when midnight occurs, or whether midnight belongs to the day before or the day after—or smack in between the two—is a complicated question. That is why most people try to avoid the issue, and we just raise our glass in celebration and say L’chayim, and we don’t think too much about it.
This makes us wonder, why did G-d, in this week’s Torah portion, Bo, decide to get Himself into hot water by saying that He would bring the tenth and final plague - the death of the first born - at exactly midnight.
In addition, no other plague was given a timeframe. At most, Moses let Pharaoh know that the next day a plague would come. That is a vague timeframe, and even the time that G-d was specific, Moses wouldn’t say exactly what G-d told him to say; instead he said K’chatzos, loosely translated to mean “at about” midnight. Why wouldn’t Moses say what G-d said, “exactly” at midnight?
Rashi takes a novel approach to the word K’chatzos. He explains, yes, it can mean “at about” midnight, but it can also mean so much more. We can interpret this word to mean “in between today and tomorrow,” since this time is very difficult to pinpoint. Even today, with all the technology that we have, it is very challenging to split this timeframe in half. Moses, who didn’t want to take the responsibility on his own shoulders to define that time, says “at about” this time, yet he still defined the meaning of this time: “In between the two days.”
However, let’s take this a bit deeper. Moses was not telling us when G-d would bring the tenth plague, but how He would bring the death of the first born!
The how is that it was G-d Himself who brought this tenth plague, and who brought the other nine plagues, and who performed all the miracles for the Jewish people. And for that matter, who runs this world. G-d was sending a message to the Egyptians and to the Jews alike: There is a Creator of this world. He is a master clockmaker, who knows how to make this world click. Who knows precisely how this world works – after all, He is G-d. That is why G-d says: B’chatzi Haleila at exactly midnight!
Moses, who wanted to emphasize G-d’s greatness, changed the word to say “at about” not to diminish the time, but to enhance its meaning.
We look at the clock and we may not know exactly when midnight is, however, we know that G-d does, and this fact reminds us of our Creator and our connection to G-d. This reminder tells us to take a moment and contemplate all the blessings that G-d gives us on a regular basis, the “exodus” and “redemption” that we experience each and every day.