Tactile Sense (Bo)

You just stubbed your toe. The word “OUCH” doesn’t really do justice. Naturally, you bite your lip, admittedly a tad too hard, so now your lip and your toe hurts. Great job!

According to the health website, TheHealthy.com, your feet – and specifically your toes – are your body’s windows to the world. Dr. Michael Trepel, DPM, a podiatrist in New York City, says, “There are more dense nerve endings around the toes because you need the tactile sense. Therefore, an injury around the tip of the toe generates more pain than if it happened on the heel.”

I am sure you are wondering, what in the world is the tactile sense? Here is a one-word answer that will probably leave you wondering even more: somatosensation. This is a fancy word for the tactile sense, or more familiarly, the sense of touch.

When it comes to the sense of sight, it is quite possible to experience an illusion. You think you see something, but it was just smoke and mirrors. The same is true when it comes to the sense of hearing. You think you hear something, but nothing really happened. In fact, the most common type of hallucination is an auditory hallucination.

If you think about it, the sense of touch – our tactile sense – is perhaps the most tangible sense that we experience. When you stub a toe, for example, there is no making it up. It really, truthfully, and honestly hurts. It is not an illusion or a hallucination; it is reality.

The 10 plagues, called Makkos, which culminates in this week’s Parsha, Parshas Bo, struck the Egyptians with a sense of tangible reality. You see, for the first few plagues, they thought that this whole Hashem business was utter nonsense. Who is Hashem that we should listen to Him? They didn’t think they were experiencing truth or reality. They thought they were being shown some tricks and illusions.

Over time, however, through each Makkah, it became more and more apparent that this whole Hashem business wasn’t just a show. Each plague that hit the Egyptians brought the message closer home that Hashem was real and legit. Hashem is not a mere subject of one’s illusions and hallucinations; rather, He is the most real Being, the most tangibly intangible Being!

But besides for serving as a message for the Egyptians, the Makkos served as a wakeup call to the Jewish people as well. This Hashem who is taking you out of Egypt is 100% real and means business. He is not a figment of your imagination. He is not a legend. He is not theoretical. He is not an illusion of some sort. HE IS TRUTH.

We have to make sure our Yiddishkeit is reaching our tactical senses. Let us ask ourselves: Can we feel and touch our Yiddishkeit? Is it tangible? Are we connecting to it in real and truthful way? Or is it just something esoteric, up in the air, and theoretical?

Let us take the message of the 10 Makkos, and learn to serve Hashem with conviction and honesty. And finally, let us realize that Hashem is truthful and real and as such we must strive to have a truthful and real relationship with Him.