PARSHA-PIX Parshat Bo

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Parsha Pix
From the upper right, reading right to left, we find ARBEH (locust), a black rectangle representing CHOSHECH (darkness), and a sword representing MAKAT BECHOROT. In this case the sword has a double meaning: It can represent the killing of the first borns and/or the killing BY the first borns of others in anger over Par'o's repeated refusal to yield to the threat made by Moshe (in G-d’s name) against the first borns.
The word BO (in Hebrew) is not just the name of the sedra, but also the number (BO = 2+1 = 3) of MAKOT in the sedra. There were seven plagues in Va’eira and another three in Parshat BO.
In addition to the word BO, there is also a BOW (as in bow and arrow) and a BOW as in a bow of ribbon.
The clock reads almost midnight. That was the phrase Moshe used to describe G-d's intention of Makat B'chorot at exactly midnight.
The lamb in the doorway is the Korban Pesach which was to be brought into the homes from the 10th of Nissan.
Matza is matza.
The barking dog is from the Egyptian neighborhoods, because in the Jewish areas, not a dog barked its tongue.
Their reward is that we “throw” them our non-kosher meat. The can above the dog can be dog food.
But the can has another meaning. In Hebrew, canned goods are called SHIMURIM, as in LEIL SHIMURIM.
The yo-yo represents Par’o’s erratic behavior. Call for Moshe and Aharon. Get them out of my sight. Bring them immediately. If I see you again, you will die. Quick, get them...
The bull with an O between its horns is PAR-O
The bone is for the prohibition of breaking a bone in Korban Pesach. It is also for the word that appears a few times: B’ETZEM HAYOM HAZEH...
Above the bone is the symbol on a weather map that indicates total cloud cover and a strong easterly wind. That represents the plague of locust that arrived on a strong easterly wind and covered the sky like heavy clouds.
T’filin are t’filin. Two of the four parshiyot inside T’filin come from the end of Parshat BO
The baby, goat, and donkey stand for the three types of B’CHOR, firstborns - human, kosher domesticated animals, and donkey.
The axes and the sword are mentioned in the haftara.
As is the EGLA YEFEI-FIYA, here represented as a prize-winning (obviously beautiful) calf.
The plant in the ParshaPix is the hyssop, EIZOV, used to apply the blood of the Korban Pesach to the doorposts and lintels of the Jewish homes in Mitzrayim.
Coca Cola (COKE) with the OKE in the font used by CocaCola and the C made from a snake, becomes a play on the words in the haftara of Parshat Bo - Yirmiyahu 46:22,KOLAH K'NACHASH... its sound is like a snake's... (or Cola like a snake).

TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout, usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles section. The best solution set submitted each week (there isn't always a best) wins a double prize a CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big Deal

New format for TTriddles. Let us know if you like it this way or the "And the envelope please" old way

Last issue’s (VA'EIRA) TTriddles:
[1] Forefathers of all kohanim except one
This TTriddle came from a tape of a Motza'ei Shabbat shiur of Rabbi Yisrael Reisman on the topic of Riddles. This is a modified form of the riddle. Defining Kohein as Aharon and all his descendants (without broadening the definition to include Malki-Tzedek or Moshe Rabeinu or anyone else), an obvious answer is Aharon, who is the forefather of all kohanim except for himself. Since the TTriddle asked for forefathers, we add another forefather of all kohanim except Aharon, who was mentioned in the sedra (Va'eira) - namely, Aminadav, father of Elisheva, wife of Aharon and foremother (it is a real word) of all kohanim except for Aharon. Since the TTriddle asked for forefathers, the answers are Aharon and Aminadav. And, as one solver pointed out, We know the names of several more "forefathers of all kohanim except one" - Ram (Aminadav's father), Chetzron, Peretz, and Yehuda. We cannot go further back to Yaakov, because he is a forefather of ALL kohanim. But Tamar's father, for example, would be a proper answer and so would many others. We've mentioned all the named people who fit the question.
[2] mouth, tongue, heart, and 4 plagues
KAVEID (or a variant of the root KAF-BET-DALET). Moshe referred to himself as a K'VAD PEH and K'VAD LASHON (mouth and tongue). Par'o's heart was KAVEID. And four of the plagues are described with that adjective KAVEID, severe - AROV, DEVER, BARAD (twice), and ARBEH.
[3] person, company, city, street
In Karnak the Magnificent style, the question would be "Who are (sons of Kehat) Amram, Yitzhar (Israeli vegetable oil company), Chevron (city), and Uziel (street in Bayit Vegan).
[4] the alliterative Levi
Merari, whose sons were Machli and Mushi.
[5] his name and birth-sedra have the same g'matriya... and so does his great-(x5)-grandfather
PINCHAS, whose birth was mentioned in VA'EIRA, has a numeric value of 208, as does Va'eira. As does YITZCHAK Avinu, Pinchas's great-great-great-great- great-grandfather.
[6] pledge his father to help non-date
In similar style to [3], the answers here are Aharon's sons - NADAV (pledge), AVI (father of) HU (him), EL (to) AZAR (help), I-TAMAR (non-date).
[7] 42,44,45,46,47,48,49,84,85,87,88
The sons of Korach are mentioned in Va'eira. There are 11 chapters of T'hilim in their honor. These are the chapter numbers.
[8] Torah's common term (sort of) for army and covey
Groups of animals have special names - a gaggle of geese, a swarm of bees, flock of sheep, murder of crows... A group of frogs is an army. A group of quail is a covey. The word CHOMORIM is used for the piles of frogs (Va'eira) and the piles of quail (in B'haalotcha).
[9] tended victim of fire; was almost a victim of fire (separate prize)
MISHA'EL was one of the nephews of Aharon that took care of the bodies of Nadav and Avihu after they were struck dead by a heavenly fire. A different MISHA'EL, with Chananya and Azarya, was thrown into a fiery furnace by Nevuchadnetzar (book of Daniel) and were miraculously saved.
[10] Also in ALARCACTINKYMANHNJNYOHUTVA
In addition to GOSHEN in Egypt, there are towns named GOSHEN in 13 different states in the U.S. The long string of letters in the TTriddle are the 13 official 2-letter abbreviations of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Indiana (largest population of the Goshens with 24,000-ish; most have a few hundred people each),Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York (5000+ people, home of the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame, passed on the way to the Catskills from NYC), Ohio, Utah, and Vermont.
[11] Special visual TTriddle from last week's issue. Separate prize for its correct solution, Personal challenge to MS and all TTriddle solvers. Hint: British insignia - (see hard copy of TT, or website)
All right, this one didn't work out. The insignia is of the British police rank Deputy Chief Constable, known as DCC, which in Roman numerals is 700, the issue number for the Sh'mot Torah Tidbits. Oh well, we tried.
[12] - [16] That leaves five unexplained elements, which are visual TTriddles. And [17] the Mazal TTriddle.
There is a compass with the needle pointing north - EL-TZAFAN b. Uziel, brother of Misha'el (see [9]) and Sitri.
C (atomic number 6, atomic weight 12.01) is the symbol for carbon, the main ingredient in the furnace soot that Moshe and Aharon used to bring about the plague of SH'CHIN (boils). [One solver said it stood for the KORBAN we asked to sacrifice...]
The flag is that of Vietnam. The key makes it KINAM, a.k.a. KINIM, plague #3. (The lice are referred to as KINIM 3 times and KINAM twice.)
In the lower-left are shoes known as Crocs. Besides being very comfortable, they represent the TANINIM (crocodiles) that the staffs of Moshe and the Chartumim of Egypt turned into.
Elazar b. Aharon HaKohein married one of the daughters of PUTI'EL; they had Pinchas. Elazar's wife was BAT-POOH-T-L.
In the Word of the Month box on page 2 (page 1 of the PDF file), is the Zodiac symbol (mazal) for Sh'vat. It is a picture of the MOVIL ARTZI, Israel's National Water Carrier. The Water Carrier is Aquarius, the mazal of Sh'vat.
[18] Also, there was a hidden TTriddle in plain site on the front page of last week's TT. It's still active.
For the last two years plus, we've had a pasuk (verse) from the sedra or haftara in a box on the front page of TT. For issue #700, the pasuk had no connection to Parshat HaShavua. Rather it was from Divrei HaYamim, part of HODU from P'sukei D'zimra. The g'matriya (numeric value) of the pasuk is 700. EB wins a CD (or cassette)for getting this one.
The NachKay Jewish Trivia Question (NKJTQ) was a continuation of the previous week's. We were looking in the regular daily Amida for names of people in Tanach.
Last week we published 18 names and challenged readers to find more. The 18 are: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Yisrael, David, Yehuda, Adam, Enosh, Baruch, Asher, Chanun, B'racha, Tzur, Tzemach, Melech, Sachar, Tov, Arba.
The prize of a CD from Noam Productions was awarded to Zevi Reich of RBS.
Additional prize this week to Hadar Crown for more additional names from the Amida than any other solver.
Some of these "new" names were also submitted by others, but HC takes the prize.
SHEIM b. No'ach. GESHEM, an Arab who plotted against Nechemya. BAAL (aside from the diety) there are two mentioned in Divrei HaYamim, one from Reuven and one from Binyamin. TIKVA, father-in-law of the prophetess Chulda. D'VIR, king of Eglon. (also a name for the Kodesh HaKodashim of the Beit HaMikdash.) CHEIN b. Tzefanya.YEITZER b. Naftali (word appears in ELOKAI, N'TZOR in the extra part said in Nusach S'fard.
HC, EB, and others also submitted some partial names and different-vowels-same-letter names. We won't put them on "the list", but they earned EB another prize. Some of these extras include BEN-CHESED, MALKI-TZEDEK, SHALUM, BAKOL (some say she was a daughter to Avraham and Sara), GAD, NUN, and others.
KOL HAKAVOD to all who submitted lists of names for this fun NKJTQ.
Another suggestion for a past NKJTQ. Shimon Lebowitz posits that in Beit HaMikdash, a kohen offers K'TORET and says a bracha. In practice, each kohen did K'toret only once in his life. Hmm. Maybe. Good possibility. CD to you. (Be in touch.)
On the bottom of two pages last week, the word Zap appeared. This too was a TTriddle of a type we've had in the past, but not for many (at least 15) weeks. Zap is a small town (pop. 231) in North Dakota. It just so happens that Mrs. Sylvia Samson a"h (wife of Julius Samson, the first and long-term chairman of the Israel Center) came from Zap. As a matter of fact, Sylvia Sam- son might have been the first baby ever born in Zap. A Jew from North Dakota is rare enough, but a religious Jew from Zap! So what's Zap doing in the TT footer last week? Its area code is 701.
A TTriddle that was hidden in the TTriddle report of TT701 was found and solved by ZR (he solved others too) and wins him another CD this week. Helen Parr was/is Elastigirl, who can do what might have happened to Bat Par'o when she stretched her arm.
The following also win CDs from Noam Productions for their TTriddle work:RHM, Rosalie K. and Hillel Sabba M. & gds. TTriddles prize to AW/Cranford NJ

This week's TTriddles:
[1] 1956 jazz album by Miles Davis
[2] Brother [sic], want a festive omelet?
[3] 2nd question, answered 8 times after the 4th
[4] E&M/M&E, everyone/adults, prophets/Moshe, wizards/prophet
[5] Par'o's question in my bread and water
[6] part of envy

NachKay Jewish Trivia Question
Find a pasuk in the Torah which contains a five-word phrase repeated three times verbatim

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