Darche No'am (Slonimer Rebbe) on Bo

I bought a sefer called Darchei No'am, in Israel a bunch of years ago; it's by the present Yerushalayim Slonimer Rebbe, successor of the Nesivos Shalom. Here are some of what I got out of his essay on Parshat Bo.

He cites the known approach that we were were zocheh to be redeemed because of specific good things that we held onto. Then he questions the tradition that we needed to receive and keep 2 mitzvot - milah and Pesach before we could be worthy of having G-d lift us out of Egypt. The idea he develops is that even though we had zechuyot, like being careful about arayot, we needed mitzvot. Mitzvot are the kli - container - that holds the spiritual light of mitzvot - "ner mitzvah vetorah ohr" - like a candle holds physical light, mitzvot hold the physical light of Torah. He says this is the idea of naaseh preceding nishmah and the proclamation of "na'aseh venishmah" being the key to accepting Torah, which is said to be a profound secret that the Jews intuited, the understanding that the kli, the mitzvot, come first as a way to hold the broad, amorphous, spiritual light. This is also the idea of needing to have ma'asim be merubeh over mitzvot (as per the mishnah in Avot); the kli needs to be large and prepared to hold the chochmah/Torah. This is why we are told to be like a tree with more roots than branches, because the roots are the kli - the framework and foundation - that allows the tree to live on...