The Lord said to Moshe and Aharon: This is the law of the Passover
offering: No foreigner shall eat of it. But any slave a man has brought may eat
of it once he has been circumcised. No bound nor hired laborer shall eat of it.
It shall be eaten in one house: you shall not take any of the flesh outside
the house; nor shall you break a bone of it. The whole community of Israel
shall offer it. If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the Passover
[offering] to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised; then he shall be
admitted to offer it; he shall then be as a citizen of the country. But no
uncircumcised person may eat of it. There shall be one law for the citizen
and for the stranger who dwells upon you.
Shemot
12:43-49
"Nor shall you break
a bone of it" - The Symbols Which Express the Meaning of the Redemption from
Egypt
"Nor
shall you break a bone of it" - The real offering consists primarily of the blood and the
flesh (i.e., the muscles), excluding the bones which only form the passive
framework. An offering is essentially a giving up of oneself and of the
activities prompted by one's own will. In the Pesach offering one receives
oneself back. This symbolic "enjoying of oneself again, represents the gift of
the return of one's personality, i.e., regained freedom of will. This refers
primarily only to the 'basar" - the flesh, the active part of the
personality (the muscles). With this basar,
this 'mevasser' (messenger) of the nefesh,
the soul, there are the
bones, the means placed at the service of the will, to enable the activity of
the muscles to function, and to hold the whole together. They are not the
creature itself but they are placed at the disposal of the creature and in
conjunction with it, 'a bone with meat attached', they represent, not indeed
activity, but the means by which activity is achieved. As long as the basar is on them, they can represent the dedication by one's own free will
of one's activities to God. i.e., as long as the basar is pure,
the bones, as the means used by this free will for activities, themselves
become important, and must be treated with respect, must be protected from
fracture. Apart from their use in conjunction with the basar and holy uses, the means themselves are worthless. In conjunction with
it, they take on the importance and meaning of our morally free personality.
Hence the dictum: "If there is no kazayit
[size of an olive] of
meat, then there is no prohibition against fracturing bones; if it is impure,
there is no prohibition against fracturing bones". Taken together with the two
preceding precepts the verse would express: No person is to be withdrawn from
the home, no basar from the person, and no bone from
the flesh; the consecrated idea of the home is to hold all and everything
fast to itself.
(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, ibid., ibid.)
[Editor's note: In continuation of Rabbi Hirsch's words about the consecrated
home, one can read the passage which continues the laws regarding the
Pesach sacrifice: "There shall be one teaching for the citizen and the
stranger" as a moral statement which expresses the deep meaning of the
redemption for Egypt; The freedom of a people cannot base itself on the
negation of the freedom or equality of another people).
A. The query with which Rashi begins his commentary on the Torah - an indication that this is one of the major issues dealt with by our Sages - is well known: Why did the Torah not begin with "This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you" (Shemot 12:2)?
This is a complicated question, the essence of which is: What is Torah? What is its purpose? A book of history or a book of commandments? And if both, which should come first?
Manitou, Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi, z"l, one of the great teachers and thinkers of French Jewry, taught as follows: The Torah did not commence with Shemot 12:2 because of circumstances related to the to the content of these passages. The first passage says "The Lord said to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt." According to Manitou, the Book of Bereishit in general, and the first eleven chapters of the Book of Shemot, are intended to lead the reader into the background of the mitzvoth; to explain their source and authority; who are God, Moshe and Aharon; to teach who is the nation of Israel, and why is that nation in Egypt; to teach the reader what is a month, what is a year, what is time, and what is the reckoning of time.
According to this explanation, the order in
which the Torah was written was determined by the major mission incumbent upon
every generation: The translation of the universal event into a personal
educational message.
How can I transmit to one whose eyes did not see that which my eyes did see? And if also my eyes did not see, then what am I to do?
B. According to the Book of Bereishit, the primeval condition was not light, but darkness. "... And darkness over the surface of the deep" (Bereishit 1:2) The act of of Creation ex nihilo" is an act of the creation of essence in place of nothingness. The first essence was light and has remained until this day the archetype of "somethingness". Man seeks to see in order to understand, in order to control; man seeks to bring to light in order to unravel secrets.
And we also learn - especially in our parasha - that a condition of darkness is a particularly difficult situation, an intolerable one. Rashi explains the passage "People could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was" (Shemot 10:23): "A darkness of blackness in which man could not see his brother for three days, and another three days doubly intensified, in which no one could get up from where he was - sitting and unable to stand - standing and unable to sit."
The darkness of Egypt, perhaps the archetype, which man must recognize is that darkness in which man dared not move an eyelid because of the paralysis resulting from the situation.
In the story of Sodom and Amorrah, the people of Sodom were deterred in their scheme to "know" Lot's guests by darkness, they were "struck by blinding light".
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch in explaining the passage "And darkness over the surface of the deep" maintains that the essence of 'hoshekh' ('darkness') is related to the essence of 'hasokh' ('withdrawal'): "Hasokh" designates the condition in which beings are not exposed to the awakening influence of light."
A condition of darkness leads man to
existential fear, to a primeval state in which he lacks everything, in
which he feels himself deprived of all protection, a personal situation of "darkness
over the surface of the deep."
C. There is no doubt that man's nature is to strive to distance himself as far as possible from this condition. From this it follows that we seek to see, we seek to shed light. But at this point reality enters the picture. The reality is that we cannot see the light for which we yearn. We cannot see the creation of the world; we cannot even see the exodus from Egypt, that event which is praised - or cried over - by our Sages in their famous statement that "A maidservant at the sea witnessed that which Ezekiel the prophet could not see" (Ramban Bereishit 18:1, also on Shemot 16:6. See also Rashi on location). The reality is that we do not merit seeing the light as others in the past did, or as prophecy claims we will see in the future, as per the supplication "And may our eyes see". The reality of the present permits us only to hear about this light.
It seems that our parasha attempts to cope with this. We find states of darkness (including the plague of locust - "They hid all the land from view, and the land was darkened" (Shemot 10:15), the plague of darkness, and also the striking of the firstborn which occurred in the middle of the night), interlaced with states of hearing: "And that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and of your sons' sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them - in order that you may know that I am the Lord (Shemot 10:2), "And you shall tell your sons", etc.
D. The goal of education, of transmission to the generations, is the translating of the event which was seen by someone so that it impress and accompany others, even if their own eyes do not see it. In our parasha the gap which exists between Moshe and the people illustrates the difficulty. Moshe sees (Rashi on Shemot 12:2 "This month" - He pointed out the moon in the firmament and told him 'Sanctify it when it is like this"). He is requested to "speak in the ears of the people (Shemot 11:2); he is to translate it for the people.
There is nothing like seeing with one's own eyes in order to impress, to leave an impression, and to influence. In the words of Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch: "The eye of man observes not because the spirit of man flows from within it, but because the universe flows into man via the eye." (Commentary on Shemot 10:5).
Philosophers in every generation compared sight with the source of knowledge, and the psychoanalysts described sight as irreplaceable for the establishment of identity. Plato taught that "I see" means "I understand." According to Lacanne (a French psychoanalyst), the child begins the crystallization of his personality with the experience of sight, from the day he identifies himself in the mirror; according to the British psychoanalyst Winnicott, the child begins to sense existence when he sees his mother looking at him.
E. Our parasha comes to emphasize the situations in which we must find substitutes for seeing; we are acquainted with many of these. We want to personally experience the exodus from Egypt as though we ourselves had left Egypt; we wish to observe the mitzva of "Vehigad'ta levanekha" "You shall relate it to your children." We want to reach not only the son who is able to learn and to be convinced. We also want to reach the "tam" - the simple son, and the one who "knows not how to ask", and the rasha - the wicked son. Breaching this boundary is as difficult as the exodus from Egypt. We face similar difficulties regarding other events. We want to preserve the memory of the Shoah and we want to fight against the forgetting of the Shoah. We want our children to embody the ideal of Zionism, even though the popularity of the Zionist spirit is on the wane. In this daily effort, we bewail the fact that we are unable to see that which "every maidservant at the sea witnessed"; and we especially lament our inability to show the event to our children. Via this experience we sense the paralysis and the stagnation which result from the darkness.
This is the meaning of the first mitzvah which we receive, the mitzvah of Sanctification of the New Moon. My acceptance of this mitzvah means that I accept my ability to translate that which could have been seen, into a different dimension. Ideally, I should have to see the moon, but I did not merit God's telling me "Sanctify it when you see it like this", and therefore I must utilize other tools in place of sight. The mitzvah of Kiddush HaHodesh symbolizes the acceptance of time. The acceptance of this mitzvah is like the acceptance of an instrument for the measurement of time and its division into months and years. Sight is characterized by immediacy (the speed of light is so great that lightening is detected by our eyes immediately, whereas the sound of thunder reaches us later). Hearing is characterized by delay (we can see a complete scene in a brief time, but we are forced to take some time in order to get the impression of a symphony). The mitzvah of Kiddush Hahodesh is the first instrument given man to enable him to cope with his reality, a reality in which there are things not seen by the eye.
F. New philosophical currents are interested in the dimension of hearing and its combination with philosophical terminology. David Levine, for example, an American philosopher, published a book, The Listening Self and the Closure of Metaphysics, in which he argues that classic "visual" philosophy has reached a dead end - with the "absurd" philosophical currents, for example, and the renewal of metaphysical search will be possible only through emphasis on the auditory dimension.
Over twenty years ago, the nazirite Rabbi David Hacohen wrote his book about the Hebrew auditory logic, The Voice of Prophecy. In it, he emphasizes the importance of auditory messages in Judaism, beginning with the prayer "Shema Yisrael" - "Here O Israel" - and ending with the mitzvah of listening to the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
From our parasha we derive that the transition from a situation of darkness is effected by the act of speech "Speak to the children of Israel"; the mission is completed if the speaker succeeds in being heard. To accomplish this, the "speaker" must apply the dimension of time. Thus, he will be privileged to educate, to preserve ("And you shall watch the matzoth" Shemot 12:17) - writes Rashi: Rabbi Yoshia says read not "the matzoth" but "the mitzvoth"), to transmit, even to change [the Hebrew root for 'change' is also Hebrew for "year"] and to innovate [the Hebrew root for "innovate" is the Hebrew for "month"]. These are some of the educational experiences. We succeessfully educate by virtue of our internalization of this. Through our search for ways to relate, to hit our target, to elucidate, we turn the universal message into a personal one - "This Moon will be for you the first New Moon of the year" - and then it will be heard.
Dr. Jean Pizante is a senior clinical psychologist at the "B'nei Brith" Children's' Home in Yerushalayim, offering special treatment for children with emotional problems.
"AND IT SHALL BE A SIGN ON
YOUR HAND" - THE
WEAKER HAND: BETWEEN POWER AND THOUGHT (The
word for 'your hand' (yadekha) is written irregularly, with a seemingly
superfluous letter heh at the end, thus enabling the Halakhic exegesis
which turns the word yadekha into "yad keyheh", the weak hand.)
"And it shall be a sign on
your hand" - Our Sages,
of blessed memory, (Menahot 37) said: "The
weak hand - to teach that tephillin are to be placed on the left hand". The
reason for this is that intelligence and physical matter are like two tsarot
- two competing wives - when this one rises, the other falls, and when the
material is afflicted, the intellectual strength is enhanced. The purpose our
adversity in Egypt was to bring material Israel into the iron furnace, thereby
causing the intelligence to ascend and overpower. Evidence of this is seen in
the young and the elderly; when one is yet young and ignorant and his physical
strength is at its peak, then his intellectual power is weak. When he ages, and
his physical strength begins to ebb, his intelligence grows strong. Therefore
whoever says that the earlier days were better than the current days does not
speak wisely, for wisdom is to be found in the elderly, and understanding in
those of ripe old age. So it is with man's two hands, for the weak left hand
is near the heart, which is the repository of wisdom, for the
intelligence part of the heart causes the hand to be weak, for the hand is
engaged in material activity. The right hand, however, adjacent to the liver,
which is the source of desire, is not in contradiction to the hand for there is
its main strength. But where intelligence resides, there is the hand weak.
Saying here "and it shall be for a sign upon your [weak] hand" it
is, as though to say, that the sign will be upon your heart, for the
heart is the cause of hand's weakness, for the purpose for the tephillin is
that man should have a remembrance in the place where intelligence dwells - in
the mind and in the heart...
Another explanation. Therefore
did the passage specify the weak hand, to teach that not with
strength will man overcome, but that the Lord wages war, for man's
hand is too weak to accomplish either great or small things if not for God's
hand holding his hand ... Therefore God commanded to place the tephillin, upon
which the name of God is inscribed, upon the weak hand' to teach that
God's strong right hand is that which gives power to this weak hand, as is
written "For with a powerful hand did God deliver us from Egypt" - this
is God's powerful right hand, which corresponds to man's left hand, and with it
God delivered us, and since our visage faces God, then his right corresponds to
our faint hand, to teach that no action depends upon man's activity, but with
the help of The Holy One, Blessed Be He.
(Kli Yakar, Shemot 13:16)
Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal
and Dr. Menachem Klein
Translation:
Kadish Goldberg
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