Pesach

 

Rabbi gamliel used to say:

Whoever has not recited these three things on pesach

Has not fulfilled his obligation:

And these are: pesach (the pascal lamb), matzah (unleavened bread),

And marror (bitter herbs)

(Mishnah, Pesahim 10:5)

 

Pesach - Pesach [must be recited to remind us] that He skipped over the homes of Israel who actually deserved to be trampled under the heels of the measure of justice as were the Egyptians, since they, as did the Egyptians, worshipped idolatrously; but despite this, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, skipped over them.

Matzah - And [we must recite] Matzah because their dough had insufficient time to leaven (this is the version found in the Rosh); just as they were delivered before the preordained time, for they were to have remained in Egypt 400 years, but they were delivered after 210 years, so they were commanded to eat their bread before it's proper stage.

And Maror - Because "They embittered their lives" - we praise His blessed name also for the bitterness which our forefathers suffered, because the severity of the enslavement [was taken into consideration in calculating completion] of 400 years.

(Tiferet Yisrael/Yahin/ Pesahim 10:5)

 

And this is to intimate that this is the reason our rabbis, or blessed memory, termed the blessing 'karpass' [Translator's note: karpas - in modern Hebrew 'celery' - refers to any of the greens used for dipping in salt water at the seder. The Talmud reads karpas as an acronym for "He delivered six hundred thousand of the Children of Israel who worked hard in Egypt"] - and all the commentators are puzzled by this. But in accordance with [what we wrote] above, [the name karpas] may hint at the following: Just as in the Exodus from Egypt, at the beginning of the deliverance Israel had great faith, as is written: And they did not prepare provisions" and because of this Scripture praises them highly, as is written "I remember the loving-kindness of your youth [...] following me in the desert, etc," as per Rashi's explanation there. Therefore we continue with this great faith, for we believe that even this small bit of greens is subject to God's wonderful providence. And therefore it is [also] a term for fine linen garments, as is written "Hur, karpas u'techelet" ("White cotton and blue wool, fine linen and purple wool"), meaning to say that I belief that everything is in Your hands, and that this tiny bit of greens is as wonderful a creation as expensive garments called karpas.

(Rabbi Nahman of Breslav: Likutei Halachot, Orah Hayyim - Laws of Washing Hands before the Meal and the Breaking of the Bread, Halacha 6)

 

 

 

 

 

Maror - the agony and the hope

Haim Watzman

A month ago, following the custom instituted by Mordecai and Esther after the Jews' victory over their oppressors, we celebrated our deliverance from the hands of Haman. Despite Purim's characteristic chaos, the sequence of events marked by that holiday seems so logical as to be unremarkable - catastrophe, victory, and redemption in one year, commemoration and celebration for future generations.

At the Seder the opposite occurs. On this night, strangely enough, we participate in a ritual instituted prior to redemption. The first Seder night occurred in Egypt while our ancestors were still slaves. The ritual that was intended to remind us of our exodus from servitude to freedom via God's powerful hand was observed in the middle of the night, before the participants knew whether the promise of the Lord, as heard from Moshe our teacher, would indeed be fulfilled. Logic would dictate that the first Seder night should be celebrated - as was the first Purim celebration - immediately after the exodus from Egypt, or perhaps a year later, in order to affix this formative event in national memory and custom.

Rabbi Kolonymus Kalmish Shapira, known as the "Aish Kodesh," after the name of his most famous work, asked this question in the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, in his sermon for Parashat Behar. Why, he wondered, were the Children of Israel commanded to eat maror - bitter herbs - on the night of the first Pesach? Explicitly, the purpose of eating maror is to remind us of our suffering under Pharaoh. "Prior to their exodus from Egypt, they had no need to remind themselves, as they were still in Egypt," he pointed out.

The same question may be asked with reference to matzah. As we learn from the Haggadah, matzah has double symbolism. It is the bread of poverty, the bread of slaves, and also the bread of deliverance, the bread baked in the haste of the Exodus. When the firstborn of Egypt were smitten that night, the Children of Israel had not yet left their slave quarters. The first ceremony of eating matzah thus could not have served to remind them of this event. And they already had in plenty the bread of poverty. They had been eating it for centuries and there was nothing special in eating it again on this night.

The "Aish Kodesh," only too familiar with suffering and famine in the ghetto, found meaning in this apparent absurdity: "But the plain meaning is that they were commanded to ingest the bitterness of the period, so that they always remember - even after deliverance - the bitterness and the yoke of Heaven which they had then accepted upon themselves."

Rabbi Kolonymus offered a profound insight about the act of remembering. He stressed that in order to inscribe the memory of the bitter enslavement in the souls of the Children of Israel for generations, it was necessary that that the generation leaving Egypt eat bitter herbs still in the land of their oppression, while yet slaves. He offered two reasons:

The first is that the act of eating literally embodied the cruelty of their slavery - it brought into their bodies a suffering that had been imposed from the outside. Now part of their physical beings, they bore their former suffering with them when they left Egypt. Eating the maror at each subsequent Seder thus did not merely evoke a vague memory of long-ago suffering; it became a rehearsal of the act which transformed the bitterness of slavery into an intimate part of the Israelites' very being.

In other words, the role of remembering on Pesach is different from that of remembering on Purim. On both holidays we are commanded to remember and rejoice in our redemption. But on Pesach we are also commanded to remember the suffering which preceded the deliverance. If on Purim we expunge the very name of Haman, on Seder night we incorporate the affliction into our bodies and souls. The Seder rite does not just remind us that God delivered us from Egypt. It also reminds us that He kept us enslaved for hundreds of hopeless years.

Now for the second reason proposed by the "Aish Kodesh." The act of eating bitter herbs in Egypt not only engraved agony upon the souls of slaves on the threshold of deliverance, it also bound this suffering inseparably to the subsequent salvation of future generations. It affixed to the Jewish soul a tight tie between suffering and deliverance, so that the former, difficult as it may be, is not just suffering per se but also a sign of impending deliverance. Maror, then, becomes a bitter medicine which prevents total despair.

This year, my family's festival of deliverance will be mixed with double bitterness, as we eat maror and also recall last year's Seder, which was the last night we spent together with our son and brother, Niot. On the night following the holiday, Niot and three of his friends drove down to Eilat for two days of diving. Niot was mortally injured in an accident and died on Shabbat Hol Hamoed.

In retrospect, my evocation of the Aish Kadosh's teaching last Seder night has taken on cruel irony. In reading his words on the maror and matzah, I unknowingly prepared my family for a new bitterness that will, from this year and for all the years to come, be an inseparable part of how we experience the festival of freedom - always my favorite holiday. As I write these lines, still in the midst of our family's first year of mourning, it is still difficult to see deliverance on the horizon. But the "Aish Kodesh," who lost his wife and daughter in the inferno before he too was murdered, planted the seed of a promise of redemption even in the darkest time.

Haim Watzman is a member of Kehillat Yedidya in Yerushalayim

           

 

Hametz is checked for by lamp-light on the night of the fourteenth. It is unnecessary to check any place into which hametz is not brought.

(Mishnah Pesahim 1:1)

 

Hametz is checked for by lamp-light on the night of the fourteenth - the search is not performed by sunlight or moonlight, but by lamp light [because search by lamp is better]. Even though there is no proof-text for this, there is a hint of it: And at that time I shall search for Jerusalem with lamps (Zefaniah 1), and it says: God's lamp is man's soul (Proverbs 20).

(Tosefta Pesahim 1:1)

 

Our Rabbis taught: Hametz is checked for by lamp-light on the night of the fourteenth, in accordance with [the verse] searching his innermost parts (Proverbs 20).

Another view: God's lamp is man's soul - R. Aha said: The soul reports every single thing that a person does in secret, in the dark, and in the open. It writes up notebooks for the Holy One blessed be He recounting what human beings do.

(Yalkut Shimoni Mishlei 20)

 

The Holy One blessed be He Suffers Together, So-to-speak, with Those Who Suffer

And you find that all the while that Israel was enslaved, the Divine Presence [was enslaved] with them, so-to-speak, for it is said: And they saw the God of Israel and beneath his feet was the likeness of a sapphire pavement. And when they were redeemed what does it say? Like the very sky for purity and it is said in all their troubles He was troubled. This only tells me about the community's troubles, where do I learn this regarding the troubles of the individual? It is learned from the verse: He shall call me Me and I will answer him, I am with him in his troubles.

(Mekhilta Bo Messekhet De Pas'ha 14)

 

If this had not appeared in Scripture, we would not be allowed to say it. It is as if Israel told the Holy One blessed be He: "You redeemed Yourself."

(Mekhiltah Bo, 99a)

 

The Joy of Deliverance does not Cancel Sorrow over the Loss of Human Life

You find joy mentioned three times in connection with the holiday [of Sukkot]: and you shall rejoice in your holiday (Devarim 16:14), and you shall have nothing but joy (Devarim 16:15), and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days (Vayikra 23:40). However, in connection to Pesach, we do not find even a single mention of rejoicing. Why? You find that judgment is passed [by God] on the grain crop on Pesach, and no one knows if there will be [grain] this year or not [therefore, people's anxiety interferes with their joy]. Another opinion [has it] that [rejoicing is not mentioned] because Egyptians died during it [during the deliverance from Egypt]. Similarly, you find that we read the Hallel all seven days of the [Sukkot] festival, but on Pesach we only read Hallel on the first day and its night. Why? Because, Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles (Mishlei 24:17).

(Yalkut Shimoni 23: 654)

 

Abarbanel explains that our custom during the Seder of spilling wine when we recall the plagues of Egypt is intended to strengthen in our minds the ethical importance of regretting, even as we celebrate our deliverance, the price paid by other human beings, even though they were rightfully punished for their evil deeds, in accordance with the verse, Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.

Some time after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their toil. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Shemot 2:11-12).

The four actions taken by Moses tell of his soul's greatness: it was full of exalted, divine courage. He was incapable of [passively] witnessing injustice and violence, always rescuing whomever he could: 1) While living in the royal house, he set out to observe the condition of his Israelite brothers, 2) He struck the Egyptian who had hit one of his Hebrew brothers 3) He reprimanded the wicked Hebrew who had hit his neighbor 4) He delivered the Priest of Midian's seven daughters from the shepherds.

Any person of character and pure heart will learn from his example to stand in the breech and save his brothers from their murderous tormentors.

This is particularly true in those places where our brothers are oppressed and tormented by the gentiles. However, one should not disregard abuse perpetrated by one of our own brothers from the House of Israel. Even if the victim is a gentile, one must stand by him because all injustice is abhorrent to God. From this we must also learn that even when one lives comfortably, in peace and security in his own tent, surrounded by wealth and honor, the regime attentive to his words, such a person must not say to himself, "I am at peace in my own tent, why should I trouble myself about others, be they my brothers or from the world at large."

(Rabbi Moshe Kalfon, Darkhei Moshe, Gerba, Tunis circa 19^th cent., as quoted in HaLayla HaZeh an Israeli Haggadah edited by Mishael and Noam Tzion)

 

In Nissan They Were Delivered and in Nissan They Are Destined to Be Delivered" - On the Geula from Egypt and the Future Geula

The goal of the exodus from Egypt was not realized. The mission of "the time of our freedom" took the form of a synthetic freedom, something which may be a pre-condition for freedom, but it is not true freedom. The nation which left Egypt did not accept upon itself the Kingdom of God, and therefore we do not recite "the Complete Hallel" on the festival on which the attempt to realize our freedom failed.

The exodus from Egypt was - and was not! - geula. It is geula in the sense of "ataruta shamaymit" - "heavenly awaking" - but is was not geula in the sense of "earthly awakening". The great difference between geula as a means and geula as an end can be seen in the four terms of geula which announce the great purpose for which the people will be delivered: "And I will take them out" "And I will save",

"And I will take them" "I will redeem them… And you will know that I am the Lord your God." The first four are in the hands of heaven - the last is in the hands of Man. The exodus becomes geula only if the one being saved participates "for the sake of heaven"; liberation is not geula as long as the liberated one's role is only limited to self-benefit.

The four terms of geula without "And you will know that I am the Lord your God" represent false geula, and false geula is worse for Israel than loss of belief in geula.

The fall of Yerushalayim and the destruction of the Temple by Titus, and even the decrees of Hadrian against Torah and mitzvoth, did not uproot Judaism - not even from the hearts of those who had abandoned hope for geula and anticipated that the seed of Avraham will disappear (Bavli, Bava Batra 60b). The Shabbtai Zevi debacle weakened the Judaism of its believers, and even opened the door to its collapse among the entire Jewish people.

Therefore, Man, - who has no communication with that which is beyond the curtain - must be extremely careful about proclaiming that military victory and national-political success are indicative of atchalta d'geula - the beginning of the geula ("the beginning of the flowering of our geula").

(Leibowitz, Discussion on the Festivals of Israel and It's Appointed Times)

 

The Four Sons: Are Changes and Questions the Result of External Stimuli or of Inner Understanding

Changes should be made on this night so that the children see and ask and say: "Why is this night different from all other nights, until he answers them, telling them: This happened, and it occurred thus."

 (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Hametz and Matzah 7:3)

 

In the Torah, the wise man's question relates to all of the commandments, the wicked man's question relates specifically to Pesach, the simple person's question regards the breaking of the firstborn donkey's neck, and the question of he who 'knows not how to ask' is about matzah. Each question was asked in its fitting context. For the one 'who knows not how to ask' cannot ask, because he knows nothing; perforce our obligation is to produce awareness and to make him deserving [of reward] through telling him the story of the exodus from Egypt, and therefore the Torah places his question in the context of matzah, the purpose of which is to publicize the exodus from Egypt, as per their [our Sages] explication of the passage "And you shall tell him 'for this' I said only when matzah and maror are placed before you". And the simple son, who asks of his own volition, asks only when he detects something unusual. Therefore the Torah places his question in the context of the firstborn donkey, where he sees something inconsistent with plain logic and common sense - the breaking of the donkey's neck for no obvious reason is unusual - and he asks "what is this about?" Therefore we effect a change on Pesach night so that the child, who is simple, will ask. And that which is written "And should your son ask you etc." is not specifically about the breaking of the firstborn donkey's neck alone; the Torah wants to tell us that when your son detects change caused by the Pesach ritual - and matzah and maror, like the breaking of the donkey's neck, is a change - then he will ask "What is this, etc." "and you will answer him etc." But the wise son needs no change to stimulate questions. Therefore the Torah has him ask with regard to all the commandments, because the wise son asks about every commandment. He wants to understand why the Lord gave this commandment. Had the Torah placed his question with regard to matzah and maror, his question would have been about this particular commandment which he sees as something different - and this is not characteristic of a wise person's question, he does not question change.

(Divrei Negidim on the Pesach Haggadah of the MaHaRaL of Prague, p. 67)

 

"Begins with Denigration and Finishes with Praise"

In [the chapter] Arvei Pesahim [it is written in reference to] the Haggadah that it "begins with denigration and finishes with praise." Why does it begin with denigration? Because praise can only be truly recognized when contrasted to its opposite.

(The MaHaRaL mi'Prague's Netzah Yisrael page 9a)

 

This is the only possible order of creation: first darkness, then light, because the advantage of light is only recognizable from [contrast to] the darkness, and darkness becomes its throne. Therefore, it begins with denigration, since denigration is part of praise and is the preparation for it.

(R. Zadok Ha'Kohen, Dover Tzedek mitzvah assei 1)

 

 

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