בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְותָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוק בְּדִבְרֵי תורָה:
Blessing for Torah Study
Barukh Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha'Olam Asher Kideshanu Bemitzvotav Vetzivanu La'asok Bedivrei Torah
Blessed are you Adonai, our God, Sovereign of Eternity, who has made us holy through Your mitzvot (sacred calls) and called upon us to immerse ourselves in the words of Torah.
קדש
ורחץ
כרפס
יחץ
מגיד
רחצה
מוציא
מצה
מרור
כורך
שלחן עורך
צפון
ברך
הלל
נרצה
Kadesh
Urchatz
Karpas
Yachatz
Magid
Rachtzah
Motzi
Matzah
Maror
Korech
Shulchan Orech
Tzafun
Barech
Hallel
Nirtzah
Only with the invention of printing could average householders dream of owning separate copies of a Haggadah for everyone sitting around the table. In the early years, the leader of the household might own a handwritten version on parchment, but even that was rare given the cost: a single Haggadah required the hides of two to three sheep or calves--that’s twenty to thirty animals for a family seder of ten--not to mention the labor for curing the hides into something to write on, and copying prayers letter by letter.
In the eleventh century, people began devising mnemonics of the Seder’s order, presumably as an aid to memory. There were many of them, but one, in particular, stuck, and is used nowadays almost universally. Almost every printed Haggadah begins with it, arranging it in word pairs that are often sung as part of the actual Seder ritual. A “table of contents” has become part of “contents” for which it was once the “table.”
We have fifteen signs, symbolic of the fifteen steps in the Temple leading up to the place where the Levites sang the Hallel while the pesach offerings were being slaughtered.
With our Masters' and Teachers' approval: Blessed are You, Adoani our God, Sovereign of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר בָּחַר בָּנוּ מִכָּל־עָם וְרוֹמְמָנוּ מִכָּל־לָשׁוֹן וְקִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו. וַתִּתֶּן לָנוּ ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ בְּאַהֲבָה מוֹעֲדִים לְשִׂמְחָה, חַגִּים וּזְמַנִּים לְשָׂשוֹן, אֶת יוֹם חַג הַמַּצּוֹת הַזֶּה זְמַן חֵרוּתֵנוּ, מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ זֵכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם. כִּי בָנוּ בָחַרְתָּ וְאוֹתָנוּ קִדַּשְׁתָּ מִכָּל הָעַמִּים, וּמוֹעֲדֵי קָדְשֶׁךָ בְּשִׂמְחָה וּבְשָׂשוֹן הִנְחַלְתָּנוּ.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has chosen us from among all nations and has raised us above all peoples and has sanctified us with His commandments. And You have lovingly given us, Adonai our God appointed times for happiness, holidays and special times for joy, this Festival of Matsot, our season of freedom a holy convocation in memory of the Exodus from Egypt. For You have chosen us and sanctified us above all nations, granting us Your special times for happiness and joy.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', מְקַדֵּשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהַזְּמַנִּים.
Blessed are You, Adonai, who sanctifies Israel and the appointed times.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has granted us life and sustenance and permitted us to reach this season.
אַרְבַּע כָּסֵי תִּיקְּנוּ רַבָּנַן דֶּרֶךְ חֵירוּת, כֹּל חַד וְחַד נַעֲבֵיד בֵּיהּ מִצְוָה.
The Sages instituted the drinking of four cups wine as an expression of freedom, and through each and every one of them we will perform a mitzva.
It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira says: When the Temple is standing, rejoicing is only through the eating of sacrificial meat, as it is stated: “And you shall sacrifice peace-offerings and you shall eat there and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 27:7). And now that the Temple is not standing and one cannot eat sacrificial meat, he can fulfill the mitzva of rejoicing on a Festival only by drinking wine, as it is stated: “And wine that gladdens the heart of man” (Psalms 104:15).
אלו הגדות, שמושכות לב אדם כיין.
Aggadoth, which "pull" a man's heart, like wine.
There are two obligations in relation to Kiddush. One is to experience cherut, freedom. Wine gives pleasure and induces a feeling of liberation (though it is to be "pleasant" and grape juice should be available for those who have difficulty with wine). These second is that each of the four cups of wine is an organizing anchor for a different part of the Seder. The first cup is the Kiddush, which declares the sanctity of the day, an obligation on every sacred day. Over the second cup we recite Maggid, the telling of the Passover story, the central purpose of the Haggadah. A third cup is added to the Birkat Hamazon, not just at the seder but on all august occasions. The fourth cup is connected to Hallel (praise) which concludes the Seder.
The Passover seder is conducted in an orderly fashion, with each ritual performed at a certain time, in a certain way, according to thousands of years of tradition. This is surprising, as the Jewish people do not have a history of being particularly organized. Even God Himself often seems engaged in convolution, a phrase which means “as if He has not quite followed His own plan.” If you look around your Passover table now, you will most certainly see the muddle and the mess of the world. There is likely a stain someplace on the tablecloth, or perhaps one of the glasses has a smudge. Soon things will be spilled. You might be sitting with people you do not know very well, or do not like very much, so your own emotional state is somewhat disordered. Nobody likes everything served at the Passover dinner, so there will be chaos with in people’s palates, and the room in likely to be either too cold or too hot for someone, creating a chaos of discomfort. Perhaps there is someone who has not yet been seated, even as the seder is beginning, because they are “checking on the food,” a phrase which means :”sneaking a few bites” when they’re supposed to be participating in the ceremony.
This is as it should be. Passover celebrates freedom, and while the evening will proceed in a certain order, it is the muddle and the mess around the order that represent the freedom that everyone deserves, and that far too many people have been denied. With that in mind, why not excuse yourself, in an orderly fashion at some point in the ceremony, so that you might check on the food?
The blessing over the first cup of wine uses the phrase, “Adonai our God... You gave us this Festival of Matzot, the time of our freedom, a holy occasion.” In Hebrew, the words for holy occasion are mikra kodesh (מקרא קדש). The word mikra derives from the root kuf, reish, alef (ק–ר–א), meaning “to call.” As a mikra kodesh the festival is literally a “holy calling,” as though the day itself calls forth to us to respond to it.
Each of the festivals has its own “call.” On Pesach we are called to freedom. The sense of call makes for a different type of freedom than that of simply breaking all restraints. We respond to it by examining our own enslavements and asking how we can become more free and bring others more freedom. As Jews, we understand that "more free" means more free to live in God's presence or less subjugated to those forces—whether they be social, economic, political, or even "religious"—that keep us from God. Pesach calls out to us to renew our commitment to freedom on these most profound leves, both for ourselves and others.
The term Kiddush stems from the Hebrew root ק–ד–ש which means "set apart." The same root yields and kadosh and kedushah, conventionally translated respectively as holy or sacred, and holiness. What is set apart eventually becomes sacred... The Kiddush prayer, typically recited at sunset at the beginning of Shabbat and Chagim, thus serves to set the new day apart from the "ordinary" days of the week that precede it. Similarly, the prayer recited at the conclusion of Shabbat and chagim, havdalah, also means separating out. It also works to distinguish this time between the special day that is now ending from the ordinary days of the week that are about to begin. Thus, Kiddush and havdalah are synonyms. They form the liturgical parentheses around the special days of the liturgical year.
Time rushes on, impassive and unmarked. It’s we who domesticate the flux, parceling it out into countable units so that we can situate ourselves within: I am young and live in expectation, I am old and nearing the end of my days. Differentiation creates order, creates duration, creates the sense of our lives.
A religious calendar imposes further divisions on time, separating out hours to be regarded as so significant as to achieve holiness. That, after all, is the meaning of Sabbath and holidays, the holy days. In the traditional Jewish calendar, the borders around the sacred hours are delineated with obsessive precision, the time of the onset of a holy day calculated to the last minute. The notion of the chosen is applied to temporality itself, and hours are carved out of the flux to gesture toward eternity.
The celebration of Passover emphasizes the imposition of an ordered structure over the formlessness of time. From the beginning to the end of the seder there is a multiplicity of stages, with procedural instructions overlaid all along the way. First you must do this, we are told, and now you must do that.
Differentiation creates order, creates the sense of significance that makes duration endurable. And if there is a way toward sanctification in all of this, if such an ideal is even possible, then it lies somewhere here in the divisions, parting time as Moses parted the sea, effecting a separation where the extraordinary can make itself felt.
The Seder is a commemoration of several periods of Jewish history. At its core is the remembrance of the Exodus, but many of the rituals recollect also the aliyah laregel "making a holiday pilgrimage," a practice of the Temple period. We revert to the cusoms of the Temple era, including preserving tohorah, ritual purity or integration, and avoiding tumah, ritual impurity and spiritual alienation. By arising to wash, we place ourselves in the company of olei laregel, the holiday pilgrims. One night a year, one can maintain this heightened consciousness of one's ritual state.
After the Temple was destroyed, the Sages likened one's table to the altar, making the stipulated symbolic food of the seder meal the equivalent of the missing Pesach.
A Parable from Numbers Rabbah: A king sent his sun to school, but instead, the boy went to play in the street. His father found out and scolded him. Afterwards, however, his father said, "Wash your hands and come and dine with me." Israel is the wayward son, and God the king; by washing we prepare ourselves to be worthy of our annual dialogue with God on the question of redemption.
Jewish law typically places the burden of family "purity" at the doorstep of women; here the entire family shares equally in the ritual cleansing their hands in preparation for the sacred meal.
Take from the greens less than a kazayit - so that you will not need to say the blessing after eating it. Dip it into the saltwater. Some use charoset. [Alternatively, some revive the ancient custom of eating extensive appetizers, each with its own dip. you may continue dipping and tasting during the seder until sufficiently full to persevere during the extensive storytelling (maggid) but not so full as to ruin one's appetite for the Matzah later.] Say the blessing "who creates the fruit of the earth;" and have in mind that this blessing will also be for the bitter herbs. Eat without reclining.
Though the historical origins of dipping Karpas as the seder simply reflect the accepted cuisine of the Greco-Roman symposium, the rabbis added their own symbolic interpretations in order to connect the dipping to the Pesach story.
Metaphorically, Karpas, the spring vegetable, represents both the historic birth of Israel born out of the womb of Egypt in the Exodus and the rebirth of nature renewed each spring. According to Philo and to Rabbi Joshua, the original birthday of nature—the Creation—occurred at Pesach-time, not Rosh Hashanah.
The dipping of greens is reminiscent of the historic dipping that led Israel into exile in Egypt and the dipping that facilitated their redemption. The descent to Egyptian slavery began when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and dipped his coat of many colors into a slaughtered goat’s blood in order to mislead their father Israel about his beloved son’s true fate. The ascent from exile—moral and physical—began when every family gathered together with their neighbors to share a lamb on seder night and to dip in its blood a hyssop plant and to dab it on the doorposts and the lintel as a protection against the tenth plague.
Most ancient civilizations emphasized the cyclical aspect of time. The ancients watched the stars travel predictably through the heavens, the Nile flood each spring, the seasons rotate in an orderly fashion. Year after year, time returned from where it had begun. The cyclicality of nature infused life with a welcome sense of stability. Ancient religious rites embodied these cycles. They provided worshipers with a way to re-create themselves by reliving the creation of the cosmos through celebrating the birth, death, and resurrection of their gods. History, as we know it, mattered little. “Everything begins over again at its commencement every instant. The past is but a prefiguration of the future, no event is irreversible and no transformation is final ... [Through] the repetition of paradigmatic gestures and by means of periodic ceremonies, archaic man succeeded ... in annulling time....”
Against this static background, the Israelite religion made an astonishing assertion: that time could also be conceptualized as an arrow, not just an eternal cycle. In proclaiming that God actively directed the course of human history, humanity now encountered God in a new realm. History became the record of God’s actions and humanity’s response. That record was not circular, but began with creation, moved through deliverance and revelation, and would conclude with ultimate messianic redemption. The forward march of time sweeps us away from the ancient, timeless cycles, headlong into the inexorably unfolding drama of history.
The cyclical aspect of time roots and strengthens us as we tap into the power of the natural world’s enduring rhythms. The directional aspect of time inspires us to use that strength to change the world, to push it, however slowly, from what it is today to what it can become tomorrow.
The saltwater in which we dip the vegetable is typically associated with the tears of the slaving Israelites before their liberation. In dipping the vegetable in salt water, we temper the joy of the spring festival with our awareness of the historical afflictions of the Jews as well as all those who have suffered injustices. [But] the salt water and the tears it represents [can also be] invoked not as a sign of suffering, but of blessing:
Blessed are the tears for they represent my freedom to feel
Blessed are the tears for they indicate that I am self aware
Blessed are the tears for they prove to me that I have found myself
Blessed are the tears for they are proof that I am alive
The Haggadah quickly introduces the theme of brokenness. Its trajectory will take us from brokenness at the outset to wholeness at the end. In the words of the Mishnah (Pes. 10:4), when we instruct our children, we "begin with the lowliness and end with the celebration." That trajectory is expressed verbally throughout the Haggadah, but frequently in Judaism, theological reflections are also articulated in another language, ritual behavior. Here, we echo the opening words of the Haggadah—"This is the bread of affliction..."—by the ritual breaking of the middle matzah. It will eventually be made whole again through the act of eating: the first half at the beginning of the festive meal, and the other half at its conclusion, for the afikoman.
אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ. מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח.
The parent teaches their child about the Exodus. When teaching his son about the Exodus. He begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace and concludes with their glory.
In women’s and LGBT seders, the ritual of breaking and hiding the middle matzah has become an opportunity to consider the symbolic meaning of breaking and brokenness. Some feminist Haggadot use yachats as a call to break the shackles of domestic abuse and of aginut, a condition suffered by women who are chained in marriage by recalcitrant husbands who refuse to grant a get (Jewish divorce). In a lesbian Haggadah produced by Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York, breaking the matzah symbolizes the shattering of rigid social structures that exclude gays, lesbian, and transgendered Jews as well as other marginal groups; by breaking the middle matzah, “we create space, room to welcome”.
The act of hiding the middle matzah recalls Yocheved’s hiding her newborn baby an then placing him in the teivah (reed basket), an act that in turn recalls Noah’s building of a teivah to save his family and the animals in Genesis 6-7. As a social symbol, hiding the middle matzah can also be seen as representative of the ways in which we hide aspects of ourselves, fearing punishment at the hands of an intolerant society. We look forward, therefore, to finding the afikomen, to sharing with our community what we’ve hidden away, and to restoring wholeness.
While breaking the matzah recite "This is how God split the Red Sea."
This is the bread of destitution that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people.
As everyone knows, the Jews eat unleaveed bread because the dough they brought out from Egypt in their rush to leave never had a chance to rise. Matza is then the bread of liberation. It is a mark of an exodus whose rapid pace overtook them unprepared. The Egyptians who enslaved them suddenly expelled them after God brought the plague on the first born. This Passover story is of the matza of expulsion and exodus.
Yet ha lachma, the first official explanation for matza in the haggadah calls it the "bread of poverty and persecution" based on Deuteronomy 16:3, "You shall eat unleavened bread bread of 'oni' (distress) for you departed from the land of Egypt hurriedly." Here matzah is a memorial not of liberation but of slavery. The life of oppression is marked by a pressured "hurried," pace, for the slaves do not control the rhythm of their existence.
This year we are slaves This phrase sets up the dramatic tension that embraces the entire Seder. In a moment we will say: "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.... If the Holy One of Blessing had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt we ... would still be enslaved." Liberation happened long ago, and as good faithful Jews we still remember it. But first, in this opening to the Seder, we say the opposite: We are still slaves! Next year may we be really free! We recognize, in other words, that our liberation from "Egypt" never quite succeeded; we are still on the road to liberation, not quite wholly free.
Both of these versions of liberation are true. When seen from the viewpoint of our onetime total bondage in Egypt and that of Jews and others within our own memory, we indeed have every reason to be gratfeul. We live in a society that offers us freedom and opportunities that were far beyond the dreams of prior generations. But the human condition is such that we still, and always, struggle to be free. Conversation at the Seder table should attempt to encompass both of these truths and highlight the tension between them.
This formula may be a polemic against Jesus' words at his last supper [or vice versa] that "This is my body."
It may also be a remnant of the days when a real Passover sacrifice was possible. For financial reasons, and because an entire lamb is so large, families would band together in a fellowship—or, better, a tableship—group called a chavurah to consume a single sacrifice. (According to Josephus, an average gathering held ten to twenty people.) But to count as a valid sacrifice, it had to be legally owned by all the participants. Eventually, matzah took the place of the Passover sacrifice. Ha lachma anya is an application of the pesach ownership formula to matza.
Although they may initially seem redundant, the two invitations we issue in HaLakhma Anya- “Let all who are hungry, kol dikhfin, enter and eat” and “Let who are all in need, kol ditzrikh, come and celebrate the Passover” – in reality are not. Kol ditzrikh means those who are in need- but not in need of bread. Whoever is in need of bread, dikhfin, is hungry. Kol ditzrikh refers to one who is alone, who has a lot of Matza and wine but no home or family. There are indeed many ways to be included among the kol ditzrikh. The invitation to “all who are in need” is not yeitei ve-yeikhol. “to eat with us;” rather, it is to spend the Pesach with us, yeitei ve-yifsakh, “to celebrate with us.” It is an invitation addressed to unfortunate and lonely people. They might be millionaires; it is completely irrelevant. Whoever is in need should come and celebrate. Ha Lakhma Anya is the renewal of a pledge of solidarity among the Jewish people- solidarity between the individual and individual, and between the individual and the Jewish community as a whole. It is a proclamation that we are one people, and that we are ready to help one another. Pesach night is a time of sharing; if the sense of solidarity, responsibility, unity, and readiness to share and to participate are not manifested and demonstrated, the whole Seder becomes meaningless.
The hastiness of the Exodus testifies to the Israelites’ faith in God and trust in Moses. The fact that they were willing to leave Egypt immediately upon command, without planning or forethought, demonstrates their belief and their confidence. As the prophet Jeremiah declares, the devotion of youth and newlywed love with which the nation followed God into the wilderness is counted to their favor (Jer. 2:2). From this perspective, the matzah of haste is a most positive symbol. It is this positive understanding of matzah that explains the paragraph’s concluding lines. We recite, “Today we are here; next year in the Land of Israel. Today we are slaves; next year free people,” and we hope that just as we left Egypt suddenly, in haste, so too may we leave our present exile quickly, at a moment’s notice. We do not know how or when redemption will come; but we hope and pray that we will be redeemed soon, that even next year we will be free people in the Land of Israel.
שִׁבְעַת יְמֵי הַפֶּסַח וּשְׁמוֹנַת יְמֵי הֶחָג עִם שְׁאָר יָמִים טוֹבִים כֻּלָּם אֲסוּרִים בְּהֶסְפֵּד וְתַעֲנִית. וְחַיָּב אָדָם לִהְיוֹת בָּהֶן שָׂמֵחַ וְטוֹב לֵב הוּא וּבָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וּבְנֵי בֵּיתוֹ וְכָל הַנִּלְוִים עָלָיו.
The seven days of Passover and the eight days of Sukkot along with the other holidays are all forbidden for eulogizing and fasting. And one is obligated to be joyful and of a good heart on them—he, his children, his wife, the members of his household and all who accompany him.
כֵּיצַד. הַקְּטַנִּים נוֹתֵן לָהֶם קְלָיוֹת וֶאֱגוֹזִים וּמִגְדָּנוֹת. וְהַנָּשִׁים קוֹנֶה לָהֶן בְּגָדִים וְתַכְשִׁיטִין נָאִים כְּפִי מָמוֹנוֹ. וְהָאֲנָשִׁים אוֹכְלִין בָּשָׂר וְשׁוֹתִין יַיִן שֶׁאֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּבָשָׂר וְאֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּיַיִן. וּכְשֶׁהוּא אוֹכֵל וְשׁוֹתֶה חַיָּב לְהַאֲכִיל לַגֵּר לַיָּתוֹם וְלָאַלְמָנָה עִם שְׁאָר הָעֲנִיִּים הָאֻמְלָלִים. אֲבָל מִי שֶׁנּוֹעֵל דַּלְתוֹת חֲצֵרוֹ וְאוֹכֵל וְשׁוֹתֶה הוּא וּבָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֵינוֹ מַאֲכִיל וּמַשְׁקֶה לַעֲנִיִּים וּלְמָרֵי נֶפֶשׁ אֵין זוֹ שִׂמְחַת מִצְוָה אֶלָּא שִׂמְחַת כְּרֵסוֹ.
The children, for example, should be given parched grain, nuts, and sweetmeats; the womenfolk should be presented with pretty clothes and trinkets according to one's means; the menfolk should eat meat and drink wine, for there is no real rejoicing without the use of meat and wine. While eating and drinking, one must feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and other poor unfortunates. Anyone, however, who locks the doors of his courtyard and eats and drinks along with his wife and children, without giving anything to eat and drink to the poor and the desperate, does not observe a religious celebration but indulges in the celebration of his stomach.
“Without bread there is no Torah.” Mishna, Pirkei Avot 3:2
The rabbis teach us that in order to have Torah, we must first have bread; in order to sustain our souls. We must first sustain our bodies. But what is bread? And how much bread is enough? The answer to these questions can be found in the Torah itself. For there, we learn that when the Israelites were fleeing Egypt, when there was no time to spare, God commanded them to make the unleavened bread that we now raise before us, saying “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those that are hungry enter and eat thereof.”
Matzah is bread but just barely. Anything less would be mere flour and water; anything more would become the leavened bread that we eat during the rest of the year. Jewish tradition holds that no more than eighteen minutes may pass from the time we combine the flour and water to the time that we bake the mixture. Eighteen, of course, is the numerical value of the Hebrew word for “life”. And so, matzah is both literally and symbolically the absolute minimum that we require for sustaining life and, therefore, the minimum that we require for Torah- the life of the soul.
Just as our ancestors only needed the “bread of the poor”- another meaning of ha-lahmah anya- as they made their way out of Egypt to receive the Torah, so too should we ask ourselves how much bread is enough and how much is too much to make an honest and soulful life possible today.
What differentiates this night from all [other] nights? On all [other] nights we eat chamets and matsa; this night, only matsa? On all [other] nights we eat other vegetables; tonight (only) marror. On all [other] nights, we don't dip [our food], even one time; tonight [we dip it] twice. On [all] other nights, we eat either sitting or reclining; tonight we all recline.
ר"א אומר חוטפין מצה לתינוקות בשביל שלא יישנו
Rabbi Eliezer says, "We snatch the matzot for the small children so that they don't fall asleep."
אָמְרוּ עָלָיו עַל רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא שֶׁהָיָה מְחַלֵּק קְלָיוֹת וֶאֱגוֹזִין לְתִינוֹקוֹת בְּעֶרֶב פֶּסַח כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִשְׁנוּ, וְיִשְׁאֲלוּ.
They said about Rabbi Akiva that he would distribute roasted grains and nuts to children on Passover eve, so that they would not sleep and so they would ask.
The Gemara asks: Why does one remove the table? The school of Rabbi Yannai say: So that the children will notice that something is unusual and they will ask: Why is this night different from all other nights? The Gemara relates: Abaye was sitting before Rabba when he was still a child. He saw that they were removing the table from before him, and he said to those removing it: We have not yet eaten, and you are taking the table away from us? Rabba said to him: You have exempted us from reciting the questions of: Why is this night different [ma nishtana], as you have already asked what is special about the seder night.
Education begins with questions. Questions emerge when familiar patterns are disturbed. These four questions are stimulated by changes in the familiar patterns of the meal. Theological questions are stimulated by disturbances in the familiar patterns of life. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do we have to die? How can we believe in a God that we can't see? The simple recitation of the Haggadah will stimulate these and many other questions of this kind. They may not be in the text, but they will be in the air. Let them emerge. Use them for educational purposes. And don't worry if they are not answered. Most significant theological questions have no easy answers.
The Seder must unfold in an atmosphere in which a child feels free to ask occasional questions even amidst a large group of adults. That’s easier said than done! Just a few minutes after the Four Questions are asked, the Haggadah tells of four children who ask entirely different questions. A “wicked” child asks such a terrible question that he’s told he deserves to have been left behind in Egypt! Unless we create an atmosphere that welcomes all questions, the most important ones may never make it to the table. There’s nothing wrong with reciting the beloved Four Questions. But we should remember that the designers of the Seder hoped to create an experience that would stimulate children’s spontaneous questions. It’s our job to create a lively Seder in which that kind of spontaneity can flourish.
Neil Gillman
The Passover Seder is a class with the Haggadah as textbook and the Seder leader as primary instructior. This metaphor stems from the notion that the mitzvah to be fulfilled at the Seder is to tell the story of our people's redemption from bondage. The method of instruction is thoroughly up-to-date in that it uses not only words but also choreography (sitting and standing, opening and closing doors, holding up different symbolic foods, searching for the afikoman) and other forms of experiential learning (consuming different foods, dripping the wine with our fingers, and music). Also unusual is that the participants can be both students and teachers; the learning is thoroughly democratic, as befits the experience of freedom.
The haggadah textbook, moreover, is never complete; it is always in the process of formation. The printed text is simply the point of departure, and every class is encouraged to edit the book as the class progresses, to omit and/or to add to the received text. Though each Seder is roughly the same, no two are identical, and even the same family's Seder may change from year to year as the participants change.
(ד) מָזְגוּ לוֹ כוֹס שֵׁנִי, וְכָאן הַבֵּן שׁוֹאֵל אָבִיו, וְאִם אֵין דַּעַת בַּבֵּן, אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ, מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילוֹת, שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻלּוֹ מַצָּה. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מָרוֹר. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בָּשָׂר צָלִי, שָׁלוּק, וּמְבֻשָּׁל, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻלּוֹ צָלִי. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ מַטְבִּילִין פַּעַם אַחַת, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה שְׁתֵּי פְעָמִים. וּלְפִי דַעְתּוֹ שֶׁל בֵּן, אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ. מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ:
(4) The attendants poured the second cup for the leader of the seder, and here the son asks his father. And if the son does not have the intelligence to ask questions on his own, his father teaches him the questions. The mishna lists the questions: Why is this night different from all other nights? As on all other nights we eat leavened bread and matza as preferred; on this night all our bread is matza. As on all other nights we eat other vegetables; on this night we eat bitter herbs. The mishna continues its list of the questions. When the Temple was standing one would ask: As on all other nights we eat either roasted, stewed, or cooked meat, but on this night all the meat is the roasted meat of the Paschal lamb. The final question was asked even after the destruction of the Temple: As on all other nights we dip the vegetables in a liquid during the meal only once; however, on this night we dip twice. And according to the intelligence and the ability of the son, his father teaches him about the Exodus. When teaching his son about the Exodus. He begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace and concludes with their glory.
עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם, וַיּוֹצִיאֵנוּ ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ מִשָּׁם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה. וְאִלּוּ לֹא הוֹצִיא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת אֲבוֹתֵינוּ מִמִּצְרָיִם, הֲרֵי אָנוּ וּבָנֵינוּ וּבְנֵי בָנֵינוּ מְשֻׁעְבָּדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם.
We were slaves to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. And the Lord, our God, took us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched forearm. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our ancestors from Egypt, behold we and our children and our children's children would [all] be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.
The Hebrew word Haggadah means "telling." When we recite the Haggadah, we are telling a story. The story is an extended answer to the Four Questions. It is also a way of doing theology. We are more familiar with the kind of theology that is articulated in abstract statements such as that of the giant of medieval philosophy, Moses Maimonides, the Thirteen Principles of faith. This was Maimonides attempt to reduce the basics of Jewish belief to Thirteen Propositions.
Maimonides may well have been the greatest philosophical mind in Jewish history but his way of doing philosophy was more of a product of medieval culture than of Jewish tradition. The Torah itself, for example, is hardly replete with abstract philosophical or Theological statements.. Nor is rabbinic literature and Midrash. Both of these bodies of literature deal extensively with the agenda of theology and philosophy but they do so in the form of stories—the story of creation, of the Exodus from Egypt, of the revelation at Sinai and the rest.
At the Passover Seder. we are commanded to do a number of things: eat matzah, eat bitter herbs, drink four cups of wine—and we are commanded to tell the story of the Exodus. We can do this in many different ways... and, in fact, the Haggadah includes different versions of the story. But what is significant here is that the story is a way of communicating the beliefs of Judaism...
The children of Jacob’s wives, Rachel and Leah, degraded the children of Jacob’s maidservants, Bilhah and Zilpah. “God said, ‘How can I make them accept the maidservants’ children? I will send them down to Egypt and they will all be slaves. When I redeem them I will give them the commandments of Passover to observe—to them, and their children, and their children’s children. And they will all say avadim hayinu, we were slaves to Pharaoh, and will discover that they are all equal.’”
וַאֲפִילוּ כֻּלָּנוּ חֲכָמִים כֻּלָּנוּ נְבוֹנִים כֻּלָּנוּ זְקֵנִים כֻּלָּנוּ יוֹדְעִים אֶת הַתּוֹרָה מִצְוָה עָלֵינוּ לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם. וְכָל הַמַּרְבֶּה לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם הֲרֵי זֶה מְשֻׁבָּח.
And even if we were all sages, all discerning, all elders, all knowledgeable about the Torah, it would be a commandment upon us to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. And anyone who adds [and spends extra time] in telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, behold he is praiseworthy.
Rashbetz points out that these words are an important corrective. We should not think that the recitation of the Haggadah is only for the children- notwithstanding all the attention paid to them at the Seder. The recounting of the Exodus from Egypt is an adult responsibility as well, even for those adults who are Jewishly learned (Haggadah commentary).
The formulation “everyone who elaborates….is praised” seems to appear only twice in rabbinic literature, and the contexts are revealing: “Everyone [all judges] who elaborates [on the prescribed] questions when examining ‘witnesses in capital cases] deserves praise”. In both contexts, the central figures (the accused and the deceased) cannot act on their own behalf and must trust others to preserve their life or the memory of it. Analogously, the story of the Exodus, so full of hope and promise, cannot preserve itself. In every generation that task falls to the Jewish people- to us. Whether the story will be remembered or forgotten, whether it lives or dies, depends on the passion with which we tell it.
The recitation of the Shema is additionally related to Passover-night storytelling insofar as both are declarations of faith in God and both mention the Exodus. But telling the Exodus story at the seder is a way of re-creating and re-experiencing the moment of redemption, whereas reciting the daily Shema is a means of ritualizing that moment and thereby keeping it alive throughout the year. Thus, the students’ announcement about the morning Shema was also a way of saying to their teachers: now that the seder is over, it is time to consider how you will preserve the sacred moment of redemption on a daily basis.
Two interpretations are offered to this event. Some see it as the ultimate activists’ Seder: Rabbi Akiva was a supporter of Bar Kokhba’s rebellion against the Romans, one that ended in a tragedy that included his own martyrdom. The event depicted here is the heady beginning of that revolution. The Rabbis on the rebels’ side told the tale of liberation all night long, so ready were they to apply it to the great struggle for freedom that lay directly before them. But my favorite Chasidic Haggadah reads it differently. Here the Rabbis are depicted as entering into the story of inner liberation with such excitement and wholeness that they are caught up in ecstatic fervor. Their “faces shone like the sun” and “their words came forth and flew across the sky” until they lost all sense of time and did not realize that the physical dawn had come.
Both of these strands together make up the best of our tradition- the activist and the ecstatic. How to balance them, or even better, to weave them together- that is the challenge for today’s Jewish seeker. But telling the tale all night is probably a good beginning.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said, "Behold I am like a man of seventy years and I have not merited [to understand why] the exodus from Egypt should be said at night until Ben Zoma explicated it, as it is stated (Deuteronomy 16:3), 'In order that you remember the day of your going out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life;' 'the days of your life' [indicates that the remembrance be invoked during] the days, 'all the days of your life' [indicates that the remembrance be invoked also during] the nights." But the Sages say, "'the days of your life' [indicates that the remembrance be invoked in] this world, 'all the days of your life' [indicates that the remembrance be invoked also] in the days of the Messiah."
The Chasidic commentators tell us that it is at night, here in the dark night of exile, when we most need to remember that we have already come out of Egypt. For Jews living in the ghetto or shtetl and under the constant threat of oppression that was indeed a saving message. The fact that God had already redeemed us from an even worse burden of enslavement held out the hope that another redemption might come as well. For Jews in places of great darkness--the Holocaust among them--no memory was more precious.
But what of us Jews who are not oppressed, or at least not in the obvious ways that our ancestors suffered? We too are commanded to remember the Exodus every day. What is that memory supposed to mean for the likes of us? I look to two ways in which the commandment to remember applies to us. We need to ask ourselves every day, "To what am I enslaved?" We have neither Pharoh nor czar restricting our lives, but let's try on a few other categories to see where the shoe might fit. My need for a big monthly paycheck? Is that an "enslavement"? My vision of success, the constant push to higher and higher achievement? Am I enslaved to that? Or worse--am I enslaving my children to it? A life of affluence? Do I suffer from the "affluenza" disease that marks too many Americans? How about addictions? entertainment? the computer screen? Are these not "enslavements" in my life? "In order that you remember" means we need to ask ourselves these questions every day. Remember each morning and night what it is like to wake up to newly won freedom, and ask yourself how you can get there again, back to that moment of singing at the shore of the sea.
But we who are not obviously oppressed also have to remember that moment each day for the sake of those who still do suffer the old-fashioned kind of Egyptian bondage. There are real slaveries in the world, terrible sites and times of human oppression... In our post-Holocaust memory we have seen one episode after another of terrible human suffering, whether caused by natural disaster or at the hands of beautiful humanity... War, famine, earthquake, tsunami, and war again. Each of these creates misery and oppression, as we live on in comfort busily securing our own success.
At stake is a theological debate over the state of affairs that will exist in messianic times. Deliverance at the end of time is assumed to be God's second act of redemption, foreshadowed, however, by the first one, the Exodus from Egypt. For Ben Zoma, once the second redemptive act occurs, we may as well forget the first. For the sages, gratitude for the first will always be in order. That is to say, even ultimate redemption will not in any way negate the need to be grateful for the original miracle by which the Israelites were saved from servitude.
In Hebrew makom, “place,” is a name for God. We are not sure exactly how this came about, but it seems related to the rabbinic adage that “God is the makom of the world, but the world is not God’s makom.” This means that the universe is located “inside” God, both surrounded and filled by divine presence. All we need to do is to open our eyes to that reality. At the same time, the perceptible universe is not co-extensive with God; the mystery of existence reaches infinitely beyond our grasp.
But why should this particular name of God, almost never used in liturgy, appear in the Haggadah? Perhaps it is to teach us that every place is a place of God. There is much in our memory that could make Egypt a detested place, associated only with suffering and enslavement, but the story of Pesach happens precisely there (!), not in the holy Land of Israel, where we might have expected God to be found. To say tonight that God is hamakom reminds us that God may be revealed everywhere, even in what may seem the most unlikely places. The Rabbis asked why God was revealed to Moses in a humble thornbush, rather than a more stately tree. Their answer: “To teach you that no place is devoid of God, not even a thornbush.” Not even Egypt, not even the house of bondage.
What does the wise [son] say? "'What are these testimonies, statutes and judgments that the Lord our God commanded you?' (Deuteronomy 6:20)" And accordingly you will say to him, as per the laws of the Pesach sacrifice, "We may not eat an afikoman [a dessert or other foods eaten after the meal] after [we are finished eating] the Pesach sacrifice (Mishnah Pesachim 10:8)."
What does the evil [son] say? "'What is this worship to you?' (Exodus 12:26)" 'To you' and not 'to him.' And since he excluded himself from the collective, he denied a principle [of the Jewish faith]. And accordingly, you will blunt his teeth and say to him, "'For the sake of this, did the Lord do [this] for me in my going out of Egypt' (Exodus 13:8)." 'For me' and not 'for him.' If he had been there, he would not have been saved.
And [regarding] the one who doesn't know to ask, you will open [the conversation] for him. As it is stated (Exodus 13:8), "And you will speak to your son on that day saying, for the sake of this, did the Lord do [this] for me in my going out of Egypt."
We remind ourselves to address the story not by rote but in a manner understandable to each listener.
Four Children: the wise, the wayward, the simple, the sleeping.
Four worlds of potential existence, according to the Kabbalists.
All are essential to the Divine Plan of Creation. Each manifests a different aspect of the Divine. All the children, all the Jewish souls, are integral to the Jewish People. Symbolic of the four levels of Jewish Awareness. All are intrinsic to God’s Plan for humanity. Each is imbued with a unique way of perceiving the Divine. Only together is the unity of humanity complete ... Rather than search in others, we must delve into ourselves. We all, to varying degrees, have aspects of the Four Children—Four Selves—within us. We must integrate the positive elements and rechannel the negative. As we hear the voices of the children, as we learn how to handle them, let us also learn how to deal with the voices of the different selves inside us. Only together are we complete.
It once happened that a disciple of Rabbi Dov Baer, the Great maggid of Mezerich, had to make a long journey. His master instructed him to take a box of matzah along with him even though it was many months before Pesach. As fate would have it, the disciple became lost and was taken in by a modest but illiterate Jewish family, with whom he celebrated the Seer. When the master of the house came to the passage in the Haggadah about the four children, the disciple was startled to hear him shout out the reference to each one of them- “One is wise!” “One is wicked!” and so forth. After the Seder he asked his host about this strange custom. The man replied, “I am not learned. But I do remember that my father taught me that when I recite the Sh’ma, I need to enunciate, even going so far as to shout out the word “one.”
Upon his return home, the disciple related this strange custom and its explanation to his master, Dov Baer. The Great Maggid replied, “So you are the one! That is why I sent the matzah with you.”
“I don’t understand,” replied the student.
“I saw a vision,” said his teacher, “that someone far away was having an unusually holy Seder and that this person was able to unify all the children of Israel. Through his holy intention he was able, at last, to make all Israel one. And now I know that you have found him.”
This person who denies the community would have refused redemption even when it came! This lesson too applies to all of our enslavements. The call to liberation comes, but we have to respond to it. That is not always as easy as it sounds. Sometimes liberation is offered us as a gift, and still we refuse to leave Egypt.
What makes the wicked child wicked? The fact that he excludes himself from the community. There are three basic forms of Jewish identity, Mordecai Kaplan claims: we can identify as a Jew either by believing , behaving, or belonging. For Kaplan himself, the primary form of identity was belonging. Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people; it emerged out of the life experience of a people, and therefore it is the Jewish people who are responsible to shape Jewish religion in every generation. To exclude oneself from the community is to abandon the relationship that above all makes one a Jew and to forsake the responsibility for the fate of Jews. Note also our response to the contrary child: We do all of this because “this is what Adonai did for me when I left Egypt”: “For me’ and not ‘for him,’” the text comments. The Exodus was not history alone; it is a contemporary event. I too was taken out of Egypt.
When Rabbi Levi Yizvhak of Berditchev came to the passage in the Haggadah about the fourth child "who doesn't know how to ask," he would say, "The one who doesn't know how to ask is me. I do not know how to ask You, Lord of the universe, and even if I did know, I would not dare to. How could I venture to ask You why everything happens as it does, why we are driven from one exile to another, why our foes are alowed to torment us? But in the Haggadah, the father of the one "who doesn't know how to ask" is told: 'You should disclose to him.' And the Haggadah refers to the verse, 'And you should tell your son.' And, Lord of the universe, am I not your son? I do not beg You to reveal to me the secret of your ways—I couldnt comprehend it! But please show me one thing. Show me the meaning of what is happening to me at this moment. Show me what it demands of me. Show me what You, Lord of the universe are telling me through it. It is not why I suffer that I want to know but only whether I suffer for your sake."
Rav’s story states that our ancestors were idol worshippers. Abraham’s father was an idol worshipper, of course. But we wonder: :What are you talking about? Who needs to know on Pesach whether my ancestors were idol worshippers?” I always wonder to myself, “What fools! Who would want to worship sticks and stones.” To make sense of Terach’s faith and of Abraham’s religious revolt, I have to tell my children about the appeal, the seduction of idolatry, avodah zarah (strange worship). They have been told about their great grandfather who began in idolatry and who discovered a liberating worship. They must discover Abraham’s childhood, and must grasp the lonely man of faith, Abraham ha-ivri. The midrash says that ‘ivri’ means the whole world was on one side and Abraham was on the other, alone. The child must learn the pain of loneliness that the convert has to bear. This is the story of Rav.
Abraham’s conversion is an act of freedom. Jewish identity is saturated with freedom. Passover does not introduce a racist ethnic tribe; it brings to the fore a covenantal people of choice. “Are you prepared to listen how your grandfather was alone and struggled against false beliefs?” That is what the home has to say. After the child is told, then there can be a free embracing of who one is.
The difference between the slave and the free person is not merely one of social class, that the slave just happens to be enslaved to another, and the free person is not enslaved. One can find a cultured and learned slave who spirit is filled with freedom, and conversely, a “free” person whose spirit is that of a slave. Real freedom is that noble spirit by which the individual and indeed the whole people are elevated to become loyal to their inner essential self, to the image of God within them. Through this characteristic they can perceive their lives as purposeful and worthy of value. This is not true regarding people with the spirit of a slave- the content of their lives and their feelings are never attuned to the characteristics of their essential self, but rather to what is considered beautiful and good by the others. They are ruled by all sorts of constraints, whether they be formal or moral.
The seder must move from degradation to praise and redemption. This paragraph is here because originally it was the "praise" and "redemption" unit that completes the "degradation" piece immediately prior.
The Hebrew for the phrase, “This promise has stood for our parents and for us,” is v’hi she’amda la’avoteinu v’lanu (והיא שעמדה לאבותינו ולנו), which literally means she stood for our parents and for us. Kabbalistic tradition insists that the redemption from Egypt has its root in Binah, the inner womb of God. Exodus/liberation is a rebirth, a new beginning of life, so it has to go back to the place within God that speaks to such a moment.
There is a time when all our senses, all the aspects of our own personalities, dwell in darkness. “Jacob and his children went down to Egypt” means that our entire household, all the various emotions that we might think compose us as selves, sometimes are “in exile,” unable to function. We are shut down; our inner lights are dimmed.
The Kabbalist’s response to such a moment is to dig a deeper wellspring within the self. There is an inner place that is deeper than any of our wounds, an endless resource from which redemption will spring forth. This is Binah, the mothering aspect of God, active within each self, within every human soul.
(ד) מָזְגוּ לוֹ כוֹס שֵׁנִי, וְכָאן הַבֵּן שׁוֹאֵל אָבִיו, וְאִם אֵין דַּעַת בַּבֵּן, אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ, מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילוֹת, שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻלּוֹ מַצָּה. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מָרוֹר. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בָּשָׂר צָלִי, שָׁלוּק, וּמְבֻשָּׁל, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻלּוֹ צָלִי. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ מַטְבִּילִין פַּעַם אַחַת, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה שְׁתֵּי פְעָמִים. וּלְפִי דַעְתּוֹ שֶׁל בֵּן, אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ. מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ:
(4) The attendants poured the second cup for the leader of the seder, and here the son asks his father the questions about the differences between Passover night and a regular night. And if the son does not have the intelligence to ask questions on his own, his father teaches him the questions. The mishna lists the questions: Why is this night different from all other nights? As on all other nights we eat leavened bread and matza as preferred; on this night all our bread is matza. As on all other nights we eat other vegetables; on this night we eat bitter herbs. The mishna continues its list of the questions. When the Temple was standing one would ask: As on all other nights we eat either roasted, stewed, or cooked meat, but on this night all the meat is the roasted meat of the Paschal lamb. The final question was asked even after the destruction of the Temple: As on all other nights we dip the vegetables in a liquid during the meal only once; however, on this night we dip twice. And according to the intelligence and the ability of the son, his father teaches him about the Exodus. When teaching his son about the Exodus. He begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace and concludes with their glory. And he expounds from the passage: “An Aramean tried to destroy my father” (Deuteronomy 26:5), the declaration one recites when presenting his first fruits at the Temple, until he concludes explaining the entire section.
Go out and learn what Lavan the Aramean sought to do to Ya'akov, our father; since Pharaoh only decreed [the death sentence] on the males but Lavan sought to uproot the whole [people]. As it is stated (Deuteronomy 26:5), "Arami Oved Avi An Aramean was destroying my father and he went down to Egypt, and he resided there with a small number and he became there a nation, great, powerful and numerous."
מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ:
When teaching his son about the Exodus, [The father] begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace and concludes with their glory. And he expounds from the passage: “(Arami Oved Avi) An Aramean tried to destroy my father” (Deuteronomy 26:5), until he concludes explaining the entire section.
(א) וְהָיָה֙ כִּֽי־תָב֣וֹא אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ נַחֲלָ֑ה וִֽירִשְׁתָּ֖הּ וְיָשַׁ֥בְתָּ בָּֽהּ׃ (ב) וְלָקַחְתָּ֞ מֵרֵאשִׁ֣ית ׀ כׇּל־פְּרִ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר תָּבִ֧יא מֵֽאַרְצְךָ֛ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לָ֖ךְ וְשַׂמְתָּ֣ בַטֶּ֑נֶא וְהָֽלַכְתָּ֙ אֶל־הַמָּק֔וֹם אֲשֶׁ֤ר יִבְחַר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ לְשַׁכֵּ֥ן שְׁמ֖וֹ שָֽׁם׃ (ג) וּבָאתָ֙ אֶל־הַכֹּהֵ֔ן אֲשֶׁ֥ר יִהְיֶ֖ה בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֑ם וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֵלָ֗יו הִגַּ֤דְתִּי הַיּוֹם֙ לַיהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ כִּי־בָ֙אתִי֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר נִשְׁבַּ֧ע יְהֹוָ֛ה לַאֲבֹתֵ֖ינוּ לָ֥תֶת לָֽנוּ׃ (ד) וְלָקַ֧ח הַכֹּהֵ֛ן הַטֶּ֖נֶא מִיָּדֶ֑ךָ וְהִ֨נִּיח֔וֹ לִפְנֵ֕י מִזְבַּ֖ח יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃ (ה) וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י ׀ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ
אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵּ֣רֶד מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וַיָּ֥גׇר שָׁ֖ם בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב׃ (ו) וַיָּרֵ֧עוּ אֹתָ֛נוּ הַמִּצְרִ֖ים וַיְעַנּ֑וּנוּ וַיִּתְּנ֥וּ עָלֵ֖ינוּ עֲבֹדָ֥ה קָשָֽׁה׃ (ז) וַנִּצְעַ֕ק אֶל־יְהֹוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֣י אֲבֹתֵ֑ינוּ וַיִּשְׁמַ֤ע יְהֹוָה֙ אֶת־קֹלֵ֔נוּ וַיַּ֧רְא אֶת־עׇנְיֵ֛נוּ וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵ֖נוּ וְאֶֽת־לַחֲצֵֽנוּ׃ (ח) וַיּוֹצִאֵ֤נוּ יְהֹוָה֙ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם בְּיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ וּבִזְרֹ֣עַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבְמֹרָ֖א גָּדֹ֑ל וּבְאֹת֖וֹת וּבְמֹפְתִֽים׃
(ט) וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וַיִּתֶּן־לָ֙נוּ֙ אֶת־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את אֶ֛רֶץ זָבַ֥ת חָלָ֖ב וּדְבָֽשׁ׃ (י) וְעַתָּ֗ה הִנֵּ֤ה הֵבֵ֙אתִי֙ אֶת־רֵאשִׁית֙ פְּרִ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־נָתַ֥תָּה לִּ֖י יְהֹוָ֑ה וְהִנַּחְתּ֗וֹ לִפְנֵי֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ וְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוִ֔יתָ לִפְנֵ֖י יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃
(1) When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, (2) you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God will choose to establish His name. (3) You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him: “I acknowledge this day before the LORD your God that I have entered the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to assign us.” (4) The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of the LORD your God. (5) You shall then recite as follows before the LORD your God:
“(Arami Oved Avi) My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. (6) The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. (7) We cried to Adonai, the God of our ancestors and Adonai heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. (8) Adonai freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.
(9) He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. (10) Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O LORD, have given me.”
You shall leave it before the LORD your God and bow low before the LORD your God.
In his classic study on the historical development of the Haggadah, Daniel Goldschmidt posited that the choice of this particular passage was based on the familiarity of the masses with the text in question. Although the Mishnah was written down many years after the Temple was destroyed and the bikkurim offering had ceased, this passage was presumably seared into the nation’s collective memory or was chosen to commemorate the reality of an earlier era.
Israel Yuval suggests that the authors of the Haggadah chose to focus the seder-night liturgy on the passage from Deuteronomy to distance themselves from the practice of the early church fathers who based their Easter homilies on the Exodus version of the Passover story. And in the recently published Schechter Haggadah, Joshua Kulp argues that the passage from Deuteronomy 26 was chosen primarily because of its brevity, which rendered it better material for the midrashic exegesis that was the Rabbis’ principal interest. Along similar lines, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik suggested that the Haggadah’s choice of these verses, which indeed provide a markedly concise description of the Exodus experience, was intended to emphasize that the evening’s goal is to draw meaning out of the text; thus, the main activity of the seder is not a recitation or reading of biblical texts but rather explication of Torah. According to R. Soloveitchik, the selection of this outstandingly brief passage was designed to encourage participants to focus on questioning, on learning, and on intellectual engagement rather than on the text itself.
We can fully appreciate the significance of this instruction to “expound” and make meaning, and to “go out and learn,” only when we remember what had been Passover’s central rite when the Temple stood: sacrifice. The loss of the Temple, and with it the central ritual of Passover, posed an enormous challenge to Judaism’s future and demanded a far-reaching reinterpretation of Passover, the very holiday associated with the Jewish People’s birth. At the same time, the Temple’s destruction rendered Passover’s celebration of redemption all the more crucial. In a move both radical and adaptive, the Rabbis of the post-Temple era resolved that sacrifice would be replaced by acts of kindness, prayer, and observing the commandments, and particularly by study. In fact, the seeds for such a development had begun to sprout among the Pharisees while the Temple stood, but they only came into full flower after the Temple had fallen. In the words of the Talmud, “whoever occupies himself with the study of the Torah needs neither burnt-offering, nor meal-offering, nor sin-offering, nor guilt-offering.”
In one sense, the instruction to “expound” on the Pilgrims’ Prayer embodied the rabbinic ideal of combining the written Torah with the beloved oral tradition (all the legends and lore passed down through the generations). It also expressed the daring freedom to midrashically re-create what had previously been a hallowed, but frozen, declaration.
The Rabbis resolved to encounter God, to join God as a creator through the medium of midrash, drawing out meaning from what they knew to be God’s words and discovering new connections among them. It’s not just that the mode of “expounding” breathed new life into an old text. At its best, the midrashic method actually gives birth to new texts—the Haggadah, for example—an act of creation and freedom that for the Rabbis epitomized the meaning of redemption from Egypt, if not godliness itself.
(5) “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. (6) The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. (7) We cried to יהוה, the God of our ancestors, and יהוה heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. (8) יהוה freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.
[This midrash was perhaps composed in the first or second century CE. At that time,] on the way to routing the Jews, the Romans destroyed the rich farmland of the Galil (Galilee) causing a famine. Many Jews fled, especially to Egypt, which became the chief diasporan community [at that time].
The Hebrew arami (Aramaen) can be read midrashically as romi (Roman) and oved (wandering) can become ibed, implying "tried to destroy," giving us the lesson that an arami who tried to destroy us was worse than Pharaoh.
"And he went down to Egypt" - this means compelled by the word of God. "And he resided there" - [this] teaches that Ya'akov, our father, didn't go down to settle in Egypt, but rather [only] to reside there, as it is stated (Genesis 47:4), "And they said to Pharaoh, 'To reside in the land have we come, since there is not enough pasture for your servant's flocks, since the famine is heavy in the land of Canaan, and now please grant that your servants should dwell in the Land of Goshen.'"
"As a small number" - as it is stated (Deuteronomy 10:22), "With seventy souls did your ancestors come down to Egypt, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky."
וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי. מְלַמֵד שֶׁהָיוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל מְצֻיָּנִים שָׁם. גָּדוֹל עָצוּם – כְּמָה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר: וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד, וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם.
"And he became there a nation" - [this] teaches that Israel [became] distinguishable there. "Great, powerful" - as it is stated (Exodus 1:7), "And the Children of Israel multiplied and swarmed and grew numerous and strong, most exceedingly and the land became full of them."
"And numerous" - as it is stated (Ezekiel 16:7), "I have given you to be numerous as the vegetation of the field, and you increased and grew and became highly ornamented, your breasts were set and your hair grew, but you were naked and barren." "I passed by you and I saw you wallowing in your blood. And I said to you, live in your blood. And I said to you, live in your blood."
The allegorical interpretation of these verses from Ezekiel first appears in Mekhilta D’rabbi Yishmael, among the most ancient of all midrashim. The time had come for God to fulfill the promise of redemption made to Abraham at the “splitting covenant” or the Covenant between the Pieces: “But as yet the Israelites had no religious duties to perform by which to merit redemption, as it says” ‘you remained naked and bare, which means bare any religious deeds. Therefore (God) assigned them two duties (mitzvot), the paschal sacrifice and circumcision, with which to merit redemption. For thus is it said, ‘I passed by you and I saw you wallowing in your blood. And when I passed by you, and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you, Live!...For one cannot obtain rewards except for deeds.” This midrash anchors the Exodus in a covenantal context: God and humanity each play a role in bringing about redemption- then and now!
"And the Egyptians did bad to us and afflicted us and imposed harsh labor upon us" (Deuteronomy 26:6) "And the Egyptians did bad to us"- as it is stated (Exodus 1:10), "Let us be wise towards him, lest he multiply and it will be that when war is called, he too will join with our enemies and fight against us and go up from the land."
(5) You shall then recite as follows before your God יהוה: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. (6) The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. (7) We cried to יהוה, the God of our ancestors, and יהוה heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. (8) יהוה freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents,
Ever careful readers of the Bible, the Sages noticed that Pharaoh says, “Come let us deal craftily with him,” not “them.” Reading "him” as “Him,” the third-century talmidic sage Rabbi Chamah bar Chaninah imagines Pharaoh strategizing how to outwit God. Knowing that God punishes measure for measure and that God had promised Noah never to destroy the entire world by a flood, Pharaoh “craftily” reckons that Egyptians can drown the newborn Israelite males with impunity. But Pharoah fails to appreciate that God’s promise to Noah would not prevent God from visiting a flood upon a particular people, that is, drowning the Egyptians in the Red Sea. Trying to outwit God is not so smart after all.
וַיְעַנּוּנוּ. כְּמָה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיָּשִׂימוּ עָלָיו שָׂרֵי מִסִּים לְמַעַן עַנֹּתוֹ בְּסִבְלֹתָם. וַיִּבֶן עָרֵי מִסְכְּנוֹת לְפַרְעֹה. אֶת־פִּתֹם וְאֶת־רַעַמְסֵס.
וַיִתְּנוּ עָלֵינוּ עֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה. כְּמָה שֶֹׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיַּעֲבִדוּ מִצְרַיִם אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּפָרֶךְ.
"And put upon us hard work" - as it is stated (Exodus 1:11), "And they enslaved the children of Israel with breaking work."
(5) You shall then recite as follows before your God יהוה: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. (6) The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. (7) We cried to יהוה, the God of our ancestors, and יהוה heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. (8) יהוה freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents,
(5) “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. (6) The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. (7) We cried to יהוה, the God of our ancestors, and יהוה heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. (8) יהוה freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents,
This is almost certainly a polemic against Christianity. Origen of Alexandria (185-c254)) the churchs first truly philosophic theologian engaged in controversy with Rabbi Yochanan on precisely this point. Origen claimed that the Christian "second" covenant through Jesus surpassed the Jewish "original" one through Moses, because Jesus was the Christ, a part of God, whereas Moses was merely a human agent or a messenger. Deliverance from Egypt was therefore secondary to salvation through Christ.
וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה. זוֹ הַחֶרֶב, כְּמָה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְחַרְבּוֹ שְׁלוּפָה בְּיָדוֹ, נְטוּיָה עַל־יְרוּשָלָיִם.
"And with an outstretched forearm" - this [refers to] the sword, as it is stated (I Chronicles 21:16); "And his sword was drawn in his hand, leaning over Jerusalem."
וּבְמוֹרָא גָּדֹל. זוֹ גִּלּוּי שְׁכִינָה. כְּמָה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר, אוֹ הֲנִסָּה אֱלֹהִים לָבוֹא לָקַחַת לוֹ גּוֹי מִקֶּרֶב גּוֹי בְּמַסֹּת בְּאֹתֹת וּבְמוֹפְתִים וּבְמִלְחָמָה וּבְיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרוֹעַ נְטוּיָה וּבְמוֹרָאִים גְּדוֹלִים כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה לָכֶם ה' אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בְּמִצְרַיִם לְעֵינֶיךָ.
The Rabbis envisioned the Exodus as a moment of direct encounter with God. "In Egypt the Israelites saw God in the open, says Song of Song Rabbah (3:19). A most amazing claim from the Mekhilta asserts that "a maidservant saw ... what all the prophets together never saw." To see is to believe; to believe is to see.
וּבְאֹתוֹת. זֶה הַמַּטֶּה, כְּמָה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְאֶת הַמַּטֶּה הַזֶּה תִּקַּח בְּיָדְךָ, אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה־בּוֹ אֶת הָאֹתוֹת.
דָּם
צְפַרְדֵּעַ
כִּנִּים
עָרוֹב
דֶּבֶר
שְׁחִין
בָּרָד
אַרְבֶּה
חשֶׁךְ
מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת
Blood
Frogs
Lice
Swarms
Blight
Boils
Hail
Locusts
Darkness
Slaying of the first-born
Since the fourteenth century, it has been common practice to dip a finger in the wine cup and accompany each plague by spattering drops of wine on the table, floor, or (nowadays) a plate. Some communities spill the wine directly from the cup, but originally, using one's finger was the norm. This practice is often explained nowadays according to the commonly cited midrash where God chastises Israel for rejoicing at the death of the Egyptian soldiers, who are also God's creatures. Each drop commemorates the tragedy of spilled blood.
But the practice emerged among German Jews trying to come to terms with rampant persecution, so it was probably intended as the reverse—a reminder that God would indeed spill the blood of our enemies.
A medieval text asserts that this mnemonic was inscribed on Moses' staff in order to help him bring the plagues upon Pharoah
כַּמָה מַעֲלוֹת טוֹבוֹת לַמָּקוֹם עָלֵינוּ!
אִלּוּ הוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִצְרַיִם וְלֹא עָשָׂה בָהֶם שְׁפָטִים, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ עָשָׂה בָהֶם שְׁפָטִים, וְלֹא עָשָׂה בֵאלֹהֵיהֶם, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ עָשָׂה בֵאלֹהֵיהֶם, וְלֹא הָרַג אֶת־בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ הָרַג אֶת־בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־מָמוֹנָם, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־מָמוֹנָם וְלֹא קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת־הַיָּם, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת־הַיָּם וְלֹא הֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ הֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה וְלֹא שִׁקַּע צָרֵנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ שִׁקַּע צָרֵנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ וְלֹא סִפֵּק צָרְכֵּנוּ בַּמִדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ סִפֵּק צָרְכֵּנוּ בְּמִדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וְלֹא הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת־הַמָּן דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת־הַמָּן וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־הַשַׁבָּת, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־הַשַׁבָּת, וְלֹא קֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ קֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי, וְלא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־הַתּוֹרָה. דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־הַתּוֹרָה וְלֹא הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, דַּיֵּנוּ.
אִלּוּ הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא בָנָה לָנוּ אֶת־בֵּית הַבְּחִירָה דַּיֵּנוּ.
עַל אַחַת, כַּמָה וְכַּמָה, טוֹבָה כְפוּלָה וּמְכֻפֶּלֶת לַמָּקוֹם עָלֵינוּ: שֶׁהוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם, וְעָשָׂה בָהֶם שְׁפָטִים, וְעָשָׂה בֵאלֹהֵיהֶם, וְהָרַג אֶת־בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם, וְנָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־מָמוֹנָם, וְקָרַע לָנוּ אֶת־הַיָּם, וְהֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה, וְשִׁקַּע צָרֵנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ, וְסִפֵּק צָרְכֵּנוּ בַּמִדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה, וְהֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת־הַמָּן, וְנָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־הַשַּׁבָּת, וְקֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי, וְנָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־הַתּוֹרָה, וְהִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, וּבָנָה לָנוּ אֶת־בֵּית הַבְּחִירָה לְכַפֵּר עַל־כָּל־עֲוֹנוֹתֵינוּ.
How many degrees of good did the Place [of all bestow] upon us!
If He had taken us out of Egypt and not made judgements on them; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had made judgments on them and had not made [them] on their gods; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had made [them] on their gods and had not killed their firstborn; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had killed their firstborn and had not given us their money; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had given us their money and had not split the Sea for us; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had split the Sea for us and had not taken us through it on dry land; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had taken us through it on dry land and had not pushed down our enemies in [the Sea]; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had pushed down our enemies in [the Sea] and had not supplied our needs in the wilderness for forty years; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had supplied our needs in the wilderness for forty years and had not fed us the manna; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had fed us the manna and had not given us the Shabbat; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had given us the Shabbat and had not brought us close to Mount Sinai; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had brought us close to Mount Sinai and had not given us the Torah; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had given us the Torah and had not brought us into the land of Israel; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had brought us into the land of Israel and had not built us the 'Chosen House' [the Temple; it would have been] enough for us.
How much more so is the good that is doubled and quadrupled that the Place [of all bestowed] upon us [enough for us]; since he took us out of Egypt, and made judgments with them, and made [them] with their gods, and killed their firstborn, and gave us their money, and split the Sea for us, and brought us through it on dry land, and pushed down our enemies in [the Sea], and supplied our needs in the wilderness for forty years, and fed us the manna, and gave us the Shabbat, and brought us close to Mount Sinai, and gave us the Torah, and brought us into the land of Israel and built us the 'Chosen House' [the Temple] to atone upon all of our sins.
A verse of the song Dayenu says, “If God had brought us to Mt. Sinai but not given us the Torah, that would have been enough for us.” This, says Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, makes no sense. What would be the purpose of coming to Sinai if there was to be no Torah, no revelation? The answer, he says, lies in what happened to Israel in the three days of preparation for the great event. Each one who was present, he says (and of course, all of us were present at Sinai), so sincerely and deeply opened themselves to Torah, casting aside all material concerns in order to hear only God’s word, that they were able to discover the entire Torah already implanted within their own hearts!
Each of us contains Torah within us; it is only our preoccupation with trivial and superficial pursuits that keeps us from turning inward to find it. The promise of revelation was enough, he says, to evoke this/revelation from within.
Avraham Avinu, Abraham our father, the Talmud tells us, fulfilled the entire Torah even down to the last detail. But how did he know Torah, living hundreds of years before it was given? Abraham was able to look within. Having left his homeland and his father's house, following God faithfully across the desert, Abraham was stripped of all but the most basic physical needs. There was no wall left that separated him from his innermost self, where he was able to discover all the secrets of the Torah.
רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל הָיָה אוֹמֵר: כָּל שֶׁלֹּא אָמַר שְׁלשָׁה דְּבָרִים אֵלּוּ בַּפֶּסַח, לא יָצָא יְדֵי חוֹבָתוֹ, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: פֶּסַח, מַצָּה, וּמָרוֹר.
פֶּסַח שֶׁהָיוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אוֹכְלִים בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הָיָה קַיָּם, עַל שׁוּם מָה? עַל שׁוּם שֶׁפָּסַח הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עַל בָּתֵּי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בְּמִצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַאֲמַרְתֶּם זֶבַח פֶּסַח הוּא לַיי, אֲשֶׁר פָּסַח עַל בָּתֵּי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּמִצְרַיִם בְּנָגְפּוֹ אֶת־מִצְרַיִם, וְאֶת־בָּתֵּינוּ הִצִּיל וַיִּקֹּד הָעָם וַיִּשְׁתַּחווּ.
אוחז המצה בידו ומראה אותה למסובין:
מַצָּה זוֹ שֶׁאָנוֹ אוֹכְלִים, עַל שׁוּם מַה? עַל שׁוּם שֶׁלֹּא הִסְפִּיק בְּצֵקָם שֶׁל אֲבוֹתֵינוּ לְהַחֲמִיץ עַד שֶׁנִּגְלָה עֲלֵיהֶם מֶלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים, הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, וּגְאָלָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיֹּאפוּ אֶת־הַבָּצֵק אֲשֶׁר הוֹצִיאוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם עֻגֹת מַצּוֹּת, כִּי לֹא חָמֵץ, כִּי גֹרְשׁוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם וְלֹא יָכְלוּ לְהִתְמַהְמֵהַּ, וְגַם צֵדָה לֹא עָשׂוּ לָהֶם.
אוחז המרור בידו ומראה אותו למסובין:
מָרוֹר זֶה שֶׁאָנוּ אוֹכְלִים, עַל שׁוּם מַה? עַל שׁוּם שֶׁמֵּרְרוּ הַמִּצְרִים אֶת־חַיֵּי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בְּמִצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיְמָרְרוּ אֶת חַיֵּיהם בַּעֲבֹדָה קָשָה, בְּחֹמֶר וּבִלְבֵנִים וּבְכָל־עֲבֹדָה בַּשָּׂדֶה אֶת כָּל עֲבֹדָתָם אֲשֶׁר עָבְדוּ בָהֶם בְּפָרֶךְ.
בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה' לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרַיִם. לֹא אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בִּלְבָד גָּאַל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אֶלָּא אַף אוֹתָנוּ גָּאַל עִמָּהֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְאוֹתָנוּ הוֹצִיא מִשָּׁם, לְמַעַן הָבִיא אוֹתָנוּ, לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשָׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֵינוּ.
Rabban Gamliel was accustomed to say, Anyone who has not said these three things on Pesach has not fulfilled his obligation, and these are them: the Pesach sacrifice, matsa and marror.
The Pesach [passover] sacrifice that our ancestors were accustomed to eating when the Temple existed, for the sake of what [was it]? For the sake [to commemorate] that the Holy One, blessed be He, passed over the homes of our ancestors in Egypt, as it is stated (Exodus 12:27); "And you shall say: 'It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, for that He passed over the homes of the Children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and our homes he saved.’ And the people bowed the head and bowed."
He holds the matsa in his hand and shows it to the others there.
This matsa that we are eating, for the sake of what [is it]? For the sake [to commemorate] that our ancestors' dough was not yet able to rise, before the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed [Himself] to them and redeemed them, as it is stated (Exodus 12:39); "And they baked the dough which they brought out of Egypt into matsa cakes, since it did not rise; because they were expelled from Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they made for themselves provisions."
He holds the marror in his hand and shows it to the others there.
This marror [bitter greens] that we are eating, for the sake of what [is it]? For the sake [to commemorate] that the Egyptians embittered the lives of our ancestors in Egypt, as it is stated (Exodus 1:14); "And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; in all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigor."
In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he left Egypt, as it is stated (Exodus 13:8); "And you shall explain to your son on that day: For the sake of this, did the Lord do [this] for me in my going out of Egypt." Not only our ancestors did the Holy One, blessed be He, redeem, but rather also us [together] with them did He redeem, as it is stated (Deuteronomy 6:23); "And He took us out from there, in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He swore unto our fathers."
The English "as though" is misleading, since it might imply the subjunctive mood—only "as though" but "not really." The Hebrew is intended as just the opposite. We are really to experience Egypt ourselves. At issue is the nature of liturgical memory.
Steeped in history as we are, we can only imagine things "as though" we were alive "back then." But the rabbis lacked historical consciousness. When they spoke of memory (zikaron or zekher) they meant the Hellenistic concept of anamnesis, meaning the collapse of time so that past and present merge into one. Thinking of ourselves "as though" we are leaving Egyot connotes an existential consciousness of truly "being there" because what happened "there" and "then" is replicated "here" and "now."
Haggadah means narration, and tonight’s celebration insists on the moral seriousness of the stories that we tell about ourselves. Stories are easily dismissible as distractions, the make-believe we craved as children, losing ourselves in the sweet enchantment of “as if”. “As if” belongs to the imagination, that wild terrain governed by no obvious rules. But tonight we are asked to take this faculty of the mind, so beloved by children and novelists, extremely seriously. All the adults who have outgrown story time are to be tutored tonight, with the physical props meant to quicken our pretending, and the ways of the child to guide us.
It is not enough to merely tell the story, but we must live inside of it, blur the boundaries of our personal narrative so that we spill outward and include as part of our formative experiences having lived through events that took place millennia before we were born.
It is the imagination alone that can extend the sense of the self, broaden our sense of who we really are. We are Jews, insists the tradition, and the identity of an individual Jew is never strictly individual but also collective. By extending our personal narratives to include the formative tale of Jewish identity we appropriate that collective self as part of our own.
But the tradition also insists on possessing tonight’s story in more general moral terms, the Torah reminding us never to oppress the stranger, “since you know the soul of the stranger, having been strangers in the land of Egypt.” This story that we relive tonight is meant to grant us knowledge of “the soul of the stranger,” and there is nothing more universal than that soul and our knowledge of it, and it is only the tutored imagination that can lead us to it and to the compassion it yields.
Tonight is the night that we sanctify storytelling.
(כג) הִנֵּ֤ה אָנֹכִי֙ שֹׁלֵ֣חַ לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֖ת אֵלִיָּ֣ה הַנָּבִ֑יא לִפְנֵ֗י בּ֚וֹא י֣וֹם יְהֹוָ֔ה הַגָּד֖וֹל וְהַנּוֹרָֽא׃ (כד) וְהֵשִׁ֤יב לֵב־אָבוֹת֙ עַל־בָּנִ֔ים וְלֵ֥ב בָּנִ֖ים עַל־אֲבוֹתָ֑ם פֶּן־אָב֕וֹא וְהִכֵּיתִ֥י אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ חֵֽרֶם׃
(23) Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of the LORD. (24) He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents, so that, when I come, I do not strike the whole land with utter destruction.
Elijah's role in Jewish tradition is to herald the coming of the messiah. More generally, Elijah is the personalization of redemption because he never really died. Elijah is the ultimate liminal personality who has mastered the threshold between life and death. As such, he returns to earth at various liminal moments, at every circumcision ritual, for example, at the Havdalah ritual at the close of the Sabbath, and at this climax of the Passover Seder.
Elijah's "appearance" in our homes at this moment celebrates our achievement of redemption. But we understand, at the same time, that redemption is not complete; the world is not as yet redeemed. We remind ourselves of that unfinished work by opening our doors and looking out into the world at large.
Part of that unfinished work is the hostility of the nations toward the people of Israel. It is on these nations that we ask God to "Pour out Your wrath," not indiscriminately, but on those nations that have opposed Israel's redemptive vision of a just and charitable world.
The doors are open, the fourth cup is poured, and we recite this while standing and while holding a cup, so as to fulfill the verses of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), "A time is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven ... a time to love and a time to hate" (3:1, 3:8). Hatred, even when justified, is of such power that it must be controlled and contextualized. It is controlled in that its sole home expression in Judaism is here, in the Seder, limited to only a few short, albeit vivid, lines; and the vengeance is turned over to God. It comes while we open our doors: this is leil shimurim ("the night of watching"), after all. On it we "own" the anger that we have repressed throughout the years during hostile times. At this point, having gone through slavery and freedom, we achieve the clarity to identify our enemies, who claim to believe in God but attempt to destroy His people.
We interrupt this celebration of liberation to bring you a word from the Jewish id. “Pour out Thy Wrath,” we demand of God. But wait. We moderns have been told that we are opening the door for Elijah as a way of signaling our readiness to work for a better time, a messianic age free of strife and unfairness. Aren’t we opening the door to the poor, and to the people of all nations, inviting them to come eat with us and learn with us? Well, yes, but we open doors, and close doors, for many reasons. In the ghettos of Europe, Jews opened their doors at this moment in the seder for two fascinating and conflicting reasons. One was to let the gentiles see that, yes, indeed, the Jews were doing what they claimed they were doing, having an innocent meal together- no Christian children being slaughtered here, thank you very much. At the same time, employing words not understood by their neighbors, the Jews were venting their anger at the gentiles who were making their lives a misery.
The anger of our ghetto ancestors was understandable. Why not let powerless people have their fantasies of justice and revenge? But should we pour out our wrath today, onto societies that accept us? Or, to ask the question another way, is righteous anger, even aimed at ancient enemies, and not our neighbors, ennobling or distorting? Anger, channeled destructively, can lead to vindictiveness, to a kind of constricting tribalism that sees everyone on the other side of our circled wagons as an enemy. Destructive anger is one of the great dangers of our age. Technology has, among other things, enabled the instantaneous transmission of invective; the Internet is used all too often to demonize and polarize. The Talmud tells us that God loves the man who does not get angry.
But isn’t anger also a useful motivator? Isn’t there such a thing as righteous anger? The abolitionists were angry; the suffragists were angry; Herzl was angry; Gandhi was angry. But they poured their wrath not into vengeful violence, but into new foundations of justice. But how do we know when our constructive anger becomes dangerous> Can we even trust our emotions? Or is that why we have law- because we can’t?
When we welcome Elijah to the Seder it helps to think of him not only as an emissary of rage and revenge, but as an ambassador of understanding and reconciliation, as a meshiv kushot, "answerer of questions," and a meshiv lev avot al banim, "a reconciler of parents and children.
לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בִּירוּשָלָיִם הַבְּנוּיָה.
“Next year in Jerusalem” The theme of redemption is everywhere in the concluding portions of the Seder. It is introduced in the redemption blessing that concludes the telling of the story before the festive meal; it was symbolized by the introduction of Elijah, the herald of redemption; and it will appear at the very end of the Haggadah when God kills the Angel of Death. Here it appears in the exclamation, “Next year in Jerusalem!”
From the time of the prophets, the dream of a return to Zion was an intrinsic part of the vision of the end of days. Jewish eschatology (from the Greek, eschaton, “the last events,” and logos, “the study of’) at its richest includes three dimensions: a universal dimension, what will happen to the world as a whole (the end of warfare, social justice, and the worship of God by all peoples); a national dimension, what will happen to the Jewish people (the end of the exile and the rebuilding of the Temple); and a personal dimension, what will happen to the individual person (the resurrection of the dead and the final judgement).
The return to Zion was the centerpiece of the national dimension from the time of the first exile after the destruction of the First Temple. It became central once again after the destruction of the Second Temple at the hands of Rome. That second, more extended exile ended with the creation of the modern State of Israel, though many Jews had in fact returned to settle there in the pre-state years.
But why do we continue to conclude our Seder with this exclamation? For centuries, our ancestors could claim that they were not free to return, and the words constituted a prayer. Now however, most of us who are not in Jerusalem choose not to be. Why then do we continue to use this formula, and further, why do those Jews who settled in Jerusalem continue to recite it?
One possible answer to both questions is that the phrase has been altered by the addition of one word so that the exclamation becomes, “Next year in Jerusalem rebuilt!” ( in Hebrew, Y’rushalayim hab’nuiah). That reworded statement express the hope that one day in the future, Jerusalem may be a flourishing city where its diverse populations could live in peace with one another. That’s the Jerusalem we yearn to return to.
But others continue to use the ancient formula and understand it in its original sense as an eschatological vision. It’s not the current, living city of Jerusalem that we dream of but rather the heavenly Jerusalem of the mystics who posited an idealized Jerusalem poised above and parallel to the earthly Jerusalem. Only in the age to come, after the coming of the messiah, will the heavenly Jerusalem merge with and become identical to the earthly Jerusalem. When we exclaim, “Next year in Jerusalem!” it is this event that we anticipate.
Note that we also conclude the liturgy of the N’illah (“Concluding”) service at the end of Yom Kippur with the very same exclamation. In both instances, the reference is to the ultimate redemption to come. At the end of Yom Kippur, we are cleansed of our sins, and at the end of the Seder, we are once again free from Egyptian bondage, whatever the political realities in which the community labors. Both are redemptive moments—one for the individual, the second, the Seder, for the community.
The seder ends in an outburst of longing, and it is a longing for home. No matter where we are, the chances are that we feel displaced. No strangers to estrangement, we carry a homesickness from place to place. Somewhere on earth will feel like home. We will know it down to its homeliest details, and that knowledge will seep through and calm our restlessness, for what was that restlessness but a dream of coming home?
Next year in Jerusalem! We sing, from our places scattered around the globe, including the city of Jerusalem itself. And we will sing it year after year, no matter how history disposes of us, just so long as we are still around. Proust wrote, “There is no paradise but paradise lost.” The Jerusalem with which we end the seder is a place in the Proustian dreamscape, only designated not by the ache of loss but the ache of longing.
And if Jerusalem is metaphor, so, too, is Egypt. Egypt is the here and now, using the most persuasive of means—the fact of reality itself—to make us sink into its presence and forget the boundaries we had meant to cross. The Haggadah’s tale is about a family who swell into something more. Voluntary strangers, they became involuntary slaves and finally head out into the unknown, driven by their longing to go home. None of them would ever reach that home, not even Moses.
Next year in Jerusalem, we day. And the words send us out into the night with our desires stoked, our contentment cooled.
We are slaves without our longings.
We live in a broken world… Exile—another name for brokenness—is not just the current condition of the Jewish people; according to the Kabbalah, it is the fundamental condition of the universe and of God. Before the beginning, before there was a heaven and an earth, God’s light poured forth, intended for divine vessels. But the vessels were not strong enough to hold the light and, in a primordial catastrophe known as “the shattering of the vessels” (shevirat ha-kelim), the divine light—God’s very being—was scattered like so many sparks. Today, we live surrounded by these sparks and by the shards of the vessels that were meant to hold them.
But there is one place in this broken world whose very name contains the Hebrew word—shalem—for wholeness, peace, and perfection. That place is Jerusalem. The rabbis teach us that Jerusalem marks the spot where God laid the foundation stone upon which he created the rest of the world. For this reason, they call Jerusalem the "navel of the world" and the gateway to heaven.
When we sing "Next Year in Jerusalem," therefore, we are asking for a new beginning; for a return to wholeness.
And yet...
And yet, there is another Jewish tradition, this time from Hasidism, that teaches us the virtue, even the necessity of “being broken” (tsubrokhenkayt). As a Hasidic saying paradoxically declares: There is nothing more whole than a broken heart. Ayn davar yoter shalem me lev shavur. Here we find the same Hebrew word for “whole”—shalem—that lies at the root of Jerusalem.
So what is the wholeness that we seek when we sing “Next year in Jerusalem”? Is it a return from exile or the embrace of a broken heart? Is exile a punishment that distances us from God or an opportunity to get closer to God? Is it more Jewish to be broken than whole? Or is the point of Judaism the attempt to find wholeness in brokenness?