What Can We Do for Each Other? Reading the Haggadah

Like a Torah-level enactment -- just as a blind person would be exempt when the Beit ha-Mikdash stood, now too they would be exempt, and [therefore] unable to release others from their obligation.

MISHNA: Everyone is fit to read the Megilla, except for a Heresh, a Shoteh, and a Katan. Rabbi Yehuda disagrees and says that a Katan is fit to read the Megilla.

R. Yehuda says a minor is kosher -- but which kind of minor? If it's one who hasn't reach the age of education, then on what basis does R. Yehuda say it's kosher? After all, it says at the end of the last chapter of Rosh Hashana (29a): "Anyone who isn't obligated to do something, can't exempt others from their obligation."

But if it's a minor who has reached the age of education, what's the explanation for why the Rabbis would says they're not kosher? After all, everyone else also isn't obligated, except rabbinically.

If so, it's hard to understand why they didn't say, that one who is obligated rabbinically comes to be exempt someone else who is obligated rabbinically. That's what it says in the 3rd chapter of Brachot (20b), that a son can bless [after a meal] on behalf of a father even though he's a minor, discharging his father's obligation. The gemara there explains it: for example, the father ate just an olive's or egg's worth, so only has a rabbinic obligation. The minor comes, who obligation is rabbinic [because of being a minor], and exempts the father who only ate a rabbinically obligated amount. Why didn't they give the same explanation here in Megillah?

Similarly, in the 3rd chapter of Sukkot (38b) it is said that a minor does not exempt other from reciting Hallel, and one [who hears a minor] should answer after them whatever they said [not relying on the minor's recitation at all]. How is this different from [the case of] Birkat ha-Mazon?

One should say, that actually we're dealing with a minor who has reached the age of education, and for the Megillah the rabbis exempted even adults from everything except a rabbinic obligation. While the minor's obligation [for Megillah] is rabbinic, [it's because that's their level of obligation] for all other mitzvot [as well]. For the adult, Megillah in particular is rabbinic, but for all other mitzvot, their obligation is from the Torah.

[On the chapter in the Shulchan Aruch about "Who can discharge another's obligation?", where it is stated that when eating and drinking together, a single person can discharge the obligations to bless their food] even if they don't answer Amen. For we have the principle, "one who hears is like one who answers", so it's as if they had made the bracha themselves. But this is all just post facto. Ab initio, it's a mitzvah to answer Amen to any bracha that one hears from a M.O.T. (see below, 215). Even more so is there an obligation ab initio to answer Amen on someone else's Bracha, if you're discharging your obligation through them, in order to demonstrate through action that you're relying on their bracha.

The poskim write that if multiple people are performing a single mitzvah, then ab initio one should for everyone, for "in the midst of the multitude is the Sovereign made beautiful"...

"with the community" -- because the Holy One of Blessing doesn't disdain the prayers of a community. Even if sinners are among them, they should not be discouraged from davenning with them.

If there are two shuls, one with lots more people, it's a mitzvah to daven at that one...

The essence of prayer is to daven with a minyan....

If you daven at a Hashkama minyan that does musaf right after shacharit, and there's another minyan that will do musaf later with a larger number of people, it's better to wait to do musaf there.

...see the Nishmat Adam for details.

[After Karpas and Yachatz...]

The leader says Ha Lachma Anya and everyone listens. Next they remove the seder plate from the table and then pour the [2nd] cup, and they ask the Ma Nishtana. The leader recites the Haggadah, and everyone listens.

MAGID:

They pour the 2nd cup, until the kids ask the Ma Nishtana. If there aren't any children, then his adult offspring asks, or his friend, or even his wife (sic). Then he says the Avadim Hayinu. And it is correction to follow the custom of the God-fearing to expound on the Haggadah in Yiddish or any language they understand. For also the women are obligated in all the mitzvot [of the seder] and in reciting the Hagadah. Therefore there is an obligation that also those who are serving should sit at the table and hear the entire Haggada. If she needs to go outside to cook, nonetheless she is obligated to hear kiddush, and when they arrive at Rabban Gamliel Omer, then she should enter and hear until after the drinking of the 2nd cup. For it says, "one who doesn't say these three things hasn't fulfilled their obligation." The custom is also to read it so she should hear the ten plagues that were brought on the Mitzrim...

If there are men and/or women in a single household that don't know how to conduct the seder, or even two or three such holds, it's feasible for another to do it for them. After conducting their own seder, eating, and saying Birkat haMazon, they go to another house, make kiddush for them and those people drink, says the Haggadah before them up to Ga'al Yisrael, then those people drink the 2nd cup and eat the matzah and maror and eat their fill, but the one leading is forbidden from eating and drinking with them, for they've already had the Afikomen at their own house....

Afterwards they should bless the Birkat ha-Mazon. And if those people don't know it, the person leading should recite it with them word by word. Afterwards they can go to a 2nd or 3rd house and make seder for them, and then finally return to their own house and finish Hallel and drink the 4th cup. Then go to the other houses and finish with them the Hallel.

Or do the other houses first without eating, and finish by doing the complete Seder at home.

...It's necessary to recite the Haggada over the matzah in order to discharge one's obligation, as it says, "you shall eat over it matzot, the bread of Oni (affliction)". The sages drashed that one answers [onim] over it many matters. Since it says Lechem Oni without a vav, they drashed it as Lech Ani, Bread of Poverty. Just as the manner of poverty is to be in pieces, so too here in pieces, that the matzah which discharges one's obligation isn't whole but broken, and upon it one says the Haggadah (see Section 475 for the explanation of why we place it between two whole ones).

For the issue of reciting Hallel with a bracha, there's a dispute....For the universal custom is not to say a bracha on Hallel that's recited at the [seder] table. Sephardim recite Hallel collectively, and include the bracha, as according to Masechet Sofrim. The reason for reciting Hallel on seder night while seated is giving in O.C. 422.

R"b"i writes that a blind person is exempt from reciting the haggadah, just as they're exempt from all [positive] mitzvot [though that is disputed by others]. Nonetheless, they're fully obligated rabbinically. But to discharge an obligation on someone else's behalf? Yes, according to those who hold that eating matzah [at the seder] is only by rabbinic law [today]. One whose obligation comes under rabbinic can be discharged from that obligation by another who is obligated [only] by rabbinic law [ati d'rabbanan, u-motzi d'rabbanan]...

The Kolbo writes that Ha Lachma Anya and the Ma Nishtana can be recited in local languages in order that even though [those that the community has not taught Hebrew to, such as] woman and children will understand. There are even those who hold that Avadim Hayinu can be recited in a local language, and this is a fitting custom, for after the questions are posed in a local language, should not the answer be as well? Who would benefit by understanding the questions but not the answers?

(12) When you have set aside in full the tenth part of your yield—in the third year, the year of the tithe and have given it to the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat their fill in your settlements, (13) you shall declare before your God: “I have cleared out the consecrated portion from the house; and I have given it to the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, just as You commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor neglected any of Your commandments: (14) I have not eaten of it while in mourning, I have not cleared out any of it while I was impure, and I have not deposited any of it with the dead. I have obeyed my God; I have done just as You commanded me.

(1) It is a positive commandment of the Torah to tell the story of the miracles and wonders done for our ancestors in Mitzrayim on the night of the fifteenth of Nisan as [Exodus 13:3] states: "Remember this day on which you left Mitzrayim," just as [Exodus 20:8] states: "Remember the day of Shabbat."
From where [is it derived that this mitzvah is to be fulfilled on] the night of the fifteenth? The Torah teaches [Exodus 13:8]: "And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: 'It is because of this...'(The Mechiltah interprets this as a reference to matzah and maror. Thus) when matzah and maror are placed before you [at the seder table].
[The mitzvah applies] even though one does not have children. Even great Sages are obligated to tell about the Exodus from Mitzrayim....

(20) When, in time to come, your children ask you, “What mean the decrees, laws, and rules that ha-Shem our God has enjoined upon you?” (Septuagint and rabbinic quotations read “us.”) (21) you shall say to your children, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and ha-Shem freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand. (22) ha-Shem wrought before our eyes marvelous and destructive signs and portents in Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household; (23) and us [God] freed from there, in order to take us and give us the land promised on oath to our ancestors.

עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ WE WERE SLAVES
to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim,
and ha-Shem our God brought us out of there
with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.
And if the Holy One of Blessing
had not brought our ancestors out of Mitzrayim –
then we, and our children, and the children of our children,
would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim.
And even were we all wise, all intelligent,
all aged and all knowledgeable in the Torah,
still the command would be upon us
to tell of the coming out of Mitzrayim;
and the more one tells of the coming out of Mitzrayim,
the more admirable it is.