Passover Offerings Ramaz 2023

This publication is dedicated in loving memory of our dear father & grandfather

ל״ז

J. Leonard Spodek z"l

Our dear brother in-law and uncle

י״נ ךינעה םירפא ןב ל״ז ףסוי םייח

Gary Turkel z"l

And in loving memory of our grandparents & great-grandparents

Israel and Sarah (Elbaum) Spodek z"l

ל״ז ךונח תב האלו םהרבא ןב קחצי

Irving and Lillian (Bernheim) Tyras z"l ל״ז הלימ׳ג תב הזילעו ןורהא

Samuel & Alice (Setton) Franco z"l And ל״ז קחצי ןב היעשי

Stephen Shalom z"l

They loved their family and aspired to build generations grounded in the tradition of Torah

Avi, Evelyn, Isaac, David & Jack Spodek

Table of Contents

Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz

Introduction

Rabbi Joshua Lookstein '88 Ha Lachma Anya: An Open Door Policy

Ms. Ilana Wilner YACHATZ: The Art of Breaking

Ms. Atara Kelman How Is This Night Different From All Other Nights

Dr. Aron Tugendhaft '95 Freedom Is Noisy

Mr. Leo Eigen '25

And If Hashem Had Not Freed Our Ancestors from Egypt

Rabbi Jeremy Teichman Afikoman & Korban Pesach: Our All-Encompassing Relationship With God

Rabbi Josh Blaustein Redeeming, Fast and Slow: Two Components of the Exodus and of Redemption in Our Time

Rabbi David Fried Two Mitzvot of Matzah: The Relationship Between Motzi Matzah and Korekh

Rabbi Dov Pianko An Egg-celent Custom

4 5 8 9 10 12 14 16 18 19

Cover Art: The seder scene in a Passover Haggadah, with German translation p. 42. (copied by Eliezer Sussman Mezeritsch, decorated by Charlotte von Rothschild · 1842 ) Zürich, Braginsky Collection, B314, e-codices.ch

The holidays of Pesach and Purim are juxtaposed, occurring just one month apart and connected by the 30 day time period in which we are charged to “study the laws of Pesach” ( Talmud, Pesachim, daf 6). In a leap year, when there are two months of Adar, we celebrate Purim in the second Adar in order to connect the two redemptions ( Talmud, Megillah, daf 6). Since Pesach is in Nisan, the first month in our calendar, these two holidays also bookend the Jewish year.

There are ways in which these holidays are very similar and ways in which they are complete opposites. Both Pesach and Purim are focused on the effort to celebrate and remember the stories of our past, that are told through the Haggadah and the Megillah . There is a slight difference in the formats of these recountings. The Purim story is a recitation of the relevant section of the Tanakh, our canonized text. On Pesach, while the Haggadah cites verses from the Torah, the primary retelling is through oral interpretation; we are “ doresh” the verses of the Arami Oved Avi section of the Torah ( Talmud Pesachim daf 116). Thus, on Purim we remember through the Written Torah and on Pesach we remember through the Oral Torah.

The Written Torah represents that word of God that is unchanging. It is perfect, though impossible to be perfectly understood. It is static and holy and we are charged to preserve it. The Oral Law incorporates the evolving human interpretation that is inherently imperfect, but represents our effort to connect to the teachings of the Torah and the lessons of our history. In our study of Torah we attempt to synthesize these two dimensions of Torah study.

We are very happy to present this compilation of essays about Pesach by the students and teachers of the Ramaz Upper School to enhance the Pesach learning experience of our school community. We strive to publish this volume annually and although it is written, it is part of the ongoing, dynamic, personalized learning experience that is the signature of the Oral Torah. We very much hope that you will enjoy reading it and will continue to participate in our ongoing conversations in the study of our history and of our Torah.

Best wishes for a joyous and healthy Pesach.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz Associate Principal, The Ramaz Upper School

Ha Lachma Anya: An Open Door Policy

Rabbi Joshua Lookstein '88

Doorways are an even more prominent theme of the Seder than one may have thought. Towards the beginning of the Seder, in the Magid section, we read the paragraph of Ha Lachma Anya, and though we are not instructed to actually open the door - some do - we verbally invite those who are in need of a Seder to come in and join ours. Then, towards the end of the Seder, right before Hallel , we actually open the door to greet Eliyahu Hanavi. The doorway motif can be traced back to an obvious source: Bnai Yisrael in Mitzrayim putting blood on their doorposts, marking a home that Hashem should “pass over” during the plague of Makat Bechorot.

In his Haggadah, Meir Panim , Rav Meir Goldvicht, Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, points us to an earlier source than Mitzrayim: Sodom. When the angels come to save Lot, not only do doorways play a significant role but, according to Rashi, the entire story took place on Pesach. As you can see from the first verse quoted below from Parshat Vayerah, Lot served the angels Matzah. Thus, the doorways theme was present at the first mention of Pesach in the Torah. Rav Goldvicht develops an explanation of the significance of doorways by noticing other similarities between “Pesach-Sodom” and “Pesach-Mitzrayim.” In the table below, you can see them clearly: eating Matzah, the doorways, being inside and not going out, neither the Sodomites or the “ Mashchit ” being able to get to those behind the door, the directive to get up and leave the place they were in, and finally the hesitation to leave Sodom and the lack of hesitation to leave Mitzrayim

Genesis 19:3-16

(3) But he urged them strongly, so they turned his way and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

(6) So Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him.

(11) And the people who were at the entrance of the house, low and high alike, they struck with blinding light, so that they were helpless to find the entrance.

(14) So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-inlaw, who had married his daughters, and said, “Up, get out of this place, for God is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-inlaw as one who jests.

(16) Still he delayed. So the agents seized his hand, and the hands of his wife and his two daughters—in God’s mercy on him—and brought him out and left him outside the city.

יֵ֣חְקֹל ׀ ויָ֣נָתֲח־לֶא

ןֹ֖טָקִּמ םיִ֔רֵוְנַסַּבּ ֙וּכִּה ׃חַתָֽפַּה אֹ֥צְמִל

Exodus 12:8-39

(8) They shall eat the flesh that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs.

(22) Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and to the two doorposts. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning.

(23) For יהוה, when going through to smite the Egyptians, will see the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and יהוה will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite your home

(31) He summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Up, depart from among my people, you and the Israelites with you! Go, worship יהוה as you said!

(39) And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had taken out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, since they had been driven out of Egypt and could not delay ; nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.

According to Rav Goldvicht, Lot’s inviting the angels into his home, a counter-cultural act, is what saved him. He was channeling Avraham’s unwavering commitment to Hachnassat Orchim , welcoming others - or, more precisely, “the other” - into one’s home. Lot survives and, eventually, his descendant (through Rut) is David Hamelech, a redeemer of the Jewish People. That is the message of the first Pesach. So, at the Seder, we begin by welcoming others through our doors and we end by opening the door for Eliyahu Hanavi, heralding the ultimate redemption of the Jewish People which the Talmud ( Masechet Rosh Hashana ) says will occur in Nisan, the same month as Yetziat Mitzrayim. One door-opening actually opens two doors. The need for Jews to open our doors to others - physically, emotionally, and philosophically - is, as cliche as it sounds, never more important among the Jewish People than now.

There is another, hard to miss, connection between Pesach-Sodom, Pesach-Mitzrayim, and Eliyahu Hanavi at the Seder, that also resonates with the 21st century Jewish condition: protecting ourselves from enemies at our gates. In Sodom, it was the Sodomites, in Mitzrayim, the Egyptians, and at the Seder, as we open the door for Eliyahu, we say the paragraph of Shfoch Chamatcha al Hagoyim , alluding to anti-Semites throughout history. While the open-door allows people to enter, the closeddoor, the “ petach” that neither the Sodomites nor the Mashchit could penetrate, prevents people from entering. There are times we need our doors to be closed and times we need them to be open.

The ritual around Elihayu Hanavi, though, is a paradox. Why open the door precisely when it ought to be closed? To take the words of the author of the Aruch Hashulchan (quoted by Rav Goldvicht) in a slightly different direction, opening the door at that moment is a demonstration of our faith in Hashem, that, no matter how bleak a situation looks, Hashem will open some doors, we will open some doors, and open doors will win out over closed doors.

Chag Kasher v’Sameach u’Patuach !

YACHATZ: The Art of Breaking

Ms. Ilana Wilner

If I could add a fifth question to the Ma Nishtana I would add, “On all other nights and holidays we eat from whole challot , but tonight it is our custom to break a matzah.” Yachatz, the ritual of breaking one of the matzot, has always troubled me. Why does it need its own ceremony? How does this ceremony add to the Seder experience? Aside, of course, from all the questions it’s causing me to ask!

The Talmud (Pesachim) tells us that we must break the matzah because it is lechem oni, bread of my affliction, or poor man’s bread, as a poor man normally will eat a piece and save the rest for later. But I think there’s a greater symbolism and meaning behind the breaking of the matzah, reflecting the two other major “breakings” in our rituals and tradition: the breaking of the glass at the wedding and Moshe’s breaking the Luchot.

The first breaking, at one’s biggest simcha, a wedding, reminds us that we are in galut and that our Beit Hamikdash was destroyed. We commemorate it by breaking the glass under the chuppah. On someone’s happiest day, we take a moment to remember that we, as a people, have caused the Beit Hamikdash to be destroyed, and that we have not merited it to be rebuilt.

The second breaking occurred thousands of years ago. After the Jewish People sinned with the golden calf, Moshe broke the Luchot. The Torah says " asher shibarta ": which you shattered. Resh Lakish (Talmud Shabbat 87a), interprets this to mean that Hashem said, " Yasher Koach Sheshibarta ," thanking and congratulating Moshe for breaking the Tablets.

Why all this breaking? Why do we commemorate the Beit Hamikdash with breaking the glass? I think there is a deeper meaning and symbolism to brokenness in our tradition. Broken doesn’t mean failure or irreparable. It means it’s time to rethink, reexamine, and reshift our perspective. When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and broke Hashem’s trust, they didn’t destroy the relationship; there needed to be a shift in perspective on both parties knowing they are no longer in a state of perfection. Similarly, the broken glass and the broken Luchot don’t symbolize our failures and sins. Rather, they force us to rethink our growth. Moreover, the broken Luchot were kept in the Ark alongside the new set. The broken Luchot were kept as a constant reminder that we are not perfect. We make mistakes and we learn from them.

I believe the same is true with Yachatz. We break the middle matzah in two unequal sizes. We put the bigger piece aside for afikoman and we take the smaller piece and hold it up and recite “ Ha Lachma Anya” (this is the bread of my affliction). Right now, the matzah is lechem oni , our slavery, hardships and failures. However, just like the Luchot, we take our broken piece and keep it with us throughout the night to represent our redemption, our Afikoman. The act of breaking the matzah prepares us for that shift in perspective -from a slave mentality to that of kings and queens.

Throughout Pesach, matzah serves as two dichotomous symbols. On the one hand, matzah is lechem oni, bread of our affliction and on the other hand matzah represents our freedom, since we left Mitzrayim in such a hurry there was no time to wait for the dough to rise, so our bread became matzah. This dichotomy is the meaning of Yachatz and Pesach: We are in control of our choices. It is our job to shift the perspective of the seder from gnai, negative, to shevach, positive. It is up to us to turn our shortcomings into greatness, our slavery to our freedom.

How Is This Night Different From All Other Nights

Ms. Atara Kelman

In one of the highlights of the Seder night, we ask “Mah nishtanah ha’lilah hazeh m’kol ha’leylot,” or “How is this night different from all other nights?” The Haggadah then quickly provides four answers that point to certain features which distinguish the night of the Seder from the rest of the year. Yet this question seems to be dripping with irony. After all, isn’t it obvious that the Seder night is the most unique night of our year? Why ask for differences when there seem to be almost no similarities with any other night?

The surprising answer might be that perhaps the most central mitzvah that applies to the night of the Seder actually applies all year long. Our Seder experiences focuses on the section of maggid, where we recall and relive the redemption from Egypt. This is our fulfillment of the commandment of sippur yetziat Mitzrayim, telling the story of the Exodus. However, we are commanded to remember our Exodus from Egypt every day and every night of the year. Our recitation of the three paragraphs of the Shema each morning and night represents our fulfillment of this requirement by mentioning our redemption in the third paragraph of the Shema. Ultimately, the central feature of the Seder, of telling the story of the Exodus hardly seems unique when we consider that the mitzvah to remember leaving Egypt applies every day. If so, how is this night different from all other nights? How does the Sederspecific focus of telling the story of the Exodus differ from the daily mitzvah of remembering the Exodus from Egypt? What does the additional mitzvah of telling the story on the night of the 15th of Nisan add beyond the daily obligation?

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a leading Talmudist and Jewish philosopher of the last century, offers several suggestions in the name of his grandfather. The first difference is a difference in scope: The daily obligation is fulfilled with any brief mention of the Exodus, while the annual obligation at the Seder requires a detailed enumeration of the miracles God performed in Egypt. Secondly, our yearlong obligation to remember is fulfilled by a private remembrance as opposed to the Seder which asks us to share the story with others. The mitzvah at the Seder is not only an individual obligation, but a shared communal and familial obligation. He then explains that the mitzvah at the Seder is an independent mitzvah counted as one of the 613, while the daily one is just an element of Shema Finally, and critically, our once-a-year mitzvah to tell the story obligates us in praise of God and to sing the hallel whereas no such daily obligation exists. We are not merely mentioning a distant past, but we experience the Exodus ourselves.

Ultimately, the story of our miraculous salvation from Egypt is so central to our system of beliefs and laws that every day we must mention this formative event. But even if this mention is daily, a casual mention isn’t sufficient. We require one (or two) nights a year to be fully dedicated to this theme, during which we experience the story through taste, sound, and sight. In the formation of our communal identity, we require both daily commitment and focus as well as the once-a-year experiential event. As we enter this Pesach season, may we find strength and inspiration in both the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. Pesach sameach!

Freedom Is Noisy Dr.

Aron Tugendhaft '95

Among the many cuneiform tablets discovered in Ashurbanipal’s Library in the nineteenth century, there are ones that relate the story of a mighty flood sent by the gods to destroy humankind. Or, at least, to keep humankind in their proper place—for they were getting too noisy. That disturbing raucousness was the price the gods had to pay for their leisure. There had been a time, as the very first lines of the poem relate, “when the gods like men bore the work and suffered the toil.” The gods then created humans to do the work instead, so that they, the gods, could rest. Humans work while gods rest. That, the poem seems to say, is how things ought to be—if only humans weren’t so noisy.

Sefer Shemot opens with a similar contrast between work and rest. The text describes how the Israelites toiled for the Egyptians in language that resembles the Babylonian poem’s. The Torah tells us that “the Egyptians put the Israelites to work at crushing labor, and they made their lives bitter with hard work with mortar and bricks and every work in the field—all their crushing work that they performed.” In the words of the Akkadian poem: “The work was heavy, the distress was much” (dulum kabit ma’ad shapshaqum). In Sefer Shemot, Pharaoh tries to behave like a god by having the Israelites work for him. By the end of the story, with the death of his own son from the final plague, Pharaoh is forced to recognize that he is merely mortal.

Pharaoh’s enslavement of other humans, whereby he inappropriately lays claim to a divine position for himself, cuts against the order of things. Hashem makes this clear by means of the plagues. Not merely punishments, the plagues are signs (otot) by which Hashem demonstrates that He and He alone is lord of creation. Pharaoh is an imposter.

With Pharaoh down for the count, what’s to become of the Israelite slaves? Interestingly, the word “freedom” doesn’t appear anywhere in the biblical story. (By contrast, it does appear in what is arguably the first law received at Sinai; see Ex. 22:2.) Though we often think of the story in Sefer Shemot as describing a transition from slavery to freedom (me-avdut le-cherut) the text itself suggests something else. In the pasuk quoted above (Ex. 1:14), the Hebrew root ayin-bet-daled appears five times to describe the Israelites’ activity in Egypt. Shortly thereafter, we learn that Hashem plans to have the Israelites oved Him at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 3:12). The story begins with the Israelites performing avodah for the Egyptians and ends with them performing avodah to Hashem.

This isn’t a story about the transition from slavery to freedom so much as the transition from (improper) service to (proper) service. The Israelites continue to work—only the recipient of that work has changed. First Pharaoh, then Hashem. Resting from the work of creation, Hashem finally acquires a people to

work for Him—not so unlike the way all humankind work so that the gods can rest in the Babylonian story. What does this work consist of?

In the Babylonian story, we are told that the human work consists of digging canals and building shrines. The canals are necessary to irrigate the land and thereby grow the produce and livestock that will feed the gods as sacrifices offered in the shrine. (When the flood briefly wipes out humankind, the gods begin to go hungry because there is no one to offer sacrifices; they eventually learn to accept human raucousness as a necessary evil if they want to eat.) In Sefer Shemot, the work similarly consists of building a shrine—the Mishkan, a place in which Hashem can rest. (On why the Israelites are not tasked with digging canals, consider Deut. 11:10-12.)

In becoming servants of Hashem at Sinai, however, the Israelites take on more than the task of building a shrine. They accept responsibility in following a law. It is in this acceptance of law that the rabbis saw a glimmer of freedom that remains otherwise unexpressed in the biblical account. Regarding the inscribed tablets that Moshe brought down from Sinai (Ex. 32:16), the rabbis famously comment: “Do not read inscribed (charut), but rather freedom (cherut), since one is not free unless he engages in the study of Torah.” As Jews, our active engagement with the law constitutes our freedom. And as anyone who has visited a proper beit midrash knows, the study of Torah can be loud, even raucous. Unlike the gods of Babylon, Hashem takes pleasure in this human noise.

And If Hashem Had Not Freed Our Ancestors from Egypt

Mr. Leo Eigen '25

There is one line of the Haggadah which has always been a bit unclear to me:

And if Hashem had not freed our ancestors from Egypt, then we and our children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.

On a simple level, this makes sense to prove the point that Hashem’s miracles and strength were central to yetziat Mitzrayim. But on a more practical level, is it not all the more likely that some human force would have freed the Jewish people from slavery by now if not for Hashem? Why do we expressly say that without the impetus of Hashem, we would still be slaves today?

There are two reasons to emphasize the importance of Hashem’s influence in yetziat Mitzrayim: because Bnei Yisrael themselves wouldn’t be able to break free of their lifestyles in Egypt, and even further, because they wouldn't want to embrace a new life out of Mitzrayim.

To understand the idea that the Jewish people could not themselves be redeemed, it is interesting to bring up the idea of Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik. In a book called Festival of Freedom, Rav Soloveitchik introduces the idea of the “slave personality.” He explains that slaves have no sense of time or control over their own time—they themselves cannot even consider time as a factor of life. If the Jewish People were to leave Egypt simply because of human intervention, it would not guarantee that they would be able to entirely re-integrate into a free life. But with Hashem’s providence, the Jewish People were able to take upon themselves the mitzvot and the Torah. With this, they were also tasked with managing their own time, which, in turn, led to the end of their nationwide slave personality. Now, they were a freed people, charged with a new set of commandments

In terms of Bnei Yisrael’s own hesitance to leave Egypt, it might seem unreasonable that we would even consider staying after hundreds of years of physical and mental torture. But, in fact, at multiple points during the wandering in the desert, Bnei Yisrael indeed advocated for returning to Egypt. The nation complains about everything from the quality of food to Moshe’s leadership capabilities, and even goes as far as to ask Moshe: “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?” (Shemot 14:11). To Bnei Yisrael, Egypt meant slavery. But it was also a place of familiar comfort and security. And even as Hashem performs miracles and wonders—even providing the nation with food directly from the sky—there is still doubt expressed by the Jewish People. Since the Jewish People still yearn to return to Egypt even after having been the subject of such open miracles, then they would certainly give in to returning back if they were to have been freed due to some political reason. It is not until the Jewish People are in the midst of the forty years of wandering—and after the sin of the Golden Calf—that they are willing to fully accept upon themselves the commandments and commit to their new national future.

Using both of these ideas, it is clear that Hashem’s divine providence is needed at all points. Whether because of how entrenched in slavery the Jewish people were, or because of the warped sense of comfort and security that Egypt provided, Bnei Yisrael would not have been to have been redeemed any other way. Hashem is the ultimate driving force for the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt, to the point that, if it was not Hashem who had not freed our ancestors from Egypt thousands of years ago, we would still be slaves today—just not in the brick-and-mortar sense of the word.

Thank you to Rabbi Ritholtz and Ms. Benus for your help in preparing this dvar Torah.

Afikoman & Korban Pesach: Our All-Encompassing Relationship With God

Rabbi Jeremy Teichman

What does the wise child say? "'What are these testimonies, statutes and judgments that the Lord our God commanded you?'" And accordingly you will say to the child, 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."

In the beginning of magid, we speak about how to communicate the ideas of the Exodus to the wise child, who is intellectually curious and advanced. In short, the anticipated question asked is: Why do Jews observe all these different types of commandments from God? This questioner is searching for a reason, a question beginning with “why.” Yet, we answer with a factual statement, as if he asked a question beginning with “what.” Our answer seems to completely ignore the wise child’s question! How does that make any sense?

There is another aspect of this answer that seems difficult. The particular law to which we refer is that in the time of the Beit HaMikdash, when the Pesach sacrifice was offered, it had to be the last food eaten on the Seder night. This is hard to understand. Even if we assume that citing a law is an appropriate response to his question, why this law in particular? Why do we focus on the laws of the sacrifice, and why this one, in particular?

Rambam explains that the reason that we may not eat anything after the korban Pesach is to ensure that the taste of the korban Pesach will linger in a person’s mouth, signifying that that this is the primary mitzvah and “take-away” of the night; it is the “last licks” of the Seder.

The haggadah presents the background and importance of the korban Pesach as follows:

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: "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 their heads and bowed."

During the plague of the firstborns, Hashem instructed the Jews to sacrifice lambs as offerings to Him, and they spread lambs' blood on the doorposts of their homes. By doing this, God passed over the Jewish homes during the plague and only afflicted the Egyptian homes. Why did God want the Jews to do this? The classic explanation offered is that because the Egyptians worshiped lambs as one of their many deities, Hashem called upon the Jews to publicly, in the face of their Egyptian masters, demonstrate their lack of religious belief in the Egyptian gods, and show their faith in Hashem. By doing this, Hashem reciprocated by saving the Jewish people and redeeming them from Egypt, in order to ultimately make them His nation with the giving of the Torah and the Land of Israel. The most pivotal message to learn from the Seder is that the Jews are His people, and all the implications included must be internalized.

In order to relate this idea to the discourse with the chacham, there is a key point that must be noted in the question of the chacham’s who does not simply ask why Jews observe the תוצמ (commandments) of Hashem. Instead, the chacham asks why Jews observe תודע (testimonies), םיקח (statutes), and םיטפשמ (judgements)–three different types of commandments. Perhaps it can be understood that the chacham is asking why Judaism is not simply one mode of law and commandment. Why is Judaism such an all-encompassing framework, with 613 distinct commandments?

The response to this question stresses the importance of the Korban Pesach, the essential last licks of the Seder. The Pesach sacrifice symbolizes the forging of the relationship between God and the Jewish people. Accordingly, since every real relationship encompasses all aspects of life, our relationship with God is no different. In marriage, two people share their lives together in a way where everything that each spouse does has an impact on the other. Without any distinctions, everything is part of their relationship. Similarly, God calls upon the Jews to observe תודע (testimonies), םיקח (statutes), and םיטפשמ (judgements)–three different genres of commandments–to limitlessly share all the different aspects of our lives with Him.

Redeeming, Fast and Slow: Two Components of the Exodus and of Redemption In Our Time

Rabbi Josh Blaustein

One of the basic halachot of the Seder is that we must “say,” or explain “pesach,” “matzah,” and “maror.” In fact, matzah and maror must be eaten specifically in that order, or one has not properly fulfilled the mitzvah.

In his commentary to the Haggadah, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook explains that this specific order corresponds to stages in the historical process of redemption. Matzah corresponds to God’s “yad chazakah” (strong hand) and maror to His “zero’a netuya” (outstretched arm). That is to say, matzah represents redemption through yad chazakah–sudden, strong, overpowering, and top-down. Indeed, we state at the Seder that we are eating matzah because “lo hispik betzekam l’hachmitz ad shenigleh aleihem…Hakadosh Baruch Hu u’ga’alam,” Hashem appeared and redeemed us suddenly–before the bread we were baking could even finish rising. Matzah, then, is a perfect symbol of redemption that comes in a flash, whether we are ready or not.

On the other hand, maror represents a slower, incremental redemption, one that we are necessary participants in, a sort of bottom-up redemption. To Rav Kook, the bitterness of the maror and its connection to a long period of slavery reminds us that as we taste the bitterness of exile and oppression and of a long, hard history until final redemption, we are aware that it is only temporary bitterness. This is the “zero’a netuyah”–Hashem’s “arm” stretches through the length of history to pull us slowly towards redemption and stretches into each of us to encourage us to become active participants in the process. That is why matzah must come before maror. Only when God reveals himself in a sudden, overpowering way and gives us a glimpse of redemption do we sense the goal towards which we are working. Only then are we able to see the necessity of our own role in the redemption and to believe that it will happen even if it lies at the end of a long, twisted, torturous journey–a bitter journey.

The process of leaving Egypt and the laws of matzah and maror at the Seder teach us that both elements of redemption are needed. It is essential that Hashem provide overpowering, sudden salvation to provide a glimpse of what lies ahead and to show us what a different reality can look like. But the next part of the process is a human-driven, slow, incremental redemption in which we draw inspiration from Hashem’s obvious intervention in the world and we commit ourselves to playing a role in moving towards the future we believe in and desire.

The parallels to our own historical period seem to be obvious. After Hashem’s intervention to redeem the Jews in Egypt, we started the long bitter journey to Israel and to nationhood in our allotted land. In the modern period, after one of the most bitter stretches of Jewish history, Hashem again used His “yad chazakah” to show how important it is to Him for His people to be in His land. The miraculous nature of the events of the Independence War in 1948 and of the Six-Day War in 1967 energized Jews throughout the world, and are celebrated on Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim each year. We are now at the stage at which this inspiration must sustain us in another long and bitter historical period, one in which the ultimate redemption can seem elusive and distant. The message of the maror is especially relevant now, and it is easy to lose sight of. Many of our brothers and sisters do not see the religious significance of the modern State of Israel and of its founding, and many think that if the redemption was not completed then it was not

authentic or divine, that we must wait for and depend on Hashem to play the only active role. But this is to focus only on the lesson of the matzah and the “yad chazakah” and to ignore the lesson of the maror and of the “zero’a netuyah.” The integration of both matzah and maror into the Seder, and the order prescribed for them, remind us that redemption can be long and bitter and that we have an active role to play in this historical process. But, as Rav Kook taught, Hashem’s “zero’a netuyah” stretches through history and into each of us, drawing out our potential and guiding us as we do our best to work towards our nation’s fulfillment and destiny. Hashem does his part; it’s now up to us to keep moving forward.

Two Mitzvot of Matzah: The Relationship Between Motzi Matzah

and Korekh

Rabbi David Fried

Why do we eat matzah twice before the meal, first separately, and then together with the maror in the Korekh?

We declare that we eat korekh in order to remember Hillel’s opinion, yet surely there are other debates in the Talmud regarding various parts of the Seder and we do not generally try to fulfill every single opinion. In reality, these two matzahs we consume represent the two reasons given for eating matzah in the Torah itself. One of these we say earlier in the Seder during magid. “Why do we eat this matzah? Because the dough of our forefathers did not have time to become leavened before the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed is He, revealed Himself to them, and redeemed them.” This echoes the language of Deuteronomy 16:3: “You shall eat unleavened bread, bread of distress—for you departed from the land of Egypt hurriedly.” This, however, cannot be the only reason why God commands us to eat matzah, because the timeline does not add up. God commands the Jews to eat matzah with the korban Pesach before they leave Egypt in Exodus 12:8. They have already consumed this matzah when we are told in verse 39 that after they left, they baked their dough into matzah because it did not have time to rise. It would seem that initially, matzah was only intended to be eaten together with the korban, just as some kind of matzah is brought together with all holiday sacrifices (see Numbers 28-29 and Leviticus 2:4-5). After they left, it took on a brand new commemorative symbolism as well, which gets reflected when the mitzvah is reiterated in Deuteronomy. Though they do not explain the details, this is no doubt why the Talmud (Pesachim 120a) understood that matzah is an independent Biblical mitzvah separate from the korban Pesach, while maror is not. When we make the bracha and consume matzah independently, we are doing it for the reason mentioned in magid, but we eat the korekh as well to remember the original reason matzah was commanded.

We can take this a step further. Why do we eat matzah with holiday sacrifices? The Mordechai, at the end of his commentary on Masechet Pesachim suggests that the reason for three matzahs at the Seder is to commemorate the three types of matzah that were brought with the korban Todah, the thanksgiving offering (Leviticus 7:12-17). Many commentaries point out (see, for example, the Netziv on Leviticus 7:13) that the reason we bring so much bread with the Korban Todah is to force us to gather a large group of people together to eat it, and enable us to tell of God’s miracles in front of many people. Similarly, at each of our holidays, but especially at Pesach, we come together with our families and friends to express our gratitude to God for all the miraculous ways the Jewish people have been saved. Motzi Matzah commemorates a very specific aspect of the Pesach miracle, but korekh, taken from that third additional Matzah, is really symbolic of the entire Seder, as we gather to tell of the many miracles God has done for us.

An Egg-celent Custom

Rabbi Dov Pianko

One of the items on the Seder plate which sometimes gets overlooked is the beitzah (the egg; some have the custom to roast the egg as well). It does not have a specific role in the Haggadah, or step in the Seder where we are supposed to point, eat, or remember it. What is the role of the egg at the Seder and what are supposed to do with it?

The Sefer Taamei Haminhagim by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Sperling (1851-1921), explains that the reason we include an egg on the Seder plate is in remembrance of the korban Chagiga. This was a korban which was brought on the 14th of Nisan in the Beit Hamikdash, and was eaten alongside the Korban Pesach.

Some have the custom to eat an egg before they begin their meal on the Seder night. This could be in remembrance of the fact that the korban Chagigah was eaten alongside the korban Pesach (Mishna Berura 476:11). Others suggest that we eat the egg because we also need to remember that we don’t have the Temple and we should be mourning that fact at the Seder (Shulchan Aruch Harav 476:6). We know from other areas of Jewish life that the egg is a food which is associated with mourning practices. We also have a custom to eat an egg on erev Tisha B’av, which not coincidentally, always falls on the same day of the week as the first Seder (Rema 476:2).

Pesach and Tisha Ba’av represent high and low times for Bnei Yisrael. Tisha B’av is the lowest point on the Jewish calendar. It is the day of national tragedy; the Jewish people as a nation are all mourners on that one day. On the other extreme is Seder night, when we celebrate national unity and peoplehood. It is the event that commemorates our transition from slaves to “a kingdom of princes and a holy nation” (Shemot 19:6).

The Chatam Sofer (Rabbi Moshe Sofer of Pressburg, 1762-1839) links these two minhagim and these days of the year. Unlike other foods, which become softer the more they are cooked, an egg becomes harder the longer it stays on the fire. It thus symbolizes the Jewish people, who become stronger as a result of the oppression we endured and continue to endure. Persecution has not weakened the Jewish people, and has only made us a prouder, stronger, and more confident nation. That egg is a symbol on both Pesach and Tisha B’av–during the low and the high moments–that should remind us of all that we have gone through-but that ultimately we persevere!