The Seder Companion 5785

This booklet may be used at your seder to help understand the Haggadah.

This coming Saturday night, the 15^th day of Nissan, we will all be sitting at the first Pesach seder celebrating the Passover holiday. Some of us will be hosts to family and friends, while others will be guests at the seder table of others. All will have joined together to celebrate the great miracle of our nation’s freedom from 210 years of Egyptian slavery, brought miraculously by Hashem.

On that very night, 3,337 years ago, our grandparents ate “hastily” of the Pascal lamb slaughtered earlier in the day, with matzah and maror – bitter herbs, “their loins girded, their shoes on their feet and their staves in their hands.” (Based on the verse in Exodus 12:9) They were poised for their release from Egypt, which would take place en masse, the next morning.

And so it was. At exactly mid-night, Hashem Himself killed all first-born Egyptians, and there was not one single Egyptian home that did not suffer the untimely death of at least one family member. With this, Pharoah and the Egyptians were broken and tried to chase the Jews out of Egypt. The Jews, however, were not permitted to leave their homes that entire night and did not leave Egypt until the next morning.

The Goal of the Seder

Our first seder concurs with that momentous event in our history, and our goal is to feel the joy and excitement at our seders, that the Jewish people, men, women and children felt that night, at their seders.

This is what we will recite from the Haggadah at our seder this coming Saturday night.

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרָיִם

In every generation, a person must view himself as if he personally left Egypt.

This is the purpose of the Pesach seder, and what we are trying to achieve.

But how are we to accomplish that goal?

With the Haggadah!  The Sages designed the Haggadah to be our guidebook for telling the story of the Exodus in as great a detail as possible. Hopefully, as we learn and discuss the details of the story and we play the movie of the Exodus through the eye of our minds, we will be able to immerse ourselves in the story enough to feel like we ourselves experienced the liberation.

The Sages have even incorporated into the seder various props to help us reach that goal. For example, early in the seder we break the middle matzah and put half away (it is called the afikomen). This is reminiscent of a poor person, or a slave in Egypt, who didn’t know where his next meal would come from. When he would get a whole loaf of bread, he would never eat it all at one time! Then he would be left with nothing for his next meal! So, he would break it in half and put half away for when he is starving and really needs a meal.

We are obligated to recline as we drink the four cups of wine, to act free like royalty who would eat their meals on beds of gold and silver.

We eat bitter herbs to try to experience the bitterness of the slavery, and we dip it into “charoset” a mortar lookalike, to help us imagine what it was like to work with brick and mortar.

All of this and more, is to help us achieve our goal of feeling like we ourselves experienced the liberation.

If we should be worthy of this major achievement, our hearts would spontaneously be filled with overwhelming joy and the greatest feelings of love and gratitude to Hashem who orchestrated our miraculous freedom. We express this when reciting the Halel part of the Haggadah.  

The Haggadah

The Torah teaches (Exodus 13:8) us that we must tell the story of the exodus on the 15^th of Nissan.

(ח) וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא

8) (Vehigadeta the source of the word Haggadah) –  And you shall tell your son on that day

What should a father tell his son on that special day that the Jews marched out of Egypt? The entire story of the Exodus.

This is why from the year the Jewish nation left Egypt in the year 2448 until today in an unbroken chain in virtually every family who has a seder, Jews the world over have had Pesach seders with their families and friends. You can go anywhere in the world on Pesach, and you will find the Jews of that country at their seders with their special Pesach foods and customs.

The Four Cups of Wine

When Hashem appeared to Moshe at the burning bush (Exodus 6:6,7), He told him,

(ו) לָכֵן אֱמֹר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲנִי יְדֹוָד וְהוֹצֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם מִתַּחַת סִבְלֹת מִצְרַיִם וְהִצַּלְתִּי אֶתְכֶם מֵעֲבֹדָתָם וְגָאַלְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בִּזְרוֹעַ נְטוּיָה וּבִשְׁפָטִים גְּדֹלִים: (ז) וְלָקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם לִי לְעָם וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם לֵאלֹקִים וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי אֲנִי יְדֹוָד אֱלֹקֵיכֶם הַמּוֹצִיא אֶתְכֶם מִתַּחַת סִבְלוֹת מִצְרָיִם:

6) Therefore, say to the Bnai Yisrael “I am Hashem, and I shall take you out from the burdens of Egypt; I shall rescue you from their service; I shall redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 7) I shall take you to Me for a people and I shall be a G-d to you, and you shall know that I am Hashem your G-d, Who takes you from under the burdens of Egypt.”

The Netziv (1817-1893) explains that in these verses, there are four different expressions of what Hashem was going to do to the enslaved Jewish people. These different expressions describe the different stages in the gradual process of freedom that the Jewish people experienced.

I shall take you out from the burdens of Egypt:

Once the plagues began, the Jews were no longer obligated to do back breaking labor with bricks and mortar, but they were doing light work and still completely under the control of Pharoah.

I shall rescue you from their service:

At this point, Pharoah freed them completely from any work whatsoever, but they were still under his control.

I shall redeem you:

The Jewish people became a free people after the 10^th plague when Hashem killed the first born Egyptian in every home. This is when Pharoah and his nation wanted the Jewish people out of their land.

I shall take you to Me for a people

This took place the next morning when the Jewish people marched out of Egypt laden with gold and silver and followed Moshe, Hashem’s messenger into the wilderness.

When a Jew wishes to show gratitude and thanks to Hashem, he raises a cup of wine and recites praises to Hashem over it, as King David taught us in Psalms (116:13),

(יג) כּוֹס יְשׁוּעוֹת אֶשָּׂא וּבְשֵׁם יְדֹוָד אֶקְרָא

13) I will raise the cup of salvations, and the name of Hashem I will invoke.

It is easy to imagine how the Jewish people celebrated each stage of the redemption with gratitude and thanksgiving to Hashem for their newfound freedom. Corresponding to these four stages, we raise four cups of wine in gratitude to Hashem, for we too are feeling like we were redeemed from Egypt.

The Four Questions

To many families, the four questions are the highlight of the seder. Because we especially want to involve the children in the seder, for weeks before Pesach the children are taught in school how to ask them. When the seder finally comes, it is their time to shine and ask the “four questions” to the head of the household. This step in the seder can take up a considerable amount of time depending on how many children need to recite them.

It is interesting to know that this obligation doesn’t fall only on the children. The law is that if there are no children, the adults must ask the questions to each other, and if there is no one else, one must ask the questions to himself. So what are these question all about?

Here, in short, are the four questions.

1. Why tonight do we eat only matzah?
2. Why tonight do we eat specifically bitter herbs?
3. Why tonight do we dip two times?
4. Why tonight do we lean when we eat?

The Malbim (1809-1879) explains that these questions are the introduction to the mitzvah of telling the story of the exodus – Magid, for they comprise the whole story in a nutshell. The first two questions talk about the difficulty of our slavery when we ate only matzah and suffered bitterly under the Egyptian taskmasters, and the second two questions point to our freedom when we dip like aristocrats and lean when we eat as if we are royalty. With this summary of events, we should be filled with feelings of deep gratitude and thanks to Hashem for our freedom. Instead of discovering the story step by step as we go through the Haggadah and not get these feelings until the culmination, we can begin telling the story with feeling of love and gratitude to Hashem. Therefore, everyone must think about this before telling the story of our freedom from Egypt.

The Answer to the Four Questions

עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם, וַיּוֹצִיאֵנוּ יְדֹוָד אֱלֹקֵינוּ מִשָּׁם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה

We were slaves to the Pharoah in Egypt and Hashem our G-d took us out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and if Hashem had not taken our forefathers out, we would still be indebted to Pharoah and the Egyptians. Therefore, (so that we can show our gratitude and experience it for ourselves) we are obligated to tell the story of the Exodus in the greatest detail possible.  

The Four Sons

As we begin telling the story, the Haggadah speaks of four sons. Where are these four sons from and what is the lesson?      

There are four different verses in the Torah that instruct us to tell the Pesah story to our children, but in each verse, the Torah instructs us in a different way.

The Wise Son

The verse in Deuteronomy (6:20) states.

(כ) כִּי יִשְׁאָלְךָ בִנְךָ מָחָר לֵאמֹר מָה הָעֵדֹת וְהַחֻקִּים וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְדֹוָד אֱלֹקֵינוּ אֶתְכֶם

20) If your child asks you tomorrow, “What are the testimonies, the edicts and the ordinances that Hashem our G-d has commanded you?”

From the way that this question was posed distinguishing between the three types of laws in the Torah, the edicts– which have no obvious understanding – like men not shaving with a razor, the testimonies – like eating matzoh on Pesach, which testifies to the exodus, and the ordinances – like do not steal -which make sense and are necessary for society to function, we can see that the one asking is educated and seeking a deep explanation. Hence, here a “wise son” asked the question, and we must answer his question.

The Wicked Son

A second verse (Exodus 12:26) says:

(כו) וְהָיָה כִּי יֹאמְרוּ אֲלֵיכֶם בְּנֵיכֶם מָה הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם

26) And it shall be when your children will tell you, “What is this service to you?”

This son isn’t asking a question that is looking for an answer. Rather, he is telling you something. “What are you doing that for? There is no reason for it!” He is not seeking an answer, he is leveling a complaint and looking for an out. From this we know that this son is no angel.

The Simple Son

The third verse (Exodus 13:14) says:

(יד) וְהָיָה כִּי יִשְׁאָלְךָ בִנְךָ מָחָר לֵאמֹר מַה זֹּאת?

14) And it shall be when your son will ask you, at some future time, “What is this?”

This boy is not telling us something, he just wants to know, “What is going on? What is all this for? The matzah, the maror etc.” He has no clue! Hence, the simple son.

The Son Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask

The fourth verse says (Deuteronomy 6:8):

(ח) וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא

8) And you shall tell your son on that day.

The first three verses begin with an inquiring son, whereas this one does not. In this case the Torah is instructing us that even though our “son does not know how to ask” us the obvious question, we must tell him, nevertheless.

The Torah’s message is clear. We must convey the story of our miraculous exodus from Egypt to our children no matter what kind of children we have.

What is it about the Exodus that is so important to our people? Why must we mention it twice every day, and why are there so many commandments to commemorate it? And, when we remember it each day, as instructed, exactly what are we supposed to be thinking about?

This was the one time in world history that Hashem parted the curtain of nature and revealed Himself and His awesome power for all to see, Jew and gentile alike. He demonstrated once and for all, by changing the laws of nature, that He created nature with its laws, the world and everything and everyone in it. He changed water into blood and made hailstones of fire and ice together in one hailstone. He split the sea allowing his nation to pass through on dry land and then drowned the pursuing Egyptian army in the same sea. The entire civilized world was shaken and trembled from Hashem’s display of might and awesome power. They all knew very well that Hashem miraculously took the Jewish people out of Egypt to be His nation.

Even the Christians and Moslems, the world’s other major religions with over three billion adherents combined, agree that the Jewish people were first chosen to be Hashem’s nation. The events of Egypt were undeniable and acknowledged by all religions. Their only claim is that the situation has since changed. The Christians claim that G-d became angry with us, discarded us, and chose them instead; the Moslems claim that their prophet Mohamad was the final prophet who supersedes all previous prophets (Moshe) and their teachings.

In the year 740 CE, the Sefer HaKuzari by Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, tells how the king of Kazar called together a priest, an imam, and a rabbi to learn about their religions. He was very devout in the Kazar religion, to the point where he alone was the high priest who did all the sacrifices and service. In spite of all his efforts to be perfect in his service to his god, he had a recurring dream of an angel telling him that his heart and intentions were beloved by G-d but that his actions were not. To determine what the desirable service to G-d was, he invited a leader from each major religion to find out what they believed so that he could choose the correct one for himself.

Initially, he was inclined to follow the Christian religion because they had the largest number of followers, figuring that they were probably correct.

The rabbi, however, objected and said, “Your highness, the Jews are the majority in this matter!”

“How so?” asked the king. “The Jews are but a miniscule number compared to the others!”

“It’s very simple,” said the rabbi. “The Christians and the Jews both agree that it is not the Moslems, and the Moslems and the Jews both agree that it is not the Christians. They are thus each in the minority, outnumbered 2 to 1. But all three religions unanimously agree that the Jewish people were chosen by G-d to be His nation, claiming only that something has changed. The burden of proof lies upon them to prove that something has indeed changed. We say nothing has changed and can prove it.

Upon hearing the rabbi’s argument, the king had to agree. He chose to learn about Judaism from the rabbi and, eventually, converted to Judaism along with many subjects in his kingdom.

This is what is so important about the events of the Exodus, and what Hashem wants us to be constantly aware of. Our belief in Hashem is not based on hearsay, but rather, is based on events that each individual present personally experienced. Every single Jew who left Egypt witnessed the Egyptians suffering from the plagues and how they themselves were unaffected. Each of them walked through a sea with walls of water miraculously standing up on both sides of them, and then watched the Egyptians killed as the waters came crashing down on them when they resumed their natural state.

How many people followed Moshe out of Egypt?

The Torah tells us in Exodus 12:37:

(לז) וַיִּסְעוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵרַעְמְסֵס סֻכֹּתָה כְּשֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף רַגְלִי הַגְּבָרִים לְבַד מִטָּף

37. The Children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children:

Statistically, there are about as many women as there are men, so the number of adults was about 1.2 million people. If they had just 3 kids apiece, we are talking another 1.8 million children (600,000 X 3). This is a conservative estimate of about three million people, which does not include the mixed multitude whom the Torah tells us left with them and who could have been just as numerous.

A rabbi sat in the dentist’s chair. The dentist, a devout Christian, was pestering the rabbi about why he doesn’t believe in Jesus. After numerous attempts to evade the question, the dentist finally said to the rabbi, “Rabbi, stop beating around the bush. Tell me once and for all why you don’t believe in Jesus?”

 “If you really want to know, I will tell you,” said the rabbi. “You are a medical man, right? What would say if a young woman came into your office visibly pregnant and told you, ‘I was never with a man; this child is from god’? What would you say?”

“I would say that she was nuts!” replied the dentist.

“So why are you asking me why I don’t believe in Jesus; isn’t that what you are telling me!”

“OK,” said the dentist, “so, let me ask you a question. If someone came into your office one day and said, ‘Rabbi, you are not going to believe what just happened! I was fishing on the Detroit River, and, all of a sudden, the water split and the riverbed could be seen!’ What would you say?”

“I would say he was nuts!” replied the rabbi. 

“But don’t you believe in the splitting of the Reed Sea?”

“Of course, I do!” said the rabbi.

“But didn’t you just say the guy was nuts?”

“Let me explain the difference,” said the rabbi. “If one person came and said it, I would say he was nuts. If two people came, I would say it was a hoax. Ten people, it’s probably also a hoax. But, what if a thousand people came, all telling the same story: they were sitting by the river and saw it split. You would not be able to dismiss their claim out of hand. Maybe a large boat passed through, and in its wake you could see the bottom of the river; but they must have all seen something or they would not all be telling the same story with the same details. Here we have three million people, all saying that they, together, shared the very same experiences! That is something that cannot be falsified!”

The first Seder was in the year 2448, 3,337 years ago (we are now in 5785). From that Seder and until today, on the 15^th of Nissan, Jewish families all over the world, have joined to celebrate the day on which the Jewish people left Egypt. They all eat the same symbolic foods and tell the same story: our ancestors were slaves in Egypt, and Hashem performed many miracles and took them out to make them free. Throughout the ages, many Jews risked their lives to have a Passover Seder, and today, almost anyone who calls himself a Jew, celebrates the Passover holiday in some way. Statistically, it is the most celebrated holiday in the Jewish calendar.

This is but one of a myriad of practices that have been passed down from father to son in an unbroken chain from the time the Jewish people became a nation and started having them in the year 2448.

Had these people not actually experienced these events, how could the “lie” have started?

The Miracle of Jewish Existence – Vehe She amda

The Haggadah reveals to us the secret to our miraculous existence throughout millennia of persecution and exile. How is it possible that a small nation who are dispersed all over the world without and don’t even speak a common language, outlived every major empire that tried to annihilate them? The Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades and of course the Germans, have all tried to destroy us and yet, we are still here and they are not.

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ. שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם

And this is what stood up for our Forefathers and for us (to save us from our enemies). For it wasn’t just one nation that stood up against us to annihilate us, rather, in each generation they stand up to annihilate us, but Hashem saves us from their hands.

Our Sages explain this passage in a very counter-intuitive way.

It is the fact that in every generation they stand up to annihilate us, that keeps us alive. For, when the Jewish people abandon their Judaism and adopt the ways of the nations around them, they stand in grave danger of assimilating and disappearing from the Jewish nation. Indeed, during any of the exiles, had the gentiles not rejected us, the Jewish nation would have long assimilated to extinction. But Hashem has engineered it such, that if we get too close to the gentiles, they vehemently reject us. Not only that, but they also deeply resent our acting like them and beating them at their game, so they try to kill us out.  When things get so bad, and we cry out to Hashem, he saves us, and we start again as his loyal servants. This is the purpose of antisemitism and, ironically, why the Jewish nation still exists.

When Hashem took us as His nation, He promised us that we would be His eternal nation. As we can see, He has kept His promise. We are still alive and well, thriving in our Judaism. That promise alsoincluded a promise that He would once again redeem us from this long and difficult exile. May we merit that complete redemption speedily in our day.

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