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Pesach is coming up in a week. That’s not enough time to learn all about the seder (the ceremony that the whole family celebrates on the first night), let alone all of the halachot (Jewish laws) of Pesach. Still, when we arrive at the seder next Monday night, we want to know what’s going on.
When we read it the first time, the hagada (the Pesach saga that we recite at the seder) seems to be the story of the exodus, together with the instructions for how to celebrate it. But, when we read it a second and third time, it becomes truly perplexing. It raises more questions than it answers. Perhaps that is why it is the most commented upon of all Jewish holy books. Not the Torah, not the Talmud, nor the Midrash, but the hagada of Pesach merits to the greatest amount of commentary of any Jewish text. Reading the hagada (literally, “the telling”), you realize that it is telling you something without fully telling you. It induces you to try to fill the gaps, by offering explanations. In this sense, the hagada is a teaser. Come to think of it, perhaps that’s the whole point. The purpose of the evening is to “get the children to ask,” so that you can tell them about the exodus from Egypt to freedom. But, we’re all the children of G-d. And when we take time to read the hagada properly, we realize that its purpose is not merely to add to our understanding. It’s to get us to ask the right questions. For example…
We begin the night by saying, “This is the bread of afflictionŔ But, one minute…tonite is Pesach, when we commemorate our freedom, not our affliction. So, why do we begin by talking about “bread of affliction?”
Then, we continue by saying, “We were slaves in Egypt…and if G-d did not take us out, then we and our children and our children’s children would still be slaves to Pharoah in Egyupt.” Whoa, hold on a second…G-d promised to Abraham (Genesis 15:13) that the fourth generation of his offspring would return to Israel. During the “covenant between the pieces,” He told Abraham that his descendents would descend to Egypt and endure slavery there, emerging after the fourth generation “with much property.” So, how can we say that “if G-d did not remove us, we would still be slaves in Egypt”?
Here’s another question. As we continue the hagada, we say, “In the beginning, our forefathers served idols, but now G-d has drawn us closer to worship HimŔ What does that mean? Did He begin drawing us closer to worship Him only after the exodus? That was a process that began much earlier, with Abraham. When Abraham refused to bow down to idols, and set off on his own spiritual journey to Israel, that was the time that G-d began to bring the Jewish people closer to Him. And Abraham passed that on to his son, Isaac, and from there to Jacob, etc, until seven generations later, it reached Moshe. So, why do we say in the hagada that “now G-d has drawn us closer,” when in truth that process started much earlier?
“In every generation, there were enemies seeking to destroy us, and He saved usŔ Now, could it or should it have been any other way? The Jewish purpose is to fulfill 613 mitzvoth and to illuminate the universe with G-dliness, so is there any reason why G-d would not eliminate our enemies? Were our enemies more righteous than us, there might be a reason to allow them to harm us. But, the opposite is the case; the Jews are the righteous party. So, it should be obvious that G-d would save us from our adversaries in every generation – what is the point of emphasizing this in the hagada?
Finally, the hagada concludes by telling us, “And He built the Temple in order to atone for our transgressionsŔ Why does the hagada mention the Temple? The point of the exodus was that we left, or were taken out of Egypt. In that context, it might make sense to say that we journeyed in the desert and eventually arrived to the promised Land. But, why go beyond that to discuss the Temple, moreover implying that the Temple was the climactic conclusion of the exodus from Egypt?
There is an answer that resolves all of the above questions (and others). However, it is a surprising answer, revealing a new angle on the entire exodus that we would not likely have found on our own. To begin with, some background…
According to kabala, when Adam, the first man, sinned by eating from the tree of knowledge, the result was that a mixture of good and bad was introduced to the world. G-d created good and bad, but in the world that He initially created, inhabited by Adam, good and bad existed separately. All that Adam had to do was to maintain that state of affairs. Instead, by eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam mixed the two together, and the world that we now inhabit is “contaminated” (with this mixture of good and evil). That is, what was intended to be a world of good illuminated by G-dliness, became a world of mixed good and bad, that concealed G-dliness.
In kabalistic terms, the sages said that “good sparks” fell into the realm of evil, and it became necessary to refine and uplift those sparks, separating good from evil. Many of those holy sparks were in the form of souls originally attached to Adam, and now they found themselves in the “cesspool” of the world – Egypt. Many were “entrapped” within the bodies of Egyptians; others “fell” into the objects and clothes of the Egyptians, which they later gave to the Jews as they left Egypt (leaving the country like a “pond without fish,” as the Torah describes it).
Egyptian civilization practiced the lowest forms of idol worship and witchcraft – and yet it was here that the sparks of holiness fell. The purpose of the Jews (the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in Egypt was to purify and uplift those souls. That is why the Jews underwent slavery in Egypt. This was an intentional process, orchestrated from Above (as G-d informed Abraham in the ‘covenant between the pieces’). The Jews were to become so refined that their souls acted like “magnets,” attracting the “holy sparks” embedded in the souls of countless Egyptians, back to their holy source. And indeed, this part of the plan took place – thousands of Egyptians “converted” to Judaism (since it was still before the Torah was given, formal conversion did not yet exist, but many Egyptians “converted” to monotheism and the lifestyle of the Jews). They became known as the erev rav, or “mixed multitude” of Egyptians who accompanied the Jews out of Egypt. By undergoing the “crucible” of slavery in Egypt, the Jews became refined and spiritual, and they automatically attracted the sparks of Egyptian souls that were really Jewish, and returned them to their source. Thus, the original sin of Adam was to be rectified, and the Jewish nation made whole.
What actually took place, though, was that Pharoah overplayed his card. Although he was meant from Above to enslave the Jews, the divine intention did not include the level of cruelty and torment that he inflicted upon them. He was meant to enslave the Jew, in order to facilitate a refining and purifying process among them. He was not supposed to be cruel and evil. As a result of his cruelty and evil designs, the Jews fell into the lowest imaginable state of slavery and lack of G-dly awareness. They became unconscious of anything G-dly – as the sages described it, they “fell to the forty-ninth gate of impurity.” “Impurity” here implies levels that hide and conceal G-dliness. At this point, the Jews were incapable of removing themselves from the morass. They no longer possessed the willpower to freely choose G-dliness. They were so overcome with the tuma, or impurity of Egyptian idolatry and witchcraft, that they were unable to help themselves. Instead, they had to be brought out, lifted out, as it were, from the cesspool that was Egypt. Pharoah, king of Egypt, could not be persuaded to let the Jews go. He had to be broken. And that, only G-d could do. That is why the sages said that if G-d had not taken the Jews out of Egypt, we would still be there. We did not have the motivation or the will power to remove ourselves – we were taken out of Egypt by G-d Himself.
In a certain sense, then, the process of exodus is not complete. Since we did not exit Egypt of our own volition (as the Midrash says, four fifths of the Jews died in the ninth plague of darkness, as punishment for their lack of desire to leave Egypt), we are like a people who underwent our most important and vital national moments without full motivation and will. And therefore, the process is incomplete. We are still not completely out of Egypt. The truly free man is one who wants to be free. If he is free only because of an external force, then he may be physically free, but he is not psychologically free. He still has “one foot” in Egypt. And that is the situation of the Jews today, ever since we exited Egypt. We may be physically free, but we lack the psychological mentality of a truly free man. That is something that we will only develop when the meshiach arrives. Only with the advent of the messianic age, will we develop the mentality of a truly free person, who is not only physically free, but wants to be free of all limitations and boundaries.
Based on the above, we may answer the questions above:
1) We begin the Pesach seder by saying, “This is the bread of afflictionŔ because since we are still not out of Egypt psychologically, but only physically, it is as if we are still enslaved by our former mentality; hence, we mention the “bread of affliction.”
2) Even though in the Torah, G-d informs Abraham that his progeny will emerge from Egypt after four generations, the historical truth is that if G-d had not removed the Jews (with a “strong hand and outstretched arm”), we would still be slaves in Egypt. We did not possess the psychological motivation to emerge of our own volition.
3) Even though it was our forefather, Abraham, who initiated the approach to G-d from below, G-d’s proximity to us, from Above (“bringing us closer to Him”), began during the exodus from Egypt. As indicated, the exodus was a process that took place from Above to below. So, it was at that point that G-d began to bring us closer to Him.
4) Even though in every generation, enemies arise to “destroy” the Jews, it is not we alone who manage to fend off the danger. Every generation, He fends off the danger on our behalf. So, even though it is to be expected that He will rescue the Jews, since it is our purpose to serve Him, nevertheless, it is important to remember that the salvation comes from Above, from Him, and not from us alone, however much our own efforts may seem to be successful.
5) The conclusion of the hagada mentions not merely the successful exodus, but also the building of the Temple. This is because the true goal of the exodus was the Temple. The meshiach will arrive as the Jews develop their own desire from below to be free men, free to serve G-d. At that point, the arousal from below to connect with G-d, will connect with G-d’s own desire to have a dwelling place in the physical world. At that confluence in time and space, the Temple will be built. The process was only begun when the Jews exited from Egypt; it will be completed when the third and final Temple will be built.
From Likutei Sichot of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ztz’l, vol. 17, page 78 Rabbi David Sterne, Jerusalem Connection in the old city of Jerusalem