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+{
+ "title": "Peirush Hafla'ah on Pesach Haggadah",
+ "language": "en",
+ "versionTitle": "merged",
+ "versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org/Peirush_Hafla'ah_on_Pesach_Haggadah",
+ "text": {
+ "Kadesh": [],
+ "Urchatz": [],
+ "Karpas": [],
+ "Yachatz": [],
+ "Magid": {
+ "Ha Lachma Anya": [
+ [],
+ [],
+ [
+ "The opening statement of the Haggadah beginning with the words, “This is the bread of affliction” appears to contain four unrelated statements. The grandson of the Hafla’ah begins with his own meditation on this statement explaining the connection between these four statements. He quotes his maternal as well as his paternal grandfather, thus paying homage to his familial legacy.
All who are hungry come and eat - Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Margoliot suggests that since our ancestors only ate the Passover offering at the end of the meal when they were not hungry, they would begin the Seder by saying “All who are hungry come and eat;” and only then would they say, “All who are needy come eat the Passover offering.” That is, first one must eat a full meal. When one is sated, then one may eat the Passover offering.
The opening statement in the Haggadah is also an answer to the Hakham’s question: why do we eat matzah if we are not permitted to eat the Passover offering? We explain to him that the afikomen has replaced the Passover offering now that the Holy Temple is no longer standing; we cannot eat it at this time because we are living outside the land of Israel at a time when we are impure and unable to enter the temple precincts. The afikomen is consumed as a reminder of the sacrifice; like the Passover offering, we eat it at the end of the meal as a reminder of the Temple service on Passover. This statement is not an answer to the question “why we cannot eat the Passover offering,” but rather, ab abswer to the question “why we can eat matzah” on this night?
The opening statement of the Haggadah (“come and eat…come and celebrate the Passover”) is a reference to a verse in the book of Isaiah. “Is it not to deal bread to the hungry and bring the poor that are cast out to your house? When do you “bring the poor who are cast out of Your house”? According to Jewish law it is forbidden to partake of several Pesach offerings on the eve of Passover – one had to remain with the family or group with whom one began the meal. That is why we say “All who are hungry…needy, come celebrate the Passover” – we invite our guests to join us for our celebration and remain with us until the end of the meal when we consume the afikomen.
We then go on to answer his questions: why do we eat something that is compared to the Passover offering? We answer: “Now we are here, next year in the land of Israel.” We eat the afikomen in lieu of the sacrifice because we are not in the land of Israel and have no Temple. We hope the Temple will be rebuilt speedily in our day; then we will be able to say, “last year we could not consume the Passover offering but now we can!” And why do we invite needy to join us in this meal? As Rabbi Akiva points out even though we are slaves, we are really the servants of the Holy One and it is our obligation to help God’s servants! Next year, however, we will all be free and each person will have his own offering! This explains the repetitive language in Ha lahma: “Now we are here…Now we are slaves.” The first statement explains why we eat the afikomen and not the sacrifice and the second explains why we invite others to join us at this meal."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "Four Questions": [],
+ "We Were Slaves in Egypt": [
+ [],
+ [
+ "The sages have long been troubled by the idea expressed in scripture that children can sometimes be punished for the sins of their parents and even their grandparents. Horowitz agrees with the sages that sins are not passed on; they are only carried on, and then, only for three generations. Here he acknowledges Abraham’s lack of faith as a cause for Israel’s subjugation, but he also suggests that each generation has the power to choose whether it will remain subjugated or not.
We, our children, our children’s children would be subjugated - What is the significance of mentioning that three generations would have been subjugated? The answer can be found in connection with the following verse, “Adonai, Adonai, a compassionate and gracious God…He visits the iniquity of the parents on children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generation.” Why should children be punished for the sins of their parents? Rashi and the Talmud write: God visits the sins upon the children when they retain the deeds of their parents (when children continue to sin in the fashion of their parents). But what is the significance of saying “third and fourth generation?” Only three generations can carry on the sins of the parents since children are aware of and connected to their parents and grandparents, but by the fourth generation there is no longer a connection to the original sin (or sinner). The fourth generation, then, represents those who commit the sin of their own accord. And such a sin extends of its own accord three generations.
The exile to Egypt began because of a lack of faith in God. Abraham said, “O Lord, How shall I know that I shall possess (the land)?” By the time the Jews were in Egypt it was more than three generations and they still lacked faith in God’s redemption. They faced three generations of punishment for their own lack of faith rather than Abraham’s lack of faith in God’s promise. That is why the Haggadah tells us that if God had not taken us out of Egypt we would have faced three more generations in Egypt (we, our children and our children’s children) because of our lack of faith in God. The subjugation to Pharaoh resulted from this lack of faith."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "Story of the Five Rabbis": [],
+ "The Four Sons": [
+ [],
+ [
+ "At first glance the wicked children’s question does not appear to be so different from the wise child’s question; both seem to suggest that others are commanded to observe the Passover and not them. Rabbi Horowitz solves this problem by contextualizing the questions. These questions were originally asked in the wilderness when the Israelites did not yet observe the Passover offering. As uncircumcised children, the laws applied to their fathers but not to them. Still, the wicked child’s question has different implications from that of the wise child.
What does the wise (child) ask? How is the wise child different from the wicked child? The wise child asks, “What are these testimonies, decrees…that God has commanded you?” The commentators wonder how this question is different from the wicked child who separates himself from the community by asking, “What is this service to you?” Both sound as if they are separating themselves from the community. This child’s question is posed to the generation of the wilderness. The Israelites who sojourned in the wilderness only observed Passover once after leaving Egypt until they arrived in the land of Canaan. The Tosaphot explain that the people in the wilderness only ate matzah and maror (and not the Pesach offering). The wise child therefore asks, “What are all these testimonies, decrees, etc” (regarding the Pesach offering) which God has commanded you (and not me, since I am living in the wilderness and not obligated to bring this offering)? The wise child wonders: In the land of Israel we will be obligated to observe all of these laws including the Pesach offering, matzah and bitter herbs. So why do we observe only some of them now: either we should observe all of them here in the wilderness or none of them because we are not yet settled in the land of Israel!
We answer this question by saying: “Nothing should be eaten after the afikomen.” Sacrifices could only be offered in the Temple; even though it was possible to bring the Passover offering in the tabernacle, the Pesach offering was different. The Pesach offering could only be consumed by one who was circumcised and during the years in the wilderness the Jews did not circumcise their children because it would have been physically taxing to do so while traveling, or in a constant state of preparedness for travel. The people never knew when the cloud of glory would rise above the tabernacle, thus notifying the people that it was time to travel. Therefore, they didn’t circumcise their young and as a result no one could eat the Pesach offering. Also, since the Pesach offering required that it be eaten in one place, “in one household,” and they never knew when they would be required to travel, they could not prepare this sacrifice. That is how the Haggadah answers the wise child: we remind him that one cannot eat the Pesach offering since “nothing can be eaten after the afikomen.” This means you cannot take the Pesach offering and carry it from place to place."
+ ],
+ [
+ "Rabbi Horowitz now turns to the question of the wicked child. What is implied by his question? He delves into the wicked child’s question and suggests that the difference between the wise and wicked child is when each one asks his question. The wise child asks after having performed the commandment while the wicked child asks before, as a condition to his fulfillment of the mitzvah. He also contextualizes the question: the Passover offering is of such great importance that his question is tantamount to denying the whole Torah.
What is this service to you? Since the wicked child says “to you,” he is separating himself from the community. And yet, as we have already seen, how is this question different from the wise child who seems to exclude himself when he says, “What are these commandments …which God commanded YOU?”
The difference between the wicked and the wise child is when the question is asked. The wise child asks after performing the commandment while the wicked asks his question before the performing the commandment!
Wisdom comes through obedience first, as we see in the case of the Jewish people. When the people of Israel said “we will do (na’aseh) we will listen (nishma),” the Holy One responded, “Who revealed this secret to my children?” This can be explained in the following way: when a faithful servant is commanded to perform a task by his master, he doesn’t ask why; he does whatever he is told, whether he understands the reason or not, as in the case of Abraham who took his son to Mount Moriah prepared to offer him as a sacrifice. If the servant finds favor in the eyes of his master, then his master might explain the reason to him afterwards. This is why the people of Israel placed “We will do” before “We will listen.” Israel was prepared to do whatever God commanded even before they heard an explanation. These commandments are incumbent upon all Israel; some of these laws are statutes (hukkim), for which there is no rational explanation. “Nishma” (hearing or understanding) is reserved for those who are favored by God. The wise child who has engaged in the commandments of Pesach, matzah and maror can now ask the reason for the commandments. The wicked child, on the other hand, asks even before he performs any of the commandments. He figures that if the explanation suits him he will perform the commandment and if not, he will reject it.
What does the Haggadah mean when it says that the wicked child “separated himself from the community?” This means that he has rejected the two commandments that epitomize the very essence of faithfulness to covenant and community. Commenting on the verse, “I said to you, “Through your blood shall you live” and I said to you, “through your blood shall you live,”” the sages suggest that Israel was redeemed because of the two mitzvot: the Pesach offering and circumcision. Circumcision is equal to all 613 commandments; when God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself, he said to him, “Walk before me and be whole.” There is a numerical allusion to the importance of circumcision in the word brit, which has the numerical value of 612 – when we add the word/mitzvah itself to this number it is equal to 613. Thus, circumcision is equal to all the commandments. Similarly, the Pesach offering is equal to all 613 commandments as well. Since these two commandments encompass the entire human being, Israel was deemed worthy of being redeemed. That is why the sages interpreted the verse “You shall keep the commandments (mitzvot)” as “You shall keep unleavened bread (matzot),” since the Pesach offering is equal to all the other commandments. Similarly, we find yet another statement regarding the importance of the Pesach offering in the following discussion in the Talmud:
“He broke the Tablets:” how did Moses learn (that it was permissible to smash the tablets when the people worshipped the calf)? He argued: If the Passover sacrifice, which is but one of the 613 precepts, and yet the Torah said, “No alien eat thereof.” Here is the whole Torah, and the Israelites are apostates, how much more so should I smash the tablets (and not allow them to fulfill any of these commandments)!
In this passage, Moses compares the Pesach offering to all the other mitzvot in the Torah. This is not true in other cases; for instance, if one denies one’s faith, one’s Terumah offering is not exempt. The Passover offering is different since it is equal to all the commandments of the Torah. Furthermore, if you add up the numerical values of the letter names in Pesach (pei – samekh – heit) it equals 613! By not performing this commandment, he separates himself from the k‘llal of mitzvot, the sum total of the commandments, and he denies the essential teachings – such a person is considered to be like one who worships idols.
We can now understand the reasoning behind the wicked child’s question. The wicked child begins with the assumption of the Haggadah, that “Every generation should see itself as if it were present in Egypt.” This means that each person is connected to those who were present in Egypt. The wicked child says, “Since I was present with you in Egypt and I‘m considered to be like “a gentile” because I have denied the most essential commandments, then all those in Egypt with me could not consume the Pesach offering either.” Therefore, he says, “What is this service to you,” since you could not eat it. Our response to the wicked child is to say, “Your presence does not disqualify the rest of us from eating the Pesach offering. In fact, a mixed multitude of others left Egypt with Israel even though they did not accept the mitzvot. This caused the exile to be prolonged but it did not remove the possibility of redemption. We are commanded in scripture to remove, “the dross from the silver,” even if the people, even if the evil became mixed into the nation again. It is our responsibility, then, to “remove the evil from our midst.”"
+ ],
+ [],
+ [
+ "Rabbi Horowitz focuses in this passage on the meaning of Exodus 13:8; this verse is the key verse for the mitzvah of the Seder. We are commanded to tell our child the story of the Exodus. Vi-heegadita, and you shall tell, comes from the same Hebrew root as Haggadah. This verse is used as a proof text for the child who does not know how to ask as well as the wicked child. It is also quoted as a proof text for the statement, “In every generation each person is obligated to see himself as if he personally went forth from Egypt.”
The one who does not know how to ask; you should open it up for him: Several questions are raised here with regard to the question of telling one’s children about the Exodus.
1. The commentators point out that the proof text here, Exodus 13:8, begins with a reference to the one who doesn’t know how to ask (“You shall tell your child on that day…”) but ends with a reference to the wicked child (“It is because of this which God did for me – and not for him”).
2. A second problem is a grammatical one. The Haggadah says, “For me and not for HIM,” when it should have said, “for me and not for YOU – had you been in Egypt you wouldn’t have been redeemed.” The statement should have been posed in the second person singular instead in the third person. Why is this?
3. A third problem is the proof text for the statement: “In every generation one is obligated to see himself as if he went forth from Egypt.” How do we know this statement refers to future generations based on the verse, “It is because of what Adonai did for me when I went forth from Egypt.” This statement might have specifically been made by Moses to his own generation and those who were with him in the wilderness but not future generations.
4. Finally, we make reference at the beginning of the Haggadah to “us, our children, and our children’s children.” Based on Exodus 13:8, it should have been enough to make reference to “us and our children” since we are only obligated to tell the story to our children (and not our children’s children.)
We learn from Exodus 13:8 that a parent is obligated not only to tell his child the story of the Exodus but to make sure that the child will do the same for the next generation. We learn a lesson from the superfluous language in this verse: “You shall tell your child on that day, saying (leimor). The word leimor is unnecessary. It implies something more than just telling the story, just as the double verb in Exodus 13:19 implies that we must not only make an oath but make sure that our children do the same. The use of the superfluous word leimor in Exodus 13:8 implies a second obligation, not just to tell one’s children the story, but to tell them: “It is because of this that the Lord took me out of Egypt.” Even though one’s child may not have personally experienced the Exodus, he is obligated to remind his children of their obligation to instruct their children with the specific language of Exodus 13:8. Thus the Haggadah tells us that the story of the obligation applies to “us, our children, and our children’s children.” We must make sure that our children pass on the story as well not just as a story but as a personal history, since, “Every generation we must see ourselves as if we went forth from Egypt.” That is why we do not use the second person when addressing the wicked child. The teaching in this passage, “For me and not for him,” applies to all Jews and not just the wicked child who we happen to be addressing."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "Yechol Me'rosh Chodesh": [
+ [
+ "A continuation of the analysis of Exodus 13:8-9. Rabbi Horowitz turns reasoning on its head. The reason for the Passover is not the Exodus; the reason for the Exodus was to have a story for future generations to tell on Passover. God made the Exodus from Egypt more dramatic so that we would have a story to tell in times to come.
One might think that the obligation to discuss the Exodus begins on the first day of Nissan: - The Haggadah deduces the lesson that the Seder should be recited only on Passover from two expressions in Exodus 13:8: “On that day,” (on that day but not on Rosh Hodesh) and “It is because of this,” (it is recited only when “this,” matzah and maror is before you.) But why is it necessary to deduce the exclusion of Rosh Hodesh from the words, “On that day?” This would seem to be obvious since “because of this,” also implies that one may recite the Seder only at that time when matzah and maror are on the table - on the eve of the fifteenth day of Nisan. The second expression could have cut right to the essence of the argument: Can one recite the Seder at any time on Passover? No – it must be done when you can say “It is because of this” – the matzah and maror– that God took me out of Egypt. Therefore, it can only be done on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan.
It is not obvious what the verse means when it says, “It is because of this”. The passage being quoted from Exodus 13:7-9 only applies to the matzah and not eating hametz during the seven days; it does not mention the Passover offering or the telling of the Exodus story. We are only able to conclude that Exodus 13:9 applies to Seder night through deductive reasoning from Exodus 12:8: “You shall eat the flesh roasted on this night.” One could make similar deductive connection from the phrase in Exodus 12:1: “This month shall be the beginning of months to you,” from which the rabbis concluded that Nisan marks the beginning of the Passover season. Therefore, in our passage, we make a point of saying that Rosh Hodesh is not the day on which we begin the actual celebration of Passover; rather we do so “On that day,” at the eve of Passover.
We can then conclude that the expression “It is because of this which the Lord did for me,” applies to the recitation of the Exodus story. Elsewhere we are told, “For I have hardened his heart…that I might show you these signs which I have done among them, and that you may tell your child and your child’s child what I have done in Egypt, and My signs I have performed among them; that you may know that I am Adonai.” God did not need to perform so many signs and wonders in Egypt; God could have simply taken us out of Egypt in a single moment. All the signs and wonders and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart served to create a good story to tell on Passover night for generations to come! That is why we say, “It is because of this which the Lord did for me.” The text does not say, “It is because of this God took us out of Egypt;” rather it says “It is because of this that God did for me...” The emphasis is on the signs and wonders and not the Exodus itself. It was for the sake of the future telling of the story that God did all this for me; not simply to take me out of Egypt but to create a story that future generations would tell.
We find other examples in the Bible of people who merited redemption because of generations to come. For instance, we learn in the Midrash that Abraham was saved from the fiery furnace because of the merit of Jacob whose soul he carried in his soul. The binding of Isaac was a greater test for Abraham than it was for Isaac because after the birth of Isaac, the soul of Jacob protected Isaac and no longer needed to protect Abraham. Similarly, the people who left Egypt did not have good deeds and Torah to their credit but were redeemed because of future generations. The Zohar interprets the verse: “so that He chose you, their descendents, from among all peoples, as this present day;” to mean that God chose Israel due to the future merit of the generation of the Messiah. Similarly, it was for the merit of those who would tell the story of the Exodus that the people in the time of the Exodus merited redemption. This is the meaning of the verse: God redeemed Israel for my sake – that of future generations."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "In the Beginning Our Fathers Were Idol Worshipers": [
+ [],
+ [],
+ [
+ "According to Rabbi Horowitz, God has a plan for history. Exile is a result of sin but it is also part of this divine plan – we are told that God calculated the end of the subjugation. In the following section, Horowitz suggests that the period of exile and oppression was predicted in the Covenant of the Pieces (sections) in the time of Abraham. God said that Israel would be enslaved 400 years. How do we arrive at this number? First, he suggests that Israel’s exile was partially a product of Abraham’s failure to trust God. But even then, God led our forefather to feel with certainty that there would an end to the exile. Built into the exile was the ultimate punishment of Egypt as well.
In a land not their own: Abraham was not distressed about Israel’s future subjugation because he knew that in the end his descendents would be redeemed. This is hinted at throughout the story of the Exodus. The garrison city which Israel was forced to build for Pharaoh was called Pit’hom –from Pi Tehom, the mouth of emptiness, because in the end Israel’s service in Egypt would amount to nothing for the Egyptians and the Israelites would even leave Israel with great wealth.
Israel’s exiles culminating in the Exodus is also hinted at in the expression “In a land not their own;” is a reference to the four exiles that the patriarchs faced, two in the time of Isaac and two in the time of Jacob; Isaac spent time in Beer Lehai Roi after his father’s death, and in Avimelekh’s kingdom, and Jacob spent time with Laban in Aram and then in Egypt. Lo lahem is an abbreviation of the four exiles” Lechai, Avimelekh, Laban Ha-Arami, Mitzraim. The first letters of these four words spells Lo lahem.
Another interpretation of “a land not their own:” We learn that a person who is not satisfied with what he already has does not have anything. If he desires more than he has, then even the things in his possession are not his because he lacks trust in God. Our ability to trust in God protects us – it allows us to be satisfied with what we have. The evil inclination, on the other hand, rules over that which our eyes see while wisdom is present for those who desire only that which is already in their hands. That is why Egypt is called “a land that is not their own,” while the land of Israel is said to be an inheritance. Abraham sinned because when he responded to God’s promise by asking, “How shall I know that I am to possess it?” Abraham’s desire lengthened the time of the exile and until Israel was worthy of inheriting the land. God told him that “that the iniquity of the Amorites was not complete,” and that they would not inherit until the fourth generation, implying that it was not Abraham’s righteousness that allowed them to inherit the land but the wickedness of the nations who were already there that allowed for their liberation. Also, the land could not be inherited as long as there were divine sparks that were hidden in the land. By asking this question Abraham sinned and strengthened the nation’s hold on the land.
Israel’s exile was all part of the redemptive process that began with the birth of Isaac. According to the Torah there were four hundred years from the birth of Isaac until the Exodus from Egypt. The four hundred years can be divided into three periods: 1. from the birth of Isaac until the Jews arrived in Egypt. 2. The period of slavery: from Joseph until the birth of Miriam. It was during this period that Pharaoh enslaved Israel by using, “farekh”, light enslavement. 3. The period of oppression: from the birth of Miriam leading up to the Exodus. Together these two last periods together were 86 years.
It was during this final period that God revealed Himself to Moses as YHVH, the name of God associated with compassion. This is why Pharaoh had never heard of YHVH; Pharaoh only recognized Israel’s God as Elohim. The gematriah of the name Elohim is 86, equal to the number of years of enslavement and oppression in Egypt.
The time from the birth of Isaac until the oppression of the nation is 314 years which is hinted at in God’s name, El Shaddai. This is also alluded to in the verse: “I am YHVH; I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them as YHVH.” El Shaddai is associated with compassion since it was a time of exile but not a time of oppression. Thus the period from the birth of Isaac until the death of Joseph was 314 years. And the period from the death of Joseph until the birth of Miriam was 54 years, alluded to in the verse: “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs (314 years from the birth of Isaac until the death of Joseph) and they shall be enslaved and oppressed (between the death of Joseph and birth of Miriam until the Exodus – 86 years) four hundred years. But I will execute judgments on the nations they served and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.” Egypt was thus doubly punished for their treatment of the Israelites. Normally, because they were Noahides, they should have been punished with death but not required to pay for their poor treatment of the Israelites. However these two crimes happened separately: they had to pay for the years of slavery (Israel left with great wealth) and with death for their oppression of Israel during the final period."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "First Fruits Declaration": [
+ [],
+ [
+ "Readers of the Haggadah have always wondered at the strange statement suggesting that Laban was even worse than Pharaoh. While Laban was not perfect but it is hard to understand how the sages could reach such an extreme conclusion! Horowitz explores this issue but also analyzes the nature of Pharaoh’s oppression of the Israelites. Why was Pharaoh more concerned with the males than the females while Laban would have felt threatened by both? The issue here is connected with the question of Noahide identity and the laws of Noahides according to the sages.
Go and learn: “Pharaoh issued his decree only for the male children; Laban sought to exterminate them all.” To understand this statement, we must analyze Genesis, Chapter 31. First, what is the connection between “Very well, you had to leave because you were longing for your father’s house,” and the last part of the verse, “Why did you steal my gods?” And in his response, Jacob seems to contradict himself; he tells Laban that he can take the life of anyone who has taken his idols but he goes on to say that if Laban finds anything that is his, he is free to take it.
The commentators disagreed about whether our forefathers were considered to have the status of Israelites from the time of the patriarchs until the giving of the Torah or if they were considered to be Noahides. Different laws applied to a Noahide vs. an Israelite. We find a discussion in the Talmud that suggests that a Jewish worker could retract from working even up to the middle of the day based on the verse, “For they shall be servants unto me (and not the servants of servants).” A non-Jewish worker, on the other hand, could not retract once he accepted a job. Laban’s statement, then, is, “Since you were leaving to go to your father’s house; you must see yourself as an “Israelite” so why did you steal my idols since you are forbidden to have even benefit from an idol?” We can now understand Jacob’s answer. Since stealing is punishable by death for a Noahide, whoever stole it should be put to death because they clearly do not accept the monotheistic teachings of Abraham. Jacob is saying, if you find the idols, treat the person like a Noahide; but with regard to everything else in my household the law of the Israelites applies – there is no death penalty – you may take it back.
The difference between Laban’s and Pharaoh’s attitude toward the children of Israel can also be understood in terms of Noahide vs. Torah definitions of identity. While the other nations defined a child’s identity by the male line, Israelites did so, based on the female line. This meant that even if a Noahide had relations with an Israelite woman, the child was considered to be an Israelite. Laban, then, considered all of Jacob’s children to be a threat. They would follow Jacob’s identity and therefore it was necessary to destroy both the male and female lines.
Pharaoh, on the other hand, considered the Israelites to be Noahides. This meant that if the Israelite women had relations with an Egyptian man, the offspring would be considered an Egyptian. If an Israelite man had relations with an Egypt woman the line would be continued. It was, therefore in Pharaoh’s interest to get rid of the Israelite males and to keep the Israelite women for breeding with Egyptian men.",
+ "Continuing the earlier discussion regarding Laban, Horowitz relates this question to Lurianic Kabbalah. According to Isaac Luria, or the Ari as he is often called, Israel’s exile was necessary for the cosmic redemption of the world. Horowitz draws on the Lurianic myth of creation (tzimtuzum), the breaking of the vessels (shevirat hakeilim), and the redemption of the divine sparks (nitzotzot) which had an honored place in Hasidic thought as well. According to Luria, a cosmic catastrophe took place at the time of creation. God figuratively withdrew from the universe in order to make room for creation but allowed His sparks to be contained in ‘earthly vessels.’ The divine sparks, however, were too powerful and caused the vessels to shatter and the divine sparks to scatter throughout the world. Hidden amid the evil and darkness of the world, then, are divine sparks. It is the job of the Jewish people to redeem these sparks wherever they are found and to allow them to return to their divine source in order to bring redemption to the world. The exile of the Jewish people, then, is a necessary part of redeeming the sparks - nitzotzot. Sin causes the sparks to remain hidden in the world while mitzvot reveal these hidden sparks. What is interesting is that the myth of divine sparks is very specific and even mathematical – there are 288 sparks hidden in creation. Jacob’s exile in Aram and his descendents exile in Egypt were all part of the process of freeing the sparks. These numbers are arrived at through complex gematriot and numerical calculations. Horowitz will return to the Lurianic myth many times in his understanding of the Exodus. Israel’s servitude is all about redeeming the sparks that are trapped in Egypt.
Laban sought to exterminate all of them – even the females: When Laban confronted Jacob following his flight from Aram, Laban said: “The girls are my daughters and the children are my children…all that you see is mine!” (Genesis 31:43) God warned Laban not to harm Jacob but said nothing about Jacob’s offspring. Laban felt compassion for his daughters and their children but his intention was ultimately to destroy future generations of their children. This is implied by his statement above; he is saying, in effect, “Your wives and children are really mine and I can do with them as I wish!” Later, in Egypt, Laban’s son would become one of Pharaoh’s advisors who would suggest wiping out both the male and female Israelites. Balaam ben Beor is really the son of Laban (Beor is another name for Laban).
Laban’s intentions had to do with the divine sparks which fill the world. According to the Kabbalists, there are 288 sparks that fell into the mundane world and were mixed in with the shards which were created at the time of creation. The role of Israel in the world is to redeem these sparks and to return them to their Divine source. Laban was intent on preventing Jacob from accomplishing this task. The gematriah of Rachel and Leah are 274; when we add the eleven sons of Jacob that were born in Laban’s house along with Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, as well as the two concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, the number adds up to 288 – the nitzotzot, the divine sparks. This number is hinted at in God’s warning to Laban: “Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good (tov) or bad (ra). The gematiah of these two words along with the two words as one expression is also 288; that is, God actually warned Laban not to interfere with the divine sparks that Jacob was in the process of freeing. It was for this reason that initially, Laban only wanted to give Jacob Leah (gematriah, 36) as a wife which would have left 252 sparks in his control, which is the gematriah of the word Arami. When he was forced to give Jacob his second daughter, Rachel, he was left with 14 sparks. This is hinted at in the expression, Arami oved Avi, Laban, the Arami, wished to destroy Avi, the last 14 divine sparks.
What we see here in Jacob’s exile and later in the exile of the people of Israel to the land of Egypt, is that it ultimately served a good purpose. It is necessary for the people to be in exile to redeem the divine sparks hidden among the nations. God is entirely good but goodness is expressed through many different avenues. Also nothing happens without God’s decree. The divine sparks descended into the world because of the sin at the tree of knowledge, the sins of the generation of the flood, and because of the tower of Babel, as the Zohar and other sources explain. Despite the misfortune that resulted from these events, we are commanded to bless God for the good as well as the evil in our lives because what appears to us as misfortune ultimately serves a higher purpose that brings us closer to redemption. We must, therefore, give thanks for the exiles which we have suffered, just as we give thanks for the redemptions which have experienced.
It is for this reason that we begin the Seder by saying, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” We praise God for having made us slaves just as we praise God, “who took us out of there.” Similarly, this is the reason we eat bitter herbs at the Seder to give thanks for the bitterness of slavery just as we give thanks for the freedom we gained. We also say, “At first our ancestors were idolaters…” to remind ourselves that the purpose of exile was to lift up the divine sparks which fell (into the world) through the sin of our ancestors.
We have pointed out elsewhere that the gematriah of rekhush gadol, great wealth, is 569. When we add the number 70 (the number of people who went down to Egypt with Jacob) i t has the same gematriah as the expression “etz hada’at,” the tree of knowledge (639). Thus, when Israel left Egypt, they took with them the sparks that were scattered when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit of the etz hada’at, tree of knowledge. There are many allusions to the redemption of the divine sparks when the Israelites left Egypt. The word “mitei” in the expression mitei mispar k‘mi’at, “few in number,” has the same gematriah as the words etz pri, “the fruit of the tree” (450) and the word mi’at, few, is made up of the same letters as the word ta’am, taste; this is an allusion to the teaching that the “fruit” of the tree of knowledge and the tree itself were both sweet in taste.
The three signs which God gave Moses before he returned to the land of Egypt are also an allusion that the purpose of the Exodus was to redeem the lost divine sparks. The first sign was to turn his staff into a serpent – an allusion to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The second sign was to make his hand leprous when he removed it from his cloak – an allusion to the tower of Babel. The sin of the tower of Babel was evil speech and leprosy was the punishment of those who gossip about others. And the third sign, turning water to blood, was an allusion to the flood. Through these three signs Moses would be able to convince the people of Israel that the Exodus was all about redeeming the sparks that were lost because of these three sins.
Why was Pharaoh’s intention to kill the males and not the females? First one must understand the hidden meaning of the terms used in this narrative. Male and female are allusions to the divine sparks. “Male” and “female” are references to khochma (wisdom) and binah (understanding), the masculine and feminine attributes of the divine in the sephirotic system. Jacob initially went down to Laban to redeem the lost sparks. The verse, “I took your father from beyond the river,” (Joshua, 24:2-4) is a reference to feminine aspect of the divine, binah, which is called a flowing river (since all the other Sephirot flow forth from it). The people on the other side of the river are called b‘nai kedem, since the kodem, precedes the river just as khochma precedes binah. Thus, the journey to the land of Canaan, across the river, by Abraham and then by Jacob, is really an allegory about the redemption of the divine sparks lost in the world. Laban represents, the kelipot, the husks, into which the sparks were mixed. His name is made up of two parts. The first two letters, lamed bet (gematriah, 32) are a reference to the 32 paths of khochma, wisdom, while the final nun, is a reference to the 50 gates of purity that are associated with the attribute of binah, understanding.
Jacob, in his great wisdom, overcame Laban’s deceit and redeemed the “thirty two paths of khochma,” wisdom, when he fled from Laban. However, he was unable to redeem the “fifty gates of” purity associated with binah. Therefore, he went down to Egypt to continue the redemption of the divine sparks. These fifty sparks had fallen into the deepest impurity, and until Israel descended into the impurity of Egypt, the sparks could not be redeemed. Thus we say, Laban, the Arami, sought to destroy Avi, but he went down to Egypt. Since Pharaoh already had control of the feminine sparks, he now sought to take control of the masculine sparks, the sparks of khochma, by killing the males. That is why the Torah repeatedly says that the heart (leiv) of Pharaoh was hardened. He sought to control the 32, lamed bet, paths of wisdom, khochma. How did Pharaoh plan to do this? By enticing the people of Israel to worship idols in Egypt, since idolatry would damage the attribute of khochma, divine wisdom. The turning point in the Exodus story comes with the fifth plague, cattle disease, since the Egyptians worshipped their cattle. Thus, when God struck their cattle, the divine sparks of wisdom we were redeemed from Egypt (because the Israelites would now see that the gods of the Egyptians were not gods at all). That is why the Haggadah says that the expression “With a mighty hand” is a reference to the fifth plague. It is for this reason that the expression in the Torah changes during this plague from “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” to “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Although the battle was not over, Pharaoh was already defeated!
Pharaoh, then, did not decree against the females because it was unnecessary since they were already under the control of the Egyptians (since Jacob had not yet redeemed those sparks), but Pharaoh did make a decree against the males since he wished to have power over them. Moses, however, redeemed both male and female.
Another proof that Laban planned to kill both the male and females: Laban said to Jacob: “I have it in my power to do you harm; but the God of your father said to me last night, “Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good or bad.””This verse suggests that God only warned Laban regarding Jacob and not his family. When Laban says “The girls are my girls and their children are my children,” Laban implies that it was his intention to kill the woman and men. Because Jacob was able to free the divine sparks that were in his power he planned even greater evil against the offspring of Jacob. This also made the subjugation of the Israelites even worse in Egypt. That is why Moses said, “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with Your people, and You still have not delivered Your people.” Initially, Pharaoh tried to subjugate them with a peh rakh, delicately; only later did he subjugate them with force. The 288 divine sparks were mixed in with the husks of evil that were spread throughout the land of Egypt. The words Tov v‘Rah, good and evil, have the same gematriah. When Jacob separated the adarim, flocks, thus arranging to take some for himself from Laban, he is really arranging to take the divine sparks. Adar’im equals 274. We add to this number the 12 sons of Jacob and Dinah making 287. There is still one spark short in this accounting, just as there is one short in the gematriah of tov v‘rah. Similarly the word avi, as in “An Aramean sought to destroy avi, my father, is also 13, referring to the sons and daughter of Jacob."
+ ],
+ [],
+ [],
+ [
+ "A common idea in rabbinic literature is midah keneged midah, literally, measure for measure. God’s justice is balanced; his punishment (or reward) are comme nsurate with the actions which cause one or the other. In this section Horowitz explores Israel’s miraculous fertility. He begins with a fairly regular Midrashic interpretation but continues with a Kabalistic explanation of the number of children to which each Israelite woman gave birth. In classical Kabbalah (such as the Zohar) there are ten attributes of God through which the world was created and through which God reveals Himself. The upper three are beyond the ken of human understand while the lower seven are very much rooted in human experience. The lowest of these attributes is called malkhut, or sovereignty – it is also identified with the shechinah, the Divine Presence. Each of the other Sephirot has a variety of different symbols, names, colors, and words associated with it.
The people of Israel were fertile, prolific, they multiplied, increased and grew exceedingly mighty; the land was filled with them: Following the translation in the Targum, the text should have said “The land was filled from them.” “With them,” suggests that a miracle took place in Egypt: no matter how many people there were in the land of Goshen, it was never too crowded. Actually, there were several times 600,000 Israelites in Egypt and all of them lived in the land of Goshen. We are told that when the plague of hail struck Egypt, the Israelites who were in Goshen were all safe, implying that they were all in this district. When the Torah says, va-timalei ha’aretz otam, “the land became filled with them,” to mean that the land accommodated to their numbers.
The six words used in this verse to describe the prolific nature of the Israelites (p‘ru, yishritzu, yirbu, ya’atzmi’u, miod, miod) is the basis of the statement that every Israelite woman gave birth to sextuplets. The Egyptians tried to afflict the Israelite men by preventing them from having intimate relations with their wives all week long. Because they prevented them six days a week, God repaid them measure for measure by giving them six children every time they gave birth to children. The expression b‘mi’od mi’od, exceedingly, can be read as midah k‘neged midah, measure for measure. Pharaoh said “Lest (pen) they increase,” to which God responded, “So (kein) may they increase.” The tribe of Levi did not increase as prolifically as the other tribes because they were not subjected to hard labor like the others.
Another interpretation of the expression, “The earth was filled with them,” based on the Midrash is to read this expression literally. According to the Midrash, when the Israelite woman gave birth the earth covered up their offspring and protected them. They then sprouted up like plants when they were older and returned to their families!
According to the Zohar, the people of Israel are an allusion of the holy sparks that were scattered throughout the land of Egypt. They were scattered throughout the land so that they could gather up converts and bring back the holy sparks to God. The sages said that the Messiah, son of David, could not come until all the souls had been released from the body. Thus, the sextuplets to whom they gave birth represented six of the seven souls or sparks that each Israelite held within himself. The seventh aspect or spark is called aretz, the land. The six Divine attributes were released through fertility of the Israelites but the seventh was immersed deeply in Egypt – it is Malchut, divine sovereignty. The seventh divine spark/Sephirah was deeply rooted in the land of Egypt and in order to be redeemed, this divine dimension had to be released as well: “The “Land” was filled.” This was Pharaoh’s great fear. When he says, “Lest they rise up from the earth,” he means he is afraid that the other Divine aspects will be freed from the land of Egypt. At the time of the enslavement of the Israelites the six divine attributes/Sephirot were mixed in among the husks in the land of Egypt; by separating them from the husks the Divine sparks would be freed. When Pharaoh says, “Behold, the Israelites are too numerous for us,” he was expressing his fear Israel which was the embodiment of the divine sparks, would be lost to the Egyptians.",
+ "According to Rabbi Horowitz, the oppression and enslavement of the Israelites was an attempt to keep them from removing the Divine sparks that were in Egypt. These sparks gave power and vitality to Pharaoh and all Egypt. The erev rav, the mixed multitude that left Egypt with the Israelites were invited to come along because some of the divine sparks were still residing among this group.
The people of Israel were fertile, prolific; they multiplied; increased and grew exceedingly: There are four terms from fertility here: fertile (p‘ru), prolific (va-yishritzu), multiplied (vayirbu), and increased (va-ya’atzmi’u), plus the words b‘mi’od mi’od, exceedingly, repeated twice making six: for the six that were born in each delivery. Because the Divine sparks were spread out throughout the land of Egypt among the Israelites and the Egyptians, Pharaoh decreed that all the male children should be cast into the Nile and not just the Israelite boys. So says Rashi. The Targum understands this differently: He translates, “Any boy who is born to a Jew.” By this, the Targum means that any child who contains the sacred sparks is considered a Jew even if that child is born among the mixed multitude or the Egyptians. The Divine sparks were mixed in among the Egyptians. The text alludes to this: Erev Rav, the mixed multitude, has the same gematriah as da’at – 275 – divine understanding. Even as the Israelites continued to proliferate, “the land was full with them” - with these sparks. By the same token just as there were Divine sparks born among the Egyptians, there were those among the Israelites who did not contain the sacred sparks. It was during the plague of darkness that God wiped out those who were not among the sacred sparks in Egypt before the Israelites left the land."
+ ],
+ [
+ "Using gematriah, Rabbi Horowitz uses the numbers to focus on the thems of trust in God and divine love as they relate to the story of the Exodus. Israel’s trust in God is expressed in their willingness to go off into the unknown wilderness just as Abraham was willing to leave is home and journey to a foreign land.
And they multiplied….and you attained great charm: 74 and 148 are associated with bitachon, trust in God: Rabbi Isaac Luria, points out that the words adai adaim, “great charm,” together have the gematriah of 148, just like the word Pesach. Pesach is an expression of divine trust, as we read, “Trust in the lord adai ad, forever.”
The word Bitachon, trust, is 75; Israel’s willingness to go off into the wilderness when they left Egypt was a sign of their trust in God: “I remember you, the devotion of your youth, how you followed me into the wilderness, in a land not sown.” This is also the quality of Abraham who left his home at age 75 with trust in God. The gematriah of Avraham is 248 since he is the essence of love and faithfulness. Similarly B‘damayikh Cha’yi, “By your love shall you live” (Ezekiel 16:7) – the word damayikh is also 74: suggesting that circumcision and the Passover offering were both expressions of trust in God.
Through the Exodus, the name of God, Yah,was repaired as we see in the words which the people of Israel chanted at the Sea: Ozi v‘zimrat yah, “Yah is my strength and my stronghold.” In the future, when the name of God is complete and God’s throne is complete, the four worlds of creation will each be ad, eternal, and together they will be 74 X 4 which will equals 296 which is the gematriah of the word Tzur, the Rock, another name of God. This is alluded to in the verse “Trust in the Lord forever and ever (adai ad) for in Yah, the Lord, will you have an everlasting Rock (Tzur).”",
+ "Did the people of Israel deserve to be redeemed or were they redeemed simply because of God’s promise to our forefather, Abraham. Despite the fact that we were naked and bare of mitzvot, or maybe because we lacked commandments, God gave us the opportunity to make ourselves worthy of redemption. It was not the Passover offering that became the turning point but circumcision, brit milah.
But you were still naked and bare: King David said, “I rejoice over your promise as one who obtains great spoil.” This is a reference to the time David saw himself naked of any mitzvot except for the one inscribed in his flesh: circumcision. The word michtam,is interpreted as makah tam – that he had a whole wound. This is a reference to the fact that tradition has it that King David was born circumcised so he had no wound caused by circumcision. David, then, rejoiced in fulfilling this mitzvah even though he did not have to be circumcised to fulfill it – he still considered it a “great spoil.”
Similarly, the people rejoiced in the mitzvah of circumcision in Egypt because through this commandment they knew they would be released from exile, and they would no longer be “naked and bare” of commandments. It was also through this commandment that they gained “great spoil,” from the Egyptians, just like King David would. The great spoil was the Divine sparks that they redeemed and took out of the land of Egypt through the Exodus and the redemption of the people of Israel.
The second mitzvah which made the people of Israel worthy of redemption was the Passover offering. Midrash Mekhilta asks why the taking of the paschal lamb preceding its slaughter by four days? Israel did not become worthy of redemption until they had fulfilled two commandments. One does not receive a reward for a good deed until one has performed some type of act. By setting aside the lamb for four days they showed their willingness to put their trust in God.
So what was the reason for the four days? Scripture also suggests that circumcision should have been enough reason for Israel to be redeemed so why was it necessary to have a second commandment?
The main reason that Israel was redeemed was because of circumcision. But the circumcision of a gentile would not have counted as the fulfillment of a commandment in Israel’s favor. Therefore the people of Israel first had to atone for the sin of idolatry; they did this by setting aside the paschal lamb as an offering to show their rejection of Egypt’s deity. Having set aside the lamb, then they were circumcised and only then did they bring a sacrifice to God. The first mitzvah, then, was setting aside the lamb to show their rejection of idolatry.",
+ "“Let us deal wisely with them:” Horowitz returns to this verse once again. What does it mean to deal wisely with the Israelites? How did he come up with this plan? According to the Midrash there were three advisors who gave counsel to Pharaoh: Jethro, Job and Balaam. Each took a different tactic: Balaam advised Pharaoh to destroy the Israelites; Job remained passive and silent, and Jethro fled from Egypt rather than be a party to this plan. According to Horowitz, Balaam was none other than the son of Laban. Balaam created an elaborate plan to embitter the Israelites by turning their lives into bitterness. A”t b”sh is another code for reading into the words of the Torah. Each letter is parallel to the letter at the other end of the aleph bet: the aleph becomes a tauf, the bet becomes a shin. In this way the word can be transposed. So cheyt yud becomes samekh mem
Let us deal wisely: This was the advice of Balaam who was among the three advisors to Pharaoh (Jethro, Job and Balaam). He suggested that Pharaoh cause the Israelites to sin by making them worship false gods. Later, Balaam gave the same advice to the Moabites in the wilderness in order to destroy the Israelites after he failed to curse them. By causing them to sin, he would prevent the divine sparks from rising out of Egypt, and later from Moab. Wisdom is associated with fear of God. Dealing wisely with the Israelites, then, meant destroying their fear of God. The Egyptians tried to embitter their lives (chaim): the word chai in a‘t b’sh is sam, poison. The sarai misim, the task masters, were those who were entrusted with giving the Israelites the poison that would prolong their exile. The “Land” was already deeply immersed in exile; the Egyptians set out to subjugate the other sparks by killing the males rather than the females."
+ ],
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+ "Using a seemingly unimportant verse from the Edomite genealogy in Genesis, Chapter 36, Rabbi Horowitz suggests that a deep mystical message can be found, Because Jacob did not complete the process of redeeming the divine sparks from his brother’s line, the divine sparks were responsible for the most terrible evil – Amalek. This incomplete process of redemption leads Pharaoh to deal shrewd treatment of the Israelites. Rabbi Horowitz quotes an explanation offered by the Ari, but it is full of strange allusions that are extremely hard to piece together.
Let us deal shrewdly with them: Why did Pharaoh say “Let us deal shrewdly” with Israel instead of simply saying “Let us kill Israel.” To understand the answer to this question we must first understand where the power to destroy Israel comes from.
We find the following discussion in the Talmud: ““But the soul that acts presumptuously.” This verse refers to Manasseh son of Hezekiah, who examined biblical verses to prove them worthless. Thus, he jeered, “Did Moses have nothing better to write than, “And Lotan's sister was Timnah?””
Why was it necessary to speak of Esau’s family tree? Esau’s genealogy is actually a mystical record of how the divine sparks became mixed in the husks in the world. The root of Jacob’s soul came from the Higher Wisdom and that is why he set out to redeem the divine sparks. The letters which precede each of the letters in the name, Lotan, spell Chokhma – by going back one letter we have the letters of Chokhma. Similarly, the word achot, sister, is also a reference to the Sephirah of Chokhma.
Rabbi Isaac Luria explained that Esau or Edom gained its power from the divine sparks that fell into the world. In the end, when the divine sparks return to their source, Edom will lose its power as is alluded to in the prophecy, “I will make wisdom vanish from Edom, understanding from Esau’s mountain,” and in the verse “Who turns wisdom back, makes nonsense of their knowledge.”
Similarly, the name, Timnah hints to the divine sparks and the demonic which are mixed together in the world. The first letters of Timnah, tauf-mem, can be transmuted into el by moving back one letter in the alphabet. And the last two letters of this name, nun-eyin, can be transmuted into Sam, which is part of the name, Samael.
This is an allusion to a deep mystery in the cosmic unfolding of the world. Timnah sought out Jacob in the hope of being repaired, but Jacob was only able to repair the first two letters of her name – they became el. Timnah then went to Eliphaz. She brought the sparks of the divine wisdom and, as a result, Amalek was born from this relationship, and as a result, the second part of her name was transformed into sam, poison. The divine sparks, then, have the power to give birth to either holiness or impurity. Thus, the verse in Genesis alludes, “Wisdom (Lotan) is the sister of Samael (Timnah).” Timnah is referred to a concubine, in Genesis 36, because she used subterfuge to be transformed through the wisdom.
Because Jacob was unable to transform and repair the nun-ayin of the name Timnah, Eliphaz was able to pursue and damage Jacob. Nun-ayin, when reversed spell Ani, impoverish! The reason he did not kill Jacob was that he did not have the power to do so since Jacob had repaired the first letters of Timnah’s name: the tuaf mem, when reversed spell mayt, dead. Thus, Jacob could not be killed!
That is why we are commanded both to remember Amalek and never forget what the Amalekites did to us. Memory is the means to redemption of the divine spark, and not forgetting is beyond the redemption. Evil is born through forgetfulness. The gid hanasheh, the sciatic, is actually the nerve of forgetfulness (nasheh also means to forget).
We can now understand the allusion in the statement, “Let us deal shrewdly with them.” Pharaoh knew that he had the power to impoverish Israel but not destroy them completely because of the sparks that had already been redeemed – that is how he decided to use this knowledge to deal shrewdly with them. He enslaved them, and killed the males but he did not seek to destroy the entire nation, as Amalek had suggested."
+ ],
+ [
+ "The sages had their own ideas about the relations between men and women. Female satisfaction in male-female relations was considered to be extremely important. In fact if the woman experienced sexual gratification first the couple was assured a male child. This influenced the number of male children born to the Israelites in Egypt!
To oppress them by making them do hard labor: The Egyptians wanted to reduce the number of Israelite males. They tried to keep the Israelites from multiplying by forcing them to do hard labor. In this way, they believed that they would reduce the men’s” desire to be intimate with their wives. What Pharaoh did not anticipate was that the woman would respond by seducing their husbands. This caused the Israelite couples to give birth to even more male children. According to the Talmud, if a woman reaches climax before the man, the couple will give birth to male children. Thus, the harder the Israelites were oppressed, the less desire they had to be with their wives, the more the women pursued their husbands, and the couples gave birth to more male children. This caused the Egyptians to dread the Israelites and fear them even more!",
+ "The most common mistake that people make is to assume that the Israelites built the pyramids. According to the Torah, the Israelites built the garrison cities of Pit’hom and Ramses. Here Rabbi Horowitz distinguishes slavery from oppression. The Egyptians were guilty of both – but they weren’t put to death for having enslaved the Israelites. Slavery was an acceptable institution in the biblical world – from a Jewish perspective oppression of another human being was unacceptable.
Garrison cities, Pit’hom and Ramses: The Talmud suggests that Pit’hom and Ramses are actually one city. One says the city was called Pit’hom; the word Ramses suggests one building after another tumbled down (mitroses). Another opinion is that the city was called Ramses; the word Pit’hom suggests that it was swallowed up by a great abyss. But this is problematic since the Torah says that they built “garrison cities,” in the plural – how could they be one and the same city?
We have already learned that Noahides that are found guilty of theft are put to death but are exempt from repayment. So why, then, were the Egyptians drowned in the sea and the Israelites rewarded with great wealth when they left Egypt? The Egyptians were guilty of two crimes: they enslaved the Israelites and they oppressed them. They had to pay the Israelites for the years of slavery but they were punished with death for having forced the Israelites to work in seemingly useless ways just to oppress them. We see a reference to this above in the comment on the garrison cities which the Israelites were forced to build over and over again. The cities kept collapsing but the Egyptians forced the Israelites to continue to work only to oppress them. So what did the two sages differ over in the comment about whether the cities were called Pit’hom or Ramses? They differed whether the servitude came first or the oppression came first. According to the first opinion, oppression came first (building after building would collapse) and the slavery came later. According to the second opinion, the slavery came first (they would build the whole city only to have it sink into the ground) and the oppression followed it."
+ ],
+ [
+ "The battle in Egypt was not a political battle over tyranny but a spiritual battle over the destiny, nitzotzot, Divine sparks, that had fallen there at the time of creation. Pharaoh understood that Israel’s liberation would result only when the sparks had been redeemed. It was necessary, therefore to oppress the Israelites both body and soul to trap the divine sparks in Egypt. As long as the Israelites worshipped false gods they would be unworthy of redemption and the divine presence would remain in exile with them. Avodah kashah, was taken to mean not only hard labor but the worship of false gods. It was only when Israel completed the allotted years of exile or through mitzvot that made them worthy of redemption that Israelthat the sparks would be freed from Egypt.
They placed hard labor (avodah) upon us: The Midrash explains that Israel refused to listen to Moses because of “shortness of spirit,” to mean that they could not separate themselves from idolatry. Initially the expression avodah kashah, hard labor, would seem to refer to physical labor. Pharaoh increases Israel’s labor in response to Moses” first request to allow the Israelites to worship their God. So why does the Midrash conclude that avodah kashah refers to idolatry?
The subjugation of the Israelites in Egypt was both physical and spiritual as we see in a number of places. When Moses complains to God, he says “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with this people; and you have not delivered Your people.” “Dealt ill” refers to their souls and “not delivered” refers to their bodies. Similarly, when the people tell Moses, “May the Adonai look upon you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh and his courtiers – putting a sword in their hands to slay us,” “making us loathsome” is connected to their spiritual wellbeing (and connected to the expression “shortness of spirit”). By increasing their labors Pharaoh made it hard for them to separate themselves from idolatry as well.
Furthermore, Pharaoh was particularly hard on the young children because he knew that as long as they could not leave Egypt, neither could the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence. We see this in the following verse: “May the Lord be with you the same as I mean to be with you! Clearly you are bent on mischief. NO! Your men folk may go (and not the children) and worship the Lord.” Pharaoh wished to prevent the Shekhinah from leaving Egypt and so he refuse to allow the youngsters from going with Moses and the people to worship. Pharaoh was also aware of the prophecy to Abraham, “And they shall return here in the fourth generation;” he also knew that Abraham’s descendant’s sojourn in Egypt was supposed to last 400 years. He was afraid that since the children were the “fourth generation,” Moses was really planning to return to the land of Canaan. Having completed the allotted years, however, did not guarantee redemption; Israel could only be redeemed though an act of repentance. Rather it was through acts of charity as well as the severity of their suffering that Israel became worthy of redemption. Israel’s redemption then was dependent on two things that were difficult for them: repentance on their part and bearing the suffering of slavery."
+ ],
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+ "Rabbi Horowitz plays on the word farekh, ruthless, which is commonly read as peh rakh, a soft tongue. He uses this as a means of looking at the inner and outer nature of Pharaoh and the power of circumcision which makes human beings just a bit lower than God. Using a series of literary associations and word plays he finds allusions to the power of the divine for good but also as a means of giving the demonic its own power. The demonic can only exist to the extent that it contains some of the divine sparks which animate the world.
The Egyptians imposed labor upon the Israelites ruthlessly (b’farekh): There are two aspects to Pharaoh’s actions – he acts with a hard heart but he imposes his labor b‘farekh, which the sages read as b‘feh rakh, a soft mouth.
When the Torah says that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened it is referring to the inner and outer aspects of his persona. The middle letters of Pharaoh’s name are reish-ayin, ra, wicked. And the outer two letters pei-hei, or peh, mouth. When the sages said that Pharaoh imposed labor b‘farekh, ruthlessly, it means that he did so with a peh rakh, literally a soft mouth. His mouth contained a mixture of divine sparks as well as physical husks. Thus later, the mouth that enslaved the Israelites would be the same mouth that would eventually allow them to go free.
Peh, “mouth” is a reference to dibbur, speech; it is the Shekhinah, the tenth and final Sephirah, the divine presence. As long as Israel was in exile, “speech” was in exile and it could be used to enslave the Israelites. Because God was , in exile Moses also suffered from a kaved peh, “a heavy tongue.”
Like the word peh, mouth, milah (circumcision) has the gematriah of 85. Redemption should have begun with milah, circumcision. Originally, Joseph commanded the Egyptians to be circumcised so that they would all enter into the realm of holiness; this plan backfired and instead it gave Pharaoh the power to keep the Israelites in Egypt.
Milah contains four of the five letters in the name, Elohim – the exception is aleph. It is through the power of the aleph in the name, Elohim, that Israel was redeemed from slavery. When aleph is added to letters of milah it becomes Elohim. Through the aleph, Elohim becomes the power through which Israel is able to go forth from Egypt and through which impurity is transformed into purity. The divine name that is usually associated with judgment becomes a source of compassion. The aleph is a mysterious letter; when spelled backwards is pele, wonder! Thus, the aleph has the power to change everything. Job said, “Who can take a pure thing out of an impure thing?” It is the aleph of tamei that allows this transformation to take place from impurity to purity. The gematriah of the word tamei is fifty; it is a reference to the fifty gates of impurity in Egypt into which the people of Israel nearly fell in Egypt. By taking away the aleph from tamei, the gematriah of the word is only 49 – thus, the aleph has the power to remove impurity!
The number 50 is associated with both purity and impurity. The letters mem and yud (with the gematriah of 50) are the final two letters of the name Elohim. These letters gave Pharaoh the power to enslave Israel. Mem-yud spells mi, who. Pharaoh says: “Who (mi) is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go?” On the other hand the forty nine days between the Exodus and the giving of the Torah culminate Shavuot, the fiftieth day. They represent the fifty gates of purity through which Israel became worthy of receiving the covenant at Sinai.
Milah connects us to God. The Psalmist wrote, “You have made man little less than God.” When a person is circumcised, he literally a little less than God (Elohim); all he lacks is he alpeh of Elohim. Similarly, the verse, “You crowned him with glory and beauty,” is a reference to the revealing of the “crown” in circumcision.
The word rakh in peh rakh is also 220. Together with the word mi, 50, has the gematriah 270, like the word ra, evil. Pharaoh, then, is a combination of mi and (peh) rakh, making him the embodiment of evil. But the aleph of Elohim, the one (echad), has the power to transform the impure into the purity!
"
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+ "Suffering is understood in this passage as a strategy for inspiring repentance and prayer.Rather than punishment, sometimes God causes the people of Israel to suffer so that they will be motivated to cry out to God – It is out of love that God causes such pain, even though it is painful to God to witness this suffering. Rabbi Horowitz offers an extended interpretation of Psalm 116 (part of Hallel which appears in the second half of the Haggadah) which illustrates this interpretation. What was true of the generation of the Exodus is true for future generations as well – and for the future redemption.
A long time passed and the king of Egypt died; the Israelites moaned because of their enslavement: The Torah goes on to say: “….their plea ascended to God because of their enslavement.” Why does the Torah make the statement this way instead of saying, “Their pleas because of their enslavement ascended to God? This verse teaches us that God caused the Israelites to suffer for their benefit. By causing their physical subjugation to be extra severe, the Israelites were roused to repentance and cried out to God within the 400 year period that their subjugation was decreed, thus causing their exile to be shortened.
We have already seen that Israel’s exile had more to do with the subjugation of their souls through idolatry than their physical enslavement and oppression. As we see elsewhere, by causing the Israelites to suffer, God could expedite their redemption sooner. The physical enslavement, then, was actually a compassionate act by God to free Israel from Egypt sooner. Israel’s cry ascended to God through the severity of its enslavement.
This is what King David meant when he said: “I love Adonai because he hears my pleas; for He turns His ear to me whenever I call. The bonds of death encompassed me; the torments of Sheol overtook me. I came upon trouble and sorrow and I invoked the name of Adonai, “Adonai, save my life!” Adonai is gracious and beneficent; our God (Elohainu) is compassionate.”
“I love Adonai because he hears my pleas; for He turns His ear to me whenever I call.” God compassionately aroused the prayers of Israel (through suffering) so that they would be inspired to pray to alleviate the exile of their souls. He caused the subjugation of their bodies to be more severe so that they would not have to wait the 400 years to be taken out of Egypt. They would cry out to God sooner and thereby give God a reason to take them out sooner.
“The bonds of death encompassed me; the torments of Sheol overtook me.” God allowed the Egyptians to make the lives of the Israelites bitter through enslavement. God saw that the Israelites were about to descend into the fiftieth gate of impurity. By oppressing them physically, they would cry out to God thus preventing them from reaching the lowest levels of Sheol.
“I came upon trouble and sorrow and I invoked the name of Adonai.” This suffering roused Israel to invoke and cry out in the name of God. It is through the suffering of our bodies that our souls are redeemed.
“Our God (Elohainu) is compassionate.” Even though Elohainu is usually associated with God’s attribute of judgment, here Elohainu is said to be compassionate. By causing Israel’s suffering God compassionately brings about their redemption sooner! Similarly the sages said that God always introduces the cure before the affliction. The cure was Israel’s oppression and the affliction was the spiritual subjugation of Israel.
Similarly, Isaiah said: “In their troubles He was troubled (lo tzar), and the angel of His presence delivered them. In His love and pity He redeemed them, raised them and exalted them, for all time.”
The ketiv and the k‘ri spell the word the word lo two ways, one with an aleph and the other with a vav. When the word is written with a vav, the verse means, “In all of their troubles, so is He troubled.” And when the word is written with an aleph, the verse is translated, “In all of their troubles God does not mean to trouble them.” Both of these explanations are correct: God feels Israel’s pain in exile but it is not God’s intention to cause Israel pain either.
The verse concludes “for all time (olam).” The word olam is used elsewhere as a reference to the Jubilee year which is fifty years. This is an allusion to the fifty days between the Exodus and the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Just as Israel sunk close to the fiftieth gate of impurity, so they now had to ascend to the fiftieth gate of purity which would make them worthy of receiving the Torah.
We have many examples in Jewish history in which the suffering of the Jewish people becomes the impetus for their prayers and repentance and, as a result, leads to their redemption. Haman’s decree was ultimately for the welfare of the Jewish people since it inspired sincere repentance. This was true in the time of the Maccabees as well. The Jewish people had become sinful; they were afflicted by the Hellenists (through God’s will) so that they would pray to God and God would save them from their enemies through their repentance.
In Psalms, we say “God is close to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.” Why do we repeat the same thing twice in this verse? God is close to the Jewish people even before He causes them to call upon Him truth. As we saw in Psalm 116, God arouses our feelings so that we sincerely call upon Him – in that way he can incline Himself toward us in His great love.
We find another allusion to the idea that God allows us to suffer out of compassion in the following verses: “I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt…They will listen to you…” Commenting on these verses, Rashi says: “Since you will speak to them with this expression (pakod yifkod, “I have taken note”) they will listen to you for this sign is already given to them through Jacob and Joseph for by this expression they would be redeemed.” The letters which follow pay-kuf-dalet, to visit, are tzade-reish-hay, suffering. The word pakad, then, hints that God will only visit Israel when Israel suffers oppression. This is a hint that the cure (pakad) precedes the affliction (tzarah)!
The Torah hints at the fact that Israel would be redeemed by Moses. The Ribuah of the Tetragrammaton is 184 (like the word, pakad) and the gematriah of the name eheyeh, is 161. When we add the sum of these two numbers, they add up to 345, or the gematriah of the name Moshe.
“The angel of His presence delivered them,” is an allusion to Moses who is referred to as an angel, “God sent an angel who brought them out of Egypt.” Rashi explains that “the angel” here is Moses.
“You have delivered me from death, my ears from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I trust in the Lord; out of great suffering I spoke and said rashly, “All men are false.”” Each of the expressions in this verse refers to one of the exiles of the Jewish people: “You have delivered me from death” – refers to Egypt, since we were bitterly oppressed “unto death;” “my ears from tears – refers to Babylonia, since our ancestors sat by the river of Babylon and cried; “my feet from stumbling” – refers to Greece, since they weren’t exiled from their home.” Each exile lasted for limited time but the final exile is the longest; it is referred to in the verse: “I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I trust in the Lord; out of great suffering I spoke and said rashly, “All men are false.”” Regarding this exile the prophet said: “I the Lord will speed it in due time.” This means, if Israel merits redemption the Lord will speed up the end; if not, it will come in due time.
This is similar to what happened in Egypt. The severity of Israel’s slavery and their oppression brought about a quicker end to the exile. Similarly, by allowing a ruler like Haman, the time of suffering ended quicker.
There are two ways in which to bring an end to Israel’s exile more quickly: either through more severe suffering or through sincere repentance. When Israel turns to God in repentance, they are more worthy of redemption sooner and are redeemed with compassion, and they are saved from the birth pangs of the coming of the messiah."
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The Torah offers mixed a message: the Israelite men and women were not allowed to cohabit and yet they continued to have children. Rabbi Horowitz addressed this issue earlier and returns to it here possibly tongue in cheek. Despite their separation there was something unnatural and even miraculous about their ability to reproduce. The power of Shabbat, he suggests already existed in Egypt and it was more than just a day for physical rest, both then and now.God saw our affliction – this refers to the forced separation of husbands and wives: The statement is followed by, “and our labor – this refers to the children.” If one statement means they could not cohabit, then how can the other refer to the birth of children?
According to a Midrash, the Israelite women cohabited with their husbands and gave birth on the same day – like chickens! But this makes no sense: first, after giving birth the women would have been forbidden to their husbands because of impurity; second, this is only recorded to have happened once in the case of Adam and Eve who gave birth to Cain and Abel in one day; and third; chickens, of course, are different since they lay eggs and then nest on the egg once it is laid! Rather what this Midrash means is that from a single cohabitation, the Israelite women would give birth. Though they were forbidden to be with their husbands all week long as the men were forced to work hard, on Shabbat they would be reunited and would cohabit and would immediately become pregnant. The Egyptians tried to separate men and women through back breaking labor and oppression but it did not stop of the men and women from having children.",
+ "Rabbi Horowitz confronts one of the most difficult problems in theological thought in general and Jewish theology in particular. How does one reconcile God’s foreknowledge with free will? In Pirke Avot we find the statement, “Everything is foreseen but choice is given.” At first glance these two assumptions seem to contradict one another. If God can see everything before it actually happens, then I do not have freedom to choose. On the other hand if I truly have freedom then God cannot be All-knowing. Rabbi Horowitz offers a riff on these ideas as he confronts the question of what God knows and how free the Israelites were to choose while they were in Egypt. He suggests that God’s knowledge of sin cannot be absolute if repentance – one of the 613 commandments – is truly a choice that we can make. On the other hand, the possibility of sin must also be real if repentance is a choice that we make. Sin is real for the sages but it is not a necessity – we can always change our actions into merit through repentance.
God saw the Israelites and God knew: At first glance, this statement seems superfluous. What does it tell us that we don’t already know? According to the Midrash, the statements, “God saw” and “God knew” imply that God knew that Israel had performed repentance but the Israelites did not know this about one another. God could “see” them but they could not “see” each other because they had, “covered up,” their sins.
What does it mean to “cover up” ones sins? Two verses are found in Scripture: “Happy is one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered over,” and “One who covers his faults will not succeed!” The second verse refers to one who tries to cover over a public sin – he cannot succeed – while the first verse refers to private sins. Since the Israelites were guilty of idolatry in Egypt, and did not see one another repent, it was necessary for them to atone through suffering in Egypt.
This verse raises the philosophical question of foreknowledge vs. free choice. If God knows that a person is going to sin, how can they be held responsible for what they did since it was foreseen? But if we have free will, then how can God have foreknowledge of what we are going to do? So when scripture says that God “saw and knew” that Israel would repent, does that mean God had foreknowledge of their sins (and therefore it was inevitable) or that Israel had a choice regarding these sins (in which case God couldn’t know what the Israelites would do)?
God’s knowledge of wrong doing does not make the wicked act inevitable. Evil actions are like falsehood. When one speaks falsely, God’s knowledge is tempered by the nature of the false statement and therefore it is not absolute – one always has the choice reverse one’s statement or actions. This is what scripture means, “Therefore the wicked shall not establish judgment nor will the sinner, in the assembly of the righteous.” This means, the wicked cannot claim that their wickedness is as inevitable and immutable as the righteousness of the just. Regarding the righteous we say, “For Adonai knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked is lost.” That is, God rewards the ways of the righteous but the ways of the wicked are lost because they can change. That is what the sages meant when they taught: “Great is repentance for through it even premeditated sins are counted as merits.” It is written, “Turn back you rebellious children;” that is, they were rebellious at first but did not remain so!
Since repentance is one of the positive commandments in the Torah, and each person must be able to choose to observe it, it is necessary for God to allow us to sin so that we can choose repentance freely. It would be impossible for a person to repent if he did not sin, therefore sin must be one of the choices which God gives us. Also, the punishment could not be foreordained prior to the actual sin, since God never punishes before the person actually commits the sin. Therefore God allows us to turn our sins into merits – it was already revealed (to God) that while the sins were necessary while the Israelites were in Egypt, Israel would overcome them. God foresaw all of this – the existence of sin and the possibility of repentance.
The Ten Plagues
It is the custom to spill a drop of wine or sprinkle a drop with one’s finger as each plague is mentioned and then as each of the three mnemonics are recited. Some see this as a way of indicating our hope that evils such as these will not be visited upon us. Others interpret it to mean that we diminish our cup of joy because – no matter how necessary and deserved – we do not rejoice at the thought of suffering, pain and death.
So too the midrash teaches that when the angels wished to sing praises to God as the Egyptians drowned in the Sea, God told them to stop because “My creations are drowning in the sea and you would sing songs of praise?”
Of the ten plagues, the tenth is the most problematic. God struck down not only the first born of the Egyptians but even the first born of the captive who were born in prison. Rabbi Horowitz explains this seeming injustice by finding multiple reasonsfor the final plague. This plague was the ultimate sign of redemption for the people of Israel. Through it, Egypt and the nations of the world came to understand the power and justice of God. No one was innocent in Egypt – not the servants, nor the people, nor Pharaoh. Horowitz connects the revelation of God’s name with the four promises of redemption that are the basis of the four cups of wine.
He offers an interesting connection between these promises and the liturgical introduction to the Shema in the morning service.
I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night – I and not an angel: What does the Haggadah mean when it says, “I am Adonai - I and not another?” To answer this question one must understand that there are several reasons given for the plague of the first born.
The most obvious reason for the death of the firstborn is given by scripture, “Israel is my first born child; since you have refused to let him leave I will smite your first born child.”
Another reason for this plague was to show the power of God. Only God was able to “distinguish the one who is a first born and the one who isn’t.”
Punishing the first born was a way of punishing the gods of Egypt. Scripture states, “I will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” The first born were set apart for the service of false gods; therefore, by killing the first born, God executed judgment on the gods of Egypt.
The Torah says not only were the Egyptian first born struck down, but so were “the first born of the captives who were in the dungeon.” Rashi offers two reasons why the tenth plague affected everyone in Egypt even if they were not personally responsible for the subjugation of the Israelites. First, they rejoiced over the suffering of the Israelites. And second, lest they think that the final plague was caused by their false god rather than the God of Israel.
Determining why some died during the tenth plague and others did not was a complicated matter. There was no way to know who was a first born and who wasn’t. Some of those serving their gods might not have been first born while there may have been others who didn’t think they were first born who actually were. For instance, a woman who had an illicit relationship with another man might have conceived the other man’s child without her husband’s knowledge. This child would have appeared to be her husband’s first born child but might not have been the birth father’s first born. Similarly, there might have been children who were the first born of the man with whom they were conceived but not the first born of the woman’s husband. So some non-first born might not have been serving in the Egyptian cultic rituals while other first born might not have been serving in this position at all.
Complicating the matter even more was that there were “the first born of the captives” - who were charged with leading the worship of the non-Egyptian gods. God threatened to execute judgment against the gods of Egypt but not other gods. So why were the first born of the foreigners condemned to death? If these first born did not die during the tenth plague they may have thought that their gods were responsible for this plague.
God, therefore, singled out all the first born but they may have died for different reasons: some because they were the first born who served the gods of Egypt, others because they rejoiced in Israel’s suffering, and still others because they were the first born of Egypt, and God had promised to punish all the first born of Egypt. Those who served the gods of the foreign people might have assumed that their gods were responsible for the tenth plague, so God struck their first born down as well.
We can now understand the expressions in this passage. The Haggadah says, “I executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt – I and not a messenger” because only God would have known who was an actual first born and who was not. And the passage‟, “I am Adonai – I and not another,” is a reference to the gods of the prisoners who were not Egyptians and who were worshipping the gods of other nations. It was the God and not “another” god who caused the tenth plague in Egypt – God made this clear by striking down the first born of the foreigners who served other gods besides the gods of the Egyptians.
The following verse alludes to God’s success in making His presence known in Egypt and beyond: “You brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, winning fame for Yourself to this very day.” By hardening Pharaoh’s heart, God’s renown was not revealed to the world until the moment of their redemption. At first Pharaoh said: “Who is Adonai that I should heed Him and let Israel go? I do not know Adonai, nor will I let Israel go!” God’s name was still unknown at this time.
God’s name became known to the world through the redemption. It was the fulfillment of the four terms of redemptions: I will bring you out from beneath the labors of the Egyptians; I will deliver you from their service (avodah); I will redeem you with an outstretched arm; and I will take you to be my people.
We refer to these four terms of redemption in the passage before the daily recitation of the Shema: “Open our eyes to Your Torah and let our hearts cling to Your commandments and unify our hearts to love and to revere Your name.” The words of the Shema must be said with complete concentration and holy intention, with love and fear so that they can ascend to heaven!
1. “Open our eyes to Your Torah” – this was the purpose of going out of Egypt.
2. “Let our hearts cling to Your commandments” – God delivered us from serving false god so we could serve Him through the commandments.
3. “Unify to….revere Your name” – reverence began with the redemption brought about with a mighty hand.
4. Unify our hearts to love (You) – through reverence we come to love of God and through love God will “Take you to be my people.”
These four phrases, then, are a byproduct of the way in which God revealed His name and promised redemption to the people of Israel.
(A comment from the grandson of Rabbi Pinchas Ha-levi Horowitz:) There is another reason for why the first born of the prisoners were also affected by the tenth plague. The sages give two reasons: because the prisoners rejoiced in Israel’s suffering and so that they would not say that it was because of their gods that the first born of Egypt died. We learn that if one is permitted to witness the downfall of the wicked, it must be because of one’s merit. In the case of the Exodus, then, this was the case. The Exodus from Egypt was due to Israel’s own merit; so that they would be able to tell the story of the Exodus in generations to come. But the death of the prisoners of the Egyptians would not have been due to their own merit (since they were not being punished for enslaving the Israelites) so there must have been other reasons for their punishment. It must have been that the prisoners rejoiced in Israel’s oppression. It was because they rejoiced in Israel’s suffering that the Israelites were allowed to witness their punishment.
The sages also teach that “once the destroyer is given permission to destroy, a distinction is not made between one and another.” God had condemned the first born in Egypt. Once God unleashed destruction on Egypt, a distinction could not be made between the first born of the Egyptians and the other non-Israel first born. The final plague was performed for the sake of God and for the well being of Israel. For the sake of God – not allowing any of the first born to survive was to prevent anyone from thinking that maybe another god was responsible for the plague. It was performed for the sake of Israel – even those who rejoiced in Israel’s suffering were punished."
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+ "Continuing the earlier discussion, that the tenth plague was an act of God alone, Rabbi Horowitz suggests that while Moses was an emissary in the redemption from slavery, it was God alone who brought about an inner redemption from idolatry. In this way he explains the absence of Moses from the Haggadah. The real essence of the redemption was not from slavery but the inner redemption of the people of Israel. Drawing on Exodus chapter 6, he explains this distinction as a way of explaining the seeming repetition of God’s promise at the beginning of this chapter. God has already promised to redeem the people from slavery – so why is it necessary for God to make this promise again?
“Elohim spoke to Moses and said to him: I am Adonai! I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai; but I did not make myself known to them by my name Adonai.” In this verse, we find several problems: first, we repeatedly say I am Adonai (the name associated with divine compassion) even though we refer to God as Elohim (the name associated with justice); second, the expression, “the land in which they lived” is unnecessary; and finally this entire verse beginning, “I am Adonai” is also superfluous – we have already been told, “I will be with you and this will be the sign that it was I who sent you...”
There are two aspects to Israel’s redemption: the outer redemption from slavery which was performed by Moses and the inner redemption from idolatry which could only be performed through God. When God says “I am Adonai,” God is revealing that God will bring about Israel’s inner redemption. Moses, on the other hand, offered to redeem Israel from slavery on the condition that Israel would receive the Torah. At first Israel agreed to this but they rebelled because of the difficult slavery – the outer oppression to which they were subjected. Thus, Moses became angry with God for two reasons: “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name you have dealt worse with this people and still you have not redeemed Your people.” The two reasons for Moses” anger in this verse reflect the two aspects, inner and outer of redemption. Moses was angry because God allowed the physical oppression to increase and their descent into idolatry to become worse. God’s response was to say, the difficult oppression is necessary for the divine sparks to be freed from Egypt. These sparks are mixed among the Egyptians and can only be freed through this struggle.
Elohim then answers; “I am Adonai.” The divine justice of Elohim is necessary for the divine compassion of Adonai. Elohim includes the name el, which is an expression of divine compassion, as we see in the verse Adonai Adonai el rachum v‘chanun, “Adonai Adonai a God (el) compassionate and gracious.” God revealed Himself first through the name El Shaddai which represents the transformation from El expressed in anger to El expressed in compassion. Similarly Shaddai is transformed from might to mercy, as we see, “May El Shaddai give you mercy…” The name El Shaddai has the same gematriah as Moshe, Moses - 345."
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+ "The Ten Plagues": [
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+ "This passage in the Haggadah often troubles readers – the seemingly playful way in which it counts the number of plagues in Egypt and again at the sea. Instead of ignoring the fact that the term “hand” is used to refer to the plagues in Egypt and not just by the sea, the author comes up with an ingenious way of reconciling this seeming contradiction. The math here is a bit sketchy but Rabbi Horowitz seriously plays with the numbers in the spirit of the Haggadah and the sages.
From where can one deduce….how many with a finger? Ten plagues! At first glance, it appears that since each finger is ten plagues, then hand is ten times five plagues which is fifty plagues at the sea, even though the thumb (gudal) and the pinky (zeret) are not really technically fingers (etzbaot). For all practical purpose, all five digits are considered fingers here.
Etzba is the term for the finger adjacent to the thumb. According to the Magen Avraham, one should drip drops of wine with the etzba. But this is problematic since there are several places in Scripture that use the word hand (yad) to refer to the plagues. Also, the term, etzba elohim is used to refer to the plague of lice and not to the plagues in general. But these passages do not contradict one another. Each etzba refers to two plagues: the thumb, blood and frogs, the finger next to the thumb, lice and wild animals, and so on. Thus we read in scripture: “I will lay my hand upon Egypt.” This seems to contradict what Rabbi Yosi Hagallili said.
We can reconcile what he said through the verse, “Five of you shall give chase to a hundred and a hundred shall give chase to ten thousands.” Commenting on this Rashi writes: “Is this then the correct proportions? Should it not have said and a hundred shall give chase to two thousand? However one cannot compare the few who keep the Torah to the many who keep the Torah.” This is so because the ones who keep the Torah help one another. Similarly, we learn that the deeds of the righteous are even greater than the act of creation (by God)! Regarding acts of creation we read, “Behold, My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has spread out the heavens.” Regarding the righteous we read, “The place You made to dwell in, Adonai, the sanctuary, Adonai, which your hands established.” While each can accomplish some things, two hands can help one to accomplish much more. So too in Egypt Israel experienced the hand of God – each finger representing a separate force - while at the sea, God’s hands worked together and were far more powerful in concert with one another. At the sea, then, each plague was the hand of God, and together they were more like fifty plagues – much more powerful. Just as five has the strength of a hundred and one hundred is ten thousand – 5:100 and 100:10,000 (when it should have said 100:2,000), so if 1 finger is as 2 plagues (5:10 or 1:2) then (ten plagues at the sea) were like as 50 plagues.
Why were the Egyptians punished so severely at the sea; they faced plagues, drowning, and the Israelites plundered the wealth which washed on the shore after they were drowned? According to the law, Noahides who were put to death should not have been fined as well. However the different punishments were for different aspects of their sin. The plunder was back pay for the Israel’s years of service in Egypt. The drowning was punishment for having pursued the Israelites after they left Egypt since one who pursues another to kill him can be put to death to save the victim. The plagues at the sea were punishment for having pursued the mixed multitude that left Egypt with the Israelites, since the appropriate punishment for this infraction would have been lashings. The Torah says that the Israelites left Egypt “chamushim.” Chamushim means that there were five times more people in the mixed multitude than there were among the Israelites. Since the mix multitude was five times more numerous than the Israelites, the Egyptians were punished five times more severely than they were in Egypt.
The sages interpreted the verse, “We add wreaths of gold to your spangles of silver,” as a reference to the plundering of Egypt (spangles of silver) and the plunder at the Red Sea (wreaths of gold). Why did the sages make a connection between these two events? When the Israelites reached the Red Sea, the plunder from Egypt was already in their hands. The plunder that they received at the Sea was theirs by virtue of it being ownerless; according to Jewish law anything that is claimed from the sea belongs to the one who finds it since we presume that if someone lost something in the sea or a flood they despair of ever claiming. That which was taken from Egypt, however, was different. According to the Torah the Israelites “borrowed” objects they took in Egypt. This meant that they had the status of borrowers and therefore could be considered to have certain responsibilities to the ones from whom they borrowed the property. It was for this reason, therefore, that the Midrash claims that the Egyptians did not drown until they could see the Israelites on the shore of the sea. When this happened they despaired of ever getting their possessions back – so the Israelites did not take full possession of the Egyptian plunder until the Egyptians drowned in the sea."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "Dayenu": [],
+ "Rabban Gamliel's Three Things": [
+ [],
+ [
+ "Rabbi Horowitz focuses in the following comments on the fact that the proof text for the Pesach offering in the above passage is the same as the passage containing the wicked child’s question in the Torah: “When your children ask you: ‘What is this rite to you,’ you shall say: ‘it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, because God passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians but saved our houses…” The answer to the wicked child in the Haggadah to this question is not the one which appears in the Torah.
Rather, the Haggadah chooses to quote Exodus 13:8. Rabbi Horowitz now searches for the connection between the question, “What do you mean by this rite,” and the actual answer given by the Torah to this verse. He also explores the significance of the blood on the door post. Why is there so much emphasis on this act of sprinkling the blood on the door post in the Torah, rather than on the actual consumtion of the Passover offering?
Who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt: There is an extended discussion in the Mekhilta on the meaning of the word Pesah. “And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you…and I shall pass over (pasahti) you.” Rabbi Yishmael is quoted as saying, “Is not everything revealed before God, as scripture says, “He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him;” (So why was it necessary for the Israelites to place blood on the door posts of their homes; surely God would have known which homes belonged to the Israelites? ) God said: “The Israelites shall place blood on their door posts so that they will be worthy of a reward for performing this mitzvah; I shall reveal Myself and protect, as it is written, “I will pass over you.” “Passing over” (pesah) merely means protecting (has)…‟
(The Mekhilta continues…) furthermore, there is a controversy over the meaning of Pesach between Rabbi Yoshaiah and Rabbi Yonatan. Rabbi Yoshaiah understands the derivation of the word pesah from the word poseah, to “hop over,” (the houses of the Israelites) while Rabbi Yonatan understands the word as Rabbi Yishmael as “protect,” (God protected the Israelites but not the Egyptians).
Why did the sages” disagree about the meaning of pesah? According to Rabbi Yoshaiah, if the Egyptians who were in Israelite homes had been killed, their Passover sacrifice would have become profane. Therefore God passed over the homes even when an Egyptian was located there and only later did He execute judgment on the first born Egyptians who took shelter in the Israelite homes.
According to Rabbi Yonatan, this was not an issue since the presence of the Egyptian dead would not have prevented them from eating the Passover offering – so that if an Egyptian was in an Israelite home his death would not have prevented the Israelite from eating the offering. On the other hand if a first born Israelite was in Egyptian home, he was protected by God while Egyptians were struck down even if they were in the homes of Israelites.
Why does the Torah place so much emphasis on the fact that the Israelites had to place blood on the door posts of their homes? This act emphasized the sacred nature of the Passover meal. The slaughtering of the lamb and the placing of the blood on the door post made the pesah a sacrificial offering and not a simple ritual slaughter for the purpose of food. Unlike the slaughtering for the purpose of kashrut for which the pouring out of the blood was necessary, this blood had to be sprinkled on the door post just as blood is sprinkled on the altar when offering a sacrifice. This meant that the offering had a sacred quality to it – for Rabbi Yoshaiah, a death could not occur in such a place. For Rabbi Yonatan, God would kill the Egyptian firstborn in an Israelites home but only at the end of the Passover meal.
The verse, “You shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and He smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses,”” is the Torahs” response to the wicked child’s question, “What does this rite mean to you?” When the first born wicked child asks, “What does this service mean to you,” he is really saying, “Why are you bothering with this sacrifice? If I had been in Egypt, I would have been struck down before we left Egypt and there would have been no one to whom you could teach the story of the Exodus ” The father answers that according to Rabbi Yoshaiah’s opinion, even the Egyptians were not struck down during the night of the Passover – therefore, even the first born wicked child would have survived to be a part of the Passover meal. And according to Rabbi Yonatan no one was struck down until after the offering was consumed – so again you could have taken part in Passover meal. The wicked child has no excuse for not listening to the story of the Passover!",
+ "
In the Torah we learn that when the Passover rite was explained to the people, “They bowed in homage.” For what were they thankful? This verse appears in the context of the question posed by the ‘wicked child’ which leads us to wonder what the wicked child might have been thankful for. Rabbi Horowitz offers a reverse order of history – past generations will be redeemed because of the merit of future generations. We tend to think of history moving forward; here history in the past is based on the goodness and hope of future generations. Similarly he teaches that the people of Israel are worthy of redemption because their offspring will tell the story of their redemption. The offspring of the wicked, then, are thankful that their grandchildren deserve redemption despite the wickedness of the parents.
But he saved our houses. The people then bowed low in homage: According to the Mekhilta the Israelites “bowed in homage” because they were aware that they had survived because only “one out of five” (chamushim) of the Israelites survived the plague of darkness. There are several problems with this explanation. First, the Israelites could not have bowed in homage for their survival, since the Israelites set aside the sacrificial lamb before the plague of darkness occurred. Second, what is the connection between the question, “What do you mean by this rite,” and the response, “the people bowed in homage.” And third, we are told that they were thankful that their children and grandchildren would survive to celebrate the Passover. And yet the question (“When your children ask”) is related to the children and not grandchildren.
The answer given in the Haggadah to the wicked child’s question suggests that all the wicked children of that generation died before the Israelites left Egypt. Their grand children, however, would have survived the ninth plague. The Israelites bowed in homage knowing that the young who had not yet become wicked would survive to celebrate the Passover after they left.
While the divine spark of the children is rooted in the parents, the divine spark of the parent is not necessarily rooted in the child. It was for this the parents gave thanks. Unlike conventional thought, past generations are deemed worthy because of the good deeds that future generations will be able to perform. This idea is expressed throughout the Torah. We are told, “In the beginning (Bereshit) God created the heaven and the earth – for a thousand generations.” Some sages read this verse, “Through reishit, through the wisdom of Torah God created the heaven and earth.” God promised to maintain the world because of those not yet born who would follow His commandments. Similarly, we read, “God shows kindness to thousands (of generations.)” That is, through our acts of goodness God continues to show kindness to thousands of generations to come and a thousand generations before. The generations leading up to the giving of the Torah merited redemption because there was a future generation which would accept the Torah.
It does not matter whether Israel accepted the Torah out of love or fear of God, through the actions of those who stood at Sinai, the earlier generations were worthy of redemption. Still there was the mixed multitude who left Egypt with the Israelites who carried the sparks of evil and there were Israelites who were still carrying the remnants of Egyptian idolatry and evil even after they left Egypt."
+ ],
+ [],
+ [
+ "Rabbi Horowitz’s grandson, the editor of this commentary, adds his own comments in a number of places – but he always makes it clear when insights are his own and not those of his grand father. Here he raises the question of why it is necessary to explain the significance of eating matzah on Pesah. In more of a halachic inquiry, he distinguishes the difference between the matzah we eat toward the end of the meal and the matzah we toward the beginning of the meal. The question here is, why do we eat this matzah as opposed to the matzah we eat as the afikomen?
This Matzah which we eat, why do we eat it: (A comment attributed to the grandson of Rabbi Horowitz.) The minimum amount of Matzah that we are obligated to eat at the Passover Seder is a large olive’s worth. However, at a time when we eat the afikomen instead of the Passover offering we eat a second “olives worth” as well in place of the pesah: so we are obligated to eat two olives worth, one when we recite the blessing for the matzah and the second when we eat the afikomen. The first “olives worth” we eat when we are hungry and the second after the meal when we have eaten a full meal as a symbol of the pesah offering which was also eaten when the people were full. So the question, “why do we eat the matzah,” is about the first bit of matzah that we are about to consume. The questioner wonders, shouldn’t it be enough to consume the second bit of matzah which symbolizes the pesah offering? The reason for the two olives worth of matzah are different from one another. While the second replaces the pesah offering (which was originally consumed together with matzah), we still need something as a reminder of the miraculous nature of God’s deliverance. That is why before we eat the first bit of matzah, we explain in conjunction with it, “Even before the dough of our ancestors had time to become leavened, God revealed Himself to them …and redeemed them.” The first piece of matzah is in celebration of the Passover story and the second piece a commemoration of the special offering which our ancestors made on the eve of Passover.
We can now understand the question of the wise child. In his wisdom, he correctly presumes that the pesah offering is the most important symbol of the evening; he doesn’t understand why we don’t begin the meal with the afikomen and then have the rest of the meal. We therefore answer him, “Nothing should be eaten after the afikomen!” He now understands why we begin with another bit of matzah as a reminder of the story and end with the matzah which symbolizes the pesah offering."
+ ],
+ [],
+ [
+ "Exile is as much an internal state of being as it is a physical state of the body. By enslaving their souls, the Egyptians were able to enslave their bodies as well
All their work which they made them do with hard labor: The Zohar explains that the real exile in Egypt was the exile of the soul (and not the body). When the Torah says, “The embittered their lives (hayeihem),” it means they embittered their life force (hiyyutam) and by embittering their life force, they enslaved their bodies as well. The tribe of Levi, on the other hand, was different from the other tribes of Israel. They were not enslaved by the Egyptians because they continued to practice Brit Milah, the covenant of circumcision and they studied Torah as well. The rest of the people of Israel rejected the teachings of their ancestors and as a result they were enslaved by the Egyptians. We learn from the sages of blessed memory, “Anyone who rejects the yoke of Torah receives the yoke of the kingdoms upon himself.” We learn this from the following verse: “Of Levi he said, Let your Tummim and Urim be with your faithful ones; who you tested at Massa and challenged at the waters of Meribah.” Tummim refers to the commandment to circumcise the male children. Urim is a reference to their commitment to study Torah, even in Egypt.
The following is a continuation of the previous discussion as well as a side note regarding the women of Israel. Why weren’t the women persecuted as severely as the men? Horowitz offers a fascinating theory of anti-Semitism. All anti-Semitism grows out of jealousy.
We have seen that the other tribes were subjugated with the exception of the tribe of Levi. Pharaoh also could not subjugate the Israelite women because they were not obligated to observe the covenant or to study Torah. As a result they did not cast off these commandments since they were never obligated to observe them in the first place.
Another note about why the Israelite women were not persecuted: There were three advisors with whom Pharaoh consulted regarding the Israelites: they were Yitro, Bilaam and Job. Why did these three men hate the people of Israel? They were jealous! Yitro was a descendent of Midianites who were the offspring of Abraham’s relationship with Keturah. He was jealous because Moses gave all his holiness and possessions to Isaac and sent the descendents of Keturah away. Similarly, Bilaam was a descendent of Laban who hated Isaac because he married his sister Rebecca. He felt that by doing this, Isaac robbed him of the potential greatness he would have had since Rebecca took away all the divine sparks. Finally, Job married Dinah the daughter of Jacob and was extremely jealous because the sons inherited from their father and Dinah was completely disinherited! Yitro refused to participate in the persecution so he ran away. Job advised oppressing the male children (since he was jealous of the tribes) while Balaam advised oppressing and killing the female children (since he was angry at his sister as well as his two daughters who married Jacob and deprived him of the divine sparks). Bilaam was not powerful enough to convince Pharaoh against the advice of Job – so in Egypt the male children were oppressed by Pharaoh and not the female children.",
+ "Having completed the Maggid, Rabbi Horowitz now reveals the real significance of the practice of telling the story of the Exodus at the Seder. There is a mystical dimension to the telling. When we tell the story we experience the revelation of God’s hidden light which was first created at the very beginning of creation. The light from within is connected with the light from above. The word “This” becomes a key word in this passage. It is only in the radiance of the Divine light that we can point and say, “This!” Once again, Rabbi Horowitz returns to the theme of the wicked child who, like the non-Jews, is not able to see the light and therefore cannot benefit from it.
In every generation each person is obligated to see himself as if he went forth from Egypt: The “seeing” here refers to the ability of the intellect to perceive the “hidden light of the Divine.” Just as this light was revealed at the moment of Israel’s redemption, so it is revealed anew each year on Passover. This light was also revealed at the Red Sea, as Israel sang, “THIS is My God and I shall glorify Him!” And in the time of future redemption, the people of Israel shall say, “THIS is our God!” So too, when we say, “It is because of THIS that God did for me when I went out of Egypt,” what we are really saying is, “It was for THIS light which God revealed at the time of the Exodus,” That God redeemed us from Egypt.
Others cannot be jealous of this light for those who cannot perceive it, cannot see of it. This light is also the light of Shabbat about which the sages said “a reward is given to those who perceive it.” We also say, “I have a precious gift in my treasury; it is the hidden light.”
We also find the following verse in Scripture: “How abundant is the good that you have stored away for those who fear You; that You do in the full view of men for those take refuge in You. You can grant them the protection of Your Presence against scheming men.” God reveals His light in the “full view of men” because they cannot be jealous since others are incapable of perceiving this Divine light. Therefore, “Then they shall say among the nations, the Lord has done great things. The Lord will do great things with us and we will rejoice.” That is, in the future the nations will rejoice because they did not perceive the great things that God has done for Israel and therefore we will be able to rejoice!
Similarly, the wicked child of whom we said “God did this for me, and not for him,” will not be able to perceive this divine light either because he is “uncircumcised,” not literally but spiritually. The wicked child has an uncircumcised heart, as we read in scripture, “Then the Lord you God will circumcise you heart and the hearts of your offspring…” and “Any person may eat of it, once he has been circumcised.” The consuming here is both physical and spiritual, as we read in scripture, “They behold God and they ate and drank.” This verse is translated in Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Torah as, “They rejoiced in their sacrifices as if they ate and drank.”"
+ ],
+ [
+ "Rabbi Horowitz now returns to the theme he offered earlier in the Haggadah: the redemption took place so that we can tell this story. The Exodus is always present for us – it did not happen long ago but is an event that shapes our lives now. Its significance was for our sake. In a sense Rabbi Horowitz suggests that the Exodus becomes less real if we forget about it and do not recount it to our children and our children’s children. The wicked child who does not recount the story of the Exodus is unworthy of redemption because he minimizes the story of the Exodus by not recounting it. Had he been in Egypt, he would have been unworthy of redemption – not only because of his wickedness but because he would have failed to tell the story in the future
It is because of THIS that God did for me when I went forth from Egypt: We now can understand scripture, “In order that you may recount in the listening of you children and your children’s children.” All of this happened in Egypt for the sake of telling generations and generations the story of the Exodus. God took you out of Egypt so that you would be able to tell the story to your children for generations to come. This is what we mean when we say, It was because of THIS…all that happened in Egypt happened so we could sit here together and tell this story tonight! God did all this so that we could feel as if we personally went forth from Egypt. Scripture says, “Remember this day when you went forth from Egypt.” The verse does not say, “Remember the day you went forth from Egypt;” it says “THIS DAY” Each year we experience “THIS DAY” all over again. On Passover, the same great light is aroused which was aroused on the day of the Exodus from Egypt.
“He shall be the stability of your times, a store of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge, the fear of the Lord is his treasure.” This verse applies to the Jewish holiday cycle. Each year the days of Passover are a “store of salvation.” We re-experience salvation on this day. Wisdom and knowledge refers to Shavuot when we receive the source of all knowledge and wisdom - the Torah. And, “fear of the Lord” is a reference to the Days of Awe. Each year in the month of Tishri, the light is aroused again on Yom Kippur when Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the second set of the tablets of the covenant. “And you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Everyone is obligated to instruct his children to tell the story of the Exodus to his children in times to come, so that he in turn will tell the story to his children… just as we find it in the Haggadah, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in the Land of Egypt.” This is just as we are commanded to do in the Torah: “You shall tell your child on that day.” Thus, King David, of blessed memory said: “That a future generation might know – children yet to be born – and in turn tell their children that they may put their confidence in the Lord.”
All the miracles and wonders performed in Egypt were for the sake of the commandment that would be performed by the generations in telling the story of the Exodus, and as we learn at the beginning of Genesis: the child gives merit to the parent according to the number of generations before him. God performed all these miracles and wonders for the people in Israel even though they were not worthy of them. Rather He performed these miracles so that others (in the future) might be able to fulfill the mitzvah for many generations. It was for “THIS MITZVAH” of telling the story that God took me out of Egypt!
Thus, we say to the wicked child who does not tell the story, “God did this for me and not for you because I am the one who is still telling the story of the Exodus.” He would not have been redeemed since the only reason that God redeemed us all was so that they would tell the story.
And when the Haggadah say, “Anyone who expands on the story is praiseworthy,” it means that the story is full of praise for the Holy One. Telling God’s wonders is praise for God and for the one who repeats the story since it was for this very reason that there were wonders. Since he causes such praise there is nothing more praiseworthy than this.
"
+ ]
+ ],
+ "First Half of Hallel": [],
+ "Second Cup of Wine": []
+ },
+ "Rachtzah": [],
+ "Motzi Matzah": [],
+ "Maror": [],
+ "Korech": [],
+ "Shulchan Orech": [],
+ "Tzafun": [],
+ "Barech": {
+ "Birkat Hamazon": [],
+ "Third Cup of Wine": [],
+ "Pour Out Thy Wrath": []
+ },
+ "Hallel": {
+ "Second Half of Hallel": [],
+ "Songs of Praise and Thanks": [],
+ "Fourth Cup of Wine": []
+ },
+ "Nirtzah": {
+ "Chasal Siddur Pesach": [],
+ "L'Shana HaBaa": [],
+ "And It Happened at Midnight": [],
+ "Zevach Pesach": [],
+ "Ki Lo Na'e": [],
+ "Adir Hu": [],
+ "Sefirat HaOmer": [],
+ "Echad Mi Yodea": [],
+ "Chad Gadya": []
+ }
+ },
+ "versions": [
+ [
+ "Peirush Hafla'ah on Pesach Haggadah, translated and interpreted by Rabbi Mark B. Greenspan, Oceanside, NY, 2010",
+ "https://www.sefaria.org/"
+ ]
+ ],
+ "heTitle": "פירוש הפלאה על הגדה של פסח",
+ "categories": [
+ "Liturgy",
+ "Haggadah",
+ "Commentary"
+ ],
+ "schema": {
+ "heTitle": "פירוש הפלאה על הגדה של פסח",
+ "enTitle": "Peirush Hafla'ah on Pesach Haggadah",
+ "key": "Peirush Hafla'ah on Pesach Haggadah",
+ "nodes": [
+ {
+ "heTitle": "קדש",
+ "enTitle": "Kadesh"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "ורחץ",
+ "enTitle": "Urchatz"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "כרפס",
+ "enTitle": "Karpas"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "יחץ",
+ "enTitle": "Yachatz"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מגיד",
+ "enTitle": "Magid",
+ "nodes": [
+ {
+ "heTitle": "הא לחמא עניא",
+ "enTitle": "Ha Lachma Anya"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מה נשתנה",
+ "enTitle": "Four Questions"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "עבדים היינו",
+ "enTitle": "We Were Slaves in Egypt"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מעשה שהיה בבני ברק",
+ "enTitle": "Story of the Five Rabbis"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "כנגד ארבעה בנים",
+ "enTitle": "The Four Sons"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "יכול מראש חודש",
+ "enTitle": "Yechol Me'rosh Chodesh"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מתחילה עובדי עבודה זרה היו אבותינו",
+ "enTitle": "In the Beginning Our Fathers Were Idol Worshipers"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "ארמי אבד אבי",
+ "enTitle": "First Fruits Declaration"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "עשר המכות",
+ "enTitle": "The Ten Plagues"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "דיינו",
+ "enTitle": "Dayenu"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "פסח מצה ומרור",
+ "enTitle": "Rabban Gamliel's Three Things"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "חצי הלל",
+ "enTitle": "First Half of Hallel"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "כוס שניה",
+ "enTitle": "Second Cup of Wine"
+ }
+ ]
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "רחצה",
+ "enTitle": "Rachtzah"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מוציא מצה",
+ "enTitle": "Motzi Matzah"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מרור",
+ "enTitle": "Maror"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "כורך",
+ "enTitle": "Korech"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "שולחן עורך",
+ "enTitle": "Shulchan Orech"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "צפון",
+ "enTitle": "Tzafun"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "ברך",
+ "enTitle": "Barech",
+ "nodes": [
+ {
+ "heTitle": "ברכת המזון",
+ "enTitle": "Birkat Hamazon"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "כוס שלישית",
+ "enTitle": "Third Cup of Wine"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "שפוך חמתך",
+ "enTitle": "Pour Out Thy Wrath"
+ }
+ ]
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "הלל",
+ "enTitle": "Hallel",
+ "nodes": [
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מסיימים את ההלל",
+ "enTitle": "Second Half of Hallel"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "מזמורי הודיה",
+ "enTitle": "Songs of Praise and Thanks"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "כוס רביעית",
+ "enTitle": "Fourth Cup of Wine"
+ }
+ ]
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "נרצה",
+ "enTitle": "Nirtzah",
+ "nodes": [
+ {
+ "heTitle": "חסל סידור פסח",
+ "enTitle": "Chasal Siddur Pesach"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "לשנה הבאה",
+ "enTitle": "L'Shana HaBaa"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "ויהי בחצי הלילה",
+ "enTitle": "And It Happened at Midnight"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "זבח פסח",
+ "enTitle": "Zevach Pesach"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "אדיר במלוכה",
+ "enTitle": "Ki Lo Na'e"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "אדיר הוא",
+ "enTitle": "Adir Hu"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "ספירת העומר",
+ "enTitle": "Sefirat HaOmer"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "אחד מי יודע",
+ "enTitle": "Echad Mi Yodea"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "חד גדיא",
+ "enTitle": "Chad Gadya"
+ }
+ ]
+ }
+ ]
+ }
+}
\ No newline at end of file