Seder Tidbits Part 2
Posted by Rabbi Avi Heller on March 19, 2010 | Tags: Pesach
This week, we continue our seder tour. I hope these insights will help you prepare for yours!
MAGGID
"Maggid" literally means "the one who tells." Most of the previous actions -- washing without a blessing, eating the karpas and dipping it in salt water, breaking the middle matza and hiding the afikoman etc. - have been designed to stimulate questions, especially on the part of the children. Though the questions are not finished, the seder leader begins to shape the conversation and direct the discussion to important topics related to Jewish identity and history.
Interestingly, the verb used to describe this process is "telling." We usually refer to the Biblical commandment of recounting the exodus as "sippur yetziat mitzrayim", which is more like story-telling[1]. Telling - as in haggada (the very name of the book we are using!) - has different resonances. Rabbi Yitzchak Mirsky suggest that "telling" means to give over new information, something that one did not know before. He bases this on the first use of the verb in the Torah, when God asks Adam and Chava who "told" them that were naked. By eating from the forbidden tree, they came to know things that they had not before. Their eyes were opened. In the seder context, it means precisely that we should not be doing a rote performance of familiar actions at the seder, but that we should be trying to actively LEARN something new. The seder should be a revelatory affair, in which our knowledge of and appreciation for our Judaism increases. For this reason, I applaud the practice of having each seder member prepare something to teach at the seder. Everyone can be both a teacher and a student on the seder night.
The Midrash suggests an additional meaning for the verb "telling", relating "maggid" to "gid", which is a sinew. Sinews are much tougher and harder than the surrounding muscle flesh. When the Torah was given, the text says that it should be "told" to "b'nei yisrael" (sons of Israel) and "said" to "beit Ya'akov" (house of Jacob). The Midrash suggests that the men (b'nei yisrael) were to be "told", that is, spoken toughly to ("words tough like sinews"), while the women (beit yaakov)[2] were to be spoken to more softly. It was understood that men needed one kind of motivation for keeping God's will, while women needed another. In the seder context, this suggests that part of what we are meant to experience in the seder are uncomfortable truths. We might not like everything we hear in the seder, we might be challenged. Some of the things the seder experience requires of us - renewed commitment to areas of our Judaism we have been lax in - might be hard for us to hear.
A third interpretation is brought by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who also uses the midrashic connection of "telling" to "sinew." A sinew's job is to connect the muscles and limbs to each other so that the body's physics help us move, lift, twist etc. Therefore, the idea of the seder is to connect things, to look for patterns that will tie Jewish history and experience together. The telling of each individual seder item is not isolated, but is part of the mosaic pattern of Judaism.
Rabbi Soloveitchik (in the haggada "Siach Hagri"d"), in his typical way, gives an interpretation that might tie all these ideas together. He suggests that - like so many things in the seder - there are two dinim (aspects) to maggid. One is the asking of questions that really bother us. The question and answer format is not pro forma; it is really a time for children to ask the questions that bother them (as opposed to school, where we teach them to ask the questions we want them to ask) and a time for the adults to discuss and argue about important topics. The second aspect is the format of the seder, which is designed to be in Q and A format. In other words, we cannot answer "we were slaves in Egypt" until we have asked "what is different about this night?" The "telling" (as in questions-and-response) is both the outer form of the seder and the inner form.
The Four Sons
Rabbi Sacks notes that the question of the wise son is not found in Sh'mot, which tells the story of the Exodus, but in D'varim, the end of the Torah, in the 04th year of their wandering in the desert. The wise son is not only wise because he was born that way, but because he has learned from his experience. After forty years of learning and life experience, he becomes the wise son. We ALL can become the "wise sons" (or daughters), if we learn from our experiences and mistakes.
Rabbi Sacks suggests that the wicked sons' problem, i.e. the reason we call him a rasha - is because his question is "What is this service to YOU?" The definition of wickedness here is not theological or about how religious or observant he/she is, but about identification with the Jewish community, with Jewish existence and community. This is what is so painful about people who ally themselves with those who want to kill Jews or wipe out Israel. Whether they are Neturei Karta anti-Zionists or left-wing Palestinian solidarity activists, they are making themselves wicked by turning the Jewish state and people into the "you" and not the "we". For the rest of us Jews, struggling to find our way in our Judaism, community is the only way to enter into it authentically. As Rabbi Sacks writes: "Belonging is the first step to believing."
Ten Plagues and Hallel
It is interesting to note that we never really relate the story of the Exodus in any detail during the seder. Instead of a seder text, we might have just read the first 12 chapters of Sh'mot, which tells the whole story. Perhaps the purpose of the haggada is not really to tell the story. The telling of the story is really building up to the recitation of Hallel, which we begin (but do not finish) at the end of maggid. In other words, everything we discuss is meant to make us feel gratitude and praise for what God did to us so that we are ready - spontaneously -- to praise God. We then recite Hallel to put words to the emotion that is naturally springing forth from our hearts. This might explain why we spend so much time discussing the ten plagues. First, we mention them as an interpretation of Devarim 26:8. Then, we count them out (spilling a drop of wine for each), count out their abbreviation and include a lengthy discussion of how many plagues there really were (the opinions are 60, 240 and 300, respectively.) Finally, we reiterate some of them in the beginning of Dayenu. If this were all about glorifying the suffering and degradation of the Egyptians, it would be a bit unseemly. But perhaps the real reason is to instill gratitude in our hearts. The Mishna in Pirkei Avot says (according to Rambam) that for every plague brought upon the Egyptians there was an equal and opposite miracle done for the Jewish people. Thus, we are focusing on what was done FOR us, not TO others[3].
RACHTZA
There is a pattern in the seder of beginning something, interrupting in the middle and completing it later. One example, as I mentioned above, is that we begin Hallel before the meal (during maggid) and then complete it afterwards (during the seder step called hallel.) Another example is washing the hands, which we did at the beginning of the seder without a blessing and now do again with a blessing. A third example is that we ask a whole series of questions (or observations) about matza, marror and dipping in the four questions and then don't get around to really dealing with the answer until the every end of maggid, when we hold up the matza and marror. Perhaps this sends the message that redemption doesn't always happen all at once. Just like the seder has many steps, so does our story. Just like we interrupt the action in the seder and then resume it later, sometimes in our own lives we surge forward, then plateau or regress, and only later are able to go forward again. In this sense, this pattern of interruption symbolizes not giving up. If you tried to do something and only partially succeeded or even failed, you can fortify yourself and try again later.
MOTZI MATZA
We make two blessings on the matza, the typical "hamotzi lechem min haaretz" ("Who brings forth bread from the ground") and "al achilat matza ("on the eating of matza"). In some sense, matza is really just bread. It has the same ingredients and the same process of kneading and baking. The only difference is that we don't allow the yeast to ferment and rise. Even the words chametz (chet-mem-tzadi) and matza (mem-tzadi-hey) are almost identical. The mem and tzadi are the same and the only difference between a hey (ה) and a chet (ח)is a little dribble of ink. Sometimes the difference between success and failure, good and evil, or slavery and redemption is miniscule. Human beings share 99.9% identical DNA, but the tiny differences between us make us unique biologically and spiritually. In matza, we celebrate the huge impact of making small changes.
MARROR
Many people use ground horseradish for marror. Though we may enjoy the bitterness as a sign of how tough we are (ah, men), there is no doubt that eating it is difficult and bitter. Others use Romaine lettuce, which is similar to other vegetables mentioned in the Mishna as good for marror. These are not really bitter (it's just lettuce.) Perhaps the idea of bitter herbs is not necessarily meant to make us feel bitter or to go through suffering, but just to recall the bitterness of the slavery. While the matza reminds us of the process of leaving and the Passover lamb (now absent from our seders) reminds of the state of being free post-exodus, the marror reminds us of where we were at the beginning of the redemption. Just like the matza doesn't have to "taste" like anything and the Pesach lamb doesn't have to taste sweet, perhaps the marror only needs to remind us of slavery, not taste bitter.
KORECH
As I mentioned above, the matza, marror and pesach are meant to be experienced together as a process. We were slaves, we were redeemed, and then we became free. These can be experienced sequentially, chronologically (like in the previous seder steps), or they can be experienced together. In korech, we experience them together. We put together all the key ingredients in a sandwich (long before the Earl of Sandwich[4]), symbolizing that at the seder, we are simultaneously slaves, free and becoming free. At the seder, we transcend time.
In addition, the experience of korech allows us to combine the experiences of bitter and sweet, of slavery and redemption. (This is also why we add a little charoset, which is sweet, but also shake it off). In life, nothing is ever 100% good or bad. If we are to be happy and satisfied with our portion, we must learn ho to make a sandwich out of our lives. In fact, the bitter ingredients can sometimes combine with the sweet to be an even more satisfying whole than if it were all sweet. So may it be that the bitter parts of our life be not really bitter, but just seasoning for our happiness. Shabbat shalom!
Footnotes
[1] "sippur" is both the word for telling a story and also related to the word for counting. A good story-teller is both an artist and a historian, keeps track of both the quantity and the quality of the story.
[2] Incidentally, this is why Sara Schnirrer called Orthodox girls' schools "beis ya'akov"
[3] This is also the famous interpretation of the Abudarham that we spill out the wine to show compassion for the suffering of the Egyptians.
[4] Interestingly, he too 'invented' the sandwich as time-saving mechanism, but it was because he was an addicted gambler and did not want to take time away from his gambling to prepare separate ingredients, so he just squished them together.
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Rabbi Avi HellerJoined: July 27, 2007 Originally from Denver CO, Rav Avi received a BA from BU and Rabbinic ordination and an MA in Bible from YU. Before joining MJE, he was Director of Jewish Education at BU Hillel, co-directed the BU Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus and was an Associate University Chaplain. He has been the... Divrei Torah (67) |
