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Overview
of the Torah Reading
To be read on Shabbat First Day of Passover,
15 Nisan 5784 /April 23
Torah: Ex. 12:21-51, Num.28:16 - 25; Haftorah:
Joshua 3:5-7, 5:2-6:1,6:27
 An
Essay from
Rabbi Shaul Yosef Leiter, Director of Ascent
(for a free weekly email subscription, click
here)
Towards the beginning of the Hagadah, soon after
we voice an invitation for guests to join us in the meal, we are told,
"All those that increase (hamarbeh) in their telling about
the exodus from Mitzrayim are praiseworthy!" Generally, this
is understood to mean that one should add to his or her telling of the
miracles G-d did for us more than 3,000 years ago. This is because the
paragraph that follows in the Hagadah is about the 4 scholars who
remained awake all of the seder night telling the stories of the
exodus. There is a Chassidic commentary that says that the word "increase"
can also mean to have a lot of people over, that we should add (i.e. increase)
in our guests at the seder table to publicize G-d's miracle with
a crowd! There is a hint to this in the Psalms (109/30): "I will
praise G-d very much with my mouth, and together with many I will extol
Him!" Rabbi Dov Greenberg explains the invitation to guests in the
Hagadah's first paragraph in a different way. The whole event of the Hagadah
is to remind us that the Almighty freed us from slavery. A prisoner's
mentality is to hoard rather than to share. He is fearful of the lack
of control in his life and must guard against any unforeseen turn. Even
though the final redemption has not yet arrived, still G-d has freed us,
His people, from the total slavery of Mitzrayim. By inviting guest
and sharing what we have, we show we are no longer slaves.
* * *
The purpose of the 10 plagues was not only to humble and punish the Egyptians
for their treatment of the Jews but also to show the Jewish people G-d's
greatness. G-d's greatness was not just in His show of power but also
in His hinting to the Jews a rule for how they had to grow spiritually.
We see this in the first two plagues, Blood and Frogs. The Rambam writes
(Yesodei HaTorah 4/2), "the nature of fire is to be hot and dry …
and water to be cold and wet." Water is cold and wet. The nature
of blood on the other hand is to be warm. The Torah teaches us (Dvorim,
12/23) that a person's blood is the body's vessel for the soul. The soul
is a person's life force. And life brings warmth.
It follows that the strength of the blood was to transform the cold water
to blood, from coldness to warmth! We see almost the opposite phenomenon
with the plague of frogs. A frog lives in the water which shows its coldness.
Yet what does the Torah tell us about the frogs? That they entered into
the ovens of the Egyptians (Shmos 7/28)! While the plague of blood turned
cold to hot, the plague of frogs turned the heat to coolness. How can
we understand this?
The Nile River was worshipped by the Egyptians as one of their G-ds.
On a subtle spiritual level the Torah is telling us that the Egyptians
wanted to make the Jewish people cold to all aspects of holiness and divine
worship. That even if we serve G-d completely and fulfill His will in
all its details, still our evil inclination tries to sidetrack the person,
telling him it is enough to serve G-d in a cold way. Do not feel obligated
to serve G-d with liveliness and enthusiasm.
And when a person is cool to holiness and divine service he does not
get excited about holiness, the natural result is that his enthusiasm
and warmth gets directed to worldly and impure things far from holiness.
It is a person's nature that when we are cold to holiness, we automatically
get warm and excited about those empty things that are lacking in holiness.
And this was the impure mission of Mitzrayim: to cool off the Jew
from holiness and to get him warm and excited about anything but.
This then is the inner dimension of the plagues of blood and frogs. First
G-d transformed the Nile to blood. In place of coldness to holiness, G-d
transformed it to excitement about serving G-d. And only afterwards came
the frogs that jumped straight into the ovens. Rather than a warmth to
inappropriate things - worldliness far from holiness - there should be
coldness, and all his or her warmth and excitement should be for holiness
alone. Not just then, now too!
How can we say at the end of the Hagadah, Next year in Jerusalem!
Aren't we supposed to be waiting every day for Mashiach's arrival? Why
wait till next year? There is no contradiction here at all. Be"H,
next year's seder will be after the Mashiach has arrived, when all the
Jewish people will be gathered together again in the holy land, as part
of the annual Passover pilgrimage to the 3rd Temple, newly rebuilt by
the Almighty Himself. Amen
Shabbat Shalom and a Kosher and Happy Pesach
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