Parshas Tazria (Hachodesh) 5779
Passover
1) In the Torah, G-d generally refers to the holiday of Passover as Chag Hamatzos, “the Festival of Unleavened Bread†(see, for example, Exodus 23:15 and Leviticus 23:6). The Jewish people, on the other hand, have always called it Chag HaPesach "the Festival of Passover†(or simply “Passoverâ€). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev explains that this reflects the reciprocal love relationship that we Jews have with G-d. G-d calls the holiday of Passover Chag HaMatzos (in the Torah) to express praise of his beloved children who left Egypt and followed Him into a desert with only some matzah that they barely had time to bake, so great was their faith in G-d. The Jews call it Chag HaPesach or Passover, to express praise of their beloved Father in Heaven who passed over the Jews’ houses when he unleashed the plague of the Egyptian firstborn.
2) Rashi, in his commentary to the verse in Exodus 12:13, “I shall pass over you…†quotes Targum Onkelos and Mechilta who are of the opinion that the root word Pesach does not mean “passing over†but actually means “mercyâ€, with the intended meaning of the verse that G-d will have mercy on the Jews in their homes and spare their firstborn sons’ lives. According to this view, the holiday of Pesach should really be called “Mercyâ€. [Imagine telling all your friends that you are flying to Miami for Mercy. And how about all those expensive “Kosher for Mercy†products at the supermarket?]
3) In Eretz Yisrael (the “Land of Israel), Passover is over after only seven days, whereas everywhere else (or what Jewish law refers to as chutz l’aretz – “outside the Landâ€) Passover runs an additional day. [For an explanation of why this is so, click on: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/527614/jewish/Why-Do-We-Still-Celebrate-Holidays-for-Two-Days-in-the-Diaspora.htm]
4) The very first Passover Seder in history took place on that fateful night in Egypt when G-d passed over the Jews’ homes and killed all the Egyptian firstborn exactly 3331 years ago, and the holiday has been observed by even the most “secular†Jews until this very day. Talk about long streaks! [Now if you think that 3331 years is a really long time ago and that whatever might have happened on that night is just too far away in history for us to even relate to … then I recommend that you read this amazing article at https://ohr.edu/836. It will change the way you think about Passover and history!]
5) One of the most prominent features of the Passover Seder – and which is now sorely lacking ever since the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE – is the Korban Pesach (Paschal Lamb). As the Torah instructs us in Exodus 12:8 regarding the lamb that each Jewish household had taken for itself in preparation for the Passover Seder night: “They shall eat the flesh on that night – roasted over the fire – and matzos; with bitter herbs shall they eat itâ€. [I can just imagine the Jews’ reaction upon hearing about the Paschal Lamb, one of the first commandments that G-d gave to the Jewish people after we became a nation … “One second here! Did G-d just give us a commandment to eat roasted shawarma with lettuce?! We can do this!â€]
Matzah
6) The Zohar in Parshas Tetzaveh calls matzah the “Bread of Faithâ€. The Bnei Yisaschar explains that unlike the baking of chametz (leavened bread) in which both the baker and the dough “contribute†to the baking process (the dough rises, and the baker bakes it in an oven), the matzah is totally “passive†during its baking, as the baker does all the baking my himself. It is for this reason that the matzah is called the “Bread of Faithâ€, as it reminds us as we ingest it at the Passover Seder that like the matzah, we too are ultimately passive and given to G-d’s control to do with us whatever He likes – as He showed us clearly in Egypt - and we should therefore place our faith in Him and in nobody else, as He alone runs the world.
7) The Zohar (ibid) also refers to the matzah that we eat at the Passover Seder as the “Bread of Healingâ€. The commentators explain that the sins that we commit are really a “sickness†of the soul. The Yetzer Hara (“evil urgeâ€) whose job it is to get us to sin is referred to in the Talmud as se’or sheb’isa, the “yeast in the doughâ€. Just as the yeast “puffs up†the dough, making it look bigger than it is, when it is just full of air, so too does the Yetzer Hara get us to sin by making temptations seem bigger than they truly are. Matzah is G-d’s prescription for the spiritually sick. When we eat the matzah which has no yeast and does not present itself as being more than it is, we absorb this vital lesson and are healed.
8) The opening paragraph of the Maggid section of the Haggadah that we read at the Passover Seder begins with the following words: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egyptâ€. Most commentators seem to understand the “bread of affliction†as referring to the matzah that our ancestors ate as they were rushing out of Egypt to freedom on the morning following the Plague of the Firstborn. However, others suggest that this refers to the matzah that the Jewish people ate all the years while they were slaves languishing in Egypt. Apparently, this is what the Egyptians served their slaves. In fact,
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1167), who was once imprisoned in India, recounts that prisoners and slaves there were fed a matzah-like food, since it’s cheap and filling. How ironic that the very same matzah that the Jewish people were fed during all those years of slavery in Egypt would ultimately become a symbol of their very freedom from slavery! Only G-d could pull that one off!
9) Most matzos today are made from thin sheets of pressed dough baked at extremely high temperatures in wood-stoked ovens. They are produced in the form of large, thin crackers, either round in shape (if hand-made) or square in shape (if machine-made). This type of matzah is made in accordance with Ashkenazi tradition. However, there are communities even today – Yemenite and some Sefardic – that bake and eat softer and more chewy matzos, which more closely resemble pita. Sign me up!
10) These days you can purchase a pound of hand-made shmurah matzah at your local Jewish supermarket for around $26 USD – though I hear that they might be cheaper at Costco. (There are roughly 6-8 matzos in a pound, depending on the thickness of the matzos.) But I wouldn’t fret too much about the super high price tag for what is essentially tasteless bread. You see, eating matzah on the Festival of Passover is a mitzvah, and we have a wonderful tradition that any money spent on Shabbos or Festivals will be “given back†by G-d (not to mention the reward one gets for this mitzvah in the Next World.). As our Sages taught in the Talmud in Beitzah 16a: “All of a person’s sustenance [for the entire year] is determined for him [during the ten days] between Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, except for the money he spends for Shabbos and the Festivals, and to pay the tuition for his children’s Torah education. If he spends less [for any of these] he is given less, and if he spends more he is given more.â€
Maror
11) The mitzvah of eating maror (“bitter herbâ€) at the Seder is meant as a reminder of the bitterness of the slavery in Egypt. However, not all bitter herbs qualify for this mitzvah. The Rabbis identify five varieties of vegetables that are valid for the maror requirement: chazeres (lettuce), ulshin (endives), tamcha (horseradish), charchevina, and maror. Most people today use either bug-free romaine lettuce or grated horseradish or both.
12) Of the five varieties of maror, chazeres (lettuce) is the most halachically preferred (even though it doesn’t taste ‘bitter’ like horseradish does). This is because it possesses a certain characteristic which makes it especially symbolic of the nature of the bitterness in the Egyptian bondage. Just as chazeres is sweet at first (when starting to grow), then turns bitter (if left growing for too long), so too, were our ancestors treated treacherously by the Egyptians (first as the aristocracy, then as slaves).
13) Charoses is a dip that is traditionally made from chopped walnuts and apples, spiced with cinnamon and sweet red wine. There are many symbolic reasons why we have charoses at the Passover Seder. Its thick texture and cloudy color serve to recall the mortar that the Jewish slaves used for making bricks in Egypt. The red wine content of the charoses serves to recall the first of the ten plagues – the plague of blood. Additionally, the apple content of the charoses is to remind us of the apple orchards in Egypt where the women would go to meet their husbands with food and drink. The husbands, exhausted after a day of slave labor, had no interest in or strength for intimacy. Therefore, the women would beautify themselves and bring their husbands refreshments in order to maintain marital life and allow the Jewish people to continue to reproduce. When the women were ready to give birth they would do so in these same orchards in order to avoid the spying eyes of Pharaoh’s officers. However, the main reason why we must have charoses at the Seder Table is actually medicinal – it is to neutralize any harmful effect of kappa (see Talmud Pesachim 115b). Kappa is either an acrid element in the sap, or a small wormy insect that is found on the surface of vegetables, and it can be poisonous (although it is not prevalent today). Therefore, before the maror is eaten, it is dipped into charoses whose ingredients have the ability to neutralize the possible poisonous effects of kappa. Bet you never knew that!
14) The bread-enclosed convenience food known as the "sandwich" is attributed to John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), a British statesman and notorious profligate and gambler, who is said to be the inventor of this type of food so that he would not have to leave his gaming table to take supper. The fact is that the good Earl wasn’t the first person to come up with this idea. The first recorded sandwich in history was made by the famous rabbi, Hillel the Elder, who lived during the 1st century BCE. As we read each year in the Korech (“sandwichâ€) section of the Haggadah: “Thus did Hillel in Temple times: He would combine (the Paschal lamb,) matzah and maror in a sandwich and eat them together, to fulfill what is written in the Torah: "They shall eat it with matzos and bitter herbs."
15) We can ask a serious question on the order of the Passover Seder. (Seder actually means “orderâ€). If matzah represents freedom and redemption, and maror represents slavery and bondage, then why do we first eat the matzah and then the maror at the Passover Seder? After all, we were enslaved before we were redeemed?! Maybe we can suggest the following answer: Only after the Jews were redeemed from Egypt were they able to fully appreciate the “good within the badâ€, and to recognize how their slavery and bondage was ultimately for their own benefit. The Sfas Emes writes from the Zohar that the anti-semitism and persecution that the Jews had to undergo in Egypt was actually a blessing in disguise, as it served as a barrier against assimilation and intermarriage. And the suffering that they endured all those years purified the Jewish people and made them worthy and capable of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai.
May we all merit to see the Final Redemption of the Jewish people this Passover with the coming of the Messiah speedily and in our days. Amen.
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