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March 22, 2004

Passover and Human Diversity (2004)

Pesach General Jewish Thought Ketuvim
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Biblical Anthropology - Passover (2008)

In Exodus, the Bible (in the original JPS translation) Exodus 12:6-8, says, "6. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. 7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee, in all thy borders. 8 And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that – "ba’avur zeh" – which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt"Because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt." What is the antecedent of the word "that?" The verse lacks clarity and is therefore open to various interpretations. In the 1985 JPS translation of Tanakh, the ambiguity is resolved: "And you shall explain to your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.” Hence, clearly, the Passover ritual is occasioned by the need to acknowledge and praise the Lord for liberating us from the shackles of Egypt. That is, indeed, the common understanding of this key sentence. Rashbam, and apparently Onkelos, agree with this reading of our text, as do Ramban and others. However, Rashi and more explicitly Ibn Ezra and implied in the Targum Jonathan, reverse the cause and effect: It is in order that I perform these rituals that the Lord took us out of Egypt. Ramban, as I mentioned, is critical of this translation, one which is adopted as well (without mentioning the above authorities) by a famous contemporary scholar, R. Yitzchak Zev Halevi Soloveitchik. At first, this seems to be an outrageous halakho-centric exegesis: it is not the divine gift of freedom that is celebrated at the Passover Seder. Rather, He blessed us with freedom so that we might perform the mitzvot of Passover: the matzah, the bitter herbs, the Haggadah narrative.However, upon further reflection, what they are saying is that, in general, the Torah is not here to teach us history unrelated to practica…
Bo Pesach General Jewish Thought

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עבדות וחרות (2005)

הרב אשרי, שו״ת ממעמקים, עמ׳ נ״ו–נ״ז: נשאל ע״י יהודי בגטו קובנה בליטא איך יוכל לברך "שלא עשני עבד" בזמן שהיהודים בשבי ובצער ורחוקים מאוד מהיות בני חורין. השיב על פי אבודרהם שהברכה אינה על העבדות עצמה אלא על כך שעבד כנעני אינו ראוי לבוא בקהל ואינו שייך במצוות. What a courageous/magnificent response! What, in the very pit of human degradation! אולם: ״השתא עבדי, לשנה הבאה בני חורין״; "עבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים" – האם אנו פטורים מברכת "שלא עשני עבד"? ודאי שלא, ואנו חייבים לברך! So, two kinds of slavery: physical–social / ethical–spiritual. עבד לפרעה – עבד לה׳... What if a Jew is a U.S. citizen, not formally a slave, but also not observant? For example: a sincere non-Orthodox American Jew – thus neither a slave to Pharaoh nor to God? The answer begins with another question I’ve often wondered about regarding יציאת מצרים. Of course, יציאת מצרים is an introduction to Sinai, thus to תורה ומצוות. But if so, why is יציאת מצרים mentioned so frequently, while הר סיני appears only once or twice? The answer is that יציאת מצרים is not as deep as Sinai, but it is broader: מוסר, דרך ארץ, and other ethical foundations are hinted at in the Torah but not expanded – and clearly, עבדות לה׳ began not at Sinai but at יציאת מצרים. That is hinted at in a wonderful Yalkut on Tehillim (247): אתה מוצא כ״ו דורות משנברא העולם עד שיצאו ישראל ממצרים ולא אמרו הלל, ובשעה שבאה מכת בכורות, עמד לו פרעה והלך אצל משה ואהרן, שנאמר "ויקרא פרעה למשה ולאהרן לילה", היה דופק פרעה על פתחיהן... התחיל פרעה צווח: לשעבר הייתם עבדי, ועכשיו הרי אתם בני חורין – אין אתם אלא עבדים של הקב״ה! צריכים אתם להלל להקב״ה שאתם עבדיו, שנאמר "הללויה הללו עבדי ה׳". כלומר: פרעה לא הכיר במצב־ביניים של חצי־עבד וחצי־בן־חורין – אם אינך עבד לפרעה, אתה מוכרח להיות עבד לה׳! In other words, if not a slave to Pharaoh, then automatically a servant of God – even if the Torah has not yet been received. So, one can be an עבד ה׳ before Torah – if sincere. אילו נתן לנו את התורה / אילו הוציאנו ממצרים – there are many “Dayenus” in between. Thus the Ko…
Pesach General Jewish Thought

Synagogue Sermon

The Wise and the Foolish (1962)

One of the most popular and beloved of all the passages of the Haggadah is the one about the Four Sons. The Haggadah divides people into four categories: the Chakham or Wise Son, the Rasha or Wicked Son, the Tam or Simple Son, and the one who is not intelligent enough even to ask. We are all acquainted with the questions that are asked and the answers that we are instructed to give to each of them. In this respect, the author of the Haggadah follows one of the earliest Talmudic works, the Mekhilta. To the question of the chakham or Wise Son, mah ha-edot ve’ha-chukim ve’ha-mishpatim asher tzivah ha-Shem Elohenu et’khem – what are all these laws that the Lord our G-d has commanded us – the answer is: v’af ata emor lo ke’hilkhot ha-pesach, ein maftirin achat ha-pesach afikoman. This means, teach him the laws of Passover, from the beginning of the talmudic Tractate Pesachim dealing with these laws, until the very last Mishnah which concerns the afikoman. The tam or Simple Son asks a much simpler question: mah zot, “what is this all about?” The answer is correspondingly simple: be’chozek yad hotzianu ha-Shem mi-mitzrayim, “with a strong hand did G-d take us out of Egypt.”Remarkably, while most sources give these answers, there is one source that reverses them. The Yerushalmi or Jerusalem Talmud switches the answers given to the chakham and tam. Thus, according to the Jerusalem Talmud, to the Wise Son’s question “what are the laws that G-d commanded us?” we are to answer: G-d took us out of Egypt with chozek yad, a strong hand. And to the Simple Son’s question mah zot?, we are to give the answer of Halakhah or Jewish law – which in our Haggadah is reserved for the Wise Son.And then the Jerusalem Talmud adds, as a kind of afterthought, the law: lo yehei omed me-chaburah zu ve’nikhnas le’chaburah acheret – do not leave the group or family with whom you are partaking of the Passover meal to join some other group at another Seder.What is the reason for this reversal by the …
Pesach General Jewish Thought