We still have the wonderful flavor of the seder in our mouths, for, as we tell the wise son, “We are not allowed to eat anything after we eat the Afikoman.” That piece of Matzah is supposed to be the last thing in our mouths on the night of the seder (no chocolate cake afterwards), because we want the flavor of Pesach to linger in our mouths.
Our rabbis tell us that the lesson of the wise son is- Don’t just end with the night of the Seder, try and keep the flavor in your mouth.
And so we will continue to share some Pesach, and seder related thoughts, over these few days.
At the end of Magid there is a beracha that says , “The One that redeemed us and the One that redeemed our forefathers from Mitzrayim.”
Rabbi Yosef Giktlya, a great kabbalist from the times of the Rishonim, 600-700 hundred years ago, was well known for his sefer Shaare Orah, a book of Mekubalim. But he also wrote a commentary on the Haggadah, which recently became available and I bought it this year. He asks a question:
Why does it first say that we were redeemed, and then say our forefathers were redeemed after that? It should be the opposite. Our forefathers were obviously redeemed first.
He answers with a tremendous Hiddush: It’s because we have a greater responsibility than our forefathers (who actually got out of Mitzrayim), to say a thank you to Hashem, because we got the benefits of Yetziat Mitzrayim without having to actually eat the Marror. We taste the redemption, yet it was they who had to go through the suffering. In his words, “We did not taste the flavor of the Galut.”
Imagine a person who survived a concentration camp and his son. Who has to say thank you more? The man who got out or the son? We would think it would be the man who got out of the concentration camp, but actually it is the son, because the son survived without having to go through the concentration camp. When God saved the father, He save the son as well, but the son did not have to go through that suffering.
This is how we have to look at it. We got out of Mitzrayim without the pain. No question.
Therefore, we have a greater responsibility to say thank you to Hashem.
But how are we supposed to feel after the seder?
As we have mentioned in the past, when Rav Wolbe spoke at the funeral of the great Mashgiach, Rabbi Yehezkiel Levenstein, he said, “The last man that left Egypt has died.” Everybody thought Rav Wolbe had lost his mind. If he had said it was the last person to leave the Vietnam war, that would be OK, or if he had said he was the last soldier to leave World War I, that would be be ok, but Yetziat Mitzrayim was over 3000 years ago. No one would still be alive from then!
So what did he mean?
What he meant was that Rabbi Levenstein lived with Yetziat Mitzrayim every day of his life, and that is what we are supposed to do. The goal of the night of the Seder is not just to have the Seder. As we say, “The purpose is to remember it every day.
So how can we feel like we got out? I saw a beautiful thought from Rabbi Reuven Leuchter. When we say at the Seder , “God took us out B’Avor Zeh/because of this,” it means that God took us out to eat Matzah and Maror, but one would think it’s the opposite. Don’t we eat Matzah and maror because we got out? As an analogy, do we celebrate our birthdays because we were born or are we born in order to celebrate our birthdays?
Of course we weren’t born in order to celebrate our birthdays. We were born, and now that we have been born, we celebrate our birthdays as an afterthought.
But when it comes to the night of the seder, we say that God took us out of Egypt to eat Matza and Maror. What does that mean?
That means that when God took us out of Egypt, He saw our Seders- this year in 2022! And He said, “I am taking you out just for this.” It wasn’t just for the people of then. “I saw the future generations and I saw your Seder. I took the Jews out because I wanted this. Your service to Me is important, and therefore, you got out. I did Yetziat Mitzrayim for you. You were part of the equation.”
We just got luckier than they did, because we did not have to experience the torture and backbreaking work.
We got the gain without the pain.
They went through the pain, and we got the gain as well. We have to really believe that. We got out. We are here because of Yetziat Mitzrayim. It is not just a one day commemorative event. It is how we charge our batteries.
But every day and night of our lives, we have to have Yetziat Mitzrayim on our minds. Because God took us out for this.
You are reading this bitachon class because God took you out in order to do so.
And this goes for the things we do- because of Yitziat Mitzrayim , in order to serve God.
Hopefully, we will keep this feeling and passion for the rest of the year. Have a wonderful day.