We say in the Haggadah, Yechol MeRosh Hodesh- so we might think that we should start talking about the Haggadah from Rosh Hodesh, because it says Hahodesh HaZeh Lachem: This month is to you.
Therefore, one might think that Rosh Hodesh Nisan is the right time to start. In truth, it’s only the night that we have matzah and Maror in front of us, but regardless, now is the right time to start preparing for the Haggadah of Pesach.
We can’t just fall into the seder without the proper preparation. So, B’ezrat Hashem, for the next two weeks, we will try to discuss Divrei Torah on the Haggadah, that are related to Bitachon.
The first hint to the importance of bitachon on the night of the Seder is the simanim that we start off with: we say Kadesh, Orhatz,
Simply, Kadesh means to make kiddush, and Orhatz means to wash your hands. But the word Orhatz has another meaning. In Bereshit, Perek לד, when Shimon and Levi go to fight against Shechem, it says that they came against the city “בטח- Betach” they came with bitachon.
Their Bitachon was based on the zechut/merits of their father, Yaakov Avinu; they relied on that.
The Targum Onkelus translates the word betach in Aramaic as “L’Rohsan;” the Aramaic word for reliance, or bitachon, is Rohatz. It shows up many times in Tagum Onkelus, and when we say Berich Shemei, we say Beh Ana Rahitz, which means “I rely on G-d”
So Rahitz is bitachon, and our rabbis tell us that we can read the simanim as Kadesh- if you want to make yourself holy, Orhatz- work on your bitachon.
It could have said Kadesh, Rahatz, why does it say “Orhatz?” The Chida says that the extra letter ( a vav) adds “others,” meaning that it is not enough to work on your own bitachon, but you have to work on the bitachon of others as well.
Our job, of the night of the seder, is to work on our emunah and bitachon, and instill it within the others around us.
As for our Divrei Torah on the Haggadah, we will start with Halachma Anya-
We say ,”this is the bead of affliction, that our forefathers ate in Mitzrayim.”
Many Rishonim, including the Ibn Ezra, explain that they ate Matzah, not because they were redeemed, but because it was a food that takes a long time to digest, so that’s what they were fed in Mitzrayim. It was their bread of affliction. So it sounds like we eat matzah to remember the bread that they ate in Mitzrayim, when they were still slaves.
But on the other hand, it says later in the Haggadah that we eat the matzah in order to remember that we were rushed out. We didn’t even have a chance to let our dough rise. Hashem rushed us out, and we had nothing to do with this process, and that’s what we come to commemorate-
So there is a very obvious question here: What are we actually commemorating at the Seder?
The answer is that both are true. The Matzah is both a symbol of our exile, and a symbol of our redemption. That sounds strange- what lesson do we see from this?
The lesson is that Hashem can turn everything around. He can take the very symbol of slavery, and turned it into the symbol of freedom. Imagine a man who was in prison for years, with barbed wire all over the prison. Every time he sees the barbed wire, he remembers his affliction. Then one day he finds a piece of barbed wire and uses it in order to pick the lock of cell, and escape. Now the barbed wire turns into a sign of freedom.
Hashem can take anything and turn it around. That is the lesson for us, wherever we are holding in life. Hashem can turn everything around in a split second.
And the end of Magid, we go through Ga’al Yisrael, where we say that on this night we have to praise Hashem because “He took us from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to happiness, from mourning to a holiday, from darkness to a great light, from subjugation to redemption.”
G-d can turn everything around. Therefore, the very same symbol, the symbol of affliction, the symbol of torture, the symbol of slavery, was chosen, because G-d turned it around and declared it the symbol of our freedom. That same Matzah.
Hashem can turn everything around. That’s what we have to tell ourselves, and tell the others on the night of the Seder.
Have a wonderful day.