DIGITAL EDITION

VOLUME 2 • ISSUE 10

ניסן תש"ף TORAT ERETZ YISRAEL • PUBLISHED IN JERUSALEM • DISTRIBUTED AROUND THE WORLD APRIL 2020

CANADIAN EDITION

WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI – THE LAMM FAMILY OF MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

RABBI HERSHEL SCHACHTER on the importance of PESACH Sippur Yetziat Miztrayim PAGE 10 EDITION

RABBANIT SHANI Crises and Corona: TARAGIN A Pesach Perspective explains the from Rabbi Doron Perez “Five-Star” Seder PAGES 3-4 PAGE 9

RABBI LORD An Ethiopian Exodus: JONATHAN SACKS The Story of presents the greatest gift Rabbi Shalom Sharon’s we can give our children Journey to Israel PAGE 18 PAGES 48-49

RABBANIT RACHELLE FRAENKEL ALSO: with the difference between Your HaMizrachi memory and history Seder Companion PAGE 7 PAGES 32-41

RABBI MENACHEM LEIBTAG asks where we should start Maggid PAGE 28

SIVAN RAHAV MEIR AND YEDIDYA MEIR offer you food for Seder thought

PAGE 30

dedicated by robert & karyn goldberger and family to commemorate the 5th yahrzeit of judith goldberger שרה בת שמואל זלמן ורחל ז״ל www.mizrachi.org [email protected] +972 (0)2 620 9000 Chairman adapt, reinvent Mr. Harvey Blitz Chief Executive Rabbi Doron Perez and rebuild The Message of the Bnei Brak Seder

PUBLISHED BY THE MIZRACHI WORLD MOVEMENT or families around the world, during the night as well as during the Editor-in-Chief Seder Night is the highlight of the day. Daniel ‏Verbov year. We come together and forge It is clear these paragraphs are placed Assistant Editor a living generational bridge, passing on F here as a kind of guide of how to ap- Esther Shafier the foundations of our values and iden- proach the story of the Haggadah. Creative Director tity through the interactive and excit- Jonny Lipczer Seemingly, these stories offer us two ing retelling of Yetziat Mitzrayim. important parameters when telling the Design Support larger story. Firstly, the mitzvah applies Elisheva Mostovicz Central to our Seder is the call to no- equally to everyone. No matter how tice what’s different. Why is this night Production and Advertising Manager great a scholar someone is, or how well Meyer Sterman different from all other nights? This call [email protected] they know the story, they are nonethe- to question and observe has trained the less obligated to retell the story on this HaMizrachi seeks to spread Torat Eretz Yisrael Jewish people for generations to exam- night. throughout the world. HaMizrachi also contains ine their surroundings, learn, internal- articles, opinion pieces and advertisements that represent the diversity of views and interests in our ize messages and adapt to change. Secondly, the Haggadah is telling us communities. These do not necessarily reflect any there is no limit regarding how much official position of Mizrachi or its branches. Throughout our tumultuous history we one should discuss. We see this from have been forced to adapt, reinvent and the fact that the scholars sat discussing rebuild on countless occasions. This the story all night, until their students year, as we cope with the most extra- had to interrupt them to read the mor- ordinary circumstances surrounding ning Shema. the spread of COVID-19, we again find ourselves asking difficult questions: However, what is puzzling are the specific details of this particular story. • How can we celebrate our freedom Undoubtedly, there are countless stor- www.mizrachi.ca while so many are suffering? ies about scholars sitting and having a [email protected] Seder, and the author of the Haggadah 416-630-9266 • How can we create the living bridge could have chosen any of them. Why Executive between generations while so many this one? What was so important about Jack Samuel families are having the Seder alone? a group of Rabbanim specifically visit- Rabbi Seth Grauer ing Rabbi Akiva in his home in Bnei Jeff Shumacher • How can we bring joy to our elderly Brak, and learning the entire night, Yisrael Dov Meyer grandparents who are quarantined Allen Katz until the morning Shema? Jerry Rosenfield and forced to spend the Seder alone? Furthermore, the next paragraph seems National Director Rabbi Elan Mazer to be very out of place, and begs the The authors of our Haggadah inserted question of its relevance to our intro- a fascinating introduction to the retell- duction. In it, Rabbi Eleazar Ben Azaria ing of the Pesach story. After asking the expresses immense excitement over the DEDICATION OPPORTUNITIES four questions, we read about a group idea of remembering Yetziat Mitzrayim ְוֹלא ָזִכ ִיתי ׁ ֶשֵּתָאֵמר ְיִצ ַיאת ִמְצַרִים ;If you would like to dedicate an issue of of Sages who discussed the story of at night I never merited to say Yetziat“ – ַּב ֵּלילוֹ ת HaMizrachi in memory of a loved one or in Yetziat Mitzrayim all night long, after celebration of a simcha, please send an which we recall the Halacha about re- Mitzrayim at night.” Why is this so spe- email to [email protected] membering the redemption from Egypt cial for him, and why did it need to be

2 | TORAT HAMIZRACHI

Rabbi Elan Mazer

included in the Haggadah, and specific- ally at this point? The Chatam Sofer offers a beautiful -ex planation. In Jewish literature, “night” is often a symbol of despair, epitom- ized by Galut – the exile. During times of joy, when the nation of Israel joins together for the Korban Pesach at the Beit HaMikdash, it is expected that we would remember and celebrate this oc- casion, for this would seem to be the whole purpose of our leaving Egypt. However, how can we be expected to continue to remember and praise G-d for the redemption after the de- ecies about the rebuilding of Jerusalem of redemption from Egypt, the symbol struction of the Beit HaMikdash? This will also come true. His teachers turn to of our freedom and bond with G-d, the story shows us that even when the Beit him and say: “Akiva you have consoled entire night, no matter what the cir- HaMikdash is destroyed and Judaism us, Akiva you have consoled us.” cumstances. must reinvent itself to survive – even Their Seder took place soon after the These paragraphs are essential prep- then, the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, and aration for us before we begin telling stands as a core principle of our nation’s all the Rabbis around the table were the story. They create the appropriate freedom and relationship with G-d. To alive when the Beit HaMikdash was mindset, inspiring us to stand strong understand this is truly a zechut, an in our faith and realize that even when honour. the life-giving center of Judaism. They knew what it meant to retell the story circumstances change and our reality Two of the aforementioned Rabbis at during the “day.” Of all the Rabbis at the crumbles in front of our eyes, our val- Rabbi Akiva’s Seder appear with him time, Rabbi Akiva was unique in dem- ues and beliefs remain steadfast and in another famous story. At the end of onstrating the hope and faith needed to alive. Our task is to come together to Makkot (24b), these men were walking transition into the next chapter of Jew- adapt, reinvent and rebuild. ָ ,our faith in Perhaps this year more than any other“ – ֶו ֱא ּמו ָנ ְתך ַּב ֵּלילוֹ ת ,together in Jerusalem after the destruc- ish history tion of the Temple. When they came to You during the night” – when we are in we must again learn from the power- the ruins of the Beit HaMikdash, they Galut, and G-d’s presence is more hid- ful message of the Bnei Brak Seder and saw a fox running out of the place where den. Rebbe Eleazar’s call to tell the story the Kodesh HaKodashim once stood. even at night. How can we creatively Hence that is why these three Rabbis, The Rabbis begin to cry, apart from adapt our Seder to our new reality? Rabbi Akiva, who laughs. They turn to with Rabbi Tarfon, come together in him and request an explanation for his Rabbi Akiva’s house in Bnei Brak. And strange behaviour. Rabbi Akiva replies that is why the authors chose to put this that he is happy because just as the story at the beginning of the Haggad- prophecies about the destruction have ah. To demonstrate to us what it means Rabbi Elan Mazer is the National Director of come true, now he knows the proph- to continue commemorating the story Mizrachi Canada

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• 3 CRISES AND CORONA A Pesach Perspective

he following story is a personal And she came indeed, listening Like myriads of other Jewish family one, our family story. One very intently to the young German stories, I believe our family story that my grandfather of blessed boys and girls. The moment my reflects the essence of Jewish history Tmemory would tell us time and time grandfather returned home, she as told in the Haggadah and provides again. It was about his lucky escape gathered the family together, and – in a pertinent perspective as we combat from Lithuania as a 17-year-old boy my grandfather’s words – she declared the global corona crisis. with his family on one of the last boats to the family in Yiddish, “Mir muzech After all, no festival shapes our out of Europe before the outbreak of packen, dir kinder zogen dem emes” – collective identity more than Pesach. World War Two. we must pack, the children speak the It is the time we engage in national truth. Louis Gecelter was young man storytelling. We sit together as a family from Kovno, a keen sportsman who Thank G-d, my great-grandmother and attempt to crystallize the meaning participated regularly in Maccabi had the wisdom and insight to decide of our people’s very existence – our sporting events. In the summer of it was time to leave and within months birth, our suffering and our salvation. 1937, he represented Maccabi Kovno they had gone. They wanted to go to We aim to tell our children what at a regional sports festival for young Palestine but the gates were closed due it means to be a part of the Jewish Jews from across Europe. Here he to British immigration restrictions, so people. met young German Jewish boys his they made their way to South Africa. age for the first time. While talking to We tell our collective family’s story. them, he was shocked by the stories he Tragically, all extended family Indeed, the stories we tell ourselves was hearing – the yellow star, public who stayed behind perished in the are critical to our collective identity. discrimination and disgrace at all Holocaust. According to Harvard History levels of German society. Professor, Jill Lepore, this is the crisis My grandfather arrived in South 1 He immediately sensed he must tell Africa and married my grandmother facing America today. She argues that Americans have forgotten how his mother to come and hear these (a marriage that lasted 75 years!), built to tell their national story with clarity. terrible stories for herself. Although a family, became a Jewish community She suggests the reason for this is the sports grounds were miles away leader, and they made aliyah when that over the last 50 years, much of – and he would only be coming home he was 59. All his direct descendants academia has shunned any discussion after the festival had ended – he found subsequently followed suit and live in of nationalism, seeing it as something a creative solution. He wrote a note Israel today. He passed away peacefully negative and dangerous. By doing so, to his mother and asked the captain a few years ago at the age of 97. He others step into the vacuum and create of one of the steam ships on the river would always say how he owed his life stories which don’t necessarily reflect next to the grounds to deliver the note to that fortuitous meeting at the sports the true American story. to the lady who runs the kiosk further festival and his mother’s great wisdom upstream. Thankfully, the note made it and foresight. Lepore says a country must have a to his mother, my great-grandmother national story, otherwise it risks losing Sonia, and its message was clear: From potential destruction to ultimate its way. Yes, writing national history “Come now on the very next boat and deliverance. From clouds of darkness creates plenty of problems. hear what’s happening to the Jews in to radiant light, and from the brink of Germany!” despair to a bright and hopeful future. But not writing it creates more.

4 | TORAT HAMIZRACHI

Rabbi Doron Perez

Our Prophets and Sages understood There is evil in the world, but good will Although the future remains uncertain this well and created our national eventually prevail. and none of us know how things will narrative at the very dawn of Jewish unfold, we believe and know that As these lines are being written, Covid- history. They defined what our they will end, and somehow for the 19 has caused the most unimaginable collective identity and destiny are all better. We know from our collective and drastic consequences all over the about. This is the story of Pesach and family story that pain, suffering and globe. We are living through chaotic, this of course is our Haggadah. uncertainty will transform into a daunting and uncertain times. better and brighter future. Perhaps So what is the essence of our story? even to a more mindful and balanced Our challenges – just like in Egypt – What is the foundational idea at the world, more humble and appreciative are both physical and spiritual. core of the Haggadah? societies demonstrating more Physically, tens of thousands have creativity and interconnectedness. Our Sages posit that the quintessential died, hundreds of thousands more Perhaps a better world somehow theme of the whole story can be strengthened with new purpose and are ill and we are experiencing an vigor, better equipped and resolved ַמ ְת ִחיל ִּב ְג ּנות – captured in four words unprecedented spread of the virus to begin with shame, end to face life’s great challenges and – ּוְמַסֵּים ְּבׁ ֶשַבח almost every country in the world in with praise.2 This short and sharp opportunities ahead. such a short time. Israel is approaching insight not only captures the primary a full national lockdown as are many Please G-d, let it be soon! plot of the Exodus but reveals an countries around the world causing underlying pattern in all of Jewish Chag Sameach! unprecedented physical isolation history. and social distancing. The financial ramifications for so many individuals 1 Foreign Affairs Periodical, March/April Life comes with difficulties and 2019, p. 10. and countries are staggering. challenges. But it is in no way defined 2 Mishna Pesachim, 10:4. by them. Spiritually, a host of religious and 3 With respect to the Haggadah’s theme of -the Talmud (Pesa ,ַמְתִחיל ִּבְג ּנות ּוְמַסֵּים ְּבׁ ֶשַבח Whether the challenges are physical halachic challenges, such as the chim 116a) mentions two opinions. Rav or spiritual,3 one thing is clear. It is shutting down of all synagogue says it’s referring to the spiritual realm, services, public Torah classes and the journey from idolatry to belief in G-d, the beginning of the story and not and Shmuel says it’s referring to our phys- the story itself. The story may begin shiurim and many regular chessed ical survival – from suffering and ser- with darkness, pain and suffering but services, to mention but a few. Instead vitude to freedom and redemption. Rav of the natural scenario of grandparents Yitzchak Alfassi rules that both opinions somehow always ends with light, hope are accepted in practice and both appear in and redemption. sitting with grandchildren on Seder the Haggadah. Night, countless families will be The Jewish story contains tragedy but separated, many for the first time ever. is never tragic. However, thankfully, the Pesach Life has bitterness, lots of it, but it is Haggadah grants us a unique paradigm Rabbi Doron Perez is the Chief Executive of fundamentally sweet. through which to view these events. World Mizrachi Your future. Within reach.

Your future. Within reach.

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the memory of Yetziat Mitzrayim

hen we notice experience becomes a story, a tale to be the response. When it finally arrived, narratives in the repeated. And a story is an endangered he realized his father was very angry. Torah, which have no species: it fades, it changes, it is Not at him though. His father was “Wconnection to the commandments, we forgotten and denied. Documentation furious at the Hebrew University. He are inclined to think they are entirely and preservation doesn’t necessarily said: “Jews don’t have a history, Jews superfluous, or too lengthy... but this work. The billions of details, artifacts have a memory!” is only because we did not see these and names collected in places like I’m not sure the young Infeld incidents with our own eyes… For Yad Vashem don’t prevent Holocaust understood this at the time. History miracles are only convincing to deniers from persisting with their might be a book on the shelf, Memory those who witnessed them; whilst lies. The building that carries the is the dynamic identity one deals with for coming generations, who know verse from Isaiah (2:4) that comes on a daily basis – identifying, debating, them only from the account given immediately after “From Zion will shaping who one is. (Infeld later said by others, they become a story that the Torah come forth and the word It is inconceivable that his atheistic father used to say: might be denied. of G-d from Jerusalem” (2:3), passed that miracles would continue and last “I’m not sure there is a G-d, I don’t a resolution denying the historical permanently for all generations. The know if we ever really were in Egypt, connection between the Jews and greatest of the miracles described but the one thing I do remember Jerusalem. is the stay of the Israelites in the clearly is that He took us out of there.”) wilderness for 40 years… But G-d Stories are vulnerable. Indeed, Remembering and retelling the story knew that in the future people might this is often a problem in courts: a of Yetziat Mitzrayim is not only about doubt the accuracy of the account of testimony repeated and challenged can telling the history. It’s about creating these miracles, in the same manner constantly change and lose credibility. an identity. An identity that is dynamic they doubt the accuracy of other Nevertheless, a serious problem for the narratives. They might think the and constantly relevant. “El Motziam judicial system might be the solution 3 Israelites stayed in the wilderness miMitzrayim” is not in the past tense, for us. in a place not far from inhabited ‘the G-d who redeemed them from 4 land... or that manna came down in Let me explain. Here’s a story I heard Egypt;’ it is an ongoing present tense: those places naturally... To remove from the Jewish educator Avraham the G-d who is continually redeeming all these doubts and to firmly establish Infeld. As a young man, Infeld came them from Egypt. Every time we the accuracy of the account of these to the Hebrew University to study tell the story, it changes somewhat, miracles, Scripture enumerates all the Physics, which was a family tradition. integrating into our here and now, stations, so that coming generations He spent two days at the Physics lab creating our current memory, shaping may see them, and learn the greatness and on the third day he looked out who we are. of the miracles… For this very reason, of the window and saw a beautiful Joshua cursed anyone who would young lady going to the Jewish History ever build up Jericho... the effect of 1 Rambam, Guide for the Perplexed Part 3, 50. department. “And so,” he says, “I got the miracle was to remain forever so 2 A sheet of light paper folded and sealed to my BA in Jewish History instead of anyone who would see the wall sunk form a letter for sending by airmail. in the ground would understand that it Physics.” The young lady eventually 3 Bamidbar 23:22. sank through a miracle.” 1 became the mother of his children, but 4 Or HaChaim HaKadosh, Bamidbar 23:22. at that point he needed to explain it to The problem the Rambam presents is his very dominant father. He wrote a Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel teaches Torah very familiar. The initial astounding long aerogram2 and nervously awaited at midrashot in Israel

| 7 MIZRACHI EDUCATORS

Rabbi Reuven Taragin Rabbanit Shani Taragin HOW HASHEM WAITS FOR US oshe is on the way back to and unable to rise to the occasion. At future generations to show our appreci- Egypt to demand that Pha- this point, the Exodus detours through ation of Hashem’s shemira on that orig- raoh free the Jewish people. the nine plagues.1 Their stated goal is inal night in Mitzrayim. The Talmud- MSuddenly, Hashem adds an ultimatum, to convince the Egyptians of Hashem’s 76teaches that Hashem continues being informing Moshe that Pharaoh will hegemony but their real intention was shomer over us on the night of the 14th refuse to free the Jews and that Moshe to inspire the Jews who live amongst of Nissan for all generations. 2 is to threaten Pharaoh and Egypt with the Egyptians. Additionally, the Seforno explains that the death of all of their firstborn – Finally, after nine plagues, the Jews are just as Hashem waited and longed for makat bechorot. The Jews are Hashem’s ready and it is time for makat bechorot. the moment when the Jews would be firstborn children. If Egypt refuses to Before the plague can occur and for it deserving of geula from Mitzrayim, he free them, the penalty will be the death to single out the Jews as Hashem’s first waits for the time we will be ready for of their own. born, the Jews have to identify them- the final Geula as well. The Rema7 adds Though Moshe is told about the selves by sacrificing the Korban Pesach that we open the door when we recite ְ ָ at the Seder to show our faith ׁ ְשפֹך ֲח ָמ ְתך bechorot ultimatum before his return, and marking their doorposts with its he issues it only after nine other plagues. blood. Hashem knows which homes are in Hashem’s shemira of us and that this If Hashem intended for Moshe to issue Jewish and needs no sign; it is the Jews merit will indeed bring our own geula. the ultimatum only after the nine who need to self-identify.3 May we continue to be shomer the plagues, why did He tell Moshe about Though the actual Exodus occurred in mitzvot of Pesach in a way that merits it at the beginning of the story as if it the morning, the geula began the night us the shemira of the ultimate Geula! needed to be issued right away? before4 with makat bechorot. Hence 1 This explains why Chapter 6 reintroduces I believe that makat bechorot was we have our Pesach Seder at night and Moshe and Aharon (6: 14-27). It is meant to occur at the very beginning. It not during the day. We are meant to introducing a new ‘version’ of the story. was only Bnei Yisrael’s lack of faith that commemorate not only the Exodus, 2 See Rashi 7:3. This explains why Hashem had required the nine preceding plagues. but makat bechorot too. Not only what to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would continue to resist wanting to free the Jewish Returning to the beginning of the story, Hashem did for us, but also what we people. Pharaoh may have been convinced, 5 Hashem gives Moshe a dual directive had to do to deserve it. but the Jews were not yet ready. at the burning bush, by sending him The night when this all occurred – 3 See Mechilta (Bo 6), which emphasizes that the sign was on the inside of the door because to both Pharaoh and Bnei Yisrael. He both that year and in future years – is it was aimed at the Jews living in the home. is to ask Pharaoh for emancipation called leil shimurim, for both Hashem 4 See Berachot 4b. and the Jews to show they are worthy and the Jewish people. Rashi explains 5 See Shemot 13, which focuses our of redemption by standing with him in that the shemira refers to Hashem’s commemoration of Yetziat Mitzrayim on a show of faith and identifying them- waiting and looking forward to the makat bechorot and on korban Pesach which merited our redemption (See Machzor Vitri selves as Hashem’s ‘firstborn’ nation. moment He could redeem the Jewish on the Haggadah DH Ba’avur). Initially, the Jews rise to the occa- people. Ramban explains that Hashem 6 This explains the significance of Rabbi Elazar sion and show faith. When Pharaoh was waiting for the time the Jewish Ben Azarya’s opinion (Berachot 9a), that the people would be worthy of redemption Korban Pesach needed to be eaten before rejects Moshe’s request and intensifies chatzot, the time makat bechorot occurred. Korban Pesach. their slavery, the people lose hope and by sacrificing the 7 Orach Chaim 480. express their frustration to Moshe. Shemira means to watch and pro- The Exodus is at an impasse – Hashem tect and refers to Hashem’s protect- Rabbi Reuven Taragin is Educational wants to free the Jewish people and can ing the Jewish homes during makat Director of Mizrachi and Dean of the use makat bechorot to do so, but the bechorot. The Jewish people’s shemira Yeshivat HaKotel Overseas Program [email protected] Jewish people are not yet ready. of the mitzvah of Korban Pesach mer- Hashem attempted to reinspire the ited Hashem’s shemira during makat Jewish people through the five lesha- bechorot. Scan here to join Rabbi not of Geula. Unfortunately, the Jews The Ibn Ezra explains that we are Taragin’s WhatsApp group are too pressurized by their slavery shomer the mitzvah of Korban Pesach in with daily Divrei Torah

8 | Rabbi Reuven Taragin Rabbanit Shani Taragin THE “FIVE-STAR” SEDER IN BNEI BRAK ven if we were all wise… all This was one of the most tragic and faith in G-d and the destiny of Am Sages and well learned in the despairing eras in Jewish history as Yisrael. He would live and die with the Torah, it would still be our Jewish leaders were being tortured to words Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokenu “Eduty to tell the story of the departure death and a harsh Roman exile was yet Hashem Echad on his lips – constantly from Egypt. And the more one elabo- to follow. engaged in Kabbalat Ol Malchut Sha- rates upon the story of the departure mayim (accepting the yoke of Heaven) How could Pesach – the holiday of from Egypt, the more one is to be however dire his circumstances. freedom and redemption – be cele- praised.” brated that year in the midst of terror Under quarantine and danger, Rabbi Immediately after teaching the above and persecution? Who could inspire Akiva teaches us messages of redemp- imperative, the Ba’alei haHaggadah the leaders to retain their faith and tion every Seder; the secret is not only recount the narrative of the Five “Star” optimism? All agreed that Rabbi to retain optimism and recount the Sages in Bnei Brak, who fulfilled the Akiva, who could laugh upon hear- redemption of the past as a prelude above: “Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Elazar ing the rejoicing of Roman officers to the future, but simultaneously to ben Azaryah, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi and seeing foxes/jackals (or Roman strengthen oneself in religious com- Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon were telling officers) emerging from the Kodesh mitment. It is no surprise that Rabbi of the departure from Egypt all night Kodashim, confident in the fulfill- Akiva’s own students had to come to until their disciples came and said to ment of the prophecies of consolation,4 announce – “Our masters, the time for them: Our masters, the time for the could offer them the inspiration they the recitation of the morning Shema recitation of the morning Shema has needed! has arrived.” The Rabbis were well arrived.” Rabbi Akiva debated with Rabbi aware of the ideal time to recite Kriyat Shema; in fact they had been engaged This was an odd phenomenon – firstly, Tarfon regarding the proper conclu- in reciting Rabbi Akiva’s Kriyat Shema at least three of the four Sages men- sion to Maggid: “Rabbi Tarfon said, all night as they rekindled their faith tioned – Rabbi Eliezer (from Lod), ‘Blessed art Thou, O G-d… Who has in redemption, in martyrdom and in Rabbi Yehoshua (from Peki’in) and redeemed us and has redeemed our acceptance of Ol Malchut Shamayim. Rabbi Tarfon were Rabbi Akiva’s mas- forebears [past tense] from Egypt’ – ters and teachers! Why were they and did not seal [the blessing]. Rabbi The students had yet to partake in spending Seder Night with their stu- Akiva continued and concluded Rabbi such a Seder; otherwise they would dent (from Bnei Brak)? After all, stu- Tarfon’s blessing: ‘...So shall our G-d have known that the dawn herald- dents generally visit their teachers on and the G-d of our forebears bring to ing the redemption had already risen festivals. us other festivals and celebrations for hours earlier, as the Pesach story was peace, rejoicing in the rebuilding of retold throughout the night in Bnei Secondly, Rabbi Eliezer in particular Your city and reveling in Your service; 1 Brak. taught that one is required to cele- and we shall eat therefrom the paschal brate yom tov in one’s home, based on lamb and the sacrifices… Blessed art 1 Sukkah 27b. the pasuk, “You shall rejoice, you and Thou, Who has redeemed Israel.’”5 your household,”2 which he contra- 2 Devarim 14:26. Rabbi Akiva’s beracha of thanksgiving dicts through spending Pesach night in 3 Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, 1829-1908 for past and future redemptions would in his commentary on the Haggadah, “Leil Rabbi Akiva’s home. be recited that year (even in the pres- Shimurim.” The Aruch HaShulchan3 suggests that ence of Rabbi Tarfon) as he hosted this 4 Makkot 24b. the Seder in Bnei Brak took place after monumental Seder as one of the five- 5 Pesachim 116b. the destruction of the Second Beit “star” leaders of his generation. For Rabbanit Shani Taragin is Educational HaMikdash, most probably during the though he may have been the student, Director of Mizrachi and the Director of the harsh Hadrianic persecutions follow- that year and onward, he would teach Mizrachi Matan Lapidot Educators’ Program ing the failed Bar Kochba rebellion. and inspire generations to maintain [email protected] | 9

• 9 Rabbi Hershel Schachter

telling of the exodus

here are two historical events that mass of people – 600,000 men between you cannot. We know the authenticity of are the basis of our entire religion the ages of 20 and 60, in addition to those our religion.” – Yetziat Mitzrayim and Ma’amad younger and older, women, and the eirev Rambam further notes that the word THar Sinai. On these two occasions, G-d rav. This great mass of people experienced ‘return’ appears four times in the verse, demonstrated the truth of all of the ikarei firsthand the 10 Plagues, Yetziat Mitzrayim, to hint that Klal Yisrael will be coerced emunah (the principles of faith) to the Kriyat Yam Suf, and Ma’amad Har Sinai, to abandon its faith four times – during Jewish people. He showed that He exists, is and this is how our religion was established. the rule of each of the four kingdoms that aware of worldly events, and has the ability This historical tradition was passed down will subjugate us, the last of which we are to intervene by meting out sechar veOnesh, to us by our parents and grandparents, who still currently experiencing. Yet G-d has punishing the reshaim and rewarding the told us about these events. Our ancestors promised us that even as they force us to tzaddikim. Furthermore, G-d confirmed were not a band of drunkards and liars. We adopt their faith, the Torah will never be that He alone possesses the ability to change know our parents and grandparents to be removed from us, as the verse says “for the laws of nature. G-d thereby verified that honest, trustworthy people. They did not lie it shall not be forgotten from the mouth He is the Creator; otherwise, He would not to us! of its offspring.”4 It is for this reason that have dominion over nature. Ramban5 maintains that there is a mitzvah The Christians claim that Oto HaIsh to read the parasha of Ma’amad Har Sinai At this time, G-d also taught Bnei Yisrael performed miracles, but those purported once a year. the ikar of geulah. The yesod of biat miracles were supposedly witnessed by only haMashiach is that G-d not only created a few disciples. Mohammad’s prophecy These two events – Yetziat Mitzrayim and the world but that He has an ongoing was similarly only a personal experience. Ma’amad Har Sinai – are crucial to teach involvement in it. He wants to see mankind In contrast, the incidents recounted in us all of the ikarei emunah. That is why ultimately fulfill its purpose in bringing the the Chumash were witnessed by millions we have a daily mitzvah to mention Yetziat world to a proper resolution. At the time of of people, and that is why we have a much Mitzrayim and a special mitzvah on Pesach Yetziat Mitzrayim, G-d stepped in to punish stronger historical tradition than all the night of sippur, to relate the story of Yetziat Pharaoh and redeem the Jewish people, other religions. Mitzrayim at great length and with much and He will similarly lead the world to an elaboration, and especially to transmit it to 2 ultimate geulah in the times of Mashiach. Based on this understanding, Rambam succeeding generations.6 interprets the verse in Shir HaShirim, Through G-d’s direct intervention, we also “Turn, turn, O Shulamit (perfect one); turn, This essay is adapted from Rav Schachter on the the idea ,אין מזל לישראל learn the ikarim of turn, that we may see you.”3 The nations of Haggadah. that Klal Yisrael is not subservient to the the world say to the Jewish people, “Turn dominion of the stars and constellations, as away from G-d. Why do you not follow well as the fact that Klal Yisrael is the Am 1 Kuzari 1:25, 1:83-91, 4:11. our religion? We also have a historical HaNivchar (Chosen Nation). Finally, the 2 Iggeret Teiman 3. tradition!” The verse concludes “What ikarim of the truth of nevuah (prophecy), 3 7:1. will you see in the Shulamit like a dance the primacy of nevuat Moshe, and Torah 4 Devarim 31:21. of the camps?” The Jewish people respond, min haShamayim are predicated on 5 Devarim 4:9. “If you were to demonstrate something Ma’amad Har Sinai. 6 See Derech Pikudecha, mitzvat asei 21, chelek commensurate with Ma’amad Har Sinai, hamachshavah, in the name of Maharam Chagiz. How do we know that our religion is the true where there was machane Shechina 1 religion? Rav Yehudah HaLevi stresses the opposite machane Yisrael – namely, a Rabbi Hershel Schachter is Rosh Yeshiva and fact that we have a historical tradition that historical tradition witnessed by millions of Rosh Kollel at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological began with an event witnessed by a great people – we could follow your religion. But Seminary of Yeshiva University

10 | This Year, Give Your Parents the Precious Gift of Peace of Mind… and Your Children the Priceless Gift of Meaning

Most of us lead ordinary lives and yet, each and every family has a story to tell that is uniquely their own. Having a book compiled for the benefit of my children and grandchildren and future generations was indeed “ the right decision, and I would encourage others to do the same before all is forgotten. Working with Danny Verbov was a great source of joy and at the same time fun. His sensitivity and humor enhanced our working relationship and most importantly resulted in a book that I am truly proud of. Sandy Collins, London

“It is the most well- done book I have ever read, in every way. What a masterpiece “These untold secrets – the layout, the “... I cannot stop being have monumental print, the coloring, the amazed at how much significance to me and photos... brilliant!” you really live the story. I my family and have had could not have chosen a Sandra Lippy, Ohio, a huge impact on our understanding of my better person to share this USA phenomenal experience of mother's difficult war writing a book...” experiences.” Prof. Noah Stern, Evelyn Nuszen, Jerusalem Jerusalem

To discuss your ideas and wishes for a book to immortalize your loved ones and leave a meaningful legacy for your family, please contact Danny Verbov at [email protected] or call +972-523115682 TONIGHT WE ARE LEAVING FOR FREEDOM! Ideas for learning together at the Seder eder Night is a festival of faith. It involvement in themselves, and join a The ability to ask questions is also the is a time when we want our whole kind and giving community.”4 ability to open our hearts to change, family to undergo a process of to an understanding that we can be A slave is constantly thinking about growth. We want the whole family to better. Asking the Ma Nishtana gives S how to survive, so he can only think be free. Here are a few suggestions on us the opportunity to grow, challenge, about himself. A free person, full of change and improve. the idea of freedom you can share and power and vigor, is able to remove discuss around your Pesach table. himself from his self-centeredness – ֲע ָב ִדים ָה ִי ּינו ְל ַפְרעֹה ְּב ִמ ְצָר ִים We suggest that the week beforehand, to think about others and how to help them. Thinking about others is the you ask each member of the family to We were slaves to ponder the question: “What does free- thought process of a free person! Pharaoh in Egypt dom mean to me?” Before all else, leaving slavery for free- Why is it important to remember that Maggid begins with Ha Lachma Anya: dom teaches us that it is forbidden to the Lechem Oni – the poor man’s control others. In the next stage, the we were once slaves? bread our forefathers ate in Egypt, and Torah commands us to act with kind- The Torah begins the first set of mitz- ends with HaShata Hacha – LeShana ness towards others – to live in a world vot after Har Sinai precisely with the HaBa’a BeAra DeYisrael; HaShata of giving, the world of free people. laws of a Jewish slave. From this we Avdei – LeShana HaBa’a Bnei Chorin Our goal at the Seder is to go free; to can learn an essential point in our cov- – “This year we are here – next year in be able to see the other, to transform enant with G-d.2 Eretz Yisrael; this year we are slaves – ourselves into people who positively The foundation of the entire Torah is next year free men.” influence and give to others as people truly free. faith and belief in G-d. “I am the L-rd This is the goal of Seder Night – to go your G-d” is the first of the Ten Com- mandments. Our basis for faith in G-d ַמה ִּנׁ ְש ּ ַת ָּנה ַה ַּל ְי ָלה ַה ֶ ּזה ִמ ָּכל ַה ֵּלילוֹ ת free! Let us go on a journey through the Haggadah that will enlighten us does not begin with ‘I am G-d who as to what true freedom means in our Why is this night different created the world’ but rather “I am G-d times. from all other nights? Who took you out of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” Going from slavery What is the purpose of the four to freedom is what enables a person ָּכל ִד ְכ ִפין ֵי ֵיתי ְוֵייכֹל ָּכל ִד ְצִר ְיך ֵי ֵיתי ְו ִי ְפ ַסח questions? to fully connect and communicate All who are hungry, come and Clearly, the main point of asking ques- with G-d, and freedom is the basis for eat; all who are in need, come tions is to receive answers. However, all of the mitzvot. Only then, after we and join our Pesach Seder there is an additional goal here. The have left slavery and become free, can Gemara1 states that if a person has no we receive the Torah. A person who is Concern for others takes us out of children, someone else asks him the enslaved to another cannot be a full slavery. four questions; and if he is all alone, servant of G-d – not only technically, Rav Soloveitchik explains: “The he must ask himself. What does this in that his master disrupts his ability essence of freedom is the inclusion mean? to keep the mitzvot, but also psycho- logically and spiritually. He cannot feel of the ‘other.’ The slave thinks only A slave does not question things. his full dependence on G-d alone while about himself, but a proud, free person Only a free person is independent and he is beholden to his master. thinks about and includes others. strong enough to ask and challenge. Seder Night symbolizes the birth of This is even true regarding questions For Am Yisrael there is no such con- a ‘Chesed (Giving) Community’ – a of faith. A free person connected to cept as slavery for life, as it says: “They community in which the slaves who G-d and to his faith is not afraid to ask are My servants”3 – all of Am Yisrael were just now redeemed from slav- questions. Questions will not under- is subservient to G-d. Therefore, they ery, leave their isolation and total mine his or her world of faith. cannot be enslaved to humans, for the

12 | Ideas for learning together at the Seder

Rabbi Yosef Zvi and Rabbanit Sharon Rimon TONIGHT WE ARE LEAVING FOR FREEDOM! Ideas for learning together at the Seder basis of serving G-d is that every man most of these cases, Am Yisrael were Why is it so important for us to know and woman must be free to serve Him. spiritually strong and did not abandon that G-d took us out of Egypt? Slavery damages the concept of “I am their faith. Firstly, it leads us to trust and have the L-rd your G-d” in two ways, for So who is considered free? – the Ger- faith in G-d, as the Torah states in sev- both sides – the slave and the master: mans who ruled over us, or the Jew eral places: “And I will take you to Me 1. Slavery prevents the slave from who sat in the ghetto and vigilantly as a people, and I will be your G-d, and the freedom to serve G-d alone. retained his humanity and kept G-d’s you will know that I am the L-rd your commandments, despite the enormous G-d, Who has brought you out from 6 2. Slavery causes the master to feel hardships? under the burdens of the Egyptians.” superiority, which prevents him from feeling subservience to The Nazis acted as free men, but in However, there is an additional point G-d. The fact he allows himself truth they were slaves to a false and here. If we had left the slavery of Egypt to enslave another human being sickening ideology that caused them through a national struggle, it is safe shows that not only is he not to abandon basic human morals. In to assume that we would not have keeping this mitzvah, he is also contrast, the Jews in the extermination become servants of G-d; a people who camps, who retained their humanity, would subjugate themselves to doing lacking in his belief in and sub- 7 servience to G-d. decency and morality, were the ones G-d’s Will in this world. “Slavery” to who were truly free. a spiritual and moral world, to a world If so, Avadim Hayinu – We were slaves of ethics, principles and good charac- 5 to Pharaoh in Egypt and G-d took us Rav Oshri tells of when he was in the ter traits, turns a human into a free out – it was this Exodus which enabled Kovno Ghetto and heard the chazzan person by virtue of the fact that the us to become servants of G-d. How- suddenly stop before the blessing “that spirit is what rules him, and not his ever, our control over other people also You have not made me a slave.” The body or his physical desires. blocks us from our ability to be true chazzan cried out: “How can I say this Rav Kook teaches us that “The dif- servants of G-d. On Seder Night, let us blessing at a time when we are under ference between a slave and a free emphasize our slavery in Egypt so that curfew and captivity… how can a person is not just a question of social we will never try to oppress and con- slave make the blessing of a free man standing, whereby one happens to be trol others; so that we may understand while the rod of slavery is placed at his enslaved and the other is not. We can that doing so prevents us from being neck?” true servants of G-d. Problematic con- find an intelligent slave whose spirit is trol is not only found in slavery in the Rav Oshri answered that he could free, and the opposite, a free man with classic sense, but can occur in many indeed recite this blessing, thanking the mentality of a slave. The nature other relationships where one side G-d for not making him a slave, since of true freedom is that uplifted spirit takes advantage of their strength or “the essence of the blessing was not through which the individual, and the position to control and dominate the written regarding slavery of the body entire nation, is uplifted and inspired other side, such as a boss/employee; but rather slavery of the mind,” and a to remain faithful to their inner husband/wife, parent/child, etc. Jew who is committed to G-d’s mitzvot essence – the mental and spiritual is always considered free, even when attribute of the Divine image that lies 8 ”.enslaved. within them ְו ִהיא ׁ ֶש ָע ְמ ָדה ַל ֲאבוֹ ֵת ּינו This is what has stood Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon is Head of Mizrachi’s ַו ּיוֹ ִצ ֵא ּנו ה’ ִמ ִמ ְצַר ִי ם Shalhevet Educational Advisory Board and ְּבָיד ֲח ָז ָקה ּו ִב ְז ַרֹע ְנ ּטוָיה by our fathers In every generation they have tried to Chairman of Sulamot annihilate us. So it was with the Cru- And G-d took us out of Rabbanit Sharon Rimon teaches Tanach sades, the Inquisition, Spain’s expul- Egypt with a strong Hand and is Content Editor for the Tanach website sion of the Jews, and the Holocaust. In and an outstretched Arm www.hatanakh.com/en

| 13 Rabbi Shalom Rosner

Defining Ourselves

e start the Haggadah The question is asked why the sneh What was the sneh? A bush on fire talking about the lowly was deemed the most appropriate yet its inside stayed whole. It was state in which we found vehicle for this initial conversation? A not consumed. It was only burning Wourselves at the beginning of the lowly burning bush doesn’t seem to be externally. Moshe had his doubts process of Yetziat Mitzrayim. Why do the glamorous mechanism we would about the Jewish people. Did they and not the have envisioned. really deserve to be saved? What ֲעָבִדים ָהִי ּינו ְלַפְרעֹה we say we were merits did they have? G-d appears to ,ַעְבֵדי ַּפְרעֹה ָהִי ּינו more concise Pharaoh’s slaves? After all, in Tehillim, Rav Soloveichik suggests that there Moshe in the form of the sneh, as if to we are called Avdei Hashem, so the is a fundamental difference between say these people are pure and perfect עבדים הי ּינו לפרעֹה ּבמצרים עבדי ּפרעֹה parallel would be Avdei Paroh. Is there ְ ַ ֵ ְ ַ and ִ ָ ְ ִ ְ ְ ַ ְ ִ ָ ִ ָ ֲ . on the inside. It’s just the outside that’s a major difference between the two Hayinu leParoh, we were to Pharaoh, on fire. Go redeem My people. phrases? means a social reality, an external physical state in which we found When we finally did leave Mitzrayim, If we continue moving backward in ourselves. We were subjugated to we became Avdei Hashem, not history, the real beginning of the geula servitude, but it didn’t go to our core. just avadim hayinu leHashem. We was the moment G-d appeared Avdei Paroh, servants of Pharaoh, on identified with His values, became to Moshe by the sneh, the the other hand, would have meant an shaped by His mitzvot, and matured burning bush, where He told identification, an internal connection through His dictates. Let us continue him to return to Egypt and between us and Pharaoh, between us to allow the Torah to define who we lead the Jews out. and his ideals and values. That was are, to inspire our core inner self, and not the case. As the Midrash tells us, may we all be zoche to a true holiday we didn’t change our names, clothing, of geula veYeshua – redemption and etc. On the outside, it might not salvation. have been noticeable but G-d Rabbi Shalom Rosner is a Rebbe at Yeshivat knew we were Avadim leParoh Kerem B’Yavneh and Rabbi of the Nofei and not Avdei Paroh. HaShemesh community

14 | RECOMMENDED READING RECOMMENDEDRECOMMENDED READING READING RECOMMENDED READING

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To quote and designed a haggada that places the 3 Laws of Chametz and Matza, 7:6 common? They are both experiential. Youth Haggada. Rabbi SacksRabbi once Sacks again: once “Tell again: the “Tell story the storychild at thechild very at thecenter very of center Seder of night. Seder night. Rabbi Sacks once again: “Tell the story child at the very center of Seder night. They facilitate the experiencing of We created the new Koren Magerman 1 The Jonathan Sacks Haggada values and narrative in a way that other Youth Haggada with all of this in mind 2 Talmud Bavli Pesachim 116b more cerebral modes cannot. To quote and designed a haggada that places the 3 Laws of Chametz and Matza, 7:6 Rabbi Sacks once again: “Tell the story child at the very center of Seder night. Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski

A Neglected Prayer

hat we pray for is a good indication of how important things are to Wus. We pray for long life, good health, parnassa, and nachat from our children. The intensity of our prayers reflects the degree of their importance. Nothing equals the intensity of our prayers for life and health, because without these, whatever else we have pales in comparison. In the more comprehensive sid- durim, there is an introductory prayer attributed to Rebbe Elimelech of Liz- hensk, one of the foremost Chassidic masters.

As in other prayers, we pray for for- giveness of our sins, for Divine guid- ance, for good judgment, and for freedom from the enticement of the yetzer hara, the inclination to indulge in animalistic behavior. But there is one request not found anywhere else, to the best of my knowledge. We ask G-d to “help us to see the merits in our fellow humans and not their faults.” it. When a thorough soul-searching G-d arranges that we should see them failed to reveal where he had violated in others, and we should realize that It is not uncommon for some people Shabbat, he prayed for Divine enlight- we must correct our own faults. to be critical of others, but is far less enment. It was revealed to him that common to praise others. Seeing faults The next time you wish to say some- he had once heard the defamation of a in other people is likely to be defensive. thing negative about someone, pause Torah scholar. Inasmuch as the Zohar It is a way to bolster one’s own sagging and think. You might be revealing says that a Torah scholar has the kedu- self-esteem. your own shortcomings. sha of Shabbat, this was tantamount to The Talmud says that the faults we see a violation of Shabbat. in others are actually our own faults. The Baal Shem Tov once happened to Before being critical of another per- see a Jew violating Shabbat. True to his son’s behavior, think of your own Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski is a own belief, he felt that he must him- defects. The Baal Shem Tov said that psychiatrist and rabbi, and founder of self be guilty of having violated Shab- the world is a mirror. As we are gen- the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in bat, else he would not have noticed erally blind to our own shortcomings, Pennsylvania

16 | Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotofsky

The Lesson of the 1 Wicked Son

popular section in the Pesach contradictory sources in Tanach. One your family would not have helped. Haggadah is that of the Four of the clearest statements of individ- There is no automatic transference Sons, within which is a strange ual accountability is a proverb found of merit. Each person is responsible Agive-and-take involving the rasha. in almost identical form in Jeremiah for his own deeds and is capable of His question is deemed to be outright 31:28-29 and Ezekiel 18:2-4, and it is teshuva. The burden of one’s sins and heresy and is met with a severe in that context that the word hakheh the suffering one might endure cannot response. Whereas the other three appears. Jeremiah states: “In those days be attributed to previous generations, children receive straightforward verbal they shall say no more: ‘The fathers nor should one sin in the anticipation responses, the rasha is treated to two have eaten unripe (sour) grapes, and that the burden of guilt will be borne additional components. The Haggadah the children’s teeth are set on edge by subsequent ones. Jews cannot rest instructs the responder to “hakheh et (tikhena).’ But everyone shall die for on the laurels of righteous ancestors; shinav” – do something to the rasha’s his own iniquity; every man that eats each generation must establish its own teeth, and to inform him, in the third the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set merits and legacy. The exception to person, that had he been enslaved on edge (tikhena).” the rule of individual accountability is in Egypt he would not have been community zechut (merit) and that is redeemed. Why is he given these two Could the Haggadah’s intention in why we also inform the rasha that by additional components, what is meant using hakheh in the response to the removing himself from the commu- by hakheh, and is there a connection rasha be to immediately recall for the nity he has forfeited that too. between these anomalous aspects? reader the verses from Ezekiel and Jer- emiah and their parables? It may thus The blunting of the rasha’s teeth is a Most explanations translate hakheh be intended to convey the following subtle yet powerful reminder of per- as to “blunt” or “dull” his teeth. This message: the rasha had excluded him- sonal responsibility. This individual unusual word may contain the key self from all Pesach rituals, yet he was accountability cannot only doom to the entire response. The anony- not worried about his fate. Even if all him – as he is explicitly told – but can mous compiler of the Haggadah clev- just as readily rescue him, since he is this is really required he feels he has erly inserted his message assuming judged on his actions and his actions no need to worry. After all, the people a knowledgeable readership familiar alone. We are telling him that he is around him are his family, and they with our holy writings. not beyond hope, but it is up to him are all engaged in performing G-d’s to rescue himself. The message to the commandments. In his way of think- The word hakheh is not the common rasha is a powerful message to us as ing, some of that merit would transfer word spelled with a chaf, meaning well – each person is given free choice to him. The compiler of the Haggadah hit, but rather the rare Biblical word and sinks or swims on his own merit. ”!It appears in only three places therefore instructs “blunt his teeth .הקהה in Tanach: Jeremiah 31:28-30, Ezekiel That is, remind him of those “sour 18:2, and Kohelet 10:10. From Kohelet grape” verses. Neither guilt nor merit 1 A complete treatment of this topic can an unequivocal definition can be automatically crosses generational be found in Ari Zivotofsky, Personal Accountability and Blunting the Teeth of deduced – “blunt.” lines. the Rasha, Alei Etzion 18 (5778), pp. 155- 170, Alon Shvut. The other two verses address the In other words, if you, rasha, were concept of the culpability of one in Egypt and had not been engaged generation for the sins of another, a in the proper activity you would not Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotofsky is a Professor of fundamental issue with seemingly have been redeemed. The merit of Neuroscience and a tour guide in Ir David

| 17 killed in an act of slow genocide. Now, you?’ you shall say, ‘It is a Passover after signs and wonders and a series of sacrifice to the L-rd, who passed plagues that have brought the great- over the houses of the Israelites in est empire of the ancient world to its Egypt when He struck the Egyp- knees, they are about to go free. tians and spared our homes.’”2

Yet Moshe does not talk about free- “On that day you shall tell your dom, or the land flowing with milk child, ‘It is because of what the and honey, or the journey they will L-rd did for me when I came out of have to undertake through the desert. Egypt.’” 3 Instead, three times, he turns to the distant future, when the journey is “In the future, when your child asks The complete and the people – free at last you, ‘What is this?’ you shall tell – are in their own land. And what he him, ‘With a mighty hand, the L-rd brought us out from Egypt, from the talks about is not the land itself, or the 4 society they will have to build or even land of slavery.’” the demands and responsibilities of Why was this the most important 1 Story freedom. thing he could do in this intense Instead, he talks about education, moment of redemption? Because free- specifically about the duty of parents dom is the work of a nation, nations to their children. He speaks about the need an identity, identity needs questions children may ask when the memory, and memory is encoded in We epic events that are about to happen the stories we tell. Without narra- are, at best, a distant memory. He tive, there is no memory, and without tells the Israelites to do what Jews memory, we have no identity. The have done from then to now. Tell most powerful link between the gen- your children the story. Do it in a erations is the tale of those who came maximally effective way. Re-enact before us – a tale that becomes ours, Tell and that we hand on as a sacred her- the drama of exile and exodus, slav- ery and freedom. Get your children itage to those who will come after to ask questions. Make sure that you us. We are the story we tell ourselves tell the story as your own, not as some about ourselves, and identity begins in dry account of history. Say that the the story parents tell their children. way you live and the ceremonies you That narrative provides the answer observe are “because of what G-d did to the three fundamental questions for me” – not my ancestors but me. every reflective individual must ask Make it vivid, make it personal, and at some stage in their lives: Who am t remains one of the most counter- make it live. I? Why am I here? How then shall I intuitive passages in all of religious He says this not once but three times: live? There are many answers to these literature. Moshe is addressing the questions, but the Jewish ones are: IIsraelites just days before their release. “It shall be that when you come to I am a member of the people whom They have been exiles for 210 years. the Land which G-d will give you as G-d rescued from slavery to free- After an initial period of affluence He said, and you observe this cere- dom. I am here to build a society that and ease, they have been oppressed, mony, and your children say to you, honors the freedom of others, not just enslaved, and their male children ‘What does this service mean to my own. And I must live in conscious

18 | Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

knowledge that freedom is the gift of state, the (Aryan) race, and the (work- connect us to a past, a future and a G-d, honored by keeping His covenant ing) class. In the 20th century, the larger group whose history and des- of law and love. nation state led to two world wars. tiny we share. The biblical insight Race led to the Holocaust. The class still stands. To create and sustain a Twice in the history of the West struggle led to Stalin, the Gulag and free society, you have to teach your this fact was forgotten, or ignored, the KGB. A hundred million people children the story of how we achieved or rebelled against. In the 17th and were killed in the name of three false freedom and what its absence tastes 18th century, there was a determined gods. like: the unleavened bread of affliction effort to create a world without iden- and the bitter herbs of slavery. Lose tities. This was the project called the For the past 50 years, the West has the story and eventually you lose your Enlightenment. It was a noble dream. been embarked on a second attempt freedom. That is what happens when To it we owe many developments to abolish identity, this time in the you forget who you are and why. whose value is beyond question and opposite direction. What the secular that we must strive to preserve. How- West now worships is not the uni- The greatest gift we can give our chil- ever, one aspect of it failed and was versal but the individual: the self, the dren is not money or possessions but bound to fail: the attempt to live with- “Me,” the “I.” Morality – the thick a story – a real story, not a fantasy, out identity. code of shared values binding society one that connects them to us and to together for the sake of the common a rich heritage of high ideals. We are The argument went like this. Iden- good – has been dissolved into the not particles of dust blown this way or tity throughout the Middle Ages was right of each individual to do or be that by the passing winds of fad and based on religion. But religion had for anything he or she chooses, so long as fashion. We are heirs to a story that centuries led to war between Chris- they do not directly harm others. tians and Muslims. Then, following inspired a hundred generations of our the Reformation, it led to war between Identities have become mere masks ancestors and eventually transformed Christian and Christian, Protestant we wear temporarily and without the Western world. What you forget, and Catholic. Therefore, to abolish commitment. For large sections of you lose. The West is forgetting its war one had to move beyond identity. society, marriage is an anachronism, story. We must never forget ours. Identities are particular. Therefore, parenthood delayed or declined, and With the hindsight of 33 centuries let us worship only the things that community a faceless crowd. We we can see how right Moshe was. A are universal: reason and observa- still have stories, from Harry Potter story told across the generations is tion, philosophy and science. Let us to Lord of the Rings to Star Wars, the gift of an identity, and when you have systems, not stories. Then we but they are films, fictions, fantasies know who you are and why, you can will become one humanity, like the – a mode not of engagement but of navigate the wilderness of time with world before Babel. As Schiller put it escapism. Such a world is supremely courage and confidence. That is a and Beethoven set to music in the last tolerant, until it meets views not to life-changing idea. movement of the Ninth Symphony: its liking, when it quickly becomes Alle Menschen werden Brüder, “All brutishly intolerant, and eventually 1 That, of course, is the primary theme of men will be brothers.” degenerates into the politics of the Devarim. mob. This is populism, the prelude to 2 Shemot 12:25-27. It cannot be done, at least as human- tyranny. 3 Shemot 13:8. ity is presently constituted. The reac- 4 Shemot 13:14. tion, when it came, was fierce and Today’s hyper-individualism will disastrous. The 19th century saw not last. We are social animals. We the return of the repressed. Identity cannot live without identities, fam- Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is Emeritus came back with a vengeance, this time ilies, communities and collective Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew based not on religion, but on one of responsibility. Which means we Congregations of the Commonwealth three substitutes for it: the nation cannot live without the stories that @RabbiSacks · www.RabbiSacks.org

| 19 Rabbi Berel Wein

Pesach THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

esach has three divisions of The intermediate days of Pesach – suffered partial annihilation, grievous time. The beginning of Pesach Chol HaMoed – represent the ability losses but never total defeat and is highlighted by the story of our of Jews and of the Torah to treat the destruction. PExodus from Egypt – the Pesach Seder. mundane activities of life and the In its unique fashion, it outlines the world with holiness and a special From Pharaoh through Amalek, path of the Jewish people throughout reverence. I remember when one of my Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, the ages. The Seder symbolizes the daughters worked as an actuary in the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Latin tenacity of Jewish faith – faith in our offices of a large American insurance Christians, Moslems, Germans, G-d and in our future, in our history company. The company graciously Soviets, Arabs, some present-day and in our ancestors. allowed her to be absent on the Jewish NGOs and many others have tried holidays. However, she was never able to destroy the Jewish people. We are In effect, the Seder reinforces within to satisfactorily explain to them why resented for our particularism and us the core Jewish belief that our on Chol HaMoed she was able to come when we assimilate we are resented grandfathers were not liars and that in to the office and accomplish the even more. Yet every time it appears the tradition of the ages from Egypt work to be done that day. that history’s curtain is ready to fall on and Sinai is true, valid, relevant and us, something unforeseen occurs and vital in all places and times. The The world understands that there can Jewish resilience drives us to survival timelessness of the words and rituals be holy days and less than holy days. It and renewal. of the Seder further strengthens finds it difficult to comprehend how a our inner beliefs. It provides us with day can be holy and somehow less than The drama of Jewish survival at Yam optimism and hope for our future in completely holy at one and the same Suf repeats itself in different forms spite of all of the current dangers and time. Pesach teaches us that we are to throughout the history of civilization. problems. sanctify the mundane and the unholy Though many have wondered regular activities of everyday life. about this strange and exceptional We have the innate belief that the phenomenon, no logical or completely young ones who sit today at our Seder The trips, tours, meals and outings rational answer has ever been table will, in good time, conduct their during the days of Chol HaMoed are advanced. The L-rd has split many seas own Seder and thereby guarantee different in kind and spirit than those for us over the past three millennia of the survival and continuity of the we enjoy during the rest of the year. our existence. Jewish people. Merely bringing Jewish The fact we are still eating matzah children into this world at birth is only reinforces this uniqueness. It Pesach reminds us of this inexplicable already a declaration of faith in our reminds us of the reason for our historical truism. Somehow, merely future and confidence in the eternity Exodus from Egypt and the purpose of knowing this fact of history is alone of the Jewish people. our state of freedom – to be a special sufficient to enable us to continue to people, a kingdom of priests, a holy build and achieve no matter what our Moreover, the living memory of an nation. enemies say and do. event that occurred to our people thousands of years ago strengthens The final day of Pesach commemorates that confidence and deepens our our miraculous deliverance from determination to continue and succeed Pharaoh and his army at Yam Suf. The no matter what. This above all else is times the Jewish people have been Rabbi Berel Wein is Senior Rabbi of Beit the gift that the Seder table and Pesach seemingly on the brink of annihilation Knesset HaNassi in Jerusalem and Director night grant us. are too numerous to count. We have of the Destiny Foundation

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Chad Gadya (One Kid) is a playful cumulative song in Aramaic and Hebrew, sung at the end of the Seder. The traditional melody may have its roots in Medieval German folk music. It first appeared in a Haggadah printed in Prague in 1590, which makes it the most recent inclusion in the Seder liturgy.

22 | Chad GadyaA Journey Through Time

The Vilna Gaon explained CAT – Ya’akov’s sons’ OX – Rome (Esav’s that each verse alludes to a envy toward their brother descendants), who destroyed person or an event in Jewish Yosef, leading them to sell the Second Temple. history. Hence he interprets him into slavery in Egypt. the symbolic meaning of this BUTCHER – Mashiach sequence of people, animals DOG – Egypt, where Yosef Ben-Yosef, who will restore and objects, as follows: full Jewish sovereignty became Viceroy, and where in the Land of Israel. eventually Ya’akov’s entire clan KID – the birthright, and the subsequent Israelite mentioned in Bereishit 25. ANGEL OF nation lived, were enslaved This is the right to take the and finally redeemed. DEATH – the death of baton passed from Avraham Mashiach Ben-Yosef. to Yitzchak; to continue STICK – Moshe’s staff, used Avraham’s mission to THE HOLY ONE to summon various plagues build a world full of loving- and to part the waters of the BLESSED BE HE, kindness and monotheism Sea for the Israelites to cross. of course, needs no and devoid of idolatry, child introduction; here He arrives sacrifice and other evils. FIRE – the Israelites’ with Mashiach Ben-David. thirst for idolatry. This was a FATHER – Ya’akov Avinu, The repetition in each stanza persistent bane for over 800 who bought the birthright underscores the ebb and flow from his twin brother Esav, years, from the year they left of Jewish history – sometimes who had been born first. Egypt until the destruction we’re down, but then we rise of the First Temple. up. While most of the song TWO ZUZIM – the bread looks back, it ends with an and stew with which Ya’akov WATER – the Sages optimistic view of the future, a paid Esav for the birthright. who eradicated idolatry. fitting conclusion to the Seder.

| 23 RAV KOOK’S TEACHINGS

Rabbi Chanan Morrison THE BIRTH OF A NATION his is how you must eat [the A meteoric Exodus from Egypt with of Torah, and reestablish their spiritual Passover offering]: with wonders and miracles was critical to center in Jerusalem. Step by step, your waist belted, your protect this fledgling nation from the without overriding the laws of nature, “Tshoes on your feet, and your staff in dark confusion of universal paganism. so that even the Ba’al HaNess, the your hand. You must eat it with chipa- The Jewish people needed to be quickly beneficiary of the miracle, is unaware zon — in haste.”1 extracted from the idolatrous Egyptian of the great miracle unfolding. milieu in which they had lived for The word chipazon is uncommon. It centuries so they would be free to Unlike the dramatic Exodus from appears only three times in the entire raise the banner of pure faith and Egypt, the future redemption is not Bible. Twice it is used to describe the enlightened ideals. an escape from the world and its Israelites’ haste when they fled Egypt. influences. Over the centuries, the Why did they need to be ready to THE FUTURE REDEMPTION Jewish people have succeeded in depart at a moment’s notice? illuminating many dark aspects of The third time the word chipazon the world. Our influence has refined appears in the Bible is in Isaiah’s According to the Midrash, there the world on many levels. The impact breathtaking description of the future were in fact three parties in a rush of our Torah and lifestyle, which we redemption. Unlike the Exodus from for the Israelites to leave Egypt. The observed with dedication and self- Egypt, “You will not leave with haste Egyptians, afraid of further plagues sacrifice throughout the exile, served — chipazon — or go in flight. For the and catastrophes, wanted the Hebrew as a beacon of light for many nations. slaves to clear out as quickly as Eternal will go before you, and your 2 possible. The Israelites were in a hurry rear guard will be the G-d of Israel.” We must draw upon the heritage of our redemption from Egypt and our lest Pharaoh change his mind yet again, Unlike the miraculous upheaval that miraculous birth as the people of Israel. and there was a third party in a state brought about the dramatic launch of urgency. The Midrash speaks of the of the Jewish people, the future The current process of redemption, chipazon of the Shechina. Why was redemption will be a gradual process, manifest in the revitalization of the G-d in a hurry? advancing step by step. Why will the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, future redemption be so different from must not be detached from our A HASTY REDEMPTION the redemption from Egypt? national mission as a light unto the nations. Then our future redemption The redemption from Egypt needed In Egypt, the Hebrew slaves had will be not in haste, but will advance to be fast, like the swift release of an adopted their neighbors’ idolatrous steadily, like the ever-spreading light of arrow from a bow. Here was a group culture. Their redemption required daybreak.3 of slaves who had almost completely supernatural intervention, a Divine forgotten the greatness of their souls, rescue from above. But the future a treasured inheritance from their redemption will take place within ancestors who were widely respected the laws of nature. It will emanate 1 Shemot 12:11. as holy princes. With a decisive wave from the stirring of the human heart, of G-d’s hand, a nation brimming with itaruta deletata — an awakening from 2 Isaiah 52:12. courage and nobility of spirit, unlike below. The Jewish people will rise from Adapted from Sapphire from the Land of Israel any people the world had ever seen, their exilic slumber, return to their was formed. This was the dramatic homeland, regain their independence, birth “of a nation from the midst of reclaim their forests and cities, defend Rabbi Chanan Morrison is the author of another nation” on the stage of human themselves from enemies who seek to several books on Rav Kook’s writings history. destroy them, recreate their academies www.RavKookTorah.org

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WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI פו RABBI RABBI רים ט"ו בשבט שמח! RABBI HERSHEL שמח! SCHACHTER RABBI BEREL WEIN YOSEF ZVI RIMON JONATHAN SACKS 64 64 on the special sanctity RABBI LORD of Eretz Yisrael living our own taking medicine looks forward to the RABBI HERSHEL PAGES! PAGES! יום העצמאות שמח! on Pesach purim story next challenge SCHACHTER YOM YERUSHALAYIM & SHAVUOTJONATHAN SACKS SIVAN SIVAN pinpoints the SUKKOT, SHEMINI ATZERET פסח כשר ושמח! PAGE 6 pursues profits ROSH HASHANAH PAGE 10 PAGE 14 RAHAV-MEIR RAHAV-MEIR PAGE 24 essence of Torah and prophets on smartphones tells the story of the Happy Purim! Happy Yom HaAtzmaut! and real simanim age-old Jewish weapon AND SIMCHAT TORAH Happy Tu BiShvat! PAGE 6 Happy Pesach! PAGE 12 AND YOM KIPPUR PAGE 22 RABBANIT SHANI PAGE 24 RABBANIT SHANI RABBANIT SHANI RABBANIT SHANI RABBI HERSHEL RABBI LORD TARAGIN RABBANIT SHANI SCHACHTER TARAGIN TARAGIN JONATHAN SACKS pens a song of milk TARAGIN TARAGIN RABBANIT SHANI explains the power reveals the secret of on the Jewish The Little-Known Reason of the shofar explains why insecurity and honey on why purim is the reveals why blue and Thanksgiving TARAGIN is a good thing Jewish survival white are special colors most zionistic holiday with a fascinating PAGE 16 PAGE 5 PAGE 18 PAGE 5 PAGE 5 insight into Eliyahu PAGE 5 PAGE 5 Why the Six-Day War RABBI SHALOM HaNavi ROSNER RABBI RABBI RABBANIT RACHELLE RABBI with the magic PAGE 5 FRAENKEL RABBANIT SHANI RABBI YOSEF ZVI of Torah JONATHAN SACKS RIMON TISHA B’AV advocates compassion TARAGIN JONATHAN SACKS Started on June 5 RABBI DORON explores the difference challenges us to look JONATHAN SACKS asks you to PEREZ ...for ourselves discusses ‘early’ PAGE 10 between water and wine after our world invites us to be alert ask questions The Heroes of Yom HaAtzmaut challenges us to PAGE 34 PAGE 32 to G-d's messages PAGE 32 On the morning of reconsider our rules PAGE 9 PAGE 14 PAGE 8 RABBI LORD DR. YAEL of discourse INSIDE: Friday, June 2, 1967, the Reacting to JONATHAN SACKS Outpost 107 RABBI DR. ABRAHAM ZIEGLER PAGE 3 encourages us to feel J. TWERSKI examines similarities Ministerial Committee YOUR EICHA G-d’s closeness During the Yom Kippur War, with the antidote to between Ruth and Boaz Criticism resentment in for Security Matters PAGE 20 relationships RABBANIT SIVAN DR. EFRAT RABBANIT COMPANION 19 Israeli soldiers with minimal YEMIMA MIZRACHI PAGE 14 RABBANIT SHARON PAGE 38 RAHAV-MEIR SOBOLOFSKY YEMIMA MIZRACHI convened in the War ammunition held back the with a crash course ORDINARY offers three pieces RABBI LORD RIMON Chief Rabbi of South PAGES 16–20 with advice for a finds some jewels in Jewish eating HEROES JONATHAN SACKS Room in Tel Aviv as offers comfort from the RABBANIT SHANI of dating advice lauds a Africa, Rabbi Dr. Warren TARAGIN might of the Syrian army for noisy world INSIDE! along the way trauma of destruction PAGETOVA 52 AN INSPIRING double celebration usual… PAGE 30 explores the symbolism GANZEL ושמחת בחגך! .PAGE 39 PAGE 14 of red and white over four days INTERVIEWPAGE 23 A 10-PAGE SEDER COMPANION PAGE 23 Goldstein, explains reveals the secrets of PAGE 20 WITH THE TO ENRICH AND ENLIGHTEN YOUR PESACH! PAGE 9 the wondrous willow how we can leverage PAGE 9 RABBI YOSEF ZVI PARENTS OF RABBI CHAIM RABBI YEHOSHUA RIMON FASS PAGE 21 RABBI HERSHEL Tisha B’Av to give and RABBI YOSEF ZVI PAGE 54 Insights into happiness from Rabbi Doron Perez, ARI FULD NAVON DR. BRYNA RIMON SCHACHTER HAMIZRACHI REGULAR FEATURESPAGE 4 Rabbi Chaim Navon, Mrs. Shira Smiles, with A Fruity Conundrum on buying Israeli analyzes binge on the importance JOCHEVED LEVY RABBI BEREL PAGE 8 asks whether the Mizrachi Educators PAGE 8 receive criticism in a addresses what to do WEIN fruits overseas relationships of the fifth cup compares Sinai if one cannot fast and Jerusalem Ask the Rabbi PAGE 22 on why Israel is the PAGE 10 PAGE 6 Redemption has begun more sensitive and Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Rabbi Dr. Aaron Adler, PAGE 10 Your guide to the place to be on Sukkot PAGE 22 PAGE 6 Marriage PAGE 23 PAGE 10 Rabbi David Aaron and Rabbi Alex Israel PAGE 15 Rosh Hashanah PAGE 22 Parenting PAGE 28 effective way Simanim PAGE 14 PAGE 15 What’s in a Word The remarkable story of how Israel clinton and tanya ephron Source sheets to enhance your learning on Shavuot night from has become a world leader in kidney SIVAN the revolutionary Tzurba M’Rabanan study program! transplants PAGE 42 PHIL CHERNOFSKY in memory of RABBANIT this issue is dedicated dedicate this edition in honor of theRABBANIT ’S NEW SHLICHIM TO ז"לRAHAV-MEIR INSIDE! INSIDE! dedicated in loving memory of ז"ל with a fruity YEMIMA MIZRACHI in loving memory of bat mitzvah of their beloved• daughterSHARON RIMON ISRAEL’S POWER COUPLE ARE HEADING TO AMERICA conundrum ari fuld with some magical with a post-election • sasha lia questions who is this edition is dedicated in memory of READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH MIZRACHI If you don’t want to keep HaMizrachi, you can double-wrap it before disposal, or place it directly into sheimos. pinchas kurnedz lover and defender of israel moments for women professor cyril domb reflection this edition is dedicated in honor of PAGE 17 joel mael and family • by his wife and children returning to whom NORTH AMERICA, SIVAN RAHAV MEIR AND YEDIDYA MEIR by his children and family • lynn & taking place this pesach in yerushalayim isabel & edwin shafier PAGE 41 kurt & edith rothschild PAGE 21 PAGE 9 for their lifelong unswerving commitment to a survivor, a fighter, and a passionate ardent zionists, who planted the seeds for their children, grandchildrenPAGE 14 zionist loved and missed by all and great-grandchildren, now living in our beautiful land am yisrael, eretz yisrael and torat yisrael

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Spring A TIME OF INTROSPECTION amily, food, wine and matzah. sometimes masks our fears, this will with ourselves? Everyone who is While these are some of the most impact our existing relationships human experiences fear at some point common associations of Pesach, and our ability to develop new in their lives. Fear has a unique hold Fit is also a time for personal introspec- relationships. Only once we rid on us. Many of us are stuck in our tion. We also have many philosophical ourselves of our emotional chametz – ways and afraid to admit we do not questions – why are we so careful to arrogance and fears – will we succeed want to change. get rid of every last chametz crumb in our relationships and gain internal in our homes? What’s the true mean- freedom. However, fear also leads to growth. ing and symbolism of chametz? Is When one realizes that growth there more to this holiday than just an This is the time we pay attention to means facing fears, challenging intensive spring cleaning? our ego. We take a long hard look in the mirror and focus on our lives and comfort zones, one will own any The process of preparing bread (the for some, the way we date. According areas requiring self-reflection and quintessential chametz), mixing to Ted Leonhardt, feelings of pride change and move forward. This is seeds of grain with water and yeast and arrogance often serve as defense achieving real freedom; freedom from is a highly creative one. According mechanisms.3 They are a method for assumptions about the very specific 1 to Rabbi David Fohrman, the bread- hiding and/or compensating for our type of person we need to be with, maker himself becomes G-d-like, insecurities. We may reject others freedom from worrying we cannot through ruling over the ingredients before being rejected by others. handle the pain of rejection, freedom and molding them to suit his or her Some people are always looking at a from fear and insecurities. We need creative needs. However, Pesach potential relationship and searching to erase expectations of rejection and is a unique time when the Jewish for reasons why it just won’t work for be more open to prospective matches people are commanded to embody them, instead of why it may work. and relationships. We need to broaden a different spirit – namely, to stop Perhaps the other person went to the our horizons and date more wisely, baking bread in a normal manner, wrong school or is too tall or too short. with a greater level of self-awareness to stop wielding that awesome G-d- and self-esteem. This flexibility allows like power for seven days, and to step In her book “Feel the Fear and Do It us to foster relationships and see if back from the creative mindset that, Anyway,” Susan Jeffers states that to potential exists for a deep emotional when unchecked, often leads one succeed in a relationship you must face connection. to a sense of misplaced arrogance. your fears. A person must acknowledge Therefore, when we limit our bread the roots of their fears. This is never Let us take the time to thoroughly self- making to unleavened bread, without easy, as most people do not naturally introspect and remove the chametz the yeast rising, we are pulling back possess this level of self-awareness. in our lives. And, in doing so, we will from this creative process. The holiday Most people cannot realize they are overcome any arrogance and fears. of Pesach, our annual disposal of sabotaging their own relationships May this freedom in examining our chametz, serves as a stark reminder vis-a-vis their own arrogance and relationships bring personal happiness that only G-d is truly in charge of the insecurities. Furthermore, we must and fulfillment. Dayeinu! world and all that occurs in it. recognize that we are often trying to avoid rejection or a negative emotional The Maharsha points out that yeast outcome. We need to take a long hard 1 Rabbi David Fohrman, Alephbeta.org, Parashat Emor. rising within the dough is symbolic look and acknowledge that we can 2 Maharsha, Berachot 17a. of an inflation of our ego and the handle rejection or failure, and still temptation to pursue all of our 3 Ted Leonhardt, “How To Be a Success At 2 stand tall. Fear can be managed best Everything.” physical desires. Some behavioral when it is recognized and confronted. scientists posit that arrogance is often a front for internal fears. Hence, if Most people will say they are not Mrs. Mindy Eisenman, MSW, is a Staff chametz symbolizes arrogance, which afraid. But are we truly being honest Connector at YUConnects and a Dating Coach

26 | PARENTING

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz Time, Not Money everal years ago, my wife and I us. However, when they are younger taught myself – and later each of our were hiking in a state park near and craving for our attention, we often children – to ski and golf because I felt our home when we heard the are too busy, too preoccupied, too those two activities would allow me to Smusic of children’s laughter off in the distracted and too unaware of how spend huge blocks of time with them distance. We veered off the path to important our time with them is to in their adolescent years. (Where else follow the source of the sounds and their emotional health. other than a chairlift can you get your found a 30-something man wading teenager to spend 10 minutes with waist-deep in the stream along with you, 20 times in one day?) And when his three preteen children – all of the realization hit me years ago that them fully clothed. Not wanting to between learning with our sons and intrude on their privacy, my wife and taking them to shul, I was spending far I watched them splashing, cavorting more time with them than I was and giggling, before moving on. with our daughters, I decided to It was simply the most beautiful create a yearly NBA (No Boys “Kodak Moment” one could imag- Allowed) vacation with our two ine. (For those raised with digital eldest daughters, when I would cameras, Kodak is a company that spend two-three days with them makes film, and they ran ads for alone – without my wife or sons. many years in which photographed They are both married but to this treasured times in one’s life were day, they regularly mention our “Kodak Moments.” Film is what NBA vacations and talk about how old people used to put in their much they looked forward to them cameras before taking pictures.) all year long. I very strongly urge you to do When our youngest daughter, Sara, everything in your power to was 10 years old, she and I were plan- spend quality time with your children ning our NBA vacation. I told her I and help each of them create their would take her shopping for the trip own album of “Kodak Moments.” Par- Time with you is the greatest self-es- ents often make the mistake of think- teem builder for your children, for it the night before and asked her if there ing they need to take their children sends a message that your connection was anything special she wanted me on exotic vacations or to an expensive with them is so meaningful to you. It to purchase. With a straight face, she amusement park for them to enjoy allows you to get to know your chil- asked me to get her a cell phone bat- themselves. That is just not so. They dren and helps build trust, affection tery. Perplexed, I asked her why she don’t need your money; they need you. and deeply personal relationships, all needed a battery for a cell phone she That fellow I saw in the park didn’t prerequisites to having them confide didn’t have. spend a dime on the outing with his in you and seek your guidance when “No, Tatty,” Sara responded with a kids, but the memories they will carry they need it later in life. of their impulsive plunge into the twinkle in her eyes, “for this trip, I stream together with their father will In the hectic lives we lead nowadays, want you to take the battery out of remain etched in their minds for life. you will need to have steely determi- your cell phone and give it to me.” nation to accomplish that goal. You One of the great ironies of life is that will also be well served to spend cre- when our children grow through their ative energy thinking of what you can Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, Founding Dean of teenage years and beyond, it is so chal- do to carve out such time with them. Yeshiva Darchei Noam of Monsey, is an lenging to get them to spend time with When our oldest was eight years old, I educator, author and child safety advocate

| 27 Rabbi Menachem Leibtag Where Should Maggid Begin? he Mishnah1 provides guidelines how Rav’s opinion may stem from a more was part of an orchestrated set of events fundamental thematic consideration, with a Divine purpose. This experience of ַמ ְת ִחיל ִּב ְג ּנות) for how to tell the story start with disgrace relating to the very essence and purpose of bondage in Egypt could be understood as – ּוְמַסֵּים ְּבׁ ֶשַבח Tand end with praise) but does not inform our celebration of Pesach. a sort of ‘basic training’ – to prepare Am us where that story should begin. Let us Yisrael for their future destiny. contemplate for a moment where would be In Parashat Lech Lecha, when G-d first the best (or most logical) point to start the chose Avraham Avinu to become the As the purpose of that process was to story of the Exodus. One could entertain forefather of His special nation, they 2 facilitate the goal of becoming G-d’s several possibilities. entered a covenant, in which G-d not only ‘chosen nation,’ it was first forecasted when promised the Land to Avraham’s offspring, G-d convened the Brit bein HaBetarim The simplest and most obvious approach He also informed Avraham that before with Avraham Avinu. Telling the story would be to begin with Bnei Yisrael’s inheriting that Land, his offspring would once a year, and beginning that story with enslavement in Egypt. After all, that is need to endure many years of enslavement Avraham Avinu, is critical, because it will exactly where the book of Exodus begins! and oppression in a foreign land. Only On the other hand, one could start a afterward would G-d redeem them, and ensure we remember and apply its message bit earlier, with the story of Ya’akov and then in a most glorious fashion.3 in our daily lives as G-d’s people. his family going down to Egypt; or even with the story of Yosef being sold by his It appears that this long historical process Therefore, at our Seder, when we begin brothers – for that is the underlying reason of ‘slavery and redemption’ was part of our story by first thanking G-d for keeping for how we got there. However, if we a Divine plan that would facilitate the His covenantal promise to Avraham ְ we are not ,( ָ ּב ר ּו ך שׁ וֹ ֵמ ר ַה ְב ָט ָח ת וֹ ) continue with that logic, we could go back transformation of this chosen family into Avinu another generation or two to the story of G-d’s ‘model nation.’ When this nation only thanking G-d for His kind act of Avraham Avinu, or maybe even begin with would arrive at Mt. Sinai and collectively Redemption, but we are also reminding the story of Creation! enter into an eternal covenant to become ourselves how that story must affect the G-d’s people,4 they would also receive manner in which we behave every day (and This dilemma appears to be the underlying numerous laws to guide their society to night) of our lives. reason behind the Talmudic dispute become kind and sensitive to needs of between Rav and Shmuel, in their the less fortunate. The Torah will use the Or as Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya shared with interpretation of the Mishnah’s guideline refrain of “Remember you were once a his colleagues at their all-night Seder in to begin with a derogatory comment. slave in Egypt” or alternatively, “Remember Bnei Brak: “we tell the story once a year so ’At first our you were once a stranger is someone else’s that we ‘remember the day we left Egypt“ – ַמ ְת ִח ָילה ְעוֹבֵדי ֲע ָבוֹדה ָזָרה – Rav ancestors were idol worshipers...” land” as a motivating phrase following every day (and night) of our lives.” each of these commandments of social We were once sensitivity. To prove this point, see Vayikra“ – ֲע ָב ִדים ָה ִי ּינו – Shmuel slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt...” 19:36-39 and the other examples listed in 1 Pesachim 10. the footnote.5 Even though one could suggest that Rav 2 Better known as Brit bein HaBetarim, Bereishit 15:1-20. and Shmuel argue concerning what is In another example, toward the conclusion 3 See Bereishit 13-14. considered a more derogatory statement of the Law section in Parashat Mishpatim, 4 Shemot 19:5-8. – the fact we were once slaves, or we we find: were once idol worshipers – their dispute 5 Devarim 5:14-15; 10:17-19; 15:14-15; 16:11- may also relate to this more fundamental “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you 12;24:17-18; 24:19-22. question – concerning where the story of know the feelings of the stranger, having 6 Shemot 23:9, but see also 22:20. Yetziat Mitzrayim actually begins – from yourselves been strangers in the land of our slavery in Egypt (Shmuel), or from the Egypt.”6 time of our forefathers (Rav). Rabbi Menachem Leibtag is an From this perspective, Bnei Yisrael’s internationally acclaimed Tanach scholar Even though Shmuel’s opinion seems to slavery in Egypt and their subsequent and online Jewish education pioneer be the most logical, we will now explain redemption was not incidental; rather it [email protected]

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MIZRACHI SHLICHIM Haggadah Thoughts for Your Seder eder Night is not a “A Day of survives, gets by somehow, passes the is able to focus on the goal, and wait Remembrance” for the Exodus time. A free person knows he’s here for a meal even if he or she is hungry. from Egypt, but the time to change, to develop, to raise up the The karpas is there to show us that Sto experience it anew. Here are a mundane, to elevate reality to a higher we are not like slaves who pounce on few stations to look out for on the plane. That is the first command on the slightest morsel. We may smell the journey: Seder Night. enticing smells from the kitchen but we’re prepared to wait. First let’s talk KADESH URCHATZ words of Torah. Seder Night begins with a command… How much dirt and filth have we As Rav Rimon writes in his Haggadah: Kadesh! Sanctify, because Pesach accumulated since we went through “One needs to know how to be teaches us what our role is in the Urchatz last Seder Night? We have a free. A person who is free from all world: to sanctify. This is our lot to clean and eradicate. responsibility and does whatever he destiny, to sanctify the profane, wants, is not free. A free person is to make the world holy. You KARPAS one who can do everything he wants, want to be a free person? Before we eat the main meal, a little but only does what his pure soul Sanctify your reality! bite of a vegetable in salt water instructs him to do. A free person is A slave is someone precedes our discussion of the Exodus someone who knows how to control who lives within from Egypt and our sharing words of his freedom.” an existing wisdom. reality – YACHATZ he just There are those who see a life lesson in works, this. One should appreciate the little We snap the middle matzah into two things, the seemingly insignificant and leave the smaller half in between details. G-d asks that in His huge the two other matzot. We hide the world of abundance and riches, we other half as the afikoman. also pay attention to the little bite of Here’s one explanation: Even the karpas. After all, Seder Night is a night snapping, the break, the hardships, of education. How can you be truly are part of the redemption process. free if you don’t express gratitude for every little thing you receive? A person We believe that sometimes we need who does not appreciate the little to break what we have now in order things is not worthy to receive the to move forward and reach new and bigger ones. higher levels. And here at the Seder, even when we break the middle But there’s more. matzah, we are expectantly looking forward to better times, to revealing How do we relate to food, as slaves the afikoman. We intuitively know our wanting to go free? Is being setbacks are only temporary stations hungry freedom? No, but on the way to full freedom and having your spirit control redemption. your body is. A free person And of course there’s another important idea here. It’s the children who have to restore the afikoman, the missing piece. The next generation is responsible for repairing the breaks that we didn’t manage to repair. We

30 | Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir Haggadah Thoughts for Your Seder may have grown tired or forgotten the Lavan wanted Ya’akov’s family to sanctify, wash, break, bless, etc. while aim, so it’s the children who have to become Aramean and integrate with Nirtza is written in the passive form. remind us of the path, to shake us up his family, hence Lavan’s decree is far a little. more serious than Pharaoh’s. Pharaoh This teaches us that we’ve been was very clear and direct. His was through an internal process tonight, and we’re now at a different level, a a physical attack against the Jewish הָא לַחְמָא עַ נְיָ א males. In contrast, Lavan tried to new level. We’re wanted, Nirtza. Our We open the proceedings with a uproot us all, to upset the root of our souls are now attuned and desired for declaration: this is the bread of identity and existence, and that is a far the way of G-d. affliction that our forefathers ate in greater and more elusive danger. אֶחָד ימִ יֹודֵעַ Egypt. Anyone who is hungry and needy, should come in and eat, come We can stand up to a physical fight, Who Knows One? seems like a cute and join us at our Seder table. and thank G-d we have overcome children’s song and a useful tool to many horrific struggles in our history. In other words, the first thing we do as keep the children up and alert till But total spiritual assimilation? Much the end of Seder. According to one free people is to care for the needs of harder to withstand. If another nation others. explanation though, this song is a type controls us socially and culturally, we of association game, a test of where When man first set foot on the moon, are in grave danger. Hence the remedy we’re holding. We’ve been through go out and learn – ֵצא ּו ְל ַמד tonight is Rav Yosef Kahaneman smiled, moved a process tonight and now we check what it means to be a Jew. the curtain on his window aside, ourselves to see if we’ve absorbed the looked up at the moon and then down messages. שְ ׁפְֹך חֲמָתְָך אֶל הַ ּגֹויִם אֲשֶ ׁרֹלא יְדָ עּוָך .on the people on the street outside When asking “Who Knows One?” He said, “Man may have reached the To ask G-d to pour out His anger what do we think of? The 1st of moon but he still has yet to reach his against the non-Jews is not exactly the month? Payday? “Who Knows fellow man.” politically correct, so it is important Two?” - #2 in the primaries perhaps? to be clear. There are no private Four? The latest 4x4 SUV? 12? The In other words, it’s easier to achieve revenge missions. We are fighting our scientific breakthroughs than to create 12-month warranty on the new enemies while upholding our ethics washing machine? deep and caring relationships with and the fact we are created “in the each other. image of G-d.” Having said that, we This song is a raincheck on where Seder Night is our chance to correct can certainly pray – that the good will our minds are after a night of intense that. vanquish the evil, and that those who education. Are our priorities straight? are out to destroy us will themselves Two are the two tablets, four are our be destroyed. four mothers, 12 are the 12 tribes, and after such a wonderful night – these – אצֵ ּולְמַ ד Go out and learn – who is more We pray for Divine justice. are the elements of our identity, our of a danger to us today? Lavan or most natural world of content, that we Pharaoh? Lavan is an inveterate NIRTZA ought to be thinking of. trickster, switching Rachel and Leah, We have reached the peak of the Chag Kasher VeSameach! and swindling Ya’akov at every turn. evening. We have worked hard and He wanted to gain control of Ya’akov’s now end the Seder with a series of family – “The daughters are my wonderful songs. Officially though, daughters and the sons are my sons halachically, the Seder is over. Rav and the flock my flock and everything Kook wrote that all the simanim of Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir are you see belongs to me,” when in fact the Seder, all the different stages, popular Israeli media personalities and they all belonged to Ya’akov. are written in an imperative form: World Mizrachi’s shlichim to North America

| 31 Your Seder Companion Foods of the Seder

To help prepare for the Seder, HaMizrachi presents you with divrei Torah about the foods found on your Seder table: matzah, wine, maror, karpas, charoset, zeroa and beitzah. Rabbi Moshe Zeldman The Mystery of Matzah

t the beginning of the Pesach the people took their dough before it instead of serving your higher self, Seder we hold up the matzah could rise.”1 your aspirations for greatness. and say, “This is the bread of Animals aren’t free; they’re stuck being And when we finally stop and open Aaffliction that our forefathers ate in animals, living according to their our luggage, what do we find? Matzah! the land of Egypt.” During our time in instincts. Fashion divas aren’t free; Egypt we were so rushed and pressed No dough to make bagels, pizza, they’re serving popularity and public by the Egyptians, there was no time focaccia, not even a lousy pancake! image. Party animals aren’t free; they to enjoy a meal. The pressure of time We’ve been liberated from Egypt but forced us to get the calories into our we’re still not free! Now we’re stuck constantly need the next thing to keep bloodstream as quickly as possible having to follow G-d’s directions. the high going. and get back to work. The Egyptian The Torah emphasizes this anomaly As Bob Dylan so eloquently wrote, taskmasters would have opted for IVs when G-d tells us, “The Jewish people if they had the technology. So matzah “You gotta serve somebody.” And are my servants because I took them as Rabbi Noah Weinberg defined, represents our slavery. 2 out of the land of Egypt.” It sounds “Freedom is being able to pursue what like we just changed taskmasters! But later in the Seder, we hold up the you really want to do (your higher matzah another time and ask, “Why Before it was Pharaoh making us build cities and now it’s G-d making us pray, goals), not what you feel like doing matzah? Because G-d took us out of (your momentary impulses).” Egypt so quickly that we didn’t have give charity, keep Shabbat, honor our parents, etc. time to let the dough rise.” That means So matzah represents both freedom matzah represents freedom! Did we really become free on Pesach or and slavery, because they’re not Which one is it: slavery or freedom? just exchange whom we’re serving? opposites. “Enslaving” yourself, pushing yourself and committing yourself to a How can one thing symbolize two The answer is that limits engender higher purpose in life is challenging, opposite concepts? freedoms. If you want to achieve but it’s the only way to taste that real anything in life, you need to make Imagine being in Egypt the night freedom of breaking your own barriers before the Exodus took place. After choices and limit other options, and reaching greatness. hundreds of years of slavery, of being implement those choices and not just dream about success, and stick bossed around, we finally get to be free As we eat the matzah on Pesach night, people! To make our own decisions, with your goals even when things get tough. Olympic athletic hopefuls have let’s remember that we want to leave shape our own destiny, use our time our personal Egypt, get to our own the way we want to! Pharaoh opens to put a lot of limits on themselves — Mount Sinai experience and bring the gates and we exuberantly run out training, diet, daily hours on the track, of Egypt, thinking, “Ahh, now’s my letting their lives be controlled by a out our full potential. Striving for real chance to get a Jacuzzi, a smorgasbord demanding coach. It’s those very limits meaning and growth in life is hard. at the local deli, or take that long nap that allow them to really achieve their And that’s what makes it so delicious I’ve been waiting 210 years for.” goal of winning the gold. They are a when you get there. lot more free than the others who may But before we know it, G-d arranges have that same potential, but watch for us to be rushed out of Egypt so the Olympics from their couch saying, 1 Shemot 12:33-34. quickly that we grab our food and “Maybe one day…” 2 Vayikra 25:55. supplies and run to our first resting stop in the desert, the city of Sukkot. Freedom is not hours of mindless web surfing, indulging in a smorgasbord, Rabbi Moshe Zeldman is an author who “The Egyptians were also urging the or hanging out on the beaches of teaches machshava and leadership people to hurry and leave the land... Hawaii. That’s serving your body [email protected]

| 33 Rabbi Judah Dardik

Why Wine?

eder Night is an evening of not inherently an expression of going welcome his father and brothers many distinct practices with free from slavery, so much as the and their families to Egypt to settle, the common thread of helping vehicle that bears the declarations of and ultimately they were forced Srelate the story of our Exodus from celebration and freedom contained in into slavery. Hence the wine cups in Egypt. We tell the story, lean as free the Seder. Pharaoh’s dream were the first step people, eat matzah and maror (and 3 in Bnei Yisrael’s slavery. When we ideally korban Pesach), dip in charoset, In contrast, the Rambam indicates celebrate our freedom, we pause to and more. The Seder is our guide that each individual participating remember the seemingly insignificant to reenacting what our ancestors in the Seder should drink their own first steps that led us down this experienced more than 3,300 years four cups of wine, and that it is an ago. expression of going free. In what way painful path. might the four cups directly represent However, there is another central Secondly, Yosef himself was practice that seems ostensibly imprisoned at the time he interpreted unconnected: drinking wine. The the butler’s dream. After he Mishnah1 states that a person should explained what they represented, he drink no fewer than four was set free. This is the story cups of wine at the Seder. of an individual who was And indeed, moments of trapped and then given back drinking wine are woven his own life and ability for through the evening at the self-direction. The Rambam beginning, middle and end. notes that each person Why? How does drinking four should see himself or herself cups of wine foster the recall of personally as if leaving Egypt. yetziat Mitzrayim? Yosef serves to remind us that Who has the obligation to the Seder is an experience drink wine? According to the of personal emancipation as 2 Ba’alei HaTosafot, only the head of the experience of liberation? One well. It is quite easy to get lost in the the household. One could suggest that connection made by the Talmud national perspective of the birth of our for Tosafot, the cups of wine serve as Yerushalmi4 is that Pharaoh’s cup is people, so the cups of wine remind us an anchor and manifestation of the mentioned four times in the story of of Yosef’s experience as an individual other verbal mitzvot of the Seder. Yosef when he interpreted the dream yearning for and realizing redemption. One has the obligation of kiddush of the wine steward.5 Still, why would and makes it over a cup of wine like we engage in symbolic gestures about all other Shabbatot and holidays. One the unrelated earlier story of Yosef? 1 Pesachim 10:1. has the obligation to tell the story of the Exodus, and thus has a filled One could suggest a twofold linkage 2 Pesachim 99b (lo yifchchitu). cup present throughout Maggid, here. First, that Yosef’s interpretation 3 Laws of Chametz 7:6-7. drinking it at the conclusion of that of the butler’s dream is his first step 4 On Mishnah Pesachim 10:1. step. Birkat HaMazon is recited over a towards the palace. Once he explained cup after the holiday meal as at other the dream, he was positioned to be 5 Bereishit 40:11-13. times, and the final cup is linked to remembered for his interpretive gifts reciting Hallel in thanks for having and brought to Pharaoh when needed Rabbi Judah Dardik is Assistant Dean and a been saved by G-d. According to this later. That led to his elevation to be teacher at Yeshivat Orayta in the Old City of approach, drinking the four cups is the royal Vizier. In time he would Jerusalem

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n interesting pattern in the children would ascend to Jerusalem challenges. He will taste bitter herbs Jewish calendar leads to Seder to eat the Korban Pesach with matzah and cry painful tears, yet his universal Night always falling out on the and maror. Maror connects Pesach mission will not go unfulfilled. He will same weekday as another profound with Tisha B’Av for when we eat lead the Jewish people and the entire A 1 evening: Tisha B’Av. Sure enough, the bitter herbs, we are reminded world towards the final redemption, this year’s first Seder is on Wednesday of the devastating loss of the Beit which will take place during the night (April 8) and Tisha B’Av falls out HaMikdash. month of Pesach. As it says,4 “in on a Wednesday night (July 29) as well. However, as Jews, and especially on Nissan we were redeemed and in It’s strange because these two nights Pesach, we cannot remain depressed Nissan we will be redeemed again.” are so different! On Tisha B’Av we for long. History has taught us that This year, so many of us are not refrain from all food and drink while when we are at the lowest of the low, celebrating the Seder as we had at the Seder we enjoy a huge meal and the seeds for our eventual ascent are four cups of wine. On Tisha B’Av, we planted. We dip the bitter maror into originally planned. Trips to Israel were sit on the floor in mourning, chanting the sweet charoset in affirmation of cancelled, Pesach programs closed, Eicha and Kinnot in hushed tones, our belief that G-d has, and always families prevented from coming and at the Seder we recline in luxury, will, rescue us from the grief of galut together and many of our fellow Jews singing Hallel with great joy. and bring us to the gaiety of geulah. are eating the Seder all alone due to the Coronavirus pandemic. While for the most part, Tisha B’Av One of the key personalities of the and Leil HaSeder are polar opposites, Seder is Rabbi Akiva, who lived Therefore, when we eat the maror there is one moment at the Seder through the destruction of the Temple on Wednesday night, let us think of where the connection makes perfect in Jerusalem. Imagine the bitter tears the connection to Tisha B’Av and sense. When we eat maror, we recall he must have shed while eating the Rabbi Akiva’s laughter. Let us taste the pain and torture of our slavery maror in Bnei Brak just years after the the sweetness of the charoset and in Egypt. “What is the significance destruction of the Beit HaMikdash! sing “LeShana Haba BiYerushalayim of maror?” we ask in the Haggadah. HaBenuya” and let us look forward to “Because the Egyptians embittered the However, Rabbi Akiva didn’t let the Mashiach, who was born on the 9th of lives of our ancestors in Egypt.” Maror bitterness he experienced prevent represents the pain and suffering of him from inspiring his generation. Av and whose imminent arrival will slavery in Egypt and is, therefore, the He famously2 comforted the grieving surely come soon! symbolic bridge between Pesach and mourners at the site of the ruins of the Tisha B’Av, the day representing all Temple, and taught the Jewish people 1 See Orach Chaim 428:3, Rama 476:3. Jewish suffering. an eternal lesson - our deliverance 2 Makkot 24b. would come through the destruction. 3 Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 2:4. Maror has another dimension When everyone cried, Rabbi Akiva 4 Rosh Hashanah 11a. with an even stronger link to Tisha laughed, for he understood the B’Av. During the times of the Beit connection between Tisha B’Av and HaMikdash, maror was an essential Pesach. Rabbi Tuly Weisz is the director of ingredient of the Korban Pesach. Israel365, which teaches non-Jews about 3 Whereas on Sukkot and Shavuot it was The Yerushalmi teaches that the the biblical significance of Israel, and enough for representatives from each Mashiach will be born on the 9th the editor of “The Israel Bible,” a Tanach family to participate in Aliyah LeRegel, of Av. He will then have to grow up exclusively dedicated to highlighting the on Pesach, all men, women and and experience life’s difficulties and Land and the People of Israel.

36 | Rabbi Dov Lipman Don’t Pass Over the Karpas

hy do we eat karpas? fears led to our servitude. Hence, the success than ever before. The message And why do we call this symbolism of the vegetable and the of the karpas has never been more vegetable – be it potato, saltwater. relevant and critical for us. We must Wparsley or celery – by this unusual recognize that all this comfort and Perhaps we call the vegetable karpas name? success outside of Israel will eventually to conjure up an image from the one end in tears. It might not happen Our Sages teach that we eat this time the word appears in Tanach – at in the very near future, but history vegetable simply to pique the curiosity Achashveirosh’s feast at the beginning has taught us that no matter how of our children. It is unusual for us to of Megillat Esther (1:6). That feast unrealistic it may seem at the moment, eat a lone vegetable at this stage of the was the height of physical indulgence, meal, and this shifts our children into and the Jewish participation in it that dreaded time of persecution in a question-asking mode.1 Nevertheless, demonstrated the material comfort exile will come. while this may be effective, there must and spiritual disconnection the Jews Of course, the hope should be that be a reason why we use this specific felt during their exile – with the this recognition leads many to custom to generate questions from our continuation of the story being the explore aliyah. But we must also children, so let’s explore the deeper king’s decree to annihilate them. focus on those who plan to remain in meaning behind karpas. There is another explanation of the the Diaspora and the importance of The vegetable could represent word karpas that works beautifully internalizing the spiritual dangers of the lushness of Egypt. The Torah with our approach. The Maharil where those material blessings and describes this land, which received teaches that the word karpas spelled comfort within a host culture can its sustenance from the Nile, as a backward is the letter samech followed lead. Perhaps this focus on spiritual “garden of G-d.”2 The Jews became by the word perach. The samech growth and focusing on avoiding a comfortable there and enjoyed all that alludes to its numerical value of 60, spiritual decline will protect us from Egypt had to offer. In fact, when they which represents the 600,000 Jews experiencing painful persecution in were in the desert the Jews longed who were enslaved in Egypt. Perach our times. for the vegetables they had eaten in can mean one of two things. It Egypt.3 literally means “hard work,” thereby The karpas provides us with the representing the Jews’ slave labor. The perfect opportunity to discuss these We take that vegetable, symbolizing word can also be divided into two issues at our Seder table and convey materialism, and dip it into salt words, peh and rach, which means these important messages to our water, which symbolizes tears. This “soft mouth.” This alludes to Pharaoh’s children. could suggest that the very comforts approach of first speaking to the Jews indicating all was well for the Jews in kindly and softly, and only gradually Egypt actually served as the catalyst shifting them into slave mode. This 1 See Rashi and Rashbam to Pesachim 114a for the tears that flowed during connects to the process of the Jews and Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 473. the harsh persecution and slavery. feeling comfortable in Egypt and being 2 Bereishit 13:10. Our comforts in Egypt enabled talked into doing whatever the king 3 See Bamidbar 11:5. us to become successful and to be kindly asked them to do, which then influenced negatively by Egyptian led to the suffering of slavery. culture. Those successes led to Pharaoh’s fears about the power of the Modern exile consists of many Jews, and those negative influences led luxuries for the Jewish people. We live Rabbi Dov Lipman is a former MK and the to spiritual decline. The combination with a general abundance of material author of seven books about Judaism and of our spiritual failures and the king’s wealth and with greater security and Israel

| 37 Rabbi Yuval Cherlow The Charoset Mindset

f all the symbols on Seder Based on this debate, there are two Universe, let my food be bitter as an Night, perhaps charoset is the types of explanation. According to the olive but given into Your hand, and let most difficult to understand. first opinion in the Mishna, charoset is it not be sweet as honey but dependent OOn Seder Night, we see something perceived as part of the gastronomic on flesh and blood” (Eruvin 18b). In quite unusual, in that we are directives to soften the sharpness contrast, the Biblical “honey” refers to commanded to cite the reasons for the of the maror; however, according to the date, which symbolizes sweetness. mitzvah as part of the mitzvah itself. Rabbi Elazar, the charoset is not just Therefore, one of the ways to One who does not explain why he is an accessory to eating the maror but characterize our bond with our eating “Pesach, Matzah and Maror” expresses something in itself, only that history, and with the G-d who has not fulfilled his obligation. Not the Mishna did not tell us what this something is. manages that history, is the dialectic only that, but Halacha also determines transition between bitterness and the official explanation for each of The Gemara and the Midrash offer sweetness. This is not simply stating these mitzvot on Seder Night. One two explanations: one deals with the that sometimes we had good times cannot suggest one’s own reason, but texture of the charoset, reminding and sometimes bad, because we eat must state the ‘official’ reason. This us of the mud our forefathers were both on Seder Night, and both are is a very special halacha, because in forced to use in their slavery in Egypt. connected to the same event – the general Halacha does not involve itself The second deals with the ingredients Exodus from Egypt. The bitterness with the reasons the mitzvot were of the charoset, particularly the and the sweetness – according to our given, but only the actions we have apple, claiming it reminds us of the weltanschauung – occur at one and to perform. Moreover, even when apple trees under which the women the same time. The period itself was dealing with reasons, there is a broad comforted their husbands after a terrible, and so we eat maror. But it spectrum of possibilities, and Jewish rough and tough day at work, and also engendered things we couldn’t philosophers throughout the ages have where they gave birth to their babies. have engendered without Egypt and offered many explanations for every its challenges, and so we also give Of course, the fact that charoset does mitzvah, while here there is one formal thanks for that, by dipping the maror not carry an ‘official’ explanation ruling of the reason for these mitzvot. in charoset. opens the door for much exegesis, Against this backdrop, charoset stands creativity, and personal interpretation. And this is a very fundamental out. We do not know the source or So, when we examine the range of mindset we teach ourselves on Seder the reason. It doesn’t explicitly appear theories, we find a widespread theme Night: even during the most bitter in the Torah and it’s not clear why dealing with the charoset’s special times, a certain sweetness is created, we are obliged to eat it, or even if we sweetness, and with the contrast sweetness that could not have been created without the challenges. Even are obliged to eat it, according to between the bitterness of the maror at a time when G-d hides His face the Torah. In the Mishna (Pesachim and the sweetness of the charoset. In from us, so to speak, “Though I walk 10:3), there is a Tannaic debate on this fact, the juxtaposition of sweetness and bitterness already appears in the through the valley of darkness, I fear question, in which the basic position is Seven Species. The last two species are no evil, for You are with me.” “charoset is not mandatory.” However, “olive oil and honey.” “Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Zadok says it is mandatory.” The very fact there is Chazal refer to the olive as an Rabbi Yuval Cherlow is a Rosh Yeshiva a debate on whether there is a Torah expression of something bitter, for and a founding member of an organization obligation to eat charoset just adds to example, “The dove said before the devoted to bridging the religious-secular the mystery. Holy One Blessed be He: Master of the divide in Israel

38 | Rabbi Yuval Cherlow

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For more information, please contact Marcia Mimran / Anglo Saxon, Kiryat Gat / +972-52-2620799 Michal Horowitz Zeroa: Sharing the Freedom s we prepare for Chag up-building of his people not from the A family was making a bar mitz- HaPesach, the time of our ‘rooftops’ – not from the leadership vah and needed homes to put freedom, we recall the or the highest echelon – but from the up their guests. Their neighbors AKorban Pesach offered when the Beit rocklike foundation of the home – would be away that Shabbat, and namely, from they offered the family the use of – שה לבית אבות, שה לבית HaMikdash stood. In our times, in its stead, we place the zeroa – the roasted family ties, the mutual bonds that their home. shank bone – on our Seder table; a unite parents and children… This is paltry reminder of the glorious Temple the heart and soul of the family: each The alarm in the home went off on service. son builds his own home as a branch Shabbat. The police showed up. of his parents’ home, and every father They asked the guests if this was What is the significance of this lives on through his children and their house. korban, which represents our freedom grandchildren. Parents with their chil- as a nation reborn, and through which dren, and children with their parents, “No officer,” they replied. we were redeemed from slavery? knit together and united forever – this “Do you know the code for the is the root of Israel’s eternal flowering. ”?alarm ֶשׂה ְל ֵבית- ָאבֹת...“ :Rav Soloveitchik writes Herein lies the secret of the eternity of a lamb for each home, a – ֶשׂה ַלָּבִית the Jewish people. “No officer.” lamb for each household – interest- ingly, the symbol of redemption in the Rav Soloveitchik continues: “... Hala- “Do you know the names of the Torah is the Korban Pesach, which is a cha coined the term chaburah with family who live here?” very strange sacrifice. The concept of reference to the group gathering “No, officer.” chaburah, community, is completely together for this ceremonial offering. nonexistent in regard to other offer- A new fellowship was formed around “Then what are you doing here?!” ings… Pesach has been linked by the the Korban Pesach; a new community As we were poised to march from slav- Torah with chaburah to such an extent sprang into existence. Being together, ery to freedom, the command to offer that one Sage is of the opinion that living with each other, sharing some- the Korban Pesach taught us what an individual cannot offer the Korban thing many possess in common was it means to be a free Jew. We live not 1 made possible by the ceremony of the Pesach; only a group may do so. The only for ourselves but for our homes, Korban Pesach.” Pesach sacrifice differs from all other our father’s house, for our neighbors sacrifices because it is a symbol of As we sit around the Seder table, we and friends, for those who live near cherut, freedom. The Torah refers to place the roasted bone on our Seder and those who live far. The truest the Korban Pesach as ‘a lamb for each plate. While it is a paltry and sad mark of our freedom is the ability to household’ because freedom expresses reminder of all we lost when the Tem- reach outward, to knock on the door itself in the realm of bayit, of commu- ples were destroyed, it is nevertheless of another, to invite him to our table. nity, of being together. Bayit is a new a glorious reminder of the people we Finally free, we are able to say: we have category revealed to the Jews as they are, the ideals we live by, the commu- too much for ourselves, please join us. gained their freedom.” 2 nity we have built and share, and the Let’s share. Rav Hirsch3 writes that there would essence of our existence. come a time when the nation, A lamb for each household; a lamb for 1 Pesachim 91a. oppressed and tortured by Pharaoh, the father’s house; a lamb for each man 2 Chumash Masoret HaRav, Shemot, p.86-87. would lie on the ground, seemingly and his neighbor who is close to his 3 Shemot 1:1. easy prey for the vultures of history. house. But then, at G-d’s call, the nation would rise up again to eternal life. My brother told me the following true Mrs. Michal Horowitz teaches Judaic At that time, G-d would begin the story: Studies classes to adults of all ages

40 | Michal Horowitz Dr. Deena Zimmerman Zeroa: The Symbolism Sharing the Freedom of the Egg hy is there a beitzah - an the Seder plate contains a reminder be praised. Many of the actions of the egg - on the Seder plate? of the korban Pesach (the zeroa), it is Seder, such as removing the Seder It seems the least clear appropriate to have another food to plate, are specifically done to encour- Wof all the items. We put it on the represent the korban chagigah. This age the children to ask questions, once plate before the Seder begins, yet explains the presence of another item again to use speech. And yet we have unlike the other items, it has no set on the plate but provides no explana- one item on the Seder plate that rep- role in the upcoming ceremony. The tion as to why specifically an egg. resents silence. maror (either in horseradish and/ The egg as a symbolic food appears in Perhaps this is meant to be a gentle or lettuce form) is connected to the another tradition, as part of the the reminder that even at times where commandment to remember the first food fed to a mourner after the speech is the order of the day, we need suffering in Egypt by eating bitter funeral. The custom was originally to to be careful in what we say and how herbs. The karpas is used as the use lentils,1 because they were round, we say it. In the context of an extended first dipping of the night and is the symbolizing the cyclical nature of life. family meal, this is particularly true. basis of one of the four questions. Now the custom is eggs. Hence the Can the story I am about to relate The zeroa’s name clearly reminds us second reason for the egg on the Seder to enhance the Exodus story make of G-d’s outstretched hand, and its plate is as a sign of mourning for the someone uncomfortable? Can asking appearance, certainly for those who Beit HaMikdash, the absence of which a question of someone who does not use a lamb shank, reminds us of the precludes bringing both the korban know the answer embarrass them? Am korban Pesach. The zeroa is not eaten chagigah and the korban Pesach. I making a comment that could hurt at the Seder because it reminds of the the feelings of those who worked hard sacrifice we cannot bring at this time Another reason that round, smooth to make the night a reality? unfortunately. But what about the egg? foods are appropriate to serve to a Even for those who have the custom mourner is that they have no “mouth” Let us look at the egg for a moment to start off the Seder meal with the and thus represent the speechless before we begin the Seder, to make egg in saltwater, it comes with no state of one who has suffered a loss. sure that what we say on this night is accompanying ceremony, blessing or This provides a striking note to the always for the good. statement. Seder table. In general, the entire Seder is focused around talking. The There are two reasons generally given. main mitzvah of the night is retelling 1 Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 35. One is that it represents the korban the story of the Exodus from Egypt, chagigah, the sacrifice brought prior something done primarily with words. Dr. Deena Zimmerman is pedriatrician to the korban Pesach so that the latter The Haggadah relates that one who and Director of yoatzot.org, a website for could be eaten on a full stomach. If “does extra” in telling the story is to women’s health and halacha

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Avraham Duvdevani In Each and Every Generation he expression “in each and the Haggadah because “Everything Rav Kook wrote: “‘In every generation, every generation” is recited that occurred to our ancestors has we are obligated to see ourselves as if twice each year as we read the happened to us too. We do not we left Egypt.’ How do we actualize THaggadah at the Pesach Seder. Once in celebrate an event from thousands of this outlook? This is not a passive Vehi SheAmda: “but in each and every years ago, but rather the premise of perspective, but an active one. The generation, they rise up to destroy our present, our future. We celebrate redemption only started when we us. But the Holy One, Blessed be He, our salvation and fulfill the precepts left Egypt. It continues and advances delivers us from their hands” and once: associated with it, so as to bequeath in each generation, until the final "In each and every generation, it is the our children with the tradition of Redemption.” duty of man to consider himself as if salvation for the sake of celebrating the “We all must contribute our part, he had come out of Egypt." same freshness and sacredness of the according to our ability and our The Pesach Haggadah exposes us to Exodus.” generation's needs. The Jewish people three elements of Judaism, in reference In his 1996 address to the Bundestag was born in Egypt with all of its to its past, present and future. The unique traits. But these traits are latent and Bundesrat of the Federal Republic first: “And if G-d had not taken our and are only realized over time. Each of Germany, the sixth Israeli President, ancestors from Egypt...” The second of us has a special portion in the Torah Ezer Weizman, expressed it thus: is a deeper look at the past from the – as we say in the daily prayers, ‘Grant perspective of the present: "In each and “Only 150 generations have passed us our portion in Your Torah.’ So, too, every generation, it is the duty of man” from the Pillar of Fire of the each of us has a special part to play in ... and the third is an acknowledgment Exodus from Egypt to the pillars of the nation's redemption.” that present and past are precursors smoke from the Holocaust. And I, In our days, we have merited of the future: “Bring us to other a descendant of Avraham, born in appointed times and holidays...” the ingathering of the exiles and Avraham's country, have witnessed impressive national achievements that We must remember and contemplate them all… I was a slave in Egypt. I have led to political independence. the past to relive it in the present while received the Torah at Mount Sinai. But it is not yet complete. In tandem looking to the future. Together with Yehoshua and Eliyahu, with these achievements, we must I crossed the Jordan River. I entered play our part in the redemption of the The two passages of “each and every Jerusalem with David, was exiled from nation. We need spirit and a vision of generation...” are eternal. They have it with Zedekiah, and did not forget a continuous and sanctifying lifestyle, accompanied us as a nation since the it by the rivers of Babylon. When the and only then can we be perfectly Exodus, and have been a beacon of L-rd returned the captives of Zion, free people. We will continue to light during times of suffering and I dreamed among the builders of deepen the story of the Exodus, and anguish. its ramparts. I fought the Romans draw encouragement and courage and was banished from Spain. I from the Haggadah’s recounting of The nation has remembered and was bound to the stake in Mainz. I G-d’s salvation for His people. May celebrated the Exodus in freedom and studied Torah in Yemen and lost my we sing a song of thanks for the final with praise, not as a once-in-a-lifetime family in Kishinev. I was incinerated Redemption speedily in our days. event in history's archives, but as the in Treblinka, rebelled in Warsaw, and secret to our constantly standing up to our enemies with steadfast resolve. emigrated to the Land of Israel, the Avraham Duvdevani is Chairman of the country whence I had been exiled and World Zionist Organization and one of According to Rabbi Shimshon Refael where I had been born, from which I World Mizrachi’s representatives in the Hirsch, we say these passages in come and to which I return.” National Institutions

42 | RELIGIOUS ZIONIST LEADERS

Avraham Duvdevani

Our series on leaders who have shaped Religious Zionism over the last 150 years rabbi moshe avigdor amiel

orn in Lithuania in 1883, was the constant need to engender their hearts a great lacking of faith Moshe Avigdor Amiel was good relations between the religious and they find it hard to accept that the first taught by his father at the and non-religious segments of the splitting of the Reed Sea is something BTelz Yeshiva before proceeding to community. During his leadership true and correct, and that they do not Vilna to study under the two greatest he set up a yeshiva high school understand that all this is part of our Talmudic scholars of the time – Rabbi which taught religious subjects in belief, for everything is in the hands Chaim Soloveichik and Rabbi Chaim the morning and secular subjects in of heaven and ‘if G-d will not build a Ozer Grodzinsky. He received his the afternoon. This yeshiva, named house all our work is for naught,’ still ordination at the age of 18 and in 1905 Yeshivat HaYishuv HaChadash, was these Jews that will not return (to our was appointed Rabbi of Swieciany, used as the pattern for the subsequent religion) should not be pushed away where he founded a large yeshiva. In Bnei Akiva yeshivot. After his death, with both hands but rather as the left 1913, he became Rabbi of Grajewo, the yeshiva was renamed Yeshivat repulses the right should draw them on the border between Russia and HaRav Amiel. (to you). For there is hope in their Germany. future and in the end one is dependent upon another. For just as they have It was during this time that Rabbi returned to their people, so shall come Amiel was acknowledged as a great the time when they will return to their public preacher and his oratorical G-d... qualities were said to affect the most hardened hearts. He became one of … Israel is not like other nations… our the first Rabbis to publicly join the redemption cannot become manifest Mizrachi Movement and Zionist without the use of song! … For not organizations, applying his speaking only is our Holy City destroyed and and writing abilities to the cause our Temple in ruins, but we live in of Religious Zionism and national exile, driven from our Land. We have questions. In 1920, he was elected been made to wander through the as one of the delegates to represent whole world and to be redeemed we Mizrachi of Poland at the Mizrachi must indeed create something from World Convention in Amsterdam. nothing. This has never occurred There he made such an impression He also continued his work on behalf before and it cannot be brought upon the Jewish community that of Mizrachi in Eretz Yisrael, as well about through diplomacy. It is true he was given the post of Rabbi of as running many Torah institutions that all nations appoint their own Antwerp, one of the largest and richest in the country. He was an author of diplomats – but diplomats cannot Jewish communities of the time. He renown who produced many works create a country. The salvation of set up a system of lower yeshivot for in halacha, aggada, machshava, and Israel will not come through the use of girls and boys by creating the Jewish sermons and articles on Religious diplomacy but rather through the use Day School (as it came to be known in Zionism. of songs that extol and praise Divine America), as well as religious institutes lovingkindness. Only through song of higher learning. Rabbi Amiel wrote: “Those same will the ruins of our nation and people Jews whose hearts are filled with love be saved. It is not for naught that every Realizing that he must set an example for the Jewish people and the land Pesach we read Shir HaShirim and the and actively fulfill his Zionist ideals, – Eretz Yisrael – work with all their excerpt from the Torah of Az Yashir. Rabbi Amiel made aliyah in 1936 to strength for the good (of the people). This is to teach us that the future serve as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. This For them, nothing is too hard, and if Pesach will arrive through song as area had the largest Jewish population they were impelled to jump into the well. For song and freedom are not two in the Yishuv and presented many sea and give up their lives (they would separate entities but rather cause and challenges for him. Particularly hard do so). Even though there exists in effect.” 

| 43 Rabbi Zev Leff

going through the stages

lthough we were redeemed brought us in to Eretz Yisrael and built As individuals, we too must all go from Mitzrayim on the first the Temple for us. Until that point, we through these stages of geula, extricat- day of Pesach, the geula was were still running away from Egypt ing ourselves from our personal Mitz- Anot complete until the seventh day, – physically, mentally and spiritu- rayims and fully freeing ourselves from when G-d drowned the Egyptians in ally. The 40 years in the desert were them. We must then utilize this free- dom to sanctify ourselves by creating Yam Suf. The Seforno explains that needed to extricate Egypt and all that an environment of holiness and purity until then we were still like slaves it represented from within us. Once for ourselves and our families, ideally running away from their master. But we entered Eretz Yisrael, we were fully when our “masters” drowned in Yam in the holiness and purity of Eretz Yis- redeemed people, ready to utilize our rael. Finally, we must build a Mikdash Suf, we became fully free. freedom and direct it towards drawing to spread holiness to all around us. Perhaps we can extend this idea fur- nearer to G-d and His will. We cre- As in the days when we left Egypt, may ther. The ultimate conclusion of the ated a society in Eretz Yisrael which G-d continue to show us miracles with was the antithesis of all that Egypt Exodus occurred when we entered the coming of the Mashiach speedily represented – one of holiness, purity, Eretz Yisrael and built the Beit HaMik- in our days. dash, as we conclude the 15 stages and total dependence on G-d and His of the geula in the Haggadah with Torah. We were then able to build “VeHichnisanu l’Eretz Yisrael ubana the Beit HaMikdash and spread the Rabbi Zev Leff serves as the Rav of Moshav lanu et Beit HaBechira” – And He Torah’s ideals across the world. Matityahu

44 | Rabbi Meir Goldwicht

the brit of the omer

-a measurement – in the amplify this lesson, the Torah com ,עומר .uring Sefirat HaOmer, we 1 count each day towards Matan desert, Bnei Yisrael were com- mands us to count up to the omer for Torah, the Giving of the manded to eat an omer of manna, 49 days. When a person lives in such a as much as (מעמר) DTorah. So why do we call this period one-tenth of an eifah; way, he can gather Sefirat HaOmer rather than Sefira he wants with no danger of misusing מעמר .2 quite the contrary, he will ;(להתעמר) LeKabbalat HaTorah? , gathering together twigs and it the like – one of the 39 melachot mete it out in proper measurements Furthermore, Rabbi Yochanan says .(עומר) prohibited on Shabbat, and in the Midrash: “Never let the mitz- להתעמר .3 vah of the omer be light in your eyes.” , to misuse an object in This may be the depth behind the to cut a deal. There ,לכרות ברית Even though the omer comes from one’s possession – the Torah for- phrase אשת יפת means לכרות :barley, which is animal fodder, one bids one who takes an is no greater oxymoron תואר is something that ברית might consider it a mitzvah of low (beautiful woman) captive in to sever, while a significance and therefore deal with battle and decides not to marry connects. The idea is that the two par- it leniently. But Avraham Avinu only her to keep her as a slave, saying, ties to the brit must cede a little bit in לא תתעמר בה received the Land in the merit of the . order to receive. G-d desires to cede omer, as it says, “And to you, I gave this These three definitions complement something to us, and He wants to cede Land” [on condition] “You keep my one another, providing a more accu- even more. The more we use what we covenant,” referring to the brit of the rate definition of omer. have properly, the more He desires to omer. In other words, Chazal teach us give us. The brit of the omer is, there- that the omer is not simply a mitzvah, During the 40 years Bnei Yisrael trav- fore, the brit through which Avraham but a brit. eled the desert, the manna fell every Avinu merited Eretz Yisrael. To inherit day except Shabbat. Once they crossed the Land is only possible if we truly A mitzvah with the status of brit influ- the Jordan, the manna stopped and feel that everything not only came ences all of the other 612 mitzvot, as they no longer received their bread from Him but continues to come from indicated by the gematria of the word effortlessly but became partners in Him: “When you come to the Land .What is so special about the its creation. Partnership with G-d is that I give you,” in the present tense .ברית mitzvah of the omer that bestows upon certainly advantageous but contains a it the status of brit? Other mitzvot with great risk as well. When a person toils May G-d grant us the ability to truly this status – mila, Shabbat, learning and succeeds, he may mistakenly con- feel that everything emanates from Torah – influence our lives in major clude that his own efforts caused his Him, and through this may He grant ways. But why does omer receive this success, not any input from G-d. us evermore. status as well? The mitzvah of omer counteracts this The answers to these questions lie misperception. The Torah commands Rabbi Meir Goldwicht, a prominent Israeli in the definition of the word omer. us to sacrifice barley, animal fodder, so scholar and educator, is a Rosh Yeshiva has three we understand that even the lowliest of Yeshiva University’s Mazer School of ע-מ-ר In Hebrew, the root definitions: of foods comes from G-d. In order to Talmudic Studies

| 45 Sara Jo Ben Zvi Losing Taste for Egypt

’ve often wondered about the comes through clearly in the bread it taking a hefty decision and making a different words the Exodus story produces, so if you have a tasty starter, clean break. They left not only slavery uses for chametz. There’s chametz, it’s something you want to hold on to. behind, but security – from the Ise’or and machmetzet, without even routine of getting up in the morning starting to count the many different Although Egypt produced beer on and knowing what you’d be doing all words Hebrew has for bread. Although an industrial scale, the process was day, however mundane, back-breaking we’re used to translating chametz as similar. Now imagine you’ve had a and repetitive – right down to the leaven or leavened bread, it actually strain of starter in your family pantry staples of what kind of comfort food refers to anything produced by for three generations. It was first they had available when the going got fermentation. Which is why we acquired when your family arrived in tough. And nevertheless, they went. dispose of our whiskey and beer as Egypt from Canaan, and your mother It’s not surprising that they were soon well as all our less valuable crumbs. and her mother made sure it would never “die out.” And then someone complaining and wishing they could Grain fermentation was crucial to tells you that not only are you leaving go back, but notice how thoroughly the ancient Egyptian lifestyle. The Egypt and you have 10 days to pack they adopted G-d’s rejection of the Egyptians weren’t the first to realize (while keeping a bleating lamb in puffed-up culture of ancient Egypt. that bacteria forming on moldy bread your hovel along with all your family), They hungered for Egyptian zucchini, can be utilized to aerate dough so but you’re not allowed to take your for Nile perch, for juicy watermelons that it rises, but they quickly adopted machmetzet with you! You are going – but not for the barley bread and beer the technology developed in Sumer to have to literally wean yourself off that typified Egypt – the breadbasket (somewhere around the fourth the taste of Egypt and leave your of the ancient world. millennium BCE), improving and machmetzet behind. varying it to make a wide range of Now we understand the emphasis at baked goods (think of the baker from It’s not even as if there was so much the end of the instructions of how to the story of Joseph). At the same time, to look forward to on this desert jaunt observe that first Pesach in Mitzrayim, Egyptian society became known for its to worship the terrifyingly invisible with its threefold emphasis on se’or beer – also made using yeast bacteria. G-d of Israel in the wilderness. Every and machmetzet. “No leaven shall be Bread and beer were the two staples of Egyptian festival was marked with found in your houses for seven days. the Egyptian diet. Workers were even beer flowing freely from the temple For whoever eats what is leavened, often paid in beer! 1 of whichever of its many gods was that person shall be cut off from the rejoicing, literally lightening up the community of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a citizen of the country.” 2 One of the secrets of good beer – and party with the levity that comes with good sourdough bread – is in the leaven – barley beer and bread. But Because in the end, the tastes you grow strain of machmetzet – or “starter” there clearly wasn’t going to be any up with are often the hardest ones to – used to ferment the liquid or the beer associated with the worship of leave behind. dough. This is essentially an old or the One G-d – He’d already banned sour piece of dough added to the mix it from the Israelites’ homes as they that begins the fermentation process. hastily downsized, slaughtered and 1 The standard Old Kingdom (2686-2181 To bake sourdough bread, you either BC) ration for a laborer was 10 loaves and a roasted those irritating lambs whole, measure of beer. need to make your own starter (a risky and gulped down their final meal in 2 Shemot 12:19. business!) or acquire some from a Egypt with girded loins and ready- friend, relative or baker. You keep the to-go packs on their backs. starter refrigerated, taking off a small piece each time you bake, and “feed” So in stepping out of Egypt, the Sara Jo Ben Zvi is editor of Segula, the the remainder with a mixture of water culture they’d known for at least three Jewish History magazine produced in and flour. The taste of the machmetzet generations, our ancestors were really Jerusalem www.segulamag.com

46 | Sara Jo Ben Zvi A journey through Judaism's most controversialR2 issues...

OUT Explore intriguing NOW topics such as: • How Jewish philosophy guides Torah interpretation • Can Jewish tradition combat Bible criticism? • Divine providence and the existence of evil • The origin and development of the oral tradition • Rabbinic law vs. the spirit of halachah • Rambam's Judaism in a post-Aristotelian world

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USA: Available on Amazon and at Jewish bookstores. ISRAEL: On sale at Pomeranz Bookseller, 5 Be'eri St. Jerusalem. POMERANZ Order at: 02-623-5559 ~ [email protected] Bookseller | 47 MY Journey FROM Ethiopia by Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom

y Ethiopian name is Zaude Tesfay. Today I am known as Sharon Zaude Shalom. I Mfirst heard of Eretz Yisrael when I was a small child in a village in Ethiopia, where I helped herd the sheep. When I asked where Jerusalem was, my grandfather pointed in the direction of the city for which we yearned. When I was only eight years old, I came to Israel by myself, with my aunt and uncle. As a child, I thought Jerusalem was made of gold. I dreamed of a land literally flowing with milk and honey, in which everyone was Jewish and the gentiles did not hate them. Then, rumors began to fly around our village and others that Jews from Jerusalem had come to Sudan to help the Ethiopian Jews, the Beta Israel community, to go to Israel. The gates were open, and whoever wanted to leave could go. None of the villagers thought of waiting. We all did everything possible to get organized and start moving towards Jerusalem. Every item that could be sold, we sold. Whatever we couldn’t sell, we left behind in our clay huts. After 2,000 years, we began to internalize the idea that the road to Jerusalem was open. One night, when the sign to begin the journey was given, the residents of

4848 | | MY Journey several villages gathered at a meeting of the truck was covered with a heavy thought was a large, well-lit building FROM point and we began the historic trek. tarp, and we were off. – actually an Israeli naval ship. We climbed up through the belly of the Our hasty departure led to Conditions inside the truck were boat. Some kissed the deck, convinced complications. In my family, we kept foul. It was crowded and hot. they had arrived in Jerusalem. Only our donkeys, so sometimes we rode, People vomited, and the smell was the next day, when the sun rose, did we Ethiopia but most of the group journeyed on unbearable. No one dared make a realize we were on the deck of a ship in foot. We walked for over two months sound. Even the children and babies the middle of the ocean. We sailed to from Ethiopia to Sudan, exposed to were silent as if they also realized the Sharm el-Sheikh in the southern Sinai the dangers of the road. People were enormity of the moment and sensed Peninsula. There they took us off the certain they would reach Jerusalem they could put our lives at risk. We boat and bussed us to the local airport. within a short time but some were didn’t know where they were taking From there, we flew to Ben-Gurion forced to wait in the Twawa refugee us or how much longer we would have Airport, our gateway to the promised camp in Sudan for as long as six years. to travel like this. Finally, the truck Jerusalem – the dream was about to Conditions in the camp were harsh – stopped, and we heard a very loud become a reality. it was overcrowded, and the sanitary noise outside. The tarp was lifted from situation was deplorable. Thousands the truck floor and we climbed out. So in January 1982, I found myself died of disease. The Mossad and standing in front of an Immigration It was very dark and the roar Jewish Agency Aliyah representatives Ministry clerk at Ben-Gurion Airport. intensified. I had no idea what it did their best to help the interned Through a translator, he asked me my was. Then I saw an amazing sight, Ethiopian Jews. They worked to name and age. I was at a loss for words. something I had never seen before. improve conditions and speed up Two years previously, in Sudan, I had acted without a word, and here again, the stream of Aliyah, all the while Water, water and more and more I lost the power of speech. I barely operating under stressful conditions water rising and writhing like an managed to whisper my name. and a heavy pall of secrecy and fear. unfed beast. This was like the shore of They also had to be careful not to the Red Sea – my first glimpse of the After an absence of 2,500 years, the arouse the attention of the presidential ocean. It moved toward us, jaws open, Ethiopian Jewish community has Sudanese soldiers. and I can barely describe my fear of merited a return to our homeland. the powerful waves pounding towards My family was in the camp, and we me. I didn’t know they would stop the “May our eyes behold Your return to were told we would have to wait two or moment they reached the shore. Then Zion in mercy.” three years for our turn. The mortality suddenly a miracle happened. From rate among children in the camp We have come home. out of nowhere, from deep within the was particularly high, so some of the darkness and the fog, the tumult and parents decided to send their children the confusion, a team of Israeli Navy ahead, to try to save their lives. I was commandos rose up out of the sea. the eldest child in my family. At eight They shed tears, and we cried too. years old, I was told to go with my aunt A meeting of brothers separated for and uncle to Jerusalem. I was torn 2,000 years. between my love for my family and my love for Jerusalem. I followed my The soldiers loaded us onto rubber parents’ wishes. Along with hundreds boats. It was a dark night, and the Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom is the Head of of other children and adults, I was boats floated silently into the sea. the International Center for the Study of packed into a crowded truck. The floor After a while, the boat reached what I Ethiopian Jewry

| 49 PLACES IN ISRAEL

Eve Harow qasr al-yahud the tower of the jews any years ago, I took tour- chag of the year dictates our unique extreme heat. So the conquest follows ists to this border site on the lunar/solar calendar, for Pesach must the ripening food east to west, up into western bank of the Jordan be in the spring, signifying freedom the Hill Country as that first summer MRiver, just north of where the waters and new beginnings. The river is full unfolds. empty into the Dead Sea and directly at the end of the rainy season; the deep This site, near Jericho, is also east of Jericho. I read to them from Syria-African Rift collecting rain and associated with Eliyahu HaNavi the Tanach, how on the 10th of Nisan melting snow from the watershed at from Gilad, on the east bank, who about 3,300 years ago, Am Yisrael Ba’al Hatzor, the Lebanese mountains, poignantly goes ‘home’ to die: “And entered the Land here under the lead- the Hermon and Golan flowing via the Elijah said to him [Elisha], ‘Stay here ership of Yehoshua bin Nun after the Kinneret then down to the Dead Sea. now, for the L-rd has sent me to the death of Moshe Rabbeinu. When the Jordan…’ as they both stood at the Levites carrying the Ark of the Cove- Water immersion symbolizes renewal, Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle and nant stepped into the water it dammed from the flood of Noah, the crossing of rolled it up, and struck the water, and itself upriver at Adam. “While all Israel the Reed Sea, tevilla, even birth itself. it divided to this side and to that side, were crossing over on dry ground, the One can actually look at this seminal and they both crossed on dry land.” priests who bore the ark of the cove- event in our history as analogous After the chariot takes Elijah: “And nant of the L-rd stood on dry ground to the birth process: the spiritual he [Elisha] picked up Elijah’s mantle in the middle of the Jordan, until the conception of the nation with the …and he returned and stood on the entire nation finished crossing over the giving of the Law at Sinai, 40 years in 1 bank of the Jordan…He too struck the Jordan.” the desert, fed and completely cared for, the ‘birth passage’ across the water and it divided on this side and “Is the Book of Joshua in the New Jordan River into the Land, brit mila, on that side, and Elisha crossed. And Testament?” asked an IDF patrol the mature actions of conquering, the disciples of the prophets who were soldier who overheard me. I responded 2 planting, building and sovereignty. in Jericho…” with my own question, which is why The event is of such significance that Later, Elisha performs a miracle for would he ask that, and he answered it is told four times in the Bible. First King Na’aman at the Jordan as well.3 that the only people who came to this by Moshe, then G-d to Yehoshua, site were Christians who read from Qasr al Yahud is associated with new Yehoshua to the people and then the the New Testament about Jesus being beginnings and miracles. That’s why actual narrative of the crossing. baptized there by John (both men the 10th of Nisan is Aliyah Day in the thought to have been Second Temple- Incidentally, Jewish mother that I am, reborn, sovereign State of Israel. And era Jews when ritual cleansing was I must share how the people ate, since why you should go to Qasr al-Yahud, very common). the manna stopped being supplied Tanach in hand, and celebrate the site after a month. Well, Israel’s harvest Then and there, I decided I would of rejuvenation and modern miracles. cycle starts in the spring. Pesach is bring as many people as possible to the barley harvest, Shavuot – wheat Qasr al-Yahud, Jews and non-Jews, 1 Joshua 3:17. (Megillat Rut takes place during teaching Tanach in situ, emphasizing 2 Kings 2, 2:6- 15. the Omer in the grain fields of Beit the original connection to a place of 3 Ibid, 5:10-14. Lechem, literally the ‘House of Bread’). such great importance for centuries of The summer harvests of figs, grapes pilgrimage. And I have been privileged Eve Harow is a licensed Israeli tour guide, and pomegranates ripen at different to do so. host of the weekly podcast Rejuvenation times depending on the orchards’ on the Land of Israel Network and an The date of the crossing is quite elevation – and these fruits ripen international speaker about Israel and the significant – erev Pesach. The first earliest in the Jordan Valley due to the Jewish journey www.eveharow.com

50 | Background photo: Susie Ben David SOCIAL COMMENTARY

Eve Harow Rabbi Chaim Navon

Haggadah of the Heart n a radio interview, I was once I said “And still,” although perhaps an unfamiliar verse from the book of asked, “Why is the Haggadah I should have said, “And because of Joel? written in Aramaic?” I suspect that.” It appears that what really grabs If you tell me there is no Ithe interviewer was used to leaving people, what hits deep, are specifically contradiction, you are undoubtedly the Seder quite early because only not the texts that come to you, but correct. One can write new Torah the first paragraph in the Haggadah those that invite you into them. This ideas on Tractate Chullin and is written in Aramaic. The rest is true not only for texts but for the popular current-affairs-related is written in beautiful Mishnaic entire Seder Night, even for food. In Torah too. Yet one must know what Hebrew. many homes, the hostess prepares is important and eternal and what is intricate gourmet foods for the Seder What is true is that the Haggadah is less important and temporary. not exactly what I would have written, meal, yet the ongoing memory is of if I had been asked to compose a matzah, which we eat because it’s a I think of this on Seder Night, when popular text for the entire Jewish mitzvah, and the kneidlach, which I open the Haggadah. Those who are people. It simply contains Torah we eat because of tradition. On Seder engraved on our people’s collective discussions, with no historical Night we don’t view things broadly, memory are the Rabbis debating the anecdotes or references to current but we look for depth; not right and story of the Exodus – or according to affairs. Yet it remains remarkably left but behind and ahead. Not to our the Tosefta, the laws of Pesach – all popular and beloved. This fact friends and contemporaries, but to night. It is to them and their Torah we reminds me, every year, that the our ancestors, alive and dead, and to return and the rest is the chaff to the project I have dedicated most of my our own children – those not yet born wind. life to is actually not that important. as well as those currently spilling So is my conclusion that my life’s wine on the tablecloth. What’s in the Haggadah? A lot of work is really not very important? Midrashic verses, some clearer I don’t think it’s bad or unnecessary to Certainly not. My conclusion is that than others, some halachic sayings, mediate Jewish values through stories my life’s work is not my writing, but paragraphs of praise and traditional about Napoleon, Churchill quotes or my children. With all due respect to songs. Almost all hard-core Torah, philosophical concepts from the 21st books, Facebook, even to this column, perhaps with the exception of Chad century. I think it is necessary for they are not my portion in this world. Gadya. In contrast, I devote my life I close my eyes tonight and remember certain people. Me for example. But attempting to make Judaism and Seder Night in Haifa 40 years ago, as a I know that the importance of this its messages accessible through little boy, sitting between Abba David is minimal when compared to the contemporary language and modern and Saba Moshe. And then I open my classic engagement with Torah in our concepts. The Pesach Haggadah is eyes, and I’m sitting on Seder Night eternal texts. After all, even Churchill seemingly the most popular Jewish between my eldest, David, and my did not quote Churchill, but the text of all, and it makes no attempt youngest, Moshe, and next to them Bible. In one of the history books he to be accessible whatsoever. No their beloved brothers and sister, who stories about Churchill, or even wrote, he devoted a chapter to the also carry the names of our ancestors, Alexander the Great – no anecdotes, wasted 1930s, which Britain did not and I know I have done something no wisecracks. And still, the vast use to build a strong army. He called good in this world. majority of Jews – religious or not this chapter, “The Years the Locusts – read some or all of the Haggadah Ate.” How did this incredibly busy Rabbi Chaim Navon is a renowned author and every single year. statesman so easily remember such educator

| 51 WORLD BEIT MIDRASH

TANACH TEFILLAH PARASHAT HASHAVUA VIRTUAL TOURS OF ISRAEL HAGGADAH TORAH FROM ERETZ YISRAEL CHIZUK/INSPIRATION HALACHIC Q&A FROM MAJOR POSKIM MUSSAR MUSIC CONCERTS FEATURING Chief Rabbi David Lau • Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks • Rabbi Hershel Schachter Rabbanit Shani Taragin • Rabbi Moshe Weinberger Rabbi Mordechai Willig • Rabbi Zev Leff • Sivan Rahav Meir Yaakov Shwekey • Dr. Yael Ziegler • Mr. Charlie Harari • Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz Rebbetzin Smadar Rosensweig • Rabbi Menachem Leibtag • Rabbi Eitan Katz Rabbi YY Jacobson • Yael Leibowitz • Rabbi Akiva Tatz • Rabbi Shalom Rosner Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon • Yonatan Razel • Rabbanit Sally Mayer Rabbi Gav Friedman • Rabbi Dovid Miller • Dr. David Pelcovitz Rabbi Mendel Blachman • Rabbi Binny Freedman • Rabbi Moshe Taragin Rabbi David Aaron • Rabbi Dovid Fohrman • Rabbi Judah Mischel Rabbi Yair HaLevy • Rebbetzin Shalvie Friedman • Rabbi Motty Berger Rabbi Hanoch Teller • Rabbi Dov Lipman • Rabbi Shlomo Katz Rabbi Daniel Rowe • Rabbi Barnea Selavan • Rabbi Ari Bensousson Rabbi Moshe Levy • Rabbi Reuven Taragin • Rabbi Avraham Zeidman Rabbi Doron Perez • Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum • Rabbi Eliezer Zobin

SHIURIM AND MUSICAL INSPIRATION EVERY DAY AROUND THE CLOCK

AT mizrachi.org/wbm/live AND facebook.com/worldmizrachi Rabbi Binyamin Zimmerman

turning a pandemic into a Happy Pesach

he traditional greeting of Chag actions, the truth is that simcha is of the night, where the pasuk describes Kasher v’Sameach, is usually much more in the heart and soul than V’Emunatcha Ba’leilot, night is a time translated as a wish to enjoy “A in the body. for emunah. Much like the Jewish TKosher and Joyous Holiday.” Appreci- people who celebrated the initial ating this age-old greeting should indi- Rav Soloveitchik noted that the Pesach when locked in their homes, cate that, at least this year, more than a exterior acts of simcha that we they partook of the Paschal Lamb with wish it is a charge: We must do every- perform are really only there to the understanding that they were in thing we can to make sure this Pesach provide an external framework so we G-d’s hands, and He would protect is not only kosher but sameach. can experience simcha as a meditative, them from all the dangers outside. internal experience. He notes that the On the seventh day of Pesach, the Generally, much effort before Pesach Torah always speaks of simcha being nation burst forth in joyous song after focuses on ensuring that one’s Pesach Lifnei Hashem, experienced in the witnessing the Egyptians meeting is kosher. Yet, beyond all the unique presence of G-d. One who sees oneself a miraculous demise. At that point, kashrut challenges this year, the as living in a world where G-d is ever- there was true emunah, Vayaaminu greeting also calls for effort ensuring present can actually achieve simcha BaHashem uv’Moshe Avdo, and there this Pesach will also be sameach. not only on the holidays, but every day was truly room for joy. of one’s life. As the pandemic reminds us that our Every year we relive the Pesach power is limited, as our Pesach plans So what is the ticket to simcha being experience no matter what one’s change to new venues, often much this internal feeling of joy? situation, we reconnect to the smaller than we hoped, one might emunah. Pesach was celebrated in the think that it is not within our power Two aspects of simcha which are concentration camps to the best of for this Pesach to be sameach. Yet by often overlooked are its connection to one’s ability, even though one might answering two questions, we might Emunah (unwavering faith in G-d) and have wondered maybe Egypt would find simcha is attainable: What is its call for making others happy. One have been better. Pesach reminds us simcha really all about, and what does who is sameach is one who recognizes that difficulty is temporary, somehow it have to do with Pesach? that G-d is in control and even the part of a master plan we don’t darkest moments are somehow all part At first glance, Pesach really has understand, but bechipazon, with of a divine plan. Knowing the One nothing to do with simcha. It is the haste, we will experience redemption. Above is “worrying” about the world only one of the three festivals for and our situation allows us to put our This year not only can we witness which the Torah doesn’t explicitly worries aside and rejoice. a Chag Kasher V’Sameach, but we command simcha. The fact that there must! Let this Pesach be filled with is an actual mitzvah to be joyous on Secondly, true simcha requires that we emunah that a crisis can be hastily Pesach is only because the Three make our joy contagious: just as G-d turned around, and as we make others Festivals share certain requirements. provides joy for humanity, we truly sameach we will truly feel what it This mitzvah calls for festive meals, experience simcha when we provide it means to be connected to G-d. including wine and possibly meat, for others. ensuring that those who enjoy it and With this in mind, we can understand are capable have new clothes, children Rabbi Binyamin Zimmerman is an author have treats and nuts to keep them simcha’s connection to Pesach, where and innovative Jewish educator who serves awake and interested at the Seder etc. no specific mitzvah is necessary as it as the director of Mizrachi Musmachim, a While these halachot might seem to should be obvious. The Pesach Seder is new state-of-the-art semicha program for indicate that simcha requires external specifically celebrated in the darkness English speakers in Israel

54 | ISRAEL INSIGHT

David M. Weinberg israel’s role in the struggle against antisemitism

n every generation, the Forum compiled reports on antisemi- standards against Israel that antisem- nations of the world seek to tism around the world and eventually ites historically (and still today) use destroy the Jewish people, won a place on the Israeli cabinet’s against Jews; and with the same aim – “Ibut G-d saves us” – from the Pesach agenda, reporting once a year. to strip Jews and/or Israel of rights or Haggadah. power. Nevertheless, back then some Amer- Raw antisemitism around the world ican Jewish leaders felt that global He then introduced a benchmark – the has risen and morphed into virulent antisemitism wasn’t Israel’s fight; that “3D Test” – for distinguishing legiti- anti-Israel sentiment – making the the struggle to educate and legislate mate criticism of Israel from antisemi- two phenomena almost indistinguish- against antisemitism should be left to tism, by scrutinizing criticism of Israel able. Consequently, the State of Israel them. They resisted Israeli attempts to for demonization, double standards has moved from indifference to active lead or coordinate anti-antisemitism and delegitimization. He argued that involvement in the struggle against activity. use of these tactics mark the devolu- such hate. The watershed moment that changed tion of commentary about Israel into For the first 25 years of Israel’s exis- this was the 2001 World Conference the dark zone of antisemitic expression tence, Israeli leaders did not view against Racism (under UN auspices), and intent. the struggle against antisemitism as known as Durban I. That conference In 2016, the International Holo- their fight. The unspoken attitude in turned into one of the greatest displays Jerusalem was that “if Jews abroad caust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) of organized anti-Jewish and anti-Is- adopted a working definition of have a problem with antisemites they rael hate ever, with the two maladies antisemitism based on Sharansky’s can always migrate to Israel,” and becoming a blended noxious potion. “Antisemitism is a Diaspora problem work. The IHRA definition explicitly for Diaspora Jews and their host coun- Shortly afterward, in 2003, then-Dep- recognizes that anti-Zionism – the tries; it is not Israel’s problem.” uty Prime Minister and Minister delegitimization and demonization for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, of the Jewish State – is a clear and This began to change after the Yom Natan Sharansky, founded the Global unequivocal expression of antisemi- Kippur War when a campaign of polit- Forum against Antisemitism. (I was tism. Almost all Israeli leaders today ical delegitimization against Israel was Sharansky’s senior advisor and coor- believe that the Jewish State must play launched by Arab countries, involv- dinator of the forum). This brought a role in highlighting and trying to ing an avalanche of propaganda that together Jewish leaders and intellectu- combat both the “old” antisemitism blended antisemitism with anti-Zion- als from the Diaspora with all relevant and the “new” toxic blend of antisem- ism, and which led to the infamous Israeli agencies. Sharansky’s intellec- itism and anti-Zionism. The con- 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution at tual leadership brought discipline and vening in January of the Fifth World the UN. focus to global Jewish community Holocaust Forum by Israeli President Response to antisemitism found a activity against antisemitism. His Reuven Rivlin was part of this effort. concrete place on Israel’s national Global Forum drew attention to the agenda after the 1980 Rue Copernic mass production of violently antise- But note: Israel expects world leaders synagogue bombing in Paris and other mitic and genocidal propaganda in the not only to memorialize Holocaust terror attacks. Then-Prime Minister Arab and Islamic worlds, with Egypt victims but to concretely fight current Menachem Begin took the decision to and Iran at the center of the spreading antisemitic expression and activity, in have Israeli intelligence officials begin poison. The Forum also highlighted consonance with the IHRA definition advising Jewish communities abroad the dangers of cyberhate. of antisemitism. And to do so in a way on security measures. that protects Israel’s place in the world Most importantly, Sharansky inno- at a time when the very legitimacy of In 1988, then-cabinet secretary vated a critically important effort to the Jewish State is under assault. Elyakim Rubinstein established an expose antisemitism cloaked as “mere “Inter-Ministerial Forum for Moni- opposition” to Israel and Zionism. David M. Weinberg is vice president of toring Antisemitism,” and expanded He showed how anti-Zionism often the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and it to include Diaspora Jewish repre- employs the same tactics of demon- Security, jiss.org.il. His personal site is sentatives and academic experts. The ization, discrimination and double davidmweinberg.com

| 55 Rabbi Stewart Weiss

THE HILLEL SANDWICH A Symbol for our Times

ho is like your days of celebration. But this upbeat been in Buchenwald. When I asked people, Israel, a time is quickly followed first by Yom him how he had managed to survive, unique nation on HaShoah – which has its own brand he told me the following story: “WEarth.”1 What an amazing country we of maror and charoset, as we recall the live in! A country and a Hebrew calen- horrific slave labor and death camps “A group of us were taken from our dar that carries us through the highest of World War II – and then Yom barracks and ordered to dig a trench. highs and the lowest lows, that embod- HaZikaron, when the nation confronts The Germans told us they were going ies the tears, tragedies and triumphs the bitter reality that more than to time us, and we must stop digging of Jewish life. I marvel at how we can 23,000 of our finest young men and in exactly four and a half minutes. If take the diverse events of the next few women have paid the ultimate price we stopped before or after that time, weeks all in our stride: celebrating in for our survival. In a flash though, we we would be shot. They gave us a song and story one moment, standing move on, almost seamlessly, to Yom signal, and we each picked up a shovel. in silence the next, and then returning HaAtzmaut. The yahrzeit candles The moment before we began to dig, once again to unbridled excitement. are exchanged for ceremonial holiday I thought of a musical piece that was torches, the Israeli flags that graced I call this phenomenon “the Hillel exactly four and a half minutes long. the fallen soldiers’ graves are waved And I played that music in my head Sandwich.” The sage Hillel, as the proudly on every street, displayed in as I dug. All around me, fellow Jews Haggadah famously tells us, would our homes and even from our cars. were stopping and were being killed. take two pieces of matzah, a symbol The emotional current of these days But, to the amazement of the sadistic of our enduring faith in G-d, and undulates through our bodies with Nazi guards, I continued and stopped sandwich (or should I say “Hillel,” hard-to-believe ease. since he, and not some stuffy old Earl, exactly at the right moment, and so originated the idea!) between them I am always in awe of our unparalleled I was saved. And do you know what? both maror/chazeret, bitter herbs, skill at “changing gears,” at moving In my head, that same music is still and charoset, the mortar-like mixture from the sad to the sublime, from playing.” of wine, apples, cinnamon and nuts. maror to merriment. The Holocaust The song of the Jewish people can, at This seemingly irrelevant anecdote survivors and bereaved families who times, be as bitter as maror and can – and the custom it engenders to this display unparalleled courage during break your heart with sadness, but it day at every Seder – is an important, these weeks, who bravely face their can also lift your spirits to exhilarating indispensable part of the story, for fears and join together with the rest of heights. But whatever piece it is it sends the message that Jewish life the nation, are our inspiration and our playing at the moment, the music will invariably contains both blessing and pride. They continually remind us that never stop; it will always go on. bitterness, grief and glory. Israel is a country that upholds ideals worth living – and dying – for. The “Hillel” is the perfect metaphor for the four seminal events occurring As I swallow a bite of the Hillel 1 Shmuel II 7:23. at this time of year. We begin on Sandwich, I am reminded of an Pesach – the first holiday of our interview I did some years ago with Rabbi Stewart Weiss is Director of the calendar year – with the lavish Seder a well-known symphony conductor, Jewish Outreach Center of Ra’anana meal and seven (or eight) festive a survivor of the Holocaust who had [email protected]

56 | Rabbi Stewart Weiss Rabbi Benji Levy

PARENTS AND CHILDREN Four for One and One for All

he most celebrated ritual across boundaries, allowing the child to grow wicked and one simple and one that global Jewry is the Pesach in his own way and sometimes leading does not know how to ask a question.” Seder. With nearly every type to wickedness because there was no Perhaps “one” is emphasized before Tof Jew coming to the table, one of moral compass or sense of meaning- each of the categories because each the most famous passages relates to ful direction. The fourth is the wise has a place at the Seder – each person the four children, “one wise and one role model, resulting in a wise child, is a world in and of themselves. More- wicked and one simple and one that for sincerity breeds sincerity and when over, each can be traced within the does not know how to ask [a ques- same single person. While these four tion].” Layered with meaning, there approaches sometimes contradict one are countless interpretations of this another, they each provide insight into ancient passage. While each of these different stages within each person. interpretations presents advice in Life is by no means a simple process broad strokes rather than being black with black and white results; however, and white, each is connected and leads the categorization of the four children towards an approach to the questions teaches a lesson to the children just as posed in providing insight to our much as it does to society, educators Pesach experience and beyond. and parents, encouraging us to think about how we bring up our children Nearly every child has a parent and a and live in the next generation. Ulti- teacher. While nature definitely influ- mately, one-size does not fit all and ences the type of person we become, each person must educate [and be edu- nurturing that nature can be more cated] according to his way. powerful. One kind of parent/educa- tor is domineering, telling instead of Throughout this journey, each person teaching, resulting in a child who is sits at the table, no matter which stage not taken by the treasures of his tra- they are currently leaning towards or the child sees the earnest pursuit of dition, feeling alienated and not even how they are labeled. For our com- wisdom, taught in a palatable way, he knowing how to ask a question. The munity to continue and for each of us often wants to follow suit. The fifth second type of parent/educator places to grow, we must keep coming to the parent/educator is not meaningfully his universal identity above his partic- table and engage in the important rit- present with the child when it matters ular identity, investing all his energy uals and meaningful conversations most, resulting in the fifth child who in broader humanity at the expense is absent from the Seder and other the Seder has provided across the gen- of his Jewish community, resulting important places. erations and will continue to provide in a simple son that understands the every single year! broader world, but not his unique The phrasing of these four children place within it. The third category is strange in its extraneous use of or parent/educator does not provide the word “one,” – “one wise and one Rabbi Benji Levy is CEO of Mosaic United

| 57 Rabbi Yechiel Wasserman

Pesach and Financial Hardships

esach is a holiday associated remain silent or rest until the price merchants knew that Jews would with many extra expenses, and dropped. The Mishnah tells us that buy fish for Shabbat regardless of its many families struggle under he went to the Beit Din and issued a price, they overcharged them. Rabbi Pthe yoke of this huge burden on their new regulation: it was enough to bring Menachem Mendel ordered the Jews budget. just one nest so the cost would not to refrain from buying fish for Shabbat be so high. By doing so, he displayed until the prices dropped so that even Our Sages treated overpricing very courage and demonstrated great public the poor would be able to observe the seriously. Throughout the generations, leadership and responsibility, leading Shabbat. In the Mishnah Berurah, his they also practiced what they to a considerable decrease in the prices commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, preached. At various times, these of the nests. And indeed, the outcome the Chafetz Chaim also addressed leaders intervened in the free market was: “that same day nests were sold for the matter of Shabbat fish prices out and in commercial life. They even took a quarter.” In other words, the prices of of concern for the disadvantaged in steps to cut prices and lower the cost the nests dropped significantly. society. of living to protect the less fortunate and did not hesitate to issue special Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel’s Although we may be living in a free regulations. regulation pertaining to women after market era, it is nonetheless important childbirth was just one link in a chain to occasionally challenge the rules. One of the regulations introduced by of financial regulations instituted over A free market should be allowed for Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel pertained the years. Hillel the Elder established those commodities people can decide to overcharging. He was President the Prozbul, which enabled the whether or not to consume. But of the Sanhedrin right before the wealthy to lend money to the needy when it comes to basic and essential destruction of the Temple. During without fearing they would lose their commodities, not a matter of choice, that period, the Sanhedrin convened investment. In a shemitta year, Shmuel free-market rules should not apply. in Jerusalem close to the shops on strongly advised myrtle merchants to the Temple Mount. Those were sell untrimmed myrtles at their actual The majority of Jews are not troubled times, characterized by riots, price because, if they failed to do so, he conversant in halacha but want to rebellions and infighting between the would rule that three trimmed myrtles observe Pesach properly; keeping Jews. could be used. And with regard to kosher is important to them. Our In those days, due to the many another matter, he warned cauldron spiritual leaders must see whether sacrificial offerings that had to be merchants that if they overcharged and how the costs can be contained made, the price of fowl skyrocketed. for their goods, he would issue a and prices reduced. That way the less For example, a woman who had regulation allowing the use of old fortunate will also be able to observe recently given birth was required to cauldrons after Pesach. Pesach properly and adhere to “and bring five nests as offerings. you shall rejoice in your festival.”. In later generations, we see many According to the Mishnah, “the price instances in which prominent of nests in Jerusalem stood at a gold rabbis issued regulations to prevent 1 Keritot 8a. dinar.”1 That meant each nest cost one profiteering. The most famous one gold dinar, which at the time was a is the regulation instituted by Rabbi Rabbi Yechiel Wasserman is Head of the lot of money. It made Rabban Shimon Menachem Mendel Krochmal, the Center for Religious Affairs in the Diaspora ben Gamliel very angry and he swore: author of Tzemach Tzedek, against at the World Zionist Organization and one “I will not sleep tonight until the price non-Jewish merchants who would of World Mizrachi’s representatives in the is just a silver dinar.” He refused to charge excessive prices. Because those National Institutions

58 | Rabbi Menachem Sebbag

Freedom to Do What?

s Pesach approaches, we are our own Jewish State. We have strug- start with awareness and mutual all busy preparing ourselves gled for over 2,000 years to be free and responsibility for the dilemmas facing for those annual complicated to master our own destiny. However, every group and subgroup within our Achallenges, but our minds also wander perhaps we have come to view these people. Maybe our Sinai should start to the essence of this amazing holiday. freedoms as the ultimate objective of by breaking down the barriers we our- What is slavery? What is freedom? our struggle. Of course they are great selves have created between different We will pray to be bnei chorin, a free and glorious achievements, but they factions of Judaism worldwide. people, yet what does that actually fall short of a truly Jewish political mean? Freedom to do what? philosophy. Let us make sure there is room around our nation’s Seder table for every type The Torah uses the word chofshi – Halacha – Jewish law – is there to fill of son, every level of commitment, free, many times in reference to a the void created by freedom and must every variant ideology. We do not have Hebrew slave’s freedom. Yet when dis- be accorded a place in the life of all to acknowledge the authenticity of cussing the Exodus from Egypt, this Jewish people and the Jewish State. their tradition – or lack thereof – but word is never used. The Torah seems Judaism must not revel too long in its we must acknowledge them as fellow to go out of its way to avoid using this refreshing autonomy but must stand Jews, fumbling in the darkness for the term and employs different phrases up to the new challenges this creates, light of G-d’s presence. to describe the upcoming Exodus – such as making Jewish life relevant “to save His people from the hand of and enriching to all Jews wherever Every exodus needs its Sinai. As we the Egyptians” or “Bringing forth the they may be. Now we are free from celebrate Pesach this year, may we look Children of Israel” or “Let My son go, persecution, we must use this amazing for our own Sinai, a Sinai to fill the that he may serve Me.” gift of freedom to address the import- void, to lead us into a Geula Shelema! Israel was not brought out of Egypt ant issues. We must start looking for into freedom, but from a cruel and our Sinai. mindless servitude into the meaning- ful service of G-d. To the Jewish mind, Do we bury our heads in the sand and freedom creates a vacuum that can be pretend that problems do not exist? too easily filled with a moral license Or do we continue searching for novel to do as one pleases. No, it has to be applications of the law and initiate defined by a commitment to a more campaigns to solve issues in any way enriching ideal. For that reason, only possible, even if this means changing seven weeks after leaving the enslave- the fundamentals of Sinai? Both have ment of Egypt, the Jewish people disastrous effects on our rich faith and accepted the ethics and morals of the tradition. Torah at Mount Sinai. Maybe our Sinai, the fulfillment of This is also true for our modern-day our newfound freedom, should start Colonel Rabbi Menachem Sebbag is Chief redemption, in the form of the free- by trying to realize the promise of Rabbi to the Dutch Armed Forces and dom of religion in our host countries the ultimate redemption of the entire community rabbi of AMOS, the largest and the miraculous freedom of having Jewish people. Maybe our Sinai should orthodox community in the Netherlands

| 59 WHAT’S IN A WORD

David Curwin POUNDING AND PASSING

CHAROSET that are mixed and squashed.” This “For when the L-rd goes through to aligns with Rashi’s definition of the smite the Egyptians, He will see the the – ֲח ֶרֹסת ,et’s look at charoset word charsit as “pulverized pottery” 3 blood… and the L-rd will pasach mixture of fruits, nuts and spices and “crushed tiles.” 4 over [or on] the door and not let the served at the Seder table. While Destroyer enter and smite your home.” Jews have eaten charoset for many cen- It also matches a synonym for char- L 5 turies, the origin of both the word and oset found in the Jerusalem Talmud: There are three main explanations of ,According to that pas- the word pasach – to have compassion . ּד ּו ֵּכ ּה ,the food is not entirely clear. dukkeh sage, dukkeh has that name because it to protect and to skip over. A common assumption is that charoset is “pounded.” clay. This “To skip over” is favored by Rashi. It – ֶחֶרס ,derives from cheres is based on its color and thick consis- At first glance, it might be difficult to is also popular with English speakers, tency. Support for this theory comes accept that charoset, which is so exclu- because in the 16th century, William from the Talmudic passage1 which sively associated with Pesach today, Tyndale coined the term “Passover” to says that the charoset should be like was not only used throughout the year, translate Pesach. Other European lan- the mortar (made of mud) the Israel- but was found throughout the ancient guages transliterate the word – like the ites used to make the bricks in Egypt. Greek world. But that is a theme of the Dutch Pascha or the Spanish Pascua. However, the word cheres does not entire Pesach Seder. A banquet with “To have compassion” is provided by appear in this passage, and the first discussions, called a “symposium,” was Onkelos, and a number of Rabbis in connection between cheres and char- common in Ancient Greece too. How- the Mechilta. oset only appears in writings in the ever, those events were associated with “To protect” is the explanation found medieval period. revelry, whereas the Seder was imbued in Targum Yonatan and other Rabbis with holiness. In such an atmosphere, A closer look at sources from the Tal- in the Mechilta. It is supported by even a simple dipping sauce could mudic period show that charoset was Isaiah 31:5: remind us of the slavery in Egypt and ְּכ ִצֳּפִרים ָעפוֹת ֵּכן ָיֵגן ה’ ְצָבאוֹת ַעל ְי ּרוׁ ָשָלִם ָּגנוֹן ,not eaten only on Pesach. For example 2 the joy of the Exodus. ְו ִה ִּציל ָּפ ַסֹח ְו ִה ְמ ִליט. the Mishna forbids adding flour to charoset on Pesach because the vin- PESACH egar in the charoset would cause the “Like the birds that fly, even so will the ֶּפ ַסח flour to become leaven. According to Pesach, , is certainly connected to L-rd of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shield- ּ and ( ָפ ַסֹח) the Aruch HaShalem, this indicates an the verb pasach. But what does pasach ing and saving, protecting exception to the practice the rest of the mean? rescuing.” year, when flour was added. We find it first in Exodus 12:13, where Exodus 12:13 seems to support “have Many scholars have determined that G-d is describing the upcoming plague compassion” or “protect,” whereas the charoset was therefore a sour sauce of the firstborns: verse 23 favors “to skip over.” I suppose we will need to wait for Eliyahu to ְו ָהָיה ַהָּדם ָל ֶכם ְלאֹת … ְוָר ִא ִיתי ֶאת ַהָּדם ּו ָפ ַס ְח ִּתי .added to meat throughout the year. Dr !solve this puzzle as well ֲע ֵל ֶכם ְוֹלא ִי ְהֶיה ָב ֶכם ֶנֶגף ְל ַמשׁ ְ ִחית ְּב ַה ּכ ִֹתי ְּב ֶאֶרץ Susan Weingarten, quoting an ancient ִמ ְצָר ִים. ,glossary found in the Cairo Genizah says that charoset in Greek is called “And the blood on the houses… shall 1 Pesachim 116a. tribou. Tribou, coming from a verb be a sign for you: when I see the blood 2 Pesachim 2:3. meaning to “pound or grind,” was used I will pasach over [or on] you, so that 3 Chullin 88a. as a dipping sauce in ancient Greece. no plague will destroy you when I strike 4 Bava Kama 69a. A dipping sauce made of pounded the land of Egypt. “ 5 Pesachim 10:3 (Leiden manuscript). ingredients matches charoset perfectly. And then in 12:23: And it explains the name charoset as David Curwin is a writer living in Efrat, and the author of the Balashon blog ְו ָע ַבר ה’ ִל ְנ ּגֹף ֶאת ִמ ְצַרִים ְוָר ָאה ֶאת ַהָ ּדם … ּו ָפ ַסח ה’ well. The medieval halachic guide, the balashon.com • [email protected] ַעל ַה ֶּפ ַתח ְוֹלא ִי ֵּתן ַה ַּמשׁ ְ ִחית ָלבֹא ֶאל ָּב ֵּת ֶיכם ִל ְנ ּגֹף. Or Zarua, defined charoset as “things

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