What happens when you take a slice of challah and squash it in your hand? It obviously turns to mush. Additionally, it's unlike a sponge: it doesn't bounce back to its original shape. Once it has been altered, the challah is left with that lasting imprint on itself. Matzah, on the otherhand, isn't pliable, bendable or cut-able, as is challah, which can be changed from what it is in order to conform to an outside force. What happens if you were to cut a matzah? Or squash it? It refuses to bend and simply crumbles, almost as if refusing to bend on its beliefs to fit the outside force. It doesn't conform to the pressure of the 'hand' or any other pressures, as would the challah. It refuses to be something it's not and it stands up for what it is. So to, we need to distance ourselves from conforming to whatever forces wish to change us. We need to be like the matzah: non-conforming and ever strong to our beliefs and values. How else can we remain who we are as a people, as a nation, and simply, as our individual selves?
The Rashbam asks the obvious question; "How does the child know to ask about 2 dippings when he/she has only seen one dipping; that of the Karpas in the salt water? The Rashbam in Arvey Pesochim 116A answers by seemingly amending Rav Safra's comments in the Gemoroh to that the child asks :"Why are we obliged to dip ONCE when we have no such chiyuv at any other time in the year?" Consequently the Rashbam deletes the words 2 dippings from the child's question in the Mah Nishtanoh.
We are two weeks before פסח and most of us are already confined to eating חמץ, in the kitchen only. Things start getting worse in about a week, when we actually start getting rid of all the חמץ in the house - and land up eating pasta (from the only pot not packed away) 3 times a day. As we get even closer to פסח, about 2 or 3 days before, we get rid of all the חמץ and then there is absolutely nothing to eat and we basically fast until .פסח
Theתורה tells us in דברים פרק טז פסוק ג ,
לֹא-תֹאכַל עָלָיו חָמֵץ, שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תֹּאכַל-עָלָיו מַצּוֹת לֶחֶם עֹנִי: כִּי בְחִפָּזוֹן, יָצָאתָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם--לְמַעַן תִּזְכֹּר אֶת-יוֹם צֵאתְךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ.
“You shall eat no leavened bread… So that you will remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life”.
Every single day of the year we are expected to remember that G-d took us out of Egypt.
But just remembering everyday in our minds is not enough it says in שמות פרק יג פסוק ט with regards to תפילין
וְהָיָה לְךָ לְאוֹת עַל-יָדְךָ, וּלְזִכָּרוֹן בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ, לְמַעַן תִּהְיֶה תּוֹרַת יְהוָה, בְּפִיךָ: כִּי בְּיָד חֲזָקָה, הוֹצִאֲךָ יְהוָה מִמִּצְרָיִם.
The entire Seder ceremony is replete with symbolic gestures. We drink four cups of wine to represent four Biblical expressions of redemption. We dip and lean like kings to represent freedom, and eat bitter herbs to remind us about the bitter slavery. We also eat other symbolic foods that portray our Egyptian bondage: salt water to remember tears, and charoses, a mixture of apples, nuts and wine that looks like mortar, to remind us of the laborious years in Egypt. The service is truly filled with symbolism - some direct, and some seemingly far-fetched - and all the symbols are meant to remind us of the slavery we endured centuries ago. But, why not take a direct approach? There are overt ways to declare our gratitude, and there are more immediate ways to mark the celebration. Why don't we just recite the four expressions of redemption as part of the liturgy instead of drinking four cups of wine to symbolize them? Why don't we actually place mortar on the table (problem of muktzeh not withstanding) instead of making a concoction to represent it? And instead of reminding ourselves of backbreaking work by eating horseradish, why not lift heavy boxes? This short parable may help us, A Jewish intellectual in post-war England approached Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky, who headed the London Beth Din, with a cynical question: "In reviewing our Hagadah service," he sniped,
The Mishna in Pesachim (117) corresponds certain negative sensations with their positive counterpart. I was wondering why "avel" (mourning) directly opposes "yom tov" as opposed to "simcha" or "ho'da". Today I learned the halacha regarding a first-born ovel and if and how he should exempt his fast by attending a siyum. One reason given in the n'ti gavriel is that it is ok for someone to make a siyum in a beis ovel because a siyum is compared to a yom tov, and a yom tov stops a shiva - and therefore there is no problem with a siyum being in his house. Therefore, it makes sense to me to say that the opposite of aveilus is a yom tov because that is the very thing stops aveilus (in that sense)
What does Freedom actually mean to you (each person)? Free to do what you actually want without someone preventing you, pharaoh – physically enslaving our bodies to do his work (it was the Jews built the pyramids, not the Egyptians) and also enslaving the very essence of each person – we were not free to practice our religion or even to choose not to practice our religion – we had no choice, we just did what we were told. It is interesting to note that Egypt at the time was the epitemy of physicality, there were mass orgies, the commentators mention the death of the first born where often more than one Egyptian child died per family (as the child that the mother thought was the 1st born died but also another child died who was the first born of the father and another woman
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Moshe Shlomo ben R'Shmuel | Shlomo ben R'Chaim | Aryeh Leib ben Pinchas Tzvi
