Ritual and Reminiscence

By Moshe Kohn

From the first Pessah, celebrated on the eve of the Exodus, Seders have given us food for thought.

The Pessah Seder is really meant to be a little pageant reenacting our liberation from enslavement some 33 centuries ago and not just another sumptuous banquet.

Similarly, the Haggada is really meant to be only an outline and a basis for the telling and retelling of the story of our liberation. It is not intended as a final, sealed, canonized script of narration and songs to be repeated by rote year after year, to which we are forbidden to add and from which we are forbidden to deviate in any way.

On the contrary: the Haggada itself tells us early on, in the passage read immediately after the Four Questions, that the more you talk about the Exodus, the more praiseworthy you are. Some commentators understand this passage, which is somewhat ambiguous in the original Hebrew, to read: The more you dwell on the story of our liberation, the more the story is enhanced. Either way, we enliven the Seder by each of us adding liberation tales of our own to the national liberation narrative, and by each of us adding thoughts of our own to the thoughts of the generations from which we sprang.

The Talmudic sages tell us to celebrate Pessah as though the Exodus is an experience that each and every one of us has personally undergone, and not just as something that happened to our ancestors a long time ago. Here is how they put it (I paraphrase from Pessahim 116b, Mishna 10:5): In every generation, each person is obligated to see himself as having personally been liberated from enslavement and having left Egypt in the Exodus led by Moses. They base this injunction on the passage in the Torah (Exodus 13:8): "You shall tell your son on that day [the Exodus day]: ’This [celebration and all these rites] is because of what God did for me when I went out of Egypt.’‘ It does not say ’…did for them when they went…"

The sages add: For God redeemed not only our ancestors; he redeemed us as well along with them. For the Torah tells us (Deuteronomy 6:20—25): "When, in time to come, your son should ask you: ’What is the meaning of all these [laws] that God, our god, commanded you?’ you shall say to your son: ’We were slaves in Egypt, and God… took us out of there so that He might take us and give us the land He pledged to our fathers.’"

We will read this passage in the Haggada tomorrow night just before raising the second of the four Seder cups of wine to chant the passages of praise and thanksgiving, which we introduce with the words: "Let us then acclaim [God] with a new song.‘ Note: ’a new song.‘ Over the ages, across the map of Jewish dispersion, we have added a great variety of ’new songs" to our Pessah liberation celebrations.

The first Pessah was the family Pessah we marked just before leaving Egypt. We took "one lamb to a family, one lamb to a household,‘ and slaughtered the paschal offering. Only circumcized males were permitted to partake of the paschal sacrifice. Then, on our way out, we ’baked unleavened cakes of the dough [we] took along out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, since [we] had been driven out of Egypt and could not tarry" (Exodus 12:34—39).

The first recorded Pessah observance after the Exodus took place in the Sinai wilderness, when the Mishkan had been built. This time the problem arose of men who were ritually unclean and therefore could not offer the sacrifice on time. So God instructed Moses to institute the offering of the paschal sacrifice on what the Jewish calendar lists as Pessah Sheni (Second Pessah) on 14 Iyar at twilight, exactly one month after the regular date, for people ritually impure on 14 Nisan and those far from home that day. This applies also to the aliens living in our midst wishing to offer a paschal sacrifice to God (Numbers 9:1—14 ).

The next recorded observance took place 39 years later, after the people, led by Joshua, crossed the Jordan River westward into Cana’an near Jericho, and all the males born after the Exodus were circumcized at Gilgal. When they recovered, "the Children of Israel offered the paschal sacrifice on the 14th day of [Nissan] toward evening in the Plain of Jericho. They ate of the produce of the country the day after the paschal offering, unleavened bread and parched grain… And the manna ceased the next day, after they had eaten of the produce of the land…" (Joshua 5:9—12).

We then read about Pessah in Solomon’s time, about which we are told tersely:"Then Solomon offered up burnt offerings to God on God’s altar which he had built… as the duty of each day required according to Moses’s commandment for the Sabbaths, the New Moon days, and the three annual festivals — the Matzot Festival, Shavuot and Succot (II Chronicles 8:12—13).

Next we read how King Hezekiah summoned all the tribes to Jerusalem, to a gala Pessah celebration (II Chronicles 30:1—26). This one took place on Pessah Sheni, on the 14th of Iyar. This was because Hezekiah had just completed the reconsecration of the Temple, the priests and the Levites to the worship of God after succeeding his deceased father, Ahaz, who had polluted the land by instituting everywhere the idolatrous worship of "the gods of Damascus.‘ By 14 Nissan, ’the priests had not yet sanctified themselves in sufficient number, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem."

Now, in response to Hezekiah’s call, "A multitude of people assembled in Jerusalem to observe the Matzot Festival… And God heard Hezekiah and healed the people. And the Children of Israel who were in Jerusalem kept the Matzot Festival seven days with much rejoicing… So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem."

Before and after all this, Hezekiah and the people busied themselves destroying all the idolatrous sites and objects throughout the land.

We then read of the Pessah celebration proclaimed by another reformist ruler, Hezekiah’s great-grandson Josiah. Hezekiah had been succeeded by his son, Menashe, who not only restored the idolatry his father had rooted out, but also "put so many innocent persons to death that he filled Jerusalem [with blood] from end to end" (II Kings 21:16). Menashe was succeeded by his son Amon, also an idol-worshipper, whose courtiers assassinated him.

Amon was succeeded by Josiah, who "did what was pleasing in the eyes of God‘ (II Kings 22:2). After renovating and reconsecrating the Temple and, like his great-grandfather, destroying all idolatrous objects and sites, he ’commanded all the people: ’Offer the paschal sacrifice to God, your god, as prescribed in this Scroll of the Covenant [which had been found secreted away in the Temple].’ Now the paschal offering had not been offered in this manner since the times of the Judges who ruled Israel or during the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah… And the Children of Israel who were present made the Pessah… and the Matzot Festival for seven days. No Pessah like it had been celebrated since the days of Prophet Samuel. And none of the kings of Israel had made a Pessah like the one Josiah…made…" (II Kings 23:21—23; II Chronicles 35:1—19).

Another religious revival and Pessah celebration in Jerusalem took place in the time of the Return to Zion, with the encouragement of the ruler of the Persian (formerly Babylonian) Empire, Darius. "The returned exiles celebrated Pessah on the 14th day of the first month [Nissan]… They joyfully celebrated the Matzot Festival for seven days…" (Ezra 6:19—22).

A later literary reference to a particular Pessah celebration tells us of the "Pessah of the Crushing.‘ This happened in the late Second Temple days. The Temple Court — the Azara — normally could contain a great throng at the time of the offering of the paschal sacrifice without anyone getting crushed. But that Pessah, an old man was crushed in the press of people. At about the same time, King Agrippa wanted to take a count of the people, and he instructed the high priest to put aside a kidney from every paschal sacrifice. When they took the count, they found they had ’sixty-myriad pairs of kidneys, twice the number of Israelites who left Egypt in the Exodus. And there was not a single paschal sacrifice that did not feed more than 10 persons. That Pessah was called the ’Crowded Pessah’" (Pessahim 64b; Midrash Eicha Rabba 1:2. See also Josephus’s The Jewish Wars VI:9: iii, for a similar census conducted by the Romans).

Finally, a true story about observing the mitzva of the four cups at the seder with milk.

A man asked Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik of Brisk (1820—1892), great-grandfather of the late Yeshiva University teacher who was named after him, whether this was permitted. The rabbi asked the man: "Why, are you ill?"

"No,‘ the man replied, ’I’m quite fit, thank God. But the price of wine this year is too much for my pocket."

The rabbi asked his wife to give the man the tidy sum of 25 rubles so that he could have the proper four cups. "No, no, rabbi,‘ the man said. ’I didn’t come to you for a handout, but to ask a question of law."

The rabbi pressed the man: "I’m not giving you the money. It’s only a loan until God helps you to get back on your feet." The man took the money and left.

The rabbi’s wife asked her husband: "Twenty-five rubles?! Wine for four cups doesn’t cost more than two or three rubles."

Rabbi Joseph Ber replied: "Think about it: he asked whether he could observe the mitzva by drinking milk. Right? If he were preparing a seder in proper style, with fish and meat, he would be forbidden to drink milk at the seder table. From his question I understood that he couldn’t afford to buy any of the items that properly belong on the seder table.