Rabban Gamliel and Maror

(1) Rabban Gamliel used to say: According to the Tosafot Yom Tov the basis of Rabban Gamliel’s statement is: “You shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord…” That is, we are commanded to recite the reason for the Passover commandments. Since we are explicitly told to recite the reason for the Passover sacrifice the same explanation is used for matzah and bitter herbs. Nowhere are we told what we are required to discuss when we recall the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Rabban Gamliel, therefore, tells us which details we are required to discuss. This is the essence of the telling of the Exodus. If one has not mentioned them, then one hasn’t fulfilled his obligation to tell the story of the Exodus. Anything else we discuss on Passover night falls under the statement, “One who expands on the story of the Exodus from Egypt is praiseworthy.”

(3) Let Me explain
Rabbi Bondi concludes his commentary on Maggid by retelling the story of the Exodus with a rabbinic twist. There is much that is imaginative in this retelling; much of his story incorporates rabbinic legendry. But he also captures the essence of the Exodus story, nonetheless. He correctly surmises that the conflict between Pharaoh and Moses was really a theological conflict between paganism and monotheism. Moses and God both mock the Egyptians who claim to never have heard of Israel’s God and then to have identified the God of Israel, as ‘the son of a king from the East.” The plagues are not so much about punishing Egypt as they are about teaching them a lesson about the power of Israel’s God. They are an answer to the scriptural question with which the plagues begin: “Who is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go?”
Finally, the purpose of this ‘telling’ is to explain the symbolic foods that are consumed as part of the Seder: Pesah, Matzah and Maror. Rabbi Bondi incorporates the three foods into his telling of the Passover story. One might argue that that we tell the story of the Exodus in order to explain the ritual practices on this night and not the other way around. Ritual practices tend to come first and the explanation follows. Rabbi Bondi ends by bringing his commentary back into the daily lives of his congregants. Maror does just symbolize the bitterness of slavery. It is also a reminder not to become arrogant and triumphal in the face of others.

(2) Pesach, matzah, and maror: Why are they included in this order? Shouldn’t the bitter herbs have been mentioned first since the people’s lives were made bitter before they consumed the unleavened bread and the Passover offering? Rabban Gamliel’s order follows scripture: “They shall consume the flesh on this night along with matzah and bitter herbs.” Also the first two are the essential foods we eat on this night since they point to the miraculous redemption of the Israelites more so than the bitter herbs. The matzah and the Passover offering are also obligatory unlike the bitter herbs. The bitter herb is simply a reminder of the bitterness of slavery.

(1) Pesach Sh’hayo avotaynu, The Pesach which our ancestors ate when the Temple was still standing: The verse prior to: “You shall say: It is a Passover offering for the Lord…” says, “And when your children ask you: What mean you by this rite.” The fact that the Torah doesn’t preface the answer to this question with, “And you shall say to your children,” or “And you shall say to them,” as in the case of the answers to the other children, suggests that one must ask this question and answer it even without the children’s questions. That is why we begin by asking “The Passover offering for what reason,” and then go on to say, “Because the Holy One passed over the houses of the Israelites…” The Maggid then quotes this verse as a proof text for this statement: “You shall say, ‘It is a Passover offering for Adonai who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and struck down the Egyptians and spared our houses.’”
Note that in the proof text the article et appears before both statements - “struck down (et) the Egyptians” and “spared (et) our houses.” This word comes to teach us that a first born Egyptian in an Israelite house was still stricken during the tenth plague and conversely, an Israelite in an Egyptian house was spared! Even though we have already learned this from the verse, “So that no plague will destroy you when I strike the Land of Egypt,” it is added again here to teach us that we must inform the child of all these details in telling him the story of the Exodus.
There is a surprising explanation of this verse by the author of the Korban Pesach Commentary. He explains that we learn from the verse, “You shall say, It is a (pesach) Passover offering for Adonai who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt” that one should begin studying the laws of Passover thirty days before the festival. He deduces this in the following way: half the numerical value of the letter pay (80) is mem (40); half the numerical value of samech (60) is lamed (30) and half the numerical value of the letter chet (8) is dalet (4). When we combine the half value of each of these letters we have the word lamayd, learn! Another explanation: if we read the word pesach backwards it is an abbreviation for, chatzi samech potchin, One half of samech (that is, 30 days) we begin!

(1) Maror zeh sh’anu ochlim, The bitter herbs which we eat: We have already given another explanation for why we eat bitter herbs on Passover. Here the Maggid offers a simpler explanation based on the similarity of language. We eat bitter herbs for the bitterness of Israel in Egypt. They were made bitter by the hard work they performed for Pharaoh in public works and the hard labor they performed for the Egyptians in the field. The Egyptian people were far worse than Pharaoh for their labors were meant to break the bodies of the Israelites.

(1) Rabban Gamliel said: One who doesn’t mention three things on Passover has not fulfilled his obligation. They are pesach, matzah, and maror: All of these things are mentioned in the Mishnah which concludes: “In every generation each person is obligated to see himself as if he personally went forth from Egypt…” Rava adds: He must also say: “And us he freed from there that he might take us…” There are several surprising things about this passage!
The Talmud makes the following statement: In our time we do not eat the matzah and the maror together since matzah is a Torah commandment and maror is a rabbinic commandment – the rabbinic commandment would disqualify the Torah commandment. In the time of the Temple, however, when all three foods were Torah commandments and were consumed together then there was no question since they were all eaten at once. To understand this statement we must return to the earlier discussion regarding why we eat the matzah before the maror. Since the maror symbolizes slavery and the matzah symbolizes freedom, we should have eaten the maror before we ate the matzah. And nowadays when we eat them separately we must wonder why we eat them in the wrong order. This was not a question in the time of the temple since all three could be consumed together in a sandwich. The same question arises regarding Rabban Gamliel’s statement. Why does he say that we should mention pesach, matzah, and maror; maror should have been mentioned before the matzah. In the time of the Temple, while all three were consumed together, the same question could be asked about which should be mentioned first: the matzah or the maror?
The answer to this question can be found in the following statement in the Mishnah: “In every generation one should see himself as if he personally went forth from Egypt…” The Shach comments on the order in this statement by suggesting that it is not talking about the Exodus but about Israel’s future experience: matzah alludes to freedom. When our actions are proper we will be free but if not we will experience maror, bitterness. The Shach suggests that maror here is referring to Israel’s subjugation to the four great kingdoms. That is why maror is mentioned last in the verse. We begin then with matzah – because we are suppose to see ourselves as among those who went out of Egypt and are free. We then receive a warning – if our actions are not proper we will experience bitterness. Even though we are now living in exile and in bitterness, we do not mention this first because we are obligated to see ourselves as one of those who went forth from Egypt, just like the people of the generation of the Exodus.
What does Rava’s statement add to this discussion? We have already seen that for some people, matzah symbolizes slavery since it was the food which slaves eats (it is difficult to digest). If that is the case then matzah and maror are both symbols of slavery. Rava’s statement emphasizes that matzah is a symbol of freedom since ‘God took us out from there.’ When Rava suggests we should also make this statement, he is alluding to the fact that only one fiftieth of the Israelites left Egypt – the rest died because they became impure and worshipped idols. Therefore we say “And US He freed from there.” – We were freed and not the others who died during the plague of darkness.

(1) Rabban Gamliel used to say: Usually such a statement should be written “Rabban Gamliel says…” Here the statement is “Rabban Gamliel used to say…” Why does the Maggid use this particular language? Rabbi Ashkenazi in Ma’asei Hashem suggests that Rabban Gamliel did not simply make this statement, but that this was his practice. He used to ask himself these three questions each time he sat down at the Seder table even if there was no one else to ask the questions. We are obligated, therefore not only to follow his law but to emulate his example.

(1) The Pesach offering which our fathers ate in the time that the Temple was standing, for what reason? The reason we mention Matzah and Maror are obvious. Both are directly connected with the story of the Exodus. We eat Matzah because we left with haste from Egypt and the bread did not have time to rise, and we eat Maror as a symbol of the bitterness of slavery. But the reason Pesach offering is less obvious and more subtle. While we ate the Pesach offering on the night of the Passover there is no direct connection between the offering and the act of passing over as there is with Matzah. Rabban Gamliel suggests that we ate the offering because God passed over the houses of the Israelites. Yet what does the offering have to do with the miracle and how does the offering help us reenact the Passover experience?
Rabban Gamliel suggests that the reason Israel was worthy of having God passed over their houses is because they ate the Pesach offering. Because they obeyed God’s commandment they were saved in Egypt. Thus by recalling the Pesach offering and eating it in the time of the Temple, the Jewish people are reenacting Israel’s faith in God.
The final plague was unlike any of the other plagues in Egypt. While a distinction was made between Israel and the Egyptians in all the other plagues, only this plague required some sign for the people of Israel. The reason for this is that all the other plagues were performed through some intermediary means while the death of the first born was performed directly by God Himself.
The other plagues were performed through a righteous intermediary. There are many examples in the Talmud and in the Bible of righteous people and prophets who are given control over the powers of nature. Some examples of this are Joshua who makes the sun stand still at Gibeon, and Moses who splits the Red Sea. There are many examples in the Talmud such as Pinchas Ben Yair who also causes a river to split in half. What we learn from all these examples is that sometimes Israel is redeemed because of the righteousness of its leaders.
In the case of the tenth plague, however, Israel’s redemption was dependent on their worthiness. And since the people had worshipped idols in Egypt they were not truly worthy of being saved. God therefore asked them to do something that would make them worthy of such redemption. They were told to set aside and slaughter a ram for the Pesach offering. Since the ram was one of the gods of Egypt they had to risk their lives by doing this. This proved that they were truly worthy of being redeemed on the night of the Passover. They showed that they were willing to risk everything for the sake of sanctifying God’s name and therefore were worthy of God’s protection.

(1) Why do we eat this Maror? If Maror was a symbol of slavery, why don’t we mention it first before the two symbols of redemption? It should have been Maror, Pesach and then Matzah. The essential reason we were redeemed from Egypt was not to save us from the bitterness of slavery but to make us servants of the God. The Haggadah mentions redemption before the bitterness in order to emphasize that bitterness was only a secondary reason God took us out of Egypt. The main reason God took us out of Egypt was to bring us to Mount Sinai. Even those Israelites who were princes in Egypt and who did not necessarily suffer from the deprivations of slavery were in dire need of redemption. They could look back and say that there lives were not bitter but they were still thankful for the gift of God’s redemption.

(5) Second Explanation: The second explanation of Mah Nishtanah is related to Rabban Gamliel’s statement later in the Haggadah in which he explains why we eat the Passover offering, the matzah and the bitter herbs. Clearly, the reason for matzah is to commemorate freedom while the reason for the bitter herbs is to remind us of slavery. We eat them together with the Passover offering (according to Hillel), to include all of these remembrances together. But why do we explain them out of order? The bitter herbs should have been explained first in Rabban Gamliel’s statement and in the Haggadah. And yet we put the matzah before the bitter herbs. Why do we even need a reminder of slavery and bitterness? We don’t have such a reminder on Purim or Chanukah – also reminders of God’s miraculous redemption.
Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz explains that it was because of righteous women that the Jewish people were redeemed from slavery. They knew that the people of Israel could not be redeemed until they gave birth to 600,000, equal to the number of letters in the Torah that they would receive at Mount Sinai. Therefore they remained attached and devoted to their husbands even in the face of oppression. That is why scripture says, “But the more they oppressed them, the more they increased and spread out.” It was through the great oppression that a great purpose came about; the people were fertile and increased, and became a mighty nation of 600,000 so that they could become worthy of receiving the Torah. Therefore, the bitter herbs actually served the purpose of making Israel worthy of receiving the Torah – this happened after the Exodus so the question of bitter herbs also follows the question regarding the matzah.
The Mah Nishtanah implies this explanation. The child wants to know why we ask questions regarding freedom first before we ask questions about slavery. After all, matzah is a symbol of freedom while matzah and dipping are symbols of slavery. The dipping in charoset is a reminder of the mortar with which they made the bricks while leaning is a symbol of freedom. Even though Don Isaac Abarbanel suggested that matzah is a symbol of slavery and we call it the bread of affliction, in reality it is a symbol of freedom; that is why we are supposed to lean when we eat the matzah. There is also an association of freedom with bitter herbs, thus while we don’t lean when we eat the bitter herbs, it is permissible to do so!

(1) Rabban Gamliel said, anyone who did not mention these three things… That is, even if he ate the Passover offering, matzah and the Bitter herbs, he will not have fulfilled his obligation if he did not explain why we eat these three things, since the Torah emphasizes the explanation and the telling.

(1) For what reason do we eat this matzah? This must be explained since we had already been commanded to eat the matzah without an explanation of why. Rabbi Kimchi explains that they were commanded to eat matzah in Egypt before they left in anticipation of what was about to happen. God knows all possible futures and He already knew that they would have to leave Egypt in haste. Even they had wanted to do so because they were already commanded to eat unleavened bread for seven days and to eat the Passover offering together with matzah and maror.

(1) Rabban Gamliel used to say: According to the Tosafot Yom Tov the basis of Rabban Gamliel’s statement is: “You shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord…” That is, we are commanded to recite the reason for the Passover commandments. Since we are explicitly told to recite the reason for the Passover sacrifice the same explanation is used for matzah and bitter herbs. Nowhere are we told what we are required to discuss when we recall the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Rabban Gamliel, therefore, tells us which details we are required to discuss. This is the essence of the telling of the Exodus. If one has not mentioned them, then one hasn’t fulfilled his obligation to tell the story of the Exodus. Anything else we discuss on Passover night falls under the statement, “One who expands on the story of the Exodus from Egypt is praiseworthy.”

(2) Pesach, matzah, and maror: Why are they included in this order? Shouldn’t the bitter herbs have been mentioned first since the people’s lives were made bitter before they consumed the unleavened bread and the Passover offering? Rabban Gamliel’s order follows scripture: “They shall consume the flesh on this night along with matzah and bitter herbs.” Also the first two are the essential foods we eat on this night since they point to the miraculous redemption of the Israelites more so than the bitter herbs. The matzah and the Passover offering are also obligatory unlike the bitter herbs. The bitter herb is simply a reminder of the bitterness of slavery.

(1) Pesach, Matzah, Maror and Transformation Rabban Gamliel said: one who doesn’t mention three things on Pesach has not fulfilled his obligation: In the Zohar, Parshat Bo, we learn that when we tell the story of the Exodus, we reveal the mystery of redemption. Heavenly and earthly beings come together to listen to the story, to give thanks to the Holy One of blessing, and to rejoice. Israel strengthens their Heavenly Master through the telling of this story. From this we learn how important it is to retell the story slowly and deliberately and not to do so in an apathetic and drowsy manner. By telling the story in a dignified fashion, we express our gratitude to God and show that we are not ungrateful for what God has done for us. We tell the story with the awareness that each telling brings wonders into this mighty exile and brings us closer to a time similar to the original Exodus.
One way of telling the story is through symbols. We speak about matzah and maror at the Seder. Yet why do they appear in this particular order? If matzah symbolizes freedom and maror slavery, shouldn't maror be mentioned first and the matzah afterwards? The answer can be found in a verse in Ecclesiastes: “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, to the end that man should find nothing but Him.” If we remembered the sad and tragic days first before the happy day of rejoicing, they would cast a dark pall over the happy days. Therefore, we mention the Matzah first, a reminder of the God's kindness and love, before we mention maror, the painfulness of slavery and oppression. The story of the Exodus should be a story about triumph and rejoicing and not just a story about oppression.
Furthermore, these symbols help us aspire toward wholeness. There are four steps toward achieving wholeness. First, one must get rid of that which is ugly and damages the individual. Second, one must then enthusiastically embrace all those things which are life-affirming. Third, one comes to recognize divine providence is present in all things, good or bad. Finally, one comes to understand that even suffering and sorrow are visited upon us from God with good and beneficial intentions. Sorrow and suffering can help a person atone for sin or it may serve as a test. This is what scripture means, “Your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs and they shall be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years…in the end they shall go free with great wealth.”
Our ancestors acquired these qualities before leaving Egypt and they did so by performing four mitzvot: they got rid of all hametz, they ate matzah, they offered the Pesach offering and they ate maror. Removing hametz from their homes was symbolic of removing that which is ugly and damaging from the life of the individual. Hametz or leaven is referred to as the „leaven in the soul‟ or „the evil inclination.‟ Matzah, on the other hand, is made through a quick baking process. It symbolizes the enthusiasm and quickness with which we embrace that which is life-affirming and serve God. The Pesach offering symbolizes divine providence since God passed over the Israelite houses but struck the Egyptian households. And finally, maror is the bitterness of slavery – we can now see it as part of the divine plan in light of all the other insights we have gained.
When we tell the story through these symbolic actions, we are not simply recalling a historic event that happened long ago, but speaking about the process of self perfection and striving toward human wholeness. By going through these steps we experience the divine spirituality. We cannot experience redemption until we go through this fourfold process of transformation, and these four mitzvot apply not only to Passover but to all the Jewish holidays.
These are the steps which bring us to Mount Sinai and lead to the celebration of Shavuot. They open the gates of heaven for us. We are not speaking about real hametz, when we talk about removing hametz from our homes, but the beginning of the process of transformation.
We can now understand the answer that the Haggadah gives to the wise child. When the wise child asks, “What do these statutes, testimonies and judgments mean,” he is really asking why it is necessary to have so many commandments to commemorate the Exodus. If the point is simply to remember a particular event in history, then one mitzvah would have been enough to remind us of the Exodus. The many mitzvot are meant to make us aware of this fourfold process of growth which is an ongoing process from generation to generation. We then answer him by saying that we should not eat after the Afikomen since this process of change never ends and always leads to Mount Sinai. The taste of matzah must always be in our mouth. The wonders that happened long ago also continue even today! That is why Passover is referred to “as a day of vigil for all Israel throughout all the generations.” The transformation did not just take place at that time and in that place, but in every generation. It is not enough, then, just to perform these acts; one must explain their connection to the Divine.

(1) The Pesach offering which our ancestors ate. The Pesach refers to those divine acts of kindness which are apparent to all and revealed. These acts are not performed by an angel or some other divine being but by God Himself. Matzah, on the other hand, which we wrap up in a cloth at the Seder, symbolizes those divine acts of providence which are hidden. When the Jewish people were living in their land and God's providence was readily revealed, we were commanded to offer the pesach, but now that we are in exile we merely mention the offering. Matzah, however, which is a reminder of the enthusiasm with which Israel followed God into the wilderness, we continue to eat at the Seder with the hope that we will readily follow God as our ancestors did.

(1) This maror which we eat what is the reason for it? Why do we use a vegetable for maror which begins soft and sweet but becomes bitter as we chew it? This is a reminder of our experience in Egypt. The people began as guests in Goshen but ended up as oppressed slaves to Pharaoh. Their lives were embittered.

(3) It is interesting to note that matzah and maror each have different status in Jewish law. Although both are symbols that help us remember our experience in Egypt, matzah is still considered a Torah obligation while the Talmud says maror is only a rabbinic obligation. Furthermore in Parshat Bo, we are told, “They shall eat it roasted over fire and matzah along with maror,” and later we read, “They shall eat it along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.” So how do we account for the differences between these two symbolic foods? While the maror is a reminder of the statement, “They embittered their lives,” matzah has double significance. It reminds us of what our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt and it also reminds us of the good which God did for us by taking us out of Egypt quickly. Had God not taken us out of Egypt with haste we would have sunk to the fiftieth level of impurity and we would not have been redeemable any more. In exile we no longer need a reminder of the bitterness of slavery. Therefore the sages downgraded the obligation to eat bitter herbs to a rabbinic obligation instead of a Torah obligation. Even though matzah is a reminder of slavery, it also serves as a reminder of redemption, and how fortunate we were to enter into the gates of purity rather than the gates of impurity. Therefore it continues to be a Torah obligation; even if we are not are still in exile, we are now the servants of God! Finally the order of the foods has to do with when each commandment applied. When the Israelites observed the first Pesach in Egypt, the foods were ordered according to their experience: first the bitterness of slavery, then the matzah the food of redemption and finally the Passover offering as we see in Exodus. For future generations, when matzah would become the central food, matzah was mentioned first (as we see in Numbers). Matzah was a reminder of our flight to freedom and the fact that we did not become so mired in Egypt that we could not escape.