Pesach Haggadah with Ephod Bad

(1) Reader: This table is a sacred altar where we encounter God and meet one another. As we prepare to eat the first course of our Seder meal, we cleanse our hands and our hearts to participate in this sacred meal.

(1) Reader: Passover ushers in the spring, a time of hope. Hope and anguish are intermingled as we dip the greens, symbolic of this new season, in the salt water, a reminder of our tears.

(1) Maggid: Silently, we break the middle matzah and hide it away for later. A slave never knows where his next meal will come from. But this hidden matzah is both a symbol of slavery and an expression of hope. There are hidden meanings and puzzles for us to ponder this evening. As we tell the story of the Exodus, we will search for new meanings in this ancient rite. May we find its meaning for our lives and our generation. May we renew its lessons and find the delight of a hidden treasure in them

(1) Maggid: We begin this evening by opening the door of our home as our ancestors did and inviting those who are less fortunate to join with us in telling our story. As we tell our ancestors’ story we become one with them. The door that leads to redemption is now opened.

(1) Matzah: A Remembrance of History and a Symbol of Hope:
This is like the bread of poverty which our ancestors ate: As we begin the Haggadah, we do so by emphasizing the power of God. Matzah serves as a symbol of memory. When we refer to the bread of affliction we are reminded that despite the fact that Pharaoh was so powerful that no slave ever escaped from Egypt, we were able to do so with the help of God. Matzah teaches us that we could not have escaped from Egypt on our own. Other people would have taken credit for their escape, but the bread of affliction is a reminder that we were powerless on o ur own. When we contemplate the meaning of Matzah which our ancestors ate and through which our ancestors merited God's blessings, we are affirm that the hand of God is all powerful, the creator of light and darkness. Matzah is not the food of slavery but an affirmation of God's providence, the One who creates the rich and the poor.
Therefore, all who are hungry come and eat: We invite the needy to come and eat with us. Even though the sages tell us that the poor are often humiliated by their poverty, having contemplated the meaning of the Matzah we can now say to them: "Don't be ashamed". What we have is not ours. Everything comes from God. We are eating at the table of the Merciful One. Even though you are now in great distress and need, your lowly state is meant to raise you up so that you can accept God's exalted inheritance.
All who are in need: We should invite not only those who are hungry but those who do not have the means of celebrating and honoring the festival.
Come and celebrate Passover: We invite him to come take whatever he needs to celebrate the holiday for he and we are the same. One should speak gently to a needy person. Say to him: "Consider this! Has any creature created something from nothing? Can one create fullness out of emptiness? Surely God can make the dejected feel secure and raise up those who have faltered!"
Now we are here (in a place where God's face is hidden) Next year in the land of Israel (where God's providence will be revealed): This is a reference to Deuteronomy 31:17: "Then my anger will flare up against them and I will abandon them and hide My face from them…And they shall say on that day, 'Surely it is because God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us.:'"
Now we are slaves, next year free, each person underneath his vine and fig tree. We can only be free when we recognize the power of God. Matzah alludes to the power of renewal. With almost nothing we make Matzah. God renews the world ex nihilo, out of nothing, just as the bread of affliction is made without leaven to begin its preparation. The preparation of Matzah, however, begins with something: flour; human beings cannot really create something out of nothing. From the Matzah, then, we are made aware that God is all powerful and has the ability to reward or punish.
When this idea is firmly in our hearts, then we will be 'in the land of Israel' and 'we will be free.' For there is no real redemption like the liberation of the mind, and there is no exile as complete as an imperfect intellect. One is 'free' when one's desire for material possessions is sublimated to his intellect, and one's intellect surrenders to God. Each person is obligated to see himself as if his intellect went out from the exile of foolishness and materialism. That is why we say:

(2) Now we are here sunken in the depths of desire associated with the body. Next year, in the land of Israel which the sages praised as the place of great wisdom. Now we are slaves because our intellect is subjugated to materialism. Next year may we be free from the exile of foolishness and ignorance. Only then will we understand the ways of the Creator, and then the world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters fill the see; we no longer need miracles such as the splitting of the Red Sea to convince us of God‟s greatness.

(1) Symbols and Significance on Seder Night:
Why is this night different from all other nights? The four statements of the Mah Nishtanah are all interconnected. We have seen that Matzah symbolizes important principles and ideas that should not leave our minds for even a second – so why should we set aside one night from all others to contemplate these great principles? If the meaning of Matzah is so significant, we should refrain from eating Hametz and instead eat Matzah all year long so that we can think about its meaning. And if one says that the reason this night was set apart from all other nights is because it was on Passover that the pure faith in God was born, then why do we also eat bitter herbs; this symbol appears to have nothing to do with our faith in God. Eating bitter herbs reminds us of the bitterness we experienced in Egypt.
The Seder should focus on celebration and not sorrow as we see in the parable: A king wished to marry a woman from a far-off land, but rough seas kept them apart. When she finally arrived the king told her: 'don't think of the waves that kept us apart but rather of the day you arrival!' Similarly we should focus on our liberation and freedom and not on slavery. On the other hand, if we are supposed to express sorrow for the grief and suffering we have experienced, then why include the other practices in the Mah Nishtanah: leaning when we eat and dipping twice. Both of these practices are celebratory rather than remembrances of our suffering. We will find answers to these questions in time and understand everything in its full depth.
The Talmud relates the story of Rabbi Nachman and his servant, Doru. Rabbi Nachman asked him on Pesach eve what a servant should do if his master not only frees his servant but also rewards him with great wealth. Doru answered: “He should thank him and praise him.” Rabbi Nachman then told Doru, You have exempted us from saying the Mah Nishtanah” and he continued with Avadim Hayyinu.
Why did Doru's answer exempt Rabbi Nachman from reciting the Mah Nishtanah? We learn from this story that the purpose of Mah Nishtanah is to encourage us to praise and give thanksgiving to God for all his acts of beneficence. That is why there are so many different practices that help us to remember the miracles and wonders which took place when God brought us from slavery to freedom. On Sukkot we have only one major mitzvah to remind us of the Exodus – dwelling in a Sukkah, and on Shavuot we don't have any customs at all; we simply refer to the festival of Shavuot as the 'Season of the Giving of the Torah.'
But on Pesach not only do we have Matzah and Maror but we lean and we have many other customs that help us recall the Exodus. These practices encourage us to tell the story of the Exodus in all its details. The purpose of the Mah Nishtanah – mentioning the practices of the Seder - is to encourage us to give thanks and praise God just as Doru told his master, Rabbi Nachman.
We multiply the customs at the Seder, then, to encourage children to ask questions and to praise God even more! The statement which follows, Avadim Hayyinu, is the answer that the Torah gives to the wise child's question. Because it appears here it is not necessary to repeat it when we recite the passage about the four children. Instead of repeating this passage again, we say that we teach him the laws of Pesach, all the way to “don't eat after the Afikomen.” That is, we teach the wise child many mitzvot of the Seder including those that are statutes.

(1) No Redemption without God
We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt: The opening words of this passage spell out how utterly hopeless our condition was in Egypt. We were slaves – there was no way that Israel could overcome slavery in Egypt. Not only were the Israelites enslaved but no slave had ever escaped from Egypt. To Pharaoh –Pharaoh would never consider liberating the Israelites. The tyrant was strengthened by the astrological sign of the ram, which oversaw the land of Egypt. In Egypt - Egypt was a land of impurity and idolatry which deeply affected the Israelites who adopted Egypt‟s false gods. Israel then was not only politically enslaved but unworthy of being redeemed by God. Despite all these reasons, God chose to ignore Israel's sins and to increase His loving kindness. The Lord, our God took us out from there -Therefore God took us out by vanquishing Egypt's god, the ram. God took us out with His mighty hand and with His outstretched arm - he did so with many miracles. God could have liberated us in other simpler ways such as moving Pharaoh's heart so that he wanted to free them. By performing so many wonders and miracles, God also inspired the Israelites to believe in God. God also recognized that if He did not redeem the people of Israel immediately, they would have become so totally immersed in idolatry that it would have been impossible to redeem them. That is why the Haggadah tells us that if God had not taken us out of Egypt, We and our children and our children’s children would have been enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. Therefore God redeemed Israel as an act of grace, and without any preparation or "arousal from below," and not because we were worthy. In addition to all of this, God gave us the greatest treasure of all – the Torah. There is no limit to the amount of praise and thanksgiving that we should express toward God, Even if we are wise…we are obligated to speak at length about the Exodus...and whoever does so is praiseworthy. The story of Rabbis in B’nai Brak and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, then, are examples of how even the wisest Torah scholars dwell at length on the story of the Exodus.
This passage mentions three types of people: hacham - wise; navon – perceptive; and yodea et hatorah –one who knows the Torah. Each is speaking about a different type of person. 1) The Hacham is one who understands the origins of the Torah are in God. The navon is one who understands the unfolding of the miracles and wonders which took place in Egypt. And the yodea et hatorah is one who understands the nature of all things that were and will be. All of them are obligated to tell the story of the exodus. 2) The hacham is someone who studies Torah, Mishnah, and Jewish law. The navon is one who can deduce matters through logic and contemplation, and finally the yodea et hatorah is one who knows the practical laws. The hacham must cease reading and the navon must stop analyzing in order to tell the story of the Exodus.

(2) Passover as a Paradigm of Divine Guidance:
Whoever speaks at length about the Exodus from Egypt is praiseworthy: The Exodus is a paradigm of divine guidance in the world.There are three main areas of our lives in which we perceive divine guidance: children, lifespan and sustenance. But not all people perceive divine guidance in the same way. Some people perceive divine guidance maybe once in a long while; the rest of their lives are presumed to be a product of nature and chance. There are some who perceive divine guidance in all things and all moments: about them we have the verse in Song of Songs, “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me.” About such people the Zohar says, “Just as they cleave to God, God cleaves to them.” Those who speak at length about the Exodus come to perceive divine guidance in all things. They understand that we must thank God for the forces of 'natural guidance' – these too come from God. This is natural guidance (really a form of divine guidance) is expressed in the liturgy when we speak about God causing nightfall or fashioning the light of day. Thus when the students came to the rabbis in B’nai Brak to remind them to recite the Shema – they were really coming to remind them to give thanks to God's presence in natural phenomena. Similarly in the discussion regarding saying the Shema at night we are really talking about our awareness of divine guidance even in exile and alienated from God – even here we must acknowledge divine guidance. The sages agree with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah's interpretation but they do not believe that it is necessary to have an extra word (kol) in the text to emphasize this. Rather we need it to teach us that even in the time of the messiah when the Exodus will become less significant than the subjugation of the other nations, we still must mention the Exodus,our paradigm of divine guidance.

(1) Once Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua…were reclining in B’nai Brak: When are we supposed to tell the story of the Exodus on Passover night: all night or just when the Seder plate is before us? There is a contradiction between this text and other texts in the Haggadah and rabbinic literature. In this incident we learn that the sages told the story of the Exodus all night long, suggesting that there is no time limit within which one is obligated to recall the Exodus. Yet elsewhere we learn that one must do so 'while the Matzah and Maror are before him.' Further, we are told that one must consume the Afikomen by midnight suggesting that there is a time limit for telling the story of the Exodus. The time limit, however, is for the Passover sacrifice and for eating Matzah and Maror – not recalling the miracles of Passover. This story teaches us that there is no time limit for one who wishes to spend the entire night recalling the Exodus. The Haggadah emphasizes this by telling us that “One who speaks about the Exodus at length all night is praiseworthy.” The story of the Rabbis in B’nai Brak is an illustration of this statement.
Rabbi Elazar was of the opinion that the Passover sacrifice must be consumed by midnight. One might think therefore that the telling is limited to midnight as well. The Haggadah, therefore, includes Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah‟s statement even though it does not directly concern Passover. This passage has to do with the question of whether or not we have to recite the passage regarding tzitzit, fringes (Numbers 15) in the evening. By including this discussion we learn that we must mention the Exodus every night (and not just during the day) throughout the year but on Passover night, the night of the Exodus, the telling has no time limit (as it does the rest of the year). One can discuss all night long if one wishes.

(1) Blessed is the Omnipresent, Blessed is He: God is called Hamakom, the Omnipresent, because we praise God as the One who created the world; God is called "the place of the world." Lest we think that God is only God when we witness Him in the physical universe, we also say Baruch hu, Blessed is He. The term hu, he, is nistar, third person or hidden. God is hidden from the perspective of His essence and being. We only know God through His creation. We then say Blessed is the One who has given the Torah to His People Israel, because we come to know God through words of Torah. But since we cannot fully understand the Torah we again refer to God as Blessed is He, because the full meaning of Torah is hidden from us. Through the Torah we come to understand that we cannot really know God. This contrast of present and hidden is expressed in every blessing we refer to God in both the second and third person: as Baruch attah, Blessed are you, and as asher kidshanu, Who sanctified us.We learn that we can know God from the aspect of God's deeds but not from the aspect of God's essence.

(1) What does the wise child say? The hacham is not wise because he understands the reason for all the commandments; he realizes that the rationale of all the commandments can be reduced to the fact that God took us out of Egypt. Rather, he is wise because he is constantly seeking to learn new mitzvot and seeking new knowledge of the commandments that might have been hidden from him. He understands that the commandments made us worthy of redemption; Israel was redeemed from Egypt because they accepted two commandments even before the Torah was given– the Pesach offering and circumcision.

(1) The wicked child is considered wicked because he will only observe a commandment if he knows its reason. The answer we give the wise child, then, is to teach him all the commandments until the very end of the Seder – don't eat after the Afikomen. We teach him all the commandments even if they are hukkim, statutes, or laws for which there is no rational explanation. The wicked child, on the other hand, asks for an explanation for the mitzvot since he will only observe the commandments if he thinks they make sense to him. We tell him that God took us out of Egypt because we accepted the commandments freely. Had he been in Egypt, he would not have accepted these commandments on faith and, therefore, he would not have been redeemed.

(1) What does the simple child say? What is this? The simple child is more impressed with the natural universe than Jewish history. He asks: What is the Exodus compared with God's greatness as creator of the universe? We tell this child, “God took us out with a strong hand” in order to show His true greatness. God was even willing to forgo Israel‟s just deserves in the interest of redeeming His children. This was even more difficult than creating the world! The people of Israel were not worthy of being redeemed according to the dictates of justice, so God surpassed justice!

(1) The one who does not know how to ask: This child no longer understands the ways of our ancestors or that the purpose of avoiding Hametz and eating Matzah is to teach us to avoid the evil inclination and pursue the good inclination. He is like the person who lost his faith in Egypt and became mired down by idolatry. Only when we rid ourselves of Hametz, the evil inclination, can we increase the power of holiness which Matzah symbolizes. God did this for me: It was God in His loving kindness who took me out of Egypt and helped me recover my faith.

(2) Another interpretation: The four children are really four groups of Jews.
The first group is made up of the true believers. It includes those who have complete faith that all things come from God according to the ways of justice. This is the wise child who believes in divine justice. This child asks us about "testimonies" and the other types of commandments because the commandments testify that we were unworthy of God's redemption; God redeemed us as an act of grace. In the answer to this question we refer to the Afikomen. This is a reference to the Passover offering and a reminder that God vanquished the ram, the symbol of the divine in Egypt. The ram is the central symbol of Passover so that the Pesach sacrifice points to the main miracle of the story.
The second group refers to those who believe that all bad things come from God (God forbid!) and that God created humanity to take vengeance upon him. This is like the wicked child who denies God's justice. He challenges the other people present by saying “what does this mean to you” – the Passover is not a symbol of God's compassion but another symbol of how Israel suffered. We tell him that because he sees God as cruel he would not have been redeemed from Egypt had he been there.
The third group refers to those who have pure faith but they cry out because they don't understand "why bad things happen to good people." This group is like the simple child who asks “What is this?” To him we say that by learning about the story of the Exodus and our suffering we have come to true faith in God.
And the fourth group believes in the existence of God but does not understand the nature of divine providence. They feel that all things that happen in the world are chance. The fourth group is like the one who doesn't know how to ask. Because this child sees everything as pure chance and not divine providence, aht p’tah lo, “You must open” his eyes up and help him see the presence of the divine in the universe.

(1) At first our ancestors worshiped idols: This passage explains why it was necessary for Israel to undergo such suffering before the miracles of the Exodus could take place. The Jewish people began as idolaters and were a mixture of good and evil. It was necessary to separate the impurity of idolatry from the holy souls that would make up the Israelite nation. With each patriarchal generation purity and impurity were separated from one another: Ishmael was separated from Isaac and Esau from Jacob. Jacob‟s children then went down to Egypt to undergo the completion of this refining process that would make them worthy of receiving the Torah. The Haggadah says, Blessed is the One who keeps His promise…God had calculated that the end would come… that is, by the time of the Exodus, Israel was pure of the impurity of idolatry. Unfortunately the Israelites would not remain that way – they would worship the golden calf and would need to be purified through suffering yet again. So the Haggadah tells us, it is this promise…in every generation there were those who rose up against us to destroy us… In other words, others arose against Israel so that the pure souls could be separated from impurity and atone for the sinfulness of the Jewish people. Even though the people of Israel left Egypt pure, they became impure because they worshiped the golden calf. God continues to save us through suffering by using those who persecute us as a means of purification.

(2) Another explanation: This passage may be understood through the example of a debtor and a lender. If one person is indebted to another, the debtor has no right to resent the one who comes to collect his rightful payment. If the lender is a righteous person, however, he will find ways to lessen the severity of the collection from the debtor by including in the payment any favors or deeds that the debtor does for him. The debtor may not like this but it lessens the debt. This is the meaning of the expression: God calculated when the end would come, that is God began collecting Israel's debt to Him from the time of Abraham on in order to lighten the payment.
“God collected Israel‟s payments through many different sources.” Before the Israelites were worthy of leaving Egypt they had to complete their atonement for practicing idolatry. We can now understand why God dictated that the Israelites had to borrow silver and gold from their Egyptian neighbors rather than simply having it given to them.20 God could have influenced the Egyptians to give the silver and gold to the Israelites freely just as he forced Pharaoh to free the Israelites from Egypt. So why did God have the Israelites ask for these things rather than simply giving it to the Israelites? This was a way of misleading Pharaoh into believing that God wasn't really all-powerful. Pharaoh must have reasoned, if God was all-powerful, he would have taken the valuables from the Egyptians and given it to the Israelites. God mislead Pharaoh into misjudging God‟s power and pursuing the Israelites so that, they would all drown in the sea.
But borrowing from the Egyptians must have been hard for the Israelites as well. Having to "borrow" from the Egyptians was undignified; the Israelites probably felt that they were acting deceitfully by borrowing things they weren't going to return. It left the Israelites with the impression that the four hundred years of their suffering had not yet come to an end. After all, God had promised them wealth when they left Egypt but said nothing about their having to beg for it. The wealth was supposed to be in payment for their years of servitude in Egypt.
The Israelites must have also thought their time of servitude was not yet over and that was why it was necessary for them to borrow the wealth from the Egyptians rather than take it. This explains why the Israelites kept threatening to go back to Egypt throughout their sojourn in the desert; they were not convinced that their four hundred years had really ended. But we have seen, it was the end of their servitude, and the purpose of the "borrowing" was to create a ruse for the Egypt. It was only at the sea when they collected all the booty that washed up on the shore after the Egyptians drowned that God's promise “they shall go free with great wealth,” was fulfilled. Israel's true liberation, then, did not take place until the Israelites stood on the shore of the Red Sea and collected the plunder.
We can now understand the parable of the lender and the debtor: when God asked the Israelites to borrow silver and gold from the Egyptians, the Israelites were really paying off their debt to God by serving His greater purpose. They enticed Egypt to pursue them so that they would be punished at the sea. Also, Israel's willingness to borrow from the Egyptians was a sign of their complete faith in God. After all, the Israelites had reason to be fearful of the Egyptians' possessions. A plague had just devastated the land of Egypt and the Israel might have been afraid that the possessions of the Egyptians were infected with the plague. Yet they had such complete faith that God would protect them that they were not afraid to take possessions of the Egyptians, even though “there was no household where there was not someone dead.” This was further proof of the Israelites‟ worthiness to be redeemed from Egypt. God thought that the Israelites would not afraid to take silver and gold from the Egyptians so he posed his question in the form of a request, kah na, “Please take silver and gold...”

(1) At first our ancestors worshipped idols: This passage explains why it was necessary for Israel to undergo such suffering before the miracles of the Exodus could take place. The Jewish people began as idolaters and were a mixture of good and evil. It was necessary to separate the impurity of idolatry from the holy souls that would make up the Israelite nation. With each patriarchal generation purity and impurity were separated from one another: Ishmael was separated from Isaac and Esau from Jacob. Jacob‟s children then went down to Egypt to undergo the completion of this refining process that would make them worthy of receiving the Torah. The Haggadah says, Blessed is the One who keeps His promise…God had calculated that the end would come… that is, by the time of the Exodus, Israel was pure of the impurity of idolatry. Unfortunately the Israelites would not remain that way – they would worship the golden calf and would need to be purified through suffering yet again. So the Haggadah tells us, it is this promise…in every generation there were those who rose up against us to destroy us… In other words, others arose against Israel so that the pure souls could be separated from impurity and atone for the sinfulness of the Jewish people. Even though the people of Israel left Egypt pure, they became impure because they worshipped the golden calf. God continues to save us through suffering by using those who persecute us as a means of purification.

(2) Another explanation: This passage may be understood through the example of a debtor and a lender. If one person is indebted to another, the debtor has no right to resent the one who comes to collect his rightful payment. If the lender is a righteous person, however, he will find ways to lessen the severity of the collection from the debtor by including in the payment any favors or deeds that the debtor does for him. The debtor may not like this but it lessens the debt. This is the meaning of the expression: God calculated when the end would come, that is God began collecting Israel's debt to Him from the time of Abraham on in order to lighten the payment. “God collected Israel's payments through many different sources.” Before the Israelites were worthy of leaving Egypt they had to complete their atonement for practicing idolatry. We can now understand why God dictated that the Israelites had to borrow silver and gold from their Egyptian neighbors rather than simply having it given to them. God could have influenced the Egyptians to give the silver and gold to the Israelites freely just as he forced Pharaoh to free the Israelites from Egypt. So why did God have the Israelites ask for these things rather than simply giving it to the Israelites? This was a way of misleading Pharaoh into believing that God wasn't really all-powerful. Pharaoh must have reasoned, if God was all-powerful, he would have taken the valuables from the Egyptians and given it to the Israelites. God mislead Pharaoh into misjudging God's power and pursuing the Israelites so that, they would all drown in the sea. But borrowing from the Egyptians must have been hard for the Israelites as well. Having to 'borrow' from the Egyptians was undignified; the Israelites probably felt that they were acting deceitfully by borrowing things they weren't going to return. It left the Israelites with the impression that the four hundred years of their suffering had not yet come to an end. After all, God had promised them wealth when they left Egypt but said nothing about their having to beg for it. The wealth was supposed to be in payment for their years of servitude in Egypt.

(3) We can now understand the parable of the lender and the debtor: when God asked the Israelites to borrow silver and gold from the Egyptians, the Israelites were really paying off their debt to God by serving His greater purpose. They enticed Egypt to pursue them so that they would be punished at the sea. Also, Israel's willingness to borrow from the Egyptians was a sign of their complete faith in God.

(4) After all, the Israelites had reason to be fearful of the Egyptians' possessions. A plague had just devastated the land of Egypt and the Israel might have been afraid that the possessions of the Egyptians were infected with the plague. Yet they had such complete faith that God would protect them that they were not afraid to take possessions of the Egyptians, even though “there was no household where there was not someone dead.” This was further proof of the Israelites' worthiness to be redeemed from Egypt. God thought that the Israelites would not afraid to take silver and gold from the Egyptians so he posed his question in the form of a request, kah na, “Please take silver and gold...”

(1) It is that which stood by our ancestors and by us: The words, It is that is a reference to the story of the Exodus. This story has strengthened our faith in God throughout the ages. They have risen to destroy us,‟ the word destroy has the connotation to make us forget our faith in God. By recalling the miracles in Egypt and the greatness of God, it is as if God has performed these miracles anew each time and has saved us from the hands of our enemies.

(1) We cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors: “One who depends upon his own merit in the end will be dependent upon the merit of others, and one who depends upon the merit of others will be saved because of his own merit.” This aphorism explains why our ancestors cried out to the God of their ancestors. They knew that they were lacking in commandments and needed to depend upon the merit of their forefathers. Yet God would redeem them because of their own merit. What does scripture say? God heard our voice; that is He answers us because of our own merit, that is, the merit of our ancestors.

(2) A long time after that the king of Egypt died. The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God….God remembered His covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites and God took note of them: “There can be no arousal above without there first being an arousal from below.” God could not come down to redeem Israel until they cried out to God from below to arouse the divine powers above. During the long years of slavery, Israel was not allowed to cry out or pray to God. Pharaoh assigned task masters over the Israelites so that they would not cry out to God. These verses, then, explain how the Israelites finally were able to cry out to God. When Pharaoh died and the entire nation was crying over the death of their leader, Israel joined in the crying. The Egyptians could not know if they were crying for the death of Pharaoh or because of their own suffering. God, however, knows what is in a person's inner heart, and so the Torah tells us that God took note of them. He knew the real cause of Israel's tears. God can see what is in the heart of each person and what people cannot even see in one another.
The verses above present us with a question. The Torah says that God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If Israel was worthy being redeemed because of God's covenant with our forefathers, why did God have to wait until the people cried out to Him to redeem them? Furthermore, why was it necessary to mention the Patriarchs by name; the Torah could have said God remembered His covenant with their forefathers.
To answer these questions, we must analyze several earlier verses in Exodus chapter three. Earlier God said to Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham…” (Exodus 3:6). Yet when Moses asks, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'the God of your fathers has sent me to you' and they ask me, 'what is His name...' what shall I say to them, God says that His name is Eheyeh asher Eheyeh. What is the connection between this name and redemption, especially since God has already identified Himself as the God of their ancestors?
Rabbi Rabinowitz now offers a lengthy explanation of the following Midrash: When Jacob was about to die he called his children to his bedside to tell them what was about to happen. But when he did the divine presence left him and he could not reveal the future to them. When his sons realized that he was fearful that this was because they were unworthy, they said to him: “Hear O Israel (our father) the Lord (the God of the attribute of Compassion) is Our God (the God of the attribute of Justice) the Lord is One!!” Responding to this, Jacob quietly said. “Blessed is His glorious name forever and ever!” It seems strange that Moses would leave out part of the words of Jacob in the Torah. We have Shema Yisrael but we don't find Baruch shem kevod…in the Torah. There is another well known Midrash in which we find a similar example. We learn that while Moses referred to God as ha’el hagadol hagibor v’hanora, the prophets of later generations abbreviated the way we praise God.
Jeremiah, upon witnessing the destruction of the Temple said we cannot refer to God as gibor, as mighty, after He allowed his Temple to be destroyed. Daniel said we cannot call God nora, awesome, considering that we witnessed his enemies dancing in the Holy of Holies? It was the Men of the Great Assembly who restored God's praise to its original form. Yet how could Daniel and Jeremiah minimize the praise of God, especially since these expressions were originally established by Moses?
Jeremiah and Daniel did not mean to say that God was less praiseworthy or undeserving of our praise. They recognized that one can only speak about God truthfully, based on one's experience. They believed that praise of God must be sincere and honest. One cannot praise God for something that one did not personally witness even if it is true. So, given the events of their generation, they did not believe that Jews could praise God in this way without sounding like one is flattering God and insincere. The Men of the Great Assembly, on the other hand, understood that God's greatness is more subtle. God's greatness and awesomeness is present not only in what God does, but in how God refrains from action, In Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, we learn, “Who is mighty? One who conquers his own inclination.” God could easily have destroyed Israel‟s enemies; they were nothing more than an ant in His presence. The fact that God withheld His might and allowed them to destroy His Temple and persecute His people was a sign of God's might. God “conquered His own inclination.”
Jeremiah, then, did not wish to minimize the praise of God. He recognized that if Israel called God "mighty" they would then have doubts because they would ask, “If God is mighty why do the wicked prosper and why are the ways of the workers of treachery at ease?” God “would be present in their mouth but far from their thoughts.” Jeremiah removed the word gibor from Israel's liturgical language so that it would not lead the people astray.
We can now understand another Talmudic discussion concerning the ashrai, Psalm 145. Why is there no verse beginning with the letter nun in the ashrai? The Talmud says this verse was left out because of the biblical verse, “The virgin of Israel has fallen, never to arise,” which begins with the word naflah, (Amos 5:2). The sages singled out this verse even though there are others that begin with a nun, because it is implied by the samech verse which should follow it in the ashrai: “God raises up all who fall down…” Also the mem verse which precedes it, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom…” suggests that God's kingdom will last forever. The downfall of Israel and the destruction of the temple might lead one to think that God's words were unfulfilled. David therefore left the nun verse out so as not to give that impression. This is yet another example of a place where we silence praise rather than cause doubt by saying things that would appear to be untrue or unfulfilled. Actually, as in the verse from Jeremiah above, the downfall of Israel is a sign of God's might – since God withholds His strength to allow justice to be done.
Just as God's power is hidden in our time of exile, we too must learn how to give expression to the presence of God as Daniel, Jeremiah and the Men of the Great Assembly did and as our ancestors did during the Egyptian exile. In the time of the Patriarchs, God's glory was revealed to the whole world. But when the Israelites went down to Egypt, God's glory was hidden.
That is why Jacob was fearful about going to Egypt. He was not fearful of the suffering that his family would face. Jacob lovingly accepted that this was part of Israel‟s destiny (God had already told Abraham that Israel would be enslaved.) Rather, Jacob was fearful that during times of compassion and divine grace it was easy to affirm the existence of God; in exile and times of judgment, it would be much harder to affirm God. Jacob was afraid that Israel would not be able to understand the presence of God as the Men of the Great Assembly did. That is why his sons said Shema Yisrael… They said, "Listen father Jacob" - We know that God is one in times of compassion and in times of judgment. God's glory is the same for us no matter what. God' name will always be ONE! We will always see God as ha’el hagadol hagibor v’hanorah as the Men of the Great Assembly suggested. Only then could Jacob say, “Blessed is God's name of glory forever – for now I can see that you will continue to see God's glory and that God's name is ONE!” the words Baruch shem kavod then were meant to be an affirmation of Israel's faith in God.
So why did Moses leave out Jacob‟s words of praise out of the Torah? While Jacob saw through prophecy that his children would affirm their faith in God even in times of judgment in Egypt, Moses at the end of his life had a different prophetic vision. He realized that during the times of the judges and beyond Israel would be unfaithful to God and that God would allow Israel to be turned over to the forces of the other nations. Therefore, Moses held back from including the words, Baruch shem kavod in the Torah. How could he offer words of praise that God's glory would be “forever and ever?” During the time of the Men of the Great Assembly the sages saw that the fourth exile would be long and difficult. They did not know if the people would be like the generation of Jacob or that of Moses – so they said we should say the words Baruch shem kavod, but we should do so silently. In this way the sages hoped to open the people's eyes to the presence of God both in times of compassion and in times of judgment.
Returning to the question of how God identifies himself to Moses in Exodus Chapter 3. The three adjectives used to describe God -- hagadol, great; hagibor, mighty; and nora, awesome -- were developed by the three patriarchs. Abraham came to call God hagadol because he saw the greatness of God in the universe. Isaac called god hagibor because he experienced God's might at the Akedah. And Jacob who said mah norah hamakom hazeh, “How awesome is this place,” came to call God nora. When God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, He was really identifying himself by these three attributes. Moses, however, was reluctant to identify God by these attributes. Egypt was a place of darkness and he did not want to use these characteristics to describe God since the people hadn't experienced God in these ways. That is why Moses asks God how he should identify Him. God answers, “I am what I am.” In other words, God says, “I am always the same Being no matter when or where you experience me. You must experience Me with open eyes for the manifestation of God's might and greatness are changing in the world but God is One. I am the One God.”
The Egyptians, on the other hand, did not believe God was all powerful. After all, if God was, why hadn't He redeemed Israel in all these years? Now that the time of revelation had come God chose to reveal Himself incrementally and not all at once so that they would come to recognize God's power. God hoped that by doing this the Egyptians would recognize the error of their ways and would turn in repentance and be healed of sin.
This is the meaning of the expression, “I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.” God said, “By revealing Myself to Pharaoh and his nation incrementally, Pharaoh will delude himself into believing that God is not powerful enough to save Israel.” As a result of God's actions Pharaoh's heart was hardened because he thought God couldn't redeem his people. Actually, it was God‟s intention to deal with Egypt compassionately. He was trying to give them the opportunity to repent without having to kill the Egyptians. Only those who were so sinful that they refused to see God‟s power would become even more hard hearted and fail. God understood that this would happen but he left the possibility of repentance through incremental miracles and wonders in Egypt.

(1) God saw our affliction: the disruption of family life: There are three ways in which the Egyptians tried to stop the Israelites from having children. This was Pharaoh‟s intention when he said, “Let us deal wisely with them.” (Exodus 1:10) First he did so by commissioning the midwives to kill the male children. Then he did so by decreeing that all the male children should be thrown in the Nile; and finally he did so by ruthlessly forcing the Israelites to work so that they were too tired to have children. He made them work day and night so that they never slept and were never with their wives. When the men learned of Pharaoh's decree, they separated themselves from their wives – this is what "God saw."

(1) Our toil: this refers to the children: The main reason that a person toils in the ways of God is to make sure that his legacy is passed on to his children. This is what the Bible says regarding Abraham: “For I have singled him out that he may instruct his children and his posterity after him to keep the way of the Lord…” (Genesis 18:19) Abraham did not worry about his positions but about passing on his beliefs to his children. This is what most people worry about – teaching their children the holy way of God. That is why we pray, “Let us not labor for emptiness (lareek) nor allow our children to suffer confusion.” The word reek has the gemartria of 310. One who raises God-fearing and righteous children will inherit 310 worlds. The opposite of such children is reek, emptiness. Pharaoh wanted to subjugate the children of Israel so that they would not grow up to be God-fearing people. By killing the children, Pharaoh wanted to destroy Israel's hope.

(1) The Lord took us out of Egypt: and not by an angel, etc: The heavenly forces which inhabit the universe are not like the forces of God. They are controlled by God. They were created complete just as they are. Nothing can be added or taken away from them. Also, they do not distinguish between good and evil. If they are sent to a nation or a city to destroy, they cannot distinguish between the people they destroy. God, on the other hand, when he acts in the world, distinguishes between the good and the bad. We see this in the case of the plagues: “But the Lord distinguished between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of the Egyptians” (Exodus 9:4) and “God did not let the destroyer enter your houses to cause a plague…” (Exodus 12:23) From this we can see that the plagues were an act of God and not an act of the natural or the heavenly forces of the universe – neither an angel or a Seraph, etc.
In this way God made known that no other force in the world has His sovereignty. God was willing to do this out of love for Israel even though Egypt was not a worthy place for His glory to dwell. It was a land filled with idolatry and impurity. Since God is the creator of all things he can establish all things or destroy them.

(1) Our affliction…our toil….our pressure… Why does the Haggadah mention these three forms of oppression? They represent three forms of oppression which confuse a person and alienate him from His creator. Were it not for the Torah and good deeds which the Israelites continued to live by, they would have gone astray after idols. Israel's connection to God is reflected in four commandments: they did not change their names or their language; they refused to indulge in sexual perversion; and they didn't spread gossip. Each form of oppression could have caused them to go astray but they resisted. Even though the Egyptians oppressed them and took their wealth, the Israelites did not deny the existence of God. (Poverty causes people to lose their faith.) God saw our affliction refers to the disruption of family life. Despite this, the Israelites did not indulge in sexual immorality. Our toil refers to corruption of the children. Despite this, the Israelites refused to give up their Hebrew names or language, or deny their Jewish identity. Our pressure; despite the Egyptian oppression the Israelites continued to contemplate the qualities of the Holy One. Because of this God wanted to reward them commensurate with their action. He set aside His own glory and personally went down to Egypt, as it says, “I and not an angel.” I passed through the land of Egypt on this night, “I am the Lord and not another.”

(1) With an outstretched arm: this is the sword, as it is written, “And a drawn sword in His hand stretched out over Jerusalem”: What made the first born of Egypt worthy of being killed the Holy One and not by one of God's heavenly destroyers? Rather, it must be that they were killed by God's sword and not by the Holy One Himself. The Bible says, “David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in His hand directed against Jerusalem.” (I Chronicles 21:16) If they died at the hands of an angel all the more so did the Egyptians!

(1) With a mighty hand: the cattle plague…With an outstretched arm: the sword…with great terror: the revelation of the divine presence…with signs: the rod…with wonders the blood: The commentators struggled to understand why only two plagues were singled out from all the wonders that took place in Egypt. The first fruit passage is an expression of gratitude; it is expressed not by mentioning the bad things that happened to others but by mentioning those places where God singled out Israel from Egypt. This only took place in those cases where the Egyptians and the Israelites were together in the same place and God singled out the Egyptians for punishment and spared the Israelites. One place where the Torah explicitly tells us that this happened is the cattle plague. The Torah states, “The Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of the Israelites and the livestock of the Egyptians so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.” (Exodus 9:4) Even though the livestock of the Egyptians and the Israelites were in the same place, the livestock of the Egyptians died but not that of the Israelites. The same is true in the case of the tenth plague: God singled out the homes of the Israelites from those of the Egyptians. In all the other cases the Torah is not explicit in saying that the Israelites and the Egyptians were in close proximity.
Having mentioned these plagues, the Haggadah now speaks about the other ways in which God showed the Israelites favor: He did so by revealing His presence, through the wonder of Moses' rod, and through "the blood." Each of these was a wonder that God told Moses to show the Israelites so that they would be convinced of God‟s power. By turning his staff into a snake, making his arm become leprous and then turning some water from the Nile into blood in the presence of the Israelites, they would become convinced of God‟s power. In the end Moses did not perform the wonder of the leprous arm since this was meant to be a warning to Moses not to slander against the people of Israel. The reference to blood is not a reference to the plague of blood but the suggestion by God to turn some water into blood for the people of Israel.

(1) Go and learn what Laban the Aramean wanted to do to our forefather, Jacob: What did Laban do to our forefather to make him deserving of such a statement? Was he worse than Pharaoh? Laban wanted to corrupt Jacob and his family by getting them to worship idols. While Pharaoh wanted to kill the male children, Laban wanted to corrupt the entire nation! Therefore,

(2) He went down to Egypt, compelled by the divine word: God compelled the Israelites to go down to Egypt, the hot bed of idolatry and wizardry, so that the whole world would see the signs and wonders that God performed and come to the realization that even Egypt could not stand up against the power of God.

(1) They went down to sojourn there: (And not to remain in Egypt). They only needed to be there until the time came when the world would see God's signs to the Egyptians.

(1) Few in number: With seventy souls our ancestors went down to Egypt: “God collects Israel‟s payments from many different sources.” The main purpose of Jacob‟s descent into Egypt was to show the world the greatness of God and so that they would come to God from the four corners of the earth. The world would see that Israel went down to Egypt as a small band of people and miraculously they became a mighty nation. God rewarded Israel for helping the world to see this. In Egypt the Israelite nation grew both in stature and in numbers. How did this happen? Israel remained a distinctive nation in Egypt through their practices: they circumcised their young, observed the Sabbath, and never stopped learning about their ancestors. This is what the Haggadah means when it says that “the Israelites were distinctive there.” They were great in stature, and mighty and strong in number.

(1) And many: I will make you as many as the plants of the field: Commenting on the words “And many” in Deuteronomy 26:5, the Haggadah quotes two verses, Ezekiel 16:7 and 16:6 that teach us about the Exodus from Egypt.
I let you grow like the plants of the field: Just as vegetation receives nutrients from the earth, so has God prepared two stones for you from which you can suckle, as it is written in Deuteronomy 32:13: “He fed them honey from a crag and oil from a flinty stone.”
And you did increase: in numbers. And grew great: in quality. They grew in stature and in number. They had many children and received both glory and greatness. And you came to excellent beauty: You left Egypt with silver and gold. None of this was for the service that you provided to the Egyptians while you were in their land.
Until your breasts became firm: The two breasts represent Moses and Aaron, or possible they are an allusion to the two crowns that they received at Mount Sinai, na’aseh v’nishma, “We will do” and “we will listen.” The people, however, were no better than the Egyptians – both were idolaters.
and your hair grew; hair is a symbol of the luxuries and extravagances which the people craved while they were in Egypt.
yet you were naked and bare. You lacked in any wisdom or commandments. Therefore I gave you two commandments to fulfill so you would become worthy of being redeemed.
And when I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood I said to you: In your blood, live. This is the blood of circumcision.
Yea, I said unto you: In your blood, live. This refers to the blood of the Passover offering.
“You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captured my heart with one of your eyes, with one coil of your necklace.” (Song of Songs 4:9) Rabbi Rabinowitz applies this verse to the Exodus of Egypt in a lengthy analysis of this verse. He explains that there were two evil inclinations that Israel had to overcome in Egypt: one was the inclination for sexual immorality and the other was the inclination toward idolatry. Israel had overcome the first inclination but not the second. They finally accomplished this through the two commandments which they observed in Egypt and this is what made them worthy of redemption.
How did Israel overcome idolatry and "capture the heart" of God? They did so by fulfilling two mitzvot, circumcision and the Passover offering. That is why the expression "capture the heart" is repeated twice. While people often perform good deeds with an interest in the reward they will receive, Israel performed these two commandments without any personal interest. These commandments involved a complete personal sacrifice on their part. First the Israelites underwent circumcision which left them in a weakened state so they could not defend themselves, and then they sacrificed the Passover offering enraging the Egyptians who revered the lamb and who might try to kill them. The Israelites did this without any concern for their own well being. God is said to have two eyes – one is for the quality of justice and the other for the quality of compassion. By acting in this fashion, Israel looked to God for His compassion and not for their just deserve; they looked to God with one eye as the verse says. Finally it was through the leadership of Moses that Israel was willing to do this. According to the Midrash, when the people smelled the Passover sacrifice of Moses (it had the aroma of the Garden of Eden) they all demanded that they be circumcised so that they could eat the Passover sacrifice. And who circumcised them – none other than Moses!
And when I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you: In your blood, live. Yea, I said unto you: In your blood, live: This statement is based on a passage in the Mechilta which asks why, in Exodus, Chapter 12, the Torah emphasizes the 'taking' of the Passover sacrifice before the offering of the sacrifice. Obviously the people had to take the offering before they could sacrifice it! Rabbi Matya ben Heresh quotes Ezekiel 16:8, “I passed by you and saw that your time for love had arrived…” This means that the time had come to fulfill God‟s promise to Abraham, but Israel did not have enough commandments to make them worthy of redemption. God, therefore, gave Israel two commandments and God also told them set aside the lamb four days before it was sacrificed.
It was through their actions that they became worthy of reward (and by setting aside the lamb four days early the people showed their intention to sacrifice it).
Yet elsewhere we learn that Israel did have other commandments to their credit. Rabbi Elazar Hakafar taught that Israel performed four mitzvot in Egypt: they were not suspected of sexual immorality, they did not gossip, they did not change their language or their names. Why, then, was it necessary to have two more mitzvot so the Israelites would be worthy of redemption? The reason why the extra two mitzvot of circumcision and the Passover offering were necessary has to do with a law regarding the status of a priest. If a kohen worships idols or bows down to an idol, he can never participate in the temple service again.
While the Talmud says that repentance can transform a willful act (zadon) into inadvertent sin (sh’gagah)26, the kohen is judged as a sinner and cannot participate in the Temple service again. Only if we can show his repentance to be completely sincere and out of love for God (and not out of self-interest) is his sin completely removed from him. But since we cannot know what is in a person's conscience, we can never know whether his repentance was sincere or simply convenient so he is disqualified from the priestly service.
We can now understand the reason for the extra two mitzvot that the Israelites were given before they left Egypt. The Israelites had worshiped idols – how could they now offer the Passover sacrifice? What is more they had not observed any positive commandments. The four mitzvot that they had already observed were all negative injunctions. These commandments were proof that Israel feared God but they did not prove that Israel loved God. They were, therefore, given two more mitzvot that were positive commandments which proved that they truly had abandoned idolatry and were prepared to devote themselves entirely to God even if it involved considerable self-sacrifice. By circumcising themselves, the Israelites were in a weakened state and could not defend themselves. By then setting aside the lamb for the Passover sacrifice they were showing the Egyptians that they were prepared to sacrifice their sacred animal – if the Egyptians became furious with the Israelites, Israel would not be able to defend themselves. These positive commandments were an expression of absolute love for and loyalty toward God. They were also a proof that Israel‟s repentance was repentance out of love rather than repentance out of fear of God. It also proved that they were now worthy of participating in the service of the divine.
We can now understand why Moses commands the people to set aside and also to take the Passover lamb. It wasn't simply enough for the people to have a lamb. They had to publicly take the lamb so that people would witness their repudiation of idolatry. The lamb would make much noise and it would be apparent to everyone that they had taken it for a sacrifice. This would arouse the Egyptians to kill the Israelites and, therefore, the Israelites actions would truly be self-sacrifice. Also the smell of the roasting meat would waft through the neighborhood so everyone would know what the Israelites were doing. The Israelites would have been convinced that the Egyptians would certainly want to kill them. Their willingness to risk martyrdom would certainly make them worthy of redemption. This also explains why the circumcision was also necessary. Without recovering from their circumcision the Israelites might have believed they could defend themselves. Now that they were in a weakened state they realized that they were totally dependent upon God. Prior to their circumcision they might have reasoned that the Egyptians had been weakened by the plagues – now they were weakened by the circumcision so that they were dependent upon God.

(1) The Egyptians dealt ill with us and afflicted us: We now return to the original statement illustrating how our "enemies rose up against us to destroy us." Egyptians rose up against to make us look like evil sinners. The proof text is, “Let us deal wisely with him lest they become great.” Pharaoh wanted to destroy Israel because he was afraid that Israel would become mighty, not just physically but spiritually. Everything that the Egyptians did, then, was to weaken the Israelites and not necessarily to strengthen the Egyptians. For instance Pharaoh did not assign new tasks to the Israelites to make more bricks because they wanted bricks but to weaken the Israelite nation.

(1) They oppressed him: The Torah says, vayaseemu alav, that they placed task masters “over him” and not over them. Pharaoh went out into the fields with the Israelites and worked very hard so the Israelites would join in the tasks assigned by the task masters. Seeing this, Pharaoh then told the Israelites that they had to produce this same amount of bricks every day. B’fareh: They assigned rigorous work to the Israelites – they not only had to do the kings work, but the task masters made them do their work as well. And they also switched men's work with women‟s work so that the work was demoralizing.

(1) Detzach, adash, ba’ahav: The plagues are divided into three groupings, each of which illustrated a different aspect of God's nature.

(2) Detzach: The first three plagues are associated with the river and the land because wisdom was associated with these aspects of Egypt. By the third plague, even the magicians of Egypt were saying that these plagues were “the finger of God,” proving that all wisdom comes from God and not from the Nile or the land. By the fourth plague, mixtures (arov), the creatures of the land and sea were all mixed up proving that God controlled them and not the gods of Egypt.

(3) Adash: The second grouping of plagues showed Egypt the good will of God. During each of these plagues God distinguished between the Egyptians and Israelites showing that he not only caused the plague but had the ability to protect those He wished to protect. Even though Israel deserved to be punished, God withheld his wrath from the Israelites.

(4) Ba’ahav: During these plagues we witnessed that God was all powerful. During the plague of hail, the Torah says, “In order that you may know that there is none like Me.” (Exodus 9:14) The hail was a combination of fire and ice so that it contradicted the laws of nature. The next plague was locusts: even though these creatures were tiny, they were able to wage God's war against Egypt. Darkness also contradicted nature – it was so dark that a person couldn't even get up from his place. And the final plague proved God's all powerful ability – God can do whatever He desires.

(5) Another way to understand these groupings is that each group served a different purpose. One group was to declare God's greatness, one to punish His enemies, and one to redeem Israel from slavery.
Detzach: During the first two plagues it was shown that the Nile was not god, and during the third plague the magicians said, “It is the finger of God,” meaning that they were convinced of God's greatness.
Adash: During the second group, the Egyptians were punished for the treatment of the Israelites. The plague of mixed animals was a punishment for mixing up the work of the Israelite men and women. The Egyptians tried to demoralize the Israelites by making the men do women‟s work and the women do men's work. Since they forced the Israelites to search the fields for straw, he punished the livestock with pestilence. And for beating the Israelites, he struck their bodies with boils.
Ba’ahav: They treated us harshly, so he struck the land with hail. He struck the land with locusts because they were not appreciative of the blessings Joseph brought to the land of Egypt. He caused darkness so that the Israelites could search the Egyptian homes and find all their treasures before they asked for them. And the final plague, the death of the first born was caused so the Egyptians would send the Israelites away with all their wealth

(6) God is Great Mightyand Awesome
Another explanation of Detzach, adash, ba’achav: When we praise God, we say that God is ha’el hagadol, hagibor, v’hanora: God is a great, mighty and awesome God. We divide the plagues into three groups so that each subset refers to God by each one of these adjectives. The first letter of each grouping is for hagadol, great, because He can do great and marvelous acts. The second letter is for hagibor, mighty, because there is no place where God isn't found and the entire world is full of His glory. The third letter is for hanora, awesome, because there is no one who is God's equal who can undo that which God decreed.
Hagadol – Great: God's greatness is characterized by three attributes that are reflected in these three plagues. First, God can perform great and wonderful deeds. Second, there is no place from which God is absent and even the smallest items can reflect His presence. Third, there is no one or no being that can prevent God's decrees.
Blood - Plague number 1 – The fact that God can turn plain water into blood is reflection of His greatness.
Mixed animals - Plague number 4 – The fact that God could separate the land of Goshen from the rest of Egypt is a sign that God “is present in the land.”
Hail - Plague number 7 – During this plague God said that it was proof “that there is none like Me in all the earth.” Therefore, this plague was a sign that none could prevent God's decree.
Hagibor – mighty: The second letter in the three mnemonics symbolizes the fact that God is mighty. The word gibor means mighty, but also valiant or warrior. A gibor is someone who knows how use all types of weapons in battle, because if he can only use one type he might be forced to use an unfamiliar weapon. Still, he is valiant and still succeeds. He also knows how to create military strategy and to plan an attack.
Frogs - Plague number 2 – God showed Himself to be a gibor because He could fight a battle with something as insignificant as a bunch of frogs.
Pestilence - Plague number 5 – God was able to prove that He was capable of subduing His enemies and killing them.
Locusts - Plague number 8 – The locust was like a great army which God organized to attack the Egyptians.
Hanora – awesome: The third letter in each mnemonic is an example that God is awesome. First, something is awesome when the cause of the phenomenon is unknown (it is mysterious); second, because even if the cause is known it is not sufficient to explain the extent of the phenomenon; and third, if the phenomenon caused two opposite characteristics, it is even more mysterious and awesome.
Lice - Plague number 3 – The plague of lice was so mysterious that the magicians of Egypt responded to it by saying, “It is the finger of God.” While they were able to replicate the earlier plagues, they did not know the cause of this one.
Boils - Plague number 6 – This plague took place by taking some ash from an oven and throwing it into the sky. But how does one explain how a bit of ash could have such a devastating affect upon all of Egypt?
Darkness - Plague number 9 - While the Egyptians experienced darkness, the Israelite, who was standing right next to him, could see light. In other words, two opposite phenomena occurred from the plague at the same time. As a result the Israelites were able to enter the homes of the Egyptians and see while the Egyptians were blinded by the darkness.
The Death of the First Born: This plague contained all three characteristics; it was great, mighty and awesome.
God’s greatness was reflected in the fact that God could distinguish between those who were born a firstborn and those who weren't. Second, God could even distinguish between Egyptians who hid out in Israelite homes during the tenth plague and the Israelites.
God’s might is reflected in the tenth plague since it took a mere second to strike down the firstborn.
God is awesome: Because the Egyptians were terrified by the tenth plague it is a sign of God's awesomeness.

(1) How We Count the Plagues Mighty hand: two plagues; outstretched arm: two plagues, etc… It makes no sense to suggest that each expression in this verse refers to two plagues just because each one is made up of two words. First, we already know that there were ten plagues so what does this add to our understanding of the plagues; and second, the words in each of these expressions make no sense by themselves. They cannot separate from one another, so how can we say that each word refers to a different plague? The word yad, hand, and the word hazakah, mighty, are interconnected. Rather, each of the five expressions in this verse - mighty hand, outstretched arm, great terror, signs, and wonders - refers to a pair of plagues that have something in common with one another:

(2) The first two plagues were performed by a Mighty Hand: Blood and frogs were both performed when Aaron raised his hand. In the case of blood, God told Aaron to raise his hand over the river and to smite it, and, in the case of frogs, he stretched his arm over the land and smote it.

(3) An outstretched arm refers to the plagues of hail and darkness. Each of these two plagues took place when an arm was outstretched toward heaven. See Exodus 9:22, and 10:21; in each of these verses the Torah uses the expression “Hold out your hand toward heaven.”

(4) Great terror refers to the plagues of locust and the death of the first born. In the case of these two plagues, Pharaoh summons Moses because he is so terrified by these plagues. They were a great terror to him.

(5) Signs refers to the plagues of mixed wild animals and the cattle disease. Both of these plagues were a sign because God distinguished between the Israelites and the Egyptians, so that it was a sign of God's great power. In the case of the mixture, the Torah says, “But on that day I will set apart the region of Goshen …and I will make a distinction…tomorrow this sign shall come to pass.” Since the cattle disease also involved a distinction, it was also a sign.

(6) Wonders refers to those plagues which the Egyptians could not perform: the plague of lice and the plague of boils.
There is another way of interpreting this passage. The plagues served a double purpose: first they were meant to publicize the greatness of God, and second they were meant to punish the Egyptians for their oppression of the Israelites. The plagues should be paired up. One was for the sake of God and the other for the sake of the Israelites.

(1) If God had provided all our needs in the wilderness but not fed us manna, it would have been enough: “Providing all our needs” and “feeding us manna” are not the same thing. “Providing all our needs” means that even though we were in a harsh wilderness, God's providence protected the people so that it was as if they were in a lush and fertile place. Through divine providence Israel was able to attain the second type of perfection: physical perfection. Israel grew strong through God's providence in the wilderness. “Their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become cracked.” Such physical perfection, even though it was for the individual, was necessary for the nation as a whole. By giving the people the manna in the manner that God did, he also helped instill a deep sense of trust in God in the nation. They only gathered as much as they needed for the day, so they had to trust God would provide them with manna the following days as well. People learned to trust the divine wisdom rather than their physical desires. Also by providing them with their daily food, God allowed the people the freedom to devote themselves to spiritual pursuits and the study of Torah rather than worry where their food would come from. Thus the discipline of gathering manna and the physical strength God gave them helped the Israelites cultivate the other forms of human perfection which Maimonides mentioned.

(1) If God had given us manna but not given us the Sabbath, it would have been enough. For the sages taught us that the Torah could only be given to those who ate manna.

(1) If God had given us the Sabbath but not brought us to Mount Sinai, it would have been enough. The Sabbath teaches us the essential theological truths of Judaism: that God created and renewed the world from nothing, reward and punishment, and that God is all powerful. Even if God had not brought us to Mount Sinai, we could have sustained ourselves with these profound theological truths.

(1) If God had brought us to Mount Sinai but not given us the Torah, it would have been enough. Simply to be present at Mount Sinai, the place of the burning bush, was enough to comfort the Jewish people and give them hope that they would survive for generations to come. There are many interpretations of the symbolism of the burning bush. Some suggest that it symbolizes the divine presence so that it is a reminder that God said, “I will be with them in times of distress.” Others understand the burning bush a symbol that even when Israel is persecuted and oppressed, she will not be extinguished. Every rock at Sinai contained patterns that attested to the burning bush and served to remind the people of God's promise.

(1) If God had given us the Torah and not brought us into the land of Israel it would have been enough. We have seen that from the moment of liberation until this point God has helped the people of Israel attain all the dimensions of perfection. By awarding them with booty on the shore of the Red Sea, they gained material perfection. By helping the people survive the years of wandering in the wilderness, they attained physical perfection. The daily collection of manna instilled personal perfection by teaching them virtues and character. And now by receiving the Torah, the people attained human perfection through the mitzvot and the teachings of the Torah.
So even if God had not brought them into the land of Israel, it would have been enough! The world would have seen us as a wise people because of the teachings we received at Sinai. Why would it have been sufficient to receive the Torah even if we didn‟t enter the land of Israel? The providential laws of the Torah are what makes us unique as a people and gives us the ability to attain human perfection. There are two types laws by which the world functions:
1. There is natural law with which the world was fashioned and by which the nations of the world deport themselves. These laws rarely change except in very special circumstances, or for special individuals or special nations who have been singled out by God.
2. There is providential law, or laws that have been given only to the Jewish people and which replaced the natural laws by which the other nations function. These laws were given at Sinai and never cease to be in force.
The fact that God gave us these laws would have been sufficient reason to be thankful even if God had not brought us to the land of Israel.

(1) If God had brought us into the land of Israel and not built for us the Temple, it would have been enough. According to Yehudah Halevi in his philosophical tract, the Kuzari, Israel became a godly people in a godly land. There is a unique relationship between the people of Israel and the holy land. No other land can illustrate the deeds of God like the land of Israel because there are ways in which we can serve God only in this place: by bringing the first fruits to the Temple, the sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year. The other nations are not as receptive of divine providence, or of being in a place through which one can cleave to God. At Mount Sinai, the people were not receptive of receiving God‟s word. They asked Moses to receive the Torah for them and then to tell them about it. This is because the Israelites were not yet in the land of Israel, in a place where they could easily receive the „divine abundance‟ as they can in the land of Israel. Therefore, just to be in the land of Israel even without the Temple would have been sufficient. Having said that, it should be pointed out that while the whole land of Israel is holy and infused with divine providence, Jerusalem is even more so; and of all the places in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the Holy of Holies is even closer to the divine spark through which one acquires divine wisdom. And the divine providence shines forth from this point…

(1) Preface to Dayyenu
How many are the good things God has done for us: Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 59, explains that there are four types of perfection which a person can strive for. 1) One can strive for material perfection by acquiring wealth and other property. 2) One can gain physical perfection by working to improve one's body. 3) Personal perfection is reflected in developing virtues and character. 4) Human perfection is reflected in the development of the mind and attaining knowledge of Torah and wisdom. Such forms of perfection are only possible for those who are not enslaved by others. As long as one is not in control of his or her own destiny, he or she cannot attain such qualities in life. The liberation from slavery, then, is the fifth perfection and the one upon which all the others are dependent. The Haggadah begins by saying that had God not brought us out of Egypt, “we, our children, our children's children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.” This is a statement that should be obvious to even the youngest student. The point that the Haggadah is trying to make is that without our physical liberation nothing else would be possible. By freeing our bodies, we gained the possibility to free our souls as well. Dayyenu, then, is all about the attainment of the various forms of perfection. We begin Dayyenu by saying that without our liberation nothing else would have been possible.
Pharaoh and the Egyptians denied three principles of our faith: It was not enough to liberate the Jews. They also had to come to recognize the reality of God's existence and God's attributes: first, that God is the first cause; second, the reality of divine providence; and third, recognizing that God is all powerful. When Moses came to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Let My people go that they may celebrate a festival for Me in the wilderness,” (Exodus 5:1), he was addressing these three principles. When Moses used the name YHVH, “Lord,” Moses was affirming the existence of God as the cause of all causes. When he called God “the God of Israel,” he was expressing his belief in divine providence: the Lord is also our personal God who watches over us. And when Moses said, “Let My people go,” he was expressing the belief that God can command even the most powerful rulers. Finally, when he said, “That they may celebrate a festival to Me,” Moses was telling us the implication of these beliefs: that this all-powerful God whose providence is over us, wants us to serve Him. Pharaoh responds by denying these principles of faith, saying: “Who is the Lord that I should heed Him? I do not know the Lord nor will I let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2) By saying, “Who is the Lord,” Pharaoh denied the existence of God. Saying, “That I should heed Him,” Pharaoh was denying that Israel was God's people and that, even if they are His, Pharaoh was not obligated to obey Him.
God responded to these challenges with the first nine plagues to make Pharaoh recognize these fundamental truths. These three principles are related to the mnemonics, dtzach, adash ba’ahav. The first three plagues prove the existence of God (during which we are told, “Through this you shall know that that there is none like the Lord our God”41); the second three plagues are proof of divine providence (“That you may know that I am in the midst of the land”42); and the third group of three plagues are proof that God is all-powerful (“That you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth”43). The plagues, however, not only taught Pharaoh but also taught the Israelites the truth about God. The Israelites came to recognize the existence of God and divine providence. They also saw that God is all powerful. Through God's commandments in Egypt, the eyes of the Israelites were opened so that they saw how awesome God really is. It was on the basis of these insights that they were able to build a faith based on Torah and Mitzvot. Even if God had not punished Egypt's gods, it would have been enough for us because through the Exodus we came to understand the truths of our faith.
How did the plagues teach the Israelites about God's existence and the emptiness of Egypt's gods? The sages teach us that earthly beings are connected with heavenly beings. Each influences the other, particularly in matters of productivity. Each nation has a heavenly power (mazal) above who watches over it, and influences it. The heavenly power of the Egyptians was the ram, which the Egyptians honored and worshipped. We see this in what Moses said to Pharaoh: “It would not be right for us to do this, for what we sacrifice to the Lord our God is untouchable to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice that which is untouchable to the Egyptians before their eyes will they not stone us?” Because the Egyptians revered the ram, the Israelites also honored and worshiped it as well and practiced pagan cultic practices while they were slaves. God therefore sent Moses to heal the people of these abominations and bring them back to the faith of their ancestors.
In order to win the Israelites away from idolatry, God had to attack the heavenly powers symbolized by the ram. This is what the expression, “He executed judgment against their gods,” means. This ram was also associated with the firstborn, since it is considered the "eldest" in the whole array of heavenly powers. Therefore God resolved to kill the firstborn in Egypt – even the firstborn of the slaves and the animals. They were not guilty of some sin, but because they were connected to the ram, they too were condemned. The Israelites' firstborn should also have been condemned to death. Not only were they also firstborn but they were also guilty of idolatry. In His great mercy, God gave them a commandment which allowed them to sacrifice a ram in lieu of their being killed along with all the others in Egypt.
Thus, God brought the Israelites back to their faith in God. They saw that there is only one Being deserving of worship, that all the other gods are false, and that one God reigns forever and ever! We can now understand the stanza, If he had executed judgment on their Gods but not killed their firstborn… It would have been enough of a miracle simply to show the people of Israel God's true power and sovereignty during the killing the firstborn. Yet God also saved our firstborn even though they deserved to die.
But there were other benefits from this. After experiencing the tenth plague, the Egyptians would have been so terrified that they would not pursue the Israelites. God, therefore, told the Israelites to borrow the silver and gold of their Egyptian neighbors. This act compelled the Egyptians to pursue the Israelites and thus they drowned in the sea. Therefore we say, It would have been enough to have the Egyptians terrified by the killing of their first born even if they hadn’t gained great wealth. In addition the silver and gold which the Israelites attained was also an added favor from God. It allowed them to acquire the first type of perfection to which Maimonides refers: material perfection. So had God given them the material possessions of the Egyptians but not split the sea, this too would have been enough!
Why then did God split the sea and drown the Egyptians? According to Rabbi Abarbanel and others, it was to set the framework for Israel to eventually conquer the land of Canaan. God wanted to fulfill His promise to the patriarchs. Israel was still much too weak to conquer the land. The splitting of the sea so terrified the other nations of the world that it paved the way for Israel to conquer the land. Everyone would have heard about this wonder and realized that nothing could stop Israel. This is what Rahav said to the two spies who came to the city of Jericho forty years later: “I know that the Lord has given the country to you, for dread of you has fallen upon us.” From this we learn that the splitting of the sea and the drowning of the Egyptians was not only a fitting judgment for the Egyptians who cast the Israelites boys in the Nile, but also the first step in the conquest of the land. That is why the Midrash teaches us that the splitting of the sea took place not only at the Red sea, but at every body of water in the world – so that everyone would be aware of God's great power.

(1) If God had split the sea but not allowed us to cross on dry land it would have been enough: Had the water come up to their belly buttons and then filled in behind them it would have been enough of a miracle; by allowing them to walk through the sea on dry land, it set the stage for the conquest. The people‟s faith was still weak when they left Egypt despite everything they witnessed in Egypt. The Israelites quickly forgot God's power and began to complain to Moses. Some said, “Let us jump into the river,” while others said, “let us wage war on Egypt.” A third group screamed and cried while a fourth group thought that possibly Moses had done all these wonders on his own. When they saw the wonders at the sea, how God overturned the laws of nature, they first became truly convinced of God's power, providence and abilities. The Talmud says, “What a maid-servant witnessed at the Red sea, even the prophet Ezekiel never saw in his life time.” Therefore, if the Israelites had not been allowed to cross the sea on dry land, it would have been enough since it brought us to true faith in God.
There were added benefits from what they witnessed at the sea. This was the first time Israel saw the defeat of Pharaoh, who was in his full armor and in a chariot as he pursued the people of Israel. This made God's victory over Egypt even more impressive not only to the Israelites but to the Egyptians as well. Had God done nothing else for the Israelites, dayyenu, it would have been enough for them because now they could enter the wilderness certain that they would no longer be pursued by the Egyptians.

(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) The matzah which we eat, what is the reason for it? The matzah teaches us that even with all the preparations and mitzvot which Israel performed while they were in Egypt, the people were still not ready to be redeemed until the King of Kings, the Holy One, revealed Himself to them and redeemed them.

(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.

(2) Another explanation of unleavened bread: The miracle of the matzah is that the Israelites' dough did not become hametz after they left Egypt! The Israelites were commanded to eat matzah on the fifteenth day of Nisan when they left Egypt. Yet the people did not have time to bake before they left Egypt and it took a least a part of a day to travel from Ramses to Sukkot. According to Rashi, the distance from Ramses to Sukkot is 120 mil. The Midrash teaches us that the Israelites miraculously traveled this distance in a short period of time, "on the wings of eagles." Yet even the time it would have taken an eagle to travel this distance was enough for the dough they carried on their backs to become hametz. Since they had to eat matzah that whole first day, their dough would have become hametz! One of the miracles when they left Egypt was that their dough did not become leavened on the initial leg of their travels from Egypt! Matzah and Maror: Which Comes First?

(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.

(1) Halleluyah! Praise the name of the Lord: The names that we attribute to God have to do with the ways in which we experience God's deeds in the world. God had no name until He acted in the world. Thus, when we say, let the name of the Lord be blessed from this time forth and for ever, we are really saying that we see God's actions in the world. We also say, from the rising of the sun until its setting the Lord’s name is to be praised. The Lord is high above the nations. This is similar to yet another verse, “The Lord is great in Zion; and He is high above all the peoples.” One of the names of God is "rahm," high or exalted. God's greatness is beyond compare; each person conceives of God from his own position whether he is great or small. We see this in the case of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses who, upon visiting Moses, said to him, “Now I know that the Lord is great.” Jethro was saying, “Even though I believed in the existence of God until now I had no concept of his greatness. God was able to take 600,000 people out of a land from which not a single slave could escape. This has to be an act of God!” Here the Psalmist is trying to say that until this time only angels could imagine God, but now that we see that God is high above the nations and that He raises the poor out of the dust, even the lowliest can conceive of God though no one can do so completely.

(1) When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people with a strange language: The only way to overcome the false beliefs that infect others is to see events that overturn these beliefs. Thus, the miracles in Egypt were meant to overcome and uproot Israel‟s lack of faith in divine providence. This idea is repeated many times in the Torah: “He performed the signs before the nation and the nation believed,” “The people saw the mighty hand which the Lord wrought in Egypt and they believed in the Lord,” and so on. Because of the mightiness of these wonders and signs, God turned their false beliefs upside down. These signs proved that God is the creator of the world and that there is divine providence in the world. Through what they witnessed they left the darkness and saw the truth, something they could not see from the natural order of things. This is the central theme of this passage: the splitting of the Red Sea and the Jordan bore witness to God‟s power and providence. Only then did Israel accept upon itself the sovereignty of God.

(1) Not for our sake, Oh Lord, not for our sake but for Your Name: this passage is a conversation on the foolishness and emptiness of idolatry. The poet begins by asking God to be crowned with glory not for our sake but for His own sake. The nations are challenging Israel's faith and we need help answering them! When he says, Why should the nations of the world say, “Where is their God, the conversation that is taking place is much like the one between Rabban Gamaliel and the philosophers: Some philosophers asked, "If your God has no desire for idolatry, why does He not have it cease to exist?" The elders replied, "If what was worshiped were something the world had no need of, He would have made it cease to exist. But people worship the sun and the moon, the stars and the planets. Should He, on account of fools, make the world cease to exist? So the world must go on as is its wont. As for fools who act wrongly, they will have to render an account."

(2) Similarly, here, the response to the question, Where is their God, the response is, Our God is in heaven doing whatever He pleases! Since the heavens are God‟s throne and the earth is His footstool, why should God destroy them just to deny foolish people the ability to worship them? While this answer is sufficient for those who worship something significant, how about those who worship inconsequential things: Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands…? Why does God allow such insignificant forms of idolatry to exist when He could wipe them out? If God were to bother destroying these idols it would appear as if they were in fact more significant than they are. Therefore God allows them to be, because those who worship them will become like them – they will be destroyed by their faith in false idols. Besides, idolatry cannot be completely eradicated from the world until the Messianic era and the end of time. Only then will the whole world come to see that there is but one God in the universe. Therefore, let those who believe in God trust in the Lord for He is their help and their shield… even if idolatry continues to exist!

(3) House of Israel, house of Aaron, those who fear the Lord: We divide those “who trust in” the Lord into three groups. Because they trust God, God in turn will bless each of them. God who remembers us: will bless the house of Israel…the house of Aaron…those who fear the Lord…. In fact God's blessing will be so great He will bless every one: You are blessed of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Why does God love these creatures in particular? They have been given free will to choose or reject the Lord and they have chosen to accept God. Because they have chosen Him, God now chooses them! We see this in the expression, The heavens are the heavens of the Lord but the earth is given to human beings… Heavenly beings don‟t have a choice since they belong to God, while the world belongs to human beings to do with as they please. Even though the dead are closer to state of wholeness than are the living, they too are not as great as the living because they don't have free will and choice either. That is why we say: The dead can’t praise God…but we can praise God, Hallelujah!

(1) I love that God hears the voice of my supplication: Rabbi Moses Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah writes: One of the paths of repentance is to cry out to God and to reflect on one's actions in times of trouble and misfortune. As it says: “Your iniquities have turned these things away and your sins have withheld good from you. …But if the one does not cry out to God but rather says this is just the way of the world and everything is mere chance, this is the path of cruelty. Such people are more likely to cling to their wicked deeds and thereby increase their suffering and travails, as the Torah says, “I also will walk contrary (keri) to them, and bring them into the land of their enemies; if then perchance their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then be paid the punishment of their iniquity…” In other words, the suffering that Israel encounters is meant to cause them to repent. If the people assume that these calamities are mere, I will be forced to increase their suffer even more. This is what the psalmist is trying to say in this Psalm. Because God has inclined His ear toward me – to find out about why I am crying out, I will call upon Him all my days – and God will hear my meditations and thoughts, whether I see my suffering as related to this time or a sign from God. The struggles of death encompassed me, but if I assume that my suffering is merely a natural product of the world and not a decree of the judge of the universe, then, the agony of the grave will seized me. Only then, will I call out in the name of the Lord. Then I will say, Lord, I beseech You – save me! This will cause God to remove the misfortune from me for God is compassion and righteous and our God is merciful.

(1) I pray…I am your servant the son of your hand maid. You have loosened my bonds: Even though all your creations are your servants, it is especially appropriate to refer to me as your servant, son of your hand maid since you have loosened my bonds and have given me the freedom to choose whatever I want. Even though I have never left Your service, I deserve special credit, unlike the angels who have no choice about serving You. They are more like prisoners in shackles. They deserve no credit for serving you. But someone who is mortal and has been freed of slavery so he can flee and yet remains faithful to his master is extra special. How do I serve God? To You I offer offerings of thanksgiving and I call on the name of the Lord.

(1) And the truth of the Lord is forever! Hallelujah! Who originally spoke these words? It was none other than Gabriel, the angel. When our father Abraham was cast into the fiery furnace, Gabriel spoke up to the Holy One, "Master of the universe, may I go down and cool the fire, to save the righteous man from burning in it?" The Holy One replied, "I am the Unique One in My world, even as he is the unique one in his. It is fitting that the Unique One delivers the unique one." But since the Holy One does not hold back the reward of any creature, he said to Gabriel, "Yours will be the privilege of saving three of his descendants." Rabbi Simeon the Shilonite expounded on this: When the wicked Nebuchadnezzar cast Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah into the fiery furnace, Yurkami, the [heavenly] prince of hail, appeared before the Holy One and said, "Master of the universe, let me go down, cool the furnace, and thus save those righteous men from the fiery furnace."
Gabriel spoke up, "The might of the Holy One will not be made evident this way, for you are the prince of hail, and everyone knows that water quenches fire. But I am the prince of fire. Let me go down, and I shall cool it within and heat it without, and thus perform a miracle within a miracle." At that, the Holy One said to Gabriel, "Go down." It was then that Gabriel burst forth: Truth is the Lord forever. (Ps. 117:2).
There are two questions regarding these Midrashim. First why was Yurkami not allowed to save Abraham, and second what is the meaning of Gabriel‟s words: “I shall cool it within and heat it without” while Yurkami only said I will “cool the furnace?” This can be explained through the following Midrash: “He has brought low in dishonor the kingdom and its leaders.” At the time of the destruction of the temple God switched the roles of the angels on high. At the time of Abraham, Yurkami was the prince of fire so he could not save Abraham. Also, because the world did not know of God in the time of Abraham, Nimrod could not be punished with death for throwing him in the fiery furnace. By the time of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the world knew of God and yet they still tried to throw them in the furnace because of their faith in God. It was not enough to have Yurkami simply cool off the furnace. Instead God sent Gabriel to cool off the furnace while causing a fire outside to punish those who committed this crime. Even though their roles had changed, God kept His promise of allowing the angel Gabriel to save Abraham‟s descendents. He was now the prince of fire but he still was allowed to cool off the furnace while causing heat around it!
Why did Nebuchadnezzar choose this particular punishment for Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah? The king of Babylonia mistakenly thought that God could not simultaneously use opposite elements to save His people. The king threw them into the fiery furnace thinking that God would have to save the three men by cooling the furnace down and couldn't burn those outside the furnace. He was wrong. He also did not believe that God would care about lowly creatures like these three men. But God‟s providence extends even to the lowly!

(2) Thank the Lord for He is good; His kindness endures forever: The first verse in this passage explains how God created all things from nothing, ex nihilo, and how God's kindness extends even beyond the moment of creation. The world tov, good, in this verse is a reference to the creation story. After each act of creation, God sees that what He has created "is good." God not only acted out of kindness at the moment of creation but continues to do so every moment of existence. If God had turned His attention away for the universe for even a split second, all that exists would cease to be! Everything continues to be in the hands of God, and therefore we say His kindness endures forever. The poet now brings a proof for this in the next three lines which speak about the house of Israel, the house of Aaron and those who fear the Lord. These are a reference to the statement in Avot which says that the world stands on three pillars: Torah, Avodah and Gemilut Hasadim. Let the House of Israel thank the Lord, this is a reference to the Torah which was given to Israel and through which the world continues to exist. Without the study of Torah the world would lapse into chaos. Because of this, His kindness endures forever.
Let the House of Aaron thank the Lord is a reference to the Kohanim whose job it is to lead the worship of the Lord in the Temple through sacrifices and offerings. Through their offerings they testify that His kindness endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord give thanks to the Lord is a reference to all those who perform the commandments, as we are taught, “Happy is the man who fears the Lord and delights greatly in His commandments.” The commandments that are most precious to God are acts of loving kindness, Gemilut Hasadim, as we learn in the Talmud, “Rabbi Simlai expounded: The Torah begins and ends with deeds of loving kindness. Loving kindness appears at the beginning of the Torah: "the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them" And loving kindness appears at its end: "and he buried [Moses] in the valley.” The world only exists for the sake of loving kindness for both the living and the dead so that all we receive according to their needs. For the sake of these deeds, God treats the world with loving kindness as well for His kindness endures forever. We see this in the elements which make up the world. Though they are opposite one another, they combine and mix together to complete each other and add to the wholeness of the world. Everything is in God's hands.

(1) From the narrow places I called out to Yah… When a person finds himself in straits and distress, he cries out to God using the Yah since this is the name through which the world was created as we read, “Trust in the Lord for ever, for Yah is the Lord, an everlasting Rock.” Since God is the creator of everything, all of creation is at God's beck and call, and God can overturn the heavenly order of things. When one cries out to God in this way, He answers me, and I am able to say that it was not some heavenly being but God Himself who overturned the heavenly order when I was in dire straits. I can also say that God answers me in the expanses, that is, God answers and helps me even when things are wide open and at ease (merhav). The Lord is with me. I shall not fear. What can man do to me? The poet now raises common concern that even though God is the Master of the Universe who controls all things, human beings still have free will. So how can we assume that God can stop human beings from doing things that they wish to do? But this is only the case for human beings who are not completely righteous who cry out to God. They have free will to act against us. When a person is completely righteous, God can change physical nature of the world and even human will to help him. That is why the poet says, What can man do to me? He is talking about a righteous person who feels secure in the presence of God. The poet now switches from using the two letter name of God, Yah, to using the four letter name of God. The Lord God is with me, to help me; I will yet see the defeat of my foes: not only did God protect me but He allowed me to see how He took vengeance on my enemies. In the story of the Exodus, we learn that this was the case: “God delivered Israel on that day from the hands of the Egyptians… and the nation saw the mighty Hand of the Lord which he wrought in Egypt and they believed in the Lord.” “They saw the Egyptians die on the shore of the sea.” Experiencing God's deliverance is one thing – seeing it with one's own eyes is even greater.
King David now tells us that while he was dependent upon God for deliverance and God helped him, he did not sit back passively and wait for deliverance to come. Rather human initiative is still necessary. This is what the psalmist means when he writes; It is good to trust in the Lord by means of human beings. The word miv’toah should be translated not as “rather than human beings” but “rather then through the agency of other human beings.” He makes reference to several examples of this from his own life. All the nations surrounded me but in God’s name I cut them down: this is a reference to David's battle with Goliath. Because he made an effort, God helped him to succeed. He said to Goliath, “You came to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel…” They surrounded me, they surrounded me but in the Lords name I cut them down. The second time is when David went out to fight the Philistines, “And there was war again; and David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter; and they fled before him.” The double language in this verse is a reference to the incident in which David went out to battle the Philistines for Saul and returned with 200 foreskins. They surrounded me like bees and I snuffed them out like thorns. This is a reference to the third time David battled the Philistines, when he was a king and burned their idols after defeating them. You pushed me again and again to fall: here the poet is speaking about the incidents regarding Abshalom. These misfortunes came about from God because of his sin with Bathsheba. But the Lord did help me: Even here David did not give up but continued to make an effort and therefore God brought him deliverance. God convinced Abshalom to listen to Ahitophel rather than his other advisor Chushi, and as a result did succeed. The strength (ozi) and retribution (zimrat) of the Lord was the cause of my deliverance. Even though I deserved misfortune, God's judgment was the cause of my deliverance even here.

(1) Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His kindness endures forever: This Psalm speaks about three characteristics of God: wisdom, (Hachmah), will (ratzon), and ability (yecholet). Give thanks to the Lord for He is Good is a reference to the quality of will. God's will is to do good and to bring good to others. Give thanks to the God of gods (elohay haelohim) is a reference to the quality of wisdom. The word Elohim is sometimes used for angels, who are endowed with divine wisdom. God is the good of all divine beings who have wisdom. Give thanks to the Master of all masters (Adonai ha-adonim) is a reference to the quality of ability. Since each nation and land has its own master or divine prince, and God is the master of all these masters, this is the quality of ability – God controls and can do whatever He wishes. God has the power to bring them low or to humble them as He did to the prince of Egypt. The next set of three lines repeat these three qualities. He who does great wonders, alone…this is the quality of God's all powerful ability yecholet. He who created the heavens with understanding…. God is endowed with hachmah wisdom. In his great wisdom, God took water, mayim, and fire, esh, two opposite elements of the universe and from them he created heaven, shamayim. He who spread the earth on top the water…God has the ratzon, the will, to defy the rules of nature. Normally something heavy sinks in a liquid. But God placed the earth on top of the water.
Why does the Psalmist add the word alone in the verse He does great wonders, alone. God alone can perform such wonders in the universe. This added word can be explained by a parable. When a mortal king is praised, his attendants and ministers are praised along with him. Not so with the Holy One. When God is praised, He is praised all by Himself. Even though he has a divine retinue, He has ultimate control over each of them so they are totally unlike Him. God says, “Who was with me when I created the world?” He created the great luminaries…The Midrash asks, since God created the sun why was it necessary to create the moon as well? God saw that in the future people would worship the heavenly bodies. If there had only been one heavenly body how much more so would the people be tempted to worship it! God therefore created one for the day and another for the night so that people would see that the rule of each one would be limited and finite.
Another explanation of Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His kindness endures forever: The glory of God is referred to as the Ayn sof, Without End, because God has no beginning and no end; God alone was, is and will be. When it arose in God's primal will to create the world, ten holy sephirot went forth from God's essence to create the world of emanation. Afterwards God created the world of the throne from which came the world of yetzirah (formation) which is the realm of angels, and afterwards the world of asiyah (doing). All of these worlds are interconnected in the God's holy light. This is what we mean when we say Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. When it arose in God's will to create the world – His will is good and it comes from hesed, loving kindness. Give thanks to the God of gods – the realm of emanation, atzilut. All of the Sephirot are Elohim. Give thanks to the Master of all masters – this is the realm of yetzirah which influences and guides the realm of angels which are associated with it. He who does (oseh) great wonders, alone – this is the realm of asiyah – the word oseh and asiyah come from the same root word. This is the realm of mundane existence as we know it. All of these levels are interconnected by the holy light of God's loving kindness. Up until this point the poet is describing the workings of creation. From this point on he describes the miracles of God's loving kindness in the world. The workings of creation are unchanging but God overturns the rules of nature for the sake of His loving kindness.

(1) Even if our mouths were filled with song like the sea, our tongues with exultation like the roaring of the waves, our lips with praise like the expanse of the firmament, our eyes radiant like the sun and the moon, our hands outspread like the eagles of the sky or the deer feet as light as the deer, we could not sufficiently thank You….: This passage in the Haggadah revolves around the question of divine providence, hashgahah pratit. Each expression is associated with a Talmudic statement and is understood as explaining that there is no end to the praise we owe God for His providence over all existence and over each individual as well. Those who composed the liturgy were actually commenting on the following discussion in the Talmud. This discussion begins from the assumption that Job's suffering was punishment because he denied God's providence in the universe and over his life.
“For he breaks me with a whirlwind and multiplies my wounds without cause.” Rabbah said: Job blasphemed (denied divine providence) God by mentioning a storm, and with a storm he was answered. He blasphemed with a storm, as it is written, “For he breaks me as with a whirlwind.” Job said to God: Perhaps a whirlwind has passed before me, and caused thee to confuse Iyob [Job] and Oyeb [enemy]. He was answered through a tempest, as it is written, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said…Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me.”
I have created many hairs in man, and for every hair I have created a separate groove, so that two should not suck from the same groove, for if two were to suck from the same groove they would impair the sight of a man. I do not confuse one groove with another; and shall I then confuse Iyob with Oyeb?
Who has created a channel for the water flood? Many drops have I created in the clouds, and for every drop a separate path, so that two drops should not issue from the same path, since if two drops issued from the same path they would wash away the soil, and it would not produce fruit. I do not confuse one drop with another, and shall I confuse Iyob and Oyeb?' ….
Or a way for the lightning of the thunder. Many thunderclaps have I created in the clouds, and for each clap a separate path, so that two claps should not travel by the same path, since if two claps traveled by the same path they would devastate the world. I do not confuse one thunderclap with another, and shall I confuse Iyob with Oyeb?
Do you know the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth, or can you mark when the hinds do calve? This wild goat is heartless towards her young. When she crouches for delivery, she goes up to the top of a mountain so that the young shall fall down and be killed, and I prepare an eagle to catch it in his wings and set it before her, and if he were one second too soon or too late it would be killed. I do not confuse one moment with another, and shall I confuse Iyob with Oyeb?
Do you know when the hinds give birth? This hind has a narrow womb. When she crouches for delivery, I prepare a serpent which bites her at the opening of the womb, and she is delivered of her offspring; and were it one second too soon or too late, she would die.
I do not confuse one moment with another; shall I confuse Iyob with Oyeb? Job speaks without knowledge, and his words are without wisdom. Raba said: This teaches that a man is not held responsible for what he says when in distress.
Commenting on this passage, Rabbi Rabinowitz begins with the following statement from above:
Or a way for the lightning of the thunder. Many thunderclaps have I created in the clouds, and for each clap a separate path, so that two claps should not travel by the same path, since if two claps traveled by the same path they would devastate the world. I do not confuse one thunderclap with another, and shall I confuse Iyob with Oyeb?
The Maharsha explains that Job denied divine providence when he said: “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; He covers the faces of the Judge; if it be not He, then who?” In this verse, Job is saying that the wicked to whom the world was given over is Satan and the Judge (God) has allowed a separation to develop with his creations so that they suffer from His absence. Satan is one of the spirits, ruhot, who have been allowed to storm and devastate the world (For he breaks me with a whirlwind). These storms separate the one who watches from the one who is watched. It is because of this that Job (Iyyov) becomes an enemy (Oyyev). Because a whirlwind causes Job to deny God's providence, God now answers him with a whirlwind. In other words, it is through the natural world that God provides proof to Job of His providence. I have created many types of thunder in the universe, about which we say. “Blessed is the one whose power and greatness fills the universe.” If two of these claps of thunder were to happen simultaneously from one place, the world would be destroyed by them…..
This is the meaning of the Marharsha's explanation. According to the Talmud, there is an angel by the name of Ridiyah who is appointed over the rain and water that enters the world. It is his job to tell the rains to fall and to control the waters that rise up from beneath the earth. If this angel was to allow the thunder to call forth the water from below and from above at the same time, the world would be flooded as it was in the time of Noah.
But God watches over the thunder, preventing this from happening. Therefore we praise God; even if our mouths were filled with song like the sea we could not sufficiently thank God for His providence because He continues to control the water which fills our world.

(2) Our lips with praise like the expanse of the firmament: Returning to the earlier Talmudic passage we read the following:
Who has created a channel for the water flood? Many drops have I created in the clouds, and for every drop a separate path, so that two drops should not issue from the same path, since if two drops issued from the same path they would wash away the soil, and it would not produce fruit. I do not confuse one drop with another, and shall I confuse Iyob and Oyeb? "This passage is an illustration of the Biblical passage: “The heavens declare the glory of the God, and the firmament His handiwork.” What is the handiwork of the firmament? It is the rain and dew. The very fact that the world is not washed away by the rains is proof of God's providence. Therefore our lips praise God because of the expanse of the firmament.

(3) Our eyes radiant like the sun and the moon: Here we find an answer to the following statement between Job and God: 'I have created many hairs in man, and for every hair I have created a separate groove, so that two should not suck from the same groove, for if two were to suck from the same groove they would impair the sight of a man. I do not confuse one groove with another; and shall I then confuse Iyob with Oyeb? It is through the vision and radiance of our eyes that we come to see God's providence in the world. God not only sees all things but allows us to see His presence in all things. As we find in the Bible, “Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him; for it is not as man sees: for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Human beings can see with their eyes that God is constantly watching out for us and providing us with all the things that we need.

(4) Our hands outspread like the eagles of the sky or the deer feet as light as the deer: The passage continues with reference to the Talmud discussion above:
Do you know the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth, or can you mark when the hinds do calve? This wild goat is heartless towards her young. When she crouches for delivery, she goes up to the top of a mountain so that the young shall fall down and be killed, and I prepare an eagle to catch it in his wings and set it before her, and if he were one second too soon or too late it would be killed. I do not confuse one moment with another, and shall I confuse Iyob with Oyeb? Can you mark when the hinds do calve? This hind has a narrow womb.
When she crouches for delivery, I prepare a scorpion which bites her at the opening of the womb, and she is delivered of her offspring; and were it one second too soon or too late, she would die. I do not confuse one moment with another, and shall I confuse Iyob with Oyeb?
Even though the birth passage of the goats is very narrow, God watches over it and helps it in its delivery. It provides a scorpion that bites the goat at just the right moment causing the birth canal to open. This cannot happen a minute too soon or too late, proving that God‟s providence is present at every second. There is no second when God is not present! How could we not praise God for being present in this manner!

(1) Then came the Holy One and killed the angel of death: We are taught that God will take the evil impulse and destroy it. Then there will be true wholeness and “God will be one and His name will be one.”

(1) Had Gadya, Had Gadya: It is possible that even with all the promises contained in the Haggadah, the Jewish people were still disheartened and discouraged about their future. After all that transpired in Egypt, all the ways in which our ancestors prepared to leave Egypt (so that even a slave saw more at the Red Sea than Ezekiel saw in his prophetic visions), and even though they stood at Sinai, the people of Israel quickly succumbed to sin. We see this in Scripture: While the king was on his couch, my perfume gave forth its fragrance,” – and all of Israel‟s repairs were spoiled, and, “I have taken you for divine beings, as sons of the Most High, all of you; but you shall die like as men do, fall like any prince.”
Since (Israel so failed in the time of the Exodus) we have reason to worry about the promises of the prophets who tried to comfort Jerusalem and Zion and the chosen people and allowed us to foresee God's future redemption wherein "the moon would shine like the sun," and "God's name would be one," and “neither shall the children of wickedness waste them any more, as at first.” Could it be that all these repairs will only last a day or two and then Satan will come to dwell among us to destroy and uproot all the repairs as happened in the time of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai? If sin caused our ancestors to destroy whatever repairs they had performed, God forbid the same may happen to us. For all this our hope would be lost, and therefore the Maggid comes to comfort us with Had Gadya.
We learn here that all the repairs and preparation were not carried out by God but by human beings, and just as a human beings are transient, so too their deeds are transient. In the future, however, the repair of Israel will be performed by the Holy One himself, and just as God is eternal, his repairs are eternal as well. Then God's promise will be fulfilled, “and I will remove the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh.”

(2) With this we begin Had Gadya. What exactly is the significance of the "single kid?" The Had Gadya is a symbol of the free will for which the world was created. God created all things so that there are opposing choices. God created the good and evil inclinations and He gave us a choice between them.
We see this in the symbolism of Yom Kippur. The Torah tells us that, “Aaron shall take two he-goats and let them stand before the Lord at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.” Why were there two goats? The two he-goats symbolize the good and evil inclinations which are in all human beings. Each tries to advise, one toward good and the other toward evil. But because they are so much alike, we cannot tell them apart. Similarly, we cannot differentiate the two goats on Yom Kippur.
They look alike in all – in height, appearance and color – so that they are interchangeable. We can only tell them apart by drawing lots – one is then designated for the Lord while the other for Azazel.
Similarly both the good and the evil inclinations must serve God, just as these goats do. When we draw lots, we learn that our good deeds lead us to God while sin leads us to Azazel. Yet the goat that is sent to Azazel is also necessary for our repair. The scapegoat upon which the priest confesses our sins also serves a divine purpose since it carries away our sins. In this way, both the good and evil inclination must serve God.
The two goats of Yom Kippur are symbols for the two inclinations in every human being. Similar to the two inclinations, both goats are used in the service of God. One was sent off to Azazel to die, and the other one became a sacrifice to the Lord. Since we cannot tell the goats/inclinations apart, it is easy to confuse them and the one for the Lord must also be sacrificed while the other is led off into the wilderness. Therefore we choose lots so that one is designated for each purpose.
Before Adam sinned, everything was sanctified to God. But once humankind sinned, good and evil became mixed together and “Sin coaches at the door.” The two goats of Yom Kippur are like the twins, Jacob and Esau. In the opening refrain of Had Gadya we say that Father bought the goat for two zuzim; we repeat this refrain twice because in fact he bought two goats for one zuz each. We repeat the words Had Gadya twice as a reference to the two goats of Yom Kippur and the two inclinations. A righteous man who serves God properly uses the evil inclination to turn darkness to light and bitterness to sweetness.

(3) So too when the Jews left Egypt we find that this was the case: The Jews did not abide by their faith very long after they left Egypt. The Torah says, “they tried the Lord, saying: "is the Lord among us, or not?" The evil inclination overcame them and caused them to doubt God‟s providence.

(1) Then came the cat and bit the goat: This is a reference to the Talmudic statement: “A dog recognizes its master, but a cat does not recognize its master.”
Why did God condemn Amalek more strenuously than any other nation? Even the Egyptians, who killed, oppressed and caused Israel to sin, were not condemned to have “their name blotted out” as Amalek was. The reason for the cruel punishment of Amalek had to do with the fact that they were first among all the nations and they saw what happened to the Egyptians at the hand of God. They were the ones, after witnessing the death of so many Egyptians, who went to Pharaoh and told him to pursue Israel after the Israelites left Egypt. Despite God's redemption of Israel from Egypt, Amalek came up with a plan to get around God's protection of Israel by attacking the weakest of them.
Yet Israel was even worse. The Israelites refused to recognize their Master in Heaven and cast doubt on God, and they acted like a cat who does not know its own master. It was for this reason that God sent Amalek to attack the Israelites. God then said to Israel, “By your life, I will now send the dog to attack the cat.” Amalek was the dog who was sent to attack Israel, the cat. God said that Amalek was the one who knew who its master was but rebelled against Him, and was better than Israel who saw the power of its Master face to face but questioned whether its master was present or not! But those Israelites who recognized God (even though Israel was like a cat) survived.

(1) Then came the dog and bit the cat: Because of their evil Israel repented through Moses.

(1) Then came the staff: The stick is the staff which Moses carried, and through which he carried out justice and smote the enemies of Israel.

(2) And smote the dog that bit the cat… Moses smote the sinners/the dog through the power of the merit of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs. As we see in the verse, “Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” The sages interpret this to mean: "mountains" refer to the Patriarchs,and „hills‟ to the matriarchs.

(1) Then came the fire that burned the staff Exodus 17:9:
Moses was sequestered in heaven
Without bread or water
While a nation divided in two
Gathered with insolence against Aaron
Violently they grabbed him,
Saying, “Where is your brother, the prophet?”
They cried out like a lion or a lioness:
“We will bring you to justice!
Make us a god of clay.
So that it will guard us.”
Righteous Aaron offered his advice
“Take off your earrings!”
Into the fire the rebellious ones threw them
And out came a calf of gold
God looked down from Heaven
That Israel had turned aside
They defiled themselves with a foreign God
He said to Moses “Go down!
For your people have acted basely.
Your brother Aaron is a witness.”
With fury Moses went down.
For the word of God made him tremble
And in his heart, for the God of all spirits,
He broke the tablets.

(2) Then came the fire and burned the staff: of Moses so that Israel returned to their former state before the repairs:

(1) Then came the water and quenched the fire: This is a reference to the actions of Moses. He burned the golden calf and ground it up and mixed it in water. He then made the Israelites drink the liquid mixture.
Moses called out bitterly,
“Return O Israel wit h a pure soul,”
and then the heart of all Israel cried out,
The lesson of Moses they took to heart,
Their souls bowed low to the earth.
Moses returned again to the firmament
He spoke out there
In order to save his people
“Forgive your people,
Show them Your face,
Have they not returned to You?”
Like a pool or a well
Tears fell from their eyes.
“And if not, then blot me out!”
And then from the heavens God answered,
“I have forgiven according to your words,”
And the repair returned as it was

(1) Then came the ox and drank the water: This is a reference to the time of Jeroboam who fashioned calves, and started the sin of the golden calf all over again
They angered God because they abandoned His Torah
And they desired false gods
He sent prophets and seers
Until when will they dream?
And humiliate the word of God? This is the ox -
From a time of grace Moses managed to quench the fire
And now because of Jeroboam, the failure returned
And it flared up like great injustice.
From then on the nation of Israel grew weaker
From generation to generation she wasted away
Until there was almost nothing left of her.
The King of Babylon in his insolence,
He has his multitude
Corrupted Zion and its monarchy.
They killed the nation of Your strength
They burned the Sanctuary of the King
Until it was nothing but a pillar of salt.
Israel went down to Babylon
They wandered about homeless
They dwelled among their enemies
Until there arose the spirit of Cyrus who
Gave permission to Ezra the Scribe
To build a beautiful Temple in Jerusalem
Ezra tried to rid them of the evil inclination
“On a raised platform stood the Levites….
and cried out in a loud voice…”

(1) Then came the shochet and slaughtered the ox: The evil inclination of idolatry was given over to the shochet and he silenced it. It was not very long before the evil inclination once again returned so that the mystery of the repair was once again established.

(1) Then came the angel of death and slaughtered the shochet: In the time Ezra there was a failure as we learn in the Talmud: “Till Thy people pass over, O Lord.” This refers to the first entry [into Palestine in the time of Joshua]; till Thy people pass over, which thou hast purchased: this refers to their second entry (In the time of Ezra). Hence you may reason: The Israelites were as worthy of a miracle being wrought for them at the second entry as at the first, but that sin caused it [not to happen].” The point here is because of sin – that the people did not all return to Zion in the time of Ezra; many remained behind - they were not worthy of the great miracles they witnessed during the first entrance to the land. So once again the people fell into sin.