Passover: A Holiday of Joy or a Remembrance of Suffering

(3) Speak to the community leadership of Israel and say that on the tenth of this month each of them shall take a lamb to a family, a lamb to a household. (4) But if the household is too small for a lamb, let it share one with a neighbor who dwells nearby, in proportion to the number of persons: you shall contribute for the lamb according to what each household will eat. (5) Your lamb shall be without blemish, a yearling male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. (6) You shall keep watch over it until the fourteenth day of this month; and all the assembled congregation of the Israelites shall slaughter it at twilight. (7) They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they are to eat it. (8) They shall eat the flesh that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. (9) Do not eat any of it raw, or cooked in any way with water, but roasted—head, legs, and entrails—over the fire. (10) You shall not leave any of it over until morning; if any of it is left until morning, you shall burn it. (11) This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly: it is a passover offering to יהוה. (12) For that night I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down every [male] first-born in the land of Egypt, both human and beast; and I will mete out punishments to all the gods of Egypt, I יהוה. (13) And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will pass over you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. (14) This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to יהוה throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time. (15) Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. (16) You shall celebrate a sacred occasion on the first day, and a sacred occasion on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them; only what every person is to eat, that alone may be prepared for you. (17) You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution for all time. (18) In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. (19) No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats what is leavened, that person—whether a stranger or a citizen of the country—shall be cut off from the community of Israel. (20) You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened bread. (21) Moses then summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, pick out lambs for your families, and slaughter the passover offering. (22) Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and to the two doorposts. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. (23) For יהוה, when going through to smite the Egyptians, will see the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and יהוה will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite your home. (24) “You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants. (25) And when you enter the land that יהוה will give you, as promised, you shall observe this rite. (26) And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ (27) you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to יהוה, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’ Those assembled then bowed low in homage. (28) And the Israelites went and did so; just as יהוה had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

For six days you are to eat matzot; on the seventh day is a [day of] Restraint to YHWH your God; you are not to make [any] work.

(14) You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your communities.

We were slaves to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. And the Lord, our God, took us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched forearm. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our ancestors from Egypt, behold we and our children and our children's children would [all] be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. And even if we were all sages, all discerning, all elders, all knowledgeable about the Torah, it would be a commandment upon us to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. And anyone who adds [and spends extra time] in telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, behold he is praiseworthy.

MAGGID / TELLING During the recital of this paragraph the seder plate is held up and the middle matza is displayed to the company. הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא THISIS THE BREAD OF OPPRESSION our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who are in need come and join us for the Pesacḥ. Now we are here; next year in the land of Israel. Now – slaves; next year we shall be free.

THIS MATZA that we eat: what does it recall? It recalls the dough of our ancestors, which did not have time to rise before the King, King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself and redeemed them, as it is said:“They baked the dough that they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened cakes, for it had not risen, for they were cast out of Egypt and could not delay, and they made no provision for the way.”

In every generation a person is obligated to see oneself personally having gone forth from Egypt, because it is said, "And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: ‘It is because of that which the Eternal did for me when I came forth out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:8). Therefore it is our duty to thank, praise, laud, glorify, raise up, beautify, bless, extol, and adore Him who made all these miracles for our fathers and ourselves; He brought us forth from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning to festivity, from darkness to great light, and from servitude to redemption. Let us say before (God), "Hallelujah"!

Shmuel said that the phrase: “The bread of affliction [leḥem oni]” (Deuteronomy 16:3) means bread over which one answers [onim] matters, i.e., one recites the Haggadah over matza. That was also taught in a baraita: Leḥem oni is bread over which one answers many matters. Alternatively, in the verse, “leḥem oni” is actually written without a vav, which means a poor person. Just as it is the manner of a poor person to eat a piece of bread, for lack of a whole loaf,

(1) ושמחת בחגך, “you shall rejoice on your festival;” “rejoicing” has been mentioned already in connection with the festival of weeks (Shavuot); The reason why it was mentioned there is that it is the period of harvesting a major part of the grain harvest. At the time of Sukkot, such joy is increased greatly as everything that the fields and orchards produce is now being gathered in. Joy is not mentioned in connection with Passover as the season of ingathering produce has not yet started. Furthermore” we have been taught in the Mishnah Rosh hashanah 16,1 that one of the four days on which the world is being judged concerning the produce for the coming year is Passover. In other words, the fate of the harvest still hangs in the balance, and it would be premature to rejoice therefore.

It is permissible to place spices, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and the like into dough. Similarly, it is permissible to knead the dough with water and oil, honey or milk, or to baste with them. On the first day, it is forbidden to knead or baste [the matzot] with any other substance besides water; not because of the prohibition against chametz, but rather so [the matzah] will be "poor man's bread." It is only on the first day that the "poor man's bread" must be commemorated.

And this is the aspect of the four cups of wine on Passover, which correspond to the four phrases of redemption - "and I will take out... and I will save... and I will redeem... and I will take them..." (Exodus 6:6-7)...

Because wine lifts a person beyond their current status; and for this reason wine includes two potentialities - to benefit or to cause harm, God forbid. As the Rabbis, of blessed memory, said, "if one merits, they rise to the head; if one does not merit, they become impoverished. If one merits, wine brings them joy; if one does not merit, it destroys them" (Yoma 76b). And therefore one must only drink wine in a state of great holiness... and then one can merit, by means of the wine, for their mind to be elevated in holiness, and they can then experience a greater passion for the Blessed God and be awakened further toward Divine service. For since their mind has been lifted and their awareness is expanded, they can arise to the source of awareness, which is the aspect of the source of the Torah and and the commandments, which is a place that is higher than all of the commandments of the Torah, and all commandments receive their vitality and are illuminated from there. And when one ascends to there, they burn with great passion and are receive great strength to fulfill the commandments of the Torah; because they are drawing on themselves the light of the root of the commandments, and through this one derives greater strength to fulfill the commandments.