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Shabbat Shalom: Chol Hamoed Pesach
Efrat, Israel – Everyone around the seder table enjoys a spirited
singing of Dayenu, the quintessential thanksgiving to G-d for every step
that He guided us to take on the road to redemption. Had He taken us out
of Egypt and not wrought so many judgments against the Egyptians, it would
have been sufficient (dayenu)… had He given us their money but had not
split for us the sea, it would have been sufficient (dayenu)”. However
there is one line in this song of praise which has always been difficult
for me to understand: “Had He brought us in front of Mount Sinai and not
given us the Torah, it would have been sufficient (dayenu)” How would it
have been enough? What value could there have been for G-d to have taken
us close to the mountain without revealing to us His laws of humanity and
morality?!
The second question which perplexes me during the seder – but I usually
forget to delve into it after having drunk my fifth cup of wine – is
with regard to the “four questions’ themselves: “In every other
night we do not dip even once and on this night of Passover we dip
twice.” This particular question is never really answered within the
Maggid portion of the seder. The fact that we do have “dips” as a kind
of ‘forshpeis’ to our seder meal is certainly in keeping with
the Passover feast, but why our specific dips of Karpas (green vegetable)
in Haroset; (Haroset was used by the Rambam, Yemenite community and many
other communities as well) and then the Bitter Herbs in Haroset.
The fact is that the entire drama of the servitude and exodus from Egypt
began with an act of ‘dipping’ and concluded with an act of
‘dipping’. The Israelites initially found their way into Egypt when
Joseph the son of Jacob, was sold into Egyptian servitude by his brothers.
Since the brothers had to explain in some way Joseph’s mysterious
disappearance, they dipped the special coat of striped colors which his
father had given him (the very word karpas is used in the Scroll of Esther
1:6 to describe such a fancy cloth and is probably the initial derivation
of the Biblical Hebrew passim) in the blood of a slain goat. When Father
Jacob saw the bloodied garment of his beloved son, he assumed that Joseph
had been torn apart by a wild beast. Our Sages teach us that it was the
sin of the brotherly strife and hatred which was responsible for the
enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt (B.T. Shabbat 10 A). Hence, our
dipping of the karpas in the red haroset, which according to the Jerusalem
Talmud symbolizes blood, would express the tragedy of Jewish internal
hatred which is the root cause of our exiles and prosecutions.
The second dipping took place at the end of the Egyptian enslavement, the
beginning of the Hebrew emancipation, when each Hebrew family slaughtered
a lamb in preparation for their exodus “You will then take a bunch of
hyssop and dip it into the blood (of the lamb) which will be placed in a
basin. Place some blood on the beam over the door and the two door posts
after you have dipped your finger in some of the blood in the basin. Not a
single Israelite may go out of the door of his house until morning. “
(Exodus 12:22) The blood of the lamb represented the willingness of
the Israelites to sacrifice an Egyptian god (for such was the lamb) to
their higher belief in the Lord of redemption and freedom. They
effectuated this pascal sacrifice during the time of the killing of the
first born of the Egyptians – a plague from which the Hebrews were saved
by the blood that was on their doorposts. The Israelites were all united
in their commitment to the Almighty and fulfillment of this command,
including their all remaining in their homes despite the fact that the
Egyptian streets were ripe for looting in the frenzy hysteria which most
certainly accompanied the death of the Egyptian first born. The
second act of dipping served as a tikkun or repairmen – of the first;
the sin of brotherly strife found its repentance in the form of brotherly
unity, by which merit we were redeemed from Egypt.
This explains both dippings at the seder and intensifies the fact that if
only we as a nation could be united together, no force on earth would be
able to harm us.
When the Bible describes the momentous Revelation at Sinai, we are told,
“They had departed from Rephidim and had arrived at the Sinai desert,
where they (the Israelites, in the plural) encamped in the desert; and
Israel encamped there (in the singular) opposite the mountain” (Exodus
19:2). The change from plural to singular within one phrase is quite
remarkable. The classical commentary Rashi comments, “As if they were
all one individual with one heart”. It was their very unity of purpose
and commitment – their togetherness as a nation which enabled them to
merit the Revelation. This I believe is the meaning of the Dayenu song:
Had the Almighty merely brought us in front of Mount Sinai with singleness
of goal and united in spirit, even without His having given us the Torah
that unity would have been sufficient!
By Shlomo Riskin
Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel
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