The Message of the Ten Plagues

The Sefas Emes, R' Yehuda Aryeh Leib of Gur, d.1905, taught in the name of his grandfather, the Chiddushei HaRim:

כי עשר מכות נגד עשרה מאמרות ועל ידי זה באו אחר כך לעשרת הדברות

“The Ten Plagues parallel the Ten Utterances [with which the world was created] and through this they came afterwards to the Ten Commandments.”

The Ten Plagues enabled the Jewish people to make the transition from the Ten Utterances of Creation to the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. What was this transition and how did the Plagues make it possible?

Rav Yosef Albo (d.1444), in his Sefer HaIkkarim, writes (1:4):

העקרים הכוללים והכרחיים לדת האלקית הם שלשה, והם: מציאות השם, וההשגחה לשכר ולענש, ותורה מן השמים.

“The basic and essential principles for a Divine religion are three, (1) the existence of God, (2) supervision for reward and punishment, and (3) Torah from Heaven.”

The concept of the עשרה מאמרות  - Ten Utterances of Creation - refers to the basic principle that God is the Creator of the Universe. However, in order to accept the Torah and its commandments we need to recognize that not only did God create the universe, but that He watches over the behavior of every individual human beings and that He cares about what we do. This is the concept of “השגחה לשכר ולענש” – “supervision for reward and punishment” – and it is an essential prerequisite for accepting the Torah. This principle was taught to the Jewish people by the precise מדה כנגד נדה (“measure for measure”) punishments with which God struck the Egyptians in the Ten Plagues.

Thus, the עשרה מאמרות (Ten Utterances of Creation) teach us מציאות השם (the existence of God) and the עשר מכות (Ten Plagues) teach us the principle of השגחה לשכר ולענש (supervision for reward and punishment) bringing us to the עשרת הדברות (Ten Commandments) which are the essence of תורה מן השמים (Torah from Heaven).

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“Anyone that speaks abundantly about the Exodus from Egypt is praiseworthy.”

The Hagada tells us, “Anyone that speaks abundantly about Yetzias Mitzraim (the Exodus from Egypt) is praiseworthy.” Rav Shlomo Kluger (d.1869) is quoted to have said that this means, if one speaks a great deal about Yetzias Mitzraim, this is a sign that he is a praiseworthy person.

Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson (d.1875) is quoted to explain this idea with a story:

Once, a very poor man suddenly became very rich. Over the years, he hired personal tutors and he became a learned and wise man. Every year, on the anniversary of his sudden success, he would celebrate with a party.

Suddenly, it happened that he lost all of his wealth. Yet, every year he continued to celebrate the anniversary of his earlier success. His friends asked him, “Why do you continue to celebrate when you have lost all of your wealth?”

The man replied, “I lost the money that I gained on that day, but the main benefit I received from that money was the wisdom that I learned from my teachers, and that is still with me!”

Similarly, when we went free from Egypt, we gained our material freedom and we also gained the Torah and the close relationship with God that comes with it. Even though, today, we are once again in exile, and do not have the same material freedom that we gained when we left Egypt, we still have the Torah and our relationship with God.

A person who joyously recounts the Exodus from Egypt while we remain in exile, demonstrates that, for him, the main benefit of the Exodus was not mere material freedom, but the spiritual benefits of the Exodus.

 (הגדת יינה של תורה)

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"This is the Bread of Poverty"

In the introductory paragraph of the maggid section of the Hagada, “הא לחמא עניא”, we find an apparently unconnected sequence of statements.

First we declare that this bread that we have before is “the bread of poverty eaten by our ancestors.” Then we invite anyone who needs to join our seder. And then we declare, “This year we are here, next year may be in Eretz Yisrael. This year we are slaves, next year may we be free men.” What is the idea that connects these declarations?

The Bina L’Itim explains that one of the critical requirements of the mitzvah of tzedaka (charity) is to reassure and comfort the impoverished person so he should not feel shame for having fallen to the state that he needs to accept charity. Thus, in this declaration in which we invite those in need to join our seder, we surround our declaration with two statements intended to comfort the impoverished person.

First we say, “This is the bread of poverty which our ancestors ate in Egypt.” We are all descended from those impoverished Egyptian slaves; we all understand and share in your current difficulty.

Secondly, we declare, “This year we are here, next year may be in Eretz Yisrael.” Just as our ancestors were redeemed, so too, next year may we all be redeemed from poverty and suffering.

(ספר בינה לעתים - סוף דרוש שני לשבת הגדול)

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Why Four Cups of Wine?

What is the unique significance of wine that we use it for the arba kosos - the four cups of wine? Indeed, why do we use wine for kiddush every Shabbos and Yom Tov?

Rav Yakov of Izbitz (ספר הזמנים על הגש"פ) explains that wine is the epitome of physicality – הטובה המובחרת בעוה"ז. This is why wine causes drunkenness, for the nature of the physical world is to confuse the mind and reduce our spiritual sensitivity. Therefore, on the Shabbos we specifically make kiddush – “sanctification” – on wine to indicate that all our physical activities and pleasures throughout the week were done for the ultimate goal of serving God.

This concept has extra significance on Pesach. God freed us from Egypt so that we should serve Him. (ראה בספר חרדים ט:כד באריכות) As long as we were slaves in Egypt, we were unable to be fully devoted to God's service, both physically and spiritually, for their physical actions remained under the control of their human masters. Only בני חורין – free men – can fully devote themselves to the service of God. This is the symbolism of the four cups of wine, to express our commitment to channel, not only our hearts and minds, but every aspect of our freedom, even the most physical, to the service of God.

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The Redemption from Egypt and the Future Redemption

The Talmud (שבת ל"א) tells us that when a person passes away and comes before the Heavenly Court, one of the first questions he is asked is, “צפית לישועה” – “Did you await with anticipation the [final] redemption?” This would seem to indicate that there is an actual obligation to do so. The ספר מצות קטן (מצוה א') (R' Yitzchak of Corbeil, 13th century) asks where can such an obligation be found in the Torah?

He answers that anticipating the final redemption is part of the basic mitzvah of אמונה – belief in God – as expressed in the עשרת הדברות (Ten Commandments):

"I am Hashem your God Who took you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery." (Exodus 20:2)

The סמ"ק explains that God is telling us:

כשם שאני רוצה שתאמינו בי שאני הוצאתי אתכם [מארץ מצרים], כך אני רוצה שתאמינו בי שאני ה' אלקיכם ואני עתיד לקבץ אתכם ולהושיעכם.

Just as I want you to believe in Me that I took you out [from the land of Egypt], so I want you to believe in Me that I am Hashem your God and, in the future, I will gather you and save you.

The סמ"ק teaches us that our belief in the coming of the final גאולה is built upon our belief in our first גאולה from Egypt. We find this theme expressed the Hagada many times in statements such as:

השתא הכא, לשנה הבאה בארעה דישראל. השתא עבדי, לשנה הבאה בני חורין.

“This year here, next year in the land of Israel! This year slaves, next year free men!”

לשנה הבאה בירושלים!

“Next year in Jerusalem!”

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From the Lowliest of Beginnings...

Why does the Hagada begin the narrative of יציאת מצרים (the Exodus from Egypt) with the shameful statement that “in the beginning our ancestors were idolaters”?

The Koznitzer Maggid (d.1814) explains that this teaches us that no matter how far we may have strayed from the proper path, we should never give up hope of coming close to God. For our ancestors were worshipers of idols, the lowest spiritual level possible, yet, nevertheless, in the end "קרבנו המקום לעבדתו" – "God brought us close to His service." No matter how low we may fallen spiritually, there is no point at which we cannot return to God.

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Tzav - The Korban Todah and Pesach: Giving Thanks to God for Salvation

In Parshas Tzav we read about the korban todah, the thanksgiving offering. The commentaries (Rashi, Rashbam) explain that this offering was brought by someone who had been saved from danger, especially referring to the four cases enumerated by the Talmud (Brachos 54b), based upon Psalms 107, in which a person "needs to give thanks." These are: one who has traveled by sea, one who traveled through a desert, one who was released from prison, and one who has recovered from illness. (Although the Talmud is speaking there of birkas hagomel, i.e. publicly reciting the blessing of thanksgiving, Rashi understands these categories to apply to the korban torah as well, citing the verse in Psalm 107, "and they shall slaughter thanksgiving offerings." Rashi presumably holds like the Tosafos HaRosh (Brachos 54b) that birkas hagomel is itself based upon the korban todah.)

Anytime we give thanks to God for saving us from a difficulty or a danger, we face an obvious question. Our thanks to God is based upon the premise that God is almighty, and that He controls all that happens in our lives and in the world as a whole. However, if God is indeed the one who controls all that happens in our lives, then it was He who put us into the bad situation in the first place! If so, why are giving thanks to God for saving us from troubles that He caused?

If any holiday embodies this paradox, it is Pesach! Pesach is a holiday devoted to giving thanks to God for freeing us from the slavery and oppression we experienced in Egypt. The theme of gratitude is basic to the entire seder night; ”לפיכך אנחנו חיבים להודות וכו” - "Therefore, [we conclude the narrative of the Exodus,] we are obligated to give thanks...”. Yet, from the very beginning of Jewish history, God told Abraham that his descendants would be oppressed in a foreign land, and God went to great efforts to force the family of Jacob to move down to Egypt. The slavery in Egypt was God’s plan from the beginning, and all the suffering that the Jewish people endured there can be placed at His feet. Why then are we giving thanks to God for saving us from Egypt, when He is the one who put us there in the first place?

This question is asked by the Dubna Maggid (Rabbi Yakov Kranz, d.1804) early on in his commentary on the Hagada. He illustrates the question with an analogy. If a person falls ill, or is injured, and a doctor treats his illness and cures him, then it is obvious that the patient must express gratitude towards the doctor. But if the doctor was the one who injured him in the first place, then there is little gratitude due to him. The patient would have been better off if the doctor had left alone to begin with!

In the end, therefore, the Dubno Maggid explains that we have to recognize that when we give thanks to God for our salvation, we are not only thanking Him for saving us from our troubles, we are also thanking Him for the troubles themselves. For we must understand that everything that God brings upon us is ultimately for our benefit, and we must give thanks to Him for the bad as well as the good, as the Talmud (Brachos 54a) states, “A person is obligated to bless God for the bad, just as he blesses God for the good.”

The suffering we endured in Egypt was necessary to prepare us to be the “kingdom of priests and holy nation” that would receive the Torah. The lessons we learned in the “iron furnace”, as the Jeremiah (11:4) called Egypt, were what made us into the Jewish people, and it would be these lessons that God would continually remind us of, in His Torah.

The Sefas Emes (R’ Yehuda Aryeh Leib of Ger, d.1905), in his commentary on the Hagada, points out that this is the lesson of the korech that we eat at the Seder, in which eat the matzoh and maror together. The primary symbolism of the matzah is redemption and freedom, the symbolism of maror is suffering. By eating them together, we indicate that, at the most basic level, they are not separable. The achievement of true redemption and freedom can only come about through the spiritual crucible of suffering. As the Dubno Maggid quotes from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Brachos 5a):

שלש מתנות טובות נתן הקב”ה לישראל, וכולן לא נתנן אלא על ידי יסורין. אלו הן: תורה וארץ ישראל והעולם הבא

God gave three good gifts to the Jewish people, and all of them were only given through suffering. These are: The Torah, the land of Israel, and the World-to-Come.

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"Go and Learn" - The Hidden Miracles

צא ולמד מה בקש לבן הארמי לעשות ליעקב אבינו. שפרעה לא גזר אלא על הזכרים, ולבן בקש לעקור את הכל

"Go and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father, Jacob. For Pharaoh only decreed [the annihilation] of the males, but Laban sought to uproot everything."

The Hagada tells us that Lavan wanted to totally destroy Jacob and his family. Yet, a simple reading of the text in Genesis gives no real indication of this. Laban did not appear to want to harm Jacob and, if the Sages had not told us so, we would never have known on our own.

The Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, d.1797) explains that this teaches us that God is always acting to save us from dangers, even though, most of the time we are completely unaware of these miracles. As the Talmud states (נדה לא.), אפילו בעל הנס אינו מכיר בנסו – “even the one who experiences the miracle does not perceive the miracle.” Hashem does constant miracles for us in a hidden manner. This is the meaning of the verse in Psalms (72:18), “עושה נפלאות לבדו” – “He does wonders alone.” “Alone” meaning, He alone knows about the miracle, but those who benefit from the miracle don’t even know that a miracle has occurred. Therefore, even when life seems to be going along in a perfectly normal and natural manner, we must give thanks to God for the many hidden miracles He is performing for us.

(פירוש הגר"א)

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