A Haggadah of Love

Wise or Wicked? 

“Dear children,” Abba announces. “Tonight is Leil HaSeder (Seder night). A great night. We will sit together and drink four cups of wine and eat matzah and maror. And the main thing is that you will ask me questions, and I will tell you the story of the Exodus from Egypt…” 

“Abba, I have a question!” said Nati to Abba. 

Nati is eleven years old already and very mature for his age. He is an excellent student and Abba is really waiting to hear his question. 

“Dear Abba, this year we learned chumash Shemot for the second time. We sat for long hours in class and read it, passuk by passuk with commentaries and midrashim. Back in kindergarten I heard those stories with all the colorful midrashim. Every year we repeat the story at Leil Haseder. Why tell it again now? Why don’t you just test us and see that we know the story, and then we can move on the Shulchan Orech (the festive meal)…?” 

What would you have done with such a question? Would you have “blunted his teeth”? Is this a chutzpadik question like that of the Wicked Son, chalila? 

The Outer Wrapping and the Contents 

No, no! This is the best question. It’s the most important question. I would say that that it is the question that every father should ask himself, first of all, before he begins to prepare for Leil HaSeder: The children know the story, more or less. In kindergarten they created a cup, half of which was painted blue, and half of it – red. What new information could you give them? It is true that the details of the story are very important, but does everything start and end with the details? Is the purpose of the mitzvah to tell the story of Yetzi’at Mitzrayim (the Exodus from Egypt) and remember it every morning and evening only so that we won’t forget it?! Is the goal to find as many midrashim as one can? 

Obviously not! The importance of the story is not the story itself – rather the message! When you ask yourself why the story is told and why it is so important to remember Yetzi’at Mitzrayim, you must answer yourself: for the message! That is the main thing! The story is just the outer wrapping, and the message is the content.  

The Night’s Message 

So what really is the message of this story? What messages and empowerment and information do you want your children to take from this night? 

What is the message and what is the goal? Clearly, the goal is to instill emunah (faith) in your children! 

And that is why our emphasis when telling the story is not on the details, but on the emunah,  about Hashem’s hand that governs the world and rules over nature and can overrun all the systems! 

But it’s not only that. It is much more than that. Everything we have been teaching in the past year, that the main aspect of emunah is not only the emunah that Hashem created the world, and not only the emunah that everything is in His hands and that his providence is all encompassing and that there is no nature – the main aspect of emunah is the faith that Hashem loves us! 

When we read the Haggadah and the whole story of Yetz’iat Mitzrayim through these lenses, with the intention to see Hashem’s love for us, with the intention to see that He is a good Father Who loves us and does only good for us – then the entire Haggadah can be read in a completely different way. 

And this is not a novel way; rather it is simply the simplest meaning of the entire Haggadah, the main and central message coming from the story in the Haggadah – and in this essay we will bring practical examples – to give every father the necessary tools to give his children a meaningful Leil Seder with a meaningful story. 

Every Plague – With Love! 

Let’s start with the plague of blood. When you see a cup of water being drunk by an Egyptian on one side and by a Jew on the other, with the Egyptian drinking blood and the Jew drinking water – that is not only amazing, and completely opposed to the laws of nature, but also an expression of love: 

Dear Jew, you are My son, and I am taking care of you personally. And even if there will be blood in this cup, you will drink water. And even if another Egyptian drinks with you from the same up – he will receive blood, and you will receive water! 

This is an amazing revelation of Hashem’s love. And that is what should be passed on to the children. Complete and personal hashgacha (Divine Providence), out of His personal love for us! A special, personal love: Every Jew got water and every Egyptian got blood. 

Frogs jumping everywhere, even into ovens, in complete opposition to the innate instinct of every animal to run away from fire. But they don’t even come close to the homes of the Jews, not even one. What is this if not Hashem’s love? 

Lice are very contagious and every mother knows that.  It is enough to have one girl in the kindergarten with one louse, and within an hour, ten girls become infested. Every Egyptian was harboring hundreds and thousands of lice, and not one of them reached the head of any Jew. What is this, if not a message that Hashem loves you and protects you against all odds? 

In the plague of arov, the Torah says this explicitly: “I will set the land of Goshen apart… between My people and yours I will mark out a separation.” None of the frightening wild animals harmed any Jew. And even if an Egyptian left his child with a Jew, the animal would notice the non-Jewish child and harm him, as opposed to all the Jewish children there. 

So we see here that Hashem yitbarach tells us ahead of time: I am going to show you the difference: “I will set apart,” “I will mark out a separation”. We see a clear separation. Why? What is the difference between an Egyptian and a Jew? How does it work? It’s very simple: You will not be touched by the animal and everyone will see that it is you that I love. All the world will see that it is you I love, each and every Jew, personally. No Jew will die, even by mistake, because Hashem loves him or her personally. This is what we should pay attention to; this is what we must emphasize to ourselves  and to our children. It should impress us, and this is what we should imprint on our hearts! 

Love in Any Situation 

And let’s remember: What Jews are we talking about here? Were they completely G-d fearing? Were they talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars)? No and no. These were Jews who, if the Egyptians  wouldn’t  have been reminding them that they are Jews, would have barely believed they are Jews. They wanted to assimilate in the Egyptian culture.  

“These are idol worshippers and these are idol worshippers”¹ – our forefathers in Egypt were idol worshippers! And that is the biggest chiddush (novel thing) in love: Hashem loves us in any situation, and our spiritual level doesn’t matter.  

All that immense love that we see is in spite of the spiritual state, and that is a deep and important message: Hashem loves you unconditionally! 

This explains the halacha in the mitzvah of telling the story of yetzi’at Mitzrayim: “Begin with the bad and end with the praise”². And so, we start the story with “In the beginning our forefathers were idol worshippers”. Why is this so important? How is it connected with the story of the Exodus from Egypt? Tell me about the subjugation, the plagues; tell me about the miracles and the exodus – why is it so important to mention who our forefathers were and what they did? 

Because the story of the Exodus in general is a story of bechirah (choice)! Hashem chose the Jewish People! What does that mean? It means that Hashem loves us. Why? Because! Not because of our beautiful eyes, but because He loves us the way we are, unconnected with our situation. And that is the main message of the story, and the message of all the plagues’ details. 

Therefore, dear father, if you haven’t yet prepared yourself and read through the Haggadah and haven’t yet thought ahead about what you are going to tell your children, you had better begin to work on those points. It is a rare night that has a special segulah and the hearts of the children are more open than usual to hear what you have to tell them. The question is, do you really have what to tell them, something new? 

And when you prepare the Haggadah, remember that it doesn’t matter so much if you have one more story or one less; the main point is that you instill in yourself and in your children the most important da’at (knowledge, understanding) for their lives, for their purpose, for their mental health: that Hashem loves them! 

To be continued, G-d willing, next week… 

Editor’s Notes: 

¹ Midrash Tehillim 1:20 and 15:5; Zohar Teruma 16:17; Yalkut Reuben Beshalach 32:5 

² Mishnah Pesachim 10:4. The definition of “disgrace” is further defined in Talmud Bavli Pesachim 116a