Post by Akiva on Mar 5, 2012 18:30:02 GMT -5
Well, it's that time of year again. Almost spring. A time for flowers to bloom, young love to blossom - and for me to start wondering what new thing I can say at the Seder. That process usually starts with a question, and this year, the first question that came to mind was about the placement of Sfirat HaOmer.
Why do we (at least those of us not living in Israel) count sfira as part of the second night's Seder? Going by the approach that the Seder is constructed specifically around the concept of Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim, you'd have to say that there's a connection between the two. But what is it, beyond the chronological fact that Matan Torah came after Yetziat Mitzrayim? More, why not start counting the first night? Just count 50 days, instead of 49 - it would be just as accurate. Why the insistence that the count be 49 days starting the second night of Pesach?
I'm going to suggest that the answer can be tied to a second question. At the very beginning of Maggid, we say Avadim Hayinu - we were slaves to Paraoh in Egypt, and God took us out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great miracles. This is, at heart, the 30-second Sippur - the story of the night stripped of all the details we will be discussing, boiled down to its basic essential elements. I've mentioned that thought about Avadim Hayinu before.
But is it really stripped to its essentials? Looking closely, it doesn't appear to be. If it were really nothing but the very basic outlines, shouldn't it have simply said "we were slaves in Egypt . . ."? Why the need to point out here that we were slaves to Paraoh in Egypt?
I've seen a few suggested responses to the question of why the Haggadah mentions Paraoh here. The Rav offers two: (1) That the fact that were were, essentially, "state property" (rather than owned by individual masters) made the oppression worse, since it was less personal; and (2) that we are emphasizing that while we mayhave been slaves to Paraoh, we were not "Paraoh's slaves" - that is, that slavery was something imposed on us, but it had not become the way we defined ourselves.
I'd like to propose a third alternative, one that may help answer our opening questions. The fact that we were "Avadim" (slaves) in Egypt, rather than free people, was not, in and of itself, the problem that required our rescue. After all, nobody "rescued" Eliezer, Avraham's "eved". And when Moshe dies, his epitaph in the Torah describes him not as "Moshe, Ish Ha'Elohim" (Moses, man of God) - which is how he is described at the start of the final Parsha in the Torah - but as "Moshe, Eved Hashem" (Moses, the servant of God).
In other words, the problem wasn't merely that we were serving masters other than ourselves in Egypt - but the identity of those masters. If we had been Avdei Hashem (servants of God) in Egypt, there would have been no need for God's intervention. It was the fact that, as the Haggadah puts it, "we were slaves to Paraoh in Egypt" that required God to save us.
With that idea in mind, let's look back at the question of sfira. Cherus (freedom) for its own sake was not the goal of Yetziat Mitzrayim. Rather, freedom from slavery to Paraoh in Egypt was a necessary step on our road to Sinai, towards accepting the Torah and becoming Avdei Hashem
- something that only a free people could have done. As such, it makes perfect sense for sfira to feature as part of the Seder - it isn't external to Yetziat Mitzrayim, but is the goal of the entire process: preparing ourselves for accepting the Torah.
More, the one day's delay in starting the count makes sense - we needed to have the status of free people before we could choose to accept the Torah. Thus, we had a day of freedom before beginning the process of preparing for the Torah, which sfira is the expression of.
In fact, that helps explain why Sefira is said to start "mimacharat Hashabat" (the day after the Sabbath), which triggered the whole Sadducee dispute about when to start counting, rather than simply "mimacharat HaChag" (the day after the holiday). I mean sure, a holiday can be described as a Sabbath, but it usually isn't. So why do it here?
Our approach above makes the answer easy: because the essence of the first day of Pesach, in connection with Sfira, is it's Shabbat nature - it was the day the Jews ceased their work for Paraoh, the day they ceased being slaves, their day of rest. And it is only after that "day of rest", that experience of freedom, that they could engage in the process represented by Sfira.
Why do we (at least those of us not living in Israel) count sfira as part of the second night's Seder? Going by the approach that the Seder is constructed specifically around the concept of Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim, you'd have to say that there's a connection between the two. But what is it, beyond the chronological fact that Matan Torah came after Yetziat Mitzrayim? More, why not start counting the first night? Just count 50 days, instead of 49 - it would be just as accurate. Why the insistence that the count be 49 days starting the second night of Pesach?
I'm going to suggest that the answer can be tied to a second question. At the very beginning of Maggid, we say Avadim Hayinu - we were slaves to Paraoh in Egypt, and God took us out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great miracles. This is, at heart, the 30-second Sippur - the story of the night stripped of all the details we will be discussing, boiled down to its basic essential elements. I've mentioned that thought about Avadim Hayinu before.
But is it really stripped to its essentials? Looking closely, it doesn't appear to be. If it were really nothing but the very basic outlines, shouldn't it have simply said "we were slaves in Egypt . . ."? Why the need to point out here that we were slaves to Paraoh in Egypt?
I've seen a few suggested responses to the question of why the Haggadah mentions Paraoh here. The Rav offers two: (1) That the fact that were were, essentially, "state property" (rather than owned by individual masters) made the oppression worse, since it was less personal; and (2) that we are emphasizing that while we mayhave been slaves to Paraoh, we were not "Paraoh's slaves" - that is, that slavery was something imposed on us, but it had not become the way we defined ourselves.
I'd like to propose a third alternative, one that may help answer our opening questions. The fact that we were "Avadim" (slaves) in Egypt, rather than free people, was not, in and of itself, the problem that required our rescue. After all, nobody "rescued" Eliezer, Avraham's "eved". And when Moshe dies, his epitaph in the Torah describes him not as "Moshe, Ish Ha'Elohim" (Moses, man of God) - which is how he is described at the start of the final Parsha in the Torah - but as "Moshe, Eved Hashem" (Moses, the servant of God).
In other words, the problem wasn't merely that we were serving masters other than ourselves in Egypt - but the identity of those masters. If we had been Avdei Hashem (servants of God) in Egypt, there would have been no need for God's intervention. It was the fact that, as the Haggadah puts it, "we were slaves to Paraoh in Egypt" that required God to save us.
With that idea in mind, let's look back at the question of sfira. Cherus (freedom) for its own sake was not the goal of Yetziat Mitzrayim. Rather, freedom from slavery to Paraoh in Egypt was a necessary step on our road to Sinai, towards accepting the Torah and becoming Avdei Hashem
- something that only a free people could have done. As such, it makes perfect sense for sfira to feature as part of the Seder - it isn't external to Yetziat Mitzrayim, but is the goal of the entire process: preparing ourselves for accepting the Torah.
More, the one day's delay in starting the count makes sense - we needed to have the status of free people before we could choose to accept the Torah. Thus, we had a day of freedom before beginning the process of preparing for the Torah, which sfira is the expression of.
In fact, that helps explain why Sefira is said to start "mimacharat Hashabat" (the day after the Sabbath), which triggered the whole Sadducee dispute about when to start counting, rather than simply "mimacharat HaChag" (the day after the holiday). I mean sure, a holiday can be described as a Sabbath, but it usually isn't. So why do it here?
Our approach above makes the answer easy: because the essence of the first day of Pesach, in connection with Sfira, is it's Shabbat nature - it was the day the Jews ceased their work for Paraoh, the day they ceased being slaves, their day of rest. And it is only after that "day of rest", that experience of freedom, that they could engage in the process represented by Sfira.
