Post by Akiva on Mar 10, 2013 17:14:36 GMT -5
Ask anyone where in the Torah the Pesach story can be found, and they'll immediately respond "Sh'mot". That's where the narrative is: the slavery, the plagues, the first Korban Pesach, leaving Mitzrayim, Kriyas Yam Suf - that's the text of Parshat Sh'mot, Va'Ayra, Bo, and B'Shalach.
Yet that's not where the core of the haggadah is taken from. Starting with "Tzay U'lmad", where we move beyond the preliminaries of the four questions and the four sons, and into the actual story of the Exodus, the text of the Haggadah comes not from Sh'mot but from D'varim. The psukim of Arami Oved Avi and Vayareyu Osanu Hamitzrim come from Parshat Ki Savo, from the declaration we are instructed to make when we bring bicurim to the Bais Hamikdash. The question, of course, is why? And, on top of that, what's with the introductory phrase, "Tzay U'lmad"? "Go out" and learn?
According to Rav Soloveitchik, the reason to use the text of Bicurim is that the mitzvah of Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim isn't merely one of storytelling, but of limud torah - it has to be fulfilled through learning. That's a foundational principle that also expresses itself in the Haggadah's question-and-answer format. Thus, the core of the Haggadah is not simply reading "the story" from Sh'mot, but retelling it exegetically, through the far more compact language of Ki Savo.
But that just moves the question back a step, doesn't it? What is it about the nature of Pesach that makes the method of limud Torah more appropriate to the mitzvah of the night than reading the story from the source?
I'd like to suggest that the answer might be that - like many other of the rules of the night - the rationale is that limud Torah is Derech Chairus. Slaves can tell stories - can pass down, in carefully memorized words, the traditional tales of their forefathers and homelands. But only free people, accustomed to thinking for themselves and with both the time and the breadth of knowledge necessary, can go beyond that rote repetition and engage in the critical thinking required for limud - to identify nuance and derive new ideas and understandings from the text. In fact, that helps explain the language of "Tzay Ulmad". Not just learn, but "go out" and learn - that is, go "out" of the text, beyond the rote repetition, beyond the Divrei Torah you shared last year, and come up with a new idea, a new insight, to deepen your understanding each and every time you engage in Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim
Yet that's not where the core of the haggadah is taken from. Starting with "Tzay U'lmad", where we move beyond the preliminaries of the four questions and the four sons, and into the actual story of the Exodus, the text of the Haggadah comes not from Sh'mot but from D'varim. The psukim of Arami Oved Avi and Vayareyu Osanu Hamitzrim come from Parshat Ki Savo, from the declaration we are instructed to make when we bring bicurim to the Bais Hamikdash. The question, of course, is why? And, on top of that, what's with the introductory phrase, "Tzay U'lmad"? "Go out" and learn?
According to Rav Soloveitchik, the reason to use the text of Bicurim is that the mitzvah of Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim isn't merely one of storytelling, but of limud torah - it has to be fulfilled through learning. That's a foundational principle that also expresses itself in the Haggadah's question-and-answer format. Thus, the core of the Haggadah is not simply reading "the story" from Sh'mot, but retelling it exegetically, through the far more compact language of Ki Savo.
But that just moves the question back a step, doesn't it? What is it about the nature of Pesach that makes the method of limud Torah more appropriate to the mitzvah of the night than reading the story from the source?
I'd like to suggest that the answer might be that - like many other of the rules of the night - the rationale is that limud Torah is Derech Chairus. Slaves can tell stories - can pass down, in carefully memorized words, the traditional tales of their forefathers and homelands. But only free people, accustomed to thinking for themselves and with both the time and the breadth of knowledge necessary, can go beyond that rote repetition and engage in the critical thinking required for limud - to identify nuance and derive new ideas and understandings from the text. In fact, that helps explain the language of "Tzay Ulmad". Not just learn, but "go out" and learn - that is, go "out" of the text, beyond the rote repetition, beyond the Divrei Torah you shared last year, and come up with a new idea, a new insight, to deepen your understanding each and every time you engage in Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim
