Parasha: Bo · Aliyah: Fourth (Netzach)

כחצות הלילה, "at around midnight, etc." The Talmud Berachot 4 already discusses that the reason that Moses did not give the precise time but only an approximation was so that in the event the Egyptian astronomers were inaccurate in their calculations they should not be able to accuse Moses of having lied. Possibly the reason is related to what Bereshit Rabbah 43,3 has to say about Genesis 14,15 where Abraham is described as defeating the four kings. That event occurred on the night of the 15th of Nissan. In that case the letter כ before the word חצות does not describe an approximation but refers to a previous event which took place on that date at that time. Our sages in Shemot Rabbah 42 tell us that the night in which Abraham defeated the four mightiest kings of the world (Genesis 14,15) caused many people to re-evaluate the beliefs they had held up to that time. The Torah therefore mentioned the time when this miracle had occurred. In our paragraph too, the people who survived this event must have done some serious soul-searching as to the validity of their religious beliefs. The letter כ then refers to such re-evaluations as a result of what would occur at midnight.

אני יוצא. "I will go out, etc." G'd stressed the "I" as if to say that although He has many agents who could perform this task at His behest, He would do so personally and would descend right into the midst of Egypt. G'd had two reasons for doing this personally. 1) As an expression of His fondness for His people whom He wanted to liberate personally. 2) Angels are not capable of distinguishing which human being was formed from the first drop of semen of his father so that he deserved the description בכור, firstborn. Even if such a fetus would emerge as the second or third of a multiple birth it would still deserve to be considered the firstborn. No one but G'd Himself is able to make these distinctions.

ומת כל בכור, and every firstborn will die, etc. G'd did not say: "I will kill him." The reason, as we have pointed out on previous occasions is, that evil does not originate with G'd. He is the Creator of all that is good. Anything in the nature of evil is initiated by one of the agents He has designated. G'd Himself indicated who was the firstborn, His agents carried out the death sentence. This is why the mention of "destroyers" at the time the Israelites put the blood on their door-posts and the fact that G'd Himself orchestrated the plague are not contradictory.

There may also be another meaning, similar to what we are told in Shabbat 34 where Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai put his eye on a sinner and that sinner died as a result. At first glance, how are we to understand that a pious person of the calibre of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai would summarily "execute" someone by giving him "the eye?" The same Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai had castigated people of the evil eye as possessing a very negative virtue (Zohar 3, page 211). Actually, the exact wording in the Talmud was יהבי עיניה, "he looked at him with his eye" (singular). We would have expected the Talmud to say that "he looked at him with his eyes (pl)." We have to remember that inasmuch as "evil" and "death" are synonymous how is it that evil exists at all? This is because there are no absolutes; just as the attribute of Mercy contains a small part of the attribute of Justice, so every good virtue contains a small element of evil, and vice versa. In the case of evil, death occurs when that small part of "good" or "life" which kept it alive is withdrawn. Keeping this in mind, we can understand the peculiar statement in Sukkah 52 according to which G'd will slaughter the evil urge at an appropriate time in the future in the presence of the righteous. How are to understand this? How can one slaughter an angel (disembodied spirit)? Considering what we have just said we can understand the statement in the Talmud very easily. G'd will remove the part of the evil urge which makes it a viable i.e. active force.

We also need to appreciate the natural tendency of identical or basically similar virtues to coalesce with each other. The good attracts the good, the evil tends to attract more evil to itself. This is the secret of how the souls of the Israelites which had their origin in the positive emanations could "draw" to themselves the "lost" souls which we described as being particularly prevalent in Egypt. [The author has repeatedly described these souls as having been captured by the negative side of the emanations as a result of Adam eating from the tree of knowledge (compare his comments on Genesis 49,9). Ed.] G'd had given outstanding Torah scholars the ability to attract to themselves the "good" part of any sinner. When Rabbi Shimon looked at the sinner in question he extracted the good part of that sinner, thus leaving no viable element within that person. As a result the sinner died. When G'd passed through Egypt on that night, He extracted the good that was within any of these firstborn; as a result such a firstborn simply dropped dead. It was as if Rabbi Shimon had put his eye on such an individual.

The meaning of ומת כל בכור is not simply that the soul of that person would die leaving the body as it had been, but the element which had made that person different from others because he was a firstborn would die with him. In other words there would never again be Egyptians (or even other Gentiles) whose characteristics would include elements of what had been known as the "firstborn" of the people beholden to the powers of the קליפה, the forces of negative virtues. Perhaps this is why no exile ever again assumed the dimensions of the exile in Egypt. G'd had weakened the powers of the קליפה permanently.

I have tried to find a reason why the dying of the firstborn was a necessary prerequisite for the Exodus, as well as why even non-Egyptian firstborn (compare 12,29) had to die if they happened to be in Egypt on that fateful night. The reason is connected to G'd having described Israel as "My firstborn son" (4,22). We have a tradition (Zohar 2, page 263) that whenever G'd created some phenomenon which is clearly recognisable as something good, He also created its counterpart, i.e. something potentially evil at the same time. Every sacred phenomenon in our world is matched by a parallel phenomenon under the control of Satan, or what is known in Kabbalistic parlance "the forces of the קליפה." The latter make every effort to gain dominance over the former. We must therefore understand the forces of the קליפה which represented their firstborn as exerting every effort to frustrate the emigration of the Jewish people from Egypt. These efforts did not cease until G'd had "killed" the firstborn of the powers of the קליפה which opposed His will. What G'd had to do was to eliminate the concept of the firstborn being special, otherwise the relief as a result of the death of the Egyptian firstborn would have been only temporary. When the Torah (12,29) stresses that: "the firstborn of the captive, the firstborn of the maidservant and the firstborn of the animals died," this is in contrast to the firstborn of the Israelites who were subsequently sanctified (Numbers 8,17). The reason this sanctification of the Jewish firstborn became necessary is that G'd had done away with the concept of the firstborn being somebody special at the time He eliminated the firstborn on the night of the 15th of Nissan. Had this not been the case we would not understand why the firstborn of the animals had to die also. In Numbers 8,17 G'd declared that henceforth the firstborn of the Jews would be sacred to Him, i.e. there should no longer be a firstborn associated with the powers of the קליפה. If we find that the Egyptians still engaged in hot pursuit of the Israelites even after the death of the firstborn, this was because they had not yet realised that their former power had vanished. As a result, not a single one of them survived the debacle at the Sea of Reeds.

ולכל בני ישראל לא יחרץ כלב לשונו, "not a single dog will whet his tongue against any Israelite, etc." Why was this so important? If the meaning of the line is that not a single Israelite would die as a result of a bite by a dog, why did the Torah not spell this out?

Perhaps we should understand this as an allusion to a well known proverb quoted in Baba Kama 60 that when one hears the dogs bark it is a sign that the angel of death is in town. The Torah wanted to tell us that the angel of death did not cause the death of a single Israelite during that night. The Torah added the detail about the dogs not whetting their tongue against Israel as evidence that they did not even attack a Jew. The reason was "so that you shall know that G'd will make a miraculous distinction between Egypt and between Israel."

The word ולכל may also mean that only where the Jews congregated did the dogs not whet their tongues against them because this would prove that no stranger was amongst them. Wherever Jews and Egyptians would mingle the dogs would most certainly bark as proof that the משחית, the angel of death, was active in that environment. What the Torah revealed then is that no trick would save the Egyptian firstborn. If they decided to hide amongst the Israelites the barking of the dogs would reveal their presence (compare Shemot Rabbah 18,2).

וירדו כל עבדיך, "and all your servants will come down, etc." This was a promise by G'd that the servants referred to would all survive this plague. Perhaps this was because none of them were firstborns and Moses knew this through his prophetic vision. Alternatively, even though some of these servants may have been firstborns, Moses exempted them from the effects of this plague. This was not because of their righteousness but so that they would get their deserts for having been present and silent when Pharaoh used abusive language against Moses and Aaron. The principle of the punishment fitting the crime demanded that these servants would themselves be demeaned when they would beg Moses and Aaron to leave the land in order that not all the Egyptians would die. They would have to ask public forgiveness for their previous conduct. We know that Moses had felt insulted by their behaviour since the Torah told us at the end of this verse that Moses left the palace in a very angry frame of mind. Actually, Moses included Pharaoh himself in his warning that all his servants would get up at night, etc.; he only maintained a degree of respect for Royalty and that is why he did not refer to Pharaoh by name.

והשתחוו לי לאמור, "they will bow down to me saying, etc." The reason that Moses said לאמור instead of ויאמרו לי, was that he implied that the mere fact they would prostrate themselves would convey their intent to beg Moses to leave the country with his people. Inasmuch as Moses was superior to them why would he need their permission to leave altogether?

In addition the Torah tells us that the servants treated Moses like a king. Just as it is not customary for a citizen to approach the king and begin to speak without having received permission, Pharaoh's servants prostrated themselves as a sign that they asked for permission to speak. The Torah makes this plain by quoting Moses as saying: "they will bow down to me to say, etc;" the bowing was a form of asking permission to speak. While it is true that the Torah does not report these details as having occurred when the events of that night are described in chapter twelve, the fact that the Torah does report that Pharaoh himself arose during that night is sufficient proof that whatever Moses had predicted did in fact occur.

ויאמר ה׳ אל משה לא ישמע אליכם פרעה, G'd said: "Pharaoh will not listen to you, etc." Perhaps G'd answered a privately held belief by Moses that after Pharaoh would experience this dreadful plague he would not only free the Israelites but not pursue them even when he became aware that they had no intention of returning. This would also explain the use of the future tense by G'd. The reason that Pharaoh would remain obstinate was to give G'd an opportunity to perform still more miracles in the land of Egypt. Compare Mechilta 14 which explains why the word ארץ was needed and it was not enough to speak about מצרים.

G'd may also have told Moses that Pharaoh had not yet understood the impact of Moses' prediction, namely, that as of the moment that he and his servants would urge Israel to leave they would be subject to Moses' authority and not to his. G'd did not want him to understand this yet so as to bring more plagues upon Egypt.

ומשה ואהרון עשו…ויחזק ה׳ את לב פרעה, Moses and Aaron performed all these miracles in Pharaoh's presence….but G'd hardened the heart of Pharaoh, etc. This verse tells us that in spite of all the miracles Moses had performed, Pharaoh was still not willing to let the Israelites leave, not even conditionally, such as had been proposed in 5,3.

החודש הזה לכם ראש חדשים, "This month shall be for you the beginning of the months." Why did the Torah repeat ראש חדשים and ראשון הוא? I believe the meaning of ראש is that the month of Nissan will be particularly important, the choicest of the months. We find the word ראש used in this sense in Exodus 30,23 when the most important of the spices in the making of oil for anointing is discussed.

The Torah stressed the word לכם, for you, to tell us that this month would be special only for the Jewish people. Our sages pointed out in Rosh Hashanah 11 that Israel was redeemed from Egypt in Nissan and that the future redemption would again occur in that month. This is so because this month is a harbinger of good tidings for Israel. It is appropriate that Israel should begin the count of the months of the year by making Nissan the first month.

Another reason that the Torah writes החודש הזה instead of writing חודש זה, is to allude to something or someone we are already familiar with. The reference to this known entity is G'd who is described in 15,2 as זה קלי, "this (One) is my G'd." The Torah alludes to the promise that it is this G'd who will orchestrate the redemption.

An additional meaning derived from the wording of this line is that Israel will be a ראש, head, as a result of what happened in this month. The numerical value of the word זה is 12, i.e. Nissan will be the first and most distinguished of these twelve months.

דברו אל כל עדת ישראל לאמור, "speak to the whole community of Israel to say, etc." Why did G'd have to use the instruction דברו and could not make do with the method of communicating with the Israelites i.e. לאמור? In fact why did G'd not omit the word לאמור altogether and simply said: דברו? Moses' address could then have included both the information about the new moon as well as the details of preparing for the Passover. The word לאמור is altogether hard to comprehend since it is not clear to whom the Israelites were to communicate this new law about the Passover lamb.

Perhaps the reason two expressions had to be used is quite simple. The law of the Passover comprised two aspects, 1) that Israel would be uplifted by showing their enemies how they themselves exacted retribution from their deities by slaughtering the sheep (compare Shemot Rabbah 16,3), and 2) performance of the command was accompanied by the threat that anyone failing to carry out this command would face death. The word לאמור is therefore appropriate for the first of the two aspects of this commandment, whereas the word דברו is appropriate for the instructions containing a warning about possible non-compliance. Another, secondary meaning of the word לאמור maybe that G'd instructed Moses and Aaron to exercise their authority gently.

Moses was also to communicate first with the elders as we find that he did in 12,21 where he is reported as having called in all the elders of Israel. The instruction דברו was intended to the elders, whereas the word לאמור teaches that he was also to communicate the details of the law to the entire nation.

ויקחו להם איש שה, "that they should each take a lamb for themselves, etc." The conjunctive letter ו at the beginning of this legislation is strange. Perhaps we have an allusion here to what Moses said to the Israelites later in verse 21 when he communicated the instructions received here. According to Shemot Rabbah 16,2 the word משכו contained a command to the Israelites to refrain henceforth from any idolatrous activity. This instruction did not emanate from G'd but was something Moses told the people on his own. On the other hand, seeing the way Moses told the people one gains the impression that G'd had communicated this to him as a prophetic insight. Perhaps the letter ו here at the beginning of the paragraph is proof that what Moses said in verse 21 and onwards was also part of the instructions he had received from G'd earlier. Precisely what did Moses mean with the word משכו?

Seeing that Moses told the people to purchase the lamb on the tenth of the month people would think that those who bought it on that date could slaughter it whereas those who had failed to purchase it or set it aside on the tenth could not buy it on the 11th the 12th or the 13th, therefore Moses added the words "and they may purchase it" to indicate that even if they bought the lamb after the tenth of the month it would still qualify as a sacrifice. All this we derive from the word ויקחו which is preceded by the conjunctive letter ו. The Mechilta on our verse arrives at the ruling about purchasing the lamb on the 11th, 12th, or 13th of the month by a process called a fortiori, simple logic. If something can be deduced by that method and in addition we find an allusion in the text this reinforces our opinion.

Inasmuch as both the words להם and איש in our verse seem superfluous at first glance seeing that all the Torah had to write was ויקחו שה לבית, we are entitled to derive additional meanings from these words. In a similar situation where the letter ו at the beginning of the word ויקחו seems strange, (Exodus 25,2) Tanchuma understands the letter as including G'd Himself. Here is what Tanchuma has to say there: "G'd said to them: 'take Me with you."' [This would suggest that the gifts the Israelites donated for the Tabernacle would ensure that G'd's presence would dwell amongst them. I have not found this text in my edition of the Tanchuma. Ed.] In our situation, considering that these were the first commandments addressed to the Jews as a people, G'd may also have suggested that performance of these commandments would ensure His Presence amongst the Israelites and that even the Gentiles would become aware of this as pointed out in Deut. 28,10. Sotah 42 claims that on occasion the word איש refers to the Almighty, such as in Samuel I 17,8 where Goliath blasphemes, provoking G'd to battle against him. Here too the word איש may be an allusion to G'd whom Moses called איש מלחמה in Exodus 15,3. The Tikkuney Zohar section 29 demonstrate that the word מצוה contains half of the Ineffable Name at the end, and the other half at the beginning if one applies the method known as aleph tav, bet shin when reading the alphabet. [The letter צ would correspond to the letter ה, whereas the letter מ would correspond to the letter י. Ed.] According to this the Torah hints that by means of this מצוה the Jewish people would make a great acquisition (לקיחה) i.e. they would establish a claim on G'd.

I have been puzzled why G'd did not specifically exclude the people who were either Gentiles, uncircumcised, or had contracted impurity through contact with the dead from offering and eating the Passover lamb, just as He legislated for the future observance of the Passover holiday (12,43-46 as well as Numbers chapter 9). Whereas we have pointed out in our commentary on Numbers 19,2 that there was a good reason for not permitting the ritually impure to participate in that commandment in subsequent years, there remains the question why the proselytes and the uncircumcised were not excluded from participating in the original passover lamb in Egypt? According to our sages as interpreted by Shemot Rabbah 19,6 based on Ezekiel 16,6 the blood mentioned there was the combined blood of circumcision and the blood of the paschal lamb the Israelites offered prior to the Exodus and which G'd "kissed" in appreciation of the readiness for martyrdom the Israelites demonstrated on that occasion. Our sages also interpret on Exodus 12,21 that the word משכו implies that the Israelites first had to divest themselves of any remnants of idolatrous conduct. This would include circumcision. They would have to become full-fledged members of the Jewish people before they qualified for participation in this great מצוה. These are all very fine exegetical points, but they do not address our question why G'd had not spelled out these conditions explicitly, seeing that our chapter contains so many details about this מצוה.

At the end of our paragraph, (verse 43) after Moses has dealt with the preparations for the Exodus, the Torah legislates the way Passover is to be observed in the future, as a reminder of the Exodus. We find there that a בן נכר and an עבד כעני, a Gentile or a slave whose body is owned by a Jew must not participate in the Passover. Ibn Ezra writes that the whole paragraph starting with verse 43 refers to observance of the Passover by future generations. This was why G'd used that opportunity to add other details which did not apply to the observance of the original Passover in Egypt whereas other details such as the blood which had to sprinkled on the doorposts did not need to be repeated as they would not apply in the future. If he meant that the law about the בן נכר and ערל were new additions, to be observed by future generations only, Ibn Ezra would be in direct contradiction to the traditional views we have cited. Besides, how does he deal with 12,50 where the Torah reports the Israelites as having observed the Passover in accordance with the instructions Moses and Aaron had received from G'd? Surely the Torah would not have written: "the Israelites carried out, etc." if the previous paragraph had dealt only with the observance of the Passover in the future! Ibn Ezra's comment that verse 50 speaks of the observance of the Passover while the Israelites were in the desert seems devoid of any basis in fact. It is unlikely that anyone will take these comments of Ibn Ezra seriously.

I have found the following comment in the Mechilta on 12,43: "Scripture deals here with both the Passover of Egypt and the Passover of subsequent generations, these are the words of Rabbi Yoshiah. Rabbi Yonathan says that the passage deals with the Passover in Egypt. Whence do I know what rules apply to subsequent Passovers? Scripture says: "in accordance with all its statutes and all its social laws you shall perform it" (Numbers 9,3). According to the foregoing all the Tannaim of the period agreed that the paragraph in question speaks about observance of the Passover in Egypt, thus Ibn Ezra's words are to be disregarded completely.

It is therefore possible that when the Torah wrote ויקחו with the extra letter ו, it referred to additional commandments over and above that of circumcision and the need to remove all vestiges of idol worship. The commandment referred to would be the restrictions on the בן נכר and the ערל, the uncircumcised Israelite as outlined in the paragraph commencing with verse 43.

ואם ימעט הבית, If the household be too small, etc. This verse can be explained satisfactorily both according to the view of Rabbi Yossi and the view of Rabbi Yehudah who have conflicting views reported in Pessachim 99 in a situation where the two lambs of two different families have become mixed up and the members of the respective families are not sure to which animal they belong. According to Rabbi Yehudah it is sufficient if one member of each family partakes of both animals in order to fulfil the condition laid down in our verse, i.e. if the number of people originally designated to eat from one lamb had somehow shrunk. Rabbi Yehudah considers the operative part of the verse אם ימעט הבית מהיות משה as the diminutive word ימעט, reduced number, but not total absence. Rabbi Yossi holds that as long as either one of the two animals is not temporarily without anyone committed to eat from it, neither one is disqualified. Rabbi Yossi pays especial attention to the words מהיות משה, i.e. to leave that lamb as temporarily not belonging to anyone.

The verse may also tell us that the lamb must be big enough to provide a minimum of an olive size's amount of meat for every member of that household.

The verse may also be understood as a blessing. If someone has a large family and the family cannot afford much, the lamb will nevertheless provide an adequate amount of meat for every member thereof because consumption of the meat is for the sake of fulfilling G'd's commandment.

לפי אכלו תכסו על השה, "according to every man's eating you shall make your count for the lamb." According to Pessachim 88 this means that a father may slaughter the Passover lamb on behalf of his wife and his children who are minors without having to consult them first. Pessachim 87 also teaches that a married woman who was still in the habit of frequenting her father's home, and who finds that both her husband and her father have included her as potential participants in their respective Passover offerings, has the choice to decide to which household she wishes to belong for the purpose of consuming the Passover. This is based on the words לפי אכלו meaning "according to where she is in the habit of taking her meals."

Another rule we learn from this verse (Pessachim 90) is that a person who is obligated to bury a near relative maybe included in the count for a Passover lamb though at the time the lamb is being slaughtered he is not yet under an obligation to fulfil this commandment due to his prior obligation to attend to the burial. The operative word is לפי אכלו meaning that as long as he is fit to eat it in the evening.

The same word also serves as a ruling concerning a person afflicted with a discharge from his sexual organ (זב). The Passover may be slaughtered on such a person's behalf. The same applies to a person who is in the process of undergoing ritual purification and only needs to await sunset on that day to have completed this process. In all these instances the deciding factor is whether the person in question will be legally entitled to partake of the Passover on the evening of the 15th of Nissan.

Both Mechilta and Pessachim 90 consider Numbers 9,6 in which Israelites are complaining about not being able to eat of the Passover in the desert due to their being ritually impure, as referring to people who would have completed their purification process by the evening of the 15th of Nissan. Why were these people prevented from eating the Passover then? The reason was that their ritual impurity was of the most severe kind, i.e. due to contact with the dead. According to one authority such impurity is still considered as sufficiently effective even if the party concerned has already undergone the final sprinkling of spring water. According to Rabbi Yossi we could conclude that even a person who was on the last day of purification after having been in contact with a corpse would qualify to join a household whose head had included him in the Passover guests at the time he slaughtered his animal. This is especially so if the person had already undergone immersion in a ritual bath.

ומן העזים תקחו, "or you may take it from amongst the he-goats." The reason the Torah had to write the word תקחו, you shall purchase or take once more is to teach that it is permitted to use a goat even if one owns a sheep of the appropriate age group.

והיה לכם למשמרת, "And you will keep it under observation until the fourteenth, etc." This means that the lamb required special examination just as any animals designated to become sacrificial offerings. This begins as soon as one has designated what "name" i.e. the specific offering the animal is to serve as. According to an opinion in Shir Hashirim Rabbah on the verse "like a lily amongst the thorns" this is a reference to the phenomenon that G'd had to liberate the Jewish people as גוי מקרב גוי, "one nation immersed within another nation" (Deut.4,34), the reason the Israelites had to set aside the lamb four days prior to being able to slaughter it was because it took that length of time to divest themselves of the remnants of their pagan practices. All of this is hinted at in the word משכו in verse 21. When the Midrash speaks about the Israelites having to divest themselves of vestiges of idol worship this is not to be understood as their being idol worshippers. However, they still used to wear clothing which the pagans wore, ate foods that the pagans ate, etc. The fastest and most effective way of countering the psychological impact of their former practices was to set aside the Egyptian deity in the knowledge that they would slaughter it in a few days' time. Inasmuch as the Egyptians believed in astrology, the constellation of the ram represented a handicap Israel had to overcome. Slaughtering a ram was the most effective way of doing this.

ואכלו את הבשר, "and they will eat the meat, etc." Pessachim 83 states that the emphasis here on the Israelites eating the "meat" means that they were not to eat the horns, the hooves, the sinews, etc. This exegesis is strange since we have a rule that the expression את always means that something is to be included not excluded and the Torah here wrote את הבשר! Perhaps the addition alluded to by the word את can be traced to the Mishnah Pessachim 7,11 that "the parts of the lamb that are permitted to be eaten are those which are analogous to the parts of the ox that are permitted to be eaten." Ravah explains Pessachim 84 that what is meant are parts of the animals which become soft as a result of boiling them in water.

There is also a disagreement between Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (folio 84 Pessachim) about the permissibility of sinews which though soft after boiling revert to becoming hard when taken out of the water. Rabbi Yochanan feels such sinews are not permissible as food as they are not analogous to "meat," whereas Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish feels that the sinews are sufficiently analogous to flesh to be included under the heading בשר.

ומצות על מרורים, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The plain meaning of the verse seems to be that the roasting of the lamb whole is a symbol of freedom. Freedom means wholeness. The requirement to eat bitter herbs with it is natural; Egyptians used to eat roast meat with something pungent as this enhanced the taste of the meat and enabled the person who ate it to thoroughly enjoy his meal. Letting the bitter herbs precede the meat in his mouth made one more conscious of the contrast and of how something which by itself had tasted bitter would suddenly transform the whole meal into an enjoyable experience. The unleavened bread also contributed to that feeling. We therefore find that there were three components which combined to make the meal enjoyable.

These three components symbolised three things. 1) The exile which had embittered the Israelites' lives; 2) The suddenness of the Exodus so that even their dough did not have time enough to rise. 3) The fact that G'd "passed over" the houses of the Israelites which was a major element of the redemption. This "leap-frogging" severed Israel's previous dependence on the Egyptians which had appeared as incapable of separation. I have explained the nature of the good being inextricably intertwined with the evil in my commentary on Exodus 11,5. Redemption meant the tearing asunder of these bonds between good and evil. These three phenomena had to be experienced simultaneously otherwise the whole redemption would not have been possible. If a single element had been lacking the other two would not even have been miraculous at all by themselves. Without the exile experience no other refining process could have been effective and could have borne fruit. We have explained in our commentary on Genesis 46,3 how the descent into the immoral environment of Egypt was a necessary prelude to "rescuing" the souls that had been taken captive by the forces of the קליפה at the time Adam had eaten from the tree of knowledge. This is also the mystical dimension of Kohelet 8,9: "there is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment." Had the Exodus not occurred as abruptly as it did, the Israelites might well have returned to Egypt to become ever more deeply mired in that moral morass. This idea is best expressed by the author of the Haggadah shel Pessach who claims that: "if G'd had not taken us out of there (at the time), then both we and our forefathers would have remained subservient to Pharaoh in Egypt." This is what the Torah means in 12,39 when it testifies that "they could not tarry any longer." The principal element of the redemption was the פסיחה, "the skipping over." Hillel (Pessachim 115) symbolised the importance of the simultaneous occurrence of these three elements when he insisted that we must consume the meat, the bitter herbs and the unleavened bread as a single "sandwich."

ולא יהיה בכם נגף למשחית, "so there will be no plague against you to destroy, etc." What is meant is that the destructive force (angel of death) will have no excuse to attack you rather than his other natural targets; he will notice the blood on the doorposts of your homes as if it were the seal of the Almighty and be afraid to approach and inflict harm. This was the reason G'd commanded the Israelites to use the blood as a sign. Should you say that in that case any Egyptian hiding out in the house of an Israelite which bore the sign of that blood could escape the plague, the Torah wrote בכם, the restrictions on the angel of death applied only "to you." The "light" of having performed the commandment illuminated only Israel; we find confirmation of this in Isaiah 60,2: ועליך יזרח ה וכבודו עליך יראה, "but upon you the Lord will shine and His Presence will be seen over you."

חקת עולם תחגהו, "you will celebrate it as an everlasting statute." Why did the Torah not only use the expression לדורותיכם, "for your generations" which it uses normally? While it is true that the Mechilta states that the word "your generations" would imply only the minimum, i.e. two generations, and the expression חקת עולם means forever, it is still peculiar that the Torah had to use both expressions. The reason is connected to the discussion in Berachot 12 about the verse "in order that you remember the day you came out of Egypt for all the days of your life (including messianic times)." The opposing interpretation of that verse claims that the words "all the days of your life" mean "the whole days of your life" i.e. including the nights (Deut. 17,3). If the Torah had only used the words חקות עולם, I might have concluded that this day is to be observed only during periods when the Jewish people are free and independent; when they are in exile, however, I could argue that there would be no occasion to especially mark that date, therefore the Torah had to add the word לדורותיכם to tell us that the Passover rites are to be observed not only when we are free and independent but even when we are in exile. It is a statute, חוקה, and does not depend on our circumstances.

שבעת ימים מצות תאכלו, "You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days, etc." This is connected to the fact that the Israelites' dough did not rise due to the suddenness of the redemption. You may well ask how the Torah could legislate (verse 14) a memorial for something that had not even taken place yet? After all, the dough did not rise because of the constant motion of the people carrying it on their backs, something that occurred on the morrow! They had not even slaughtered the Passover lamb yet and already the Torah speaks of an annual memorial to something that had not happened as yet! The whole Exodus would not occur until after the Israelites had slaughtered the Passover and eaten it with unleavended bread, and had thereby acquired the merit enabling G'd to take them out of Egypt! This is the day which G'd would remember for them in order to take them out, etc.

In support of our contention that the Torah here does not speak of a commandment to eat unleavened bread for seven days, you will note that Pessachim 120 arrives at the conclusion that the mention of "seven days you shall eat unleavened bread" in our verse is not a commandment but a voluntary observance, the commandment to eat unleavened bread applying only on the night the Passover is eaten; the duty to eat unleavened bread became effective only on the evening preceding the Exodus. In later generations, the eating of unleavened bread was not a reminder of a miracle at all. Perhaps the manner in which the Torah reports this legislation is meant to tell us that the eating of unleavened bread on the night of the Passover will be accounted for the people eating it as if they had eaten unleavened bread during all the seven days of that holiday.

G'd commanded two kinds of מקראי קדש, "holy convocations," one on the first day, i.e. the 15th of Nissan and one on the seventh day, i.e. the 21st day of Nissan. The latter "holy convocation" was in respect of the final stage of the redemption, the drowning of the pursuing Egyptians in the sea. There were two separate miracles which needed to be commemorated then.

Another reason accounting for the seven days from the 15th to the 21st of Nissan being considered as a unit, i.e. שבעת ימים instead of שבעה ימים, is because G'd did not formulate the prohibition not to eat leavened bread as an outright commandent, such as "do not eat חמץ." I would have thought that a person who does not eat leavened matter during these days is neither culpable nor has he acquired special merit. The Torah therefore implies that not eating חמץ is equivalent to eating מצה and that such a person has acquired the merit of seven consecutive positive commandments (one for each day he did not eat חמץ.) [I believe the author refers to the fact that the prohibition of eating leavened matter in verse 19 is phrased impersonally, i.e. "anyone who eats leavened matter will be cut off from his people," whereas the repetition in verse 20 which addresses itself directly to the people makes no mention of seven days. If this is not the correct interpretation we must assume an uncorrected error in all the earlier manuscripts. Somewhat remarkably, the author does not comment on either verse 19 or verse 20 in this chapter. Ed.]

The reason the Torah already mentioned seven days here is that the Israelites should be occupied with the performance of מצות right until the moment on the seventh day when the last stage of the redemption would be completed after G'd had displayed even greater miracles than previously.

There is another mystical reason for the number seven, the root of the souls of the Jewish people being equated with שבעה עינים, as we know from Zachariah 3,9, and the community of Israel is therefore frequently referred to as בת שבעה, "the seven-fold one," compare Zohar volume 3 page 6). [According to Rabbi Moshe Cordovero in his פרדס רמונים the expression שבעת ימים is a reference to the emanation בינה which presides over the 6 days preceding it, i.e. which are subordinate to it. Ed.]

ושמרתם את המצות, "You shall guard the unleavened breads, etc." G'd told us that just as He had carefully guarded that date and had not redeemed us a single day later than the timetable He had planned, so we should be careful not to allow the dough for the unleavened bread to remain inactive a minute too long ; otherwise it might begin to rise.

The Torah added: "you shall observe this day" to teach that not only must we be very careful in the preparation of the unleavened bread, but we must also be very careful with our calendar calculations so as not to observe the Passover on the wrong day of the month. We cannot substitute a different day for celebrating this holiday. The reason is that what occurred happened בעצם i.e. this word is to be read in both directions. The careful watch over the dough and the careful observance of the correct date are both because of what occurred on that very day. We are to emulate what G'd did at that time to the best of our ability.