ב"ה

The Haggadah You Haven’t Heard Before Seder Prep & Pesach Insights 

jrosenfeld@lss.org  

 ­ RaAYa”H Kook Olat RaAYa”h, vol. 2, p. 245 

 ­ Introduction to Haggadah Helkat Yehoshua 

 ­ Introduction to Haggadah Marc­Alain Ouaknin 

 

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 קדש1. Otsar Mefarshei ha-Haggadah [Mechon Yerushalayim: 2008]; p. 75 n. 8

 Some say that the sign ‘Kadesh’ includes in it the Mitzvah of the four cups of wine, especially for

those Posekim who hold that we only make a blessing on the first cup...

 2. R. Shmuel Borenstein of Sochatchov, Haggadah Shem mi-Shmuel; p. 38

 It seems that it would have been correct to have written rechatz u’kadesh… but my holy father

said that because of the fact that at the time of the Exodus there was still a redemption despite

the fact that they weren’t fitting for it… therefore on Passover too, there is a spiritual

atmosphere where one may receive holiness even if they are not technically deserving of it...  

3. R. Yehoshua Yehiel of Biala, Haggadah Helkat Yehoshua; sec. 2, p. 1

 

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This is to hint that even those things that are considered ‘holy’ need to be cleansed and checked

through and through to ensure they have been done properly. Or, one might say that we should

wash and purify even the holy things in our lives to make sure to do them without any ulterior

motives…

4. R. Shlomo ha-Kohen Rabinowicz of Radomsk, in: Haggadah Be’er ha-Hasidut; p. 33

 Anyone who says ‘vayekhulu’... is forgiven for all their sins. This is because ‘vayekhulu’ is a

testimony to the creation of the world, and therefore one must be; needs to be Kosher for

testimony. If that is so, then if the person has violated a sin, God forbid, they would be

disqualified from testifying. Therefore, one’s sins are thereupon forgiven so that they can be

qualified to give true testimony.  

5. R. Menachem Nahum Twersky of Chernobyl: ibid, p. 40

 ‘Who has brought us to this time’: In the month of Nisan we were redeemed, and in the month

of Nisan we will be redeemed. For there are two types of exile: there is a type of general exile,

and that is the exile of the Jewish people amongst all the nations, and then there is a private

exile, which is to be found [in different degrees] in each Jewish individual, that the soul is in exile

due to the evil inclination;

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and therefore we have a great rule that in all times that the calendar returns to this time in

perpetuity, when that appointed time comes, we return back to that state in which we were in

at the first time - and that is why we bless: ‘...that you have brought us to this time’ 1

6. R. Avraham Yitzhak ha-Kohen Kook, Haggadah Olat RaAYa”H; p. 254 in: R. Bezalel Naor, Haggadah Springtime of the World [Orot: 2004]; pp. 18-19

 

 

 ורחץ 

7. Haggadah Leil Shimurim Ohr Chadash v’Biur ha-Gra; p. 8

 Wash your hands and don’t make a blessing. And according to the [Vilna] Gaon z”l, one needs to

make a blessing, and so was his custom.

8. Haggadah Ki Yish’alcha  הנצי"ב מוולוז'ין: בלילה זה עושים זכר לקרבן הפסח, שהיה בזמן המקדש. משתדלים לעשות זכר לכל

 כדי להרגיל עצמנו, שכשבית המקדש ייבנה ­ שנהיה רגיליםמנהג, כולל נטילת ידים לאכילה בטהרה לאכול מהטהרות לאחר נטילת ידים.

 

  דהיינו כמו אצל זוג שחוזר תמיד למועד נישואיהן, אז ניצר שוב הקירבה ואהבה שהתעוררה בזמן ההוא. היינו ג"כ ענין היום1 הולדת ויומא דהילולא, שאז חוזרין אל זמנים של ראשית, קדושה וטהרה, ואחרית לעומת זה עם מחילת עוונות, כפרה ומירוק

  נשמה. הרבי מדבר כאן אודות כח הראשית הזה, וגם לכאו' מסמל לנו את קביעות הזמנים המקודשות כנגד שיטת הזמן כמו איזה זרם בלתי נפסקת. כמו"כ לעומ"ז ראינו אצל ההוגה הגרמני ניטצ'ה ענ' זמן החוזרת על עצמה והאים היינו רוצים לחוות אותה שוב,

  ETERNAL RETURN ובזה נדע אם הקדשנו וקבענו מספיק המועד הזאת.

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The Netziv of Volozhin: on this night we perform a remembrance of the Paschal offering that

was in the Temple. We try to re-enact every aspect of that ritual, including the washing of hands

for purification purposes, in order to train ourselves for the time when the Temple will be rebuilt,

so that we can actually eat the offering in ritual purity.  

 כרפס 

 יחץ 

9. R. Shmuel Borenstein of Sochatchov, Haggadah Shem mi-Shmuel; p. 42

 Yahatz: Our Rabbis said - the bread of poverty/affliction; just as a poor person eats but a mere

slice of bread, meaning that the poor person is missing something, and waits for someone or

something to complete them. And God almighty, His way is to work through ‘broken vessels’ - to

listen to the downtrodden and then awaits the time in which they will be completed after their

sufferings have passed.

And this is a general rule for all those who raise their eyes to the heavens and await God to

‘complete’ their needs, and so it was with the Jewish people in Egypt, in that they had no

natural path towards redemption/saving, and they could only look to heaven for it.

It is in this vein that we symbolize with the piece(s) of Matzah, that we too are incomplete and

that our eyes are trained on God, until He finds favor with us and ‘completes’ us…

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 מגיד 

10. R. Moshe Wolfson, Emunas Itecha; vol. 3, p. 9

 

11. Haggadah Otsar Mefarshei ha-Haggadah, p. 78 n. 22  כל דכפין ייתי וייכול: בסידור יעב"ץ, קול יהודה, חמדת ישראל (מגדל עדר) כתבו שמוסב אף על עניי

 עכו"ם עפ"י מש"כ (גיטין סא א) "מפרנסין עניי עכו"ם עם עניי ישראל מפני דרכי השלום".

12. R. Aryeh Tzvi Frommer of Kozhaglov, Eretz Tzvi; vol. 2, pp. 40-41

 

 And it is a little difficult: seemingly, we could have written simply ‘yetziat Mitzrayim’ without the

‘be’... The reason that on Pesach we need to extend our speaking of the miracles is because

during the rest of the year, we simply have to remind ourselves of the Exodus, by way of

memory - recalling something which is not ‘now’/present… But tonight, the matter of the

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Exodus resurges within the hearts of all Jewish people, as if it is actually occurring now and that

is the explanation - [it is as if we are speaking of the Exodus while in Egypt itself]  

13. R. Hayyim Teitelbaum of Sighet, Atzei Hayyim; vol. 2, p. 337

 ...the explanation is that God praises Israel and Israel praises its master… that is why in the holy

Torah, it is written “Hag ha-Matzot”, a praise of Israel. And yet we call it “Hag ha-Pesah”, in

praise of God. And all this is in the manner of that which is written: “when I am to my beloved,

then my beloved is to me”

14. Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Haggadah: The Passover Story; pp. 87-90

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15. R. Shraga Yair of Biala, Aron ‘Edut; vol. 2, pp. 120-125 a.

“The healer of the brokenhearted, and the one who bandages their sadness”: it seems we can explain this in the sense that God is a healer especially for those who are brokenhearted

through the trait of humility - to these, God sends healing for all their ailments…

This is the explanation: “Mah/What”, meaning to say, it is through the trait of ‘what-ness’, which is humility, that this night becomes different than all other nights. Through this a

person is healed of all their pains and blemishes. This is why we find in the holy Zohar that Matzah is called ‘the bread of healing’, because on the night of Pesach we approach the trait

of humility, as we have explained - this is why through the eating of Matzah, healing can come to every person. Also, MaTZa”H is the numerical equivalent of the word Ma”H three times. 2

  כמובן, יש כאן הקשר לשלושת הבנים ששואלים לנו השאלות ובכך מראה את הנגיעות של כל אחד ואחד. ע"כ יש לנו מצה אחד2  ששייכת לכל אחת מהם לרפא את מכאובם. שלושת שאתלם מתחילות במילה "מה".

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b.

However, it is known that the righteous - because of their great spiritual level - were able to transport the past into the present. Because they are considered an aspect of being ‘higher than the temporal’. And so, these tzadikim who were sitting here [B’nei Brak], were able to

transcend time itself, by virtue of their great holiness. This is how they were able to draw forth the very night of the Exodus, the immense revelation of Godliness, the luminous power of

clarity present at that time.

Thus, we can unpack the language of ‘all that very night’, which hints to the selfsame night of the Exodus, and it was through this theurgical narrative that they wanted to bring about the

future redemption.

We can also answer yet another question; seemingly the language of ‘until their students came and said - it is now time for the morning Shem’a’ is difficult - did these [Rabbis] really

not know that it was time to read the Shem’a and to accept the yoke of heaven?

[ctn’d from below] However, based on what we have already explained, we might suggest that because these

[Rabbis] had drawn forth the time of the Exodus/redemption from Egypt, and drawn close the time of the final redemption - but it was not yet the time for that final redemption, as the time was not fitting for it, because God’s mercy indicated that the final redemption should be

delayed so that no person who had felt ‘pushed away’ would be left out. And this is what their students meant by ‘it is time for the morning Shem’a’: “we are still

within the confines of temporality, and we have yet to attain your spiritual level”, wherein these [Rabbis] could enmesh the past within the present, and correspondingly, they did not

have a ‘time’ within which to recite the Shem’a, for they had transcended time...

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∾

In the Haggadah, the wicked son is directly juxtaposed with the wise son. This is to teach us that if a person chooses the path of wisdom and investigation, it is quite easy for them to veer

from that good path and to fall into wickedness, God forbid…

The meaning behind this is that the word ‘Af/but’ hints to ‘anger’ and ‘incensed’, God save us, to teach that the wicked son causes great anger with his questions; but it is also the wise

son, who sometimes desires to ask and display great insight, can also fall into the pit of doubts, God forbid.

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16. R. Avraham Aharon Friedman, Haggadah Beit Avraham-Beit Aharon

a. Facsimile of Frontispiece

b. D’var Aharon, 37b (inset footnote from my notes)

‘From the beginning’: this means, from the very beginnings of us as a nation and even prior to that… ‘Our forefathers were idolaters’: meaning, this was the reason for the exile in Egypt, for

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one might easily ask - wouldn’t it just have been better to never go to Egypt at all [to sink to those levels of sin], what did we actually gain by it? On this we might answer that for sure we gained much by the experience, because at the outset, our ancestors were idolaters, and now

God has brought us to His service, and for this we were enslaved in Egypt, so that the matter of idolatry that was ingrained in us from our parents would be shed and stay with Egypt…

through this process we would become fit for service of God. 3

c. D’var Aharon, 44a

“And thereafter they left with great wealth”: meaning, after the 400 years. This seems to indicate that the time for payment had not yet came about, because they were leaving early; perhaps this is what lies behind the strange language of “speak to that nation and borrow”,

that [Moshe] commanded us to take the wealth of the Egyptians in the manner of a borrowing, until the time for the [ultimate] repayment will arrive…

d. Pe’er Aharon, 49b

e. Agudat Ezov, 51a

  היינו צריכים לכאו' לראות עד היכן מוציא את האדם מטבעו ומקלקל את השורה, מחריבה עד שהאומה הכי חזקה בזמנים ההם3 ­ היינו מצרים ­ עע"ז מדוגלים, והצ'יביליזצ'יה שלהם היתה כזאת עם עבדות, עבודת פרך, הריגת תינוקים, וכן היינו צריכים לדעת

 שזוהי הדרך והתכלית של חברה הבניוה ושקועה בזוהמת ע"ז. ובדיוק בשביל זה אנו היינו צריכים עבודה אחרת, פרדיג'מה  אחרת איך להתנהל את החיים.

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17. R. Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, Sfat Emet al ha-Torah; Shemot 1878

This is exactly what is meant by the comparison of the Children of Israel [with the stars] now that they were within the exile of Egypt, because Israel’s souls are derived from high above nature and devolve into it, to light up within the darkness like stars… similarly, each star is

greater than the entire world… so too, the Children of Israel are considered to be meritorious for all and beneficial for all like the stars; Our descent into this world, all the more so in exile, is only to be a benefit for all of it, to rectify the shattered worlds that we draw together to the

source of unity. 4

“In a fiery glow from within the thornbush”, in the Midrash: “I am asleep but my heart is awake”, this means that God showed Moshe this great vision from within the very exile itself. 5

And thus the question of why the thornbush itself is not consumed, with the force of this burning - how does the shell, that which darkens these lights endure? However, in truth, this

is what God desired - to show us that on the contrary, according to the depth of the

  ע"ע מש"כ על זה הר"ר שי הלד שליט"א במאמרו על חנוכה, ה'תשע"ה4   ע"ע מאמרו של דר. ELLIOT WOLFSON, "סבלו של המקום", בתוך: SUFFERING RELIGION, עמ' 5.104

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darkness and the exile is the hidden great light within it - and that is the concept of redemption...

 

18. R. Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin, Haggadah Rabbeinu Tzadok ha-Kohen; vol. 2, pp. 102-3

 

 ...and we don't ask about these questions about the rest of the Mitzvot that we do at special

occasions, like sitting in the Sukkah or waving the Lulav, etc. For all the Mitzvot are those of the

Torah which was received at Sinai and thus we were commanded to follow the 613 Mitzvot, and

there is no reason to ask about them, but the Mitzvot tonight were connected to things which

predated the giving of the Torah, and without the preparation and acceptance that was for all

other Mitzvot of ‘Na’aseh v’Nishma’; these Mitzvot [tonight] are of darkness, in that the people

were still mired in the depths of darkness of Egypt until the King of all Kings revealed Himself

with great light…

19. R. Kalonymos Kalmish Shapiro of Piacezno HY”D, Aish Kodesh; p. 150

 ...but the wicked son, who has removed himself from the group, [reveals] that his essence is not

that of the Jewish people, but rather his essence is himself only; then he has rejected the main

thing [=heresy], in that the main thing is the Jewish people. 6

 

20. R. Avraham Yitzhak ha-Kohen Kook, Haggadah Olat RaAYa”H; p. 275

 He would say, that the [the wicked son’s] removal of himself from the holiness of the Jewish

people, is itself what creates the heresy, because the holy faith of the Torah and Mitzvot is

  השווה מש"כ הראי"ה לקמן, וכן מרגליא בפומי' דרב יעקב עמיטל שההדרגה האמיתית הוא "עם ישראל, תורת ישראל, ארץ6 ישראל"

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intimately/intrinsically connected with and stands upon its (relevance?) relation to the entire

Jewish people.  

21. R. Shalom Noah Berezovsky, Netivot Shalom; Moadim, p. 254-255

 According to 4 sons, which means that there are words of strength and hope in the service of God for each person, wherever they may be, so that in all spiritual situations a person might

be able to gain strength, for they are always considered children to God.

The wicked son asks: ‘what is this work to you’... are we really dealing here with a wicked person? Rather, he is nevertheless a servant of God, but because of all his failures, every time he tries to return and he falls again he reaches the point of despair. Therefore, he asks: ‘what

is this work for you’ - and not for him; you - who has merited to succeed and have divine guidance and inspiration, and not him - wracked by failures, wrought by the evil inclination

that burns within him, how can he possibly serve God?

To him, the answer would be that if he were there, he would not have been redeemed, meaning, we too were stuck and mired in the 49 gates of impurity that was Egypt, and only

due to the strength of our convictions - that we did not give up hope for the redemption of our souls and our bodies - did we get here, and [with your despair] you would not have made it. Or you might say, that we are not dealing with wicked people who deny the existence

and dont have faith in God, but with one who denies and does not have faith in the hidden power within the souls of the Jewish people.

The heart of the matter is that on Pesach… all people experience an uplift, even a wicked

person is uplifted on this night, and that which we said ‘if he were there he wouldn’t have been redeemed’ is to say that this was before the giving of the Torah, but now, one we have the

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Torah, we are all called ‘children of God’ [and no one would be left behind]... and this is the answer we give to the wicked son - connect to the Jewish people, and thus be saved.

 

22. R. Ya’akov Moshe Harlap, Mei Marom; vol. 9, pp. 51-52

 

 

 

 

  

 מוציא מצה 

23. Haggadah Otsar Mefarshei ha-Haggadah, p. 78 n. 23  וכתב הר"י אלאחדב "כמו שהיינו כולנו שוים בשעבוד ולא היה לנו כלום, כך גם בזה הלחם שהוא זכר

  לללם ההוא נהיה הכל שוין וכל משירצה יבוא ויאכל"

...just as we were all equals during the enslavement and had nothing, so too with this bread, which is a symbol and remembrance of that bread, we will all be as equals and all who want

to eat may join in with us.

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24. R. Shlomo ha-Kohen Rabinowicz of Radomsk, Tif’eret Shlomo; vol. 2, p. 257  7

 "In the evening (= ‘erev) you shall eat Matzah”: this is a language of sweetness and

pleasantness (= ‘areivut) , as it is written: “please make pleasant the words of Torah in our 8

mouths…” so that the Mitzvah of eating Matzah should be sweet to the palate and pleasing to the soul [soul-food]...

 

  מרור25. R. Herschel Schachter, Ikve ha-Tzon; p. 77

  

  ע"ע מש"כ בזוה"ק דמצה מקרי' מיכלא דמיהמנותא (כמו שמובא באמונת עתיך עיי"ש)7  וכמובן נכלל בזה ענין הערבות במצוות, כל ישראל ערבים זל"ז ­ שנוצר ענ' הוצאת אחרים במצוות מפאת היותנו לעם ביצא"מ8

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