More Than Just a Line in Our Prayers: Remembering the Exodus by Gidon Rothstein
January 13, 2010 by Gidon Rothstein
Filed under Holidays, New Posts, Tanach
In the context of my Mission of Orthodoxy project, I recently noted that Orthodox Jewish men are required to twice daily recall the Exodus from Egypt. While Rambam does not count this as a separate mitzvah, he does include it as part of the structure of the Shema that obligates us morning and evening.[1] We might think of that obligation as a throwaway, a line of prayer like so many others, but several sources suggest it behooves us to pay greater attention.
Toying With the Egyptians, Central to Our Family Legacy
First, we should note that there are two Torah verses relevant to this obligation, each of which bears further consideration. In Shemot (10;1-2), during the Exodus itself, Hashem tells Moshe that He has hardened Paroh’s heart so as to be able to administer the various plagues, in turn meant for us to be able to tell our children and grandchildren how God toyed with the Egyptians and the various signs placed upon them, and then know that God is God.
That itself is a mouthful, in several ways. God seems to be placing stock in the process of the Exodus as vital to how Jews construct their sense of selves. It would seem to be insufficient to acknowledge only that there was an Exodus, we would seem to have to acknowledge the plagues and signs as well, and transmit that knowledge to our children and grandchildren.
The issue of transmission to a third generation is one I believe should be highlighted. On only two occasions does the Torah mention that we are supposed to interact with our grandchildren in a certain way, here and in the reference to remembering מעמד הר סיני, the Giving of the Torah at Sinai. We can leave that second one for another time, but the examples suggest that the barest essentials of our national historical memory should be a family tradition passed down unbroken through the generations.
Ramban, in his commentary on a verse regarding tefillin, tells us why. He says that God will not perform a sign or a wonder in every generation or for every evildoer or heretic—I am struck by this in particular because it is a repeat theme of many high school students with whom I have had honest conversations in the past, ‘if God did a miracle now, I could believe’—but that, instead, God tasked us with remembering the events in Egypt.
According to Ramban, that is the reason eating חמץ, leavened bread, incurs excision, because it implies a forgetting of the events in Egypt. It is for that reason that we are supposed to wear tefillin, to remember the miracles and wonders of Egypt, and it is for that reason that we verbally articulate our memory of those events every day.
All the Days of Your Life and the Exemption of an Onen From Shema and Tefillin
That we are supposed to do it every day comes from a second verse in the Torah, Devarim 16;3. In describing the offering of the Paschal sacrifice, the Torah tells us not to eat leavened bread for seven days afterwards (a reaction to the sacrifice itself, a topic of its own), so that we should remember the day we left Egypt all the days of our lives.
I note that we assume, and have for hundreds of years, that remembering that day means saying that we left Egypt, but Torah Temimah cites a Yerushalmi in Berachot (3;1) that takes it in a different direction. According to the Yerushalmi, the reference to “all the days of your lives” means that we are only obligated in this mitzvah at times when we are involved in life, exempting those who have the status of onen, being involved in burying a deceased relative. Surprisingly, though, the Yerushalmi uses it to prove that the person is exempt from reciting Shema and wearing tefillin.
This is surprising in two ways, both noted and explained by Torah Temimah. First, an onen is exempt from all mitsvot, not just those two. Torah Temimah suggests that the importance of these mitsvot might have led us to think that we could not exempt an onen from them. Second, this is not the technical source, even for the Yerushalmi, since the real reason for the exemption is that the person is too heavily involved in the matters related to the relative to be able to give attention to anything else. Nonetheless, Torah Temimah argues, the Yerushalmi saw value in offering this quasi-textual support.
More striking to me is that the Yerushalmi used a verse that we tend to think means only reciting the words at the end of the 3rd paragraph of Shema (I am the Lord your God Who took you out of the Land of Egypt…) and applied it to the Shema broadly and to the wearing of tefillin. This offers some reason why Rambam would have gone out of his way to point out that remembering the Exodus daily is a part of Shema and also supports Ramban’s claim that the Exodus and its memory is not a discrete memory so much as a recurrent underlying part of many of our daily Jewish experiences.
The Belief is in the Details
If so, it would seem that we would be better off going into greater daily detail than just the bare fact of the Exodus, and indeed three significant sources suggest it is so. First, in his Haggadah, R. Shimon b. Zemach Duran (late 14th, early 15th century Spain and North Africa, forced to flee the riots of 1391 and move to Algiers) says that whoever speaks at length about the events of the Exodus at any time in the year is praiseworthy.
More significantly, R. Ovadya Yosef[2] assumes that the ideal fulfillment of this obligation includes at least also mentioning the killing of the Egyptian first-born and the splitting of the Sea. This latter inclusion assumes not only that we should go into the Exodus in detail, at least ideally, but that we should go beyond the scope of the event of leaving Egypt, at least extending to when we were finally free of worry about the Egyptians.
Once we mentioned the splitting of the Sea, let me note an anomaly that, to me, debunks some of the most insistently rationalistic readings of Rambam’s writings. In the commentary on Avot, where the Mishnah mentions there were ten miracles in Egypt and ten at the Sea, Rambam chooses to expound on the ten at the Sea at length. I say “chooses,” because Rambam opened his commentary to that tractate by announcing that he would not insist on interpreting every Mishnah, but would stick only to those that taught matters of belief or character. If so, he had no need to simply recount Midrashic sources about the splitting of the Sea, unless he thought they fostered matters of right thinking or character.
Not only that, he expounds at greater length on this idea than in all but two or three other places in the tractate as a whole. Worse for the arch-rationalists, he chooses a decidedly miraculous version for those miracles. Even though tradition offered some less blatantly unnatural miracles for the list, Rambam goes whole hog, for example assuming that the water did not only rise and arch over the Jews as they passed through, but that it in fact formed a roof at 90 degree angles to the walls. Rambam does not tell us why he is doing this, but my personal guess is that he thought it worthwhile noting that part of Jewish faith is the presence of miracles on at least some occasions in history, the Exodus and its aftermath being a prime example of that.
All of this, to me, points to our daily reminder of the Exodus as situated more centrally to a Jewish worldview than we sometimes realize. We aren’t only saying daily that God took us out of Egypt, we are daily saying that we recognize that our belief system, our way of life, and our adherence to the set of rules and customs we call Judaism are predicated in a view of human history in which there is a God Who rules the course of that history, and Who is able and sometimes willing (the frequency of ‘sometimes’ depending on one’s view of Providence) to radically intervene in the course of that history and in the course of Nature. Without those beliefs, we daily remind ourselves, we aren’t really Jews at all.
The Connection Between Pesach Night and the Rest of the Year
If I may offer one last speculation, this view of our daily reminders of the Exodus suggests an answer to a question R. Menashe Klein discussed in correspondence with R. Ovadya Yosef.[3] They were struggling with why it is that we do not make a ברכה, a blessing, on the mitzvah of reciting the Exodus on the first night of Passover. R. Ovadya had mentioned and rejected the answer of Responsa Chessed le-Avraham, that the mitzvah of reciting the Exodus is subordinate to the mitzvah of eating matsah that night, and we therefore make the blessing on the central mitzvah, the eating of matsah.[4]
R. Klein tries to revive the idea, and readers can consult his letter to see if they are convinced. The basic idea, that we only make the blessing on the central mitzvah not the subordinate or preparatory one, allows us to suggest that the mitzvah of sippur, of fully telling the story on Pesach night, is in fact subordinate or preparatory to the mitzvah of zechirah, of remembering it daily. On that mitzvah, we do make a berachah, the ones before and after Shema (since, as we’ve seen, zechirah became part of the mitzvah of Shema).
That would mean that we tell the story Pesach night in as full detail as possible, to imprint as much of the story as we can on our memories, so that, throughout the year, our brief reference to the Exodus will bring alive for us, as much as possible, our lived history, our lived experience of the God Who redeemed us then, many times since, and continues to redeem us in our times, and hopefully will bring us the full and final redemption, speedily in our days.
[1] הלכות ק”ש א:ג.
[2] Yabia Omer 2, Orah Hayyim 6;11.
[3] שו”ת משנה הלכות י”ג:ס”ח.
[4] I would note that the connection between the telling of the story and the eating of the matsah explains another well-known question, the source of women’s obligation to tell the story that night. I would suggest that since they are obligated in eating matsah, and the eating of the matsah is clearly attached to the recitation of the story, they are obligated in reciting the story as well.
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Rabbi Rothstein: As usual a thoughtful article. But I was not aware of the fact that it is Orthodox Jewish men who are required to recall twice daily the Exodus from Egypt. I thought that ALL Jewish men had that obligation. What next? Only Orthodox Jewish men are required to sit in a sukkah, to hear shofar? Only Orthodox Jews are required to keep the Sabbath, to keep kosher, not to speak lashon ha-ra?!
Completely my mistake. In couching the Mission of Orthodoxy project at the Webyeshiva blog, I have refrained, mostly, from making claims about Judaism, since other denominations reject too many of my assumptions to even be able to make any assertions. The goal of that project is to show that there are things that all Orthodox Jews should have to focus on, even though we often forget that that is so (I’d love to hear reflections and comments on my ideas there). In any case, since I was making reference to that project, I let the word Orthodox slip in where it shouldn’t. Of course I believe that all Jewish men are required to remember the Exodus twice daily, although I suspect that non-Orthodox Jewish men often disagree. Thanks for reading so carefully and for catching the slip; it’s a pleasure to know someone’s paying close attention.
Rabbi Rothstein: Thank you for your dignified response for my twitting you for your slip.
Re the substance of you remarks: It seems to me that according to the Rambam, for whom the mitzvah of sippur yetziat mitzrayyim on Pesach night does NOT include mentioning the splitting of the sea, but only the events that occured on the night of the 15th– which is why his haggdah does not include Rabbi Yose Ha-Galile and Dayyenu –, then a fortiori the mitzvah of zekher yetziat mitzrayyim all year long would not include mentioning the splitting of the sea.
I have more comments, but Shabbat is closing in.
About the splitting of the sea, you might be right, although it’s also possible Rambam just hadn’t thought of including that in the Haggadah (meaning: do we know he knew of haggadot that had that part in it, and he took it out, or had it not developed yet)? If Rambam consciously chose to leave it out, you’d obviously be right. But I was citing R. Ovadya Yosef, so I guess I was relying on his well-founded intuition about the thrust of the assumptions in our times. Again, so nice to have someone interested in what I have to say.
Rabbi Rothstein: I was careful not to take issue with Rav Yosef, but just cited the Rambam’s view and what I understand to be its implication. In my reading of the Rambam, I am, of course, following Rav Soloveithik. The main proof for the Rav’s reading of the Ramam is his formulation in Hilkhot Hamtz u-Matzah 7:1. The Rav’s intuition, needless to say, is also pretty well founded.
I want to comment on another point, and, God willing, will do so tomorrow.
Rabbi Brody; Maybe YOU are satisfied when posts have no or hardly any comments, as you stated a while ago, but Rabbi Rothsteins’ remarks should indicate that authors actually like some feedback!
Rabbi Rothstein: I am not sure if I agree with your, to be sure tentative, suggestions that 1) “we would be bettet off in going into greater daily detail than just the bare fact of the exodus; and 2) that “the mitzvah of sippur … on Pesach night is just preparatory to the mitzvah of zechirah … daily.” The mitvah of sippur on Pesach night is an independent mitzvah. On that night we focus on the Exodus and God’s redemption of us in history. But the mitzvah of zechirah daily is, for the Rambam, a part of Keriat Shema. The first paragraph, for the Rambam, speaks of the rational commandments of the Love of God. His Oneness, and His study, i.e. the God of reason. The second paragraph speaks of the other mitzvot, that is, the God of revelation, of Law. The third paragraph speaks of the exodus, that,is, the God of history. To focus and expand on the Exodus daily might destroy, in my view, the delicate balance between these three paragraphs, that is, these three different aspects of God and our relationship to Him.
Professor Kaplan: I certainly understand your view, but I don’t know why mine runs the risk you see. While the commandment on Pesach night is separate (as witness that women are obligated in that one and not the daily one), that doesn’t have to mean that it is not considered supportive of the daily one, much as there is a separate mitsvah to separate terumah, even though it has to be given as well (the example R. Menashe Klein offers). Here, too, I was suggesting that one of the purposes of the separate mitsvah on Seder night was to improve the recall during the year. As for the worry about Keriyat Shema, I don’t see why more detail about the God of history should get in the way of the others. We don’t, e.g., seem to care that the 2nd paragraph is longer than the other two, and, besides, we would only be mentioning the details that Hazal inserted in the bracha after the Shema. Or, if we would say stuff on our own (not during Shema itself, as that would be a hefsek), that would at least have the support of Tashbetz, who said the more we say all throughout the year, is meshubach.
Rabbi Rothstein,
Enjoyed your article.
I would add – the “mi chamocha” strikes me as somewhat out of place in the tefilla. the bracha of geula following the shema is an elaboration of the mitzvah of mere mention of the exodus – elaborating on the nature of the G-d of history, including the plagues and the details.
and it includes the splitting of the sea. but that is all what He does. we finish with what we do in response – shira al hayam.
why do we include in tefilla what we do (or did) in the midst of what He does?
maybe there is a pattern of He and response by We. in the second bracha of shema, we talk of He as Giver of the Torah – to which We respond by shema and acceptance of Him and His Torah. Who He is and What He Does must not sit in the air, we must respond ourselves to His imperatives.
Then we speak of Him as G-d of History – to which again We respond with appreciation. the G-d of history also cannot just hang in the air, but must be responded to by us with song.
Hence the Tefilla is description of Him along with appropriate responses of us.
Thanks for this thoughtful article and in particular the interesting mekorot.
Reuven, it may be more straightforward. You could say that we are humble and admit that we need templates for praising G-d. First we turn to the ophanim and hayot haqodesh to learn how they pray, for they are near to G-d and would know what to say; later we turn to the Israelites at the sea to learn how they pray, for they experienced a great redemption and would know what to say. after all we are just plain folk looking for the best models to emulate so we may utter proper and effective prayers.