(c) Dovid Sears
By Rav Itamar Eldar
Translated by David Strauss
(By permission of Etzion.org)
The matzot that
we eat on the night of the Seder serve as a reminder
of Israel's hasty exodus from Egypt. The haste of Israel's
exodus from Egypt was twofold.
The
first haste was on the fifteenth of Nisan when in a single moment the Egyptians
drove the Israelites out of the country. As Scripture states:
And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they
brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened: because they were driven
out of Egypt, and could not delay, neither had they prepared for
themselves any provision. (Shemot 12:39)
The
second haste we find in the words of Moshe and Aharon, on the eve of Rosh
Chodesh Nisan, when they commanded the Israelites to prepare themselves to
bring the paschal offering and eat it with matza and maror:
And thus you shall eat it; with your loins girded, your
shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste;
it is the Lord's passover. (Shemot 12:11)
This
command implies that the matter of the haste was not only a result of the hasty
expulsion, but the general atmosphere that the people of Israel were themselves
commanded to create – a feeling of urgency and haste.
Chassidic
thought has dealt in length with the matter of haste, and saw it as a sign and
symbol of the mental state that is supposed to accompany the beginning of every
spiritual process. In this lecture we will try to examine the various
approaches to the idea of haste.
THE BEGINNING OF DIVINE SERVICE
R.
Tzadok Hakoken of Lublin opens his book, Tzidkat ha-Tzadik,
with the following:
Man's entry into the service of God must begin with
haste, as we find that the Paschal offering brought in Egypt was eaten in
haste, which was not the case with the Paschal offering brought in later
generations. Because when a person begins to sever himself from all the desires
of this world to which he is attached, he must guard the moment in which the
will of God stirs up within him, and make haste in that moment to leave them,
perhaps he will succeed. Afterwards, he can once again proceed with moderation
and slowness as is the law regarding the Paschal offering brought in later generations.
(Tzidkat ha-Tzadik 1)
R.
Tzadok Hakohen relates to the obligation to eat the Paschal offering in haste
that applied to the first Paschal offering brought in Egypt, but not to
the Paschal offerings brought in later generations. R. Tzadok argues that it is
the beginning of a process that requires haste. The Paschal offering brought
in Egypt was Israel's entranceway into the service of God. From
there it was only a short step to Mount Sinai and the giving of the Torah, and
to all the mitzvot that came in its wake, the opening point
remaining forever the exodus from Egypt. At that point, the beginning of
Divine service, it was necessary to act in haste, rather than in moderation,
the time for which would arrive in the future.
The
words of R. Tzadok seem to be based on a double rationale: "Because when a
person begins to sever himself from all the desires of this world to which he
is attached." The people ofIsrael were sunk in forty-nine gates of
uncleanness, and the two hundred and ten years of slavery had adhered to them.
Custom, habit, and routine are stronger than any change, especially when they
are seductive as they drag a person down. Israel's stay
in Egypt was spent in slavery, but from what the Israelites say
later, we learn about the meat pots that they had enjoyed
in Egypt and the relative "security" in which they had
lived there. In order to liberate them from all this, a clear and drastic step
had to be taken that would leave their seductive routine behind, and allow them
to step forward towards a new future. Had the people of Israel looked
back for a moment as they fled from Pharaoh, in the manner of Lot's wife,
they might have had regrets and returned. Because the exodus took place in
haste, there was no turning back, and the movement was always forward. It was
the haste alone that ensured a total severance from the straits of Egypt.
The
same applies when a person wishes to set out on a spiritual journey in the
service of God, while he is immersed in the desires of this world. Here too we
are dealing with a seductive routine, whose enticements appear at every moment,
and the only way to liberate oneself from them, is by taking a drastic and
decisive step that leaves everything else behind. There is no room here for
gradation, for gradation would allow the gravitational force of matter to drag
a person down to it.[1]
It
seems, however, that R. Tzadok is alluding here to another
rationale that justifies haste: "He must guard the moment in which the
will of God stirs up within him, and make haste in that moment." R. Tzadok
is alluding here that the excitement and aspiration to walk in the path of God
is a Divine gift that can be recalled. We must be careful, asserts R. Tzadok,
about "missing the moment." When excitement stirs up in man, he
should not push off its application, for just as it arrived as a surprise, so
too is it liable to leave him.
Occasionally,
we are caught in the excitement of a new process. This may involve "a
yearning to pray," and then we may say to ourselves: "When we get to
… we will fulfill our desire," "Soon," "We'll just finish
and then," We'll tidy up the house, and then pray." R. Tzadok teaches
us that all such arguments cause us to miss the moment, to forfeit the window
of opportunity that God in His loving-kindness had opened before us.[2]
According
to this, we can attach deeper meaning to the halakhic principle that a blessing
over a mitzva must be recited "immediately prior to its
performance." The problem is not merely a technical problem of an
interruption between the blessing and the act. The blessing is the intention,
the direction, the will, and the conjunction. A delay in the execution of the
act may cause a person to miss the opportunity to direct toward himself the
great light created at the time of the blessing, and for this reason, one must
recite the blessing immediately prior to the mitzva's performance.
It
seems that to these two reasons we may add yet another reason for the need for
haste at the outset of Divine service, as emerges from one of the famous
stories of R. Nachman of Breslov: “The Sophisticate and the Simpleton.”
This
story tells of two childhood friends, each of whom had paved a way of life for
himself, the one in simplicity and the other with sophistication. At a certain
point, the king asked to see them. The king understands that his request to see
these two ordinary citizens is unreasonable, and so he delicately sends a
messenger to each of them, asking him to appear before him. Each of them
responds in his own way:
As soon as the Simpleton got the letter, he said to the
messenger who delivered it, "I don't know what the letter says. Read it
for me."
"I will tell you what it says," replied [the
messenger]. "The king wants you to come to him."
"You're not playing a joke on me," said [the
Simpleton].
"It's absolutely true," answered the
messenger. "I'm not joking at all.
[The Simpleton] was overjoyed. He ran and told his
wife, "My wife! The king has sent for me!"
"Why?" asked the wife. "What reason
could he possibly have to send for you?"
But [the Simpleton] did not have any time to answer. He
joyfully rushed out and immediately left with the messenger. When he got on the
coach, he found the clothing there, and this made him all the more happy. (Sippurei
Ma'asiyot, “The Sophisticate and the Simpleton”)
Upon
receiving the news, the simpleton refused at first to believe; he was
accustomed to the fact that people used to exploit his innocence and toy with
him. But as soon as the messenger said that he was speaking to him in earnest,
he immediately rushed off to go to the king. Even his wife, who wished to
clarify how and why he was going, was unable to stop him. "He joyfully
rushed out and immediately left with the messenger." R. Nachman begins
with "immediately" and ends with "immediately, in order to
emphasize the haste and diligence that accompanied the simpleton's actions.
This was
not the manner of the wise man, who reacted to the messenger as follows:
Meanwhile, when the Sophisticate received his letter
from the king, he replied to the sophisticated messenger who delivered it,
"Wait. Spend the night here. Let us discuss the matter and make up our
minds."
That evening, the Sophisticate made a great feast [for
the messenger]. During the meal, the Sophisticate used his intelligence and
philosophical discipline to analyze the message. He spoke up and said,
"What does this really mean? Why should such a king send for an
insignificant person like me? Who am I that the king should send for me? The
king has his power and prestige. Compared to such a great, awe-inspiring king,
I am lowly and despicable. How can the mind reconcile the fact that such a king
would send for an insignificant person like me. I may be intelligent, but what am
I compared to the king? Doesn't the king have other wise men? Besides, the king
himself is certainly also very wise. For what possible reason could the king
send for me?" He found this all very puzzling.
The Sophisticate, who was the Simpleton's friend,
thought it over in this manner. At first, he was very puzzled and confused, but
soon he thought he had a reasonable answer.
He said to the messenger, "I declare that, in my
opinion, it is absolutely certain and logical that the king does not exist at
all!"
[He explained,] "The entire world is mistaken,
since they foolishly believe that there really is a king. Think it over! How is
it possible that all the people in the world would submit to one man as their
king? Obviously, no such thing as a king exists!"
The
wise man's initial reaction to the messenger was: "Wait. Spend the night
here. Let us discuss the matter and make up our minds." Haste is from the
devil, said the wise man, and I do nothing without first seriously considering
the issue and all the related factors. R. Nachman teaches us that waiting and
deliberation exact a heavy price, and that the wise man's doubts and
uncertainties lead him to deny the very existence of the king. This causes him
to miss the opportunity and decline further from one failure to the next.
The
king, as is usually the case in R. Nachman's stories, is the King, king of
kings, and the king's call to the two people is God's request of those who fear
Him to love, fear and serve Him with a whole heart. The simpleton's haste, and
perhaps we might add, his irresponsible haste, is what brings him in the end to
the king, whereas the wise man's consideration and deliberation bring him to a
blind alley, which according to R. Nachman, is the necessary end of rational
contemplation.
In
some Chassidic courts it was said they said that one should pray quickly, for
when the wagon charges off at a high speed, the bandits do not have time to
climb aboard. Times of waiting invite alien thoughts, and give doubts the
opportunity to penetrate deeply.
It
seems, however, that R. Nachman is trying to teach us here an even more
important principle. There is something strange and unreasonable about God's
request to serve Him, and the manner in which we are asked to draw near to Him.
R. Nachman wishes to argue that if we examine our faith with rational and
intellectual tools, we will perforce arrive at a dead end, and demand
unreasonable understanding. R. Nachman has no answer for the difficult question
raised by the wise man, why would the King, exalted and elevated above all, ask
to see us, and why does He need the service of man, mere flesh and blood. This
question will of necessity bring us eventually to a denial of His very
existence.[3] R. Nachman
asserts that this question has no answer, for illogic is built in to the world
of faith and our understanding of the connection between God and man. Therefore,
the only way to overcome this difficulty is through inadvertence stemming from
haste.
Had the
simpleton answered his wife's question, he may have reached the same
uncertainty as did the wise man. Haste, however, allowed him to proceed down a
road that is unreasonable, illogical and incomprehensible. Only in this way can
we arrive at the exalted and elevated, the road to which passes necessarily
through a nullification of reason and inadvertence.
It is
not very logical to leave the flesh pot, a secure home, and steady income –
with all the difficulties that accompanied them – for the sake of imagined
freedom, and head off toward a sea, that allows for no clear way of crossing,
and toward a great and terrible desert, "in which were venomous serpents,
and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water" (Devarim 8:15). Had
the "steering committee" of Israel convened and deliberated
about Moshe's request, it is highly doubtful whether the decision would have
been taken, based on rational considerations, to respond in the affirmative to
Moshe, and not to wait for a better opportunity. The people of Israel,
however, did not have time to convene such a committee. Everything happened so
fast, everyone was still under the great impression that Moshe and his plagues
had left, and this haste did not allow the people of Israel to think
rationally and responsibly. It stands to reason that it was this
irresponsibility that saved them.[4]
R.
Nachman teaches us that the beginning of God's service requires decisions that
when considered realistically sometimes appear as irresponsible and illogical,
and therefore the only way to make those decisions through strength is through
inadvertence stemming from haste. Great things, R. Nachman teaches us based on
the teachings of Chazal, come through inadvertence, and so too the
redemption of the people of Israel and that of each individual.
HASTE – A MIRACLE FROM GOD
It
seems that R. Natan, disciple of R. Nachman, delves even deeper into the idea
of haste that is joined in an absolute connection to matza. He
writes as follows:
For the matza is on account of their
having left in haste and the dough of our fathers did not have time to become
leavened before the King, king of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed
Himself to them and redeemed them. As it is stated: "And they baked
unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought out of Egypt, for it was
not leavened: because they were driven out of Egypt, and could not delay,
neither had they prepared for themselves any provision" (Shemot 12:39). For
they had faith in the providence of God, blessed be he, and therefore they did
not prepare for themselves any provision, but rather they left in haste.
Thus, matza is the aspect of knowledge of faith in providence,
which is the essence of the great knowledge, when one merits Divine revelation,
to see and to know that everything is exclusively by His providence, blessed be
He. This is the aspect of haste, for haste is the aspect of above time, for He
passed over the [designated] end, and took them out in great haste in no time,
just a single moment, and immediately they came from Ramses to Sukkot, and they
gathered together in a moment six hundred thousand from all of the land of
Egypt, as Rashi explains on the verse (Shemot 19:4):
"How I bore you on eagles' wings." For all this is the aspect of
above time, that is, He lifted them above time, this being the aspect of
providence which is above nature and above time. Through this they left in no
time, without any preparations, in a mere moment, for the essence of the
redemption was through the revelation of providence which is above time, the
aspect of haste, because haste is the aspect of alacrity, which is a very good
trait. (Likutei Halakhot, Netilat Yadayim Shacharit, 2)
The
novelty in these words lies in the transfer of the idea of haste from the
people of Israel to God. The climate of Israel's haste that comes to
expression primarily through the eating of matza, is a reflection
of "the governance of haste" with which God led Israel in
this situation. "Divine haste," asserts R. Natan, consists of passing
over the laws of nature, or put simply, it consists of miracles. Nature
operates in an orderly and gradated manner. Causality is "the queen of
nature," setting the pace and duration of every natural act.
Time,
argues R. Natan, is the great symbol of nature.[5] The essence
of a miracle lies in the way it skips over time, in the way it skips over
natural processes. Seas and rivers may dry up, but the uniqueness of the
parting of the Sea was the haste that characterized the transition from one
reality to the other. Providence that is "above time," says
R. Natan, is providence that is "above nature." This is the great
novelty of the exodus from Egypt.[6]
This
providence, according to R. Natan, is what gives Israel the
"knowledge" and the "faith" that everything transpires by
the will of God. Life that is lived in the consciousness of the reality of
nature is life in which everything and every action requires preparation. This
is life that takes into account causality and process that requires
confrontation and preparation. Life that is lived in the consciousness of
miracles frees us, in a certain sense, from the responsibility of making
preparations: "Neither had they prepared for themselves any
provision." In the world of miracles, the significance of preparation is
reduced to almost nothing, and the stronger the power of faith grows, teaches
us R. Natan, the smaller becomes the quality of preparation. The salvation of
God arrives suddenly, because it reflects an alternate course to natural,
gradual processes. It is, therefore, precisely there that unmediated Divine
revelation is found.
Bread
is the expression of perfect natural reality. A reality that is gradually
repaired, a reality of time and nature, of which bread is their fruit. Matza,
on the other hand, veers from the natural order. Time does not take hold
of matza, and thus, matza is the embodiment of
miracles, and in essence it is also the point of contact with the Infinite. A
miracle comes out of Ein, nothingness, and not out
of Yesh, existence, because a miracle expresses the absolute
disregard of the Yesh, of nature and its laws.
Matza,
so it would appear, lacks concreteness. It has no taste, nothing of the Yesh adheres
to it, for the existent world operates in the dimension of time, and matza lacks
time – it is baked in inadvertence, in a short moment. A second longer, and
time would take hold of it, and transfer it all at once from the Ein to
the Yesh, from the miracle to nature, from unmediated Divine
revelation to Divine revelation having garments and barriers. Matza is
the essence of Divine existence before it becomes "defiled" by the
limits of time and matter.
REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD
THROUGH CHAMETZ
This
distinction between nature and miracle, between unmediated Divine governance
that finds expression in matza and Divine governance that
passes through the world of matter and garments that finds expression in bread,
brought R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev to a profoundly meaningful
clarification. We shall try to follow him, step by step:[7]
"The wise son – what does he say? 'What are the
testimonies, decrees, and ordinances which the Lord, our God, has commanded
you?'… One may not eat desert [afikoman] after the Paschal
sacrifice." In order to understand the wise son's question and the
relevance of the answer, "One may not eat desert," to the question,
we must start with a certain premise. This is the word "matza,"
it indicating the creation of the world and that the world has a Creator, who
created it out of absolute nothingness, ex nihilo. For the
word "chametz" bears the sense of "we do not delay (machmitzin)
judgment," or "we do not delay (machmitzin) mitzvot," machmitzin meaning
delay. Thus chametz is something old, and the opposite
is matza, that is, something new. Our Creator has shown us through
the mitzva of matza that there is One who
created the world, and who every day and every moment renews His world in
accordance with His will, as He did during the exodus from Egypt when
He performed unnatural marvels. For all ten plagues were unnatural. When we
clearly understand this, we will not move our hands and feet to do anything,
other than what brings glory to His name, blessed and exalted be He. We must
fear Him with the fear of exaltedness since He is great and the ruler, and we
must fiercely love Him when we see that He, blessed be He, loves us with
eternal love. (Kedushat Levi, homily for Pesach)
R.
Levi Yitzchak's point of departure in this teaching is similar to the words of
R. Natan. But while R. Natan identifies haste as distinguishing between
"all at once" and "a process," haste for R. Levi Yitzchak
distinguishes between "old" and "new."
Time
turns the existent world into something "old," that is, something that
is permanent in its existence. Time is misleading in that it creates the
illusion that "the world never changes" and that "there is
nothing new under the sun." This is the perspective of an adult, who has
gained perspective and looks upon the world and identifies within it "the
force of inertia" that sustains it. The sun shined for our forefathers in
days of old, it shined also for us yesterday, and today too we are witnesses to
its shining. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that it will not shine
tomorrow as well. This is the calamity of time, which applies to everything the
"law of limitation." The first day of creation was the day on which
everything was new and the consciousness was one of "who renews in His
goodness," for the simple understanding is that the first day was the day
of newness. R. Levi Yitzchak, however, teaches us that it is our blindness that
does not allow us to see the daily renewal that transpires every day and every
moment.
The
principle of creation is a dynamic principle, not in the historical sense, but
in the existential sense. Matza, lacking time, lacking the element
of "limitation," of "having been," proclaims newness. Matza symbolizes
the renewed world, and it gives man the love and fear of God that stem from the
existential feeling of "His anger endures but a moment; life is by His
will" (Tehillim 30:6).
R.
Nachman writes that the holy convocations are the holidays on which God
breaches the boundaries of nature and cries out loud: "I am here!"
They allow man to newly recognize that there is no such thing as nature, and
that everything is a miracle; that there is no routine, and that everything is
will; that there is nothing old, and that everything is new.
As
soon as a person recognizes this, he dares not take a step "other than
what brings glory to His name," for the entire world says: Glory, and
every movement and every action and everything is new, here and now, from Him,
blessed be He, and everything must turn to Him and come into being through Him.
NOTES
[1] We
often see this phenomenon with newly-observant Jews who wish to totally sever
themselves from their old world, knowing that retaining partial contact with
that world and leaving it only gradually will allow them to be seduced to
return to it.
[2] R.
Tzadok teaches us that this process involves a sort of jump beyond our
capabilities and an intensification of light without the appropriate vessels to
contain it. For that, however, there is the Pesach of later generations. The
continuation of the journey must be done with moderation and gradation, and at
this stage a person must build and fashion vessels that will be able to contain
the great light that had illuminated at the beginning of the process. Haste
causes a person to jump to a high level which will later require the building
of ladder with gradations in order to be reached.
[3] Indeed,
this question, regarding the abyss between the Infinite and the material,
brought philosophers to the idea that "God has left earth," which is
similar to a denial of His very existence.
[4] Many
times in history in general and in Jewish history in particular, we find
situations in which leaders have acted in "haste" that stems from
faith and inner persuasion regarding the correctness of their ways, and have
waived all moderate and realistic considerations.
A striking example of this phenomenon was David Ben
Gurion's decision to proclaim the establishment of the State of Israel despite
the gloomy predictions of an invasion of Arab armies, and the opposite advice
that Ben Gurion had received from a good number of his advisors. His answer to
them was not a realistic one. The debate did not revolve around an assessment
of the situation, but rather the belief that a historic window of opportunity
had opened up that may not be ignored.
[5] The
Ramban in his commentary to the Torah is in doubt about the relationship
between time and light. It would seem that time is connected to light and stems
from its appearance and disappearance – night and day = darkness and light. The
Ramban, however, claims otherwise and writes: "When there is a Yesh,
there is time" (Bereishit 1:4), and
thus he tries to draw a connection between the very existence of Yesh and
time that operates within it.
[6] We
see this also with respect to the time of the exodus. Many commentators tried
to bridge the gap between what was stated to Avraham "Your seed shall be a
stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall
afflict them four hundred years" (Bereishit 15:13) and
the two hundred years of actual servitude. Some suggest that when God heard
Israel's cry he agreed to shorten the decree. Once again the haste and giving
up of a gradual and natural reality describes the providential transition from
a reality of nature – the name Elokim, to a reality of miracle –
the Tetragrammaton: "And I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to
Ya'akov, by the name of God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by My name, the
Lord [the Tetragrammaton], I was not known to them" (Shemot 6:3).
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