Page 38 - HaMizrachi #28 Pesach USA 2021

PESACH READING FIRST DAY

Rabbi Jeffrey Saks

A Night to Relive,

Not Just to Remember

nce, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi degradation to our status as a nation that of time? Why not inform their masters
Yehoshua and Rabbi Elazar can sing to Him in great praise. “All who using the more common “morning has
Oben Azaria and Rabbi Akiva and elaborate and expand in the recounting broken,” or, “boker tov!” or, as the Tosefta
Rabbi Tarfon reclined for the sake of the of the Exodus perform a praiseworthy records in a somewhat parallel case of
Seder in Bnei Brak, and they recounted act!” Rabban Gamliel and the Elders in Lod
the tale of the Exodus from Egypt all that Zechira is not enhanced by being who sat at the Seder table “all that night
night long, until their students arrived performed in the company of others; long until the cock crowed” (Tosefta
and said, “Rabbis – the time for reciting remembrance (although it must occur Pesachim 10:2)?
the morning Shema has come.” through audible speech) is a mono- The Sages in Bnei Brak realized they
We are well accustomed to the twice logue. Sippur, the great recounting of had a once-a-year opportunity to trans-
daily remembering of the Exodus (zechi- the adventure, is best performed dia- form the mundane, daily remembrance
rat yetziat Mitzrayim), fulfilled through logically, ideally in the forum of parents of things past, to a spectacular reen-
the recitation of the third paragraph of and children. actment. The Seder serves as a time
Shema. It might be natural to think that According to Rambam and others who machine, enabling the participant to
our Pesach Seder is some form of the enumerate the 613 mitzvot, the daily step into the action of the Exodus. The
daily obligation on steroids – but this remembrance is bundled together as various manifestations of the mitzvah
would overlook essential differences part of the obligation to recite Shema. challenge us to elaborate and expand,
between that daily obligation and the Sippur is an independent mitzvah and “thank, praise, laud, glorify, exalt,
once-a-year experience of sippur yetziat according to all opinions. honor, bless and raise high acclaim” to
Mitzrayim. Understanding these dis- the One redeeming me right now at this
tinctions reveals not merely differences Rav Moshe’s son, Rav Joseph B. Solove- very moment.
in form between the two mitzvot, but itchik, expanded upon these distinc- The five reclining Rabbis made the most
of function, and casts new light on the tions. The Rav observed that Pesach of the brief window enabling them to
well-known story of the Sages’ Seder in night’s sippur is no mere, dry historical experience this – kol oto haLyla, for the
Bnei Brak. In fact, it reveals how “this recounting, but carries an accompany- length of that one night. When their
night is different from all other nights” ing obligation of Hallel – to praise G-d disciples found them still at it the next
for the purpose of remembering and for the miracles of which we speak. The morning, they signalled to them that the
relating the Exodus from Egypt. recitation of zechira in Shema is “just window had closed by declaring “the
the facts” of what occurred millennia
Aside from the fact that zechira is ago. At the Seder, since we are obligated time for reciting the morning Shema
fulfilled twice-daily through the rec- to view ourselves (or portray ourselves, has come.” That is, the time to return
itation of Shema, and sippur is a “one as Rambam would have it) as if we are to the daily reality of zechirat yetziat
night only” occurrence at the Seder, Rav personally experiencing the miracles in Mitzrayim in Shema has arrived, with
Moshe Soloveitchik enumerated other real time, the requirement to sing our its distance between the reciter and the
differences between the two: praise and thanks to He who redeemed historical experience. The once-a-year
opportunity of personally experiencing
The daily command of zechira is us personally goes into effect. His redemption has again come and
achieved through a mere mention of This analysis opens new interpretive gone.
“I am the L-rd your G-d, who brought insights to the Seder Night in Bnei Brak.
you out of the land of Egypt” (Bamidbar What is the meaning of the seemingly Rabbi Jeffrey Saks is the Director of ATID
and its WebYeshiva.org program, and editor
15:41). Sippur, in contrast, requires elab- simple, yet actually enigmatic, students’ of the journal Tradition.
oration and enumeration of the many statement, “The time for reciting the
miracles, spanning the great tale’s arc morning Shema has come”? Why use the A member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau
from slavery to redemption, from our particular idiom of Shema as a marker mizrachi.org/speakers

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