פסח מצה ומרור

Pesach, Matzah and Marror

- Deborah Lipszyc

 

“Rabban Gamliel used to say: anyone who has not explained these three things on Pesach has not fulfilled the mitzvah of the Seder.  The three things are: PESACH MATZAH and MARROR.” What exactly do these three words commemorate?

 

Pesach.  As it states in the Passover Haggadah, we ate an offering called Pesach was because G-d ‘passed over’ the Jewish homes during the last plague, when He went from house to house killing the first born sons of the Egyptians.  This reason is taken from the Torah, “This is a Pesach offering to Hashem because, when He killed the Egyptians, he passed over the homes of the Jewish people and He saved our families.  In gratitude the Jewish people bowed and knelt.”[1]  However, there is another meaning to the word.  Normally, people have to improve themselves step by step before they can be worthy of miracles.  This process is very lengthy.  It can not just happen over night. Usually, G-d waits for people to deserve His help before he acts.  Nevertheless, in Egypt G-d so greatly wanted to help His people that He did not wait for them to deserve His help.  Instead, He ‘passed over’ all those steps, and saved them from slavery, even before they were worthy.  This should give us all hope because whenever the right occasion comes, G-d will demonstrate His compassion, just as He did in Egypt.

Matzah.  The reason, we see in the Torah, as written in the Haggadah, “They baked the dough they took from Egypt into matzot for it had not risen.  They could not wait for the dough to rise because they were chased out of Egypt.  And they had not prepared other foods for the way.”  With that said, a question arises:  Why didn’t G-d just tell the Jews to prepare food for their journey?  Why the quick departure?  A second reason is given for eating matzot, which provides an explanation.  In all of us there is a bad desire to commit sins and enjoy things that the torah has forbidden.  This bad desire is called the ‘Yetzer Hara’.  The sages compare this ‘Yetzer Hara’ to the yeast in dough.  Metaphorically, just as yeast makes dough rise and become big and puffy, our ‘Yetzer Hara’ convinces us to act in ways that would make us arrogant.  We are supposed to learn that people would be a great deal less likely to do bad if they would be content with the simple things that they really need and have.  In order to remind us of this, G-d made us leave Egypt so quickly that our ‘dough’ would not have a chance to ‘rise’. 

Marror.  Why do we eat bitter vegetables?  It says in the Torah, as written in the Haggadah, “The Egyptians made their lives bitter with hard work, with cement and bricks and all the work in the field.  All the work they made them do was backbreaking labour.”[1]  We learn from here that we eat bitter herbs in order to remind us of the hard and bitter work that we did in Egypt.  Another reason why we eat bitter vegetables is to remind us that G-d is always with us and watching over us.  We will never be able to understand everything G-d does and therefore we do not always understand why people suffer.  That is why we keep in mind the bitterness of Egypt by eating Marror.  It is to remind us that the suffering is part of G-d’s plan, to prepare us for the time we will be free in our land, the land of Israel.

 

Artscroll Youth Passover Haggadah