Pesach: Peh-Sach, the Mouth That Speaks

A language in exile

As we know, the festival of Pesach begins with the will to communicate, to put to the test that particular gift placed in the creation of Adam, the divine breath with which He animated him at creation. But that gift must be set free, because very often, as a result of Adam’s sin, this language finds itself in exile.

A language in exile is a language conditioned by our daily life, by the culture we undergo, sometimes by problems within the family, not to mention the yoke of the authorities, the various powers and the various regimes under which we live.

The essence of freedom is first of all the freedom of language: to be able to communicate freely, to be able to bring out and clear away from ourselves all the elements that make our language stagnate, that diminish it, that do not allow us to take flight.

That is why the Exodus from Egypt is focused first of all on communication: communication with oneself, with the family, with the children at the table, with the outside world. It begins by denouncing the constraints of which we are the victims, and then, of course, our own conditioning by the idols we have given ourselves in our lives.

Peh sach: the mouth that speaks

That is why our sages broke the word Pesach into peh sach, the mouth that speaks, a mouth in motion. But Pharaoh too had his own language. The difference is that his was a closed language. And when language is closed, when it cannot evolve and cannot move beyond its limits, then it is peh ra, an evil mouth.

We now understand why, before sharing the meal, we must share knowledge, da’at, as the word is usually translated. It was precisely the principle of da’at that drew Adam into his sin and brought about his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. He lost the virtues of his language, its creative virtues. He kept only its sound, its form. And that is not enough.

True language is the language that allows a person to establish communication with the absolute, with the divine, that gives him access to shir, to song. That is why we sing the Haggadah and conclude it with songs: because in song there is an elevation of the soul and a desire to share. One does not sing alone. One loves to share song in unison with others, with society.

Saying, speaking with, uniting

This is the principle of the verb. For you know, one can speak to oneself, that is vayomer. One can speak to another, that is vayedaber, but that does not mean we will share the same point of view. We can always hold a dialogue while each keeps his own ideas and principles.

In the Haggadah there is nonetheless a certain constraint, because we must be bound by what we say, committed by our words, not divided and separated by our opinions, but on the contrary united, from the verb haggid, “to unite.”

Why the Haggadah has no blessing

Since this effort of the Haggadah is permanent, it cannot be limited in time. There is no blessing over the Haggadah. In general, every mitzvah we perform (and the Haggadah is a mitzvah, since it is written, “And you shall tell your son”: you shall instruct your son, recount to your son, engage your son) is preceded by a blessing, with the exception of mitzvot that are constant, such as tzedakah. They have no limit, and they belong to the natural conduct of a person living in society, as does, for example, the practice of kindness. It has no blessing, and there are others.

For the reading of the Megillah, however, we do recite a blessing. For the sound of the shofar we recite a blessing. And not only the blessing itself: with our blessing we can fulfill the obligation of others as well. One can light a chanukiyah for a hundred people who are present and following along. One can sound the shofar for as many people as one likes.

But the Haggadah, take note, in what it expresses, in this will to communicate that engages the two of us, the three of us, in a single path of life, has no blessing. And one cannot simply read the Haggadah on everyone’s behalf without interaction in these discussions and among the various components of society, which are four in number. They have been reduced to four, and we will see the meaning, the symbolism, of the number four, which returns throughout the Seder night.

The Seder, order and song

For on this Seder night we must put things in order. In general, Jewish tradition is allergic to the seder. Seder means a repeated program: the way every ceremony is supposed to unfold, without the slightest originality, without the slightest innovation. No. When we think of the seder, it is in order to reach the threshold that is lema’lah min haseder, beyond the order. Beyond the order, and beyond the order of language, there is song as well. We end the Seder night with nothing but songs and praises.

The four cups, the four parts

This comes, moreover, in four parts on the night of Pesach, because the Haggadah too has four parts, to which correspond the four cups we drink on the night of Pesach, the four cups of wine.

The first is to celebrate our Exodus from Egypt. The second is to celebrate our uprooting from the influence of Egyptian culture and from the idolatry that had in some way stained our way of life in Egypt. For let us not forget that at the Exodus there were accusers who said: both are idolaters; why are the Egyptians struck down while the Jewish people is saved?

The third stage is to pay tribute to the Eternal, because we did not earn the Exodus. We did nothing to leave Egypt. We endured the persecutions in Egypt. On the contrary, we rose up against Moshe when our living conditions in Egypt grew worse because of his intervention on our behalf. So we were granted the Exodus from Egypt. But this going down to Egypt, too, was not our decision; we were forced into it. It was even planned before we were born, because we had to pass through the filter of Egypt in order to realize our identity and to establish a separation of great consequence, which we would maintain thereafter.

And the fourth part of the Haggadah is the song that in principle closes the whole discussion of the Exodus and projects itself toward a messianic future.

Never exclude the four sons

Let us return now to this principle of language in exile, which ultimately leads us to choose a language that unites the elements of society and sets up neither exclusion nor barrier between the chacham, the rasha, the tam and the one who does not know how to ask: between the four components, roughly speaking, of the society in which we live, which sometimes sits right at our own table. It is there, present. Exclusion is forbidden.

We must at all costs seek to free this language, because once it is freed, there is a way to create a certain communication, an exchange of views that will surely bring us closer and allow us to contribute together to the future liberation of all humanity. The first message was this liberation of language. Without it we would not even have understood the words of the Revelation. We would have been incapable of grasping them.

Kadesh: holiness as the goal of the journey

So how do we proceed? You know there is a whole ritual that I will pass over, namely the cup of Kadesh, this kedushah that is the ultimate goal of our journey: to reach the sublime height of holiness. The road is long and strewn with obstacles, because we too were in part idolaters, because we did not know how to grasp the Torah that was given to us and the mitzvot with which we were armed, and because in exile we also showed contempt for the land that had been given to us.

Now, you know that there are four expressions of redemption from Egypt: I will bring you out, I will save you, I will redeem you, and I will take you, I will take you to Me as a people. These four expressions refer to the four forms of conditioning in which we live and from which we truly wish to tear ourselves away.

We use wine to do this, because when wine enters, a person frees himself entirely and becomes communicative. We are not speaking of drunkenness; we are speaking of the wine that gladdens the heart of man and makes him open to this communication, which raises no screen and no barrier of any kind.

I was saying that the first cup concerned holiness, Kadesh. But for Kadesh one must indeed take care of one’s purity, take care of karpas, take care to share with the other, even in total distress, even in want, even when one has nothing but a piece of celery dipped in salt water, when one is downcast and the eye sheds a few tears, like that salt water of a soul in pain.

The Ramchal places kedushah as the ultimate goal of a person’s journey through his middot. In his Mesillat Yesharim […], he sets out ten chapters that mark the stages of a person’s development in his middot, his qualities, his virtues.

Because at the level of the mind, at the level of knowledge, we remain fundamentally different from one another. Some have faculties that others lack, and we can practice our Judaism at different levels, because we do not have the tools, we do not have the means, to understand everything and to absorb everything. But at the level of human virtues there are no weights and measures. On the contrary, here all people are equal.

And the Ramchal tells us: ve’atem hadevekim ba-Hashem Elokeichem, chayim kulchem hayom, “You who cleave to Hashem your G-d are all alive today.” He reads the verse […]: it is by the measure of your attachment to the attributes of G-d that your life is measured. So it is here, with the first cup of wine, that we set the tone.

The fifth promise and the fifth cup

The last, as I said, is connected to velakachti etchem li le’am, “I will take you to Me as a people.” That is the ultimate goal.

Now, there is a fifth element. The fifth element is veheveti: “I will bring you to this land.” So why is there no fifth cup of wine for this fifth expression, this fifth promise of G-d? It is to tell us (and do not take offense) that the Land of Israel would otherwise risk becoming the ultimate goal in place of “I will take you to Me as My people,” which is the most important thing to realize.

It is that the Holy One, blessed be He, chose us from among all the peoples, asher bachar banu mikol ha’amim, with a view to the ultimate day when the Name of G-d will indeed be one with His reality, His being. For at present there are many beliefs in G-d, but they focus rather on the shem, on the attribute, on the name, and not on the whole: not on the identity of these names, these attributes, with the divine Being. That is a vision of the future.

The land, then, is only the means of realizing this; that is to say, veheveti, I will bring you to the land that I swore to your forefathers, in order to give you the means to fulfill this mission. That is why we stop at four cups and do not include the fifth dimension, that of veheveti, on the night of Pesach.

Beginning in Aramaic: speaking each person’s language

And this is borne out in the first part, the introduction of the Haggadah, when we begin in Aramaic. It is a way of saying that one must speak to each person in his own language. We have not yet absorbed the power of the Hebrew language? No matter: we can indeed communicate in any language, and above all when it comes to inviting someone to one’s table and sharing with him this ideal of life.

Of course one must speak his own language. And even when we express our hopes of returning to our land, at the close, in Eretz Yisrael, we say it in the language of exile, of the country in which we live, of the culture we have adopted and from which we wish to extract ourselves.

And we say ar’a deYisrael, not Eretz Yisrael. For if the Land of Israel is still populated by these different cultures brought back from all the exiles, and people go on speaking the various idioms and tongues, we are still speaking the language of exile. It is Ar’a deYisrael; it is not Eretz Yisrael.

As I have told you, eretz comes from the word ratzon: to want, to run toward. There is a will expressed in Israel, and that is the reason we say leshanah haba’ah be’ar’a deYisrael bnei chorin. When we have made that aliyah to Eretz Yisrael and no longer stammer other languages, but speak instead the language of the Revelation, only then will we be able to truly attest to the liberation of our language.

This is the first introductory text, which the ministering angels do not understand, as we say. They know how to speak only the language of creation, the one by which G-d created His world, through the mosaic of the alphabet that He gave us so as to give us the same possibilities of being, with Him, a creator: a creator of a better world. And I repeat: it is through language that we intend to do so.

That is the language of Vayakhel, and that is the language of Kohelet. When King Shlomo examines all the possibilities of life, all the currents of philosophy, he gathers in his book, together with the representatives of all the nations, their language, for language is the secret of gathering.

The bread of poverty that gives rise to dialogue

So how do we begin this Pesach night? First by showing the matzah as being at once the bread of affliction and the bread of freedom. The bread of poverty, our sages say, is the one that gives rise to dialogue.

When a person truly reflects on his life and realizes his own lacks, he feels the need to find what completes him outside himself, in the other. That is why, conscious of this, he says: “Let all who are hungry come and eat,” and let all who aspire to freedom, who wish to make a leap, come as well, for Pesach means to leap.

And this leap, this undertaking, is not always a progression step by step. One can skip many stages. When the Holy One, blessed be He, decides something, events can take a stunning turn. From bleak misery we can reach an extraordinary situation.

Sasson, simchah and Sarah’s laughter

That is why the Jewish world knows three expressions of joy. There is sasson. Sasson is a joy not yet fulfilled, not yet satisfied, but on its way to being so. We believe it will come. For example, we are told: “You shall draw water with joy from the wellsprings of salvation.” Those messianic times are not yet here, but the faith we have leaves us very optimistic about their coming, and deep within ourselves we are glad, serene.

There is simchah. Simchah is the joy of an expectation that has been fulfilled. We have indeed toiled to attain something. We have prayed. And when that moment arrives and we are satisfied, there is this simchah.

But there is a third dimension, which appears for the first time with Sarah: vatitzchak Sarah, Sarah laughed. Laughter belongs to an unexpected event. Who would have believed she would have a child at ninety? Well, that child will be named Yitzchak, the name the Jewish people will carry on throughout its history, laughing at all events, because situations can change unexpectedly, from one day to the next, from one minute to the next.

And that is also why […]. Today they laugh at us, but for the times to come, “then our mouths will be filled with laughter.” We will defy events. We will overcome them, overcome them because this laughter is within us. We carry it in our genes, in the very constitution of our being. That is how we were forged.

Hashata: now, not next year

And so, as soon as we have shown our need to share with the other what is most precious to us, we can be certain that hashata… Hashata means now; it does not mean “this year.” We say: hashata, now we are here, but the shinui, the change, can take place in the coming minutes, and we will reach the place favorable to our flourishing, to our communication, and only when we have left our conditioning, in our place of rest, in our era of fulfillment. Then we will be bnei chorin, free men. Then we can speak of total freedom.

And now the Haggadah itself will begin, through the Four Questions. But I will leave that passage for next week, because it is not right that I alone should do the talking in the Haggadah. I would like you to have your part too, to take part. If you have questions, with pleasure.

Questions from the audience

Question:

At the beginning of the lesson you said that other religions speak of the names of G-d and not of His identity. Could you explain what you meant? I did not quite understand the distinction between the names of G-d and the divine identity.

We share many values with other religions. We share many values even with secular morality. Take the second tablet of the Ten Commandments: it belongs to a commonly accepted morality. So what is the difference? The difference is that with our “You shall not murder,” one must have the tzelem, the divine image, before one’s eyes in order to know that whoever takes the life of another diminishes the image of G-d in man. You are dealing with a being, a creature of G-d.

You must know that at the moment you commit adultery, or show any kind of unfaithfulness, then facing you is […]: you have multiplied your idols; you can no longer say it. So here, on one side, is a morality that may also bear the Name of G-d, since it was dictated by G-d at the foot of Mount Sinai, but which is not part of the first tablet, which is wholly divine, of divine essence. For without Anochi Hashem Elokecha, I would not have realized that it is the Eternal who brought me out of Egypt. I would not then have understood that any association of another divinity or another belief will corrupt this first faith. The same is true of Shabbat, and the same is true of honoring one’s parents. There.

I have not exhausted the answer to the question, because that would take me much more time, but another time.

Question:

When we speak of Pesach, of liberation, it is nonetheless linked to Israel. Israel surely has a part in setting this liberation in motion. It is not possible to be anywhere other than in Israel. I understand why we do not want Israel to become the principal channel of the liberation, but Israel must still have some role in it. So why, in the end?

Because Israel, I will tell you, Israel is destined to expand. The borders of Israel are not definitively established, not definitively set. The kedushah of Israel will not be uniform. There are different degrees of kedushah. That of Yerushalayim is not that of Be’er Sheva. That of Be’er Sheva is not that of Nahariya or Netanya, and so on. It is not that of the eastern coast, and so forth.

Nevertheless, this holiness radiates far, and Israel cannot live confined within its borders. By its mission it is called to break through its physical borders, not the holy ones, I say. For it must know that in this holiness of the Land of Israel, what counts most is the means. The Land of Israel is a tool placed at the disposal of the people, first so that it may flourish, […] and to restore to it its full independence, and also to allow its teaching to spread.

Another question?

Question:

You spoke of the four important sections, let us say, of the Haggadah, since it is divided into four. You said the third is the tribute to the Eternal who brought us out of Egypt without our deserving it, or even, in the extreme, without our wanting it. So why this liberation by force?

That is a good question. But first let me tell you a small thing, a small detail I did not share with you. You know that firstborn sons are required to observe a fast before Pesach. Why? Because they were spared, and they were spared not because of their own merit, but because it was so decided: He was bound by the commitment He had made to the forefathers. That is all.

So one asks: why do the firstborn daughters, the girls, not fast as well, since the plague of the firstborn, in its execution, also struck firstborn daughters? So the firstborn daughters too were spared. No: the girls had their own merit. The resistance in Egypt was carried out by the women, and that merit of resistance protected them. They are not required to fast. So that is a small detail.

The second point: the choosing of the Jewish people. To what do we owe it, according to the Maharal of Prague? It is freely given; G-d decided it so. The choosing of the Jewish people is, at its origin, a dogma. It is not because there was a man like Avraham, an exceptional ancestor through his practice of kindness. For Avraham is also the father of Yishmael. Yitzchak is also the father of Esav. So why not include them after all?

It is true that we have Yaakov, because he kept his family whole in its entirety. But does that justify G-d’s commitment alongside a people He has chosen, He has elected? It is called bechor, it is the bechor, the firstborn; He chose. But this choice carries a heavy responsibility. If I am chosen as head of the family at a young age, it is more of a burden. You are not doing me a favor.

What constitutes the merit of Israel is that it embraced this choice, that it willingly took upon itself the responsibility of being mamlechet kohanim vegoy kadosh, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Otherwise, left to itself, it would naturally be inclined to reject it. Why should I be the head of the nations? Why should I be the best? Why should I be persecuted by everyone, criticized by everyone, envied by petty minds? No, I don’t want it. I want to live like everyone else. And there is a tendency among us that thinks this way.

Another question?

Question:

About the number four: for years, up to now, you have spoken of the importance of the number four. I had never understood […]. They even made a piyyut out of this recurring number, didn’t they? Could you perhaps…

Yes, but I very much fear… It is right here, before my eyes, because I am writing a commentary on the Haggadah of Pesach, in Hebrew this time, and the title of this chapter is Be-sod ha-arba, “The Mystery of Four.” But this is not in the spirit of the lecture, because kabbalistic elements come into play.

There are the four exiles we are passing through, that we have passed through. There is the breaking apart of the divine Name into its four letters, yud, hei, vav, hei, so that the Name of G-d is not whole. It is taken hostage by each of the nations. It is taken hostage by each tendency within the people of Israel.

The wise son on one side, the rasha too on the other. Careful: the rasha is no fool. The rasha is a brilliant scientific mind. That is why he finds his place beside the chacham. He cannot be excluded. It is only that he does not want wisdom. He simply wants everything to conform to the laws of nature, to physical laws, to the laws of society, to natural laws, to natural morality.

And there are those who have taken the vav hostage: that is the tam. He believes in saints more than in the Holy One, blessed be He. He turns to them more than to G-d. A somewhat primitive faith, let us say it plainly. As though Moshe Rabbeinu did not measure up to the merit of these great tzaddikim of today! One should keep things in proportion, shouldn’t one? Of course we respect the tzaddikim, but let us keep our bond with the Master of creation, with the Master of the Revelation.

Then you have, indeed, the neutral ones, those who are in total silence, aren’t there? They have preferred to hold their breath, to keep silent. But we will perhaps have the occasion to see this next week; I will bring some further elements. But know that this number runs through the whole […], from beginning to end.

Question:

More than those who hold their breath and keep silent, there really are those who do not know how to ask questions, to whom questions simply do not occur, and that is an even greater void.

Then they must be stirred, they must be stirred. They must not be ignored. It says at petach lo. One should have said: if you say at, you should say atah. But we are addressing the man and telling him: take the woman as your example. The woman gives herself. She does not simply give: she gives herself entirely. So you too, petach lo, do as the woman does, give yourself to him.