e-geress Vol. 1, No. 11 April 18, 2000
Publisher: Rabbi Yechezkel Fox
Editor: Rabbi Yisrael Rutman
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What was the greatest moment in the story of the exodus from Egypt? The Slaying of the First Born? The mass departure into the wilderness with matzos on their shoulders? The Splitting of the Red Sea? We all have in our mind's eye a vivid image of these dramatic events. And certainly each of these is of great importance in the scenes that make up our mental movie of the Pesach story. But, in a sense, they are all wrong. For none of them qualifies as the greatest moment, as we shall see... The Pesach Seder is designed to impart to us and our children in every generation the story of the origin of the Jewish people. Of course, it is far more than a dramatic story of slavery and freedom; it bears within it some of the fundamental concepts that every Jew needs to know and live by. We need to know, first of all, that it was not by great political leadership or military might that our liberation was effected, but by the mighty hand and outstretched arm of G-d. That Divine intervention in the arena of history was effected as part of a process. The structure of the Seder reflects that process. Our Sages teach that the four cups of wine drunk at the Seder represent the four expressions of redemption mentioned in the Torah. The first one---I will take you out from the burden of Egypt---was a promise given by the Almighty to the Jewish people in response to their cry for help. The slavery had become unbearable. The settlement in Egypt, which had been prepared for by their great ancestor Yosef, who had risen to the powerful position of viceroy, had begun comfortably enough. But little by little, their Egyptian hosts "forgot" the great benefit Yosef had done for them in managing the state economy during the famine years. A benign host nation gradually turned into a cruel oppressor. It was not only the backbreaking labor. They suffered under a monarch who bathed in the blood of Jewish children as a supposed cure for illness. But the decree to drown the newborn Jewish males in the Nile was the final crushing blow. It was then that they called out to the G-d of their fathers in prayer, and He answered them. Thus we learn that the heartfelt prayers of the Jewish people have in them the power to bring about their own redemption. The second cup of wine represents the physical departure from the land of the oppressor--I will rescue you from the servitude. The first stage of liberation was but relief from the rigors of bondage. That occurred on Rosh HaShana. They were still trapped, however, in the prison-house of Egypt for another six months until the great departure in Nisan. (Nisan is a Babylonian name related to the Hebrew nitzan, meaning bud. It is the month of spring, associated with renewal, both natural and spiritual.) The third cup corresponds to the verse, I will redeem you with an outsretched arm and great judgements. This corresponds to the Splitting of the Red Sea. The expression of redemption does not occur in the Torah's chronicle of events until that time. For until they were completely free of the Egyptian power, and had actually witnessed the destruction of the oppressor's armed might, they were not considered redeemed. Our Sages teach that the simplest person saw at that moment what even the greatest of prophets was not priveleged to see. For in this world, in which the wicked so often prosper and the righteous so often suffer, the triumph of right is a rare occurrance. It is really in the next world that things will be set right, and a moral reckoning made. Only there should we really expect the wicked to receive their well-deserved punishments and the righteous their well-deserved reward. In the meantime, life is an ongoing test of faith in G-d's wisdom and justice. At the Splitting of the Sea, however, even the most ordinary person was priveleged to witness that unique event---a whole nation redeemed in the fulfilment of a centuries-old Divine promise; and, at the same time, the downfall of their persecutors. It is the fourth cup, however, which represents that greatest moment, toward which all of history had been moving and for which the Jewish people had been preparing. And I will take you to me for a people. This is the moment of the forging of national unity, in which what had been until then little more than an over-excited mass of refugees found its identity as a nation. It was the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. For the purpose of the Exodus was not just to free the Jews from their suffering and enable them to go and build a nation of their own like any other. It was all intended for that ultimate revelation in which heaven and earth stood still as the Torah was given. The purpose of their physical salvation was a spiritual mission; to accept the Torah and to be "a light unto the nations." As bearers of the Torah throughout history we have indeed illumined a world of darkness with the light of G-d-given morality. The annual re-telling of this great story should serve to remind us too that the purpose of our lives is not just material comfort or accomplishment; and that without spiritual content of the highest order we shall not have attained our own greatest moments. by Rabbi Yisrael Rutman This article was adapted from the commentary of Rabbeinu Bechaya on the Torah. 
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