Rabbi Benjamin Blech

Menorah Books

Blech Essays.indd 3 11/01/17 2:52 PM

Menorah Books
Introduction

Seeing the Good in the Bad

T he Talmud tells us that the structure of the Haggada is based

on one major theme: [When telling the story of the Exodus] begin
with shame and end with praise (Mishna Pesaim 10:4). We begin by
recounting the bad, and then we conclude with the good. The sequence
is meant to convey a fundamental truth of our faith. What appears at
the outset to be a curse is in fact the key to a future blessing. We cannot
judge whether something is truly good or bad until we have the ability
to view it from the perspective of its final outcome.
The Talmud tells us that when Moses asked God, Show me, I
pray You, Your glory (Ex. 33:18), he was really asking the ultimate
question of theodicy: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Gods response was, You will see My back, but My face shall not be
seen (v. 23). The commentators explain Gods meaning: Events can
never be understood as they occur, but only in retrospect, with the
benefit of hindsight. Kierkegaard put it beautifully when he said, The
greatest tragedy of life is that it must be lived forwards and can only be
understood backwards.
The Jewish people were first taught this truth through the story
of Joseph. The tragedy of his sale by his brothers enables him to save his

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family in the time of famine. At the end of the story, Joseph reassures
his brothers that he will do them no harm: And as for you, you meant
evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this
day, to save many people alive (Gen. 50:20).
The word Haggada in gematria, the numerical value of Hebrew
letters, adds up to seventeen. That was the exact age of Joseph when he
was sold into Egypt the real beginning of the story of our Egyptian
exile and ultimately of the Exodus commemorated by Passover. By nu-
merical allusion, the Haggada reminds us of the terrible act that started it
all. But there is yet another concept related to the gematria of seventeen;
it is also the numerical value of the Hebrew word tov, good. We need
to remember that the tragedy of Josephs sale at the age of seventeen
led to the miracle of our redemption and the Revelation at Sinai. No
matter how black any event may appear at the time, the dark of night
is always followed by the dawn. And there was evening and there was
morning (Gen. 1) is the theme of our history and the secret of the
word Haggada.

The Pesa Haggada
The program for the evening is announced beforehand
in the following form:

/ / /
/ /
/ /
/ / /

Kiddush
Washing
Karpas
Splitting
Telling
Washing
Motzi Matza
Bitter herbs
Wrapping
Table Setting
Hidden
Blessing
Praising
Parting
Pesa haggada kadesh  12

Kadesh / Kiddush
The first cup of wine is poured. Lift the cup with the right hand and say the following:

On Shabbat add:
quietly: And it was evening, and it was morning Gen. 1

the sixth day.
Then the heavens and the earth were completed, Gen. 2
and all their array.
With the seventh day, God completed the work He had done.
He ceased on the seventh day from all the work He had done.
God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy,
because on it
He ceased from all His work He had created to do.

piness, but it is up to us to add the work and the effort to make it happen. How
appropriate to begin the story of our redemption from Egypt with a blessing
over wine as a reminder that the ultimate Redemption will depend not only on
God but on us as well.

The Symbolism of Wine

Wine has a special place in Jewish life and law. At happy occasions, we lift a cup
of wine and toast each other with the word leayim. Shabbatot and holidays
begin with the Kiddush, verbal sanctification over a cup of wine. We follow King
Davids practice; to celebrate deliverance he declared, I will lift up the cup of
salvation and call on the name of the Lord (Ps. 116:13).
What is wines uniqueness? All things with which we are familiar become
noticeably worse with age. Time is their enemy. Decay and deterioration are
the natural result. But wine is different. It has the very special gift of improving
with age. That is why it has such meaning for us symbolically. A blessing over
wine is our way of expressing the hope that our lives will share this distinc-
tive quality. As we get older may we, like fine wine, find ourselves always get-
ting better and better. That is also why wine is such a perfect symbol for the
festival of Passover, the story of our passage from our shameful beginnings
as slaves in Egypt to deliverance and to the promise of ultimate messianic
Redemption.
 13 

The first cup of wine is poured. Lift the cup with the right hand and say the following:

On add:
:quietly







,
, ,

Kadesh / Kiddush

The Special Blessing for Wine

The blessing for wine is unusual. Wine comes from grapes, which grow on the
vine. The blessing ought to be the same as the one for all other fruits, who
creates the fruit of the trees. What accounts for this special blessing of boreh
peri hagefen? The Talmud compares wine to one other food whose blessing
is different than what we might expect. Bread comes from wheat. Its blessing
should therefore be who creates the fruit of the ground. Instead, it has its
own unique blessing: hamotzi leem min haaretz.
What bread and wine have in common is the fact that God provides the raw
ingredients, to be sure, but it is human initiative the grinding of the wheat into
flour and baking, the pressing of the grapes and storing in casks that creates
the matchless final product. When God and man partner to greatly enhance a
natural object from its original state, that improved object is deserving of a bless-
ing of a higher order. Bread and wine thereby become paradigms of a biblical
ideal, described in the Jerusalem Talmud, that we are commanded to become
partners with God in the act of creation.
When we drink wine, we say, leayim, to life. On a profound level, we are
expressing the idea that the joy we find in the wine we created with Gods
ingredients is the secret of life itself. God gives us the wherewithal to find hap-