PESACH

            
                                     

Hagadah


The Hagada of Pesach is the book that is read on the night of the Seder, Seder meaning order and it refers to the order of the 15 steps of the Seder. On the right is an open page of the Hagada
On the right column is listed the 15 steps of the Seder

Pesach takes place on the 15 Nissan.

  
15
15 is an interesting number and there are many interesting examples of 15. The 15 steps leading up to the holy part of the temple where the priests would stand and play music. When the procession reached a 10th step, they would pause before continuing to ascend the remaining five steps. Why? The clue to this procedure lies in the Gematria of God's name abbreviated to Yud Hey. Yud=10 and Hey =5. They paused to show God's name. There are many other examples of 15 for example Tu Be Shevat and Tu Be Av
 
 
 

Yachatz
 The fourth step, of the 15-step Passover Seder is ‘Yachatz’, We break the middle Matzah in two, and establish the poignant moment of change from the 49 steps of degradation, of slavery in the past, to the 49 days leading to Shavuot and the hope for the future. These are the 49 days of refinement of the Omer, meaning that every day for 49 days we refine our beings to bring us to a state where we can hear the voice of the Divine at Shavuot.
This is the moment when the whole of our past is balanced by the whole of our future
This is all reflected in the two broken pieces of Matzah, illustrated in the diagram below.
     
 

The first mouth full of our meal comes from the smaller part of Yachatz , representing the slavery of the past, and our last mouthful at the end the meal will be with the larger piece, the Afikoman, which represents our future freedom and includes the hidden secrets of future events. The Afikomen is secretly hidden by the parent. We wait for the child to find it and then attempt to redeem the secret by rewarding the child with a gift.The hiddenness can remind one of the hiddenness of the name of Esther in the purim story. Both representing the hidden AYIN

The WISHBONE

There are similarities between the breaking of the wishbone into two pieces unequal in size with the breaking of the Matzah and taking the larger piece and hiding it as the Afikomen. In both cases it is a game for children. The one who gets the larger part, has his secret wish fulfilled in the future. The parent has the chance of redeeming the secrets of the future by paying the child for finding the secretly hidden afikomen.
   

The 49 Day Omer count

As you know on Shavuot we eat white cheesecake, blintzes and milky products. In the light of this , lets look at the cycle of the creation of the Jewish People, from the time they escaped from Egypt, until they received the Torah on Mount Sinai. The cycle is heralded by the first commandment given to the infant Jewish people to create a lunar calendar. The word for Moon and the word for white, happens to be the same word, LAVAN.
The Jewish People were born when they left Egypt, an escape from the bloodletting, slavery, murder and cruelty. The key to their escape, was God's instruction to paint the lintels of their doorways with red blood: thus the angel of death 'passed over' ' the homes where the lintels were blooded,sparing the first born. During their 49 days of traveling,from Egypt to Sinai, the people were guided a Pillar White Cloud during the day and by a pillar of Red fire at night. After 49 days, they arrived Mount Sinai where they received the Torah and in observance of the very new Laws of Kashrut, they were only allowed to eat milky food. A transition from red to white, from the Pesach blood of birth to the mother's milk of Shavuot. We commemorate the 49 days travel with the counting of the Omer which includes the fascinating Kabbalistic prayer Ana Be Koach, recited every day.  
     

Ayin Ein Sof
One of the themes running through Pesach is that of humility. The sages consider matzah to be the bread of humility, because it is flat, in contrast to bread, which is blown up and empty. Bread is compared to someone blown up with his own ego. King Solomon in his wisdom said about Ego, that it is nothing (Ayin) but vanity and hot air , but paradoxically Ayin is very potent, as illustrated by the one in 60 law. The law states that if you get some milk into a meaty pot of food, as long it is less than one in 60, you may eat the food. If it is more than one in 60 the food is traif and must be thrown out. But on Pesach if even the minutest quantity of chometz enters a pot of food, it must be thrown out. There is no minimum amount of Ego/chometz allowed. Hence we go to so much trouble to clean our home of any chometz, and state with a bracha - blessing, on numerous occasions, that we do not own any chometz at this time.(see Hagada) Then our whole being is free and untainted by chometz – ego so that we can proceed to enjoy the 8 day festival.

The Israelites were considered as nothing, by the Egyptian taskmasters. It was a very dark period for the People at the 49th step of degradation. Our sages tell us that one more step down wards would have been the end of the Israelites, A decent into nothingness ....Ayin.

At the other end of the spectrum the Jewish people are full of hope and believe the Messiah will arrive and let us all into eternal paradise for ever and ever, Ein Sof. these two ends of the spectrum are manifest when we break the matzah in two