Comentario sobre Exodo 34:18

חדש האביב THE MONTH OF ABIB — the month of early ripening — the month when the grain is in its first stage of ripening.

את חג המצות תשמור, after the Torah warned us against a graven image meant to improve the quality of our life on this planet, it turns to the commandments the function of which it is (if performed) to assure us of “so-called” success in spring, during the harvest in summer, when gathering the last harvests in autumn, and success in our business endeavours. The Torah enumerates the commandments concerned in the order in which we just listed them.
חג המצות למועד חודש האביב, observance of this commandment is to insure that our springtime activities will be blessed. The offering of the firstborns are designed to ensure that our summer time activities will be blessed. This commandment was given immediately after the Exodus. It is intended to ensure that our livestock will be blessed. Third is the commandment to observe the Sabbath, a commandment given to the people at Marah, several weeks before the revelation at Mount Sinai. The objective of Sabbath observance is to ensure that our endeavours during the six days of the week will be blessed with success. The fourth commandment is that of observing the festival of Shavuot, in the early summer, as a result of which the grain harvest will be blessed. The fifth commandment mentioned here is the Sukkot festival, observance of which is to ensure the success of the grape harvest, etc. Deuteronomy 16,17 spells out that the festivals’ aim is to make us conscious of the blessings we have been given by G’d.
Having listed specific commandments, the Torah adds a comprehensive commandment applying on each of the three festivals mentioned previously, the pilgrimage to be made by the males to the Temple.
This is followed by some details about the festival of matzot in verse 25, followed by a commandment usually observed on Shavuot, the harvest festival, when most of the first fruit has ripened already (verse 26) and the bringing of the first ripened fruit by each farmer accompanied by a thanksgiving prayer is in full swing until Sukkot. This, in turn, is followed by a prohibition not to boil the kid in the milk of its mother, seeing that it is the time of year when most young goats are born. (compare Rosh Hashanah 2) Seeing that at that time the tithe of new born animals is applicable, that is the time when one has to be warned against violating this commandment.

את חג המצות תשמור, "you are to observe the festival of unleavened bread." The reason that the Torah chose to mention this commandment at this point is the need for the Israelites to rehabilitate themselves from the sin of idolatry. The Zohar volume 4 page 40 states that the spiritual equivalent of leavened matter is an alien deity. This is the reason G'd has so insistently and repeatedly warned us about keeping or eating leavened matter on the festival of Passover. In this instance, G'd instructed us concerning the observance of all the festivals. The reason may be that all the major festivals are rooted in the Exodus experience of the Jewish people. Inasmuch as the sin of the golden calf elevated that idol to the redeemer which took the Israelites out of Egypt, all festivals are a reminder of the Exodus. G'd repeated the legislation because it contained elements which demonstrated that he who observed these commandments expressed his opposition to idolatry by doing so. He also mentioned Sabbath observance since the observance of the Sabbath counteracts the previously performed idolatry. Just as idolatry cancels all merits one ever accumulated by performing G'd's commandments, so the observance of the Sabbath is considered as observance of all the commandments and a form of rehabilitation for the idolatry one was guilty of previously. Compare my comments at the beginning of Parshat Vayakel.

V. 18. את חג המצות, mit dem Brote der Knechtschaft und der sozialen Armut in der Hand, feierst du das Fest deiner Erstehung zur Freiheit und Selbständigkeit. Wie du deine geschichtliche Existenz durch keinerlei äußere Mittel errungen, wie du arm und von allem entblößt, nur dich und deine Kinder hattest, als du frei werden solltest, und nur dich und deine Kinder Gott für immer hinzugeben hattest, um durch Ihn, Ihn allein erlöst zu werden, so bleibt dir dein Erlösungsfest stets die Erneuerung deines unmittelbaren, unvermittelten Verhältnisses zu Gott. Du brauchst auch jetzt und ewig nichts mehr als dich, als dich allein, um deinen Gott zu finden und seines Schutzes und seiner Leitung gewiss zu werden. Oben, Kap. 23, 15, heißt es: כאשר צויתך, hier aber: אשר צויתך, du hast nichts nach deiner Erfindung zu gestalten, was Ich anerkennen soll, du hast das zu gestalten und zu erfüllen, was ich dir geboten habe. Das Stückchen Mazza, das du nach Gottes Gebote issest, setzt dich in nähere, tiefere und innigere Beziehung zu Gott als alle Göttergestaltungen und Gottesverehrungen menschlicher Erfindung zusammen.

את חג המצות “the festival of unleavened bread, etc.;” the festivals are repeated in order to warn the people not to add a festival of their own as they had done when they danced around the golden calf. This is the reason that these festivals’ names follow immediately upon the reminder not to make a molten image.

את חג המצות, the festival of matzot, etc.; all the commandments listed in this paragraph up to and including verse 26, are symbols of the fact that you have become servants of Hashem and that on the festivals named, the servants present their master with a gift expressing their fondness of |Him as well as their subservience.