Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Pengkhotbah 7:14

Mah Nishtanah There are several surprising things about this passage. First, why does the child wait to ask his father questions until the pouring of second cup of wine? Why not ask the questions upon pouring the first cup of wine? If you say the reason is that he has not witnessed any differences until now, hasn’t he already watched as we dipped the karpas? In any case, even after the second cup is poured, he has not yet witnessed the eating of the matzah or the maror. Also the order of the statements in Mah Nishtanah is not in the correct order: dipping should have come first, then the eating of the matzah and the maror. And yet in the Mishnah in Pesachim it is ordered the other way around! Finally, the statement which follows the Mah Nishtanah, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt…” is an appropriate answer to the final question (leaning) but not to the other questions in the Mah Nishtanah.
The Mishnah suggests that it is precisely when the second cup of wine is poured that the child should ask; that is when the question arises, “why do we eat matzah on this night?” Also it was out of the first question that the second question arose, and so on with the rest of the questions. Each question inspires the next.
What is it about the second cup of wine that inspires the child to ask? At the beginning of the Seder, the perceptive child has no reason to question his parents since logically he concludes that matzah is associated with slavery. Since we can only eat matzah during the first half of the night and not after midnight, we conclude that matzah is a symbol of slavery. We begin the Seder by saying that matzah is ‘the bread of affliction’ further emphasizing this point. Once the second cup is poured, however, the child realizes that the matzah also symbolizes freedom! The four cups of wine symbolize the four promises of redemption: I will bring you out… I will save you, etc. The reason for the matzah is that Israelites had to leave Egypt in great haste; had they stayed in Egypt even one moment longer they would have sunk to the fiftieth level of impurity and could not be redeemed. That is why the Halachah is that even a little bit of hametz is strictly forbidden on Passover. The symbolism of the second cup (“I saved you from the impurity of Egypt”) suggests that matzah symbolizes freedom and the haste with which they left Egypt!
Now we can understand why the child does not ask his parent until the second cup is poured. He is now confused: is matzah a symbol of freedom or slavery? And if matzah is a symbol of freedom then why don’t we eat it after midnight, the hour at which Israel was freed? We do say, “why is this night (Kulo) entirely matzah? We should either eat matzah either the first half of the night (for slavery) or the second half of the night (to celebrate freedom).
This leads the child to a second question: “Why, on all other nights we dip other vegetables but tonight we dip maror?” Note that we don’t say “only maror” in the four questions just as we say “only matzah.” The first time we dip we use other vegetables while we use bitter herbs for the second dipping. The child sees that his father is dipping other vegetables for the first dipping and he wonder; if the matzah symbolizes slavery and we eat only matzah, why don’t we use bitter herbs both times we dip at the Seder? The second question, then, is a response to the first. The child wonders why we eat other vegetables for the first dipping – why don’t we eat maror for the first dipping since it symbolizes slavery, just like the matzah?
In the end matzah, is actually a symbol of freedom. Even though Israel did not leave Egypt until the next day after the Passover, the redemption began at night – that is why we eat matzah even during the first half of the night as a symbol of freedom and not slavery, and that is why we only dip the bitter herbs once and not both times.
Matzah and Maror: Another question: if matzah symbolizes freedom, and maror the bitterness of slavery and oppression, why don’t we eat the maror first and the matzah second at the Seder? This would seem to support the opinion of those who believe that we should also use bitter herbs for the first dipping; that way we would taste the bitterness of slavery occurs before we eat matzah, a symbol of freedom. If this is the case, then the language of the second question should also have been kulo maror, ‘on all other nights we eat other vegetables but tonight we eat only maror.’
So why do we eat maror after the matzah? The reason can be found in the following verse: “In a time of good fortune, enjoy the good fortune; and in a time of misfortune, reflect: the one no less than the other was God’s doing.”¹⁷Ecclesiastes 7:14 We learn from this verse that if we remember misfortune first, it will inspire sorrow and depression even if we remember the joyful occasions afterwards. Therefore we should remember the joyful occasions first and only then reflect on the sorrowful occasions. That is why we eat the matzah first which reminds of our redemption and God’s kindness first at the Seder and only then do we eat the maror. That is another reason why we don’t use bitter herbs for the first dipping – this would only cause us more sorrow.
It is for this reason that the third question in the Mah Nishtanah is about dipping. The question arises, why do we dip twice? We should dip either once or three times in the Seder! If the reason for dipping (according to the Talmud) is because there is ‘poison’ in the bitter herbs, then we should only dip once since we are not using bitter herbs for the first dipping. And if, as the Ma’aseh Adonai suggests, the dipping has opposite meanings; one for exile, and the other redemption, then this is troubling. Having opposite meanings for the same act (dipping) is confusing. What’s more, there are those who say that we should actually dip matzah in the charoset as well in which case we are dipping three times!
The second dipping symbolizes slavery: we dip the maror and we do so in charoset which is a symbol of the mortar with which the Israelites made the bricks. Therefore the two aspects of the second dipping both symbolize slavery and bitterness. For the first dipping we don’t use charoset because we are using other vegetables rather than bitter herbs (which don’t contain poison.) We therefore dip the vegetables in salt water so that neither of these symbols represent slavery or bitterness but rather redemption. The first dipping symbolizes redemption and the second dipping slavery so that joy precedes the sorrow so as not to dilute our joyful mood at this time as we explained above.
On this night we lean We can now begin to understand why the question regarding leaning follows the question of dipping.
The Talmud in Pesachim discusses whether we should lean for all four cups of wine or not. There is an opinion that we should lean to our side for the first two cups of wine when we tell the story of the Exodus but not for the second two cups of wine when we have already completed the story of the Exodus. There are those who say it should be the other way around: we shouldn’t lean for the first two cups since we were still slaves in Egypt whole we should lean for the second two cups for they represent the time when we are free. Nowadays we don’t follow either of these opinions but we lean for all four cups of wine.
Having just ascertained that we dip once as a symbol of an expression of redemption and the second time as a reminder of slavery, then why don’t we also lean for two cups of wine and not for the other two as the Talmud suggests, either for the first two cups or the second two cups. Rather we lean for all four cups of wine and for the matzah as well!!
The Haggadah answers this question by saying Avadim Hayyinu: We were slaves in Egypt but the Lord took us out from there. These four cups are an allusion to the fact that God did not just redeem us once but he will redeem us four times from four empires, and God will give us four cups of redemption. Therefore all of the cups deserve to be consumed while we are leaning as a symbol of freedom. This opening statement also reminds us that this is still a night of slavery and freedom (We were slaves – slavery; the Lord took us out – freedom) – and that is why we have two dippings, one for slavery and one for freedom.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe is famous for often asserting “Tracht Gut Vet Zein Gut,” “think good and it will be good.” Many will testify to the wisdom of this advice. Positive thinking creates a positive momentum, which itself often generates positive results. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. Kohelet 7:14 teaches that “Zeh Le’Umat Zeh Asa Elokim,” “Hashem has made the one as well as the other.” Hashem creates counterparts; the world is balanced. Hence, positive thinking has the potential in itself to generate positive results, and negative thinking, on the other hand, has the potential to yield negative results.

וירד מצרימה, “he descended to Egypt.” Here too the meaning is that at the time Yaakov descended to Egypt he had once again become impoverished so that the farmer reciting this prayer acknowledges that seeing he had not inherited anything from his father he owes all to the Lord. He (Yaakov) resided in Egypt, a small clan, few in numbers. Subsequently, the descendants of Yaakov developed into a numerous and great nation. Whereas the name Yisrael had once referred to an individual, it then became an appellation for a whole people. You O Lord have redeemed us from hard labour and have set us free by performing supernatural miracles and have given us a land flowing with milk and honey. The moral lesson implied in this whole recitation is that precisely at a time when one is prosperous and free from worry one has to look back upon what preceded this success and acknowledge who it is that enabled one to achieve this well-being. This is what Kohelet 7,14 spelled out when he said: “be pleased when things go well, but in a time of misfortune reflect.” He meant that on a day when everything is going well reflect on the days of misfortune which preceded the present. Only by reflecting that one had not always been so well-off, does one learn to appreciate one’s present good fortune. This is why it is incumbent upon us to thank the Lord on days when everything is going well.