Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Ulangan 7:9

A continuation of the analysis of Exodus 13:8-9. Rabbi Horowitz turns reasoning on its head. The reason for the Passover is not the Exodus; the reason for the Exodus was to have a story for future generations to tell on Passover. God made the Exodus from Egypt more dramatic so that we would have a story to tell in times to come.
One might think that the obligation to discuss the Exodus begins on the first day of Nissan: - The Haggadah deduces the lesson that the Seder should be recited only on Passover from two expressions in Exodus 13:8: “On that day,” (on that day but not on Rosh Hodesh) and “It is because of this,” (it is recited only when “this,” matzah and maror is before you.) But why is it necessary to deduce the exclusion of Rosh Hodesh from the words, “On that day?” This would seem to be obvious since “because of this,” also implies that one may recite the Seder only at that time when matzah and maror are on the table - on the eve of the fifteenth day of Nisan. The second expression could have cut right to the essence of the argument: Can one recite the Seder at any time on Passover? No – it must be done when you can say “It is because of this” – the matzah and maror– that God took me out of Egypt. Therefore, it can only be done on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan.
It is not obvious what the verse means when it says, “It is because of this”. The passage being quoted from Exodus 13:7-9 only applies to the matzah and not eating hametz during the seven days; it does not mention the Passover offering or the telling of the Exodus story. We are only able to conclude that Exodus 13:9 applies to Seder night through deductive reasoning from Exodus 12:8: “You shall eat the flesh roasted on this night.”²⁰Exodus 12:8 the word used for deductive reasoning is a gezerah shavah which is a rule of interpretation by which sages connected two verses because both use a similar word or phrase. In this case both Exodus 13:9 and Exodus 12:8 use the word zeh, this. The gezerah shavah is one of the hermeneutic rules in Rabbi Yishmael’s list which appears at the beginning of the daily service One could make similar deductive connection from the phrase in Exodus 12:1: “This month shall be the beginning of months to you,²¹Exodus 12:1; The verse also contains the word zeh.” from which the rabbis concluded that Nisan marks the beginning of the Passover season. Therefore, in our passage, we make a point of saying that Rosh Hodesh is not the day on which we begin the actual celebration of Passover; rather we do so “On that day,” at the eve of Passover.
We can then conclude that the expression “It is because of this which the Lord did for me,” applies to the recitation of the Exodus story. Elsewhere we are told, “For I have hardened his heart…that I might show you these signs which I have done among them, and that you may tell your child and your child’s child what I have done in Egypt, and My signs I have performed among them; that you may know that I am Adonai.”²²Exodus 10:1-2 God did not need to perform so many signs and wonders in Egypt; God could have simply taken us out of Egypt in a single moment. All the signs and wonders and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart served to create a good story to tell on Passover night for generations to come! That is why we say, “It is because of this which the Lord did for me.” The text does not say, “It is because of this God took us out of Egypt;” rather it says “It is because of this that God did for me...” The emphasis is on the signs and wonders and not the Exodus itself. It was for the sake of the future telling of the story that God did all this for me; not simply to take me out of Egypt but to create a story that future generations would tell.
We find other examples in the Bible of people who merited redemption because of generations to come. For instance, we learn in the Midrash²³This Midrash is based on the name of Abraham’s ancestral home town – Ur Kasdim – which is interpreted to mean the furnish of the Chaldeans. that Abraham was saved from the fiery furnace because of the merit of Jacob whose soul he carried in his soul. The binding of Isaac was a greater test for Abraham than it was for Isaac because after the birth of Isaac, the soul of Jacob protected Isaac and no longer needed to protect Abraham. Similarly, the people who left Egypt did not have good deeds and Torah to their credit but were redeemed because of future generations. The Zohar interprets the verse: “so that He chose you, their descendents, from among all peoples, as this present day;”²⁴Deuteronomy 10:15 to mean that God chose Israel due to the future merit of the generation of the Messiah. Similarly, it was for the merit of those who would tell the story of the Exodus that the people in the time of the Exodus merited redemption. This is the meaning of the verse: God redeemed Israel for my sake – that of future generations.

And it appears that these two questions answer each other. And this is according to the way that they, of blessed memory, explained (Sotah 31a) about two verses that are written about the reward of the righteous: one verse states (Exodus 20:6), "and does kindness to thousands" and another verse states (Deuteronomy 7:9), "to His loved ones and to those who keep His commandments, for a thousand generations." And they, of blessed memory, said that that which one verse stated "to thousands" is referring to "His loved ones" only, and does not also refer to "those who keep His commandments" - who are those that do it out of fear - because it is mentioned that they will be a thousand generations in another verse. Also the verse that states, "to His loved ones and to those who keep His commandments, for a thousand generations;" refers only to "those that keep His commandments" - which is adjacent to it - [when] it states, "for a thousand generations," and not to the word, "His loved ones," which precedes ["those who keep His commandments"]; since behold, their reward is with them in another verse, which is the one [that states] "for thousands." ...

I believe I know how we have to understand what G'd had in mind. Let us first remind ourselves that it is an accepted principle of the Torah that the Lord G'd of Israel is always concerned with bestowing good on His creatures, more so even than the creatures themselves are anxious to become the recipients of such good. This principle applies in an even greater degree to G'd's chosen people. G'd employs His wisdom in order to give us a chance to acquire merits so that He has reason to increase the reward He wants to give us for מצוה performance. G'd has revealed, for instance, that the reward in store for someone who keeps the commandments out of fear that he will be punished if he fails to keep them is only half of the reward in store for people who observe such commandments out of a feeling of love for G'd. We know this from two verses dealing with the reward in store for keeping the commandments. In Deuteronomy 7,9 the Torah mentions G'd as keeping a reward in store for those who love Him for a thousand generations, whereas in Exodus 20,7 G'd is on record as doing the same for two thousand generations. [In the celestial regions G'd has administrators known as שר. Some of these administrators are in charge of rewards extending for one thousand generations, others are in charge of rewards extending for two thousand generations, compare Pardes Rimonim, Ed.] The reward in store for people who observe the commandments because of fear is entrusted to a שר האלף, a celestial administrator of a lower order, whereas the reward in store for people who observe the commandments out of a feeling of love for G'd is administered by a שר in charge of a higher order, i.e. שר האלפים.

the word He had commanded to the thousandth generation The Torah, which He commanded to make known in the world after a thousand generations, but He saw that the world could not exist without Torah, so he skipped 974 generations of them. It may also be interpreted according to its simple meaning: He remembered for Israel His covenant, which He commanded and promised to keep for them for a thousand generations, as the matter of (Deut. 7:9): “Who keeps the covenant and the kindness for those who love Him and who keep His commandments, to a thousand generations.”