Cytowanie Komentarza do Psalmów 107:5

All who are hungry come and eat: The only preparation that we have for eating the matzah is that we don’t eat prior to the Seder so that we consume the matzah with an appetite. That is why we say ‘All who are hungry’ with regard to the matzah. For the Pesach offering (or the Afikoman), we say: “All who are in need (and not, all who are hungry) come and eat the Pesach offering,” because we eat it not in a state of physical hunger but in order to simply to fulfill the mitzvah of consuming the Pesach offering. It is through the sacredness of this hour that we become worthy of attaining the holiness of place and soul. This is the meaning of the second half of the opening declaration of the Haggadah: “All who are here” (in this place) but through the merit of this sacred moment next year we will be in the land of Israel. “All whose (souls) are enslaved;” next year we will be freed from the evil inclination and the subjugation of the nations – therefore we will have hope even now! Matzah teaches us the real depth of our hunger. “Hungry and thirsty their souls fainted in them.” (Psalm 107:5). (Pages 45a – b) The people of Israel were drowning in impurity in Egypt. Like other people who are deathly ill they were so sick they did not recognize the depth of their spiritual malady until they ate some matzah, the food of healing. Then when they ate the Pesach offering they were healed of their malady and they began to pursue God. So it is with us when we celebrate Pesach. We do not recognize the depth and quality of our spiritual hunger until we consume some matzah and we become aware of it. Until we eat matza we think we are hungry for material things. This is what the Talmud means when it says that one can be “desperately hungry and not know this.” The poor person thinks he is hungry for bread and does not understand the quality of his true hunger. That is why we say: “All who are hungry come and eat.” With the first measure of matzah we begin to recognize our true hunger and what we really need. We then say “All who are in need, come consume the Pesach offering.” With this offering we become worthy of opening our mouths with prayer (peh sach) and words of Torah. It is not for water that we are thirsty or for bread that we are hungry but to hear the voice of God. When we eat the matzah we recognize that we are living in an impure land and cannot perform all of those commandments associated with the land of Israel. Therefore we say: “Next year may we be in the land of Israel.” Overcoming the evil within us and in the world “It is well known to you that it is our will to fulfill your will, O Lord. What prevents us? It is the leaven that is in the dough and the subjugation by the other nations. ” “All who are hungry” (45b) This statement is an invitation to all of us who are subject to evil desires and have damaged the holy covenant within and are now in need of the food of healing. Such people are in need of kol; it is through the power of matzah that they are able attain this blessing, repair the mind and purify the thoughts. By eating matzah they then can open their mouths with Torah and prayer, as the Haggadah says, “Let them come and Pesach – peh sach, open their mouths.” The author of the Haggadah begins by making it clear that no one willingly chooses to deny God. He addresses the reasons that we are unable to overcome the forces of evil – It is because of “the leaven in the dough” and the fact that we are subjugated beneath the nations of the world. “The leaven in the dough” is a reference to the yetzer hara, the evil inclination. Rashi explains that when God created human beings he did so with dust taken from the four corners of the earth as well as dust from the Land of Israel. The dust from the Land of Israel is holy and the dust from the other nations of the earth is profane. This profane dust is the “leaven in the dough” to which the Talmud refers. Each human being, then, is constructed from both holy and profane material. When we are in the land of Israel the holy dust reigns over our nature, but in the Diaspora the profane dust within us rises up with the profane land in which we are living to become a dominant force. We begin the Seder by saying, “Now we are here,” in the exile. We are subject to the forces of evil that surround us. If we have not fulfilled God’s will, that is why! If we could study the Torah we could sanctify the four amot within which each Jew must dwell so that this space would become like a small bit of the land of Israel. However, conditions of the exile do not allow us to have the leisure to do this. Therefore we also say: “Now we are slaves,” subject to the nations and therefore not free to study Torah and devote ourselves to holy matters – next year may we be free to do so!

THE FLOCKS ‘HAMEKUSHAROTH.’ The correct interpretation of this expression appears to me to be that they are the flocks in which the males follow the females at all times, never leaving them due to their abundant desire, as in the expression, Seeing that his soul is ‘keshurah’ (bound up) with the lad’s soul.¹⁷⁰Further, 44:30. This is also found in the language of our Sages: “a swine karuch (clinging) to a ewe;”¹⁷¹Bechoroth 24a. “clinging to her.”¹⁷²Kiddushin 79b. And the offspring born at that time are called hakeshurim after the name of their father.
But many authorities say¹⁷³P’sikta Zutrata on this verse. that keshurim are “the strong ones” whose limbs are firmly attached to each other with a strong tie, as this is the basis of health, while atuphim¹⁶⁵Verse 42 here. are “the weak ones” whose soul ‘tithataph’ (fainted) in them,¹⁷⁴Psalms 107:5. and who have no desire, as in the expression, ‘ha’atuphim’ (that faint) for hunger.¹⁷⁵Lamentations 2:19. Onkelos translated hamekusharoth as the early-bearing sheep, and atuphim as the late-bearing ones, for such is the fact: [the early-bearing sheep are the stronger ones, and the late-bearing ones are weaker].

ותרעב כל ארץ מצרים, “The whole land of Egypt was famished, etc.” This verse speaks of the second year of the famine. It teaches that G’d had proclaimed that Egypt should suffer the pangs of hunger. We have a similar incidence in Kings II 8,1 כי קרא ה' לרעב, “for G’d has decreed famine.” Another verse in which the expression קרא is used in connection with famine is found in Psalms 105,16 קרא רעב על הארץ כל מטה לחם שבר, “He called down a famine on the land; destroyed every staff of bread.”
As a result the famine was being felt by the people, ויקרא העם אל פרעה ללחם, “the people called out to Pharaoh for food.” It is in the nature of people to cry out to those in whose power it is to satisfy their needs. We find a verse in Psalms 107,5 רעבים גם צמאים נפשם בהם תתעטף, “the hungry and thirsty, their spirit failed”. On the other hand: ויצעקו אל ה' בצר להם, “they cried out to G’d (after) they were in distress, etc.”