ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף יחזקאל 16:6

Wir haben bereits zu Schmot 12, 2 und Wajikra 23, 2 u. 4 auseinandergesetzt, wie die קידוש החדש- und עיבור השנה-Institution und die gleichzeitig geschichtlichen und jahreszeitlichen Bestimmungen unserer Festzeiten, allem und jedem antiken und modernen Naturkult entgegen, vielmehr aus einer vergötternden Anbetung der Natur uns zur Huldigung Gottes des einen Einzigen hinrufen, dessen Gegenwart jedes Wesen und jeder Wechsel, jeder Atemzug des Naturlebens verkündet, dessen Gesetz in jeder Entfaltung des Naturseins allmächtig ist, der aber in noch innigerer Nähe dem sittlich freien Menschenleben nahe ist und uns in Gestaltung und Lenkung unserer Geschicke und in Leitung unseres Tatenlebens durch sein Gesetz offenbar geworden. Die Identität des einen Einzigen in Natur und Geschichte, das ist die Basis unseres Gottes- und Selbstbewusstseins, und das ist die Wahrheit, zu deren Promulgierung das שמור את חדש האביב ועשית פסח לה׳ אלקיך unser ganzes Kalenderwesen gestaltet. Das Fest unserer geschichtlichen Auferstehung muss zu gleicher Zeit das Fest der Auferstehung der Natur sein. Der Gott, dessen Frühlingshauch die Natur aus der Todesstarre des Winters weckt, das ist derselbe Gott, der uns aus Tod und Fessel zu Leben und Freiheit gerufen, und der Gott, der einst mit seinem: בדמיך חיי (Ezech. 16, 6) das ägyptische Grab unseres geschichtlichen Todes gesprengt, das ist derselbe Gott, dessen frei machendes, Leben gebendes Walten in der Natur noch jede aus dem Boden hervorbrechende Sprosse, jede zur Blüte aufbrechende Knospe, jedes aus der Todeserstarrung sich aufrüttelnde Wesen frühlingsselig verkündet. Der Tag, dessen Wiederkehr immer aufs neue im פסח-Opfer den geschichtlichen Moment uns begehen lassen will, in welchem physischer und politischer Tod über unseren Häuptern schwebten und Gott beide mit abwägender Prüfung über uns hinweg schreiten ließ und unser Opfergelöbnis ewig treuer, männlich heiterer Hingebung mit Leben und Freiheit rettend lohnte: der Tag, der vierzehnte Nissan, muss immer im Frühlingsanfang des Naturerwachens stehen und, zurückgeblieben, in diesen Anfang, durch Einschaltung, gestellt werden. Wir begreifen daher, warum אין מעברין אלא אדר (Sanhedrin 12 a), warum diese Regulierung nur durch Einschaltung eines zweiten Adar und nicht irgend eines anderen Monats des Jahres zu bewirken ist. Nur durch Einschaltung eines dem Monat Nissan unmittelbar vorangehenden Monats tritt der Zweck dieser Einschaltung, das Zusammenfallen des Peßachmonats mit dem Frühlingsmonat, in die Augen. Dagegen tritt die Offenbarung Gottes in unserer Geschichte also mit überwiegender Bedeutung in den Vordergrund, daß, wenn einmal der Monat Nissan eingetreten, ja selbst nur bereits der 30. Adar herangekommen, der der 1. Nissan werden konnte, dann keine Einschaltung mehr zulässig ist, אין מעברין ניסן בניסן, ja: אין מעברין את השנה ביום שלשים של אדר הואיל וראוי לקובעו ניסן (daselbst 12b).

With the help of this explanation I have been able to understand why G'd was so particular about only two aspects of the Passover legislation in Egypt. The first aspect is G'd's insistence that only Jews who had been circumcised were allowed to offer and eat the Passover lamb. Our sages in Shemot Rabbah 17,3 understand Ezekiel 16,6 and 8 as referring to the blood of circumcision and the blood of the Passover sacrifice respectively. The second aspect G'd was so concerned with at the time was the prohibition of a בן נכר (normally translated as a Gentile) eating from that sacrifice. The sages in Shemot Rabbah 16,3 explain Exodus 12,21 משכו וקחו לכם צאן, "draw out and take for yourselves lambs, etc." to refer to people who had withdrawn from worshiping idols. The visible evidence of abandoning idol worship consisted of slaughtering the very animal which served the Egyptians as a major deity. When a Jew did this he ceased to be a בן נכר, a Gentile. It is strange that the third major stricture which the Torah warned the Jews of regarding the observance of the Passover ritual, namely, that it must not be eaten by people who are ritually impure did not feature in the legislation as it applied to the Jews in Egypt. Why did G'd not care about this at that time? It is true, of course, as you are all aware, that if the majority of the Jewish people were to find themselves in a state of ritual impurity due to contact with the dead the rule about eating the Passover while in a state of impurity is relaxed, as we know from Pessachim 67. Nonetheless, G'd could have at least commanded that the Jews in Egypt should endeavour to be ritually pure before eating the Passover? Moses could have prepared the ash of a red heifer to facilitate the process of a Jew cleansing himself of such impurity! Even the whole Passover legislation for future observance as detailed in Exodus 12,42-49 does not mention the need to be ritually pure! While one can come up with various excuses as to why ritual purity inside Egypt was not feasible, the Torah should have at least mentioned this as part of the requirements for the Passover observance forthwith! When you reflect on what we have written above you will find that there was a perfectly good reason why the Torah ignored the requirement of ritual purity in Exodus. The Israelites did not need to purify themselves because they had not been defiled through contact with the dead in the first place. As long as they had not been Jews in the legal sense of the word, i.e. through circumcision and the affirmation of their monotheism through the act of slaughtering an Egyptian deity, i.e. the lamb, they were no better than the Kutim discussed in Nazir 61 and the rule laid down for who is subject to such ritual impurity by Maimonides. As long as the Israelites had not received the Torah they would not contract ritual impurity even after they had circumcised themselves and prepared the Passover lamb for ritual slaughter. Moreover, even assuming that Jews could contract ritual impurity as soon as they had converted by circumcision and the denial of idol worship, such a conversion took place only on the 14th of Nissan as they prepared to slaughter the lamb. Any so-called ritual impurity which was contracted before that date would be automatically cancelled as it had been contracted by a different person, a Gentile instead of a Jew. Even nowadays, if a Gentile converts on the 14th of Nissan, any impurity he had contracted prior to that date is ignored for the purpose of including him in the people who may eat of the Passover, provided he meets all the other requirements. Having written this we are faced with the problem mentioned in Pessachim 92 where it states that a proselyte who converted on the 14th of Nissan may not participate in that year's Passover although he had ritually immersed himself [a requirement for all proselytes. Ed.], the reason being that in the event he would be impure due to contact with the dead in the following year he would think that all he had to do was to immerse himself in a ritual bath. Maimonides also rules this way in chapter 6 of his Hilchot Pessach. The reason both the Talmud and Maimonides had to explain the reason for this prohibition teaches that in actual fact such a proselyte had not been ritually impure at all at the time of his conversion. The same applied to the Jews in Egypt. This then is the meaning of the Torah writing זאת חקת התורה.

Rabbi Horowitz now turns to the question of the wicked child. What is implied by his question? He delves into the wicked child’s question and suggests that the difference between the wise and wicked child is when each one asks his question. The wise child asks after having performed the commandment while the wicked child asks before, as a condition to his fulfillment of the mitzvah. He also contextualizes the question: the Passover offering is of such great importance that his question is tantamount to denying the whole Torah.
What is this service to you? Since the wicked child says “to you,” he is separating himself from the community. And yet, as we have already seen, how is this question different from the wise child who seems to exclude himself when he says, “What are these commandments …which God commanded YOU?”
The difference between the wicked and the wise child is when the question is asked. The wise child asks after performing the commandment while the wicked asks his question before the performing the commandment!
Wisdom comes through obedience first, as we see in the case of the Jewish people. When the people of Israel said “we will do (na’aseh) we will listen (nishma),” the Holy One responded, “Who revealed this secret to my children?”⁹Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 88b This can be explained in the following way: when a faithful servant is commanded to perform a task by his master, he doesn’t ask why; he does whatever he is told, whether he understands the reason or not, as in the case of Abraham who took his son to Mount Moriah prepared to offer him as a sacrifice. If the servant finds favor in the eyes of his master, then his master might explain the reason to him afterwards. This is why the people of Israel placed “We will do” before “We will listen.” Israel was prepared to do whatever God commanded even before they heard an explanation. These commandments are incumbent upon all Israel; some of these laws are statutes (hukkim), for which there is no rational explanation. “Nishma” (hearing or understanding) is reserved for those who are favored by God. The wise child who has engaged in the commandments of Pesach, matzah and maror can now ask the reason for the commandments. The wicked child, on the other hand, asks even before he performs any of the commandments. He figures that if the explanation suits him he will perform the commandment and if not, he will reject it.
What does the Haggadah mean when it says that the wicked child “separated himself from the community?” This means that he has rejected the two commandments that epitomize the very essence of faithfulness to covenant and community. Commenting on the verse, “I said to you, “Through your blood shall you live” and I said to you, “through your blood shall you live,”¹⁰Ezekiel 16:6” the sages suggest that Israel was redeemed because of the two mitzvot: the Pesach offering and circumcision. Circumcision is equal to all 613 commandments;¹¹Tradition is that the number 613 is made up of 248 positive commandments, equal to the number of parts of the human body and the 365 negative commandments, equal to the number of days in the year. when God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself, he said to him, “Walk before me and be whole.¹²Genesis 17:1 – the word tamim can mean whole or blameless. Horowitz understands the idea here that circumcision encompasses the whole person.” There is a numerical allusion to the importance of circumcision in the word brit, which has the numerical value of 612 – when we add the word/mitzvah itself to this number it is equal to 613. Thus, circumcision is equal to all the commandments. Similarly, the Pesach offering is equal to all 613 commandments as well. Since these two commandments encompass the entire human being¹³Horowitz uses the expression shiur komah, which is often used as a reference to the divine person; the commandments symbolize, Israel was deemed worthy of being redeemed. That is why the sages interpreted the verse “You shall keep the commandments (mitzvot)” as “You shall keep unleavened bread (matzot),¹⁴Exodus 12:17 – the words matzot and mitzvot are written with the same letters!” since the Pesach offering is equal to all the other commandments. Similarly, we find yet another statement regarding the importance of the Pesach offering in the following discussion in the Talmud:
“He broke the Tablets:” how did Moses learn (that it was permissible to smash the tablets when the people worshipped the calf)? He argued: If the Passover sacrifice, which is but one of the 613 precepts, and yet the Torah said, “No alien eat thereof.” Here is the whole Torah, and the Israelites are apostates, how much more so should I smash the tablets (and not allow them to fulfill any of these commandments)! ¹⁵Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 87a
In this passage, Moses compares the Pesach offering to all the other mitzvot in the Torah. This is not true in other cases; for instance, if one denies one’s faith, one’s Terumah offering is not exempt. The Passover offering is different since it is equal to all the commandments of the Torah. Furthermore, if you add up the numerical values of the letter names in Pesach (pei – samekh – heit) it equals 613! By not performing this commandment, he separates himself from the k‘llal¹⁶Usually, the word k’llal means community – here he understands it as the combined mitzvot of the Torah. of mitzvot, the sum total of the commandments, and he denies the essential teachings – such a person is considered to be like one who worships idols.
We can now understand the reasoning behind the wicked child’s question. The wicked child begins with the assumption of the Haggadah, that “Every generation should see itself as if it were present in Egypt.” This means that each person is connected to those who were present in Egypt. The wicked child says, “Since I was present with you in Egypt and I‘m considered to be like “a gentile” because I have denied the most essential commandments, then all those in Egypt with me could not consume the Pesach offering either.” Therefore, he says, “What is this service to you,” since you could not eat it. Our response to the wicked child is to say, “Your presence does not disqualify the rest of us from eating the Pesach offering. In fact, a mixed multitude of others left Egypt with Israel even though they did not accept the mitzvot. This caused the exile to be prolonged but it did not remove the possibility of redemption. We are commanded in scripture to remove, “the dross from the silver,¹⁷See Jeremiah 6:29 - The bellows puff; the lead is consumed by fire. Yet the smelter smelts to no purpose – The dross is not separated out. They are called rejected silver for the Lord has rejected them” even if the people, even if the evil became mixed into the nation again.¹⁸That is, at the time of the Exodus the evil was removed from Israel but afterward it returned to make the nation impure once again. It is our responsibility, then, to “remove the evil from our midst.”

והיה לכם למשמרת AND IT SHALL BE IN YOUR KEEPING (or watching) — This expresses the idea of examining, and the text therefore implies that it requires examination against any blemish during the four days before slaughter (Pesachim 96a). And why did He order that it should be taken from the flock four days before its slaughter, something which He did not command in respect to the paschal-lamb that was offered by succeeding generations? Rabbi Mathia, the son of Cheresh, said, in answer: Behold, it (Scripture) says, (Ezekiel 16:8) “And I passed over thee (an allusion to God’s passing over the Israelites in Egypt) and looked upon thee, and behold, thy time was the time of love” — there had arrived the time to fulfil the oath which I had sworn to Abraham to redeem his children. They, however, possessed no divine commands in which to engage in order that they should merit to be redeemed — as it is said (Ezekiel 16:7) “thou wast naked and bare” (i. e. bare of all merit earned through the fulfilment of God’s commands). He therefore gave them two commands, relating respectively to the blood of the paschal-lamb and the blood of the circumcision — for that night they circumcised themselves, as it is said (Ezekiel 16:6) “[When I passed over thee] I saw thee wallowing in thy bloods (בְּדָמַיִךְ is plural)” i. e. in two kinds of blood. Further it states, (Zechariah 9:11) “As for thee, also, because of the blood of the covenant I released thy prisoners out of the pit wherin there is no water”. And yet another reply to this question is, that because they were sunk in idolatry and had no merit gained by the practice of a divine command, He said unto them, (v. 21) משכו “Draw” — withdraw your hands from idols; וקחו לכם צאן “and take unto yourselves a lamb” to fulfil a divine command (Mekhilta).

we will trample those who rise up against us Heb. נבוס. We will tread and trample our enemies, an expression of (Ezek. 16:6): “wallowing (מתבוססת) in your blood”; (Prov. 27:7), “tramples (תבוס) honeycomb”; (Zech. 10:5), “And they shall be like mighty men, treading (בוסים) the mire of the streets.”

And I trod Heb. וְאָבוּס. An expression of wallowing in blood and treading with the feet. Comp. (Ezekiel 16:6) “wallowing (מִתְבּוֹסֶסֶת) in your blood.” Comp. also (Jer. 12:10): “They trod (בֹּסְסוּ) My field.”