A SYNTHESIS OF THE PASSOVER RITUAL AND LITURGY
WITH THE TWELVE STEPS OF RECOVERY

By Reb Hershy W.  

13 IN THE BEGINNING - MITCHILO

When we were commanded to tell the Haggadah to our children this is what was being referred to. The actual Haggadah begins here. The word Haggadah means "Tough talk". Hard words to swallow: "Words, hard as sinews".

What could be so unpalatable and indigestible about the Haggadah story? More than just the admission of powerlessness it must be our level of depravity that embarrasses us.

This isn't the story of our struggle to get out of Egypt. The Exodus was not a civil rights march. We weren't fighting anyone. This is not our struggle for the right to equality or freedom of religion. This is a story of events as they really occurred. Our contribution to the whole saga is not a noble one.

To understand anything about our history, put it in the context of daily commerce in a civilization of Bronze-age Mesopotamians and Egyptians 1800-1300 B.C.E. Let us examine for a moment one aspect of life in that epoch. What did they invent for "Kicks"?

The overwhelming mood and mind-altering experience of ancient times was idol worship in all its multifarious forms. But most modern people would be disgusted by the worship of idols of yesteryear.

People had pathological relationships with it. They persisted in practicing its worship in the face of all evidence that it was harmful to their physical, mental and spiritual health.

High on the list of contemptible people are the panders and purveyors to death-dealing habits. Be they crack dealers, tobacco houses, sugar barons, propagandists, polluters or televangelists.

Well, the bad news is that we were up there on the list of exploiters. Our family business was the making and distribution of idols and fetishes. We had the local franchise dealership in Ur of the Chaldees.

The good news is that now Hashem has attached us to His worship as it is written.

Joshua said to all the people, "These are the words of Adonai the G-D of Israel: "Over the river lived your ancestors from time immemorial. Terach father of Abraham and Nachor. And they worshipped other gods. I acquired your father, taking Abraham from the other side of the river and walking him through all the Land of Canaan. I increased his seed and I gave him Issac. To Issac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Mount Seir to Esau as an inheritance, Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt".

BLESSED IS THE KEEPER OF PROMISES

(a) Blessed is the keeper of promises to Israel!

Is there a suggestion here that Hashem doesn't always keep His promises?
 

(b) Because the Holy Blessed One calculated the end, to do...

What is the connection between this and the previous statement? What promise to Israel is being referred to here in the text? In the recorded history of Israel before the Exodus, no where do we find such a promise made to them. To who, was the promise made? and what is the meaning of the phrase; "calculated the end, to do"? To do what?

The Haggadah is referring to mysteries spoken about by the Kabbalists. "The last action in the first thought" -- the last action was the evolution of Israel.

In classical antiquity Israel was a very late development. By tradition, we were, in fact, the last to evolve. The End, as it were, of the evolutionary process of creation, of nationhood, of language and culture.

"The promise to Israel" is the promise Hashem made to Himself to create Israel. The first word of the Torah, "B'RAISHIS" "In the Beginning" refers to Israel who are called "Raishis". Because "T'shuvah" Recovery, which is reason for the creation, is also called "Raishis".

The final act Hashem did was the evolution of Israel, but it was His primary purpose For T'shuvah is the primary purpose. For Israel carries the message which is the enormous wealth referred to at the end of the paragraph. We were given this wealth during the Exodus in two parts.
 

"And the Children of Israel came through the sea on dry land" (Exodus 14:22).

Were they in the sea or were they on dry land? asks the Midrash, continuing: "From here we learn that each individual had to throw himself into the sea before it parted".

Nachshon Ben Aminadav, prince of the tribe of Judah was first to jump into the sea. It reached his nostrils before splitting for him. Did Nachshon know what would happen or was he committing suicide? Did all those who followed, the six hundred thousand, did they know the sea would split or did they expect to drown? Were they expecting some sort of miracle to occur?

Another question that begs to be asked, concerns the "Great Wealth" promised to our Father Abraham, which was brought out of Egypt.

It is well known that when the Jewish people left Egypt, they emptied it of treasure, leaving it like an ocean without fish. There was nothing left for them to borrow or take. Yet we are told that seven days later Moshe had to drive them away from the scene of the Splitting of the Red Sea, that they were so busy plundering the booty, stripping the corpses of the Egyptian dead that they would not move on. Furthermore we are told: the value of the spoil picked at the seashore was hundreds of times greater than the loot hauled out of Egypt. The Midrash makes a ratio comparison as that of dots of silver to lines of gold. How empty could Egypt have been, if there yet remained the vast treasure carried by the pursuing army which later drowned in the sea?

The answer is of course that there is treasure and then there is treasure!

What so precious was it we brought out of Egypt with us on the first night of Pesach? What could possibly have been worth those hundreds of tormented years, the slavery, the pain or the degradation?

First of all we realized that we could not manage our own lives. Intelligent and well meaning though we were, children of the Holy Patriarchs and Matriarchs, twelve tribes of G-D, alone we were not enough. Nothing we ourselves were capable of was going to stop our descent to the lowest depths of defilement.

This may seem at first glance like a very unpretentious truth. Until you realize that many a civilization has gone from evolution to extinction with no inkling of its implication.

Secondly, we in Egypt came to believe that a only a power infinitely greater than ourselves was capable of managing, maintaining a sane balance and governing our life's affairs. Throughout the year that revealed the Ten Plagues, we became imbued with the profound awareness that the G-D of our Fathers is the Creator of the World, and no one else. That we had failed in all our attempts to control our Egyptianization. That while it is true we had not intermarried, we'd maintained our identity as the Children of Israel, we spoke Hebrew and dressed as Jews.

It was not enough. If there are 50 gates of disgust we had passed through 49 of them. We could not and cannot do it on our own, we are powerless. In order to be delivered out of Egypt we would need the Almighty to act as midwife. To have our Jewish gold separated from the dross that was Egypt we would need an omnipotent, caring and loving G-D. What priceless knowledge this is.

Now to return to the question we asked at the outset, what happened at the sea?

Knowing intellectually that something is true, is only the first step. Being able to act on that knowledge is a much more difficult matter. What happens when our fears meet our challenges? There we were at the Red Sea, the Egyptian cavalry and army bearing down on us, there was nowhere to run.
 

Moshe said "Hashem has said "Be quiet" He will do the fighting for you. Why are you crying at me? Tell the children of Israel to begin moving".

This was the first real moment in history when our fears met a challenge. It was a triumphant moment because we made the decision to turn our will and life over to the care of Hashem. To answer the question; did Nachshon know the sea was going to split for him? He didn't stop to ask. Turning life over to the care of G-D, precludes such meaningless speculation.

When I know I'm being taken care of, what does it matter whether I'm being told to walk or stand still? To jump into the sea or into the flames? When it was all over, when we began realizing what had happened to us, the jump we had made, the quantum leap, the purest act of faith, we couldn't get over it. We sat together on the seashore going over it, again and again.

This was wealth beyond anything we had dreamed. That we could give up managing our own lives and turn it over to the care of a kind, caring, loving G-D? It was totally unprecedented. It was revolutionary. It was even greater wealth than we had brought out of Egypt with us. Moshe had to get us moving, urging us away from there. He knew it was not the end of our spiritual journey, there was more to come.

It is said that the riches we brought out of Egypt was given us in the merit of the women, while the riches we acquired at the Sea was in the merit of the men. The hidden meaning is this. The realization we were out of control, that only Hashem could straighten us out, was achieved passively. We did no more than watch the plagues befall the Egyptians. It took no participation on our part.

Passivity is often symbolized in Jewish stories by 'woman'. The realization we could make leaps of faith required action on our part. We ourselves had to do the jumping, intellectualizing about faith in G-D wouldn't save us. Action is denoted in this story by the symbol 'man'.
 

I. One is known as the Plunder of Egypt which refers to our realization of the first two steps.

First, we realized how powerless we were, then we realized that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
 

II. The second installment of riches is referred to as the Plunder of the Red Sea.

We were faced with the Egyptian army, whose only thought was our annihilation. Behind us was the sea. We felt trapped and desperate. We cried to Moshe; he cried to Hashem. He told Moshe to tell us not to worry,
 

"Just let go, let G-D. All you have to do is start walking".

Instead of crying out again, "where shall we walk to"? we turned our will and lives over to the care of Hashem and started walking into the sea. We walked until the water came up to our nostrils without looking back. And the waters parted.

This knowledge that we could turn our will and life over was the greatest wealth we could ever have been given, and we are told that the Plunder of the Sea was more valuable even than the Plunder of Egypt.

The first installment of riches is known as the "Women's" meaning that it is passively acquired.
 

1. We admitted we were powerless...

2. We came to believe.......
 

The second part is known as the "men's" since it requires action.
 
3. We made a decision....

The textual ambiguities in this paragraph are too numerous to elucidate individually and their translation into English would require further explanations and commentaries. So much is left for those who want to learn of the mysteries of the Kabbala and more will be revealed.

The word "Kaitz" "end" has a numerical value of 190 which was the number of years spent developing the latent personalities of the slaves we later became. We were in Egypt only for 210 years.

The 190 years previous to that is calculated from the birth of Yitzchak and goes to make up the 400 years of exile, promised to Abraham. In fact our problems all began with the birth of Yitzchak.

 
"And they will be slaves to them and they will oppress them four hundred years".

It is not clear who will oppress whom and who will suffer the most.
 

"and also the nation they serve I will judge".

Hashem promised to be judgmental also to the Egyptians. He was most judgmental about us. In fact the vast majority of us never made it into Recovery and four-fifths of us died in the days of darkness during the Plague of Darkness. The percentages haven't changed much over the millennia.

"Hashem calculated the end to do".

In the world of the Kabbala, words have meanings within meanings. "ASA" "to do" appears a number of times in the story of the Exodus. It refers to the fourth and final stage of development in the creation. ASIYA, DOING, is the ultimate purpose and meaning of the creation. T'shuva, fixing, recovery, is likewise the ultimate meaning. We Israel are the Ultimate meaning, we are ASIYA. Now in the order of the Kabbala, the order of creation is formalized thus; corresponding to the four stages of thought into speech:
 

1) Unconscious thought, inspirational.

2) Conscious creative thought.

3) Rational, reflective, selective thought, and

4) Speech.

Corresponding to the four words ATZILUTH, B'RIYAH, YETZIRA, and finally ASIYA, each is a form of creativity but ASIYA is the most tangible, as speech is the most tangible thought.

Corresponding to this are four stages of Recovery:
 

1) We were relieved of the obsession,

2) We made decisions to change our lives and take steps,

3) We took those steps, one at a time and finally;

4) We carried the message.

"When Hashem did for me" intimates at these processes.

THIS IS WHAT STOOD BY OUR FATHERS - V'HEE SH'OMDO

(We lift the cup and hold it in the palm of our hand as we recite this chapter.)

The promise to Israel which the "Keeper of Promises" made is what has stood as a beacon for us, a guarantee of continuity.

We lift the cup to remind us of the second term "V'hitzalty", "And I saved you". The Holy-One-Blessed-is-He saves us again and again. In this context, Hatzala refers to the intimacy we enjoy with our savior. We need keep no secrets. We may feel ashamed at the thought that again and again we dream of "using". It wasn't only in Egypt that we were slaves, we relapsed again and again. Each time our enemies rejoiced in our slavery and each time they saw us recover.

Every time it happens, they think to hold us in the palm of their hands. But before they can squeeze and crush us we are gone, for Hashem holds us in the palm of His hand.

The word used in the text is "AMAD" "Stood".

Perils arise and stand over us, threatening to destroy us. Not just in Pharaoh's Egypt but in every generation new substances, and new habits each with life-threatening consequences seems about to engulf us. And the Holy One save us again, His promise looms every bit as large and powerful as any threat.

GO OUT AND LEARN - TZAY U'LMAD

Go out and learn what Lavan the Arami plotted to do to Yaakov our father. He was worse than Pharaoh who only wanted to kill the males. Lavan tried to uproot us completely. Pharaoh hated us as a people, Lavan hated us as an idea. To glimpse how profound such hatred can be it is necessary to project ourselves beyond the present moment and imagine as it were the world without all possibility of redemption. Lavans' world.

Lavan was the brother of Rivka (Rebecca) wife of Yitzchak. When Eliezer, Avraham's servant, went to Mesopotamia to betroth Rivka as a bride for Yitzchak, Lavan tried to poison him so that no Jewish nation could be born.

Later Yaakov (Lavan's nephew) came to Lavan looking for a wife for himself. He fell in love with Rachel, Lavan's daughter, but was tricked into marrying Leah. Lavan was desperate to prevent the marriage of Yaakov and Rachel, for they would give birth to Joseph and the hope of redemption from Egypt. To Benjamin and the hope for ultimate redemption. Lavan tried 100 ways to cheat Yaakov out of every possible joy and profit, but he never succeeded because Yaakov was such a straightforward man and because Hashem took charge of his affairs and caused them to prosper.

Lavan hated Yaakov and everything he stood for; as it is written, "the Aramaian loathed my father". It was only the promise that Hashem has made to Himself, regarding Israel that stood us in good stead.

The rest of this verse quoted in the text segues neatly into the Haggadah and the story of the Exile into Egypt, as it continues:
 

"And he went down into Egypt, and he sojourned there, small in number, And became there a great nation, powerful and numerous".

What follows is a note on how we came to be in Egypt. Don't think we went willingly. Oh No! We were forced down by the word of the Almighty. Don't think we went down into Egypt intending to stay there. No! We went down merely to sojourn as it is written...etc.

Did all this hesitation and reticence prevent us becoming enmeshed in the experience of Egypt and the subsequent slavery? The answer to that is history.

Many of us began using a medication at the express prescription of a medical practitioner, many of us began eating simply to assuage a ravening hunger. Many of us were genuinely angry at something in our lives which needed charge. The end result was always the same. The medication became a habit, the meal became a binge, the anger became abusive rage, friendship became obsession, the rules changed as we were playing and we never noticed.

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