The Temple Mount on Passover!
The Temple Mount on Passover!

The Seder Service is divided into fifteen sections, beginning with Kadesh (Sanctification) and concluding with Nirtzah (acceptance). This fifteen-stage division of the Seder service is ascribed variously to Rashi (France, 1040-1105) or to Rabbi Shmuel ben Shlomo of Falaise (France, 12th-13th century), of the Tosafist school founded by Rashi.

These fifteen stages correspond to the fifteen Songs of Ascents – the fifteen Psalms (Psalms 120-134), which were sung as part of the most joyous celebration of the year, the Water Drawing ceremony (simchat beit sho’eiva) in the Holy Temple on Sukkot: “Pious men and men of [good] deeds would dance before [the Kohanim and Levites]…while innumerable Levites with harps, lyres, cymbals, trumpets and all kinds of musical instruments were on the fifteen steps that led down from the Court of the Israelites to the Court of the Women, which correspond to the fifteen Songs of Ascents” (Mishnah, Sukkah 5:4; Yalkut Shimoni, Psalms 878). On each step, they would perform one of the fifteen Psalms of Ascent (Radak, Rashi, and Metzudat David on Psalms 120:1).

The wording of Nirtzah is well-known: “Chasal siddur Pesach ke-hilkhato – the order of Pesach has been completed according to its halakhah, in accordance with all its laws and statutes; Just as we have merited to arrange it, so too may we merit to perform it. O Pure One, Who dwells on high! Raise up the congregation of the community of ‘Who can count it?’ (Numbers 23:10)! Bring near the time when You will lead the plants of Your vineyard [Israel], redeemed to Zion in joyous song!”.

The wording is well-known; but far less known is the origin of this prayer. It began, not as the conclusion of the Seder service, but as the conclusion of the Yotzer for Shabbat ha-Gadol. The Yotzrot are liturgical poems composed for the five special Shabbatot (Shabbat Shekalim, Shabbat Zachor, Shabbat Parah, Shabbat ha-Chodesh, and Shabbat ha-Gadol), inserted into the Amidah prayers.

(Few congregations these days recite these additional paragraphs; they appear at the very end of many siddurim as additions which some congregations recite. Even those who do not have the custom to recite these yotzrot as part of the Shabbat prayers would nevertheless do well to read them: they are beautiful and inspiring prayers, composed by some of the greatest of the Talmudic and post-Talmudic sages.)

The Yotzer for Shabbat ha-Gadol concludes with a poetic account, composed by Rabbi Yosef Tuv Elem (France, 980-1050), of the halachot of searching for chametz on the evening before Pesach, how to deal with chametz discovered during the Festival, and a summary of the Seder service itself. And then, after concluding the summary of the Seder service, Rabbi Yosef Tuv Elem concludes with the piyyut (liturgical poem): “Chasal siddur Pesach ke-hilkhato – the order of Pesach has been completed… Just as we have merited to arrange it, so too may we merit to perform it…”

So this prayer was originally intended to be recited on Shabbat ha-Gadol, the Shabbat immediately before Pesach, as a prayer following the poetic discourse on the halakhot of the Seder service and the preparations for it. Only later was it adopted as the conclusion of the Seder night itself.

It is, therefore, far more than a request that our Seder service be accepted by G-d. It is actually a plea that, now that we have studied the theory of the Pesach service, we should merit to perform the actual Pesach – that is, to bring and offer the Pesach Sacrifice (Korban Pesach) on the Temple Mount.

Because actually, without the Korban Pesach, we have not fulfilled the mitzvah at all. The Pesach is the Pesach Offeriing; without that, we have no Pesach at all!

Rabbi Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane (Hy”d), in his Commentary to the Haggadah, writes: “True, ‘our lips may compensate for the sacrificial bulls’ (Hosea 14:3); and for sure, the Rabbis said that when there is no Holy Temple, one who recites the Torah portions which command the Temple offerings is considered as if he had actually brought them; and anyway, the Seder service is pretty satisfying and uplifting as it is… – but let us never forget that our main obligation, the Paschal offering, is missing form this ceremony. What we have done is replace it with symbolic actions in remembrance of…, speaking of them as if we had actually brought them. But we must not be satisfied with the mere remembrance and the as if’s: we yearn for the real thing” (The Haggada of the Jewish Idea page 96, English translation page 198).

Earlier on in his commentary (commenting on “All who are needy, let them come and join in the Pesach”, pages 12-13/English translation pages 26-27), he cites the Mahara”l (Rabbi Yehudah Löwe ben Bezalel, Prague c. 1520-1609) who enumerated two obstacles to actually offering the Pesach offering: we were not physically in the Land of Israel; and even if we were, under foreign (Muslim Turkish) occupation we would have been forcibly prevented from worship on the Temple Mount.

Indeed, the Haggadah refers to these two obstacles: “This year we are here [in exile]…this year we are slaves [subject to foreign rule]”. And then we express the hope that “next year in the Land of Israel…next year free men”.

Rabbi Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane continues: “Our generation has merited to see the removal of both the obstacles enumerated by the Mahara”l. It is important to understand that according to halakha, many of the offerings, and certainly the Pesach one, can be offered even without the Holy Temple being rebuilt. It suffices to build an altar of at least 1 cubit by 1 cubit (approximately 45 cm/18 inches) is area, and 3 cubits high, in the place of the Altar on the Temple Mount, and to use it. In fact, this was the halakhic ruling of Torah giants such as Maharatz Chayot, Rabbi Ya’akov Emden, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, and Rabbi Yehoshua of Kutna”.

No doubt, future generations will look back on this period of history with wonderment: How come – they will ask – that even after the nation reconquered the Temple Mount, it took another generation before the first offerings were restored on the Temple Mount?! And how will we, of this generation, respond when our children and grand-children ask us this…

It is worth noting, at this juncture, the severity of not offering the Korban Pesach. Tractate Kritot of the Mishnah opens by saying that there are thirty-six sins in the Torah which carry the punishment of karet (“spiritual excision” – being “cut off” either in this world or in the World to Come). Thirty-four of these are negative mitzvot – that is to say, the sinner must do something active to deserve karet (eat on Yom Kippur, worship idols, engage in certain forbidden relationships etc.). Only two positive mitzvot carry the penalty of karet for transgressing them: circumcision and offering the Korban Pesach. That is to say, these are the only two cases in which the Jew incurs karet through inaction.

(This is a vast subject, which we will not go into here; we will just mention briefly that circumcision and Korban Pesach were the two mitzvot in the merit of which we were redeemed from Egypt, and an uncircumcised man is forbidden any part in the Korban Pesach.

This Pesach, as we sit at our Seder tables, let us at least be aware of this terrible lack. For sure, awareness is growing. For several years now, the Temple Institute in Jerusalem has tried to bring the Korban Pesach.

If we are unable (for whatever reason) to actually offer the Korban Pesach, let us at the very least make it clear to ourselves that this situation is defective, and that we will do at least something to rectify it – even if nothing more than speaking about it to increase awareness.

And so, indeed, “Just as we have merited to arrange it, so too may we merit to perform it” – not just to speak but to act, not just to hope but to bring it– this year in Jerusalem!