The message of matzah and the power of Pesach is all encapsulated in one amazing story of the Haggadah:
"Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon were sitting in Bnei Brak all night long discussing the Exodus. Until their students came and informed them, "The time has come to say morning Sh'ma!"
It's nice to see rabbis spending a whole night talking Torah. But is that such a chidush (novelty)? Furthermore, Bnei Brak was the home of Rabbi Akiva. Why did the rabbis - including Akiva's teachers - come there? Students respectfully visit the homes of their teachers on a Jewish holiday, and not the other way around.
Some suggest that Rabbis Eliezer, Yehoshua, Elazar and Tarfon had been on a sea journey and arrived just before Yom Tov. Not having time to get back to their respective homes in time, they went to Bnei Brak, near the port, to spend the holiday. But why didn't they just arrange to come home sooner?
Addressing all these issues, the Ohr HaChayim, in his Haggadah companion Leil Shimurim, explains with a stunning story. These rabbis had gone to Rome, which controlled Judea, at a moment of deep crisis, in order to plead for the safety of the Jewish nation. They did not choose the time of their journey; they picked up and went when they had to go.
But they were unable to persuade Rome to relent in its plan to subjugate the Jews and left Rome empty-handed. So overcome were they with depression and despair that on that ship, they decided they would not, could not keep Pesach that year.
"What Simchat Yom Tov can there be when Israel is so forlorn?" they cried.
But then they had an idea: "There is only one man in Israel who can give us hope, who can restore our faith in the future - Akiva!" And that is the reason why they all went to Bnei Brak.
(These are the same rabbis who, at the end of Talmud tractate Makot, are dejected at the Temple Mount being in ruins, until Akiva brings them a message of uplift and consolation.)
Dear friends: We begin this Pesach with our own sense of foreboding, fearful of our precarious future. We, too, have no lack of enemies and we, too, see the Temple Mount in foreign hands. But we must not despair. Like Akiva, we must have faith and we must recognize that the G-d of Israel is eternally with us. We shall overcome, and we shall yet sing that S'hma of Shacharit. We must rejoice, in the knowledge that no force on earth below can dislodge us, so long as our strength is in the Heavens above.
After the long night of travail will come the new dawn of Geulah. As it was then in the month of Nissan, so shall it be now in Nissan.
"Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon were sitting in Bnei Brak all night long discussing the Exodus. Until their students came and informed them, "The time has come to say morning Sh'ma!"
It's nice to see rabbis spending a whole night talking Torah. But is that such a chidush (novelty)? Furthermore, Bnei Brak was the home of Rabbi Akiva. Why did the rabbis - including Akiva's teachers - come there? Students respectfully visit the homes of their teachers on a Jewish holiday, and not the other way around.
Some suggest that Rabbis Eliezer, Yehoshua, Elazar and Tarfon had been on a sea journey and arrived just before Yom Tov. Not having time to get back to their respective homes in time, they went to Bnei Brak, near the port, to spend the holiday. But why didn't they just arrange to come home sooner?
Addressing all these issues, the Ohr HaChayim, in his Haggadah companion Leil Shimurim, explains with a stunning story. These rabbis had gone to Rome, which controlled Judea, at a moment of deep crisis, in order to plead for the safety of the Jewish nation. They did not choose the time of their journey; they picked up and went when they had to go.
But they were unable to persuade Rome to relent in its plan to subjugate the Jews and left Rome empty-handed. So overcome were they with depression and despair that on that ship, they decided they would not, could not keep Pesach that year.
"What Simchat Yom Tov can there be when Israel is so forlorn?" they cried.
But then they had an idea: "There is only one man in Israel who can give us hope, who can restore our faith in the future - Akiva!" And that is the reason why they all went to Bnei Brak.
(These are the same rabbis who, at the end of Talmud tractate Makot, are dejected at the Temple Mount being in ruins, until Akiva brings them a message of uplift and consolation.)
Dear friends: We begin this Pesach with our own sense of foreboding, fearful of our precarious future. We, too, have no lack of enemies and we, too, see the Temple Mount in foreign hands. But we must not despair. Like Akiva, we must have faith and we must recognize that the G-d of Israel is eternally with us. We shall overcome, and we shall yet sing that S'hma of Shacharit. We must rejoice, in the knowledge that no force on earth below can dislodge us, so long as our strength is in the Heavens above.
After the long night of travail will come the new dawn of Geulah. As it was then in the month of Nissan, so shall it be now in Nissan.