Why is the Chag called Pesach - Passover?
The Darchei Noam says this alludes to Hashem ‘passing-over’ a פתח: an opening the size of the eye of a needle.
He brings the Midrash Shir Hashirim, where Hashem says: ‘Open for Me an opening the size of the eye of a needle, and I will open for you a passage through which you can drive wagons’.
On the day that Bnei Israel left Egypt, they did not have merit even the size of ‘the eye of a needle’ - but Hashem in His mercy, ‘passed-over’ this lack of a פתח, and took them out.jjjj
This message is also behind our second question,:
Why does the Torah call the day of the Exodus שבת - Shabbat "- calling the following day מחרת השבת : ‘the day after Shabbat’? - that being the day on which we start ‘counting the omer’ ?
Answers Rav Elimelech miDinov: Shabbat was solely established and fixed by Hashem - at Creation - with no involvement whatsoever by man, on which - as we brought - Bnei Israel had no ‘role’, as they had no merits, and were redeemed by Hashem, who ‘passed-over’ their ‘nakedness’.
Third question: Why is it called the Omer? the ‘counting of the omer’, which - as we brought - commences on that ‘day after Shabbat’.
Rav Yaakov Tzvi Meklenburg - the ‘Haktav veHakabalah - notes that nowhere else do we find an offering being called by its measure - as is the case with the omer - which is the measure of the first harvest brought and waved by the Kohen.
Posits the sage: it would have been more apt to call it ‘the offering of the bikurim’: of the first of the harvest.
However, it is called ‘counting the omer’, because that word also alludes to another matter: enslavement - as in Parashat Ki Tetze: where we read of one takes another person והתעמר בו - and enslaves him.
This is the underlying meaning of ‘counting the Omer’ - noting our ascending enslavement to Hashem, day by day, over the fifty day period, till we attain the pinnacle of subjugation at Matan Torah.
Indeed this is explicit in Hashem’s answer to Moshe’s query - in Parashat Shemot: מי אני כי אלך אל פרעה ואוציא את בני ישראל ממצרים? Who am I to go to Pharoah, and to take Bnei Israel out of Egypt? - to which Hashem answered: Because I will be with you, and in the third month of your departure from Egypt, תעבדון : you shall become enslaved to Hashem, by receiving the Torah, on this mountain.
This leads us to our fourth - and final kushia:
We say in the prelude to our nightly counting of the Omer : ‘Seven weeks fifty days’.
Why do we stop counting at forty-nine, and not count ‘fifty’ on the last night?
The answer can be found in Parashat Mishpatim, which relates the events of the reading from the ספר הברית : ‘the Book of the Covenant’, that being the occasion on which Bnei Israel accepted their total subjugation to Hashem and the Torah, declaring: ‘All that Hashem says, we shall do and we shall heed’:
כל אשר דיבר ה' נעשה ונשמע
Rav David Cohen - the Chevron Rosh Yeshivah - expounds that a covenant between two parties, requires each to give something which ‘is carved from them’.
In our covenant, Hashem gave us the Torah, and we - for our part - gave something very precious to man : our independence and freedom, accepting total subjugation to Hashem’s Will.
This - as Rashi notes - occurred on the Fifth of Sivan - on which we count the forty-ninth day of the ‘counting of the Omer’.
Since we then accepted our total enslavement to Hashem, the objective of the counting was concluded - and therefore there is no purpose - or need - to count the fiftieth day!
So now you have the answers to questions that were not a result of the Seder table or the Seder itself.
And you know the answers to the four kushiyot!