Blessed is the "Place;" Blessed is He: The Holy One is called Ha-Makom because God is the place of the world but the world is not God's place. Similarly, we interpret the verse, "See there is a place near Me; station yourself on the rock…" (Ex 33:22) The verse does not say "I am in the place," but "The place is near me." It is a Dwelling Place, and the Place is without a place. Further, you will find that the word Makom has the same numerical value of God's name if one squares each of the letters of the divine name: yud (10) times yud (100), hay (5) times hay (25), vav (6) times vav 36), and hay (5) times hay (25) is 186, the same as Makom.

Blessed is the one who gave the Torah: The commandment to tell the story of the exodus to our children is written in four verses in the Torah. Since we are about to interpret these verses, we begin by reciting a blessing for the Torah and then offering interpretations.

The Torah speaks of four types of children: The commandment of Haggadah, of telling the story of the Exodus, is written in four places. Since the Torah appears to repeat itself, we understand the four as referring to four types of children. They are not necessarily children but they are lacking knowledge, like children.