Baruch shomer havtachto, Blessed is the one who keeps His promise: There are several questions in the coming passages. First, why do we bless God “who keeps His promise.” Doesn’t this go without saying? Even regular decent people are expected to “keep their promises.” So why does the Haggadah make a point of praising God who keeps His promise? Later on, the Haggadah goes on to say, “And it is that (promise) which God kept for our ancestors and for us.” Since God’s promise to Abraham was only for those people who were in Egypt, why do we continue to thank God as if He kept His promise for us as well? Finally, there are a number of questions on the next passage, “My father was a wandering Aramean.” Why does the Haggadah say that “Laban sought to destroy our forefather Jacob;” actually he only “considered” destroying Jacob. He didn’t act on his thoughts! Second, it seems strange that the Haggadah seems to downplay Pharaoh’s decree by saying that he only decreed against the males. Finally, the Hebrew verb would appear to be incorrect here. The text says oved avee instead of he’evid avee for the expression, “An Aramean tried to destroy.” The verb root OVD means “to destroy.” When written oved, it is an intransitive verb while he’evid (from the same root) is a transitive verb. He’evid would have been the proper verb for saying Aramean “tried to destroy,” while oved would mean “a destroyed Aramean.” Rabbi David Abudraham amends the text so it says, “The Holy One calculated the end” (in the past tense) instead of the accepted text which says “The Holy One calculates the end” (in the present tense), since this passage refers to an event that happened in the time of the Exodus. But this does not solve the textual difficulties since we begin by saying that God keeps His promises, also in the present tense, suggesting that God’s acts refer not only to the distant past but the present as well. Once again we have an example of the rabbinic statement that “the actions of the ancestors are a sign for their children,” that is, that what happened to our ancestors long ago repeats itself in generation after generation. We see this in God’s promise to Abraham: He tells him that our ancestors will be strangers “in a land not theirs.” In does not mention Egypt because God’s promise applied not only to Egypt but to subsequent generations as well. We see this in the case of Laban – like the story of the Exodus, Jacob went forth from the house of Laban with great wealth just as Israel would when they left Egypt. Also Balaam, who was a descendent of Laban would eventually be punished for trying to harm the people of Israel. Similarly in time to come Israel will be redeemed and its enemies will be punished not only during the Exodus but in future generations as well. It is for this reason that we say Baruch “Blessed is the One” twice at the beginning of this passage. We thank God not only for keeping His promise in Egypt but in future generations as well. We then go on to say that it was exactly that promise which God kept not only for our ancestors but for us as well. Therefore this passage should be stated in the present tense since God continues to keep His promises from Jacob and Laban, from the Exodus from Egypt and onward.