Ha lachma anya: There are a number of difficulties in this passage. First, the passage should have begun with the words, “All who are hungry come and eat.” Second, it would have been more appropriate to say, “This is the bread of affliction” when everyone is sitting around the table paying attention. There are other issues which Don Isaac Abarbanel and the Ma’aseh Adonaispell out.²⁸. It begins with a hundred questions which Abarbanel then answers. Ma’aseh Adonai is yet another well known commentary on the Haggadah, this one by Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi (1512-1585). In Yoreh Deah²⁹ is one of the four sections of the Shulchan Arukh, the great compendium of Jewish law by Joseph Karo. 249:3 we learn that when giving tzedakah, one should do so with a cheerful countenance, joyfully and with a full heart. One should empathize with the needy person in his misery and speak to him with consolation. If one greets him with an angry countenance then he loses all merit for the mitzvah of giving tzedakah even if he gives him money or food. This is what the prophet Isaiah wrote: “and you offer your compassion to the hungry and satisfy the famished creature.”³⁰ This means that one should first speak to the needy person and ask him about his troubles. One should not humiliate him since the world is a turning wheel – the needy person who sits on the dung heap may eventually sit with princes. He should placate the poor person and encourage him to come to his house. But once the meal begins, he should not speak about the other’s poverty; rather he should treat him as if he were the host’s best friend and happy to be with him. They should eat and drink happily together. When the poor guest prepares to leave, once again his host should console him with soft words and tell him that God will help him and that he will see better times just as we all wait for the final redemption. These are the things that the host should do who invites the needy to join him at the Seder. First, he should say, “This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.” By saying “In Egypt,” instead of saying, “When we went forth from Egypt.” David Abudraham³¹ relates that when his contemporary was imprisoned in India they fed him unleavened bread that did not get moldy or stale. One can go on to explain that the Egyptians did not allow the Israelites to bake regular bread in Egypt – but eventually the unleavened bread became a symbol of freedom. In this way, one can remove the mask of humiliation from the poor person’s face. He does not have to feel he has come to a rich person’s house this night – we all eat the bread of poverty and affliction. Rather we should make the person feel at home and accepted by saying: “All who are in need come and celebrate the Pesach.” He does not have to feel that he is eating the bread of humiliation. And when he prepares to leave, speaking consolingly to him and say, “This year we are here – next year in the land of Israel!” That is, he can anticipate God’s redemption land of Israel just as we do.

footnotes: ²⁸ Isaac Abarbanel was one of the leading scholars in Spain at the time of the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. His commentary on the Haggadah is called Zevach Pesach ²⁹ Yoreh Deah ³⁰ Isaiah 58:10 ³¹ Fourteenth Century Scholar from Spain best known for his compendium of prayers and synagogue rituals.

**Ha Lachma Anya, A Second Interpretation:**The Midrash teaches that it is through the merit of giving tzedakah that our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt. They would feed the hungry at their tables and from them we can learn how to act. Just as they fed the needy, so we should feed the needy. In Masekhet Baba Batra, 10a, we learn “Tzedakah is great for it brings redemption closer.” We learn this lesson from Isaiah 56:1 – “Soon my salvation shall come for my righteousness (tzedakah) shall be revealed.” This is the first lesson of the Haggadah in the words, “This is the bread of affliction.” The redemption was because of the bread of the needy which our ancestors fed them in Egypt; therefore, lets us act similar to them. We say, “All who are hungry come and eat.” What is the reason for this, so that while “now we are here,” next year “we may be in the land of Israel.” It is through acts of tzedakah that we bring redemption closer and that we can anticipate being in the land of Israel in the year to come!

**Ha Lachma Anya, A Third Interpretation:**In looking closely at the language of this passage, the question is raised why is it in Aramaic? The common answer, that the people in Babylonian spoke Aramaic is not a sufficient answer to this question. For in our time when we understand Hebrew we should recite this passage in Hebrew. I found written on a manuscript containing the words of the liturgy from the year 1406, “Why do we recite this passage in Aramaic? Because the evil spirits do not understand this language, and if we recited this passage in a language that the spirits understood they would come and harm the people. Yet don’t we refer to Passover as a leil shemurim, a night of guarding, so what do we have to fear on the eve of Passover?³² says “Said Rabbi Nahman: Scripture said, [it is] a night of guarding [unto the lord]: [i.e.,] it is a night that is guarded for all time from harmful spirits. While the evil spirits cannot come on their own and harm people, if we issue an invitation, they are given an opening to come and cause damage. Also by issuing an invitation they will become habituated to being present and can cause harm to the members of the household after the Passover is over. This idea that it is a night of guarding from harmful spirits is difficult, since elsewhere we say that it is only on Yom Kippur that we are protected from the harmful spirits. The word Ha-satan has the numerical value of 364 because 364 days a year harmful spirits can attack us but not on Yom Kippur – the 365th day of the year.³³ This implies that on the days of Passover, harmful spirits do have the ability to attack and harm people. The answer to this question is that on Passover the Jewish people are protected from harmful spirits but not the other nations of the world. On Yom Kippur, the entire world is protected from harmful spirits which is what we are referring to in the word Ha-satan. But there are other difficulties with this idea. In the book of Job we say, “On the day when the divine beings presented themselves before the Lord, the adversary, Ha-satan, came along and to present himself before the Lord…”³⁴ The Aramaic translation of the Bible translates “on the day” as “the day of the great fast” implying that even on Yom Kippur evil spirits could cause harm to the other nations. (So what then is the distinction between Yom Kippur and Passover with regard to protection from harmful spirits?) On Passover the Jewish people are protected from the actions but not (from?) the words of the harmful spirits (i.e., they could not harm us but they could curse us) but on Yom Kippur the harmful spirits cannot harm us in word nor in deed. Therefore on Passover we recite the invitation to the Seder in Aramaic so that the harmful spirits cannot find entrance to our homes even in word. Only Israel and not the other nations are protected on these two occasions. Yet why is this passage recited partly in Aramaic and partly in Hebrew³⁵ – Aramaic; Kol Dikhfin yetei –Aramaic; Hashta hakha, Hashta Avdei – Aramaic; Lishanah Habbah, Benei Horin – Hebrew? This passage refers to four different time periods in the history of the Jews of Babylonia. The first passage, “this is the bread of affliction” refers to the first Passover soon after they arrived in Babylonia. The second passage was added after the rebuilding of the temple, “All who are hungry come and eat” and “All who are needy come celebrate the Passover.” The people felt like royalty and joyously celebrated even in Babylonia. They opened their homes in great joy and generosity to celebrate this occasion. When the Temple was destroyed again, the sense of joy ceased and now the people said, “Now we are here next year may we be in the Land of Israel.” The references to the redemption were made in Hebrew while the references to the exile were made in Aramaic, hashta hakha, “Now we are here.” Yet in this third passage we find a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic b’ara d’yisrael. This was a way of saying that even though the Jewish people will eventually be able to return to the land of Israel, they are still not completely free since we are subjugated to the Persians and the Medes, and others. Only in the final passage which is a reference to the fourth exile, do we switch over to Hebrew completely in the final part of this expression, “Now we are slaves (in Aramaic) but next year may we be free (in Hebrew).” We say Lishana ha-baah b’nei horin, “Next year may we be free”³⁶ which is entirely Hebrew.

footnotes: ³² BT Pesachim 109b; See Exodus 12:42; The Talmud ³³ BT Nedarim 32a ³⁴ Job 2:1 ³⁵ Ha lachma Anya ³⁶ Thus, the end of this final or fourth exile will lead to the complete redemption of the Jewish people and not a partial redemption like the earlier ones.

Ha Lachma Anya, A Fourth Interpretation: This passage is an explanation of Yachatz, the custom of breaking the middle matzah in half. “This is the bread affliction” explains why we put a broken piece of matzah back on the Sederplate between the other two pieces of matzah. It is a symbol of slavery. The poor person saves a bit of food because he is never sure where his next meal will come from. So, too, we place a broken piece of matzah back with the others as a reminder of slavery. The second piece is wrapped up and put behind the pillow as a reminder of the unleavened bread which our ancestors made while hastily fleeing from Egypt. We can now understand why we refer to this holiday as Hag HaMatzot, the festival of the unleavened breads, in the plural, and not Hag HaMatzah, in the singular as we say about the Passover offering, Hag HaPesach. The Pesach is offered only once, on the first day so we refer to it in the singular. We eat matzah for seven/eight days, and it has at least two different meanings. It is a reminder of slavery and a reminder of the Exodus. There is second explanation for Yachatzin this opening statement of the Haggadah. We break the matzah in half so that we can recite the blessing for eating over matzah over half of it and use the other half for the Afikomen, which reminds us of the Pesach offering. We make reference to these two meanings of the broken matzah in Ha lachma anya. “This is the bread of affliction” refers to the matzah, and “all who are needy, come celebrate the Pesach” is a reference to Pesach offering. A third explanation of Yachatz can be found in Ha lachma anya: it symbolizes exile and redemption. Part of the matzahsymbolizes the bitter exile of the people of Israel; we refer to this in the expressions, “Now we are here” and “Now we are slaves.” The other half of the matzah is a symbol of the future redemption. The word afikomen comes from the Aramaic “to go forth;” we will go forth from exile to “the land of Israel” and we will go forth from slavery to “freedom.” Since the time of redemption is hidden from us, we hide the afikomenbehind a pillow; it is a source of our hope and trust during this period of exile.

Ha Lachma Anya, A Fifth Interpretation: We learn that one should not eat on the eve of Pesach until after dark. The reason for this law is that our ancestors in Egypt could not eat until they returned from a long day of slavery in the fields. The task masters made them work hard all day we commemorate their experience by reenacting it on Passover eve. We wait until dark to eat our meal on the eve of Passover and begin by saying, Ha lachma anya,“this is the bread of affliction” so that we are truly like a servant returning from the fields to eat one’s evening meal. Similarly, the Jerusalem Talmud says, that one who eats matzahon Passover eve is like one who has intimate relations with his fiancé in his father-in-law’s house before the marriage³⁷. A bride is forbidden to the groom prior to the *sheva berachot,*the seven marriage blessings. Similarly before we eat matzahat the Seder, we must recite seven blessing as the groom does for his bride:

1. Wine
2. Kiddush
3. Sh’hecheyanu
4. Karpas
5. Asher G’alanu
6. Wine
7. Netilat Yadaim
8. Matzah
9. Hamotzi There are actually nine blessings leading up to the matzah so which ones do we count? According to Abudraham, the two blessings for the wine aren’t included in the seven blessings. The author suggests that we don’t include the motzi or the blessing for washing the hands since one recite those blessings even if it wasn’t Passover. Actually, the Jerusalem Talmud teaches us that the significance of the ceremonies is not in the number of blessings we say but in the connection between the wedding ceremony and the Seder. Just as one needs Kiddushin ceremony (the betrothal ceremony), the canopy (the Nisuin blessings), the reading of the *ketubah,*and two cups of wine for a wedding ceremony to be complete³⁸ The kiddushinor erusinceremony is referred to as the betrothal ceremony. The Nisuin ceremony is made up of seven blessings and is usually referred to as the Sheva Berachot. so, too, before we eat the matzah must recite the Kiddush (the *Erusin),*cover the matzah (the chuppah), read the Haggadah (reading of the *ketubah),*drink two cups of wine before the meal (just as we drink two cups of wine in the wedding ceremony), and partaking of the meal is compared to the consummation of the relationship, as we read in scripture: Such is the way of the adulteress, she eats, wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong.”³⁹ **All who are in need…**of the basic necessities of the Seder which are the four cups of wine and the Pesach offering ‘let him come and celebrate Passover/Pesach.” The afikomen is a symbol of the Pesach offering. (That is, the first statement “all who are hungry…come and eat” is a reference to the matzah, while the second statement “all who are in need” is a reference to the Afikomen/the sacrifice and the four cups of wine. They also symbolize the future hope of redemption when we will be able to celebrate Passover fully once again. That is why we continue, “Now we are here, next year may we be in the land of Israel.”

footnotes: ³⁷ Jerusalem Talmud (JT) Pesachim 10:1 ³⁸ There are two parts to a Jewish wedding ceremony; each part is recited over a separate cup of wine under the chuppah. ³⁹ Proverbs 30:20; this is a strange biblical citation but the connection is clear. Eating is a metaphor for sexual relations in this verse and in his comparison of the wedding ceremony and the Seder meal.

Ha Lachma Anya, A Sixth Interpretation: This passage is an expression of the four children. “This is the bread of affliction,” is a reference to the wise child. Matzahhas two opposite meanings – it is the food which our ancestors ate in Egypt because it didn’t spoil as well as the dough which they brought out of Egypt. Only a wise child will be able to see both meanings of matzah. “All who are hungry come and eat; all who are in need come celebrate Passover” is a reference to the wicked child. Only those who starved themselves on the eve of Passover and have gone to great bother in preparing for the Seder should come and eat now. The wicked child who says, “What is the meaning of this service,” doesn’t deserve to partake of the Seder meal! “Now we are here, next year in the land of Israel,” is addressed to the simple child. He is amazed at all the trouble we have made in preparing for the Seder. After all, aren’t we still living in a bitter exile? Aren’t we still subjugated to other rulers living in a land other than our own? We answer him, we are living here but next year we may yet be in the land of Israel for we still express hope every day in our redemption. “Now we are slaves; next year may we be free” is a statement that refers to the child who doesn’t know how to ask. He has heard the explanation of the father to the simple child but it does not satisfy him. His mind begins to wander and he becomes more depressed. The father cannot answer this child as he was able to do with the simple child. He has not yet learned to distinguish between one land and another; therefore the father says to him, “Next year we will be free like kings and princes!” This is a distinction that this child can understand.

Ha Lachma Anya, A Seventh Interpretation: The leader of the Seder makes this statement in order to encourage all who are present to ask the four questions. The first statement, “This is the bread affliction,” will make him ask about matzah. When we lift the Seder plate and say all who are hungry, showing the things we dip, the marorand the karpas – he will ask the second and third questions – about maror and dipping. And when he says, ‘now we are here’ and ‘now we are slaves,’ the child will ask regarding the practice of leaning which the father has already mentioned when we recited the Kiddush. The child may wonder, if we are still in exile and are still slaves why do we bother leaning on this night. Thus, by reciting Ha lachma anya, the leader of the Seder will encourage the children to recite the Mah Nishtanah, the four questions.