Rabbi Horowitz focuses in the following comments on the fact that the proof text for the Pesach offering in the above passage is the same as the passage containing the wicked child’s question in the Torah: “When your children ask you: ‘What is this rite to you,’ you shall say: ‘it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, because God passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians but saved our houses…” The answer to the wicked child in the Haggadah to this question is not the one which appears in the Torah. Rather, the Haggadah chooses to quote Exodus 13:8. Rabbi Horowitz now searches for the connection between the question, “What do you mean by this rite,” and the actual answer given by the Torah to this verse. He also explores the significance of the blood on the door post. Why is there so much emphasis on this act of sprinkling the blood on the door post in the Torah, rather than on the actual consumtion of the Passover offering? Who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt: There is an extended discussion in the Mekhilta on the meaning of the word Pesah.¹³³ Chapter 9 “And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you…and I shall pass over (pasahti) you.” Rabbi Yishmael is quoted as saying, “Is not everything revealed before God, as scripture says, “He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him;”¹³⁴ (So why was it necessary for the Israelites to place blood on the door posts of their homes; surely God would have known which homes belonged to the Israelites? ) God said: “The Israelites shall place blood on their door posts so that they will be worthy of a reward for performing this mitzvah; I shall reveal Myself and protect, as it is written, “I will pass over you.” “Passing over” (pesah) merely means protecting (has)…¹³⁵).” Isaiah 31:5‟ (The Mekhilta continues…) furthermore, there is a controversy over the meaning of Pesach between Rabbi Yoshaiah and Rabbi Yonatan. Rabbi Yoshaiah understands the derivation of the word pesah from the word poseah, to “hop over,” (the houses of the Israelites) while Rabbi Yonatan understands the word as Rabbi Yishmael as “protect,” (God protected the Israelites but not the Egyptians). Why did the sages” disagree about the meaning of pesah? According to Rabbi Yoshaiah, if the Egyptians who were in Israelite homes had been killed, their Passover sacrifice would have become profane. Therefore God passed over the homes even when an Egyptian was located there and only later did He execute judgment on the first born Egyptians who took shelter in the Israelite homes. According to Rabbi Yonatan, this was not an issue since the presence of the Egyptian dead would not have prevented them from eating the Passover offering – so that if an Egyptian was in an Israelite home his death would not have prevented the Israelite from eating the offering. On the other hand if a first born Israelite was in Egyptian home, he was protected by God while Egyptians were struck down even if they were in the homes of Israelites. Why does the Torah place so much emphasis on the fact that the Israelites had to place blood on the door posts of their homes? This act emphasized the sacred nature of the Passover meal. The slaughtering of the lamb and the placing of the blood on the door post made the pesah a sacrificial offering and not a simple ritual slaughter for the purpose of food. Unlike the slaughtering for the purpose of kashrut for which the pouring out of the blood was necessary, this blood had to be sprinkled on the door post just as blood is sprinkled on the altar when offering a sacrifice. This meant that the offering had a sacred quality to it – for Rabbi Yoshaiah, a death could not occur in such a place.¹³⁶ For Rabbi Yonatan, God would kill the Egyptian firstborn in an Israelites home but only at the end of the Passover meal. The verse, “You shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and He smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses,””¹³⁷ is the Torahs” response to the wicked child’s question, “What does this rite mean to you?”¹³⁸ When the first born wicked child asks, “What does this service mean to you,” he is really saying, “Why are you bothering with this sacrifice? If I had been in Egypt, I would have been struck down before we left Egypt and there would have been no one to whom you could teach the story of the Exodus ” The father answers that according to Rabbi Yoshaiah’s opinion, even the Egyptians were not struck down during the night of the Passover – therefore, even the first born wicked child would have survived to be a part of the Passover meal. And according to Rabbi Yonatan no one was struck down until after the offering was consumed – so again you could have taken part in Passover meal. The wicked child has no excuse for not listening to the story of the Passover!

footnotes: ¹³³ Mekhilta Masekhta D’Pisha ¹³⁴ Daniel 2:22 ¹³⁵ This is based on the following verse: “As birds hovering, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem; He will deliver it, as he protects it, He will rescue it, as he passes over (paso’ah ¹³⁶ Similarly, the blood had to be sprinkled and was not placed in a bowl since bowl was susceptible to impurity. ¹³⁷ Exodus 12:26 ¹³⁸ The Haggadah answers the wicked child with Exodus 13:8; but the Torah answers the wicked child with this verse. Rabbi Horowitz now explains what the wicked child’s question really is and how the Torah responds to him.

In the Torah we learn that when the Passover rite was explained to the people, “They bowed in homage.” For what were they thankful? This verse appears in the context of the question posed by the ‘wicked child’ which leads us to wonder what the wicked child might have been thankful for. Rabbi Horowitz offers a reverse order of history – past generations will be redeemed because of the merit of future generations. We tend to think of history moving forward; here history in the past is based on the goodness and hope of future generations. Similarly he teaches that the people of Israel are worthy of redemption because their offspring will tell the story of their redemption. The offspring of the wicked, then, are thankful that their grandchildren deserve redemption despite the wickedness of the parents. But he saved our houses. The people then bowed low in homage: According to the Mekhilta the Israelites “bowed in homage” because they were aware that they had survived because only “one out of five” (chamushim) of the Israelites survived the plague of darkness.¹³⁹ - which the sages took to mean one fifth (and not armed as most translations say. According to a Midrash , all the unworthy Israel were struck down during the three days of darkness. Rabbi Horowitz assumes that this plague took place after the Israelites set apart the lamb for the Passover sacrifice on the tenth of the month. There are several problems with this explanation. First, the Israelites could not have bowed in homage for their survival, since the Israelites set aside the sacrificial lamb before the plague of darkness occurred. Second, what is the connection between the question, “What do you mean by this rite,” and the response, “the people bowed in homage.” And third, we are told that they were thankful that their children and grandchildren would survive to celebrate the Passover. And yet the question (“When your children ask”) is related to the children and not grandchildren. The answer given in the Haggadah to the wicked child’s question suggests that all the wicked children of that generation died before the Israelites left Egypt. Their grand children, however, would have survived the ninth plague. The Israelites bowed in homage knowing that the young who had not yet become wicked would survive to celebrate the Passover after they left. While the divine spark of the children is rooted in the parents, the divine spark of the parent is not necessarily rooted in the child. It was for this the parents gave thanks. Unlike conventional thought, past generations are deemed worthy because of the good deeds that future generations will be able to perform. This idea is expressed throughout the Torah. We are told, “In the beginning (Bereshit) God created the heaven and the earth – for a thousand generations.” Some sages read this verse, “Through reishit,¹⁴⁰) is fear of the Lord,” is often connected to the opening verse of the Torah. Reishit is another word for wisdom and for Torah. through the wisdom of Torah God created the heaven and earth.” God promised to maintain the world because of those not yet born who would follow His commandments. Similarly, we read, “God shows kindness to thousands (of generations.)” That is, through our acts of goodness God continues to show kindness to thousands of generations to come and a thousand generations before. The generations leading up to the giving of the Torah merited redemption because there was a future generation which would accept the Torah. It does not matter whether Israel accepted the Torah out of love or fear of God,¹⁴¹); if one accepts the Torah out of love than one merits thousands (alaphim) of generations. He argues that despite the mountain hanging over their heads they accepted the Torah out of love, because they first said “We will do and we will obey.” through the actions of those who stood at Sinai, the earlier generations were worthy of redemption. Still there was the mixed multitude who left Egypt with the Israelites who carried the sparks of evil and there were Israelites who were still carrying the remnants of Egyptian idolatry and evil even after they left Egypt.

footnotes: ¹³⁹ Based on the verse, Exodus 13:18 Now the Israelites went up chamushim ¹⁴⁰ Psalm 111:10 “The beginning of wisdom (reishit chochma ¹⁴¹ According to a well known Midrash, God held Mount Sinai over the heads of the people and gave them a choice between annihilation or acceptance of the Torah. This suggests that it was not love but fear that caused the people to accept the Torah. According to Rabbi Horowitz if one accepts the Torah out of fear they would have merited a thousand generations of kindness (eleph