Parsha Mitzvot: Bo: Mitzvah 6 – Concept 408

“They shall eat the meat on this night.” (Exodus 12:8)
We are commanded to eat the Pesach offering with Matzah and Marror on the night of the 15th of Nisan. (Rambam, Hilchot Korban Pesach)

The three elements of Pesach, Matzah and Marror symbolized three things. 1) The exile that had embittered the lives of Israel. 2) The suddenness of the Exodus so that even their dough did not have enough time to rise. 3) The fact that God passed over the houses of Israel, which was a major element of the redemption. This leap frogging severed Israel’s previous dependence on the Egyptians, which had appeared as incapable of separation.

Redemption meant the tearing asunder of these bonds between good and evil.

These three phenomena had to be experienced simultaneously; otherwise the whole redemption would not have been possible.

If a single element had been lacking the other two would not even have been miraculous at all by themselves.

Without the exile experience no other refining process could have been effective and could have borne fruit. The descent into the immoral environment of Egypt was a necessary prelude to rescuing the souls that had been taken captive by the forces of “Klipah,” shells, at the time Adam had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

This is also the mystical dimension of Ecclesiastes (8:9); “There is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment.”

Had the Exodus not occurred as abruptly as it did, the Israelites might well have returned to Egypt to become ever more deeply mired in that moral morass.