Exodus 33:12-34:26 | Numbers 28:19-25 | Ezekiel 37:1-14 | 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

This week's edition of The Set Table contains:

Questions and Commentary on Shabbat Pesach
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
Looking Ahead

Questions & Commentary on Parashat Pesach

1. Why did God command all leaven be removed from Jewish homes? What is the spiritual significance of this commandment? 

Rabbi Jason Sobel

In the Torah, the Lord not only commands the Jewish people to eat matza but also goes as far as to command us to remove every trace of leaven from our dwellings (Exodus 13:7).  Anyone who has ever kashered their home for Passover knows that this is an arduous task that often takes several days to complete. Why does God want us to expend so much time and energy removing the leaven from our homes? Wouldn't it have been sufficient enough to just prohibit us from eating any leaven? 

In order to understand why we must not eat or be in possession of any leaven we must first know why we eat matza (unleavened bread). The basic answer to this question is found in Exodus 12:39 and Deuteronomy 16:3 which says, 

And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves. 

You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.

Thus, the primary reason that we do not eat leaven is to remind us that when the Lord redeemed us from Egypt, we left in such great haste that our bread did not have time to rise. Therefore, we eat matza on Pesach so that we never forget the great redemption that God wrought for our people.  

But, why is it important to remember the speed with which our ancestors were freed from Egypt? Our Sages tell us that at the time of our redemption, Israel had reached the 49th level of spiritual impurity. And if they had stayed in Egypt any longer, Israel would have become too corrupt to be delivered. This is underscored by a midrash that says one out of every four Jews died during the ninth plague of darkness. Why? Because they loved Egypt so much that they did not want to leave and be redeemed. The Lord honored their request and allowed them to die and remain there. The point is that if God had waited any longer, the leaven of Israel's spiritual corruption would have lead to their destruction instead of their deliverance. By removing and not eating any leaven, we remember that God did not allow this to happen but rather was faithful to fulfill the promise of redemption that he made before it was too late. 

Secondly, since leaven is a symbol of sin in the Bible and Jewish tradition, we are also reminded of the need to rid ourselves and our communities of all traces of sin and wrong doing. The laborious process of removing leaven from the home in preparation for Pesach is used as an illustration of this spiritual cleansing process by Shaul when he writes, 

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Messiah, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

    1 Corinthians 5:6-8 

2. What do the four cups at the Passover Seder represent? 

Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan

The number four comes up a lot during the Passover Seder: four questions, four children, and four cups. Why does the number four get emphasized in the Seder so much? Perhaps the answer lies in the reason for the four cups, two before the Shulchan Arukh ("The Set Table") or dinner and two after dinner. The following discussion from the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Pesachim, explores the question of from where do we derive that we should drink four cups? 

Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Benaiah: [They] correspond to the four redemptions [or acts of redemption, mentioned in reference to Egypt]: "Say, therefore to the Israelite people; ‘I am the LORD. I will take you out [vehotzeti] from under the suffering of the Egyptians and deliver you [vehitzalti] from their bondage. I will redeem you [vega'alti] with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you [velaqachti] to be my people" (Exodus 6:6-7) 

Thus the four cups symbolize the four acts of redemption that God performed in delivering us from Egypt and taking us to be the chosen people. 

But there is one additional act of redemption that seems to be missing from this schema of Rabbi Yochanan - the establishment of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. In fact, Exodus 6:8 speaks of this act of redemption. 

"I will bring you [veheveti] into the land I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it you for a possession, I am the LORD." 

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 - Making Yourself Kosher for Passover

Scott Nassau

During Passover, we refrain from eating leaven because our ancestors fled Egypt in haste. They did not have time for the bread to rise and allowed the bread to bake upon their backs. As the Jewish community prepares for Passover, each family cleans out the leaven from the home. We have a ceremony called Bedikat Chametz in which we search for leaven throughout the house before we gather it together and burn it, symbolizing we have made the house kosher for Passover.  

Paul uses this Jewish practice as the background to his discussion in 1 Corinthians. The community of Corinth demonstrated tolerance to gross immorality in the midst of their congregation. Paul compares sin to leaven and commands the congregation at Corinth to clean out the sin from their midst in the same way that the Jewish community removes leaven from their homes during Passover. Just as leaven permeates an entire lump of dough, sinful behavior will affect the entire life of a person and congregation. If the congregation at Corinth does not deal with the wicked behavior in their midst, then this behavior will defile the community.  

When my wife makes challa, she puts a packet of yeast into the dough. This small amount of yeast makes the entire loaf of challa leavened. In the same way, sin will affect the entire life of a person. We cannot compartmentalize our lives and isolate sin to a particular area, so that it does not affect the other areas of our lives. God created us as holistic people. We deceive ourselves when we think the small or hidden sins in our lives will not affect the other areas of our soul. Even the small and hidden sins in our lives will permeate and corrode our entire being. Paul says the reason we must remove the wicked behavior from our lives is that our Messiah was sacrificed, like a Passover lamb, to remove our unrighteousness.  

Therefore, when we celebrate Passover, we should celebrate it in righteousness, since our Messiah has removed the chametz, leaven, from our lives. Paul describes those with leaven as those who are depraved and wicked, but those who are without leaven are pure in motives and upright in character. The person free from leaven does not have a hidden or secret life. As we prepare to celebrate Passover, we must think about what unrighteous behaviors we tolerate in our lives.  If we continue to tolerate immoral thoughts or actions, they will begin to affect our spiritual lives and ultimately destroy our soul. We deceive ourselves if we think that what we look at on the Internet, watch on television or do when others are not watching will not have any affect upon our spiritual lives. If we are serious about honoring God and having healthy spiritual lives, then we cannot tolerate the hidden and secret sins. As we prepare for Passover, let us remove the sin from our lives, so that we are kosher for Passover.

NEXT WEEK'S READINGS - PARASHAT SHEMINI

Leviticus 9:1-11:47
2 Samuel 6:1-7:17
Matthew 19:16-30