The Princess and the Bitter Herbs: An Exodus Fairy Tale

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | Bo 2014

In this manner you shall eat it:
with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.
And you shall eat it in haste. God’s passover. (Exodus 12:11)

Freedom, much like birth, takes a long time to gestate. But once it arrives, it happens all at once, with little warning. That’s the way it’s described in this week’s portion at least. The haste of the Exodus, the urgency of redemption, is emphasized in the text again and again, making one wonder - why? If this was the divine plan all along, couldn’t it have happened a little slower?

Of the many rituals of Passover, haste has gotten the best symbolic real estate, captured for eternal consumption in, well, a cracker. For one week we take in the hastily prepared bread of our ancestors, who “took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders” (Exdous 12:34).

R. Yosef Hayyim
Baghdad, 1834-1909 

Those who love the lachrymose version of Jewish history might get excited by the fact that a few verses before that our dry crackers get paired with bitter herbs: “with matzah and bitter herbs they shall eat it” (Exodus 12:8) Yeah, we used to have some juicy lamb to place in between those two – but since the Temple burned down we’ve even lost that. Such is the fate of Jews: bitterness and constipation.

Enter the Ben Ish Chai, aka Rabbi Yosef Hayyim, the great rabbi and storyteller of Baghdad. The Ben Ish Chai gives Matza and Marror a different twist. In his imagination, these condiments do not represent suffering upon suffering, but rather are the edible crystallization of an argument between God and the Jewish people, or rather a husband and his father in law, engaged in a battle for the princess:

The Princess and the Bitter Herbs

As told by the Ben Ish Chai, R. Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad

There once was a King who had an only daughter, of marriageable age.

The King did not want to take for her a husband from among the aristocracy; concerned that such a man would be haughty and not submit himself to the princess’ wishes. Instead he found a poor young man from a good home, wise and virtuous.

The King brought him to the palace and told him: “It is my will that you take my daughter’s hand in marriage!”

“I will gladly perform your command, O King,” said the poor boy, “but please give me time to go inform my parents.”

“Never!” responded the King. “You shall not leave my home! The marriage must take place immediately and without hindrance… Today!”

Upon hearing this, the King’s servants blanched.

“Your Highness,” they said “We cannot possibly produce a wedding feast fit for a King today. We need at least twenty four hours to prepare…”

But the King remained obstinate. Finally he confided in them: “This young man has found his way into my heart. In fact I am quite smitten, and I cannot hold off this marriage even one day! Moreover, I am concerned that if he goes home, they will advise him against the marriage, saying ‘Why marry a King’s daughter, to whom you will be subordinate?’. He might change his mind… We must perform this marriage right away.”

Preparations began immediately. The haste was so great that the servants baked the bread before it had a chance to rise properly. They ended up serving unleavened matzah at the marital banquet.

Meanwhile the groom was dressed in the most expensive regal clothes, and the marriage was performed that very day. The King had ordered that the groom’s old clothes be taken and stored in the royal coffers. The groom, clever lad that he was, noticed what was being done with his old clothes, and understood the King’s intentions. During the meal he snuck a piece of the matzah bread and had it stored among his old clothes.

A few weeks after their marriage, the young couple began to quarrel. The groom spoke angrily at his new wife, the princess, and refused to look upon her any further. Upon hearing this news, the King called the groom in to rebuke him. As he entered, the groom saw his old clothes sitting by the throne.

“Do you not recall your days as a poor man?” demanded the King. “These clothes should remind you of the suffering you were in before I took you in! And now, after the honor that I have bestowed upon you for the sake of my daughter, you repay me by distressing her and speaking harshly to her?”

The groom did not flinch: “Your Highness, unfold the clothes and see what is among them.”

The clothes were unfolded and a piece of bread fell out.

The groom picked up the bread and said:

“Your Highness, this is the bread! Baked before it could rise, served at the marital banquet, all because your desire to bring me into this family was so great that you couldn’t wait one more day! Therefore why do you speak of my days in poverty, for just as these clothes are reminiscent of my poor status before you found me, so this bread testifies to the haste and the enormity of your desire in me…”

The parable is that in order that we not become hubristic in our current state of great privilege, God commands us to eat Bitter Herbs, to recall our days of poverty.

And yet we wrap those bitter herbs in Matzah, to recall the great haste and the enormous desire that God had in us, to bring us into marriage with his Torah.

R. Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad, Orach Hayyim Haggadah pg. 210 (my faulty translation, MZ). Needless to say, a feminist reading of this story would be a lot of fun here…

To hear the Ben Ish Chai tell it, God has many grievances regarding our treatment of his beloved daughter, the Torah. Indeed, our marriage with Truth is on the rocks. We scarcely look at her, often snubbing her requests and instructions, ignoring her needs and forgetting how privileged we are to share our lives with her.

Ben Ish Chai and family. His Indian butler stands behind him.

And yet, we have some claims on God, too. We were pushed into this freedom and bullied into a covenant. To put it differently, we were born into this world in great haste and with little choice. Whatever Torah means – law, ritual, teaching, freedom or truth - She was thrust upon us. We in turn, have gotten into so many quarrels with her that we can barely look at eachother. Do we even recognize her at this point? We surely don’t buy her flowers anymore…

In this dysfunctional family, we are admittedly doing a pretty miserable job. Accustomed to our privilege, it doesn’t hurt to remember just how lucky we are to be in this situation. Recalling our modest roots shakes off our sense of entitlement. Yet it is equally important to remember the haste with which we eloped in the middle of the night, on our way to the chapel which is Sinai. Thus we wrap the call for bitter modesty in the bread of romance and devotion. Hopefully this is a recipe for healthier relationship with our princess in the future.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mishael

משל העני והמלך

ר' יוסף חיים, הבן איש חי, הגדת אורח חיים, עמ' רל-רלג

טעם אכילת הכורך בליל הפסח שכורכין המצה והמרור ביחד ואוכלין:

פעם היה מלך שהיתה לו בת יחידה, ולא רצה לקח לה חתן בן מלכים, כי יש לו גאוה ולא יהיה נכנע אליה

על כן בחר ליקח לה אחד עני בן טובים,

וימצא לו עני מרוד ממשפחה רמה והיה חכם גדול ושלם בכל מדות טובות,

ויאמר לו: רצוני לתן לך בתי לאשה.

ויאמר לו העני: הנני מוכן לעשות כדברך אדוני המלך, אך תן לי זמן עד שאודיע לאבי ולאמי.

אמר לו המלך: לא תצא מפתח ביתי, אלא אעשה החפה בלתי עכוב כלל.

אמרו לו עבדיו: אדוננו המלך, סעודה של חג גדולה כיד המלך, צריך לה הכנה לפחות לילה ויום.

אמר להם המלך: זה הבחור ישר בעיני ונכנסה אהבתו בלבי מאד,

ולא אוכל להתאפק לעכב הארוסין והחפה אפילו יום אחד,

ועוד אני חושש פן יהיו מיעצים אותו שלא לקח את בתי,

באמרם: "מה לך להדבק בבת מלכים, ותהיה כמו עבד נרצע אליה",

ואפשר כי בעצה זו יטו את לבב הבחור.

לכן ארצה לעשות הדבר הזה מהר עתה.

ואז הכרחו עבדי המלך להכין הסעודה במהירות,

ומרב המהירות כי דבר המלך נחוץ, אפו את הלחם מצה כי לא חמץ כדי להכין הסעודה.

והחתן ילבישו אותו בגדים יקרים מאוד, ויעש החפה אותו היום ממש.

ויצו המלך שאותם הבגדים הישנים של החתן יקחום ויקשרום במטפחת ויניחום באוצר המלך למשמרת.

והחתן מחמת שהיה פקח גדול ראה שהבגדים שפשט הניחום באוצר,

והבין מה היתה כונת המלך בדבר הזה.

ולכן בתוך הסעודה לקח חצי ככר לחם מצה מן השלחן

והניח אותו הלחם בתוך הבגדים הישנים שלו השמורים שם.

והנה אחר החפה נפל איזה דברים בין החתן ובין אשתו בת המלך,

וידבר עמה קשות ולא רצה להביט אליה.

ויקרא המלך להוכיחו על הדבר הזה

ויצו המלך ויביאו את בגדיו הישנים מן האוצר.

ויאמר לו המלך: זכור תזכור את ימי העניות שלך שהיית עני מרודף?

ואלו הבגדים המעידים על עניותך בעת שלקחתי אותך לחתן!

ועתה אחר כל הכבוד והיקר הזה אשר עשיתי לך בעבור בתי אתה מצער אותה בדברים?

אמר לו: אדוני המלך, פתח את הבגדים וראה מה יש בתוכם.

ויפתחום וימצאו בתוכם חצי ככר לחם.

אמר לו: אדוני המלך, זה הלחם מסעודת החפה אשר הכינות לי והנה הוא מצה ולא חמץ,

הנה הוא יעיד על גדל התשוקה שהיה לך בי,

שלא יכלת להתאפק אלא מהרת לעשות תכף ומיד,

ועל ידי כן גם הלחם היה מצה שלא היה זמן להמתין לו עד שיחמיץ,

ואם כן למה על ימי העניות תדבר, דהא כמו שהבגדים האלה מעידים על ימי עניי

כן הלחם הזה יעיד על התשוקה שהיה לך בי.

והנמשל הוא כדי שלא תזוח דעתנו עלינו בראותנו שעתה אנו בטובה גדולה, הקדוש ברוך הוא מצווה עלינו לאכול את המרור שנזכור ימי עניותנו.

ואילו אנו כורכין המרור במצה, שאנו עושין במצה זכר למהירות, לתשוקה שהיה לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בנו לזווגנו בתורתו.

ר' יוסף חיים, הבן איש חי, הגדת אורח חיים, עמ' רל-רלג

What Story Will You Tell? Preparing for the Seder

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Pesach 2013

From "A Night to Remember Haggadah"
illustration by Michel Kichka

Cereal has become a scarce commodity in our home. All traces of pasta long since devoured. The pantry is being purged of Hametz, with a carefully timed consumption plan to ensure that by the time Passover rolls around, our home is clear of Hametz. This marks the entrance into the pre-Passover marathon of the next ten days.  Yet while the preparations for Pesach are often clouded by fumes of chametz, frantic menu making and fretful “who are the guests” conversations, all those issues must be brushed aside for a far more important question: What story are we going to tell? If we don’t ask ourselves that question, we might as well not have a Seder at all.

The central mitzvah of Passover night is story telling – the commandment to re-tell the story of our people. We tell it through eating matza, through singing songs, through asking questions. We tell it in our body language and in our rituals. We tell it to our children, we hear it from our parents, but even if we don’t have either of those present, we must tell it to ourselves.

Stories, however, cannot be simply recited. Simply opening up a Haggadah and letting someone else tell the story to us would be the greatest missed opportunity in the world. In order to truly fulfill the biblical commandment of “והגדת לבנך” – “and you shall tell your children” – we have to stop being  consumers of the Passover story, rather become its creators. This is the secret of a good storyteller – she never just repeats by rote, but rather re-creates the tale in a way relevant to her audience each time anew. This is why families often create their own haggadot. As a Haggadah salesman myself, you'd think homemade Haggadot are my greatest competition. Instead, they are the goal of the whole project…  (In this the "debate" between communitarianists and liberals reaches a possible resolution: Seder is a call for creative self authorship of communal narratives).

In any case, faced with the challenge of storytelling, the stressfulness of who the guests will be and what we will cook pales in comparison.

What story will I tell this year? Which story do I need to hear this year? I am still mulling over these questions. My daughters are now 6 and 4, the prime age for storytelling at a certain level. To increase the challenge, we've decided to have a Seder without our parents and extended family, challenging us – the two young parents – to step up to the plate, and allowing our children and the story they should hear to be at the center. But what that story will be, I have yet to figure out.

With 10 days to go, and still unclear about the content of the story for this year, I procrastinate by reminding myself of the importance of the endeavor. I thus offer three quotes on the importance of storytelling in our time: one Yiddish author, one Catholic philosopher, and one rabbi.

Happy Storytelling,

Mishael

Tomorrow, Today Will be a Story | IB Singer

From "A Night to Remember Haggadah"
illustration by Michel Kichka

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, humans would live like the beasts, only for the day.
Reb Zebulun said, “Today we live, but by tomorrow - today will be a story. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.”
Children are as puzzled by passing time as grownups. What happens to a day once it is gone? Where are all our yesterdays with their joys and sorrows? To the storyteller yesterday is still here as are the years and the decades gone by. In stories time does not vanish. Neither do people and animals. For the writer and his readers, all creatures go on living forever. What happened long ago is still present.
I.B. Singer, from Preface to Zlateh the Goat, 1966

A Story-Telling Animal | Alasdair MacIntyre

From "A Night to Remember Haggadah"
illustration by Michel Kichka

Man is in his actions and practices, as well as in his fictions, is essentially a story-telling animal, a teller of stories that aspire to truth. But the key question for men is not about their own authorship; I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ’Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’ We enter human society, that is, with one or more imputed characters-roles into which we have been drafted -and we have to learn what they are in order to be able to understand how others respond to us and how our responses to them are apt to be construed. It is through hearing stories of wicked stepmothers, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys […] that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are. Deprive children of stories and you leave them unscripted, anxious stutterers in their actions as in their words. Hence there is no way to give us an understanding of any society, including our own, except through the stock of stories which constitute its initial dramatic resources. The telling of stories has a key part in educating us into the virtues."

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981:216 , Notre Dame)

A Legacy of Luggage | David Hartman

A primary source for evil according to Jewish tradition is the loss of memory. Those who do not build upon their mem­ory and who are frightened and ashamed of their past may man­ifest hostility towards others because their sense of worth and dignity is derived only by manipulation and control of others.

The poor people who prevail through difficult struggles to attain wealth, and then block out the memory of their past become harsh taskmasters. "Self-made men" can be sensitive to others only when they are unashamed to talk about their former destitution. If they cannot bear the thought of their former poverty, they will act with cruelty to those who remind I hem of their former degradation. In recalling Egypt, the Jews are exhorted to remember that they were once slaves. Rather than deny it, they are to incorpo­rate that slavery into their consciousness. Thus, love the stranger because you too were outcasts in Egypt; have regard for the poor because you too were once servants; care for the oppressed because you too were persecuted; aid the crushed because you know what it means to face extermination; be cautious with power because you have suffered the perversions of another's might.

The role of parents is to develop in the identity of the child a sense of history, a temporal consciousness, an empathy for a whole world of experience that was not theirs. Whether these memories are relevant and meaningful, and how the child will live by them, are different issues. The mother's and father's task is not to decide how the children will use their memories. Their obligation is to see to it that the child does not enter into the future without a past.

From "A Night to Remember Haggadah"
illustration by Michel Kichka

Judaism imposes a vital task on the parents: to tell the children their people's story. What the child does with this past, no parent can decree. Parents provide their children with luggage. Whether the child will open up the suitcases and use their contents is beyond the reach of parents. They have no right to enter the child's future. Parents must aim at instilling memories that haunt the child an entire lifetime; their bequest is a weight of generations, an awareness that one's biography began with Abraham and Sarah.

David Hartman | “Memory and Values,” Leader’s Guide: A Different Night, p. 75