Standing Again: Three Female Poets Meet At Sinai

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | Yitro 2014

In honor of our newest batch of Alumni Venture Fund grantees, especially this one.

Blessed be the Lord, Maker of Heaven and Earth, who has brought us to this generation. For too long our sins and the sins of our fathers caused us to languish in the exile of patriarchy. Until our mothers broke down the barriers, reclaimed their seats in the halls of Torah and called us all to stand again at Sinai. Now a new light shines on Zion: on women, on men, indeed on the whole wide world.

Yet as then, so now, standing again at Sinai “the divine word speaks to each and every person according to [her] particular capacity” (Pesikta 12). In the aftermath of that great event, I hear three female poets meet at the foot of the mountain:

I shall not float
unreined in space –

lest a cloud swallow
the thin band in my heart
separating good from evil.
I have no existence
without the lightning and thunder
that I heard at Sinai.

Zelda

Zelda (1914-1984)

For Zelda, Sinai is encountered straightforwardly. No feminist reading of history can pry her clenched knuckles away from the “lightning and thunder that [she] heard at Sinai.” She grasps tightly to the lessons and memories created there, as she struggles to maintain the “thin band between good and evil.” Without Sinai, humans “float unreined” in a universe of moral relativism, like an astronaut lost in space. Who dare tell her she wasn’t there?

Not so for others. Merle Feld, in a canonical poem which captures the gender predicament of history (his-story), also heard the “lightning and thunder”. But she was never given the chance to write it down:

  We All Stood Together | Merle Feld

My brother and I were at Sinai
He kept a journal
of what he saw
of what he heard
of what it all meant to him

I wish I had such a record
of what happened to me there

It seems like every time I want to write
I can’t
I’m always holding a baby
one of my own
or one for a friend
always holding a baby
so my hands are never free
to write things down

And then
As time passes
The particulars
The hard data
The who what when where why
Slip away from me
And all I’m left with is
The feeling

But feelings are just sounds
The vowel barking of a mute

My brother is so sure of what he heard
After all he’s got a record of it
Consonant after consonant after consonant

If we remembered it together
We could recreate holy time
Sparks flying

Merle Feld

Feld yearns to be of the consonants, of “the hard data, the who what when where why.” It’s a refreshing desire, especially as most liberal Jews prefer to settle for a Judaism of sounds (“the vowel barking of a mute”), staying away from the “particulars”, the consonantal certainty. It is a myth of a lost opportunity. Read this poem while standing in a Beit Midrash full of books. Feld invites us to imagine what was lost, what opportunities for Torah, wisdom and truth we had in reach – but never recorded because 51% of the Jewish people never had their hands free (or never had a spouse to pass the baby to...). If we can regain our standing together at Sinai, sparks would fly.

Back at the campsite, though, with an endless domestic to-do list, stands Israeli poet Chava Pinchas Cohen. She did not make it to the mountain. But what she gained instead was the explicit name:

Explicit Name | Chava Pinchas Cohen

Everyone’s gone to the mountain already, and they’re waiting,

waiting to see, waiting in great quiet –

even, strangely, the camels, the donkeys –

In this quiet not a bird twitters 

or children on their fathers’ shoulders. 

An overwhelming quiet, as if before some

wondrous thing.  Still—I want time

to hang out the laundry, 

time for myself to freshen up

and I warmed the baby’s milk so he won’t get hungry— 

and God forbid, cry at the wrong moment,

however long till then. You can expect

the laundry to dry—but the baby  

No one knew. 

And I saw that a light breeze, 

like the breath of a sleeping man, passed 

through the laundry and ballooned 

the belly of my nightgown, 

and the Shabbat tablecloth

was a white sail in the middle of the desert

and we went from there across the blue

far away to a place where 

we’ll split open pomegranates and suck their juice, 

to a place where 

love has 

an explicit name 

(Translation by Glazer: 2000, with emendations MZ; Hebrew original below)

Chava Pinchas Cohen

Where Feld yearned for “hard data”, Pinchas Cohen was invited to sail across the blue and split open pomegranates. As Elijah discovered at Mt. Sinai centuries later – God was “not in the noise” which the men experienced at the base of the mountain. God fled that scene and traveled like a light breeze across the Israelites’ encampment, seeking someone with whom to steal away to the pomegranate orchard…

Pinchas Cohen uses the Jewish texts and traditions as her own, not begrudging her distancing over the generations but not unaware of it either. She sits as an equal at the table of Jewish study and weaves from the (male) midrashic vocabulary a new religious language. Struggling with the humdrum rhythms of parenthood and the existential uncertainty of life, she recreates a Sinai which is relevant to her life as a modern mother, a modern seeker of God (truly, an ode to the struggle to find “time for myself to freshen up”).

Pinchas Cohen’s poem might be seen as giving in to an apologetic spirituality which is often hegemonically thrown at women (“you are holier than men, so you don’t need those particulars”). But I see in her embrace of the Shabbat tablecloth, of her nightgown’s fertile encounter with the “light breeze”, an opportunity for both men and women. Feld is grappling to move from vowels to consonants, a necessary endeavor. But Pinchas Cohen is sailing across the blue to a land of eros, where a new revelatory language is given “an explicit name”. That’s a Sinai men and women alike can yearn to stand at.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mishael

שֵׁם מְפורָשׁ - חוה פנחס-כהן

כֻּלָּם כְּבָר הָלְכוּ אֶל הָהָר וּמְחַכִּים

מְחַכִּים לִרְאוֹת, בְּשֶׁקֶט רַב מְחַכִּים,

שֶׁלֹּא כְּמִנְהָגָם גַּם הַחֲמוֹרִים, גַּם הַגְּמַלִּים

בַּשֶּׁקֶט הַזֶּה צִפּוֹר לֹא צִיְּצָה

גַּם יְלָדִים עַל כִּתְפֵי אֲבוֹתֵיהֶם,

וְהַשֶּׁקֶט רַב מִנְּשׂא כְּמוֹ לִפְנֵי דָּבָר

נוֹרָא וְגָדוֹל וַאֲנִי עוֹד רָצִיתִי

לְהַסְפִּיק וְלִתְלוֹת אֶת הַכְּבָסִים

לַעֲשׂוֹת זְמַן לְעַצְמִי לְתַקֵּן רֵיחוֹתַי

וְחִמַּמְתִּי אֶת הֶחָלָב לַתִּינוֹק, שֶׁלֹּא יִרְעַב

שֶׁלֹּא יִבְכֶּה חָלִילָה, בָּרֶגַע הַלֹּא

מַתְאִים, כַּמָּה זְמַן עַד כְּלוֹת. הַצִּפִּיָּה

שֶׁתִּתְיַבֵּשׁ הַכְּבִיסָה וְהַתִּינוֹק מָה.

אִישׁ לֹא יָדַע

וַאֲנִי רָאִיתִי שֶׁרוּחַ קַלָּה, כְּמוֹ נְשִׁימָתוֹ שֶׁל אִישׁ יָשֵׁן, עָבְרָה

בַּכְּבָסִים וְנִפְּחָה כְּרֵסָהּ

שֶׁל כֻּתָּנְתִּי וּמַפַּת הַשַּׁבָּת

הָיְתָה מִפְרָשׂ לָבָן בְּאֶמְצַע הַמִּדְבָּר

וְיָצָאנוּ מִשָּׁם עַל הַתְּכֵלֶת

הַרְחֵק לַמָּקוֹם בּוֹ  

נִפְרֹט רִמּוֹנִים וְנֹאכַל עֲסִיסָם

לַמָּקוֹם בּוֹ

לָאַהֲבָה

שֵׁם מְפֹרָשׁ.

I shall not float unreined in space lest a cloud swallow the thin band in my heart that separates good from evil. I have no existence without the lightning and thunder that I heard at Sinai. Zelda, "The Spectacular Difference," translated by Marcia Falk, p. 231

לֹא אֲרַחֵף בֶּחָלָל מְשֻׁלַּחַת רֶסֶן פֶּן יִבְלַע עָנָן אֶת הַפַּס הַדַּקִּיק שֶׁבְּלִבִּי שֶׁמַּפְרִיד בֵּין טוֹב לְרַע. אֵין לִי קִיּוּם בְּלִי הַבְּרָקִים וְהַקּוֹלוֹת שֶׁשָּׁמַעְתִּי בְּסִינַי. זלדה, עמ' 215

Release, Please: A Poem for the “Shabbat of Poetry”

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | BeShalach Shabbat Shira 2014

Release, please

Release, please, this bound one

By the power of your right hand

Receive the song of your people,

      Exalt us, Lord, and make us

pure. Almighty one, protect

      those who seek your oneness:

Bless them, and cleanse them – bestow

      Upon them your merciful justice.

Mighty one, holy one, in your

      Goodness guide your assembly.

Turn, sole one on high,

      To those who remember your sanctity,

And accept our cry and plea –

      You who fathom all mysteries.

Translation by Peter Cole

Translation is merely a preliminary way of coming to terms

with the foreignness of languages to each other.

Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator

This Shabbat is known as “Shabbat Shira”, the Shabbat of Song, thus named because we read the Song at the Sea, perhaps the first Hebrew poem. This month many Bronfmanim have committed to study a book of poetry in honor of Edgar Bronfman (other are studying Mishna Pirkei Avot or one of two books). I have been plowing through a new anthology of Hebrew Mystical Verse, with Hebrew original and new translation side by side. It is there that I came across the above translation.

I often find that poem’s are locked to me, until I read them in translation. The translations’ attempt to –as Benjamin described it - “find the intention toward the language into which the work has been translated” allows “an echo of the original [to] be awakened”. I guess I see the light of a poem best through the dull refractions of a translation.

Those who fathom mysteries might have recognized the source of the poem quoted above: the Hebrew poem “Ana b’Koach”, which appears in numerous places in the Siddur. Here are two translations and the original, side by side:

Release, please, this bound one By the power of your right hand Receive the song of your people,       Exalt us, Lord, and make us pure. Almighty one, protect       those who seek your oneness: Bless them, and cleanse them – bestow       Upon them your merciful justice. Mighty one, holy one, in your       Goodness guide your assembly. Turn, sole one on high,       To those who remember your sanctity, And accept our cry and plea –       You who fathom all mysteries. Translation by Peter Cole, The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition, 2012, pg. 35

אָנָּא בְּכֹחַ גְּדֻלַּת  יְמִינְֶךָ תַּתִּיר צְרוּרָה קַבֵּל רִנַּת עַמְֶּךָ שַׂגְּבֵנוּ טַהֲרֵנוּ נוֹרָא נָא גִבּוֹר דּוֹרְשֵׁי יִחוּדְֶךָ כְּבָבַת שָׁמְרֵם בָּרְכֵם טַהֲרֵם רַחֲמֵי צִדְקָתֶךָ תָּמִיד גָּמְלֵם חֲסִין קָדוֹשׁ בְּרוֹב טוּבְךָ נַהֵל עֲדָתֶךָ יָחִיד גֵּאֶה לְעַמְּךָ פְּנֵה זוֹכְרֵי קְדֻשָּׁתֶךָ שַׁוְעָתֵנוּ קַבֵּל וּשְׁמַע צַעֲקָתֵנוּ יוֹדֵעַ תַּעֲלוּמוֹת

This poem has enchanted readers for centuries with its opening phrase in Hebrew: : אנא, בכח “Please, by the power”. “Oxymoron of oxymorons” as one Israeli poetdescribed it. This opening phrase has enchanted modern Hebrew poets as they employed it in various means. Please, with power. Please, without power. Please, softly; Please, with full force. Please.

But Cole, our translator, has flipped the order of the words, releasing something which seems to recover a new "echo of the original":

Release, please, this bound oneBy the power of your right hand

In Cole’s rendition, the focus is not on the power, but on the bound one, and its need to be released. Who is the bound one? In one new Siddur, the following explicit translation is preferred:

Please, by the power of Your great right hand
        Set the captive nation free.

“The bound one” becomes “the captive nation”, losing the nuance and double meaning which has propelled this song for generations. In Hebrew liturgy the bound one refers just as much to a person’s soul – bound in the twine of the physical body – as it refers to the bind of exile. And what is that exile, that captiveness? The exile of the Jewish people, or the exile of God herself, the exile of the Shekhina. Truly, in the mind of the Kabbalists, those three are all one. כולא חד – an individual’s soul, the Jewish people, God’s feminine presence in this world – they are all metonymic of each other, all echoes of something greater than all three, yet equally present in every individual’s existence. And it is that bind for which we ask release.

As the poem continues, it weaves power and gentleness, protection and prowess. From the first “please”, it cajoles the powerful God into a different dynamic. God’s powerful right hand, which appears in the Song of the Sea with all its scary might – נָטִיתָ יְמִינְךָ תִּבְלָעֵמוֹ אָרֶץ – “You stretched out your right-hand / the Underworld swallowed them” (Exodus 15:12) is asked to engage in the most delicate of tasks.

Nuance is everywhere. The Jewish people are described as those who “seek your oneness” (not those who know anything for certain). God – as one who “fathoms all mysteries” (so different from, say, “knower of truth”). The “mighty one” is asked merely to “guide”. The “sole one” – to “turn”. The “fathomer of all mysteries” – to “accept”. Asking God to make us pure, we seek to be cleansed. Yet the image this conjures is that of a parent washing a baby, the full force of the adult body honed into an almost painful delicateness as it handles the fragile bundle. In Cole’s echoing, “Release, please” the image is of an amazingly powerful force minimizing itself (tzimtzum!) in order to very gently unwind a tightly knotted ball of string.

This poem has a long and clouded history. Scholars squabble if it was written in the 16^th century Galilee, 12^th century Germany, or 9^th century Babylonia. Tradition claims it harkens back to 2^nd century Judea. What is known is that this poem is actually a poetic encoding of God’s 42 letter name (as opposed to, say, the seventy-two letter version, or the four letter one). In Hebrew the poem consists of seven lines with six words each – totaling 42 words – the first letters of which make up the 42-letter name. It is with this name that God created the world, says the Talmud (In case you’re curious, it begins אבגיתצקרעשטנ…). Being the most potent of names, it must be hidden from humans, who might abuse its power for their narrow-minded intentions. The best place to hide the name is, of course, in plain view, so it was encoded into poetry. Here’s a challenge: take these 42 letters and try to write a poem using them as the first letter of each word. Over the generations, various poets attempted to write poems which begin with those specific letters (such as אנא באש גבורת ידך תלהט צרי). It is the Kabbalists soduko.

Most of those poems have been left to languish in musty manuscripts. A handful were published. Ana b’Koach is the only one to receive inter-generational success, even becoming a hit on Israeli radio a few years back. With its mixture of Nuance and mystery alongside clarity and potency, it has managed to transcend the math and mysticism and become its own being. In some siddurim it appears in as many as 13 different places.

The poem is recited at times of liminality, those times which are “betwixt and between”: before falling asleep, or just as the soul leaves a body. Most prominently, it is recited just before Lecha Dodi, during Kabbalat Shabbat, at the exact moment between the work-week and the holy-day. Times of transition are times of vulnerability, times in which we feel the fact that we are “in a bind”. Whether it is the call of freedom, or the burden of constriction, we feel the weight of our boundedness most deeply. It is from there that we call out: “Release, please”. Or at the very least: loosen the straps on our existence.

In prayerbooks – but not in the original poem – an additional line is added: “Blessed by the name of His

glorious kingdom for ever and all time.” ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד – the same response as is said upon reciting God’s explicit name, or after the first line of the Sh’ma. A version of this sentence, said in Aramaic, makes for the famous responsive line of the Kaddish – יהא שמיה רבה מבורך לעולם ולעולמי עולמיא – Yehey Shmey Rabba…

With its beginning and ending, this poem evokes a different one, from Leonard Cohen’s “Book of Mercy”:

Sit down, master, on this rude chair of praises, and rule my nervous heart with your great decrees of freedom. Out of time you have taken me to do my daily task. Out of mist and dust you have fashioned me to know the numberless worlds between the crown and the kingdom. In utter defeat I came to you and you received me with a sweetness I had not dared to remember. Tonight I come to you again, soiled by strategies and trapped in the loneliness of my tiny domain. Establish your law in this walled place. Let nine men come to lift me into their prayer so that I may whisper with them: Blessed be the name of the glory of the kingdom forever and forever.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mishael

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