Preparing for Passover – Lesson 4

Table of Contents

• The structure of the commandments on the Seder night
• Bitter herbs when there is no sacrifice
• The opening Mishnah of chapter ten and Tosafot on the poor person
• Maimonides and the Brisker Rav: reclining as an independent commandment
• The parable of tekhelet in tzitzit and the meaning of “does not invalidate”
• Tosafot on going back to drink if one did not recline, and the extension to the third cup
• The Rosh: reclining as an essential detail in matzah and the cups
• The Brisker Rav’s reading of the term “fulfilled” versus the plain meaning of the Rosh
• “The obligation of wine / the obligation of freedom / the obligation of the four cups” in the sugya of the four cups
• Women and reclining: “a woman with her husband,” the Rema, and the Raavyah
• “A remembrance of freedom” versus “the manner of free people,” and two aspects of the Seder night
• The one leading the Seder, the listeners, and a new explanation of the Rema and the laws of the poor person
• The popularity of the Seder night and the need for contemporary meaning
• The meaning of memory: “the remembrance of Amalek” as the present presence of the past

Summary

General Overview

The lecture presents the main commandments of the Seder night and their underlying significance. The emphasis is on the Torah-level commandments of telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt and eating matzah, alongside rabbinic commandments such as the four cups, bitter herbs, and the other customs, and on reclining as a kind of “cross-cutting” commandment that accompanies the observance of the night. The lecture examines fundamental disputes about how to define the obligation of reclining: is it an independent commandment, or an essential detail in the fulfillment of matzah and the four cups? And what is the practical implication if someone ate or drank without reclining? It then discusses the laws concerning women and the reason for the custom that they do not recline, while trying to explain the wording of the Rema and his reliance on the Raavyah. Finally, it presents a two-dimensional view of the Seder night as linking the past—a simulation of the Exodus from Egypt—with the present—a life of freedom now—together with a note about the meaning of memory in general.

The structure of the commandments on the Seder night

Telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt and eating matzah are defined as Torah-level commandments and as the core of the Seder night, whereas the Paschal offering is not practiced today. The four cups, bitter herbs, korekh, and customs such as karpas are defined as rabbinic and as accompanying elements. Reclining is presented as a broad rule that accompanies various commandments of the night, and the four cups are described as a chronological backbone that accompanies the Seder throughout.

Bitter herbs when there is no sacrifice

The lecture raises the question whether bitter herbs are rabbinic only because there is no sacrifice, and it says that when there is no sacrifice, the bitter herbs too are rabbinic. It is said that matzah also has a separate obligation to eat matzah even not alongside the sacrifice, and therefore it retains a Torah-level dimension even today.

The opening Mishnah of chapter ten and Tosafot on the poor person

The Mishnah, “On Passover eve, close to minchah time, a person may not eat until it gets dark; and even a poor person in Israel may not eat until he reclines, and they may not give him fewer than four cups of wine, even from the charity plate,” is read as a law ushering one into the Seder night, similar to other examples of the laws of a festival eve. Tosafot offers one explanation according to which one might have thought that the reclining of a poor person is not “the manner of free people,” and therefore does not count as reclining, and the Mishnah teaches that even a poor person must recline. Tosafot offers a second explanation according to which the novelty is that even a poor person who has not eaten for several days may not eat until it gets dark, and the expression “until he reclines” describes the opening of the Seder night, while the very obligation of reclining for a poor person is not novel at all according to this explanation.

Maimonides and the Brisker Rav: reclining as an independent commandment

Maimonides writes: “Therefore, when a person eats on this night, he must eat and drink while reclining, in the manner of free people,” and afterward: “And when is reclining required? At the time of eating an olive-bulk of matzah and in drinking these four cups,” while reclining during the rest of the meal is merely “praiseworthy.” The Brisker Rav concludes from Maimonides’ wording that reclining is a commandment in its own right, and the Sages established its main timing during the olive-bulk of matzah and the four cups; therefore reclining during the rest of the meal is considered a fulfillment of the commandment even though it is not obligatory. According to this, if someone ate matzah or drank the four cups without reclining, there is no deficiency in the commandment of matzah or the four cups themselves; he simply did not fulfill the commandment of reclining.

The parable of tekhelet in tzitzit and the meaning of “does not invalidate”

The lecture brings the Mishnah in Menachot, “The tekhelet does not invalidate the white, and the white does not invalidate the tekhelet,” in order to emphasize that “does not invalidate” does not turn the non-invalidating component into something optional. The lecture states that someone who did not put on tekhelet has neglected the positive commandment of tekhelet even though he fulfilled the white strings, and it parallels this to someone who ate or drank without reclining, who according to a certain approach fulfilled matzah and wine but neglected the obligation of reclining.

Tosafot on going back to drink if one did not recline, and the extension to the third cup

Tosafot is uncertain: “It requires analysis whether, if he forgot and did not recline, he should go back and drink,” and it also raises a special doubt regarding the third cup because “between the third and fourth he may not drink.” The lecture analyzes this and says that the doubt depends on how one understands reclining: is it an independent commandment, a detail within the commandment that perhaps is not essential, or an essential detail? The lecture suggests that Tosafot reflects the possibility that reclining is a detail within the commandment but not necessarily one that is indispensable, and therefore with the third cup a concern arises that if he goes back and drinks, he may be adding to the cups.

The Rosh: reclining as an essential detail in matzah and the cups

The Rosh rules that for the first olive-bulk and for the olive-bulk of afikoman one must recline, and if he ate without reclining, “he did not fulfill his obligation,” and he must go back and eat while reclining. He brings proof from the wording, “The attendant who ate an olive-bulk of matzah while reclining fulfilled his obligation,” implying: while reclining, yes; not while reclining, no. The Rosh also rules that with the first and second cups, if he drank without reclining, he should go back and drink, while with the third or fourth cup he raises the concern that it “looks like adding to the cups,” but explains that “since he drank it not in its proper manner, it is clarified that it was not one of the counted cups,” and what he drinks now is the obligatory cup.

The Brisker Rav’s reading of the term “fulfilled” versus the plain meaning of the Rosh

The Brisker Rav suggests that “fulfilled” in the Gemara regarding the attendant can be interpreted as having fulfilled the obligation of reclining, and not necessarily the obligation of matzah, and he explains that according to Maimonides one fulfills matzah even without reclining. The lecture notes that the Brisker Rav himself writes, “This requires analysis,” because the plain meaning of the sugya sounds like the Rosh’s understanding, that “fulfilled” refers to the proper fulfillment of eating the matzah.

“The obligation of wine / the obligation of freedom / the obligation of the four cups” in the sugya of the four cups

The lecture reads the Gemara’s expression, “If he drank them undiluted, he fulfilled his obligation,” and Rava’s statement, “He fulfilled the obligation of wine; he did not fulfill the obligation of freedom,” and notes that there seem to be several layers of fulfillment: fulfillment of drinking as wine, fulfillment of freedom, and fulfillment of the count of the four cups. The lecture marks this as indicating a two-tier structure in the obligations of the night, even though it does not go into all the details of the sugya.

Women and reclining: “a woman with her husband,” the Rema, and the Raavyah

The Gemara states: “A woman with her husband does not require reclining, but if she is an important woman, she does require reclining.” The Rema rules: “A woman does not require reclining unless she is important,” and adds: “And all our women are called important, but they did not adopt the custom of reclining, because they relied on the words of the Raavyah, who wrote that nowadays one should not recline.” The lecture points out the difficulty here: the Raavyah seemingly exempts everyone from reclining nowadays, not only women, and it asks how a practical distinction between women and men emerges on that basis, when “all our women are called important” sounds like a definite statement and not merely a doubt.

“A remembrance of freedom” versus “the manner of free people,” and two aspects of the Seder night

The lecture cites in the name of Rabbi Chaim, in the stencil notes, two conceptions: in the Shulchan Arukh HaRav, reclining is “a remembrance of freedom,” while in the Vilna Gaon, reclining is “the manner of free people.” The lecture says that both dimensions exist together: there is a dimension of simulation and historical memory of what took place in the Exodus from Egypt, and there is also a dimension of present-day behavior as a free person. Maimonides’ statement, “In every generation a person is obligated to see himself as though he has now gone out from the bondage of Egypt,” is presented as the dimension of connection to the past, whereas “he must eat and drink while reclining, in the manner of free people” is presented as the dimension of freedom in the present.

The one leading the Seder, the listeners, and a new explanation of the Rema and the laws of the poor person

The lecture proposes a functional division within the Seder night between those telling the story and those listening: the obligation of simulation and of telling the story in a question-and-answer format falls mainly on the one leading the Seder, while the obligation “to be free people now” belongs to all those seated around the table. Based on this, the lecture suggests that the Raavyah is relevant mainly to the dimension of “the manner of free people” in the present; therefore the listeners can be lenient when this is not considered “the manner of free people” in their time, whereas the one leading the Seder cannot give up the signs of simulating the past. The lecture connects this to the law of “a woman with her husband” as describing a situation in which the husband is leading the Seder and she is listening, and to the law of “even a poor person in Israel” as an enactment that even a poor person belongs to reclining as part of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The lecture adds, based on Tosafot on “they may not give him fewer than four cups,” that the implication is that they give the poor person cups for himself and he thereby discharges the obligation of his household, and it links this to the idea that publicizing the miracle and leading the Seder are focused on the one conducting the Seder.

The popularity of the Seder night and the need for contemporary meaning

The lecture argues that the Seder night is popular even among people who are not careful about commandments, because the value of freedom speaks to the present and therefore allows cooperation with the story of the past. It compares this to Shavuot, which is perceived less as a binding ritual among those who do not feel bound by Torah, and by contrast notes that Hanukkah is similar to Passover because it is “in those days, at this time.”

The meaning of memory: “the remembrance of Amalek” as the present presence of the past

The lecture concludes with a note on the concept of “remembrance,” based on “You shall erase the remembrance of Amalek,” understanding it as meaning that some trace of the thing remains. It concludes that memory means that something from the past is present in the present. Therefore, there is no return to the past without the present, and the commandment of the Seder night is a single whole that connects the past to the present, not two separate commandments.

We’re in the fourth lesson in this final series leading up to Passover. I tried to choose a few foundational topics that would give, beyond the halakhic issue itself, also some broader sense of the meaning of the matter. And now we’re basically arriving at the Seder night. We’re arriving at the Seder night, and here I really want also to talk a bit about its meaning—mainly the telling of the Exodus from Egypt. That is really the Torah-level commandment at the core of the Seder night. There is also eating matzah, and the Paschal offering—we don’t have that today. What? I can’t hear. And I want to start first of all—I said, I wrote for you on the sheet an overview of the commandments. Right, so there is the telling of the Exodus from Egypt and eating matzah, which are Torah-level. The Paschal offering we don’t eat today; that too was originally there. There are the four cups, maror, and all the other things that are just accompanying elements—korekh, customs, karpas and things like that—which are of course rabbinic, and lower-level. And beyond all that there is also reclining, and reclining in some way accompanies the commandments, or some of the commandments, of the evening. Regarding the telling of the Exodus from Egypt there’s a question whether it requires reclining or not, and simply speaking, yes. Eating matzah, drinking the four cups, and maybe even the meal itself—where the meal is really the holiday meal, not specifically the Seder night, but it is also one of the commandments that one fulfills in this context. So reclining is a kind of broad, cross-cutting commandment, because it really accompanies the other commandments; ostensibly it is not a commandment in its own right. In a moment we’ll talk a bit about that. And as I wrote for you, the four cups are a kind of spine that accompanies, at least in terms of time—they basically run through the whole Seder night and accompany it as well. So that’s the general picture. I want to start with… I’ll do a share for a second, basically like this. Is its rabbinic status only because we don’t have the offering? Yes, it says, “They shall eat it with matzot and bitter herbs,” but when there is no offering, then the matzah too—which is with the offering—is rabbinic, and the maror is rabbinic too. But with matzah there is also an obligation to eat matzah not next to the offering. Yes, exactly. One second. Right, so I’m just sharing the lesson, because the sources are here too. I’m starting with the Mishnah at the beginning of the chapter. The whole eighth chapter, really the final one of tractate Pesachim, is the one that deals with the Seder night. Now the chapter begins with the following Mishnah: “On the eve of Passover, close to the time of the afternoon offering, a person may not eat until dark. And even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines, and they may not give him fewer than four cups of wine, even from the charity plate.” So here we basically have: first, a prohibition against eating until dark, which is pretty clear why it appears here, because chronologically it opens the Seder night. It tells you what the Jewish law will be that brings you into the holiday, and we find this in many Mishnayot and collections of laws in Maimonides, where we basically begin the discussion with the first law that brings us into the sacred time. For example: “A person may not sit with the barber close to the afternoon on Sabbath eve.” It’s not that this is the essence of the laws of Sabbath, but it’s the law of Sabbath eve that tells us how we enter the Sabbath itself. So that’s the first part of the Mishnah. But after that the Mishnah continues: “Even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines.” Why—why does that appear here, what does it have to do with this? It’s just some particular law. Not even the law of reclining itself appears here, but only the law that the poor person must recline too. Why does that need to appear in the opening Mishnah? What’s its connection here? And after that: “And they may not give him fewer than four cups of wine, even from the charity plate.” So regarding the third point, maybe one could also find a technical explanation, because what does it mean, “they may not give him fewer than four cups of wine, even from the charity plate”—when do they give the wine to the poor person from the charity fund, from charity? Before the holiday, of course, right? That distribution does not take place on the Seder night itself. So one could say that this too is part of the preparations for the Seder night, and therefore it appears in the first Mishnah of the chapter. But the middle still needs explanation: what is “even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines”? There is, as I mentioned to you, Tosafot—I’ll scroll down for a moment, I think it appears down here. Oh no, I see it doesn’t appear here. In your sheet it appears, the one I sent. I brought that Tosafot—let’s look at it for a second, I’ll share it now. Here, the Tosafot I brought in section three. “Even a poor person,” right. “And even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines,” for one might have thought that the reclining of a poor person is not considered reclining, since he has nothing on which to recline and this is not the way of freedom. Tosafot comes to say what the novelty is in this part of the Mishnah: “even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines.” So the first explanation it offers is that there was room to think that the reclining of a poor person isn’t really reclining at all, because reclining is the way of freedom, the manner of householders, of people of means; a poor person is not in that position, it doesn’t apply to him. And that’s not the novelty—that’s the initial assumption. I can’t hear. And that’s the initial assumption, not the novelty. It is the novelty—the initial assumption is that, and the novelty is that it’s not true. Ah, okay. The novelty is that even a poor person must recline. And some explain—a second explanation—that this refers back to the earlier clause, “until dark,” and even a poor person among Israel—meaning, even a poor person who hasn’t eaten for several days may not eat until dark. In other words, the second explanation of Tosafot says that the novelty here is not that a poor person must also recline, but that even a poor person is forbidden to eat until he reclines. “Until he reclines” meaning until the Seder night begins, and according to this approach reclining for a poor person is obvious. Right? So there would be no need to say that a poor person must recline. According to this explanation of Tosafot, the novelty is that he is forbidden to eat until he reclines. That’s the novelty. Because a poor person who hasn’t eaten for several days—you might say, let the poor man eat, he’s hungry. But no, the importance of arriving at the Seder evening without having eaten—or perhaps not being tired, maybe that’s why you shouldn’t eat—there are various reasons one can explain why we don’t eat beforehand. In principle, before every commandment fulfillment one doesn’t eat. In any event, the two explanations of Tosafot raise the question whether the novelty is that even a poor person must recline, or whether the novelty is that even a poor person may not eat until he reclines. According to Tosafot’s second explanation, then the middle part of the Mishnah is also clear—what it is doing in the first Mishnah, right? Because it basically means that all the parts, all the interpretations, all the laws that appear in this Mishnah are the laws that are meant to tell us how to prepare for the holiday. So they tell us: first, you may not eat beforehand. Until the holiday begins, don’t eat. Even a poor person may not eat; that too is part of the same point. And besides that, for the poor person, make sure in advance that he has four cups from the charity plate. Okay? So all this is basically the preparation that is supposed to be done before the Seder night, and if so it’s clear. According to Tosafot’s first explanation, then the first and third laws of the Mishnah are perhaps understandable chronologically as to why they appear here, but the middle law—the novelty that even a poor person must recline—it’s not clear what it’s doing here. Why does it open the Mishnah? Beyond the fact that this projects onto the question of how to understand the Mishnah, one also has to notice that there is a halakhic difference between these two explanations. What do I mean by a halakhic difference? A conceptual difference, not a halakhic one. Later we may see that it also has halakhic significance. The difference is on the question… the poor person I think… What? I can’t hear. The question is whether there could have been an initial assumption that a poor person does not need to recline. According to the first explanation, yes, and that’s exactly what the Mishnah comes to teach is not true. Meaning, it is concerned that we might think a poor person doesn’t need to recline, so it comes to tell us: not true, a poor person does need to recline. That is, this is Tosafot’s first explanation. According to Tosafot’s first explanation, one might have thought that a poor person would not recline. Tosafot’s second explanation says exactly the opposite. The whole novelty is that a poor person may not eat until he reclines. What does “until he reclines” mean? Obviously he has to recline; that’s no novelty at all. Rather, we’re coming to tell you that he may not eat until he begins the Seder night. And how do you say that a poor person begins the Seder night? “Until the poor person reclines,” because obviously he must recline. Meaning, not only is there no novelty here, but it’s almost something self-evident, like that’s simply the phrase used to describe the Seder night. The poor person’s Seder night means when he reclines; that’s obvious, as if there’s no need to say anything at all here. So there is also a conceptual difference between these two explanations in Tosafot regarding the reclining of the poor person. We’ll see later that this may have consequences. Now let’s look for a moment at Maimonides. In Maimonides… I want to talk a little bit about the meaning of reclining. So I brought Maimonides, I’m marking it here. “Therefore.” “When a person eats on this night, he must eat and drink while reclining, in the manner of freedom. And when is reclining required? At the time of eating an olive-bulk of matzah and in drinking these four cups. As for the rest of his eating and drinking, if he reclines”—yes, there’s some omission here—“if he reclines, this is praiseworthy.” Okay, so what did I ask you on the sheet—what emerges from his wording regarding the discussion of the meaning of reclining? After all, at the beginning, when I presented the laws practiced on the Seder night, I said that reclining is some kind of broad law. It’s not just one more of the laws of the Seder night, ostensibly, but rather a law that accompanies the other laws of the Seder night. In other words, when eating matzah it should be done reclining, when drinking wine it should be done reclining, when telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt it should be done reclining, and so on. So basically it’s a law that accompanies, a detail within the other laws, and not an independent law. That’s the simple understanding. The Rabbi of Brisk—the Griz, as he is known, the son of Rabbi Chaim—really discusses this question: what is the halakhic status of the obligation to recline? Is the obligation to recline a detail in the way that tells me how to perform the other commandments, or is there some independent law that one must recline on this night? Of course it is implemented or located around the performance of the commandments, but it is not part of fulfilling those commandments; they simply placed this obligation to recline there. Really, I was supposed to recline on this night. They told me: fine, when? When you perform the commandments. But the basic obligation is not—that doesn’t tell me how to perform the commandment; rather, it is an independent obligation. One must recline. The timing of when to recline is when you fulfill the commandments. From the wording of Maimonides that I marked here, says the Rabbi of Brisk, it follows—what do you say? Is reclining an independent obligation, or a detail within the other obligations? I think independent. An independent obligation. Why? Based on what? Because in the rest of the things, where is it? “Reclining is required at the time of eating” etc., “and for the rest of his eating and drinking, if he reclines, this is praiseworthy.” Now for the rest of the things it’s not essential, but for the olive-bulk of matzah and the afikoman it is important. “When he eats.” And therefore what do you see from here? That there is, in my opinion, a commandment to recline. Only in part. Only in part. The Sages only established for us the measure of reclining—when it is done—but they didn’t tell us that if you don’t recline then you have not fulfilled the commandment of drinking the four cups. Fine, that we’ll see in a moment; that’s not written here one way or the other. Maimonides does not address what happens if you didn’t recline here. But Maimonides claims that two… one second, one second, Yael, yes Yael. I’m saying that here he divides it into two. About some of the commandments he says reclining is required, and about the rest he says it isn’t. Meaning you beautify the commandment, but… the rest are not the commandments, they’re just the evening’s ordinary eating and drinking. Okay, the blessing, the eating and drinking—you need to do that—but no, it seems to me he also divides; I think he divides “the rest of the things,” where was it, one second, sorry, Maimonides, Maimonides, I missed the sentence. Five. In five, wait, it’s marked on the screen. Right, so he says that if he drinks and eats, he is obligated to recline. Meaning there is some obligation here to recline. By contrast, there are things where he says this is only to beautify the commandment. Okay, and therefore what? Therefore is the definition of the obligation to recline an independent obligation, or a detail in the other commandments? In my view it’s independent. I think it’s independent because he says, “And when is reclining required?” Meaning, there is a commandment of reclining—when do you perform that commandment? At the time of eating an olive-bulk of matzah and drinking the four cups. But there is something about the commandment of reclining itself as something independent. That’s how I understand this formulation. Of course one could perhaps interpret it differently, but from the wording it sounds to me as though there is a commandment of reclining, and the time of reclining is together with and at the same time as eating an olive-bulk of matzah and drinking four cups. First, in Maimonides’ wording you really do see, as Yael said, that Maimonides first says: “Therefore, when a person eats on this night, he must eat and drink while reclining in the manner of freedom.” Without connection for the moment to any commandments. In principle there is an obligation to recline on this night. That sounds like an independent obligation. After that he asks, “And when is reclining required?” When should one do it? At the time he performs the commandments. But it’s not clear that the obligation is an independent one. He does not say: and he should perform these commandments in a reclining manner. He doesn’t put it that way. He opens by saying there is an obligation to recline. After that he merely explains when they instituted reclining—at the time he performs the commandments. More than that, he also says, “As for the rest of his eating and drinking, if he reclines, this is praiseworthy.” Meaning, when the eating and drinking are not those of the commandments but part of the meal, or other eating and drinking that take place that evening, Maimonides also says there is value in reclining, even though of course you are not obligated. What does that mean? Again, that there is some independent value in reclining. It’s not a detail in the commandment, because otherwise why would there be value in reclining when you eat? It is only the way in which we are supposed to fulfill the commandment. The ordinary meal you eat—eat however you want. Therefore it seems this is an independent obligation. And indeed, perhaps let’s look at it for a moment inside. But if it’s an independent obligation, doesn’t that allow you not to fulfill it? No, no, obviously not; it’s only a question of how it is defined. So Maimonides says as follows—look, I’m reading here. You see my cursor? In chapter 7, law 7: “Therefore, when a person eats on this night, he must eat and drink while reclining in the manner of freedom. And when is reclining required? At the time of eating an olive-bulk of matzah and drinking these four cups. As for the rest of his eating and drinking, if he reclines, this is praiseworthy.” That is the Maimonides quote, end of citation. “From these words of Maimonides it is clear that the commandment of reclining is a commandment in its own right, that one should eat and drink on this night while reclining in the manner of freedom. But the Sages fixed this commandment at the time of eating matzah and drinking the four cups. In any case, it is an independent commandment and not part of the laws of the commandment of matzah and the four cups. As we see regarding the rest of his eating and drinking, if he reclines this is praiseworthy—that is, this is considered a fulfillment of the commandment of reclining.” Meaning, even if he reclines during the meal—if it were only one of the details of fulfilling the commandments, then what relevance would reclining during the rest of the meal have? Therefore he says if you recline during the rest of the meal, you have fulfilled the commandment of reclining. True, if you didn’t recline then nothing happened there; what you’re eating there is optional. But you fulfilled the commandment of reclining even at that stage. And he says in parentheses: “And so too in the Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 472, that ideally one should recline throughout the whole meal. Thus the act of reclining is an independent commandment and applies also to the rest of his eating and drinking, except that he is only obligated in it at the time of eating matzah and drinking the four cups. But in its fundamental nature it has no connection with the commandment of eating matzah and drinking the four cups at all.” In other words, the commandment of reclining is not the manner in which one fulfills those commandments, but an independent obligation. And now the halakhic conclusion: “Accordingly, if one ate matzah or drank the four cups without reclining, there is no deficiency at all in the commandment of eating matzah or the four cups; rather, he merely did not fulfill the commandment of reclining, which is an entirely separate commandment.” If someone ate an olive-bulk of matzah and did not recline, or drank the four cups and did not recline, then basically what happened? He did not fulfill the commandment of reclining, but he certainly fulfilled eating matzah and drinking the four cups, because there is no law that these must be done specifically reclining. Reclining does not define how one eats matzah or drinks wine. One eats matzah and drinks wine because that is the commandment. Reclining is another law, and if you didn’t do it then you did not fulfill that law—but the eating of the matzah, you fulfilled your obligation even without reclining, and so too the drinking of the wine. So if so, can the Seder night take place even without reclining? No, because if you did it without reclining then what you missed was the commandment of reclining. Okay, but the other commandments you did fulfill. Therefore that’s what he says. If reclining were the definition of how one must eat the matzah or how one must drink the wine, then if I did it without reclining I wouldn’t have fulfilled my obligation, because this is how one is supposed to eat the matzah and drink the wine, and I didn’t do it properly. But if reclining is an independent law, and they merely tell me to do it when I eat the matzah or drink the wine, fine—then if I didn’t do it reclining, I fulfilled the obligations of eating matzah and drinking wine; I just did not fulfill the commandment of reclining. This is somewhat similar, I think—we once talked about this—there is a Mishnah in tractate Menachot. The Mishnah says: “The blue thread does not invalidate the white, and the white does not invalidate the blue” regarding the commandment of tzitzit. There need to be blue threads and white threads, and the Mishnah says the blue threads do not invalidate the white, and the white does not invalidate the blue. So there is a certain conception, common among later authorities and among people on the street too, that if that’s so then putting on the blue thread—means it’s voluntary. Meaning there is no obligation, because look, it doesn’t invalidate. Meaning if you didn’t put on the blue thread then that’s fine. Meaning if you put on the blue thread, wonderful, you have a commandment. If you didn’t put it on, nothing happened. Not true. It’s somewhat related to what we discussed in the previous lesson. The commandment of the blue thread is a full obligation. Someone who did not fulfill the commandment of the blue thread has neglected a positive commandment of the blue thread. But he didn’t fail the commandment—he didn’t fail the commandment of tzitzit. Exactly. So someone who didn’t put on the blue thread did not miss the commandment of the white thread. That’s what the Mishnah says, that the blue does not invalidate the white. But it does not say that the blue is not obligatory. The blue is obligatory. If you didn’t do it, then you didn’t fulfill your obligation; you did not fulfill the blue thread. The fact that you put on white threads means you fulfilled the commandment of the white. Okay? Therefore whether something invalidates or not is only a consequence with respect to the question whether you fulfilled the commandment of the white. But if you didn’t put on the blue thread, then of course you did not fulfill the commandment of the blue. And in relation to us: if you ate matzah or drank wine without reclining, then even if you say it is a commandment—when you say it is an independent commandment, then what are you really saying? That if, say, I ate matzah or drank wine without reclining, then I fulfilled the obligations of matzah and wine. Right? Does that mean it’s okay to do that? Certainly not. Because I neglected the commandment of reclining. All I’m saying is that I neglected the commandment of reclining, but the wine and the matzah—those are commandments that I did fulfill. Okay? Now I’ll continue, I’m sharing back. Just a second, I got disconnected for a few minutes. Can you just go back regarding the blue thread? Yes. I’m just saying: when the Mishnah says that the blue does not invalidate the white, it does not mean that the commandment of the blue thread is voluntary. If you want, do it; if you don’t want, don’t. Someone who does not put on the blue thread has neglected a positive commandment of the blue thread. It just doesn’t invalidate the commandment of the white. Meaning, you might have thought that if I didn’t put on the blue thread then I didn’t fulfill the commandment of tzitzit at all. It says no—you didn’t fulfill the commandment of blue, but you did fulfill the commandment of white. So I bring this as an analogy for our case. If I say that reclining is an independent commandment, then I’m basically saying it does not invalidate the eating of the matzah and the drinking of the wine. If the eating of the matzah and the drinking of the wine were done without reclining, I fulfilled the obligations of matzah and wine. But that does not mean reclining is voluntary, because if I did not recline, then although I fulfilled the matzah and wine, I did not fulfill reclining. And there is an obligation to recline. And it is not mere voluntarism. It simply doesn’t invalidate the matzah and the wine. Now, I’m going back to the sheet. One second. Look at Tosafot here. What I marked. “And all of them too require reclining”—meaning all four cups require reclining. “And all four cups require reclining at the time of drinking.” Tosafot is just explaining the Gemara. Okay? Now Tosafot says—oops, why is that marking bothering me here. Okay. “And it requires investigation: if one forgot and did not recline, must he go back and drink?” That’s it. Let’s stop here for a moment. So Tosafot is uncertain about what happens if someone forgot. He drank one of the cups of wine and didn’t recline. What is his doubt? Whether he needs to go back and drink. In light of what we saw now in the Rabbi of Brisk, how do you explain it—what exactly is the doubt here? We said that if he didn’t negate the commandment of drinking, he negated the commandment of reclining, so he shouldn’t have to go back and drink. It depends what he holds. If he holds that reclining is not an independent commandment, but part of the commandment of eating and drinking, then he would have to go back. The question is what Tosafot holds. Right. Meaning one could have said this: according to what we saw in Maimonides, that this is an independent commandment, then it seems quite clear that he does not need to go back and drink. Right? An independent commandment. Yes. What he needs is somehow to recline, maybe during the rest of the meal or something, but there is no reason for him to go back and drink. But more than that—even if he does go back and drink again, what would that help? He already fulfilled his obligation for that cup. If he now drinks another cup and reclines, he still is not reclining within the framework of the commandment of the four cups, because he has already fulfilled the commandment of the four cups. So going back to drink would not help either. Okay? That’s according to Maimonides. By contrast, if we understand that reclining is one of the details of the commandment, then there is room for hesitation. One could say it is a detail, but a non-essential detail. That is possible; there are such definitions. And one could say it is an essential detail, and then indeed if you did not fulfill it—if you didn’t recline—then you also did not fulfill the obligation of matzah or wine. So I’ll say again: on Maimonides’ side, it seems quite clear that there is no reason to go back and drink. Also it would not help to go back and drink. On Tosafot’s side—and Tosafot apparently disagrees with Maimonides—there is room for uncertainty. Because even if it is a detail of the commandment, it is not certain that it is an essential detail. So Tosafot’s doubt can be formulated in two ways: either he is uncertain about how to define reclining—whether it is one of the details of the commandment or an independent obligation, the question the Rabbi of Brisk asked above—or no, it is clear to him that it is one of the details of the commandment; he plainly disagrees with Maimonides. He is only uncertain whether it is an essential detail or not. Okay, that is basically the question. I’ll say more than that perhaps: if this detail is a non-essential detail, but still you want to drink the cup—or even according to Maimonides, where reclining is an independent commandment and not one of the details of drinking the cup—there may still be room to say that if you didn’t recline, go back and drink and recline. Why? This is just as an aside—I’m saying this as a halakhic anecdote, and many people don’t know it. There is a very famous view of the Ra’avad, brought in the responsa of the Rivash in a few places—two or three places. The Gemara says that if someone betroths a woman, he can do it through an agent. But “it is more of a commandment when done by oneself than by one’s agent.” A person should not betroth a woman until he sees her. Meaning, you want there to be a good connection; don’t send an agent and betroth a woman blindly. So there is a principle that it is better to do the commandment oneself than through an agent. So what happens now if he betrothed her not through an agent—sorry, through an agent? Then he betrothed her in a way that, of course, takes effect—the betrothal is valid; it is an explicit Mishnah. But it’s less ideal. If he had done it himself, without an agent, that would have been the ideal; that would have been better. The Ra’avad—now, he did it with an agent. Is there any logic in saying: okay, let him now go back and do it himself, betroth her again? No. Why? Because the betrothal fundamentally takes effect. Right. Since betrothal by an agent, even if it is less ideal, certainly takes effect. Now, once the woman is betrothed to me, what sense is there in betrothing her again? Even if I very much want to beautify the commandment. Betrothal creates a state in the world that the woman is already betrothed—some kind of state, metaphysical, I don’t know, some state such that the woman is already betrothed, as though that state has been created. Yes, but even if it’s only legal and not metaphysical, legally she is betrothed and cannot be betrothed again. Even if you don’t turn it into metaphysics, meaning even legally the woman is a betrothed woman. You can’t betroth a woman who is already betrothed, even without metaphysics. She is already betrothed—that is her legal status. What about people who have two wedding ceremonies? Then one of them is fictitious; usually both are fictitious. But in our context, ostensibly when you do it a second time it has no significance, because the woman is already betrothed. How are you going to betroth a woman who is already betrothed? Now it turns out that the Ra’avad claims—and this is the Ra’avad’s view that I mentioned earlier—that he should go back and betroth her himself. Wow, that’s really astonishing. The question is: what sense is there in betrothing her again? She is already betrothed. What would that help? Now, one could understand why one should betroth her again. Why should one betroth her again? Because of another principle, which one can get into but I won’t here. It is possible to show that, at least for some of the views of the medieval authorities, and perhaps even for all of them, one cannot have beautification of a commandment without the actual fulfillment of the commandment itself. Say I lit candles—I lit one Hanukkah candle, okay? Now suddenly I remember, oops, I didn’t do the highest beautification, I want to light all the candles required for the highest beautification. Too late. Why? The commandment was already fulfilled. You cannot beautify a commandment after the fact. When you fulfill the commandment, do it in the best way. But if the commandment has already been fulfilled, that’s it—what are you going to do, do it again? You can’t do it again. You beautify the commandment; you don’t beautify an act that is no longer a commandment. So in that context one could say why there is a need to betroth again—that’s very clear. Because if you want to beautify, you need to beautify the act of commandment that you are doing. You can’t beautify an act that isn’t the commandment. That is true. But on the other hand, it won’t help here; you cannot do the commandment again because it has already been fulfilled, the woman is already betrothed. To whatever extent this is a commandment—that too is a large question. But the woman is already betrothed, so what sense is there in betrothing her again? So we see in the Ra’avad. That brings to my mind other ideas—the proof from history that they used to betroth little girls to protect them. Fine, but if they really betrothed them then they are betrothed. Unless they did some fiction there, but if it’s fictitious then fine, that’s something else. Okay, sometimes what are called “white weddings” are done, but those weddings are done. From the standpoint of Jewish law, one can even betroth a girl, as long as her father agrees. Rabbi, maybe it’s like a garment that is entirely blue? What? That a garment that is entirely blue is only a beautification but without the commandment itself. Yes, what Korach said—but that’s not true. A garment entirely blue is valid tzitzit. In any event, the claim is that what the Ra’avad apparently says—why can one betroth the woman again? Because if you really wanted to do it in the ideal way, then retroactively it turns out that you did not want the first act to effect the betrothal at all, because after all you wanted to do it in the ideal way. So if you now do the act yourself in order to do it in the perfect manner, in that you reveal that the previous act apparently wasn’t the act you wanted, and therefore the real betrothal is the second one. If that is so, then returning to our issue of reclining, this opens the possibility of understanding that perhaps one can drink the wine again and recline even according to Maimonides, or even according to Tosafot if reclining is a detail in the commandment but a non-essential detail—for until now we assumed that if so then there is no reason to go back and drink. Now I’m saying no—perhaps yes. I’ll go back and drink while reclining. Why? Because after all I want to fulfill the commandment of reclining, whether it is an enhancement of the commandment of drinking wine or an independent commandment. But this independent commandment was instituted to be done at the time of drinking wine. Now how can I—if I missed that commandment, I can no longer fulfill it, because I already fulfilled my obligation of drinking the wine. But if I need four times, four cups? No, say for the sake of discussion that with one cup I forgot. So I’m saying: I go back and drink that cup again while reclining, and in doing so I reveal that the previous drinking of the cup apparently was not what I intended to be my commandment act. It turns out retroactively that I did not drink it with that in mind. Meaning, I did not intend to fulfill my obligation there, and therefore perhaps one can go back and drink even according to the view that it is an independent obligation or a non-essential obligation. I’m saying this in parentheses, but it really is a big novelty, only if we accept the Ra’avad’s approach, and I don’t think anyone on earth agrees with him. Meaning even the Rivash who brings him does not agree, although I once wrote something about this and had a few proofs in favor of the Ra’avad—that I think one can bring proofs for his view from several places. Fine. In any case, for our purposes, ostensibly this seems to be the consequence of this inquiry of the Griz. The question whether reclining is an independent obligation or a detail of the commandment is the question of what happened when I performed the commandment without reclining. Do I go back and do the commandment with reclining, or is it lost—I missed the commandment of reclining? So Tosafot—I’m returning to Tosafot, I’m marking it again. Tosafot, which is uncertain, says: “It requires investigation: if one forgot and did not recline, must he go back and drink?” Meaning, his assumption is apparently that reclining is a detail within the commandment of drinking. So what? So the side that says he should go back and drink is because we… because he did not fulfill the commandment of the cup, did not fulfill the commandment of drinking—unlike Maimonides, who says reclining is an independent obligation—he apparently holds that reclining is one of the details of the commandment. And the side that says he should not go back and drink—either that is like Maimonides, an independent obligation, or no, it is an obligation that is one of the details of the commandment but a non-essential detail, and therefore you do not need to go back and drink. And so I continue now further with Tosafot. But for Maimonides maybe—for Maimonides maybe he can go back and drink, and for Tosafot maybe he would be obligated to go back and drink? What? I didn’t understand. According to what you said, for Maimonides we could maybe say he can go back and drink, and for Tosafot perhaps he must go back and drink? I’m setting aside the Ra’avad now, I’m setting aside the Ra’avad. According to Tosafot he would have to go back; “go back and drink” means he is obligated to go back and drink, not just because of reclining but because of the cup too. And according to Maimonides it seems he has lost it; he missed the obligation of reclining. Tosafot continues: “And similarly if in the third cup he did not recline—can he go back and drink reclining?” He has another doubt. What happens with the third cup? What is special about the third cup? With the third cup, between the third and fourth cups one may not add cups. Meaning after the first cup and after the second cup one can drink cups if one wants, beyond the commanded cups. But between the third and fourth cups—which is the cup of Grace after Meals until the cup of Hallel and Nirtzah there—one may not add cups. And if so, Tosafot says, what happens if with the third cup he did not recline? Can he go back and drink reclining, even though between the third and fourth one may not drink? What is his doubt here? I asked you—does the doubt concern whether he is obligated to drink, or whether drinking would help? So let’s consider the two sides of the earlier doubt. This doubt is built on the first doubt, right? If in the first doubt, say with the first cup, he has a doubt—should he go back and drink or not, right? Now if on the side that with the first cup he does not need to go back and drink, then with the third cup obviously not—there is no room for doubt, right? Because with the third cup one is not even allowed to add cups, unlike between the second and third. I have a question: why is there any difference between the first, second, third, and fourth cups? What is the difference in their status? We’ll see later, because… Because it’s after the afikoman. Because it’s after the afikoman; you don’t drink anything beyond what you’re obligated to. To preserve its continuity. Yes. With the first and second cups, it’s within the meal, so to speak—you can drink wine, it’s permitted, there’s no problem. In any event, for our purposes, I’m saying that on the side of Tosafot’s first doubt—the side that says if with the first cup you didn’t recline, you don’t need to go back and drink—then with the third cup all the more so not, because with the third cup you are not even allowed to go back and drink, right? Because you’re not allowed to add to the cups. So if with the first cup one doesn’t go back and drink again, then with the third certainly not. Therefore what Tosafot says is a doubt built on the second side of the first doubt. Meaning, if in the first doubt we arrive at the conclusion that yes, one must go back and drink if he didn’t recline, Tosafot asks what happens with the third cup. Now what does “what happens with the third cup” mean? Let’s try to think. On the side that I need to go back and drink, what does that basically mean? That without reclining I did not fulfill the commandment of drinking, right? Right? Now what’s the question? I did the third cup without reclining; I did not fulfill the commandment of the third cup, right? So then that is not considered adding to the cups. If I now drink again in order to recline, that will be the third cup. The previous cup I drank—I did not fulfill my obligation with it—was just an extra cup added between the second and third, and that is permitted. So what’s the problem? And according to Tosafot, if his second doubt is built on the first, then it’s not clear what there is to doubt here. Then obviously not only are you allowed, you are required to add another third cup. Maybe he’s just repeating the same doubt he had at the beginning, and that itself is the doubt? The doubt is: if on the side that you don’t need to go back and drink with the first cup, then with the third cup it’s absolutely forbidden. If on the side that yes, you do need to, then with the third cup too you need to. Maybe—and then he’s just going back to the same doubt. Maybe he is unsure whether reclining is a detail in the commandment and whether it is essential or not? Then what? Essential. And then if it isn’t essential, he need not go back; and if it is essential, he must go back. Okay, so I actually think the simpler plain meaning in Tosafot is what Yael just said. Look: if indeed—and that’s how it seems—if indeed the second doubt is built on the first, meaning on the side that reclining is part of the laws of the cup, okay? Then I ask what happens with the third cup. What does that mean? If it is part of the laws of the cup and I did not recline, then the third cup was not really the third cup at all. So what’s the problem? Of course I can drink another cup. The cup I drink now will be the third cup. No—we see in Tosafot that even on the side that reclining is a detail in the laws of the cup, it could still be that the third cup I did without reclining is still a cup. And the reason I need to recline so that… what I need is to drink again, sorry, in order to fulfill the commandment of reclining, except that in order to fulfill the commandment of reclining I need to drink wine, because it was instituted upon the drinking of wine. And Tosafot is uncertain whether that is permitted, because then I would be adding a cup between the third and fourth cups. Right? Otherwise Tosafot cannot be understood. And then what emerges here is really the third possibility I mentioned to you in Tosafot’s first doubt—the possibility that says it could be that reclining is one of the details of drinking the cup, and yet it does not invalidate the cup. It is only an embellishment. And if so, Tosafot says, then perhaps you are forbidden to add after the third cup if you didn’t recline. You’ve lost it. You missed the commandment of reclining; you did not fulfill the third cup in an enhanced way, but you did fulfill the third cup without the enhancement—it stands. Now once you have done the third cup, you can no longer add another cup, because one does not add to the cups between the third and fourth. Therefore I think this Tosafot is proof for the option I added, contrary to the Rabbi of Brisk, who made it depend on the question whether it is a detail of the cup or not a detail of the cup. It seems to me that Tosafot may not be uncertain about that. Rather, Tosafot may be uncertain on both sides within the assumption that it is a detail of the cup. And still the question is whether it is an essential detail or a non-essential detail. If it is an essential detail, then there is no problem at all in drinking another cup, because the previous cup turns out not to have been the third cup at all, since I didn’t recline. So there’s no problem: I now drink the third cup reclining and continue as usual. And the previous cup was just an extra after the second cup. But if this detail is non-essential, then I already did the third cup. So what permission is there for me to drink another cup in order to recline? It won’t help, because I would be adding between the third cup and the fourth cup. Okay? Then it’s not exactly as… yes? And in practice it comes out like Maimonides, meaning not in the thinking behind it, but in the bottom line it comes out the same. Right. That’s what I said: one can say you don’t need to drink again not only if reclining is an independent obligation, but also if it is a detail of drinking, a non-essential detail. Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to prove from Tosafot here—that Tosafot here, at least on one side of his doubt, really reflects that middle position. Okay? Now the Rosh on the spot says this: “And reclining is required for an olive-bulk”—for the first olive-bulk and for the olive-bulk of the afikoman. Meaning also for the olive-bulk eaten with the ha-motzi, at the beginning of the meal, which is the commandment of the olive-bulk of matzah, and the afikoman at the end, which is also a commandment—a rabbinic commandment. In both cases when I eat the matzah I need to eat it reclining. “And if he ate without reclining, he did not fulfill his obligation,” says the Rosh. “As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said”—this is the Gemara—“the attendant who ate an olive-bulk of matzah while reclining fulfilled his obligation.” It implies: if reclining, yes; if not reclining, no. Meaning, we see that only if he reclined did he fulfill his obligation. He understands this as a general statement, not specifically about an attendant. His view is that they speak about the attendant, but it is really a general law. If you reclined, you fulfilled the obligation; if you did not recline, you did not. So what do we see from here? That reclining is not only one of the details of the commandment and not an independent obligation as Maimonides said, but it is also an essential detail. Meaning, it is neither like Maimonides nor like Tosafot. That means he would have to go back in such a case. Right. Meaning according to Maimonides, reclining is an independent obligation. According to Tosafot—at least on one side of his doubt—it is an obligation that is part of… a detail of the obligation of drinking and eating, but perhaps a non-essential detail. And according to the Rosh it is an essential detail. Like the Griz, the Rabbi of Brisk, read Tosafot—and I showed from Tosafot that I think he isn’t right—but with the Rosh that is indeed correct. The Rosh really says that. And therefore if he didn’t recline, then no. “And if he ate without reclining, he should go back and eat reclining.” So indeed this is the implication, as the Rabbi of Brisk said: what is the practical difference? If you didn’t recline, you didn’t fulfill your obligation; you must do it again. That is the practical difference. “And so too for the first and second cups: if he did not drink reclining, he should go back and drink reclining.” Up to here everything is fine. “But for the third or fourth cup”—now this is strange—“if he drinks more, it appears as though he is adding to the cups.” What’s the problem? According to his view, if he drank the third cup and didn’t recline, then that was not really the third cup at all. So what’s the problem? Let’s continue reading the last line and a half—look at the bottom of the next page: “Nevertheless, one can say that since he drank it improperly, and it is clear that it was not among the counted cups, what he drinks now is the obligatory cup.” Exactly what I said before—he was precise enough to state it. Okay? Meaning, what he drank before without reclining, since reclining is essential, that wasn’t really the third cup at all. That’s exactly where he argues with Tosafot. Consequently he also has no doubt like Tosafot. It’s obvious that if he drank without reclining, even for the third cup, he should go back and drink again. Why? Because what he is drinking now is the third cup. The cup he drank before without reclining was not the third cup at all, so there is no problem. So he is not adding to the cups between the third and fourth. Okay? By the way, he holds that the rule that one does not add between the third and fourth cups is not because of the afikoman, but because it appears as though he is adding to the cups—adding to the commandment. That he did not recline. No, beyond the four. So why not between the first and second and third? Because there it is within the meal. Within the meal it does not appear as though one is adding to the cups. You are drinking it as part of the meal, just as you eat so too you drink wine. But when you do it outside the meal, it appears as though you are doing it somehow as a commandment. And in the realm of commandment, that is adding to the commandment. The commandment is four cups and not more. In any event, here in the Rosh we really do see that there is a third approach in this matter. The Rosh brings what we read earlier—you see—about that attendant, right? That’s the proof he brings. “As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said… the attendant who ate an olive-bulk of matzah while reclining fulfilled his obligation; it implies: reclining, yes; not reclining, no.” What would Maimonides do with that? The question is why—why didn’t he fulfill it? Because of eating the afikoman or because of reclining? There’s some echo there; I didn’t hear you well. Right, I keep cutting out. Is this talking about fulfilling the obligation of eating an olive-bulk of afikoman—that’s the Rosh—or fulfilling the obligation of reclining—that’s Maimonides? Exactly, right. So indeed the Rabbi of Brisk himself also writes—look, where is he? Look below. “And behold the source of the Rosh’s ruling.” “And its source”—you see? “And its source”—do you see my cursor? Here. Here. Yes. “And its source is from the words of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, for since he used the language of ‘fulfilled his obligation,’ it follows that reclining also applies to the rest of his eating besides the olive-bulk of matzah, except that he is not obligated in it. But in fact the discussion there is not at all about the law and commandment of eating matzah, for that he fulfills even without reclining, as we proved from the words of Maimonides.” Okay? What is he saying basically? That what is written—that if he ate while reclining then he fulfilled his obligation—means that if he reclined then he fulfilled the obligation of reclining, not that he fulfilled the obligation of matzah. He fulfilled matzah even without reclining. And he says at the end, “And this requires further investigation.” Why? Because the plain sense of the Gemara is not that. What happened? If he ate and reclined, then he fulfilled his obligation—meaning, if he reclined then he fulfilled the obligation of reclining? What is there to say here? What they mean is that if he ate and reclined, then he fulfilled the obligation of eating, not the obligation of reclining. If he reclined then he fulfilled the obligation of reclining. According to Maimonides one must apparently say that if he ate and reclined, he fulfilled the obligation of reclining. Why? Because reclining was not instituted merely that you should recline and that’s it, but that you should recline while eating—that is the novelty. Meaning, if he ate and reclined, then he fulfilled the obligation of reclining, because if he merely reclines without eating, that’s not it. Reclining—even if it is an independent obligation as Maimonides understands—was instituted as something that accompanies the performance of the commandment, not as something wholly independent. Then the whole novelty flips to the opposite pole. The whole novelty becomes a novelty in the laws of reclining, not in the laws of eating as the Rosh understood. Rather, if you ate while reclining, you fulfilled the obligation of reclining, not the obligation of eating. Why? Because if you reclined without eating, then you also did not fulfill the obligation of reclining. Why? Because reclining was instituted at the time you eat the matzah or drink the wine. So if you do it by itself, that is nothing—you have not fulfilled it; you need to do it at the time of fulfilling the commandments. True, Maimonides does say that even during the rest of the meal one fulfills a commandment by reclining, right? We saw that. And the meal is not itself one of the commandments. So how do we explain that here? Either he says that here, when he ate—at the time of eating the meal—that is still part of the commandment, because it is the holiday meal. True, it is not one of the commandments of the Seder night, but it is the holiday meal, and therefore there is still this idea of reclining. But reclining without eating at all—that is not considered reclining in the relevant sense; just sitting that way and that’s it is not called fulfilling the commandment of reclining. Maybe that is what Maimonides means. Okay, now I want to move on. We really need to speed up a bit, so I won’t go through this whole Gemara that I referred you to in section ten. What is written there is as follows: “If he drank them undiluted, he fulfilled his obligation. If he drank them all at once”—“undiluted” meaning without mixing with water, pure wine—“he fulfilled his obligation. If he drank them all at once”—there is a dispute among the medieval authorities whether that means he drank all the cups from one cup, or that he drank all the cups one after the other, not at the required points. “If he gave them to his children and household to drink, he fulfilled his obligation.” Meaning, if he himself did not drink but made the blessing and the members of his household drank, he fulfilled his obligation. “If he drank them undiluted, he fulfilled his obligation.” Rava said: “He fulfilled the obligation of wine; he did not fulfill the obligation of freedom.” This is already strange; you see here there are two laws in the law of drinking the wine. There is some law he calls wine, and a law of freedom. What is going on here? Further: “If he drank them all at once,” Rav said—according to the version of Rif and Maimonides, “he fulfilled the obligation of freedom; he did not fulfill the obligation of four cups.” Now there is already a third law. We have a law of wine, a law of four cups, and a law of freedom. What is the meaning of this? According to Rav, say, what he says at the end—it may be that there are only two laws: he fulfilled freedom, according to the version of Maimonides and Rif, but he did not fulfill four cups. So what is the difference between them? What are these two laws? I won’t go into all the details here. I’m moving to the issue of women reclining, because through that I want to show what I said earlier. Sorry one second—what does it mean that they didn’t mix it with water? Didn’t dilute it with water? Wine in those days was very, very strong. Yes. Okay? But today it isn’t like that. I don’t know to what extent the wine is not diluted—I don’t know. Okay. In any event, the Shulchan Arukh—or let’s start with the Gemara—I marked it for you here in section twelve: “A woman in the presence of her husband does not require reclining. But if she is an important woman, she requires reclining.” Meaning, if the woman is conducting the Seder with her husband, she is married, then she doesn’t need reclining. Only the husband reclines, not she. But an important woman—she has some kind of standing, I don’t know exactly what—she requires reclining. Why? Does that mean that even when she is with her husband, she requires reclining if she is important? Ostensibly yes. Yes. That’s what it says here; in a moment I’ll comment on that. The Rema in the Shulchan Arukh writes as follows: “A woman does not require reclining, unless she is important.” By the way, he doesn’t say “a woman in the presence of her husband.” He says “a woman.” His assumption is that always—whether the woman is with her husband, or with her father, or wherever she may be—a woman does not require reclining. That itself is a novelty; the Gemara does not say that. The gloss of the Rema says: “And all our women are considered important.” This is the Ashkenazi ruling. Among Ashkenazim, all women are considered important. “Yet they have not practiced reclining, because they relied on the words of the Raviah, who wrote that nowadays one does not recline.” Raviah is one of the early Ashkenazi authorities, and he claimed that nowadays one need not recline at all. Why? Because the whole matter of reclining is basically sitting in the manner of freedom. Now in our time, sitting in such a way is not—when you go to a party and want to enjoy yourself, you don’t eat reclining. That wasn’t our custom. This mode of reclining was apparently taken from the Romans. They would sit on cushions and beanbags like that and simply eat while sprawled out on them. So that was… We also sat on mattresses. Okay, so for someone who does that during the year—not on Seder night. Someone who sits that way during the year—that means that is how he expresses being a householder, a free person. If so, on the Seder night he must be careful to eat specifically that way. But someone who doesn’t do that during the year—and we know that today reclining is this whole nuisance where everyone somehow has to contort themselves in order to be free, which is completely absurd. You have to sit uncomfortably just to fulfill the commandment of reclining. It’s the least comfortable thing in the world to sit in that kind of reclining. The whole point is to do the most comfortable thing, to show that you’re free. This is almost the clearest halakhic rigidity that I know. Therefore the Raviah in his time… What? I can’t hear. What does “nowadays” mean? What period was he talking about? The 12th or 13th century. So certainly, and all the more so today, the Rema is already speaking in the 16th century, and certainly today in an age of equality for women. So clearly in our times women are important. But his reasoning is strange, because what the Raviah said was that no one needs to recline—neither women nor men. Because today, someone who sits as free people sit does not sit reclining, so the whole concept of reclining does not apply today at all, neither to men nor to women. The Raviah is basically saying that today one should not recline at all; there’s no need. Okay? So then what is the Rema saying? That women did not practice reclining, and the men also did not practice reclining? Wait, wait, I’ll explain. That’s what is strange. I’m first just stating the Raviah. The Raviah says: do not recline—not men and not women. Okay? In the Gemara it says that a woman does not recline in her husband’s presence, but if she is important then she does recline. So if she is not important then she doesn’t recline, regardless of today or then, right? And if she is important then she is just like men, exactly, right? The Rema makes a jumble of the two things. The Rema says the woman in our times is important, so I would expect her law to be exactly like that of a man, right? Practically speaking, if you agree with the Raviah, neither should recline. If you don’t agree with the Raviah, both should recline. But how did you use the Raviah to create a distinction between women and men? What does that have to do with it? If an important woman—then it means her law is like that of a man. Fine. So now whatever you say about a man, say also about the important woman. So how does he use the Raviah to explain that only women should not recline today? What is the meaning of this? Usually it is commonly thought that the Rema is doing some standard halakhic move here, a kind of double doubt. Meaning: I’m not sure whether women today are really considered important or not; I’m uncertain. Some say yes and some say no. In addition, there’s a general question whether reclining applies today at all. So regarding men there is only one doubt—whether the Raviah is right or not—so they should stringently recline. Regarding women there is a double doubt: first, whether they are important and require reclining at all, and second, even if they do require reclining, whether reclining applies today. Since it is a double doubt, women may refrain from reclining. But from the wording of the Rema it doesn’t sound like the first doubt is really a doubt, because he says, “And all our women are considered important.” He doesn’t say that tentatively. He does not wonder whether our women are important or not; he states it. So it does not sound like a double doubt, maybe only… I completely agree. The way he brings the Raviah, though, you could understand that he has some doubt. Because he says, “for they relied on the words of the Raviah.” Meaning, he does not bring the Raviah as binding law, and he doesn’t even really bring the Raviah as law at all. All he says is that in the context of women, the fact that they did not recline probably means they relied on the view of the Raviah, even though I am not bringing that as law. So there, yes, I am willing to hear that he is uncertain whether the Raviah is right or not. But regarding the ruling that women in our times are called important and have exactly the same law as men—that is brought as something clearly accepted by him. And if so I don’t understand: now practically, if the Raviah is a doubt and one must be stringent, then women too should be stringent. If it is a doubt in which one may be lenient, then men too can be lenient and not recline. So how did you end up with men needing to recline and women not needing to recline? But maybe his words are only trying to explain why women don’t recline—he’s sort of trying to justify them. He says: I think they should, but I see that women don’t do it. There’s something like this regarding prayer for women, that… one has to say “and they are not doing well,” or something like that. Right. And that they don’t pray… No, then he has to say “and they are not doing properly,” or “there is some ground to justify them,” or something like that. He has to say it. He has to explain that it’s not correct, because he needs to explain to me what the correct Jewish law actually is. He does not explain what the correct law is; he only acts as an advocate. First tell me what the correct law is, and then say: and the fact that women have the custom not to recline, maybe they relied on the Raviah’s view, though not correctly. Okay—but you didn’t first tell me what really should be done. You only offered a defense without stating the law. That’s a bit strange. No, he says they are considered important, so they should recline, but I see they do not… Yet they have not practiced reclining… Yet he says, “but they have not practiced reclining”; maybe he means they relied on the words of the Raviah. He doesn’t say that. He says, “yet they have not practiced reclining,” meaning he presents it as the actual way things are practiced. And more than that, I think that if your direction were correct, then he would say: “and among us all women are important, and the fact that they don’t recline is because of an old residual custom from when they were not considered important.” Meaning, he wouldn’t bring in the Raviah at all. No, actually one could still read it the way Noam is saying, because the Rema first establishes a fact: “All our women are considered important.” Period. After that he describes a reality he sees in the world: “Yet they have not practiced reclining.” Now he has to explain why in practice they did not recline, so he says: perhaps they did not recline because women, specifically, relied on the words of the Raviah. Men perhaps less so, but women did. No, no—“they have not practiced reclining” is a legal instruction. Otherwise he would have had to say: “but the fact that they have not practiced reclining is perhaps because they relied on the Raviah.” He says, “yet they have not practiced reclining,” meaning: know that women are considered important, and nevertheless they have not practiced reclining—and he is ruling that way. It’s fairly clear; that is how he is generally read. Then he relies on the Raviah. That is strange. I think in the straightforward reading it is strange. It seems to me here—I’ll stop sharing for a moment and do a different share. Look, in Maimonides—maybe even before Maimonides. Rabbi Chaim, in the stencil notes—I didn’t give them to you—but Rabbi Chaim there brings two interesting sources from the Shulchan Arukh HaRav and from the Vilna Gaon. The Shulchan Arukh HaRav is the first Rebbe of Chabad, right? These are really two rivals. So the Shulchan Arukh HaRav writes that reclining is a remembrance of freedom. Why do we need to recline? A remembrance of freedom—what was, that our forefathers merited their freedom, and so to remember that, we recline. The Vilna Gaon writes that reclining is itself the manner of freedom. And Rabbi Chaim explains that these are two different conceptions. Because the Shulchan Arukh HaRav holds that reclining is a remembrance of what was then; it doesn’t matter if from my current perspective this is not considered the manner of freedom. Since then it was the manner of freedom, and my goal is to remember what was then, therefore I have to recline now. The Vilna Gaon, by contrast, claims that reclining is itself the manner of freedom—not a remembrance of what happened there. We need to recline because that is how a free person behaves. Ah, but today people don’t behave that way? Fine—the Vilna Gaon still holds that even today this is the sign of being free. Now Rabbi Chaim claims more than that. He claims that this is actually—I’m not sure Rabbi Chaim says this; I think I’m saying it. I don’t remember Rabbi Chaim exactly, I haven’t looked at him now. It seems to me what I want to say is this: both things exist. These are two laws, and both are true. When you need to recline on the Seder night, you need to recline both in order to remember what was then—that is what is called remembrance of freedom—and also to actualize in yourself the behavior of freedom now. Meaning, it is both a remembrance of history and something in the present. Why is that important? Maybe before I say why it’s important—look here. Maimonides writes in chapter 7, law 6, that “in every generation a person is obligated to see himself as though he has now gone out from the bondage of Egypt.” To see himself as though he has gone out from the bondage of Egypt—and is this matter of freedom something learned from the Torah, or some determination of the Sages so that we should feel more deeply the significance of the Exodus from Egypt? No, it is a determination of the Sages. It’s not Torah-level; there’s no Torah source explicitly saying this? It may be that the Sages are only saying that this is how one fulfills the Torah-level commandment of telling the Exodus from Egypt. I think that is the accepted conception. But it is a determination of the Sages; it is not written in the Torah. In law 7, one law later, he writes: “Therefore, when a person eats on this night, he must eat and drink while reclining in the manner of freedom, and every individual, whether men or women, is obligated to drink on this night four cups of wine.” So here he says “the manner of freedom,” and in the previous law he said “to see himself”—and by the way some versions have “to show himself,” which is the common version in Maimonides—“as though he has now gone out from the bondage of Egypt.” These are the same two laws that Rabbi Chaim brought above, right? To show himself as though he has now gone out from Egyptian bondage—that is remembering what happened there. And “to eat and drink while reclining in the manner of freedom” means to be free now. What is the difference between these two things? Notice that here in this law, still marked on the page, Maimonides adds: “and every individual, whether men or women, is obligated to drink on this night four cups of wine.” Why is that connected to “when a person eats on this night he must eat and drink while reclining in the manner of freedom”? Why in the same law? Maimonides… Fine, but why in the same law that “whether men or women are obligated to drink four cups”? What does that have to do with this law? That’s a separate law. Why does it appear specifically here? I claim the following: there are two laws in the whole Seder night. Both in reclining and in drinking the wine. What we saw—“he fulfilled freedom,” “he did not fulfill four cups,” or “he fulfilled wine,” etc. In all the laws of the Seder night one can show this consistently—I don’t have enough time to show all this here—there are always two aspects. One aspect is remembering what happened. Telling what happened, demonstrating what happened. The second aspect is to live it now. To live the Exodus from Egypt, to be free now. Because to relive what happened is part of the telling of what happened. The way to do that is “to show himself as though he himself has now gone out from the bondage of Egypt.” Meaning, Maimonides tells you: put on a performance for the children as though you yourself are coming out of the Exodus from Egypt. But that is part of the remembrance of what happened then. That is the law of remembering what happened there. The present law is freedom now, the manner of freedom. There is “remembrance of freedom,” what we saw in the Shulchan Arukh HaRav, and what we saw in the Vilna Gaon, “the manner of freedom.” This exists in the wine, in reclining, in everything. Now the claim is this: who is obligated in each of these aspects? To be free—everyone is obligated, right? Men, women, all of us. We ourselves now need to behave as free people. Who needs to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt? Whoever leads the Seder. Why? Because “and you shall tell your child”—the law of telling the Exodus from Egypt is in the form of question and answer. There is a questioner and an answerer. There is a teller and there are listeners. Right? So I need to tell the family about the Exodus from Egypt. It turns out that the law that a person must show himself as though he himself went out of Egypt is a law incumbent only on the leader of the Seder. The law of being free applies to all participants in the Seder. And now the point is this. Look now at something nice: if I need to remember what happened then, then the Raviah is irrelevant. Because what does it matter that now free people don’t sit reclining? I need to re-enact what happened then—to make a simulation of what happened then. And then they did recline, right? So clearly the Raviah is irrelevant regarding that law. By contrast, regarding the law that now I need to behave as a free person, the Raviah says: if now people do not recline, then that is not the way of free people now, right? So what comes out? It comes out like this: a woman who reclines—or in general all participants in the Seder who recline because they need to behave as free people—they can rely on the Raviah. Because free people today don’t recline, so why recline? The leader of the Seder cannot rely on that. Why? Because besides behaving as a free person, he has another law. He also needs to make a simulation of what happened then. He needs to tell about what happened then. So what difference does it make that today people don’t recline? You need to do what they did then. And then they did recline. Therefore you still need to recline. And that is the Rema. What the Rema is really saying—and I say this is why in Maimonides, look at the law marked here, before the Rema. The law marked here—I asked why Maimonides adds, “every individual, whether men or women, is obligated to drink four cups.” What does that have to do with the first part, that one must eat while reclining in the manner of freedom? Because there is the manner of freedom, which is a present obligation. The present obligation applies both to women and to men. So obviously, therefore, both women and men must drink four cups, even though this is a positive time-bound commandment. Why aren’t women exempt? Because in the manner of freedom all of us need to be free. So why the division between men and women and not between the leader of the Seder and the others? Because that was the way things were conceived then. The leader of the Seder and the woman are basically the leader of the Seder and the listeners. Or alternatively, it could be that Maimonides held that all the men around the table, at least the adults, were meant to be leaders of a Seder. Maybe there wasn’t even one single leader. I think in many sources they do not practice having one leader at all, but rather they read in turn. Here they read in turn; they don’t go by a single leader at all. Like in the army or something. So I don’t know how they practiced in his setting. Then it could be that all the men were viewed as the tellers—they learned Torah, they knew it, they were the ones who told, and the others listened. Therefore I think the talk about men here is a result of the circumstances that prevailed then. And this is what he says: therefore Maimonides added here that since one must recline in the manner of freedom, therefore both women and men must drink four cups, because the manner of freedom includes women too. But now let’s return to the Rema. The Rema says: our women are important. What does that mean, that they are important? It means they are basically obligated to recline just like men. Right? But despite the fact that they are important and need to recline like men, their whole obligation of reclining is only an obligation as listeners. They are not telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The leader of the Seder tells it. And since that is so, if one accepts the Raviah—and he says there is some doubt, he gave some weight to the Raviah’s view—then they can rely on that and not recline. Because they need to behave in the manner of freedom; today reclining is not the manner of freedom. The leader of the Seder cannot rely on that. Because the leader of the Seder must tell—he must live what happened then, make a simulation or tell about what happened then. Reclining is part of that matter, and therefore he cannot. A practical implication, for example: why does the Gemara say, “a woman in the presence of her husband does not recline”? Remember that? I pointed it out when we read the Gemara. And I said that those who omit it, I think, are mistaken. The Gemara says “a woman in the presence of her husband,” and I think that is deliberate. Why? Because when the woman is with her husband, then her husband is the leader of the Seder and she is the listener. So if he is the leader of the Seder, then he reclines and she does not recline. But if she is an independent woman, not with her husband—and maybe that is really the meaning of “important”—not because of the woman’s social standing, but the question is what game, what role she has in the drama of the Seder night. So if she is an important woman, that means she is leading the Seder, then certainly she needs to recline just like men. Therefore they say: a woman in the presence of her husband should not recline. And the same, by the way, emerges regarding the attendant and so on. What happens with the poor person? Let’s go back for a moment to the questions I asked at the beginning about the first Mishnah regarding the poor person. First of all, there was an initial assumption that the poor person would not recline. Remember Tosafot’s explanations? Two explanations in Tosafot. Tosafot had an initial assumption that a poor person would not recline. What was the initial assumption? Because this is not the manner of freedom for him. Meaning he is like a woman before she became important. Right? So from his perspective reclining doesn’t apply to him. Okay? Even though on the level of simulation, what difference does it make? Right? If he has to reenact what happened there, then what difference does it make whether reclining applies to him or not? That is exactly what the Mishnah comes to teach. The initial assumption was that a poor person need not recline. I asked: what kind of initial assumption is that, that the poor person shouldn’t recline—what, is he not obligated in commandments? The initial assumption was that a poor person would not recline because reclining does not apply to him. He is not in a condition where he can recline. The Mishnah teaches us otherwise: “even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines.” Right? He is obligated to recline. Why? Because there is another law. The law is to tell what happened there, and that is certainly part of the telling of the Exodus from Egypt, which is imposed on the poor as well. So what difference does it make that this poor person today is not someone to whom reclining applies, even according to the Raviah? The poor person is not someone to whom reclining applies even according to the Raviah. The Raviah speaks about an ordinary person. Okay? So that is what the Mishnah teaches us: “Even a poor person among Israel may not eat until he reclines” means that he too is obligated to recline. Why? Because there are two laws in reclining. One law indeed doesn’t apply to him, but the second law does. Now look at the continuation. What is “they may not give him fewer than four cups of wine, even from the charity plate”? So Tosafot says—I brought this Tosafot for you—look at it here. Look at the Tosafot here. One second. Yes, the Tosafot in section four. “They may not give him fewer than four cups.” From the wording it sounds a bit as though they do not give his children and household, but only him himself, and he includes everyone else through his own. To whom do they give four cups when a person is poor? Do they give four cups to every person in the family? No, only to the leader. Only to the leader of the Seder. So he says, from the wording it sounds as though they give only to the leader of the Seder. “And it is logical, for what difference is there between four cups and kiddush?” Fine, that’s all the pilpul of the Rabbi of Brisk, for whoever had a chance to see it. I’m not getting into it now; I don’t have time. But focus on the first part. What is the idea—why specifically not to give four cups to everyone? Because with the four cups too there are two laws. Since he is the leader of the Seder, he can include the others. “He fulfilled freedom; he did not fulfill four cups.” Right? In the four cups too there are these two laws. The leader of the Seder has to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, even if he himself were not free, so he has to drink the four cups at least from the standpoint of his being the leader of the Seder. The others may fulfill their obligation through him. Therefore it may be that one can give only the leader of the Seder the four cups. More than that, Tosafot also comments on this later and the halakhic authorities bring it too: usually one does not give from the charity plate for the sake of fulfilling a commandment. From the charity plate they give a person only basic support so he can live. You want to fulfill commandments and don’t have money? Not at the public’s expense—so don’t fulfill them. Why here yes? So the later authorities say: because here it is publicizing the miracle. Publicizing the miracle is an exception. It is a type of commandment for which they also provide from the charity plate. That is what is generally written in Jewish law, even apart from Passover. My claim is that really, the leader of the Seder—who is responsible for publicizing the miracle? The leader of the Seder. His role is to publicize the miracle, to tell about what happened there. The others only listen. The function of publicizing the miracle belongs only to the leader of the Seder. The others only fulfill the aspect of the manner of freedom, but telling the miracle that happened belongs to the leader of the Seder. So now to whom do we give the four cups from the charity plate? Only to the one for whom this is a commandment of publicizing the miracle, which is only the head of the household. But a practical difference, for example, if there is a woman—of course it’s exactly the same; there is no difference at all between a woman and a man. The whole question is the distribution of roles in the house. Even if there is a man and a woman in the house and the woman is the one telling the Seder story—it can be done. If that is the case, then all the laws said here about the man actually apply specifically to the woman and not to the man. If I’m right—if that really is the plain sense in this matter. Fine, one could elaborate a lot more, but I just want to make one more general point that one could speak about for a whole lesson. I’ll only mention it briefly. What all this really means is that in the commandment of telling the Exodus from Egypt there are two aspects. And I can show this in other places too; it really runs through the whole Seder night. One aspect is returning to the past. Telling what happened there, making a simulation, showing oneself as though he were there, and so on. But all that is still focused on what happened in the past. Even if he now presents himself as though he is going through what happened there, that is still an orientation toward the past. You are now making a simulation of what happened there. But the focus is the past. And there is also the issue of the present. The present means to be free now. Not to experience the Exodus from Egypt, but to be someone after the Exodus from Egypt. What did we gain through the Exodus from Egypt? Freedom. So we need now to be free people. We need to understand that the Exodus from Egypt gave us something—not to return to the past and live the Exodus from Egypt again. There is no reason to leave Egypt; one should remain outside. Meaning, if you’re out, then be out. Understand that you’re out. You don’t need the Exodus from Egypt all over again, and all that nice preaching online about everyone and his own personal Egypt. The point is that you need to be free. That is the meaning of why the Exodus from Egypt was given to us—so that we would be free. So we need to understand, and explain, first what happened there, and second what we gained. What did we gain? We gained that we are now free people. That is the law in the present. I think one of the reasons the Seder night is so popular, even in sectors that are not careful about observance of commandments, is that many times you don’t cooperate with remembering past events if it doesn’t say something to you in the present. Now, people who are committed to commandments—they have a commandment, so of course they will tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, everything is fine. But people who are not committed to commandments—so why tell the Exodus from Egypt? They tell the Exodus from Egypt not as a historical event. There were plenty of historical events. The giving of the Torah happened too, right? On Shavuot. Why does everyone celebrate Shavuot only with dairy foods? Nobody studies Torah at night—those who aren’t committed to commandments, I mean. So even that isn’t obligatory, but never mind. Shavuot is not a holiday that people celebrate, aside from dairy foods. So what’s the difference? The difference is that freedom is a value that speaks also to people who are not committed to commandments. Therefore they can cooperate with the return to history because it says something to them about the present. But with the giving of the Torah—someone not committed to Torah, what difference does it make to me that there was a historical event of the giving of the Torah? There it is less accepted. I’m not sure memory is exactly… I think with Passover, this ceremony, the family ritual, that family feeling, the ceremonious nature of the ritual is something rooted in all families. And really on Shavuot there isn’t some special rituality, so it isn’t rooted; if someone doesn’t keep the commandments, then there’s nothing to do. That may also be an explanation, but I don’t think it necessarily contradicts the explanation I gave, because it became a ritual partly for the reason that it says something to us in the present. That’s why we cultivate it as that kind of ritual. Rabbi, but shouldn’t that be true of all the holidays? What? The idea that we sort of dance at two weddings, that it’s both reenactment and something present—but in practice, apart from Passover, it doesn’t happen all that much. And I think maybe Hanukkah… On Sukkot too there’s something like this. Hanukkah too, right, Hanukkah is an excellent example. Why? Because Hanukkah says something to people. “In those days, at this time.” Exactly—it’s exactly the same idea. And the point is, therefore I say that the two laws between which I drew such a sharp distinction throughout the lesson—the past and the present—are not really two entirely separate laws. There is meaning to revisiting the past only if it says something to you in the present. These are two laws that come together; there is no one without the other. I could ask even more than that—after all, where do these two laws come from? There is the commandment of telling the Exodus from Egypt. That is one positive commandment. Where did we invent that it contains two laws, and the leader of the Seder does this aspect and the listeners do that aspect? Where does all this come from? What—are there two commandments of telling the Exodus from Egypt? Or of matzah? Or of four cups? This is how one fulfills this commandment. This commandment. Meaning, this whole package is one commandment. The past and the present are two aspects that together create the totality that is the commandment. It is not two different commandments. The commandment is to take the past and connect it to the present. And maybe I’ll end with just one sentence, since I once talked about this—the meaning of memory. Maybe not this year, last year—I think I talked about this at least last year—that the Torah says, “you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek.” What does “the remembrance of Amalek” mean? It doesn’t mean not to remember Amalek; on the contrary, there is a commandment to remember and not to forget. So what is “blot out the remembrance of Amalek”? Even in our Hebrew today, “blot out the remembrance of Amalek” means blot out every trace of Amalek. Right? “Remembrance” means some part of the thing, even a tiny part. When you blot out the remembrance of Amalek, you leave no part of him, not even the smallest part. And the remembrance of something is a part of the thing. What does that mean? It means that if I remember something—events, or people—then in fact something of them is present with me now. It’s not a metaphor; it’s exactly that. Now, not something of their body, of course, but yes something of their soul, something of—whatever—the meaning of the events. The idea of it. Yes, exactly. But something of the people or of the events is present with me now; that is what it means to remember. Therefore one cannot speak of the law of speaking about the past without speaking of the law of the present. Therefore Maimonides says not merely that one must see himself, but show himself—to act out the game now as though he is leaving Egypt. Why? Because you can remember the past only if something of it is present with you now, in the present. If it says something to you now. Therefore the two laws I spoke of earlier are really two aspects that create one whole. They are not two different laws. Is it possible—as we approach Holocaust Remembrance Day—to speak precisely on this point about the Holocaust and Hitler? What, to remember it? The meaning of remembering? We more and more—or in the world generally, not just us—do keep referring to Hitler, or what he wrote, what he did; we need to study him, know him, understand him, in order that it not return. But we do preserve a certain memory of Amalek in order to intensify the lesson. Is it possible to talk about that? Maybe I’ll speak about it then, we’ll see, it could be. I think I once spoke about this, around the issue of memory, between Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and Holocaust Remembrance Day. We talked about it, but not about “blotting out the remembrance of Amalek.” At some point I spoke about it. When we learned Sukkah, about the doorway form, that was in two thousand and… Ah, okay. In any event, when was that—Sukkot? Last year? No, three years ago. I think two years ago. Two years, yes, okay. Fine. So if you want, maybe we can talk about it as the days of remembrance come. Okay, I think that’s where we’ll finish. I’ll send the summaries and the recordings as usual, and may we all have a kosher, happy, and healthy holiday. And I very much hope that after the holiday we’ll be able to study normally; I don’t know. Wait, there’s no Thursday? Wait, on Thursday there’s no class? No, that’s already the Passover break. Ah, this is the last class. Yes. Okay, fine, thank you very much, happy holiday. We’ll return here to tractate Ketubot, with God’s help. Happy holiday. Happy holiday to everyone. Happy and kosher holiday, goodbye.