Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin:
Hi friends, and welcome back to Talmud Daily, where we are giving a tour of the entire Talmud in just 10 short minutes every single day.
And we are returning back to discuss Tractate Pesachim. What is this tractate all about? Pesachim, of course, is all about the holiday of Passover. But it’s not the Haggadah. What we’ll see in this tractate is really so much more. We’ll see the roots and the architecture of the Haggadah. But what I want to discuss today is really the meaning and the underlying idea; to get a little bit deeper and a little bit of a richer understanding, of the idea that animates the entirety of Tractate Pesachim. And to really understand that, we really have to understand and highlight the centrality of Passover that is different almost than any other holiday that is celebrated by the Jewish people.
As I mentioned, there are three central pilgrimages where the Jews are told to gather together and come to the Land of Israel and worship at the Temple. These are known as the Shalosh Regalim, the three pilgrimages or the three steps of the stool, that is Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkot. But what’s very strange, and if you look at the liturgy, this will become very obvious to you, is that for all of the holidays, no matter what the holidays we’re celebrating—and we say this even on Rosh Hashanah, we say this even on Yom Kippur, we’ll get to those—we always say that these holidays are zecher l’yetzias Mitzrayim, a remembrance for our redemption from Egypt.
And it kind of leaves with a very obvious question about the structure of Judaism. Isn’t that just Passover? Why do we mention—if you look, open up and look at the kiddush when we make kiddush on Rosh Hashanah, on Yom Kippur, on Sukkot. It doesn’t matter what. We’re always mentioning zecher l’yetzias Mitzrayim. We have to remember our redemption, our exit from Egypt.
And one would not be faulted for asking the very obvious question, like, “I thought we have a whole holiday that is just that.” :ike, we remember Egypt on Passover. Why is Passover kind of bleeding into every single other holiday that we’re celebrating, whether it’s Shavuos, whether it’s Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, even Yom Kippur? We are always saying zecher, in memory of, to commemorate, to reenact, l’yetzias Mitzrayim, our redemption, our exit from Egypt.
And this gets to the heart of what Passover is all about. But to really understand this, we have to go back even before our tractate, though these ideas are discussed throughout, and really understand the biblical origins of Passover itself, because this is absolutely fundamental in the story of the Jewish people.
The first time the idea that Jewish persecution, that Jews are going to be enslaved, is ever mentioned in the entirety of the Torah appears in the 15th chapter of Genesis. This is what I believe is the most significant dialogue between God and Abraham. God reveals Himself to Abraham. We’re not told a lot about his childhood, but we have a lot of stories that Abraham, going against the current of the time, refused to worship idols and realized that there was something more to existence, and he got in trouble for this. One of the great midrashic stories that we have, interpretive stories, and it’s not explicit in the Torah, is Abraham being thrown into a fiery furnace and God saving him from that fiery furnace because he refused to worship idols.
God reveals Himself in that 15th chapter of Genesis and says, “I am the God who saved you from Ur Kasdim, the fiery furnaces of Kasdim. I’m that God who saved you.” And Abraham responds with a question, and you can look it up, it’s in the 15th chapter of Genesis, and it is the eighth verse. Abraham responds with a question: “How do I know that I’m going to inherit this, that I’m going to really possess this?” God says, “I am the God who saved you from those fires, and I am going to bring you and give you the Land of Israel.” And Abraham responds, “Like, how do I know for sure? Like, for real?”
So God responds to that with a covenant. This is known as the Covenant of the Parts. In Hebrew, it is known as the Bris Bein HaBesarim, where Abraham basically cuts animals in half and walks in between each half, and this creates a new covenant, where God reveals Himself immediately again. And this is the first time in response to this question, “How do I know?” God then says for the first time, “Your children are going to be enslaved in Egypt, and I am going to redeem them.”
God doesn’t say this the first time. The first time, God says, “I’m the God who saved you from the fire.” And then Abraham asks, “But how do I know, like, for real?” In the Talmud, in many places, he’s criticized for asking this question, like, he should have been confident, he should have known. When God promises you something, say thank you. Don’t say, “But, like, how do I know for real? Is there going to be a down payment?”
But the most remarkable part is God’s answer. How does it answer anything? God then says, “Well, you want to know how you’re going to possess it? Your children are going to be slaves in Egypt.” This is the first instance of Jewish persecution ever being mentioned anywhere.
How does that answer Avraham’s question of how do I know that this is going to go on and I’m going to own it for my children and for lifetimes and for generations? So this is something extraordinarily profound, and I really want to emphasize this because I think it’s so central, not just to Talmud study, but to understanding what Judaism is.
When God first reveals Himself to Abraham, He says, “I’m the God who saved you from the fiery furnaces.” Now, Abraham, because of that, has a very obvious question: “You’re the God of the most committed, somebody who was willing to jump into a fiery furnace rather than worship idols.” But his real question of “How do I know that I’m going to really come to possess this,” in the Hebrew is bameh eida, with what will I really know that this is going to be mine? What Avraham is really asking is, “What about future generations who might not have that level of commitment? What about future generations who might not have that sense of duty and commitment, willing to sacrifice anything to jump into a fiery furnace?” What Avraham is really asking is, “How do I know this is going to continue for those who are not as committed as I, who are not as passionate and educated as I was, willing to give up everything rather than worship idols?”
And it’s the answer to that that begins not just the religious commitments of Judaism, but the foundation of Jewish peoplehood. It’s the answer to this question where God says, “So you want something else. You don’t just want the great practices,” and then, you know, future generations, the Jews who follow the rules of Judaism will be Jewish, and those who won’t, you know, they’re not going to be a part of this. That’s not what Avraham wanted. Avraham wanted to begin a Jewish family, a Jewish people, where Jewish identity itself would be immutable for all generations to come, impossible to take away. And to that, God answers, “If you want this to be an immutable part of your identity, not because you’re so committed, not because you’re willing to sacrifice anything, but because this is a part of who you are, it’s like a familial identity, then we need something different.”
This is where persecution enters. Persecution enters where Jewish election is not a product of our righteousness; it is actually a product of our familial affiliation, our familial identity. I didn’t do anything, and neither did any Jew do anything to earn their Jewish identity. The beginning of this is Passover. Passover is where Jewish identity, immutable Jewish identity, Jewish identity regardless of what your educational background, how committed you are, what you’re willing to sacrifice for Judaism—that inherent Jewish identity is formed and created on Passover. And we see this in a lot of the laws and the centrality and the significance of Korban Pesach and Pesach in general.
One thing to come back to our original question is all holidays are built on the principle of Passover. That’s why we’re always mentioning zeicher l’yetzias Mitzrayim, because Jewish identity begins to be formed—that immutable Jewish identity, where it doesn’t matter how much you practice, how much you know, how committed you are. You’re still Jewish. Whether or not you converted to Judaism properly or you were just born to Jewish parents, Jewish identity can never be taken away. That begins in Passover, the formation of immutable Jewish identity. It’s the birth of the Jewish nation. But what we see is some really remarkable parts of how that trickles down into the actual observances of Passover and Judaism itself.
Number one, I mentioned, is that all the holidays now are zeicher l’yetzias Mitzrayim. Why? In memory of our exit from Egypt. “I thought that’s just Passover?” No, no, no. Our exit from Egypt did something beyond just Passover. It’s what literally formed the immutable identity of the Jewish people.
Number two: persecution enters when Jewish identity is immutable. It’s unearned. This is something that the rest of the nations like, what makes you so special? You’re no more righteous than us. And a lot of times they’re right. When we were in Egypt, we weren’t all that righteous, we weren’t all that committed, and nonetheless, God continued with His promise of Abraham and says this is going to be My nation. So persecution almost begins as a reaction to the unchosen aspect of Jewish identity. It’s one of the great ironies that we’re called the Jewish people, but Jewish identity is unchosen.
Finally—and I always like to point this out, I think it’s very interesting—is that we emphasize questions at the Passover Seder. We want kids to get involved, ask questions. So one of the ideas about this is because the entire story of Passover is actually a reaction and response to a question, to Avraham’s question: “How do I know this promise is going to continue for all future generations?”
Then I’ll leave you with one very interesting idea: the only month and the only holiday that throughout Jewish history we’ve always named children for. Very rarely will you find a child named Shavuos. Very rarely will you find a child named Chanukah. But we have always throughout Jewish history always given the names Pesach and Nisan, which is the Hebrew month that Pesach appears, for the names for Jewish children.
What makes Pesach and Nisan so unique? Also Sivan we give as a name, too, which is a part of that story, was when the Torah was given. [It]is because this arc of leaving Egypt and ultimately coming to Sinai is actually what created our collective shem Yisroel, the collective name of the Jewish people, that we all bear and carry Jewish identity, regardless of our level of education, regardless of our level of practice. It becomes an immutable Jewish identity. And how we commemorate this Jewish identity, how we celebrate that unchosen, familial identity that creates and binds the collective Jewish people, this is the holiday of Passover, and it’s the Korban Pesach, as we mentioned, that serves as the bridge of going from the individual to collective But this is the foundation of the Jewish people, and so many of the laws of Passover have to do with engaging children and almost acting like children. We go back to basics, we don’t eat complex foods on Passover. Why is this? Because Passover is literally the birth of the Jewish people. It is the childhood of the Jewish people. It is the collective formation of our Jewish identity.
So thank you so much for listening to Talmud Daily, and let’s keep making Torah sweet.