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But on the previous day you shall nullify the leaven from your homes; for anyone who eats leavened food, that soul shall be cut off from Yisrael. (12:15)

Among all of the mitzvos connected to the festival of Pesach, none is so stringent as the prohibition of chametz.  One who does not recount the story of the Exodus, one who does not eat matzoh or marror has “only” neglected performing a mitzvah.  One who eats chametz, however, is liable to the Heavenly punishment of kares, premature death.  This harsh punishment seems to underline the significance of the mitzvah of matzoh.  The prohibition against eating or keeping chametz in one’s possession indicates the crucial importance of the haste in which the Jews left Egypt.  They departed in such a…

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They shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted over the fire, and matzos; with herbs they shall eat it. (12:8)

It seems almost paradoxical that one should eat the matzoh, which symbolizes our freedom, together with the marror, bitter herbs, which represent our affliction.  That is not the only anomaly of the Seder night.  The night of the first Seder occurs on the same day of the week as Tisha B’Av of that same year.  On the night that we celebrate  the fortune of our redemption  from Egypt, we are to remember Tisha B’Av, the day of the year set aside for the commemoration of the churban, the  destruction of our Batei Mikdash.  Why is it necessary to integrate misery…

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And there was a thick darkness throughout the land of Egypt for a three-day period. (10:22)

Rashi cites the Midrash that suggests one of the reasons for the three-day darkness. He posits that it occurred so that the   Jews who were too assimilated into the Egyptian culture would die.  As a result of the darkness the Egyptians did  not see their deaths. Therefore, they could not assert that the plagues affected the Jews as well as the Egyptians.  We may question the need for a complete change in nature just to purge Klal Yisrael of an element so alienated that it had no hope of ever returning to the Covenant.  If the purpose was that…

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