Thursday, March 28, 2013

Chol HaMoed Pesach: Slaughter the Sheep


The first mention of the word Pesach in the Chumash is in Shmos 12:11. In it G-d instructs Moshe to command the children of Israel to take a lamb, slaughter it publicly, and then serve it as a meal on the night that the first born of Egypt are to be killed. The life blood of the lamb is to flow into a bowl. An absorbent cluster of hyssop will then be dipped into the bowl and blood and wiped on the two doorposts and the lintel above. Because of this, the destruction that is coming to Egyptians will pass over, פסח, the houses that have this sign on them. This service is reckoned as a sacrifice and the lamb is called the korbon Pesach (קרבן פסח) or Passover offering. The sacrifice is to be brought annually and eaten with matzo and a bitter vegetable. The Chumash continues that in subsequent years their children will ask the meaning of this ritual. The prescribed answer is that when G-d struck the Egyptians he spared (הציל) the homes of the children of Israel (Shmos 12:27).

These passages raise questions. The use of the word "spare" suggests a special act of clemency in what is really a morally neutral situation. The fact that the Egyptians were cruelly persecuting the people of Israel  seems to mean nothing. The thing that is important to the text is that Israel slaughtered the sheep, placed its blood on the door, and then had a Pesach Seder in their homes. For these reasons they were redeemed.

Meditating on this from the standpoint of nature, persecution and cruelty are not evil. A cat is not bad if it kills a mouse, and a second cat is not bad if it takes the carcass from the cat that killed it. Abuse to enforce the pecking order is legitimate. In a world, in which the strong rule, persecution of the weak is not an evil.

Even from the standpoint of the morality of the soul suffering need not be bad. If the evil are suffering because they are clinging to their evil then the suffering that comes because of it is good. One can argue that if a person puts work into producing an article, it's his. Even a found item should belong to the first person to pick it up. However, these are religious positions and not purely based on nature.

The Ramban (רמב"ן) and the Clee Yakar (כלי יקר) discuss the significance of the choice of a lamb as the sacrifice. They explain that the lamb was the astrological sign for the month of Nissan and the idol of Egypt. From a natural standpoint the entry of the sun into the constellation Aries (the lamb) marks the beginning of spring and the attendant fertility of the land. For this reason these symbols are viewed as possessing supernatural powers, which can be accessed through worship. The public slaughter of the lamb by the children of Israel was intended to denigrate general religious belief in nature and the religion of Egypt in particular.

The essential merit of the children of Israel was the heritage of belief in Hashem from the patriarchs and the anticipation of their acceptance the Torah. The lesson to be learned is that human conduct should be determined by the soul and not so much by the body. This is one of the things we learn from the holiday of Passover and for that reason its first observance made Israel worthy of redemption.


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