No Time

By Rabbi Joshua (temporally known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


After Pharaoh finally tells Moshe to lead his people out of Egypt, God gives the people, through Moshe, a number of commandments to perform before they leave, chief among them the Pesach sacrifice, or the korban Pesach. This sacrifice required the people to slaughter a lamb, which was worshipped by the Egyptians. By participating in this service, they were repudiating the prevalent idolatry, which they themselves had worshipped, for a time, while in the country. Actually, as Rav Henoch Leibowitz points out in his Chidushei Lev, the Israelite slaves had by this time witnessed God's might through the many miracles He had performed in Egypt, and had certainly already repudiated this idolatry. Still, says Rabbi Leibowitz, there must still have been a residual influence of the idolatrous beliefs and practices of the Egyptians that they retained within themselves, and this needed to be eradicated. The way to do this was through outward actions, which would influence their thoughts. This was the purpose of the korban Pesach and the many laws surrounding it.

Although Rabbi Leibowitz does not mention this, his comment about the influence of outward actions upon one's inner thoughts was articulated long before him in the medieval work Sefer HaChinuch (mitzvoh no.16) , specifically in connection with the mitzvos connected with Pesach. He remarks that one should not ask why so many mitzvos are needed to commemorate our liberation from Egypt through God's miraculous intervention in history, and why one mitzvoh would not be sufficient. Man's thoughts, he says, are influenced by his actions, and, therefore, many mitzvos are needed to drive home a particular idea. It is noteworthy that he mentions this principle specifically in the midst of his discussion of a law connected to the korban Pesach. Several commandments were given in connection with this sacrifice, describing the process by which it was to be offered, and the manner in which it was to be eaten. The specific law in connection with which the Chinuch makes his general statement about the influence mitzvos have on a person is the prohibition of breaking any bones of the lamb while eating it. Interestingly, this prohibition is not the final law that the Chinuch mentions in regard to the korban Pesach. What then is the meaning behind this law, and why did the Chinuch choose to mention this principle specifically in regard to it?

One explanation of the prohibition to break any bones of the korban Pesach is given by Rabbi David ibn Zimra, known by his acronym of Ridbaz, in his Metzudas David, a work on ta'amei hamitzvos, or the purpose behind the mitzvos. He writes that the people had been commanded to eat the korban Pesach, 'bechipazon,' in a hurried state, to show their readiness to leave Egypt at any moment, in accordance with God's promise. Someone who is in a hurry says the Ridbaz, has no time to break the bones of his meat looking for additional flesh to consume. This explanation then, looks at the prohibition in a very practical way. The Sefer HaChinuch explains it differently. He says that the people were commanded, on the eve of their exodus from Egypt, to deport themselves in a royal fashion as they ate the Pesach sacrifice. It is not the manner of royal princes and counselors, he says, to scrape the bones of the food that they eat and break them like dogs. Only poor people eat in such a way. Therefore, he continues, as the people were beginning the process of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Shemos 19:6), they needed to perform acts that would reflect this kind of status. This explanation of the Chinuch places the prohibition of breaking the bones of the korban Pesach within the wider framework of the mitzvos of Pesach, which were geared toward inculcating the nation with a sense of royalty and an appreciation of the special stature they were attaining in becoming God's chosen people through the process of the exodus and subsequent giving of the Torah. I would like to suggest another way in which the prohibition of breaking the bones of the korban Pesach reflected on the entire process of the redemption.

Rashi to Shemos (12:6), cites the midrash which explains the necessity for the Jews to perform the mitzvos of bris milah and korban Pesach before they could be redeemed. The midrash brings the verses in Yechezkel (16:7-8), in which God says, in regard to the nation in Egypt on the eve of their redemption, " And I passed over you and I saw you, and behold , your time was a time of loving," meaning that the time to fulfill the oath He had made to Avrohom, to redeem the people, had come, "And you were naked and bare," meaning that they did not possess the merit of commandments through which to merit redemption. Therefore, says the midrash, God gave them two mitzvos, the blood of milah and the blood of the korban Pesach, as the verse continues, "and I saw you wallowing in your bloods." Rabbi Yitzchok Nobel, in his Imrei Yitzchok to parshas Bo, mentions an explanation of this midrash in the name of Rav Aharon Kotler, zt"l. Rabbi Kotler pointed out that the prophet refers to the nation as a young woman prepared for marriage, but who is still lacking something. He explained that in terms of her bodily development, she had reached the requisite level of maturity for marriage. However, she did not have the clothing she needed. Allegorically, this means that in terms of matters regarding relationships between man and his fellow man, the nation was complete, but in terms of their relationship with God, they were lacking, and this was why they needed the mitzvos of milah and korban Pesach.

Rabbi Nobel adds that according to the famed kabbalist Rabbi Chaim Vital, the Torah does not explicitly spell out matters regarding proper character traits, because these are part of the essence - the atzmius - of the person, and they precede the commandments between man and God, as the rabbis tell us that derech eretz, or proper character, comes before Torah. It is therefore appropriate, says Rabbi Nobel, for the image of the nation as a young woman who is physically mature to be used to refer to the nation as being complete in regard to matters between man and his fellow man. Based on Rabbi Vital's characterization of proper character traits as being the atzmius, or essence, of a person, I would like to offer a somewhat different explanation of the function of the korban Pesach in the redemption process than that mentioned in the name of Rav Kotler zt"l.

Rav Shlomo Kluger, in his commentary to the Pesach Haggadah, writes that the korban Pesach serves as a reminder of the sale of Yosef by his brothers, which was in turn the cause that generated the descent of the entire family into Egypt. The Talmud in Pesochim cites Rav Ilish who says that after the korban is slaughtered, the person bringing it should sling it over his shoulder, as Arab merchants sling their merchandise over their shoulders. Rav Kluger says that this serves as a veiled reference to the sale of Yosef. The sale of Yosef was the end result of a rift between the brothers, and so, in order to merit redemption, the nation needed to come together. The korban Pesach, the Torah tells us, was brought by individual households, thus symbolizing a certain level of unity within that unit. Perhaps this is the purpose behind the requirement to roast the sacrifice while the animal is whole. Returning to the notion of atzmius as referring to one's character traits, then, perhaps the prohibition of breaking the bones - the atzomos - of the korban Pesach, that hold the animal together and give it its unique form, hints to the necessity for the cultivation of proper character traits, as manifested in maintaining the family unit as an unbroken whole, as a prerequisite for the nation's redemption.