We are taught in the Mishna in Pesachim and in the Hagaddah, “In every generation a person is obligated to regard himself as if he had come out of Mitzrayim”. The question is how can we fulfill this obligation if we didn’t really come out from Mitzrayim. Are we supposed to trick ourselves into believing that we did?

The Alter of Kelm makes the point that there is a big difference in impact between thinking about something and experiencing it. He brings down the statement of Chazal that the removal of Antichious’ ring to seal the decree against the Jews had a greater impact than all the exhortations of the Prophets to move the Jews towards Teshuva. He also shows from Rabbi Akiva’s statement when he was being killed that all his days he did not understand how he could serve Hashem with his life until he actually experienced it. His third example is the Posuk, “When you will lend money to My people, to the poor with you”, from which Chazal derive that you have to make yourself feel like you are experiencing poverty and then you will help the poor properly.

The Alter is teaching us that you might think that working yourself up and trying to arouse the emotions is not the proper mature approach and that an intellectual approach is more appropriate. But that is incorrect, the effect of a full emotional experience has a much greater impact and we must try to work up to that state to fulfill the mitzvah.
Read more Is it Possible to Really See Ourselves as Leaving Mitzrayim ›

Rabbi Lam relates a story of how he was once in an office saying an after brocha on his danish, and could not speak to the receptionist. After finishing he explained that he was saying the blessing required after eating. The receptionist responded that in her religion they say grace before meals. He explained that giving thanks before you eat is much easier than thanking after you are full, so in Judaism we say a blessing both before and after. The secretary replied, “Word – That’s the truth.”

Word it is, but the problem is that we often have difficulty Bentching properly. And on Seder night, it can sometimes be even more difficult. But with that difficulty, comes opportunity.

Pesach is a time on which we are dining at Hashem’s table. There are so many Mitzvahs of eating on this night. We truly have an opportunity to transform our everyday act of eating into a spiritual act. And what better way to top it off, then by bentching slowly with Kavannah. Pesach is a time of special protection, of a special love between Hashem and His People. What a great time to reciprocate that love with a beautiful Barech.

On the night of the Seder, we have an obligation to view ourselves as if we left Mitzrayim. This is no small task and many commentators have questioned how it is possible. We have to seriously arouse our emotions for this, and the Seder provides a night filled with emotional stimuli to help.

At the center of these stimuli is the Matzah, a simple food of just flour and water. But it is around this food that we need to do emotional gymnastics. We have to think of Matzah as the staple we ate when we were slaves in Egypt. And at the same time, this is the food that we baked in haste as we left Mitzrayim.

Matzah is to be transformed in our minds and our hearts from slave rations to the food of freedom. Perhaps Hashem is showing us that we can control our thoughts, and through our mind we can control our emotions. The whole night we are being trained to go from thoughts of slavery to thoughts of freedom so that we can actually come to feel that we ourselves, each one of us, actually left Mitzrayim and thank Hashem with all our hearts.

A few years ago I put together a guide to the Seder to hand out on the night of Pesach so that all the people could follow all the halachos if they wanted to do, without us having to be overbearing with continual instructions.

I lost the original file on some computer and was down to one remaining copy, appropriately doused in wine. Thanks to the miracles of the scanner, optical character recognition and David’s adept editing, I was able to revive the file and present it here for distribution. Most of the halachos are from the Kol Dodi Haggadah by Rabbi Dovid Feinstein.

Please distribute this freely to whomever you want in its complete format. Here is the PDF version of the Beyond BT Guide to the Seder. We’ve also included it in it’s entirety below.

Read more Beyond BT Guide to the Seder ›

Rabbi Welcher gave his annual Preparing your Kitchen for Pesach shiur last night and within two hours it was available for download for all those who couldn’t attend. You can download it here Part 1 Drasha, Part 2 Halacha A, Part 3 Halacha B.

The Web is a model of efficiency and never has it been faster, easier and cheaper to distribute information to hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. But with all of today’s wonderous technology, there are examples of other marvelous efficiencies in the distant past.

We learned recently in Daf Yomi (Art Scroll Pesachim 64b2), that one year there were 1.2 million Korban Pesachs offered in the Beis Hamikdash in about 3 hours. That comes to about 400,000 an hour or about 6,600 a minute or 110 each second. When queried about this recently, Rabbi Welcher said that we have difficulty conceiving of such an efficient human operation.

If anybody has any ideas or has seen anything on how so many Korbanos were offered in such a short time, please leave a comment.