Excerpting: “Vehigadt Pesah Haggada” by Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi. Maggid. 460 pages. ISBN: 9781592646944.

(Courtesy of Koren Publishers)

How Should We Read the Haggada?

Rabbi Soloveitchik says:

The Haggada is a dialogue. One man asks, and another one responds, because God appears to man only when he seeks Him. A man who doesn’t seek, a man who expects God to reveal Himself to him without making an attempt to find Him, will never encounter God.

The Ramban says in his commentary on the verse, “Shall you seek out His presence and come there,” that you should go from a distant land and ask, “Where is the house of God?” This question in and of itself has the power to redeem and sanctify. And someone who does not constantly ask, “Where is the path that leads to the Temple,” [or to borrow Rebbe Nachman’s terminology, “Where am I in the world?”] will never find the Temple.

On the first night of Pesah, we tell the story of a man who sought out God for a very long time, [Avraham] until God finally responded to his curiosity.

On the Seder night, we try to stir the curiosity of the children, and in this way to make them into people who seek out God their entire lives. Children have their own honest and innocent questions. You can never anticipate what a child will ask. Children think differently than we do.

One Miracle Triggers Another

Sharing a miracle at the Seder table is a powerful segula.

This is written in the Zohar HaKadosh and it’s really incredible: One who joyfully tells the story of the Egyptian Exodus will rejoice with the Divine Presence in the World to Come, and this is the greatest of all joys. And God is so pleased with the story that man retells at the Seder, that He calls the entire heavenly entourage and tells them: “Come, listen to My children who joyfully tell the story of My redemption.”

And everyone gathers in God becomes filled with compassion for us and says: “they are so worthy of additional miracles. I performed miracles for them years ago, [during the Egyptian Exodus, and it was a long time ago] and they still talk about them and are not ungrateful!” and what happens, the attribute of compassion becomes stronger and brings about additional miracles.

When you retell simple stories, God sends more and more miracles in your direction.