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A Matter of Choice – By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
he reason Jews eat matzah each year at the Pesach Seder is to recall how the Jews who left Mitzrayim had no time to bake bread. They left Egypt so quickly that all they could do was make dough and fling it over their shoulders to bake in the sun. It did not rise and they were left with matzah.
But why did the Jewish people have to leave Egypt so quickly?
That too is obvious. The Jewish people had become so impacted by the immorality of Egyptian society, even as slaves, that they had descended to the forty-ninth level of spiritual impurity. Had they stayed a moment longer, they would have reached the fiftieth level and become beyond redemption. The matzah is a reminder of this as well.
And this makes sense?
The plagues lasted an entire year, and there was no time to bake bread? Were the Jewish people the last to know that redemption was imminent? And how long does it take to make bread? Eighteen minutes. And there still wasn’t enough time to bake actual bread?
And what was the rush anyhow? By all accounts, each subsequent plague elevated the Jewish people spiritually. They began their ascent out of the depths of spiritual impurity with the first plague of blood. By the time the tenth plague was killing the Egyptian firstborn, the Jewish people were completely free of spiritual impurity, and even the Torah indicates this:
Egypt imposed itself strongly upon the people to has- ten to send them out of the land, saying, “We are all dying.” (Shemos 12:33)
Kedushah and tuma—spiritual impurity—are complete opposites. To the extent that one is strong, the other is weak. If Egypt was the main source of impurity at that time, and it was weak and dying, then the Jewish people, who embody kedushah, had to be spiritually strong. They certainly could not have been anywhere near the forty-ninth level of spiritual impurity if they were making a Pesach Seder. So again, why the rush out of Mitzrayim? What was the real problem?
Shockingly, the opposite:
The Holy One, Blessed is He, emanated His holy light onto the Jewish people, as the author of the Haggadah has written, “The King of Kings was revealed to them.” Therefore, they could not remain in Egypt a moment longer lest the S”A become completely eradicated and free will become eliminated, the purpose of Creation. Egypt was the chief of all the Klipos and if it had been destroyed, then the Sitra Achra and yetzer hara would have been destroyed completely. (Drushei Olam HaTohu, Chelek 2, Drush 5, Anaf 2 Siman 4-5)
Wow. That’s not what they teach in cheder or seminary. It’s certainly not what comes up at the Seder table each year. In short, we didn’t rush out of Egypt to save ourselves, because we had already been saved. We left Egypt quickly to save the Egyptians from being overwhelmed by God’s light to the point of obliteration. And that would have been a bad thing?
At the end of history, no. It’s what going to happen anyhow. But at that stage of history, yes, because had the Sitra Achra and yetzer hara been destroyed, then:
Free will would no longer have existed, and for this reason they could not delay. (Drushei Olam HaTohu, Chelek 2, Drush 5, Anaf 2 Siman 4-5)
So, in the end we didn’t leave Mitzrayim b’chipazon to save Egypt per se. We did it to save our free will and eating matzah each year is supposed to remind us of this. Unfortunately it doesn’t, and our gift of free will goes largely unnoticed and misunderstood. After all, just what exactly is our will supposed to be free of?
