d, transformed from objects to independent people.
While this explanation certainly gives us insight into the concept, one could argue that many, if not all, of the commandments contribute to the religious personality of the Jew. It is hard to see why this commandment could not have waited some two months until Sinai. God simply could have told Moses: "In ten days have the people prepare a lamb, and in two weeks we are leaving."
I think that an analysis of the seder which the Jews celebrated in Egypt will help us to understand the importance of this commandment, and why it was indeed given at this particular point in time.
THE PUZZLE OF THE FIRST SEDER
The Jews were commanded to take a lamb, to slaughter it, and to smear its blood on the door posts and door frames.
This was certainly liberating, considering that many animals were worshipped in Egypt; to kill the animals, and smear the blood was certainly perceived as a defiant act against the Egyptians, and rejection of their deity.
They were then commanded to:
'Eat the meat (of the sacrifice) that evening, roasted; eat it with matza (unleavened bread) and maror (bitter herbs).' [Exodus 12:8]
At first glance this verse seems unexceptional, for thousands of years Jews have observed this rite, eating matza and maror on Passover eve, either with the sacrifice (during the time of the Temple) or by itself. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Jews in Egypt ate the Passover sacrifice with maror and matza.
Upon contemplation, a problem arises: Why do we eat maror or matza?
We are taught in the Mishna [Pesachim, Ch.10] that we eat maror as a "memorial" to the Jewish lives embittered by slavery. If this is the case then it indeed seems strange that the Jews in Egypt prior to the Exodus needed a memorial, as if they had already forgotten what it was like to be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Perhaps today we need to eat bitter herbs in order to remind ourselves what the bitterness of slavery was like, but why would the slaves need such a reminder?
The matza poses an even more difficult challenge. The reason we eat matza is also taught in the Mishna -- the Jews left Egypt in such haste that they did not even have time for their bread to rise.
The people took their dough before it could rise ... They baked the dough which they took out of Egypt, into matza for it did not rise for they were exiled from Egypt and they could not tarry, and they had not made any other provisions. [Exodus 12:34,39]
That, of course, refers to the matza they took with them. But what about the matza they ate (as commanded) before they left?
Let us consider the sequence of events:
- God speaks to Moses prior to the first day of Nisan, telling Moses that there is a concept of New Moons, months and years.
- He further instructs Moses to tell the people to prepare lambs for the sacrifice by the tenth of the month.
- The celebratory, festive dinner will take place on the night of the fourteenth (leading into the fifteenth).
- At midnight that night, the first born of the Egyptians will die, and God will "pass over" the homes of the Jews who will escape unscathed.
- Sometime after midnight Pharaoh will come looking for Moses, and subsequently the Jews will be quickly sent out of Egypt.
- The actual exodus will take place in the morning, at which point the Jews will have to leave so quickly that there will not even be time for the bread to rise, hence the introduction of matza.
Again, we must ask: Why eat the matza the previous evening? When the Jews ate matza that evening, what was their religious experience while eating it?
The night before redemption, while they were still enslaved to Pharaoh, the Jews smeared the blood of the Paschal lamb on the doors, and then sat down to celebrate the redemption, because at that point they already felt free!
In their minds, they were liberated from the oppression of Pharaoh. They believed so completely in the forthcoming redemption that they were literally able to taste it.
Their trust in God was complete. They were still in Egypt physically, but they were long gone