Koreich - its meaning in halacha and in the service of Hashem

00:00 Speaker 1 Back to the main point of this class. I wanted to talk about studying a topic connected with Pesach in depth. There are a few other sources as well. First, one of the bochurim asked me about something after a farbrengen or some learning we had together in Bnei Brak. I don’t remember exactly when it was—one of the last few days. There is a great deal of brilliance in the Rebbe’s Haggadah. In short, the Rebbe writes that there is brilliance there, and if you study it properly, you can find truly wonderful insights. A bochur came to me during the week and said he had started studying the Haggadah with the Rebbe’s commentary. He didn’t see the brilliance. He didn’t see it. The Rebbe gives an explanation here, and that’s that; he doesn’t see anything particularly brilliant about it. Well, I see that bochur has already left, so at least we can discuss it with the bochurim who are still here. And there’s another point. On Pesach, particularly at the Seder, we do all kinds of things and follow all kinds of practices. Since it happens only one night a year—or, outside Eretz Yisroel, not just one night—people don’t delve into it. They go ahead and do everything: they pick up the Haggadah, look at it, and do what it says. Yes, all that—but they don’t reflect on the deeper meaning. The Rebbe’s Haggadah says that you have to look in the Haggadah. At the beginning, the Rebbe relates a story about the family of a certain rabbi: someone made a mistake, and they told him that on Pesach you have to look in the Haggadah to know what to do. So some people take that literally. There’s no need to study anything before Pesach. Pesach will arrive, we’ll look in the Haggadah, and we’ll do what it says. Here’s the matzah,

02:26 Speaker 1 here’s the maror, here’s the charoses, here’s this. That’s everything. Of course, that’s not how it should be. We also need to delve into it and understand why we do these things. Particularly among chassidim, we know that the Pesach Seder is not only a matter of nigleh, of halachah; it has depth as well. The Rebbe’s Haggadah also quotes what the Frierdiker Rebbe said in the name of the Rebbe Rashab: on the nights of Pesach, all the gates are open, and then one can ask for all kinds of good things. One should ask for what one needs for the entire year. So the Seder night is clearly a special time, and it follows that every detail of how we conduct the Seder has, beyond its basis in nigleh, a meaning according to the inner dimension of Torah. Today, then, we’ll discuss one issue, explain it according to nigleh, and afterward, if there’s time, see how Chassidus explains it—how Chassidus gives everything its deeper meaning. Just one example of the brilliance of the Rebbe’s Haggadah before we get into the issue we’ll be discussing. Two stories. One concerns a Jew who lived in Jerusalem, Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin—Yosef Shlomo, Yosef... I’m not sure. Rabbi Zevin. Rabbi Zevin was a very prominent rabbi in the chassidic world, a tremendous scholar. He belonged to the previous generation; he was born in the time of the Rebbe Rashab. He was one of the elder chassidim. Already at the beginning of the Rebbe’s leadership, he was considered one of the elder chassidim, and he was very connected to the Rebbe. He was also known throughout the Jewish world. He wasn’t only a Chabad scholar; he was a scholar of worldwide renown. He wrote many books. He was the

04:21 Speaker 1 editor of the Talmudic Encyclopedia. The Talmudic Encyclopedia is a major reference work used throughout the Jewish world. He was its editor when it was being written. In any case, when the Rebbe’s Haggadah came out in 5706, the Rebbe sent it to Rabbi Zevin. Rabbi Zevin was deeply impressed by the brilliance of the Haggadah. He even wrote a special article about it in the newspapers published then in Eretz Yisroel. He wrote a special article about the Rebbe’s Haggadah. He said there are thousands of books about the Haggadah. New Haggadah commentaries come out every year. You may not know this, but if you go into bookstores in Eretz Yisroel or America before Pesach, you’ll see hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of books and commentaries on the Haggadah. So Rabbi Zevin wrote an article saying that, of all the works on the Haggadah, the Rebbe’s Haggadah stands apart. He was very impressed by the Rebbe’s brilliance. Now, Rabbi Zevin had a disagreement with the Rebbe about a passage here in the Haggadah concerning the two cooked foods. The Rebbe writes about placing an egg and the other item on the Seder plate. You don’t have this on your sheet; I’ll just tell you the story. I mentioned it yesterday at the [unclear] Seder. The Rebbe writes about placing the shank bone and the egg there. You know why we put a shank bone on one side and an egg on the other? There must be two cooked foods, one commemorating the Pesach offering and one the Chagigah offering. And the Rebbe brings an explanation here: the word for egg is beia, and ba’ei means “desire”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to redeem us. Some say that we take an egg as a sign of mourning. The Rebbe says that we cannot say the egg is there because of mourning. Why not?

06:25 Speaker 1 Many books say that the egg is connected with mourning. So why can’t that be the reason we take it? The Rebbe says no: we cannot say that the egg is taken as a reminder of mourning. Why? Because it is clear from the Mishnah and the Yerushalmi that even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they took two cooked foods. The Mishnah in Pesachim and the Yerushalmi imply that the practice of taking two cooked foods did not begin only after the destruction. They did it in the time of the Beis Hamikdash too, when there was not yet any reason for a reminder of the destruction or of mourning. So we cannot say the egg is there because of mourning. You know that mourners eat eggs when they come back from a funeral. That’s what they eat. It’s associated with mourning because an egg is round, just as life turns in a cycle. The Gemara discusses why mourners eat eggs. So the Rebbe says that mourning over the destruction is not the reason we put an egg there. There were two cooked foods even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, so the egg could not have been a sign of mourning then. What might you say instead? That before the destruction they put something else there in place of the egg—they used a different cooked food. The Rebbe writes that we would then have to say that for hundreds of years they did not take an egg to represent the Chagigah, and after the destruction they changed that practice. We would have to say that for hundreds of years they used a different cooked food rather than an egg, and after the destruction they changed it to an egg. That is a major change, and that is why the Rebbe rejects this explanation. In short, Rabbi Zevin—you follow? This is the depth of it. It’s written in the Rebbe’s Haggadah. Rabbi Zevin then wrote the Rebbe a very strongly worded letter. He said that this could not be right. What does the Rebbe say—that the Mishnah proves that in the time of the Beis Hamikdash

08:26 Speaker 1 They would bring two cooked dishes. Look at the Mishnah—there’s no such Mishnah. No Mishnah proves that they ate two cooked dishes in the time of the Beis Hamikdash. The whole practice of two cooked dishes came later, at the time of the destruction. In short, he wrote to the Rebbe sharply, saying there was no basis for it. That was his question. This was before the Rebbe’s leadership, you understand? So he felt he had a little leeway, so to speak. Well, where’s this Mishnah about the cooked dishes? Huh? Which one? Yes. The Mishnah says here: “They brought before him matzah, chazeres, charoses, and two cooked dishes.” Yes. Do you hear? “And in the Beis Hamikdash, they would bring before him the Pesach offering itself.” The Mishnah seems to say the opposite of what the Rebbe says. It says they brought two cooked dishes, and then it says, “And in the Beis Hamikdash, they would bring before him the Pesach offering itself.” In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, there was a Pesach offering. So it seems clear from the Mishnah: when did the custom of two cooked dishes begin? After the destruction. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they didn’t have two cooked dishes; instead, they had the Pesach offering. It seems explicit in the Mishnah. How could the Rebbe write such a thing? He was sure it was a mistake, a mistake. It became quite a controversy. But the Rebbe had built an entire position on this. Because the Rebbe writes that the Mishnah implies that they ate two cooked dishes even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, he rejects the explanation of all the commentators who say that the egg is placed there as a reminder of mourning, a reminder of the destruction of Jerusalem. The Rebbe dismisses that based on the Mishnah, yet the Mishnah seems to say the opposite explicitly. In short, what happened was that the Rebbe wrote a wonderful, lengthy letter and showed him how it is indeed stated in the Mishnah. The Rebbe explained that “And in the Beis Hamikdash, they would bring” does not mean that the preceding passage was speaking about the period after the destruction. The preceding passage was also speaking about the time of the Beis Hamikdash, but about everywhere outside the Beis Hamikdash itself.

10:58 Speaker 1 Even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, some people went up to Jerusalem for the festival and brought the Pesach offering, but there were many Jews—the Rebbe writes that you could even say most Jews—who, for hundreds of years, did not go up to Jerusalem to bring the Pesach offering. Not everyone always went up for the festival. Some lived outside Eretz Yisroel. In the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash, most Jews lived in the Diaspora, as in that whole account about Ben Beseira near the beginning of Pesachim. So, in short, even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, not everyone had a Pesach offering. Accordingly, when the Mishnah speaks of two cooked dishes, it is speaking about the time of the Beis Hamikdash as well. “In the Beis Hamikdash” means in the place of the Beis Hamikdash—Jerusalem—where they brought the Pesach offering; there, they had the Pesach offering itself. Of course, the Rebbe discusses this at length. I just want to show you what genius means. Yes, it’s a long letter; you can see it printed in Igros Kodesh and in the Haggadah. The Rebbe writes something as straightforward as: “And the Mishnah implies that they ate them even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash.” You look at the Mishnah, and it seems to say the opposite. All the commentators say the opposite. They all say the egg is a reminder of mourning. Then the Rebbe comes and shows that the whole premise doesn’t hold up. The entire question is resolved—and the Rebbe didn’t make a fuss about it, nothing at all. He writes this subtle point: the Mishnah shows that there were two cooked dishes even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, so you cannot say the egg is a reminder of mourning. That’s just an example to show what genius means. I told you I would add another story shortly; we won’t have time to talk about it later. But in short, I—

12:44 Speaker 1 I’ll tell you the second story, because it too involves a novel point connected with the Haggadah. It’s also the second point I learned, I think, about the Rebbe’s halachic approach, which the Rebbe brings here in the Haggadah. At the beginning of the Haggadah, the Rebbe discusses the matzos and the items on the Seder plate. Yes, the Rebbe says to place three matzos, and on the matzos you place what? Six items: the shank bone, the egg, maror, charoses, karpas, and chazeres. So the Rebbe brings an account here. Where is it? Well. About the matzos... Ah, “He arranges.” So the Rebbe brings here... Sorry, [unclear]. Our arrangement is Yisroel, Levi, Kohen. In general, the matzos are viewed as vessels. Did you learn that? Did you get to that section? You didn’t. The matzos are viewed as vessels, and what is placed on them is lights. The lights are within the vessels, and therefore one should take care that the matzos are curved. Our custom is to look for matzos whose edges rise a little when they are laid down. It’s very important for the matzah to be like a vessel, because these have to be vessels, [unclear]. Yes. The Rebbe goes on to write that, according to this explanation given by the Rebbe Rashab—that the matzos are vessels and the items on them are lights—we can answer a question many commentators ask: Why are the items placed on top of the matzos? Because the lights are above the vessels. You have no idea what a commotion this caused. There was a Jew in Jerusalem named Rabbi Yeshaya Asher Zelig Margulies. He was a very great kabbalist, and he wasn’t exactly a friend of Chabad either. In any event, when the Rebbe’s Haggadah came into his hands, he wrote a very sharp letter to Rabbi Greenland[?], saying that what the Rebbe writes here in the Haggadah is the opposite of everything written in Kabbalah. It is—

15:08 Speaker 1 the opposite of everything written in Kabbalah. Kabbalah says everywhere, [unclear], that matzah represents mochin, the intellectual faculties. The numerical value of matzah is [unclear]; it corresponds to mochin. And the six items represent the six middos, the emotional attributes. That’s why there are six items arranged like this: the right line, the left line, and the middle line. That’s the arrangement of the middos, corresponding to the six middos, while the Seder plate represents malchus. That whole arrangement is the Seder plate. So the matzos represent mochin, and the items represent middos. What did we learn on page two this week? That mochin are lights and middos are vessels—the opposite of what the Rebbe writes here in the Haggadah. The Rebbe writes that the matzos, which represent mochin, are vessels, and the items, which represent middos, are lights. On that basis, it seems to turn everything written in [unclear] upside down. Why does he write here that matzah is vessels and the items are lights, when according to Kabbalah it’s the opposite? This led to the well-known lengthy letter in which the Rebbe shows him that he does not understand the Kabbalistic terminology. The Rebbe dismisses the entire question. And then there’s the well-known account of how the Rebbe wrote to him that the Rebbe Rashab was a kabbalist and knew Kabbalah too, just as he did, and the Alter Rebbe also knew Kabbalah—and this, too, was Kabbalah. I think I once told you the story about [unclear] here.

16:34 Speaker 2 Rabbi [unclear], not Kalman[?].

16:38 Speaker 1 [Unclear] wrote about the whole matter. He wrote that the Alter Rebbe spoke of a level above Atzilus, beyond what the Arizal discussed, and the Rebbe Rashab spoke of the level before the tzimtzum. So they certainly knew Kabbalah—what are you going to tell them? Afterward, the Rebbe also shows him, on the basis of Kabbalah, that what is written here accords with Kabbalah too. I’m just telling you this so you can see that every detail of the Haggadah has tremendous depth, both in the revealed and the hidden dimensions of Torah. Now let’s get into our subject: korech. All right? What do we do on Seder night? Look, everyone does this. First, we do rachtzah, washing our hands, after the Haggadah and everything else. Everyone is tired and hungry and has been waiting for this moment. At long last, you wash your hands, and you want to eat the meal. No, wait a minute. First you take matzah and eat a kezayis of matzah. Yes, that’s what we do—in Chabad and generally. It’s hard to understand. People are already going out of their minds, but that’s the order; that’s Seder night. First you take matzah, say, “Blessed... Who brings forth bread from the earth,” and “concerning the eating of matzah,” and eat the matzah. Then we take a kezayis of maror, dip the maror in charoses, and say, “concerning the eating of maror.” Then, well, that’s it—we’re finished. We want to go eat. No, wait a minute. Now you have to take more pieces of matzah and another piece of maror: a kezayis of matzah and a kezayis of maror. Yes, there have to be two kezaysim—one of matzah and one of maror. Some people make a mistake. They think, “We can’t manage any more maror,” so they put one leaf of maror in with the matzah and figure that’s enough.

18:23 Speaker 1 No, it has to be a full kezayis of maror and another kezayis of matzah. That’s what’s required. The Shaagas Aryeh has an entire discussion about this. Yes, he proves from several places that there specifically has to be a kezayis of maror. Otherwise, it doesn’t qualify as eating. In short, we won’t get into the details now, because that’s not what we want to discuss. So we still eat korech—matzah and maror. You’ve made a sandwich, and only afterward can you... Or wait: when you eat this sandwich, the korech, you say—here, in our Haggadah, the Rebbe writes that you take the third matzah, and with it you take chazeres, which is maror, in the amount of a kezayis. That’s what I told you: the chazeres also has to be a kezayis. Yes, there’s a whole discussion about that, but we won’t go into it now. You dip it in charoses, and then take them together for korech. And what do we say over it? “This is what Hillel did when the Beis Hamikdash stood: he would wrap the Pesach offering, matzah and maror together and eat them.” That’s what Hillel did. When the Beis Hamikdash stood, he would take the Pesach offering, matzah and maror and eat them together, as it says, “With matzos and bitter herbs,” and so on. And he would eat them together while reclining. The Rebbe’s Haggadah didn’t have the words “while reclining,” and they were added here because that’s also what it says in the Shulchan Aruch, and the Tzemach Tzedek added it. In other words, reclining is required too. Fine, it all looks good, it all seems straightforward, everything seems in order—but there’s a whole tangle here. What is korech about? Why do we need it? Why isn’t it enough that I ate matzah and fulfilled the mitzvah of eating matzah, and ate maror and fulfilled the mitzvah of eating maror? What’s wrong with that, that I now need to do something Hillel did? Just because Hillel felt like eating it that way, do I have to as well?

20:14 Speaker 1 Do I have to eat a sandwich too? Of course, it’s important. But what is the point of Hillel’s practice? What are we doing? Also, what do we say here? We say, “This is what Hillel did when the Beis Hamikdash stood.” You know, I don’t know whether the children are aware of this, but most Haggadahs have a different text. Most Haggadahs say, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, following Hillel’s practice.” So look at those words. Take a look at Haggadahs, at Chabad Haggadahs. When we eat the sandwich of maror with the—with the matzah, we say, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, following Hillel’s practice,” and afterward we say, “This is what Hillel did.” Why? So look at that wording in the Haggadah: “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, following Hillel’s practice.” Then there’s another problem here. We say, “He would wrap the Pesach offering, matzah and maror together.” So the Rebbe says that Hillel would wrap the Pesach offering, matzah and maror together. Why mention the Pesach offering here? We don’t have a Pesach offering. We aren’t eating a Pesach offering. What’s the answer? Hillel lived when the Beis Hamikdash stood, so he ate the Pesach offering. Hillel ate the Pesach offering, but we don’t. Why do we say, “He would wrap the Pesach offering, matzah and maror together”? Fine, we’re recounting what Hillel did, but the problem is that we say, “This is what Hillel did.” What does “this is what Hillel did” mean? Simply put, it means Hillel did the same thing I’m doing. But no: I’m eating matzah and maror, while Hillel ate the Pesach offering, matzah and maror. I’m saying something untrue. And several halachic authorities write that you mustn’t say it that way; it sounds untrue. Look, they write that the author of the Shulchan Aruch doesn’t include this wording. He writes that you should say only, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, following Hillel’s practice.” In other words, the wording we say, in keeping with what we actually do, is only “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, following Hillel’s practice.” We don’t say the whole passage, “This is what Hillel did,” at all. Why? Because it’s

22:22 Speaker 1 not accurate that way. We aren’t doing what Hillel did. Some use a different wording. They say, “This is what Hillel did when the Beis Hamikdash stood: he would wrap matzah and maror together.” They don’t mention the Pesach offering at all. They don’t mention it at all. They say, “He would wrap matzah and maror together.” Then it works, because that’s what I’m doing too. Yes, we’re combining only matzah and maror, so there’s no false statement. But wait—what did Hillel do? Now the question goes the other way. Did Hillel eat the Pesach offering? Didn’t he eat the Pesach offering? And that brings us to the Gemara. Did everyone learn the Gemara today? Did you have time? Page 115. Take out the Gemara. What does the Gemara say? Wait, before we go to the Gemara, there’s another question. Do you want to finish the questions about the wording of the Haggadah? Yes? There’s another simple question. We say, “As it is said: ‘With matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.’” The verse “With matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it” is not a verse about the Pesach offering. It’s a verse about Pesach Sheini in Parshas Behaalosecha. It isn’t the verse about the first Pesach offering; that’s an entirely different verse. How?

23:40 Speaker 3 How?

23:41 Speaker 1 How? There are two verses. Right. Very good. Excellent. There are two verses. Let’s see—where’s the Likkutei Torah? Someone put something here for me so we could look inside. Hm? Where exactly are we looking? Here, in Parshas Bo, in the verses about the Pesach offering, it says, “They shall eat the meat that night, roasted over fire, with matzos and bitter herbs.” No, that isn’t what it says. It says, “They shall eat the meat that night, roasted over fire.” Listen carefully, because every word here matters: “They shall eat the meat that night, roasted over fire, and matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” That’s the wording of the verse: “And matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” But in our Haggadah it says, “With matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” So that’s not this verse. Here it says, “And matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” The Rambam, then, gives a different wording: “With matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Where does that wording come from? It’s in Parshas Behaalosecha, in the account of Pesach Sheini. About Pesach Sheini it says: “In the second month, on the fourteenth day, toward evening, they shall make it; with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” So what’s going on here? Every year we recite the Haggadah and say these words. Nobody asks questions. We just go through the Haggadah. What’s happening here? On the first night of Pesach, we’re quoting a verse about Pesach Sheini. Why don’t we quote the verse about the first Pesach offering? It’s almost the same verse, with just a difference in the wording: “and matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it” versus “with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Now let’s actually take the Gemara. Yes, now. Let’s take the Gemara and see. When we get to the last two questions, we can see something very interesting in the Gemara. What was the question before the last one? The Pesach offering, matzah and maror. There’s a version that says “the Pesach offering, matzah and maror,” and a version that says “matzah and maror,” right? And what happened here? Hillel ate the Pesach offering, matzah and maror.

26:40 Speaker 1 We eat matzah and maror. Hillel did eat the Pesach offering, matzah and maror; we eat matzah and maror. So one of these statements is untrue, because we aren’t doing what Hillel did. These are all questions that the commentators and the Geonim ask. They discuss them at length and build whole arguments around them. Yes, it’s in our Gemara in Pesachim. Take the photocopy. Here’s what the Gemara says. The Gemara here is discussing... What is the Gemara discussing? What? Which things is it discussing? Wrapping them together? Hm? What is it discussing here? Tell me. Hm? What are we talking about? Matzah and maror. Yes. The Gemara begins: “Ravina said: Rav Mesharshiya, son of Rav Nassan, told me that Hillel said in the name of the tradition...” That’s the other Hillel. Everyone, don’t get confused. Yes, the first Hillel in this passage is that other Hillel. He lived many years later. He isn’t the Hillel we mention in the Pesach Haggadah. This is a different Hillel. Yes: “Hillel said in the name of the tradition: A person should not wrap matzah and maror together and eat them.” You mustn’t take matzah and maror together. Today, you mustn’t eat them together. Why? Because nowadays the obligation to eat matzah is from the Torah, while the obligation to eat maror is rabbinic. So maror is rabbinic and matzah is from the Torah. A rabbinic obligation is on a different level; maror, being rabbinic, doesn’t have, so to speak, the same force or sanctity as a Torah obligation. They are like an object of a Torah mitzvah and an object of a rabbinic mitzvah. So if you eat the matzah, which is the Torah mitzvah, and at the same time taste the maror within it, the taste of the rabbinic maror will negate the mitzvah status of the matzah, which is a Torah obligation. That’s why we don’t eat them together. Right? “He should not eat them together, because the rabbinically mandated maror would come and negate the Torah-mandated matzah.” Even if—

28:46 Speaker 1 What does it mean that one negates the other? If this is from the Torah and that is from the Torah—both are Torah obligations—then one doesn’t negate the other. But maror is rabbinic. So when one is from the Torah and the other is rabbinic, the rabbinic one negates the Torah one. Right? After that the Gemara says: “Who is the Tanna who holds that mitzvos do not negate one another? It is Hillel. For it was taught: They said of Hillel that he would wrap them together and eat them.” What would he wrap together? What did Hillel do? He wrapped them together. What are we talking about here?

29:15 Speaker 4 Maror and matzah.

29:16 Speaker 1 The maror and the matzah, one hundred percent. And about this the Gemara says: They said of Hillel that he would wrap the maror and matzah together and eat them. It doesn’t mention the Pesach offering here at all.

29:28 Speaker 4 On the night of Pesach, he eats matzah, maror.

29:29 Speaker 1 No.

29:29 Speaker 4 The Pesach offering with maror.

29:32 Speaker 1 Wait, you’re not running to Rashi yet, right?

29:35 Speaker 4 Yes.

29:36 Speaker 1 Yes, because first the matzah and both of them, the matzah is... Wait, that’s it. Rabbi Yochanan said that his colleagues disagreed with him. Hillel thought this way, but his colleagues disagreed. They maintained that you don’t eat them together, and so on. So the Gemara says nothing about the Pesach offering, only matzah and maror. Now look at Rashi. Wait, look at Rashi above. It’s also in the Rashbam. Rashi says plainly: He would wrap them together at once—the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror. [unclear] So Rashi says it included the Pesach offering too. The Gemara doesn’t say that; Rashi does. Yes. Ah, the Rashbam says the same thing. The Pesach offering, matzah, and maror—“they shall eat it”; each one separately. Ah, wait, that comes later. Now, what do the Sages who disagree with Hillel say? That each is eaten separately. They derive it from the verse, “they shall eat it”—even if each is eaten separately. It doesn’t say [unclear]; it says “they shall eat it,” as though each is eaten on its own. Fine. So Rashi and the Rashbam say it’s talking about the Pesach offering. Where did they get that from? It isn’t in the Gemara. The simple explanation is that they got it from the verse. After all, what is the verse talking about? The verse says, “They shall eat the meat on this night, roasted over fire, and matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” So the verse tells us that they ate it with the Pesach offering. On the face of it, Hillel also ate the Pesach offering together with the matzah and maror. What does “they shall eat it” refer to in the plain meaning of the verse? The Pesach offering. So it’s all straightforward, all fine, one hundred percent. Hillel

31:53 Speaker 1 ate the Pesach offering with the matzah and maror—but it’s not straightforward at all. Take the Rambam and see how matzah and maror are eaten. The Rambam—how are matzah and maror eaten? We have the Rambam here, but I don’t see it inside. Which passage in the Rambam is it? Oh, here it is. With all due respect to everyone: the Rambam’s Laws of Chametz and Matzah. What does the Rambam write? You know, the Rambam didn’t write his book just for us today. He wrote it for the time of the Beis Hamikdash too. As is well known, that’s why the Rambam also wrote the laws of offerings and sacrifices. That’s the difference between the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch was written only for the time of exile; its laws deal with that time. The Rambam, by contrast, also gives laws for the time of the Beis Hamikdash. You can see this clearly in the order of the Pesach Seder. The Rambam describes the Seder in two ways: how it was done in the time of the Beis Hamikdash and how it is done today. It’s very interesting how the Rambam lived with Moshiach, lived with Geulah. He simply presents all these matters as though Moshiach is here, and afterward writes that nowadays we don’t do it that way. Very interesting. Regarding korech, the Rambam writes as follows. What do they do? He writes that [unclear], they drink the second cup. After that they begin the meal, yes, and then he takes the matzos and recites “Who brings forth bread from the earth”—yes, the bread of affliction—and afterward he takes matzos and maror. You know? So the Rambam writes this: First he takes matzah, and then he takes matzah and maror together. In the Rambam there’s no maror on its own; he goes straight to the sandwich, straight to korech. He takes the matzah with the maror

34:31 Speaker 1 together and says the blessing: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning the eating of matzah and maror.” Clear, no? That’s the Rambam’s approach. The Raavad comments on this: The Rambam is describing the order followed by Hillel—first matzah on its own, and then matzah and maror. After that the Rambam writes: “And he eats matzah on its own and maror on its own.” If he wants to do it separately, he can eat each on its own. In other words, the Rambam also gives you the option of following the Sages rather than Hillel: eating the matzah separately, saying only the blessing “concerning the eating of matzah,” and then saying a separate blessing over the maror, “concerning the eating of maror.” The Rambam then says, in law 7, that afterward he recites the blessing “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning the eating of the sacrifice,” and eats from the Chagigah offering. Then he says, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning the eating of the Pesach offering,” and eats the Pesach offering. So what do we see in the Rambam? That Hillel’s practice was not to eat the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror together. He ate only matzah and maror together, yes, and afterward ate the Pesach offering on its own. Maybe he hadn’t finished. The Rambam then says that afterward they have a meal and eat whatever they want after the Pesach offering. That was the order in the time of the Beis Hamikdash. Moshiach will come. You need to know this, friends—get ready. You need to know how to do all these things; this year we’ll be in Jerusalem, the holy city. Do you hear? So first you eat matzah, then maror—or, according to Hillel, matzah and maror together. Then you eat the Chagigah sacrifice, recite the blessing for eating the sacrifice, and eat the Chagigah. Afterward we

36:41 Speaker 1 eat the Pesach offering and recite the blessing for the Pesach offering, [unclear], and afterward have the meal and eat the whole meal. What do we eat? Fish? [unclear] The Pesach offering, the sacrifice. After that they eat a full meal, and at the end of the meal he takes another kezayis of the Pesach offering and finishes the meal with it. Today we do the whole thing the other way around, right? That’s the order according to the Rambam. In short, if so, it turns out that according to the Rambam they really didn’t eat—the Pesach offering was with, with the Pesach offering. The whole offering was matzah. According to this, the wording in the prayer would also fit, but the Alter Rebbe doesn’t say that. The Alter Rebbe explicitly says otherwise in the laws of the Haggadah. According to the Rambam, that really is how it should be. But many Rishonim disagree with the Rambam. In the plain reading of Rashi, as we saw, and the Rashbam, they say that this involves the Pesach offering. Now, what does the Rambam do with the verse? We said there’s a verse. What does the Rambam do with it? The Rambam has a different reading of the verse. He says that because eating is mentioned twice—it says, “They shall eat the meat on this night, roasted over fire,” and then it says again, “and matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Do you hear? Eating is mentioned twice here. That means there are two separate matters: the mitzvah of eating the Pesach offering on its own—“They shall eat the meat”—and then another matter: “and matzos; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Since the Torah mentions eating twice, these are two laws of eating. It isn’t one meal, one sandwich with matzah and cholent, the offering and cholent. Cinco pesos—is there such a thing today? They sell it, right? So according to—according to what

38:54 Speaker 1 it says here, it seems that this wasn’t the order, right? Two laws means two separate things. It’s written twice, and the Torah worded it that way specifically to teach that the matzah and the Pesach offering are eaten separately, and the maror is eaten separately.

39:08 Speaker 5 The “and” connects them.

39:09 Speaker 1 What?

39:09 Speaker 5 The “and” might be understood as connecting the two things.

39:13 Speaker 1 There isn’t one here; here it says—

39:14 Speaker 5 In the verse.

39:15 Speaker 1 Ah, ah, “and matzos.” Right. The Ramban also discusses that. The Rambam says—what?

39:23 Speaker 5 Maror.

39:24 Speaker 1 Yes, but fine, the Ramban is very interesting. The Ramban takes it from there. The Ramban offers a different reading of the verse. He says we should read it like this. Listen carefully; the Ramban raises a very interesting question. “They shall eat the meat on this night, roasted over fire, and matzos.” It says more, as you point out. So the Pesach offering, says the Ramban, was eaten with matzah but without maror. “And matzos” goes with the earlier words, the first “they shall eat”; “with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Right? The first eating is only about the maror. So the Ramban says that the way they ate when they left Egypt was not as the Rambam describes it. The Ramban maintains that at the beginning of the meal they ate matzah, as he says, and so on. At the end of the meal they took matzos with meat and made a sandwich without maror. There was just matzah, yes, with meat inside, and they ate matzah with mar—with the Pesach offering. That is the Ramban’s view.

40:38 Speaker 6 “They shall eat it” also refers to the maror.

40:39 Speaker 1 Huh? There, the—bitter herbs in the wilderness?

40:41 Speaker 6 “They shall eat it” too.

40:43 Speaker 1 Huh? “They shall eat it” isn’t referring to that.

40:44 Speaker 6 [unclear]

40:46 Speaker 1 Huh?

40:46 Speaker 6 “Fortunate is the people whose G-d is Hashem.”

40:47 Speaker 1 What does “fortunate” mean?

40:48 Speaker 6 Each one on its own. On its own.

40:52 Speaker 1 What?

40:53 Speaker 6 Each one on its own. “They shall eat it.”

40:55 Speaker 1 Yes, that’s the approach of those who disagree. That’s the Ramban’s approach: there were two mitzvos. And what follows from that? It has a practical halachic consequence today. According to the Ramban, as I just told you, they ate the korban Pesach in a korech with matzah—not a korech of bitter herbs with matzah, but a korech of the korban Pesach with matzah. What practical halachic consequence does that have today? Who knows?

41:27 Speaker 6 Not “they shall eat it.”

41:27 Speaker 1 Huh?

41:31 Speaker 6 With the matzah, with the bread.

41:33 Speaker 1 No, the practical consequence today is this: how many kezaysim do we eat for afikoman? How many kezaysim do we eat for afikoman? It’s one of the hardest mitzvos. Yes, we eat two kezaysim. Why do we eat two kezaysim for afikoman? A person has no desire to eat any more—he’s even had dessert and doesn’t want to put anything else in his mouth—and then he’s told that our custom, following the Alter Rebbe, is to eat two kezaysim. Why? The Rebbe explains in the Haggadah—you probably haven’t reached that yet. Look ahead. Yes. The Rebbe says it’s because there are two opinions about why we eat afikoman. One opinion is that we eat afikoman to commemorate the korban Pesach. Since we have no meat, the matzah takes the place of the korban. But a second approach says that the matzah we eat for afikoman commemorates the matzah they ate with the afikoman, with the meat. As I just told you, according to the Ramban they ate the meat together with matzos. So we commemorate the Pesach offering: the afikoman commemorates the matzah they ate with the Pesach offering. And to satisfy both opinions, we eat two kezaysim. That was matzah they ate—not simply matzah, but matzah they ate when already full. The Rebbe goes even further. What does someone do if he simply can’t eat any more? Someone who’s ill or elderly. Yeshivah students can eat however much you give them, but some people simply can’t. According to halachah, the Rebbe says, if a person can’t eat more than one kezayis—and that happens often, with elderly people, small children, or women who can’t eat more—then the rule is that they eat one kezayis, but they must make a condition in their mind: If it is to commemorate the meat, I intend it for the meat; and if it is to commemorate the matzah

43:29 Speaker 1 that was eaten with the meat, I intend it for that—so this one kezayis serves that purpose. It’s fascinating how every detail works out precisely in practice. Now let’s turn to our approach, the Alter Rebbe’s approach. We’ve explained a number of points here, but we still haven’t answered everything. First of all, the Alter Rebbe’s approach is not like the Rambam’s; that’s clear. According to the Alter Rebbe, Hillel the Elder ate the korban Pesach together with the bitter herbs too, as the text of the Haggadah says. Yes, in Hillel’s wording: “He would wrap together the Pesach offering, matzah, and bitter herbs.” He ate not only matzos but also the korban Pesach, as the Rashba holds. But where do we get that from? The verse itself gives us no... The verse says “they shall eat” twice, and from that we can learn that there were two ways of eating. The answer? The answer is that there’s another verse about Pesach Sheini. This was one of the questions we asked earlier. There are two verses concerning “with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” One is in Parshas Bo, where, as we just said, “they shall eat” appears twice: “They shall eat the meat” comes before “and with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” But in Parshas Behaalosecha, the Torah repeats the verse: “In the second month, on the fourteenth day, toward evening, they shall prepare it; with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” So the Torah again says that they shall eat it with matzos, and here “they shall eat it” appears only once. From the verse in Behaalosecha, then, we learn that they eat the Pesach offering together with matzos and bitter herbs. And this also answers one of your questions about the Alter Rebbe. How do we know that the Pesach offering is eaten together with

45:30 Speaker 1 matzos and bitter herbs? Why does he cite this verse about Pesach Sheini? Why doesn’t he cite the verse about the first Pesach? Because we can’t learn from the verse about the first Pesach that the Pesach offering, matzos, and bitter herbs are eaten together. We can learn that specifically from the verse about Pesach Sheini.

45:47 Speaker 7 Why does Rashi set that aside?

45:50 Speaker 1 Wait—we’re just getting started with the questions. One moment. Yes. So we learn it from Pesach Sheini. That’s why he cites it. And you see something remarkable, right? The Haggadah quotes a verse, when you might have expected it to quote a different verse. It specifically quotes the verse about Pesach Sheini because... There’s an ocean of depth here. It’s specifically from this verse that we learn that the Pesach offering is eaten together with the matzah and bitter herbs. So what are you asking? Why? Who? What?

46:33 Speaker 7 Why does Rashi write about the taste of matzah, which is a Torah obligation?

46:35 Speaker 1 Who?

46:36 Speaker 7 Why does Rashi write that it nullifies the taste of matzah, which is a Torah obligation, but doesn’t write that it nullifies the taste of bitter herbs, which is a Torah obligation?

46:44 Speaker 1 Because the Gemara is discussing—that Rashi is commenting on the earlier passage.

46:47 Speaker 7 It’s discussing the bitter herbs.

46:48 Speaker 1 Before the discussion of Hillel.

46:49 Speaker 7 It’s discussing the bitter herbs, the Pesach offering, matzos, and bitter herbs—all three together.

46:53 Speaker 1 Wait, but that Rashi comes before the discussion of Hillel. It’s on the passage discussing the present day, when one may not eat matzos and bitter herbs together because matzos are a Torah obligation and bitter herbs are a rabbinic obligation. That’s the Rashi.

47:03 Speaker 7 Yes, but later too, when they cite “they shall eat,” the bitter herbs nullify the Torah obligation.

47:09 Speaker 1 Yes.

47:11 Speaker 7 One nullifies the other.

47:14 Speaker 1 Yes.

47:15 Speaker 7 This is a Torah obligation, and that... The Gemara here assumed that if they did all three together—

47:19 Speaker 1 Yes.

47:20 Speaker 7 They would eat the Pesach offering, matzos, and bitter herbs.

47:22 Speaker 1 Because Hillel ate it all together—the Pesach offering, matzos, and bitter herbs together.

47:25 Speaker 7 So when Rashi discusses one taste nullifying another, why does he mention only the nullification of the taste of matzah, which is a Torah obligation, and not the nullification of the taste of bitter herbs, which is a Torah obligation?

47:33 Speaker 1 I’ll answer you. That Rashi isn’t discussing the time of the Beis Hamikdash. He’s discussing what nullifies what now. It comes earlier, before the account of Hillel. Right? In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they ate the Pesach offering, matzos, and bitter herbs together because all three were Torah obligations—the Pesach offering, the matzah, and the bitter herbs. So they could eat them together. One Torah obligation does not nullify another. He’s discussing the present day, when we have only matzos and bitter herbs. Bitter herbs are a rabbinic obligation, while matzos are a Torah obligation, so the bitter herbs would nullify the matzah. Everyone, it’s getting late and we haven’t gotten anywhere yet. This is only the beginning of the subject. We need to get to the Alter Rebbe, in section 475. Come, let’s bring the Alter Rebbe into this and see what’s relevant to us. Do you know the Alter Rebbe’s approach to this whole discussion? It’s in section 475. The Rebbe gives a wonderful summary of it. You have a copy of section 475; the whole discussion is there. It begins at subsection 22 and goes through subsection 25, right? Five subsections of halachah. It’s the discussion of korech, bitter herbs and korech. First, the Alter Rebbe explains that nowadays, if you eat matzah and bitter herbs together, you don’t fulfill the mitzvah, because the bitter herbs would nullify the—the rabbinic obligation would nullify the Torah obligation. That wasn’t so in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, when everything was a Torah obligation. Then they didn’t nullify one another, because they were all mitzvos of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Alter Rebbe adds another point: Why don’t they nullify one another? Because they are all Torah obligations, all mitzvos of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and one mitzvah cannot nullify another mitzvah. Yes, and the Alter Rebbe writes that, on the contrary, according to Hillel one does not fulfill one’s obligation unless they are eaten together—unless

49:37 Speaker 1 Yes, korech: he takes the Pesach offering and the matzah and eats them all together—the matzah and the maror together. Yes, the Alter Rebbe brings this at the end of section 17. He says there that even nowadays—there is a whole lengthy discussion here. Rather than read the entire discussion in the Alter Rebbe, three sections of it, look at something remarkable. This, too, is genius. Sometimes genius is presenting an intricate argument, and sometimes genius is taking a long subject and putting it into a few short words. That is remarkable genius too. Take the Rebbe’s Haggadah and see how the Alter Rebbe takes three long sections, 16, 17, and 18, and puts them into a few short lines under the opening words “Korech.” Look at the passage beginning “Korech.” See how the Rebbe condenses the whole discussion. You have the Rebbe’s Haggadah. The passage beginning “Korech” says: “Korech: On Pesach, one must take Hillel’s view into account, for when there is a Pesach offering, one does not fulfill one’s obligation unless one wraps the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror together and eats them together.” In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, all three mitzvos had to be eaten together; otherwise, you had not fulfilled your obligation. “When there is no Pesach offering, one does not fulfill the obligation of matzah, which is from the Torah, unless one eats it on its own.” When there is no Pesach offering, according to Hillel you cannot eat the matzah as a sandwich. If you ate it as a sandwich, you have not fulfilled your obligation. Why? Because maror is a rabbinic obligation, so if you eat the matzah with something else—with maror, with meat, with whatever it may be—the mitzvah is nullified. So in exile we must eat matzah on its own, because it is the only mitzvah that remains a Torah obligation. Yes, that is regarding matzah. “And one does not fulfill the obligation of maror, which the Sages instituted in remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, unless one wraps matzah and maror together and eats them together, as they did in the time of the Beis Hamikdash.” The Alter Rebbe says something remarkable here. According to Hillel, nowadays—

51:37 Speaker 1 Hillel lived in the time of the Beis Hamikdash. But according to Hillel’s approach, if Hillel were living in exile, he would say that matzah and maror must be eaten together; otherwise, you have not fulfilled your obligation. Why? Because matzah is rabbinic—maror is rabbinic. Maror is a rabbinic obligation. You have already fulfilled the Torah obligation of matzah earlier. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they ate maror and matzah together. In other words, the obligation of maror was not to eat it separately, but to eat it as korech, as a sandwich together with the matzah. That was the whole definition of the mitzvah of maror. According to Hillel, there was no such thing as eating maror by itself then. Maror by itself did not exist. The whole definition of maror was eating it together with the matzah and the Pesach offering. We do not have a Pesach offering, but a rabbinic obligation still remains. There are two rabbinic obligations here. One is the mitzvah of eating maror, which is rabbinic. Today eating maror is not a Torah obligation, because the whole mitzvah of maror is only together with “with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Right? Ah, sorry. Maror is mentioned only together with the Pesach offering. When there is no Pesach offering, there is no Torah mitzvah of maror. So maror today is rabbinic, but eating matzah with the maror is also rabbinic: a remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash. That remembrance is an enactment of the Sages. So there are two rabbinic obligations. Two rabbinic obligations do not nullify one another, and therefore matzah and maror must be eaten together, according to Hillel. How does the Rebbe continue? “It follows that nowadays, according to Hillel, one has a second obligation to eat matzah, instituted by the Sages.” So it is an obligation. According to Hillel, eating korech the second time—eating the matzah with the maror—is an obligation. Why? Because here there is a mitzvah to eat korech, right? Today—

53:33 Speaker 1 Korech is not a Torah obligation; it is only rabbinic, in remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash. It is clearly a rabbinic mitzvah, and two rabbinic mitzvos do not nullify one another. So the obligation to wrap the matzah and maror together remains. It is a rabbinic obligation. “And since the halachah was decided neither in accordance with Hillel nor in accordance with his colleagues”—so we need to do both. The Alter Rebbe concludes that because the halachah was decided neither like Hillel nor like his colleagues, we do all of it. We fulfill the rabbinic obligations: we eat matzah on its own and maror on its own, and afterward, to satisfy Hillel’s view, we eat matzah and maror together. What is the Alter Rebbe saying here? Something remarkable. It is the Alter Rebbe’s remarkable innovation, which the other halachic authorities do not say. It was discussed afterward by the Taz and the Pri Megadim, but they do not say this. The Alter Rebbe introduces the idea that, according to Hillel, korech today is an obligation. It has the status of an obligation. It is not merely a remembrance; it is an obligation. There is a rabbinic obligation, and otherwise you have not fulfilled your obligation of maror. What do most halachic authorities say? What do most of the later authorities say? They say something entirely different. They say it is only a remembrance—essentially, you have already fulfilled your obligation. Most authorities explain Hillel’s practice this way: Hillel would eat the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror together. That was a law concerning the Pesach offering. It was part of the requirements of the Pesach offering. Now that we do not have a Pesach offering, the whole obligation of korech has fallen away. Most of the later authorities do not hold like the Alter Rebbe. They understand korech according to the plain meaning of the verse, as I told you at the beginning: “They shall eat the meat on this night”—the first verse, not the one about Pesach Sheini—“with matzos and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” In other words, the obligation concerns eating the Pesach offering. It is—

55:22 Speaker 1 A requirement of the Pesach offering. It is not a requirement concerning maror; it is a requirement concerning the Pesach offering. In the law of the Pesach offering—not like the Rambam, right? The Rashbam, Rashi. There is a law concerning the Pesach offering that it must be eaten with matzah and maror together. Today we do not have a Pesach offering, so there is no obligation of korech. What, then, do we do? We want a remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, so it has only the status of a remembrance. There is no obligation involved. According to the Alter Rebbe, it is an obligation. Why an obligation? Because Hillel’s practice was not based on a requirement of the Pesach offering. For Hillel, the obligation was to make korech. Whenever you can join mitzvos together, you must join them. That is how the Alter Rebbe understands his view. According to the Alter Rebbe, korech was not practiced because of the Pesach offering. Rather, according to Hillel, whenever you can join mitzvos and perform them together, you should join them. If you have two Torah obligations and can join them, join them. Three Torah obligations—join them. If you cannot join them, then no, you have no choice. But if you can, you have an obligation to join them. Here you can join the maror with the matzah, because you already ate the matzah required by the Torah earlier. Right? And the maror is rabbinic. Right? And the second matzah is not optional; it is an obligation. Why is it an obligation? Because the remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash makes it an obligation. That is the Alter Rebbe’s approach. What question does this answer? It answers why, in the Alter Rebbe’s text, we do not say, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, as Hillel did.” That is the difference between the Alter Rebbe and the author of the Shulchan Aruch. As I told you, right? In the author of the Shulchan Aruch’s text, they say, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, as Hillel did.” They do not say, “So did Hillel do.” They say only, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, as Hillel did.” Why? Because—

57:12 Speaker 1 According to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, who follows the view that there is no obligation of korech at all today, the korech Hillel made is not the korech we make today. The obligation of korech is only a law concerning the Pesach offering. We do not have a Pesach offering, so there is no need to make korech. What is it, then? A remembrance: “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, as Hillel did.” But to say “So did Hillel do” means something else entirely. According to the Alter Rebbe, the whole point of korech is not a law concerning the Pesach offering. It is the principle that mitzvos should be joined together. If you have two Torah obligations, two rabbinic obligations, three Torah obligations, or three rabbinic obligations, and you can perform them together, then you should, because all the mitzvos belong to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They should be joined together. Hillel seeks to join the mitzvos. That is how Hillel defines it; that is his position. So today you have an obligation: you have two rabbinic obligations. Eating maror is rabbinic, and making korech in remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash is also rabbinic. So you must do them together; it is an obligation. And that is why we do not say, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash.” It is not merely a remembrance; it is a mitzvah.

58:14 Speaker 8 Above, it says, “In remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash.”

58:16 Speaker 1 Huh?

58:16 Speaker 8 [unclear].

58:18 Speaker 1 In practice, it is also a remembrance. In practice, why do we eat korech? As a remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, because they ate it when the Beis Hamikdash stood. But that remembrance itself becomes an obligation. Once the Sages instituted that we must commemorate the Beis Hamikdash, it became a rabbinic requirement. So you have the rabbinic requirement to commemorate the Beis Hamikdash together with the rabbinic requirement of maror. That is why you have to eat them together. According to Hillel, you cannot fulfill the mitzvah of maror—if you have the option of eating maror together with matzah, you cannot pass that up. According to the Alter Rebbe’s novel explanation, if you have the option of eating matzah with maror, you must eat matzah with maror. Can you eat maror with matzah? Then you eat maror with matzah. If you have the option of eating the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror, you must combine whatever you can combine.

59:05 Speaker 8 That makes five.

59:05 Speaker 1 So, to eat—wait. You cannot initially eat matzah together with maror, because matzah is a Torah obligation and maror is a rabbinic obligation. That is why you must eat matzah on its own. But you can eat maror with matzah, because both are rabbinic obligations. So you are obligated to do that. That is why we do not say, “A remembrance of the Beis Hamikdash, in the manner of Hillel.” Seemingly, the question is: How does this fit with the wording “So did Hillel do”? That is the question we asked earlier. How does it fit? Hillel ate the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror, while I eat only matzah and maror, without the Pesach offering, as the... I don’t remember, Rabbi Godel[?], I think, argues. The wording is untrue. I say, “So did Hillel do,” but I am not doing what Hillel did. So the Rebbe gives a simple answer. What does “So did Hillel do” mean? It means that, like Hillel, I combine mitzvos where the obligation allows it. Hillel combined them. Wherever he could combine them, he did. He made korech, and I make korech too. The difference is that Hillel had three Torah obligations when the Beis Hamikdash stood: the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror. So he combined all three. I do not have three Torah obligations; I do not even have two. The only way I can combine them is through two rabbinic obligations: maror and the matzah of korech. So that is what I do. That is why we say, “So did Hillel do”: just as Hillel was particular to make korech, I make korech too. He did it with the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror; I eat what I can. But even for Hillel, it was about

1:00:57 Speaker 1 the mitzvah of eating maror together in korech. Do you understand? There are particular deeper meanings that could be explained, but it has simply gotten late. I also wanted to explain the whole subject according to Chassidus, and we have no time left. The point is that this whole matter of Hillel is not merely a matter of halachah. There is something at its root as well. I will just give the point; I have already gone over time. There is a disagreement here. Hillel’s disagreement with the other Sages is a disagreement about the root of the matter. What is their disagreement at its root? Hillel holds that on Pesach we need to make the Pesach offering and matzah—he asks—

1:01:44 Speaker 9 Isn’t there some other mitzvah besides that?

1:01:47 Speaker 1 Good question. Yes, here they say specifically that they must be combined. There is a wonderful idea here: the disagreement between Hillel and his colleagues concerns the nature of these three mitzvos. There are three elements: the mitzvah of the Pesach offering, the mitzvah of matzah, and the mitzvah of maror. Now, if you look at each one separately, each mitzvah has a different meaning. Matzah relates to one aspect of Geulah: we were redeemed. Maror relates to bitterness, and the Pesach offering relates to what comes next. They are three separate matters, each with its own approach. They are three kinds of eating. As the Rebbe explains in one place, matzah is bread. Bread is something you must eat; it is a necessity. Maror is a vegetable. You do not have to eat vegetables, though they are healthy. And meat is eaten when you are already full; meat indicates pleasure. These are three very different things, and the same is true in serving Hashem. They represent three different categories in halachah and in the observance of mitzvos. There are mitzvos that are like matzah—an absolute obligation. There are things that are not an absolute obligation, but are enactments, customs, things that need to be done. Some are in the category of maror, and there are further aspects of mitzvos, in the category of beautifying a mitzvah, represented by meat. This explains why Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded these three mitzvos on Pesach: the night of Pesach is the night when we want to teach a Jew how to be a Jew. Pesach is the festival of freedom. Pesach is the beginning of Yiddishkeit.

1:03:39 Speaker 1 Through observing the mitzvos of Seder night, we demonstrate how a Jew should conduct himself, how a Jew should serve Hashem. So the difference between Hillel and his colleagues depends on the underlying disagreement between Hillel and Shammai. There is a sicha of the Rebbe about Hillel and Shammai and how each viewed serving Hashem: Shammai looked more at the external side of things, while Hillel looked more deeply within. “Hillel” is connected to the phrase “when His lamp shone”—he looks for the light. In other words, Hillel reveals and seeks the light in everything, its inner meaning. Shammai, by contrast, looks primarily at things as they appear outwardly in practice. The Rebbe uses this to explain several stories. There is the story of the prospective convert—though it was not quite like that in practice; that is another sicha. Perhaps I learned it once. I don’t know. It is a sicha in the book Chaggai. For example, a non-Jew came wanting to become Jewish. Shammai sent him away, while Hillel took him in. What was the difference? Shammai looked only at the outside: You come in talking nonsense. You want the entire Torah while standing on one foot. You want to become the Kohen Gadol. You want all sorts of things. Go find someone else. He sent him out of the house. But Hillel said: No, wait. Perhaps he simply does not understand, but perhaps there is something genuine here, something deeper. Hillel looked into the depths of his soul. He said: Don’t look at the outside; look at the inside. This is also the subject of a holy disagreement: “A beautiful and gracious bride,” or “a bride as she is.” Hillel looks within and says, “A beautiful and gracious bride,” even if outwardly she has a blemish. But

1:05:14 Speaker 1 at a deeper level, the groom chose to marry her because he loves her, so to him she is beautiful and gracious. Shammai says: In practice, what is there? How does it actually show itself? And it is the same here with korech and the Pesach offering. If you look at each mitzvah from the outside, these are three different mitzvos, each with a different reason. One is about Geulah, and another is about something else. But if you examine the inner meaning of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s mitzvos, the central point of these three mitzvos, they are really all one point. At a deeper level, all 613 mitzvos and all these different matters express one point about the Jewish people. The Rebbe explains this at length. There is no time; look at the letter of 11 [unclear]. So Hillel’s halachic conclusion follows from that. He seeks to combine the Pesach offering, matzah, and maror, making them all one matter, one point. That is the inner meaning of korech. [unclear] was always telling you about Pesach. Look, I don’t want to... I really only wanted to address something else. Like a student, you don’t always get to speak about what you want. I will leave you with just one question to think about. Look at section 475, paragraph 11. The Alter Rebbe writes that we must recline when eating korech. Why do we eat it reclining? Because korech was eaten as a remembrance of the Pesach offering, which was eaten in a manner befitting freedom. Just as they ate the Pesach offering reclining, in a manner befitting freedom, so too we must eat korech reclining. What does it say here in section 475, paragraph 20? Why do we eat korech reclining? It says: There are those who say that we do not recline

1:07:02 Speaker 1 Because it contains maror, but some say that we should recline. Why? Because matzah requires reclining. So, since Hillel would eat the maror together with the matzah—“in remembrance of Hillel”—we eat it while reclining. These are two different explanations. In section 475, paragraph 11, the Rebbe writes that reclining for korech is because of the Pesach offering, which was eaten in a manner befitting free people. But here the Rebbe writes that it is not connected to the Pesach offering; it is connected to the matzah. So, good, very good.