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45 The Passover Haggadah

How much more so, then, should we be grateful to God for the manifold favors that he conferred upon us: He brought us out of Egypt, and punished the Egyptians; he smote their gods, and slew their firstborn; he gave us their wealth, and split the Red Sea for us; he led us through it dryshod, and engulfed our foes in it; he sustained us in the desert for forty years, and fed us with the manna; he gave us the Sabbath, and brought us to Mount Sinai; he gave us the Torah, and brought us to Israel; he built the ‘Temple for us, to atone for all our sins,



Rabbi Gamaliel said: Whoever has not explained these three ‘things on Passover has not fulfilled his duty, namely: Pesah, the Passover Offering; Matzah, the Unleavened Bread; Maror, the Bitter Herb. Why did our fathers eat the Passover lamb at the time of the Temple? Because God passed over the houses of our fathers in




He had given us of their wealth, in fulfillment of his pledge that the childrer of Abraham “will come forth with great wealth” (Genesis 15:14). ‘The Talmud (Berakhoth 9b) emphasizes the thought that the Israclites were satisfied with gaining their freedom and did not care for the wealth taken from the Ej but they were urged by the divine command to accept what the Egyptians gave them onmx.... prTE INK 7B Now am %4D1 OD *D OVID PRY OR NepIa na oyp xb brn pra RY PD.

‘The Temple of Jerusalem is meant by the Chosen House arvnan 12) on the basis of Deuteronomy 12:11 (“the place that the Lord your God shall choose as the abiding-place of his name”).

Rabban Gamaliel I, who lived shortly before the Second Temple was destroyed in the year 70, was the first to be known by the title Rabban (“great master”), given by way of eminence (o the heads of the Sanhedrin, if of the house of Hillel the Great. Like his grandfather Hillel, Rabban Gamaliel I was also known by the title Zaken (“elder”). The Mishnah (Pesahim 10:5) quotes the statement of Rabban Gamalicl, including the following paragraphs down to bxaw bea, with but several slight variations.

Explaining the laws concerning the paschal lamb, which was eaten roasted and no parts of it could be sent from house to house, Maimonides write “Just as the Israelites were commanded to eat unleavened bread because they could prepare it hastily, so were they commanded for the sake of haste to roast the lamb, because there was not sufficient time to boil it or to prepare