Avadim Hayinu - Eliana | Passover haggadah by JTL

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First We Were Slaves, Then We Were Matzah

Avadim Hayinu recounts Hashem’s miracle in bringing us out from Egypt and our responsibility to remember the Exodus. It goes,

עֲבָדִים הָיִינו לְפַרְעהֹ בְמִצְרָיִם, וַיוֹצִיאֵנו יי אֱלֹהֵינו מִשָם בְיָד חֲזָקָה ובִזְרוֹעַ נְטויָה.

We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt, and Hashem took us from there with an outstretched and strong hand.

וְאִלו לֹא הוֹצִיא הַקָדוֹש בָרוךְ הוא אֶת אֲבוֹתֵינו מִמִצְרָיִם, הֲרֵי אָנו ובָנֵינו ובְנֵי בָנֵינו מְשֻעְבָדִים הָיִינו לְפַרְעהֹ בְמִצְרָיִם

And if Hashem did not take our fathers out of Egypt, we, and our children, and our children’s children would still be indebted to Pharoah.

וַאֲפִילו כֻלָנו חֲכָמִים, כֻלָנו נְבוֹנִים, כֻלָנו זְקֵנִים, כֻלָנו יוֹדְעִים אֶת הַתוֹרָה, מִצְוָה עָלֵינו לְסַפֵר בִיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם. וְכָל הַמַרְבֶה לְסַפֵר בִיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם הֲרֵי זֶה מְשֻבָח.

And even though we are now all old and wise and know Torah, we must continue to tell the story of our Exodus from Egypt. And all those who discuss the Exodus are worthy of praise.

Let’s narrow in on a weird inconsistency here: if Hashem had not taken us out of Egypt, then we would still be enslaved in Egypt. However, instead of repeating “avadim hayinu”, we would still be enslaved to Pharoah in Egypt, the verse says “Meshubadim hayinu”, which literally means we would still be obligated or indebted to Pharoah in Egypt. Why does it say we would still be indebted or obligated to Pharoah rather than just saying we would still be slaves in Egypt? Why the inconsistency? Well, the answer lies in the beginning of that same verse that says “If hashem did not take our fathers out of Egypt”. Why our fathers? Weren’t Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’akov long before our enslavement in Egypt? How could Hashem have taken them out of Egypt if they weren’t even there? The answer is as follows: the Jews were originally supposed to be enslaved for a total of 400 years, but in reality they were only there for 210 years. If hashem had not dated this time period, this galut, back to Avraham, then we, our children, and our children’s children would’ve remained enslaved in Egypt for another 190 years. Returning to the previously mentioned inconsistency with the word Meshubadim, if Hashem had not taken us out of Egypt, we would’ve been indebted to Pharoah for the remaining 190 years, afterwhich the Jews would be grateful to Pharoah for “generously” freeing them, despite the difficult enslavement they endured. So, the word Meshubadim is actually surprisingly appropriate..

Moreover, the verse also reminds us of the daily mitzvah to remember the Exodus as well as the obligation to explicitly discuss the story in great detail out loud once a year at the seder, and to teach future generations the story too. Aside enhancing our children’s connection to Judaism and to Hashem, why is telling the story so significant? How is this second half of the song related to the first half of the song that we’ve already discussed? On the one hand, you’ve got the idea of being indebted to Pharoah if we had not been taken from Egypt, and on the other hand we have the mitzvah to remember and tell the story of the Exodus on a regular basis. Why? Why put these two ideas together? When you think about it, the answer isn’t as complicated as it seems… Let’s digress in order to answer this question.

When we were kids, we were taught that the reason we eat matzah during Passover is because the Jews didn’t have enough time for the bread to rise as they were leaving Egypt. Makes sense, right? Unfortunately, this was a lie. Hashem asked Moshe to tell the Jews that in order to spare the lives of their first-born sons on the night of the tenth plague, they needed to sacrifice a lamb, smear its blood on the doorposts of their home, and eat the sacrificial lamb with bitter herbs and, you guessed it, Matzah. The first seder occurred before they were even freed! Matzah wasn’t an accident, it was intentional. But w hy? In search for an answer to this mind-boggling question, let’s delve into what Maztah really is: unleavened bread, bread that does not rise. And what does bread rise with? Hot air. To recap, we were purposefully commanded to eat matzah which is merely bread that lacks hot air. So, what’s the symbolism here? Well, if you’ve heard the expression “you are what you eat”, then you can probably guess the answer. Hashem’s commandment is not simply to eat the matzah, but to be the matzah, to remove the arrogance, the ego, the stubbornness, and the “hot air” from our lives.

Think about it like this: in the concentration camps during the Holocaust, Jews hosted secret Passover seders in the barracks, knowing that if they were caught they would be killed. Yet, they stood in the corner of the barracks at their secret seder and whispered, “Tonight we are free.” Throughout their persecution, they were stripped of their jobs, their homes, their families, their basic human rights, their identities, and they still had the courage, the audacity to say (and believe) that they were free. Why? Because along with their jobs, homes, families, basic human rights, and identities, they were also stripped of ego, arrogance, selfishness, trivial materialistic desires, and their “hot air”. They became matzah. When one “becomes matzah” so to speak, one can truly discover who they are, and genuinely be free. Matzah symbolizes independence and internal freedom - the exact opposite of slave mentality.

When we recite Avadim Hayinu, we must recognize its relevance to our lives. It not only reminds us of our past history of enslavement and the Exodus, but it also teaches us that becoming free was not a one-time thing. We must remember our history, learn from it, and continue to strive for freedom in every sense of the word. It is a reminder that while we were literally enslaved in Egypt, our ego, arrogance, selfishness, and “hot air” enslaves us in a different way. Slave mentality comes in many different forms from force-of-habit from actually being slaves, to self-imposed limitations on our identity and independence. We must remember that although our literal slavery in Egypt is long gone, we should continue to strive to be matzah, get rid of all our hot air, and really, truly, feel free.

haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story