Joe Bobker's newest book "And You Thought There Were Only Four" answers every question you could ever ask (and more) on the freedom holiday of Pesach and the Exodus. From presenting intriguing facts such as the history of "Operation Matzo Ball" during WWII, to tackling some of the toughest questions surrounding Passover, its traditions, and history, Joe Bobker covers hundreds of topics and comprehensively backs each answer up with both rabbinical and biblical evidence. "And You Thought There Were Only Four" will satisfy every curiosity you ever had on one of the most important holidays of the Jewish year. Get it Here on Amazon

The peak of Egyptian oppression occurred under the 67 year reign of Rameses 11. The Jews rejoiced at his death, prematurely it seems. For it was under the tyranny of his successor, Mernephtah, that "they cried to God," ii in an agonizing period of serfdom that lasted from 1522 to 1312 BC. iii This Pharaoh was a phony Pharaoh: according to the Midrash he would study the times of the tides of the Nile, and enter the water precisely the moment that the water began to rise, so that it should appear to be rising to honor him.

Pesach is the only Jewish holiday whose title Jewish parents still use to name their sons. Think of it: who do you know names Succas, or Shavuos? x The Torah crowns Pesach the first of the shalosh regalim, the "three pilgrimage festivals," when Jews ascended en masse to Jerusalem on a regular basis, to ha'Makom asher yivchar Hashem, "the site God chose to make His Name great," not just for shalosh r'galim but also to eat and share ma'asrot, "tithes;" to ask judgment or get guidance from the Kohanim; or to gather for the mitzva of Hakhel. xi}

This festival has three precise designations: Hag haMatzot, ("Feast of the Unleavened Bread,") Hag ha-Pesach, ("Festival of the Paschal Offering") and Zeman Herutenu, ("Season of Our Freedom"); each name linking the Spring wheat 'n barley harvest season to a people's redemption from slavery. xiv Although some use the term hag ha-Pesach this is technically incorrect: it is simply "Pesach," a reference not to a yomtov but to a day, the 14th of Nissan, the time of the Pesach sacrifice.

In English, we know this festival as "Passover," a word derived from the Hebrew pasah - as in "the Lord will pass over" any Israelite home whose doorpost has been sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificial lamb. Ironically the term passover was introduced into the Jewish lexicon by a die-hard 16th century anti-semitic Bible scholar, William Tyndale, a talmud of Martin Luther, the fierce Jewhater. Tyndale's King James English translation of the Torah is now universally accepted, and is responsible for such theological expressions as "let there be light," "salt of the earth," and "am I my brother's keeper?"

Pesach is a 7-day festival in Israel, 8 in the diaspora, with the yomtov days falling on the first, second, seventh and eighth days (first and seventh in Israel), with chol hamo'ed "intermediate" days in-between. The Hebrew term chol (from which comes the modern Hebrew adjective hiloni, "secular") means "workaday," and mo'ed means "holy time." Thus chol ha-mo'ed (pronounced kholemoyed in yiddish, with the stress on the next-to-last syllable) is the "secular" section of Pesach (and Sukkas). On the 10th day of Nisan, the Jews were commanded (at great personal risk) to gather unblemished lambs for an afternoon sacrifice on the 14th day. Why a lamb? Because the Egyptians worshipped it as a sacred animal. xvii When the public display of Jews killing the local deity passed by without Egyptian wrath our rabbis declared the Sabbath of the 10th of Nissan the first Shabbas HaGodol in history, literally the "Great Sabbath." xix A perusal of the Jewish calendar shows an oddity: the second day of Pesach always falls on the same week day as the first day of Shavuot. A coincidence? No. It does so because of a mnemonic rabbinic device known as at-bash, whereby the first and last seven letters of the Hebrew alphabet are matched up (thus alef = tav, bet = shin, etc). Since every Hebrew letter has a numerical value, you take the letters alef to zayin, representing the first seven days of Pesach, and link them with the letters tav to ayin, the last seven letters taken in reverse order, to indicate which day of the week seven other Jewish festivals will fall. xx

Although the term Passover has become the commonly accepted one, it is a regrettable mistranslation of the Hebrew. It presupposes the Hebrew root a-v-r as meaning "to pass through" instead of the verb root p-s-ch. Remember: The Hebrew language is based on verbal roots and vowels that evoke the idea and nuance behind a word's desired meaning. Hebrew is thus both a visual as well as a spoken language. Since the Israelites literally lived side-by-side with their Egyptian neighbors in Goshen the Angel of Death would not have passed "over" but "up-and-down," and/or "in-between," the doorposts.

Linguistics aside, the festival of Pesach has a magnetic allurement, a fascinating appeal, a powerful attraction. It towers mightily and majestically in the Jewish calendar over all the other holidays. As one of the three festivals devoted entirely to Jewish national liberation (the other two? Chanukah, Purim) it reigns supreme because it is the only one anchored in the Bible itself. As a source of Judaic inspiration Pesach is fons et orgio, exquisitely preeminent, a window through which the vastness of all of Judaism can be glimpsed. Unlike the multiple Shavuos and Succas Torah injunctions of vesamachta be'Chagecha, "rejoice on your festival," there is no similar halachik dictate for Pesach. But not to worry. It is a generally accepted principle that the inclusive mood of each yomtov is to be s'meach, "happy."

The catalyst of Pesach cheer is a marvelously enticing work known as the Haggadah, a separate "stand-alone" Hebrew manuscript, an ancient piece of narrative pedagogy that, according to Rashi "captivates the heart" of a daring, daunting drama. Those flipping through it in search of a logical coherent structure will be disappointed. Since this is a night of questions, one may be forgiven for asking ma ha-seder she-baseder?, "What order is there in the Seder?"

There is none.

The Haggadah is not a "book," as we understand a book to be, but a mosaic of passages, a tapestry of images, a whole-cloth of borrowings. Its ingredients are a mixed menu from the Old Testament, enhanced and embellished with sayings from the Midrash and Mishnah, pesukim from Tanakh, stirred with blessings, prayers and songs ("a great and mighty Divine poem," per Rav Kook) xxii - all accompanied by such a myriad of Pesach halachas that an entire tractate of the Talmud is named after it. Yet these bits 'n bytes of Scriptures, so seemingly diverse at first, come together in a perfect union to comply with the order to "expound the whole section."

The epic grandeur of the Haggadah was first transmitted verbally from fathers to sons 'n daughters. Eventually, the Wise Men of the Great Assembly had its original luster reduced to writing and ordered Jews to sing the Song of Exodus daily in their morning prayers, attracting a rare Zohar reward: "Whoever reads the Shira daily with devotion will have the merit to read it in Olam HaBa [the World to Come]." The sweet lyricism of Shir ha-Shirim, "Song of Songs," expresses the joy of love and Spring and is an exquisite fixture of the Shabbas that falls within Pesach. The 7th day of Pesach is marked by the immutable lyrics of the soaring Shirat ha-yam, a self-abnegatory "Song of the Red Sea," that Rav Hertz calls "the oldest song of national triumph still extant." It is an eternal music of modesty, a poetic and dramatic recollection by an emotional people of its liberation, brimming with poetry of gratitude that glorifies the Name of God. Song permeates the choreography of Torah: we find Jews singing on the night they depart Egypt, and when a well of water springs up in the wilderness. Before he dies Moses sings a song of comfort; Joshua, Devorah, Barak, King Yehoshaphat, and David, the "sweet singer of Israel," all burst into song when they vanquish or rescape their enemies, whilst Solomon can't help but sing-along with his Temple's dedication. Yes, there were many songs, but only one Shirah! xxvi

What does 'Haggadah' mean?

On the surface it means thanks, but it is more than that, much more. It is a symphony of gratitude, a chorus of appreciation, composed from the verse, "I acknowledge [higgadeti] today to God." This is a salute to the Mishnah's aggadeta, a multi-compilation of midrashic sayings and homiletic stories designed to fulfill a direct Torah command: "You shall tell [vehiggadeta] your son on that day." This luring format, based on our rabbi's instinct that "the soul of man yearns to hear legends," has made Pesach the most aggadic of all Jewish festivals. But is aggada binding, halachikally? No. Yet every text, Biblical, Mishnaic or Talmudic, does not hesitate to use it as a powerful vehicle to lead Jews to predetermined moral truths and spiritual conclusions, hoping, along the way, to inject emunah, "faith," as the Torah's sole Weltanschauung. xxx It is easy to see why: aggadah's imaginative narrative, free-floating metaphors and heavily annotated parables flow with such dazzle, that it is a Judaic teaching tool par excellance.

God's presence in history is felt right at the seder table, making the Haggadah's commercial demand seem inexhaustible, its audience unlimited. It is by far the Number One top seller, and most illustrated xxxi, of all Jewish books. The 1454 Rhineland haggadah of the scribe-artist Joel ben Simeon is the inspirational epitome of hiddur mitzvah, "beautifying a commandment," with wild animals, domestic beasts, and crouching figures all supporting elaborate decorative double arches, festooned with fantastic towers and figurehead medallions, in which are listed the laws of Pesach. More Torah commentaries exist on the Haggadah than on any other Jewish text, including the Bible. From the day it made its first appearance (1482) in Italy's Reggio di Calabria, Judaica collectors have amassed more than 3,500 separate editions. Consider: during the entire 16th century only 25 Haggadahs were printed; by the 19th century publishers were churning out 1,269 Haggadahs a year…and this record was broken in just the first half of the 20th century! Its scholarly lure is underlined by a startling fact: in comparison to the oldest-known, 13th or 14th century Haggadah manuscript (currently in Russia's Leningrad Library that consists of only four leaves (8 pages), the early-20th century Otzar Peirushim veTziyyurim, "Treasury of Commentaries and Illustrations," xxxii was bursting with over 300 pages, and growing.

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ii Exodus 2:23 (back)

iii Whether 210 or 430 years the Torah uses the word vayagar, "temporary dwelling," which seems way off for either stretch of time. The transitory expression is used because the Jews never considered themselves Egyptians, and always looked ahead for the permanence of their own homeland. (back)

iv Numbers 1:46 (back)

vi Exodus 1-4; 26; 30:11-16; 38:26; Numbers 26:53 (back)

viii The number of Israelites who left Egypt is more or less the same as the number of Hebrew letters in the Torah; as evidenced by the letters of the word "Yisrael" (Israel) which are an acrostic for the phrase, yesh shishim riboah l'Torah ("there are 600,000 letters in the Torah"), and yesh shishim riboah anashim l'Yisrael ("there are 600,000 Jews.") The Baal Shem Tov compared each Jew to one of the Torah letters and the Jew who falls away from his people as causing harm akin to a missing letter disqualifying the entire Torah. (back)

ix How many years from Creation to the Exodus? 2448 years. How many years from the Creation to the building of the Temple? Add 480 years to 2448 to arrive at 2928. Then deduct 2928 from 3760 (the year the Common Era began) to get 832 BC (Rashi Sanhedrin, p 97, Maimonides of Shmita Yovel, p.10; Kings 1, p. 6). (back)

x There have been times in Jewish history where "Shabbas" inspired the name Shabtai. Jewish parents basically dropped this name in the 17th century after Shabbetai Zvi stepped into Jewish history as one in a long line of phony messiahs that began in 431 CE when Paul of Tarsus spread the "messiah" line to Greek Jews in Salonika and Rhodes. (back)

xi Deut 12:5-14; 16:1-17; 14:22-27; 17:8-11; 31:10-13. (back)

xiv Exodus 23:15; 34:25 (back)

xvii Exodus 8.22; 12:3-6 (back)

xix Tosefot, Shabbat 87b. (back)

xx Thus you get the following pattern: Alef (1st day of Pesach) = Tav, Tisha B'Av; Bet (2nd day) = Shin, Shavuot; Gimel (3rd day) = Resh, Rosh HaShanah; Dalet (4th day) = Kof, K'riat HaTorah ("Torah reading", i.e. Simchat Torah); Hay (5th day) = Tzaddi, Tzom ("Fast", i.e. Yom Kippur); Vav (6th day) = Pay (Purim). Whilst the general concept of "at-bash," as applied to the first 6 days of Pesach, was well known for centuries, it was not until 1947 and the birth of the State of Israel that the newly-formed Yom Atzmaut became attached as the calendrical partner to the 7th day of Pesach as represented by Zayin (7th day) = Ayin, (Yom) Atzma'ut. (back)

xxii Daniel Goldschmidt, Introduction to the Pesach Haggada, Mosad Bialik, Jerusalem 5737. (back)

xxvi Pesachim 10:4; Megillah 31a, 10b: Mechilta, Beshalach 2; Soferim; Shmuel II, 23:1; Deut 26:3; Exodus 10:2. (back)

xxx Psalms 119:86; Abraham Maimon, Introduction to the Aggada, S. H. Glick ed., (En Jacob: Aggada of the Babylonian Talmud, Vol. 1, 1916). (back)

xxxi For a fabulous book on Judaic-Haggadah art, see La Haggada Enluminee. Etude iconographique et stylistique des manuscrits enlumines et decores de la Haggada du XIIIe au XVIe siecle, by Dr. Mendel Metzger, preface by Rene Crozet. E. J. Brill. Leiden, 1973-4. Vol. 1). (back)

xxxii Compiled by J. D. Eisenstein, NY, 1920 (back)