On the eve of Passover, adjacent to minḥa time, a person may not eat until dark, so that he will be able to eat matza that night with a hearty appetite. Even the poorest of Jews should not eat the meal on Passover night until he reclines on his left side, as free and wealthy people recline when they eat. And the distributors of tzedakah should not give a poor person less than four cups of wine for the Festival meal of Passover night. And this halakha
The underlying premise of the Mishnah reflects the Torah’s narrative of the Exodus from Egypt which emphasizes the total inclusion of the entire nation as Moshe framed it in answering Pharaoh, “We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast for Adonai.” Everyone is an equal and full-fledged participant in the redemption and similarly in the annual commemoration. We were all freed together without any socio-economic distinctions and therefore the Mishnah asserts that no one’s celebration should be diminished or limited regardless of provenance of the funds for the festive meal. For at least that moment everyone is elevated.
While this model of providing monies for the purchase of Seder necessities continues through the ages into modernity, it ignores more basic questions, “Why do we still have poor people? Why do we allow poverty to persist?” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes that the Tanach regards poverty as a misfortune,2 that to be poor in an affluent society is to bear a crushing load, and that poverty is degrading and there is a great danger in the societal power that allows poverty to exist.3 Writing in a different context Heschel makes a powerful point regarding our society, “In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.”4
From this perspective, even the Mishnah’s suggestion of providing funds from the community’s tzedakah plate is inherently degrading. Heschel raised the issue of poverty in America in a 1964 speech entitled The White Man on Trial in which he decried the impatience of people he encountered of the demands being made to address the ravages of poverty by guaranteeing that basic necessities be provided to all. The missed opportunity was for him a societal catastrophe. Heschel connects it to the Israelites’ ultimate moment of salvation from servitude.
The tragedy of Pharaoh was the failure to realize that the exodus from slavery could have spelled redemption for both Israel and Egypt. Would that Pharaoh and the Egyptians had joined the Israelites in the desert and together stood at the foot of Sinai!
…The prophet reminds his listeners of their moral obligation to respond, not simply to the prophet, but to those who suffer as a consequence of our immoral society.
Our redemption, our liberation, our elevation as equals can only be celebrated properly when we erase the daily degradations that persist and are proliferating in our society.
Jodi joins me in wishing you all a happy, healthy, sweet, and kosher Pesach.
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Translation from Sefaria.org
2 Heschel writing in A Passion for Truth, cites two verses from biblical Wisdom Literature: “All the days of the poor are evil” (Proverbs 15:15) and “The poor man’s wisdom is despised, his words are not heard” (Kohelet 9:16) as examples.
3 From Man’s Quest for God.
4 From Dr. Heschel’s interview with Carl Stern originally aired on NBC-TV on Sunday, February 4, 1973, under the auspices of The Eternal Light produced by The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Transcribed in the Appendices of Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity.
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