The Last Day of Passover: The Bottom Line
PASSOVER PASSOVER
THE LAST DAY OF PASSOVER
THE BOTTOM LINE-
Last but Not Least
The significance of the last two days of Passover has been lost on many. What exactly do the last two days commemorate?
The last two days of Passover commemorate the miraculous splitting and crossing of the Red Sea (or, more accurately: the Sea of Reeds). The significance of this event is that it was the culmination of the Exodus of the Jewish nation from Egypt. As long as the Egyptian army pursued the Israelites, they were not really free.
Accordingly, it may be argued that the last days of Passover are even more significant than the first days of Passover. Without the PASSOVER crossing of the sea, the Jewish people would have been captured by the pursuing Egyptian army and forced to return to slavery in Egypt, or even worse.
Moreover, G-d performed more, and even greater, miracles at the sea than He performed during the Ten Plagues. As we recited in the Haggadah at the Seder, there were five times as many miraculous plagues at the sea than there were in Egypt itself.
Why No Hallel?
This analysis of the comparison between the miracle of the Exodus and the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea, begs a question:
During the first two days of Passover we are required to recite the Hallel, a selection of special Psalms of praise that express our gratitude to G-d for the miracles He performed. These Psalms, in their entirety, are recited during every festive Holiday. The lone exceptions are the last two days of Passover, where only a part of Hallel is recited. This would suggest that the last two PASSOVER days are not as miraculous as the first two days. Doesn’t this imply that the last days of Passover and the miracle they commemorate are of less significance?
No Gloating
Our Sages in the Midrash anticipated this question and explained that despite the greatness of the miracle of the splitting of the sea, our joy is somewhat tempered by virtue of the loss of Egyptian lives. True, the Egyptians were evil people for having mercilessly enslaved the Jews, but they were still G-d’s creatures and the fact that they had to be killed mars our joy at having been saved. Therefore, sections of the Hallel Psalms are deleted to indicate that our joy has been mitigated.
But, the question still persists. Why should we not rejoice at the elimination of such evil? What is so wrong if we would express our joy when the most wicked people cease to exist?
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Doesn’t King Solomon declare: “When the wicked are destroyed there is joy?”
Moshiach and Evil
The answer lies in understanding another facet of the last two days of Passover, particularly the eighth day—they relate to the future Messianic Age. Whereas the first two days of Passover focus on the past experiences of freedom with but minimal attention placed on the future Redemption during the Seder, the last [two] day[s] of Passover focus[es] primarily on the future Redemption and only secondarily deal with the past. Indeed, the Haftarah (prophetic reading from Isaiah 10:32-12:6) of the last day of Passover is devoted exclusively to the characteristics of the Messianic Age.
What distinguishes the future Redemption from all of the preceding periods of freedom?
One of the differences is that in the future Redemption there will no longer be a need to destroy evil, because all evil will either have PASSOVER already been eliminated or converted into goodness.
To be sure, this will not be a sudden transformation, but the thousands of years of goodness throughout all of our existence will have generated so much positive energy that the evil will be vanquished.
Kabbalah and Chassidic thought explain further that before the Messianic Age, good and evil are intermingled. But through our efforts at refining the world, the good and evil become separated. When Moshiach will come the evil will have to stand on it sown two feet, so to speak, because all the good that it had embedded in it will no longer be there. On it sown, evil cannot survive very long.
Unmitigated Joy
We can now appreciate why the joy we experience at the commemoration of the Splitting of the Red Sea is incomplete. The very fact that there was such evil that had to be destroyed tempers our joy. The fact that PASSOVER the world has not yet entered into an era where all evil has ceased to exist — thus necessitating the destruction of the Egyptians and our reliving of that experience every year at this time — is a sign that our joy is likewise incomplete.
By omitting sections of the Hallel, we express the fact that no matter how great is our miracle of survival in exile, so long as there is evil in the world we must continue to ask G- d to complete our joy by bringing us Moshiach who will usher in the final Redemption.
We can now better appreciate the custom established by the Ba’al Shem Tov to eat a festive meal at the end of Passover which he referred to as “Moshiach’s Meal.” By participating in this meal we give expression to our sentiment that no matter how great is Passover joy, we eagerly anticipate the future Redemption when our joy will be unmitigated and uncompromised.
PASSOVER
From the book Light from the Future: Last Days of Passover by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
