FLEEING
with haste
A deeper look at how the speed of our
departure from Mitzrayim was one of the
greatest and most powerful gifts Hashem
could have given us I BY DOVID SAMUELS
64 JEWISH LIFE
ISSUE 82
THE TORAH TELLS US TO EAT MATZAHS, BECAUSE
we were taken out of Mitzrayim with haste
(chipazon). The matzahs themselves represent this haste, as we couldn’t even wait
long enough for the dough to rise before
the bread was baked, leaving us with the
unique crunchy Pesach experience. We
even spent many, many years less in Egypt
than we were supposed to, also indicating
the haste of our departure. But, why did
Ha shem have to take us out with haste? After a good few hundred years, and with the
Egyptians writhing in agony from the 10
plagues, would a few minutes hurt?
The Torah teaches us that we were extracted from Mitzrayim as a nation from
within another nation. Like a baby inside a
mother, almost indiscernible by itself, and
virtually inseparable. We are taught that the
Jewish people were on the lowest possible
level in the pit of impurity that was Egypt,
the 49th level, to be exact, and if we
dropped one more level we would have been
beyond redemption. This is a particularly
difficult statement. How can anything be
impossible for Hashem? Surely, even after
dropping to the 50th level, Hashem could
still save us? The answer is yes, Hashem is
without limits and could definitely have
saved us from Mitzrayim, but it would not
have been a redemption; it would have had
to have been an entirely new birth of the nation. A redemption, or geula, is where we retain the basic essence with which we went
into the galus, and despite getting affected
from our surroundings, we retain a seed inside of ourselves from which the redemption
can sprout. If we had been allowed to drop
further into the filth of Mitzrayim, we could
have been saved, but it would have been at
the cost of losing all of the special seeds that
our forefathers had planted within us.
But this chipazon also achieved something else, which has a profound bearing on
all of our service of Hashem. The haste of
our exodus meant we were to experience
something that was far beyond what we deserved, surpassing what we could have
achieved by ourselves. We were stuck in
this 49th level and time was running out
for us, so Hashem gave us this very special
gift of Yetzias Miztrayim, leaving Egypt.
PHOTOGRAPH: BIGSTOCKPHOTO.COM
THE EXODUS