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Parshas Bo
Chapter 12, Verses 9, 10 & 45
"And you should not eat it after it is cooked in water, only roasted over fire, its head with its
legs and insides" "And you should not leave any of the meat over until the morning..."
"It should be eaten in one house....and you should not break any of its bones."
The Almighty commands Moshe to tell the Jewish people that on the night of Pesach they are to eat
a lamb that has been roasted over fire, not leave any of it until the morning, and not break any of its
bones. Why all of these restrictions?
The Sefer HaChinuch explains that the Jewish people were going to be set free that night; they
would certainly feel the magnificence and joy of freedom, but what about subsequent generations?
That is where these mitzvos come in. Roasted meat is usually eaten by wealthier people; the
poorer people would boil their meat. Noblemen would also not eat leftovers nor would they break
apart the bones to eat the marrow. Acting like free, noblemen would help later generations feel what
their ancestors felt. We were also told to eat matzos to remember the haste in which G-d took us
out from Egypt. We had to bake it quickly before we left, without enough time for our dough to rise.
And we were also prohibited from eating chometz, any leavened product, during Pesach. We were
further commanded to eat marror to remember the bitterness of the exile and oppression.
One could ask why G-d commanded us to do so many actions. Would we not able to simply
remember that we were set free, that we left in a hurry, that our slavery was bitter, and that G-d
redeemed us? The Sefer HaChinuch tells us that a person is affected by what he does; not by what
he thinks and feels, but by what he does. One's thoughts and feelings are formed and shaped by his
behaviors. This is what our sages are teaching us in their statement that "G-d wanted to give merit
to the Jewish people and therefore gave them a lot of Torah and mitzvos". Even an evil person can
become righteous if he engages in righteous behaviors, and the opposite also holds true. Doing
mitzvos has a direct influence on our thoughts and feelings, and are meant to purify and refine our
raw nature.
People who complain that they are no longer in love with their spouse often fail to realize that "love"
is also a verb. If they would push themselves to take actions of love towards their spouse, they
might discover that they feel closer and more attracted to them. Rav Eliyahu Dessler writes
extensively about this and says that the more we give of ourselves to another in a healthy way, the
more we will come to love that person. In fact, the word for love in Hebrew is “Ahava.” Its root is
“Hav,” which means “give” in Aramaic.
Another reason why we are commanded to do so many mitzvos is because that is how we transmit
Jewish values and ideas to the next generation. It is hard to transmit mere thoughts and feelings, in
a vacuum without context, but when they are packaged in the medium of deeds and practices, these
thoughts and feelings can take root. Every subsequent time that the deed is done, the feelings and
thoughts behind it are experienced again. This ensures that our children and grandchildren gain that
deep commitment to and love of Judaism that we so desire.
Naturally, there is the risk of actions becoming mechanical such that we forget the thoughts and
feelings that the behaviors are supposed to engender. But it just requires us to be more mindful and
to allocate time during the day to focus and think about the behaviors we're doing and why we're
doing them. Studying the Jewish body of thought called “Mussar” is an excellent way to inject
meaning and enthusiasm into our daily actions.
We can see this principle operating again by looking at another of the reasons that G-d commanded
the Jewish people to roast the lamb and not cook it. The Egyptians believed that the lamb was a
deity, and this belief had become ingrained in many of the Jews during their sojourn there. To
eradicate this erroneous belief, G-d told them to slaughter this "deity," and to roast it over fire, as to
burn it, as opposed to the milder form of cooking in water. To make a greater impact upon them,
they were also commanded to roast the entire animal whole. In addition, G-d told them to take the
animals four days before they were to slaughter them for the Pesach offering, in order that they have
time to reflect upon what would happen to the lamb and absorb the fact of its utter powerlessness
before the might and will of G-d.
We could ponder, however, why was all this necessary? Hadn't the Jews just seen nine plagues
that miraculously afflicted only the Egyptians and not them? Wouldn't this be enough to uproot their
mistaken belief in the sheep deity? Amazingly, it would not have been enough. They had to perform
the physical actions described above in order to concretize and actualize their detachment from this
"deity." Again, we see that this principle - "external actions profoundly shape the internal world of
thoughts and feelings" - is axiomatic in Judaism.
Judaism has always been about doing. From our very beginnings, the moment a Jew wakes up until
he goes to sleep, he is shaped by Jewish actions rooted in G-d's mitzvos; whether it's in daily prayer,
in saying brachos before and after eating, in studying Torah, doing acts of kindness, giving charity,
keeping Shabbos, or any of the other 613 mitzvos in the Torah, the Jew was, and continues to be,
molded and nursed by the warmth and holiness of these actions.
Have a Good Shabbos!