“Seeds of Eternity” Rabbi Reuven Subar
taken from www.ohr.edu
Many people observe the Pesach Seder. This is so, regardless of their affiliation or observance of other mitzvos. Jews who build no Sukkah, who don’t know when Shavuos is, faithfully assemble year after year to tell about the going out of Egypt. Recounting the Exodus is a mitzvah deeply rooted in the consciousness of even the ‘least’ conscientious Jew. Why?
The answer lies in the very first Pesach seder in history.
After a full year in the desert, the Jewish People celebrated the Pesach festival. They offered the Pascal lamb and ate matzah and maror. But when it came time to tell the Pesach story, whom did they tell? To whom did they recount the acts, the wonders, the Strong Hand and Outstretched Arm? Everybody was there! Everyone saw it with their own eyes! Even babies in their mothers’ womb reached prophetic awareness during the splitting of the Red Sea!
Only one person – Moshe Rabbeinu – had children who did not personally experience the going out of Egypt. Moshe’s children, Gershom and Eliezer, were in Midian at the time of the Exodus. Moshe, therefore, was the first person in history to pass on the Pesach tradition to children who didn’t know about it first-hand. He was the first to plant the seed of redemption in the heart a new generation.
Moshe Rabbeinu excelled in the ability to imbue his actions with lasting significance. With his ‘golden touch,’ he impacted eternity with every undertaking. He led us out of Egypt, never again to become a slave nation. The Torah he taught us echoes across eons. And had Moshe been the one to lead us into the Land of Israel, we never would have been exiled from it.
Because Moshe Rabbeinu inaugurated ‘Sippur Yetzias Mitzrayim’ – the telling of the going out of Egypt – it remains a mitzvah forever rooted in the hearts of the entire Jewish People.