Maggid: Torah Study, Confession, and Sixteen Words: God's Sword

Maggid: Torah Study, Confession, and

Sixteen Words: God's Sword

מגיד ובמה מקיים חציה לד' בלימוד התורה ולזאת מרמז הסימן בתיבת מגיד ע''י לימוד התורה. עוד מרמז מגיד שבעל תשובה צריך ג"כ וודוי פה.

מן קדש עד נרצה המה ט"ז תיבות ובהם נכלל כל סידור הפסח לרמז כנגד חרבו של הקב"ה שנקרא יוה"ך ובו הכה המצריים עד שגאלנו בזמן הזה בלילה הזה וע''ז תפקו בקימנים אלו הט''ז תיבת ולזאת הכוונה המכהג ג"כ לזרוק מעט מן המק ט"ז פעמים כנגד הנ"ל ירד פעמים להעשרה מכות ועוד ג' פעמים לדלך עדש באחב ועוד ג' פעמים לדם ואש ותמתת עשן:

מגיד ומרמז ג"כ דבר והיפוכה שעבוד וחירות ותקנו הן פסקא לשון ארמי' בבבל להתחיל בגנות במצרים אכלו לחם עוני כמו שכהב הר"י אברבנאל המצריים היו מאכילין את ישראל לחם הקלוקל לחם גרוע וקשה שהיא כבד קשה לאכול ממאכל בעלי עבודה קשה. ומהאי טעמא מגיד על הפרוסה כי כן דרכו של עני בפרוסה והיא לזכרון שעבוד וגנות אכן לבסוף מסיים בחירות ושבח לשנה הבאה בני חורין:

Translation:

Maggid: We devote the first part of the Seder to God through the study of Torah. Maggid refers to the study of Torah. Maggid also means to confession. The Baal Teshuvah must make a verbal confession.

From Kadesh to Nirtzah (the order of the Seder) there are sixteen words which together allude to Yohakh, the sword of the Holy One.[1] God smote the Egypt with it until the Egyptians allowed the Israelites to go free. It is for this reason that we toss sixteen drops of wine from our cup when we recite the ten plagues, the plague acrostic (D'zakh Adash Ba'achav), and the three expressions dam va-esh v'timrot ashan.

Maggid refers to each symbol and its opposite. The sages decreed that the opening passage should be in Aramaic, the language of Babylonia, so that we begin with disgrace. Abarbanel wrote that the Egyptians fed Israel this unappetizing bread which is hard to swallow and digest. We begin by referring to a piece of matzah - since it is the way of the needy to only keep out a piece of bread. It is a reminder of servitude and disgrace. But one ends by saying,  "Next year may we be free."

Interpretation

Rabbi Bondi offers two ways of reading Maggid. The first is Torah study and the second, confession. For the sages studying Torah was a kind of prayer - it is a devotional act through which we praise God by seeking to understand God's revelation. The intellect and the heart are directly connected to one another. The second interpretation of Maggid is "confession."  This is part of the spiritual process of repentance which begins preparatory (Kaddesh), continues with purification (Rechatz and Karpas) and then rejoicing in the presence of God (Yahatz). We are now prepared to offer confession (Maggid), part of the process of return to God. Maggid as confession is not as strange as it might seem, at first. In Deuteronomy 26, which is the basis of the Maggid, the passage is introduced:  "I acknowledge (higaditi) this day before the Lord your God that I have entered the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to assign to us." (Deut 26:3) Higaditi comes from the same root as Haggadah. It is a kind of confession or affirmation of faith. By reciting the Haggadah we are confirming our  connection to God and our historic roots as a nation.

The "order of the Seder" also alludes to a deeper mystical meaning. The sixteen words that make up the poem "Kaddesh U'Rechatz…" are associated with the sixteen times that we place our finger and remove wine from our cup later on and the mysterious name of God, Yohakh (see the foot note below). There are other references to God's sword later in the Seder.  

Finally, Maggid begins with a theme that appears throughout the Seder: each object or symbol at the Seder represents an idea and its opposite: slavery and freedom, bitterness and hope, etc. In the opening words of the Seder we begin by holding up the matzah and referring to it as a poor person's bread or slave's food but we end by saying, "Next year we will be free." We are supposed to see both darkness and hope in all things on this night.

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[1]  Yohakh is the name given by Kabbalists to the avenging angel sent by God to mete just out. The word is a combination of Yo (yud and vav equal sixteen) and hakh which means to smite. Some scholars claim that the association of Yohakh and the practice of tossing wine from ones wine cup  goes back to the tenth or eleventh century CE. The finger was a symbol of the 'avenging sword.' Early Germans scholars understood this as a reference to a sixteen sided sword which is referred to in Sefer Heikhalot, one of the early Kabbalistic works. The use of the finger was reminiscent of Exodus 8:15 which refers to the finger of God - the Egyptian magicians acknowledge God's power and punishment as a sign of the 'finger of God.' (See My People's Haggadah Volume 2, page 58.) This idea is referenced by Issereles (R'ma) and Gumbiner (Magen Avraham), two important commentators on the Shulchan Aruch.