מתחיל בגנות ומסיים בשבח, ודורש מארמי אובד אבי עד שיגמור כל הפרשה כלה.

One commences with shame and concludes with praise and then expounds on the verses [in the section] “My father was a lost Aramean” until one completes that section.

Mishna, Pesachim 10:4

According to the Mishnah, the centerpiece of the Pesach Seder is the homiletic interpretation of Mikra Bikkurim — the Arami Oved Avi passage in Sefer Devarim — which is to be expounded in its entirety. As is well-known, current practice is to recite each one of those verses, and then divide them into clauses that are supported — kemo she-ne’emar — by other biblical verses, most of them from the first chapters of Sefer Shemot, where the Exodus story is first narrated.

The question that presents itself is obvious. Why choose the passage in Devarim to tell the story, if the ultimate goal is to return to the verses in Sefer Shemot? Surely examining the original story of the Exodus would serve as a better source for discussion and interpretation.

Many answers have been offered to this question.1 I would like to suggest that a close reading of God’s promise of redemption in Sefer Shemot may offer insight into the need for an alternative text to be read and discussed at the Seder.

As is well known, the four expressions of redemption that appear in Parashat Va’era serve as the catalyst for a number of traditions at the Seder. The first three — ve-hotzeiti, ve-hitzalti, ve-ga’alti [I will free you... I will deliver you ... I will redeem you] — all refer to the promise of the Exodus from Egypt. The fourth — ve-lakahti [I will take you to be My people] — relates to the promise of becoming a chosen people.

Nachmanides heads a list of commentaries that point out that there is a fifth expression of redemption — ve-heveiti [I will bring you] — which offers a vision for the day after the Exodus. It is not enough to leave Egypt; the Children of Israel need a place to go. That place is the land that had been promised to the Patriarchs. It is important to note that ve-heveiti is only the beginning of that vision. The verse concludes with ve-natati [I will give it to you], a promise that the Children of Israel will not only be brought to the Land of Israel, but that they will inherit it as their own.

These two words hava’a and netina — bringing and giving — are repeated over and over again in Mikra Bikkurim, serving as a leitmotif in that section. Thus, the advantage of using the passage in Sefer Devarim is that it includes a part of the promise of the Exodus that does not — indeed, it cannot — appear in Sefer Shemot. Had the Seder been organized around the story of the Exodus in Sefer Shemot, an essential part of the promise would be omitted — the vision of how the Exodus from Egypt is complete only when the Children of Israel enter and take hold of the Land of Israel.

This explanation, which is based on clear language parallels, has one obvious problem.

Traditional practice at the Seder is to omit the element of entering the Land of Israel by neglecting to recite the final three verses of Mikra Bikkurim. Although this is the text that appears in all current Haggadot, we must recognize that this ignores the clear statement of the Mishnah, and of the halakhah as it appears in the Rambam and elsewhere. All of these sources require that the passage of Arami Oved Avi be interpreted in its entirety (ad she-yigmor et kol ha-parasha). It seems likely that when the korban Pesach was brought in the Temple, the story of the Exodus reached its crescendo with the proclamation in verse 9:

וַיְבִאֵנוּ אֶל הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וַיִּתֶּן לָנוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ.

And He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 

Only in the Diaspora was this verse omitted, because “he who speaks untruth shall not stand before my eyes” (Psalms 101:7).

While we have not yet merited to offer the korban Pesach in our day, recognizing the miracles of our generation, perhaps it is time to fulfill the commandment of the Mishnah, and complete our interpretation of the passage of Arami Oved Avi in its entirety.2

Endnotes

1 For example, the first-person account of Mikra Bikkurim may better fulfill the requirement to experience the redemption through the activities of the Seder. In his haggadah, Daniel Goldschmidt suggests that in order to accommodate a religious ceremony that took place at home, the Talmudic sages needed to find a text with which the head of the household would be familiar. In an agricultural society, Mikra Bikkurim served that purpose well.

2 My colleague, David Mescheloff, has compiled a collection of midrashim on verse 9. They can be accessed at  http://www.lookstein.org/resources/hagada1.pdf.