I heard a story about the late Rabbi Yehudah Amital zt'l, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Har Etzion - Gush Etzion. An American studying at the yeshiva was invited to the Rosh Yeshiva's seder. You can imagine the preparations he made. He studied every commentary on the hagaddah, so he  would be prepared for the Seder. He arrived and Rabbi Amital sat at the table with his grandchildren. He placed a triangular party hat on his head, secured with the ubiquitous elastic around his chin, as one would do at the birthday party for a 2 year old. He then smiled and began  singing in Hebrew Yom Huledet Sameyach... l'Am Yisrael (Happy Birthday to you... Happy Birthday dear people of Israel...). The lesson of the seder was not lost on its American guests. 

But don't make the mistake that the songs at the end of the Seder are not just to keep the children awake. They have already received their Afikoman gifts and probably should be sleeping. Those songs are powerful tools for us to help us focus on our relationship with the Almighty. Don’t underestimate one little Kid and Who Knows One!

There is a Mishnah in Shabbat (pp. 54a) which states that an animal may not go out into the public domain not akud or ragul. The Talmud immediately asks what these terms means and explains.

"אמר רבי יהודה, עקוד- עקידת יד ורגל כיצחק בן אברהם. רגול? שלא יכוף ידו על גבי זרועו ויקשור.

Akud means that its legs are bound, are literally chained together so that it may not run away. Ragul sounds even worse. It implies bending the upper forleg to the lower forleg, so it can’t move.

The Korban Pesach, which we did not sacrifice yesterday in Jerusalem, nonetheless must be prepared in a specific way. The Chumash tells us:

"אל תאכלו ממנו נא ובשל מבשל במים כי אם צלי אש ראשו על כרעיו ועל קרבו" (שמות י"ב:ט)

“Do not eat of it undone or cooked in water; but only roasted by fire – its head with its legs, with its innards”(Shmos 12:9).

Maimonides rules that the paschal offering was basically barbecued on a spit being heated evenly. The spit could not be made of metal, because the metal may have heated the meat, not the fire, or the roasting process. The animal was hung on the spit with its legs hanging down.

The description of Akeidas Yitzchak is a bit similar. The word akud, as referenced in the Mishnah above, means bound by the hands and legs, or the front legs and the back legs.

Rashi makes the following comment in the context of the Akeidah of Yitzchak.

"ויעקד – ידיו ורגליו מאחוריו. הידים והרגלים ביחד, היא עקידה והוא לשון עקודים שהיו קרסליהם לבנים – מקום שעוקדים אותו בו היה נכר" (בראשית כ"ב:ט)

Yitzchak’s hands and feet were bound behind him. The tying of the hands and the feet together is called binding. It is related to the word ‘akudim’ (Bereshis 30:39) or ringed ones. The ringed goats are referred to by a term connoting binding for their ankles were white; the place where people would normally bind it, was noticeable, ie it was a different color than the rest of the goat (Bereshis 22:9)

Rashi tells us that Yitzchak’s hands and legs were bound behind him. He also references the story later on with Yitzchak’s future son Yaakov and future brother in law Lavan (whom Yitzchak may never have actually met). Yaakov seeks to receive remuneration for his hard work – his indentured servitude if you will – and seeks to leave Charan with a decent amount of reparations. Why does Rashi need to reference this story many years in the future and why do we need to know the details of how Yitzchak was bound?

I believe the answer to these questions will help us understand a fundamental notion taught by the Korban Pesach and for this season in general.

Our tradition refers to the tenth test of Avraham, which was also a test of 37 year old Yitzchak as the akeidah, the binding. Wouldn’t it make more sense to call it “The almost sacrifice” or the attempted sacrifice?” Why do we focus on the binding?

Here is the account from the Midrash Pirkei d’Rebbe Eliezer:

"אמר יצחק לאברהם אביו, אבי, קשרני וקשר שתי ידי ושתי רגלי בשביל פשיעותא ואמצא מחלל 'כבד את אביך'. קשר שתי ידיו ורגליו ועקדו על גבי המזבח, והעריך את האש ואת העצים והעריך אותו עליהם, ונתן רגלו עליו כדרך שאדם עושה בשעה ששוחט את הבהמה, כדי שלא תבעט..."

“Yitzchak said to Avraham his father, “Father, tie me and tie my two hands and my two feet so there will not be any flinching and I will be defiling the command to honor my father.” Avraham tied his two legs and two hands and bound him to the altar. He prepared the fire and the wood and placed him on them. He placed his feet upon it similar to a man about to slaughter an animal – so it would not move.”

Binding is connected to mesirus nefesh, to living our lives for HASHEM. The tenth test of Avraham should indeed by called the Akeidah, because the binding, at least according to this version, came from Yitzchak, to aid him in his father’s mission. There’s nothing in the text that contradicts this Midrashic suggestion. Yitzchak saw it as a way to help fulfill the Divine will. To try to make some sense out of something senseless, but accepting the yoke of heaven upon oneself.

This same idea of being offered feet and legs together is used to describe the Korban Pesach. This too took great spiritual strength by the Jews in Egypt. They needed to take the god of Egypt, slaughter it and put it on a spit roasting on the fire for dinner. Yitzchak needed to experience this high level of sacrifice. His life became a testament to this event on Mount Moriah. Yitzchak’s identity became that of an olah temimah, a pure offering. He devoted his life to remaining pure and focusing on building his relationship with the Almighty.

Prior to marching forward in liberty, the freed Jewish slaves needed to prove their fealty to Hashem andakeidah was again invoked, although not on their own persons and bodies.

Yaakov had to do the same. He ran away from his home because he listened to his mother’s advice to dress up like Esav and receive the blessings of the firstborn from his father whose sight was compromised. He then gets cheated by his father-in-law and needs to work even harder to win the marriage of his beloved Rachel. As he takes leave, instead of grabbing what he could and running, he makes a deal for remuneration. HASHEM rewards him for his scrupulous honesty and he attains great flocks. But Chazal link the term Akeidah to the story of Yaakov, both in the comments of Rashi on the word akeidah and in the Mishnah centuries prior to Rashi explaining that the rings were a result of binding, of akeidah.

I think we often forget this aspect of Pesach, that of faith. The Talmud relates that the news of Yitzchak’s birth came on Pesach. Others say he was born on Pesach! It’s a yomtov associated with him and his faith. The Zohar describes matzah as lachma diminehimnusa, the bread of faith.

I recently had the opportunity to read notes from last year’s Shabbas Hagadol talk by Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, the rabbi and spiritual leader of the Aish Kodesh shul in Woodmere. He spoke about how on Pesach when we eat,”the “bread of emunah”, we internalize our connection with our Father. He noted that on Pesach we ask, “Who knows One?” and we answer “I know One. I know the One who spoke and brought the world into being.”

When we eat the bread of emunah, we are like that child who possesses an innate knowledge of his father “who was acquired by Father for two Zuzim,” -- with the two tablets on Sinai. 

He tells a story that Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev’s father in law was not happy that he was spending significant time traveling to Mezrich to study with the Magid.  He expected him to devote all of his time to studying Torah in Berditchev.  After one particularly long visit to Mezrich, he asked Rav Levi Yitzchak, “So what did you learn over all that time in Mezrich?”  Rav Levi Yitzchak answered him that “I learned that there is a G-d.”

Unimpressed, his father in law called over the maid servant and asked her, “Do you believe in G-d?”  She answered that of course, yes, she believes in G-d.  After dismissing her, he said to Rav Levi Yitzchak, “You see, even a maid servant believes there is a G-d.  I do not understand why you had to spend so much time in Mezrich to learn this.”

But Rav Levi Yitzchak answered him, “She says that there is a G-d. But I know there is a G-d.”

So let’s revel in Yitzchak. He gave the blessing of dew, and today we are about to recite the prayer for dew. He spent his life preaching the gospel of mesirus nefesh, and that theme plays throughout Pesach.

At the seder Rabbi Eliezer ben Azarya notes that he never understood why we recite the third paragraph of Shma in the evening, when we do not have the mitzvah of tzitzis. He thanks Ben Zoma for teaching him that we must remember the exodus in the daily morning and evening prayers.

But Rabbi Eliezer ben Azarya did not ask why we recite the first paragraph of the Shma? We like to focus on the third paragraph, but let’s not forget the first paragraph, with its six word declaration that has been the code of the Jew for millenia.

There is a tradition that we do not say Shma at bed-time on Pesach because the Torah describes it as leil shimurim, a night of protection. Maybe an additional reason for the custom is that we should not need it; the notion of faith is inculcated in us with the allusions to akeidah, and the talk of future redemption. And we didn’t just mention the exodus; we analyzed it and truly relived it. May we merit to relive it time and time again; that alone will bring us closer to our Father so that we will at the end of the seder be able to declare that I know One!!!