{"id":28085,"date":"2009-03-24T19:27:49","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/holidays\/passover\/rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community\/"},"modified":"2020-09-08T11:57:31","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T11:57:31","slug":"rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seder: Birth of the Chesed Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/The-Seder-Night-An-Exalted-Evening-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-post-28085 wp-image-40711 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/The-Seder-Night-An-Exalted-Evening-1-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Seder Night An Exalted Evening\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/The-Seder-Night-An-Exalted-Evening-1-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/The-Seder-Night-An-Exalted-Evening-1-681x1024.jpg 681w, https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/The-Seder-Night-An-Exalted-Evening-1.jpg 702w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p><em>Based on a commentary in the new <a href=\"https:\/\/oupress.org\/product\/seder-night-exalted-evening\/\">Haggadah, The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening<\/a>, with the commentary of \u201cthe Rav\u201d, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik . Compiled by Rabbi Simon Posner.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The birth of the <em>chesed<\/em> community \u2013 of a nation within which people unite, care for each other, share what they possess\u2014is symbolized by the <em>korban Pesach<\/em>, the paschal sacrifice. God did not need the <em>korban Pesach<\/em>; He had no interest in the sacrifice. He simply wanted the people\u2014slaves who had just come out of the house of bondage\u2014to emerge from their isolation into the <em>chesed<\/em> community, where the little that man has is too much for himself, where whatever he possesses transcends his ability to enjoy. At the original <em>korban Pesach<\/em> in Egypt, God commanded that each household take a lamb for its <em>korban<\/em>, but if there was too much for the household to eat, they were to invite their neighbor to share with them (Shemot 12: 3-4).<\/p>\n<p>A new fellowship was formed around the <em>korban Pesach<\/em>; a new community sprang into existence. Being together, living with each other, sharing something many possess in common was made possible by the ceremony of the <em>korban Pesach<\/em>. The slave suddenly realized that the little he has saved up for himself, a single lamb, is too much for him. The slave spontaneously does something which he would never have believed that he was capable of doing &#8212; he knocks on the door of his neighbor whom he had never noticed, inviting him to share the lamb with him and to eat together. The <em>chesed<\/em> community is born.<\/p>\n<p>If the <em>korban Pesach<\/em> symbolizes the creation of the chesed community at the time of the Exodus, the Rav sees the recitation of <em>Ha Lachma Anya<\/em> as symbolizing the manifestation of Jewish solidarity throughout Jewish history. Though the two invitations we issue might initially seem redundant\u2014\u201cLet all who are hungry enter and eat; let all who are in need come and celebrate the Passover\u201d\u2014 in reality they are not. Whoever is in need of bread, <em>dichfin<\/em>, is hungry. <em>Kol ditzrich<\/em> refers to a different kind of need &#8212; one who is alone, who has a lot of <em>matzah<\/em> and wine but no home or family. The invitation to \u201call who are in need\u201d is not to eat with us; rather, it is to spend the <em>Pesach<\/em> with us, <em>yeitei ve-yifsach<\/em>, to celebrate with us. It is an invitation addressed to unfortunate and lonely people, even though they may be millionaires. Whoever is in need should come and celebrate.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ha Lachma Anya<\/em> is the renewal of a pledge of solidarity among the Jewish people\u2014solidarity between individual and individual, and between the individual and the Jewish community as a whole. It is a proclamation that we are one people, and we are ready to help each other. <em>Pesach<\/em> night is a time of sharing; without manifesting and demonstrating the sense of solidarity, responsibility, unity and readiness to share and to participate, the whole <em>Seder<\/em> becomes meaningless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Based on a commentary in the new Haggadah, The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening, with the commentary of \u201cthe Rav\u201d, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik . Compiled by Rabbi Simon Posner. The birth of the chesed community \u2013 of a nation within which people unite, care for each other, share what they possess\u2014is symbolized by the korban [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":884,"featured_media":40710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[350],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-passover"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Seder: Birth of the Chesed Community - Jewish Holidays<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The korban Pesach, and by extension &quot;Ha Lachma Anya&quot; remind us that Pesach is when what the Rav calls &quot;The Chesed Community&quot; was born.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Seder: Birth of the Chesed Community - Jewish Holidays\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The korban Pesach, and by extension &quot;Ha Lachma Anya&quot; remind us that Pesach is when what the Rav calls &quot;The Chesed Community&quot; was born.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jewish Holidays\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OrthodoxUnion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"1970-01-01T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-09-08T11:57:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/holidays\/files\/The-Seder-Night-An-Exalted-Evening-e1471546427309.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"702\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"469\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rav Joseph B. 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