{"id":12541,"date":"2009-03-24T19:27:49","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T19:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community\/"},"modified":"2017-06-05T02:18:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T07:18:07","slug":"rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/torah\/rav_haggada_seder_birth_of_chesed_community\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seder: Birth of the Chesed Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Based on a commentary in the new Haggadah, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/oupress\/product\/the-seder-night-exalted-evening-2\/\">The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening<\/a>, with the commentary of \u201cthe Rav\u201d, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik . Compiled by Rabbi Simon Posner. <\/i><\/p>\n<p>The birth of the <i>chesed<\/i> community \u2013 of a nation within which people unite, care for each other, share what they possess\u2014is symbolized by the <i>korban Pesach<\/i>, the paschal sacrifice. God did not need the <i>korban Pesach<\/i>; 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 <i>chesed<\/i> community, where the little that man has is too much for himself, where whatever he possesses transcends his ability to enjoy. At the original <i>korban Pesach<\/i> in Egypt, God commanded that each household take a lamb for its <i>korban<\/i>, 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 <i>korban Pesach<\/i>; 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 <i>korban Pesach<\/i>. 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 <i>chesed<\/i> community is born.<\/p>\n<p>If the <i>korban Pesach<\/i> symbolizes the creation of the chesed community at the time of the Exodus, the Rav sees the recitation of <i>Ha Lachma Anya<\/i> 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, <i>dichfin<\/i>, is hungry. <i>Kol ditzrich<\/i> refers to a different kind of need &#8212; one who is alone, who has a lot of <i>matzah<\/i> 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 <i>Pesach<\/i> with us, <i>yeitei ve-yifsach<\/i>, 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><i>Ha Lachma Anya<\/i> 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. <i>Pesach<\/i> 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 <i>Seder<\/i> 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":45256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pesach","category-torah"],"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<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Being together, living with each other, sharing something many possess in common was made possible by the ceremony of the korban Pesach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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