[Avodah] Sifsei Chaim: How to fulfill sipur yetzias Mitzrayim

[Yitzchak Schaffer]

How to fulfill the mitzvah of Sipur Yetzi’as Mitzrayim
Rabbi Chaim Friedlander
Published in Sifsei Chaim, Mo‘adim, vol. 2
Translated by Yitzchak Schaffer

As the festival of Pesach approaches, we find ourselves engaged in many 
preparations to greet it, particularly destroying chametz and baking 
matzos. The mitzvah of sipur yetzi’as Mitzrayim, recounting the Exodus 
from Egypt, requires just as much preparation, as it is a mitzvah whose 
goal is heartfelt feeling. It often happens, however, that we do not pay 
it enough attention. Even many who see to it that they delve into the 
Haggadah and its commentaries do not do so in the proper way. They 
principally prepare pilpulim and diyukim, keen inferences, on the text 
of the Haggadah—for example, whether the correct reading is “הא לחמא 
עניא” or “כהא לחמא עניא,” and the like.

Similarly, when they prepare expositions of the content of the Haggadah, 
it is very common to go on at length about the passages at the beginning 
of the Haggadah, which are only an introduction to the sipur itself. 
These are there to explain the parameters of the mitzvah, such as, 
“אפילו כלנו חכמים, even if we were all chachamim, wise ... it would be a 
mitzvah for us to recount ... and whoever increases the recounting ... 
and they recounted ... all that night;” and the manner of the obligation 
of recounting—to the four sons; and its proper time—“one might think 
from Rosh Chodesh.” But when they reach the the essential story with the 
passage of “Arami oved avi, a wandering Aramean,” they speed through so 
that they will have enough time to complete the night’s mitzvos before 
chatzos—and it is here that we find the mitzvah to prolong, and not 
regarding the opening sections. As the Rambam writes: “... one should 
expound from ‘Arami oved avi’ until he completes the entire section, and 
whoever adds in and draws out the explanations of this passage is 
praiseworthy” (Chametz and Matzah 7:4).

The cause of this incorrect approach and slackening in the fulfillment 
of the mitzvah of sipur is the fact that they do not know the defining 
characteristics of the mitzvah. In order to rectify this, we will need 
to get to know these characteristics: the essence of the mitzvah, and 
its shiur (required quantity).

Continued at
http://yitznewton.org/torah/sipur_yetzias_mitzrayim.html

-- 
Yitzchak Schaffer
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