[Avodah] The night of Makas Bechoros

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 07:05:47AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: I have distilled my problem down to two simple and direct questions about
: the dough mentioned in the above pasuk:
: 1) When was that dough made?
: 2) When was that dough baked?

We are talking about 600,000 or so homes. I assume there are a range
of answers. And when the Torah says they didn't have time for it to become
chameitz, it means that in many or most of those homes... enough that the
haste came to characterize how we left.

Just trying to aid the imagination by three-dimensionalizing the peopl
involved.

: We were forbidden to leave our homes until morning, and it is totally
: irrelevant to me whether you prefer to define "morning" as Alos or as
: Hanetz. Either way, there way plenty of time from when Par'oh and the
: Mitzrim went shouting in the streets, "Get out!" until we were able to
: leave our homes. I estimate that we had several hours to prepare food for
: the trip...

Already in this discussion it was raised that in Shemos we're told we left
"be'etzem hayom". And yet, in yesterday's leining, we're told "hotziakha
H' E-lokekha loylah" (Devarim 16:1) Rashi ad loc (based on Sifrei Devarim
128:5, Barakhos 9a) says that we got permission from Par'oh at night
(Shemos 12:31). So there was, as you write, PLENTY of warning.

But they also had get their neighbors' valutables, pack, get the animals
in hand, find Yanky's favorite bottle, figure out who was getting
custody of those kids wandering around that neighborhood that choshekh
obliterated...

So, little things like what to pack for lunch was rushed, and in most
cases, that meant they were left with matzah. (Despite likely promising
themselves that if they ever got out of Egypt, they would never eat
lechem oni again!)

Your 1 mil assumption, BTW, might come from the matzah of the seder
they were commanded to make, and that this matzah was not necessarily
KLP.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The waste of time is the most extravagant
micha at aishdas.org        of all expense.
http://www.aishdas.org                           -Theophrastus
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