Taamei Hamitzvos - Bittersweet Maror
Reasons Behind the Mitzvos
By Rabbi Shmuel Kraines
“Study improves the quality of the act and completes it, and a mitzvah is more beautiful when it emerges from someone who understands its significance.” (Meiri, Bava Kama 17a)
Bittersweet Maror
As the Haggadah explains, eating the bitter maror recalls how the Egyptians embittered the lives of our ancestors through extreme slavery. We dip the maror in charoses, which resembles the straw and cement that our ancestors had to produce into bricks. Sforno notes that the slavery only started once our ancestors assimilated with the Egyptians and adopted their idolatrous beliefs. Thus, the eating of maror and charoses inspires us to thank Hashem for redeeming us from bitter slavery, and also reminds us to avoid sin so that we will not have to endure further bitterness (see also Torah Temimah to Eichah 3:15).
There is another view among the Sages that dipping the maror into charoses is only a practical measure to weaken its potentially dangerous sharpness (see Pesachim 116a). Based on this, we may suggest that dipping the maror in charoses symbolizes three ways Hashem lessened the bitterness of our slavery. Firstly, the Sages teach that we were meant to remain in Egypt for another 190 years, but were released early because of the difficulty of the slavery. He “raised the gears” just before the Exodus by causing Pharaoh to decree that the Jewish people would also have to gather the raw materials of the bricks. Secondly, the charoses contains almonds (shaked) to symbolize how Hashem hurried (shakad; see Yirmiyah 1:12) to redeem the Jewish people before the designated time (Rabbeinu Eliyahu to Pesachim 116a). Had we remained in Egypt any longer, we would have descended to the fiftieth level of impurity from which there would be no return. Thirdly, the charoses contains apples, which symbolize the apple trees under which our ancestresses gave birth in Egypt (Pesachim ibid.). This, too, alludes to the hastening of the Exodus, because we had to remain in Egypt until we numbered 600,000 so that we would be worthy of the Divine Presence resting upon us, and we reached this number before the designated time in the merit that our ancestors bore many children (Sifsei Kohen). Thus, dipping the maror into the charoses may be interpreted as an allusion to various ways Hashem hastened the redemption and made it possible for us to survive the slavery.
Abarbanel writes that the Pesach offering symbolizes our entering into the service of Hashem, which would require controlling our inner desires for His sake and struggling against yetzer hara. We are therefore commanded to eat the Pesach offering with maror to symbolize that our acceptance of Hashem’s kingship includes this bitter aspect. We should nevertheless accept Hashem's kingship with love; after all, “there is no suffering without sin” (Shabbos 55a), and any bitterness we endure serves to atone for us and to bring out the best in us (see Kli Yakar to Shemos 13:14). We should remind ourselves that since we lived a dismally bitter life under Egyptian rulership, it is only right that we faithfully serve Hashem, Who redeemed us from there, despite any hardship this may sometimes involve. No amount of hardship compares with what we endured every day in Egypt. What is the extent of our loving dedication to Hashem? To death. This may explain why the numerical value of maror is the same as maves, death.
On the esoteric level, Hashem — so to speak — shared in the bitter suffering of His people in Egypt, and maror symbolizes that bitterness as well (Recaniti and Rabbeinu Bechaye). Hashem would keep by His Throne of Glory a brick in which the Egyptians stuffed a Jewish baby when his parents failed to meet the daily quota, as a symbolic reminder of the suffering of His people in which He shared (see Targum Yonasan and Rashi to Shemos 24:10). According to this interpretation, maror reminds us that Hashem always loves us and cares for us, even when this is not apparent.
