16 Apr PESACH: THE SWEETEST LETTUCE IS THE BITTEREST LIFE-CHANGING SEDER GEMS #2

Not the Cookie
Cutter Model
“The Torah speaks of
four children: One is
wise, one is rebellious,
one is simple and one
does not know how to
ask.”—Haggadah
This simple, brief passage of the Haggadah
contains profound pedagogical insight. To begin
with, three critical points are being conveyed:
#1: No two children are alike and no two
children can be spoken to alike. We sometimes
want to create a “cookie cutter” model, where
one size fits all. 3,000 years ago the Torah told us
it will not work. The message you give one child
is not the one you can give to a second child.
There are different types of children—with
different personality types, skills, challenges,
and gifts. You must find the proper words to
speak to each one; you must discover the proper
mechanisms through which to penetrate each
one of them.
#2: Despite these four being so different they
are all your children. Never give up on any of
them, or tell yourself that this one is too difficult
for me to deal with. All four are your children.
They may differ in so many ways, but what
unites them is that they are your children. You
must and can be here for each of them. You have
the power to touch each of them and to make
their souls shine.
#3: The Torah speaks to each of the four
children. Do not think that the Torah is a general
document that works for many or most children,
but there are some outcasts, misfits, to whom the
Torah does not relate. That is never the case. The
Torah speaks to every child. Judaism contains
truths that can be related to every single child.
We must search for the proper words and
approach of how to make the Torah relevant and
palpable to these children. We must discover
how to give them the Torah in a way that they
will appreciate how it speaks to their individual
lives.
Give Me Some Passion
“In the beginning our fathers served idols; and
now G-d has brought us close to His service.”—
Haggadah
Why would we begin this section of the
Haggadah with the observation of how morally
degraded our ancestors were? Besides, which of
our ancestors worshiped idols? Avraham, the
first Jew, our first father, smashed the idols of his
father Terach and embraced Monotheism! True,
it took Avraham some time till he discovered that
the Pagan idols were futile. But why would we
make mention of that at this point?
The answer to this is powerful. The Haggadah
is not simply describing our ugly past. “In the
beginning our fathers served idols; but now G-d
has brought us close to His service.” Rather, the
Haggadah is explaining why indeed G-d brought
us close to His service. “In the beginning our
fathers served idols”—that is why “now G-d has
embraced us.” Had our fathers not worshiped
idols G-d could have never brought us to His
service!

What indeed constituted the difference between
the father Terach and his son Avraham? If
Avraham rationally realized that the statutes of
his father were lifeless, stone images, and that
the universe must have a transcendental designer
and creator, why could his father not understand
the same principle?
The foundations of Judaism do not require
blind faith. They are rational. To assume that a
house was built by a contractor, not as a result of
an avalanche randomly combining the bricks that
built the home, is quite rational. To embrace the
notion that the 40 trillion cells of one human
body, each cell organized with mind-staggering
coherence, skill and order, did not occur
randomly, is not primitive. (And this is only one

body of one human. Now multiply these mind-
blowing structures with every other organism on

our planet!). Similarly, for the Jews standing at
Sinai it was rational to belief that G-d wants them
to observe the Torah.
So here is the question: Why are some people
like Avraham—they will reject the deities of the
time and embrace truth, while others will be like
Terach, and continue to stick to the old,
comfortable irrational notions?
The answer is: “In the beginning our fathers
served idols”—and that is why “now G-d has
brought us close to His service.” Avraham
worshipped idols! That is the key. He took faith
seriously. He craved to know the truth. He was
idealistically searching to discover what is at the
core of life. He served idols with passion and
commitment, believing that they constitute the
answer to life’s deepest questions.
His father Terach was not searching for truth,
only for comfort. The pagan statues provided a
safe business and he would not be disturbed by
questions of truth.
Do you care for truth or not? That makes all the
difference. Our forefathers worshipped idols for
real, they passionately believed this was “it.”
When they found the real G-d they now
channeled their passion toward truth.
But if you are a person who does not worship
anybody or anything, only your needs and
comforts at the moment, then even if you
understand the truth about the universe it makes
little difference. (Rabbi Schneur Zalman of
Liadi.)
The Secret of Romaine Lettuce: Pharaoh,
Hitler and the Frog
What is the proffered ingredient to use for
maror, the bitter herbs?
The Talmud states that one can perform the
mitzvah of eating maror through one of five
vegetables. In the words of the Rambam: “The
bitter herbs referred to by the Torah are Romaine
lettuce, endives, horseradish, date ivy,
wormwood. All of these five species of vegetable
are called maror.”
Yet, as the codes of Jewish law state, the most
preferable item to use is romaine lettuce. It is just
that if one cannot obtain romaine lettuce, then he
can use one of the other types of maror. Many
have a custom to eat both romaine lettuce and
horseradish. But it is the romaine lettuce that
takes precedence.

This is strange. Romaine lettuce is not bitter in
the slightest. We eat lettuce with our salad all
year round, and it is not bitter. If anything it is
quite sweet tasting. So why eat lettuce to
commemorate the bitterness of Egyptian slavery?
And why would the lettuce precede the
horseradish which is visibly bitter?
It is here we can discover the subtlety of many
Jewish laws, and their psychological intricacies.
The answer is provided by the 17th century sage,
Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi (known as the Chacham
Tzvi).
The sweet piece of lettuce is a sneaky little
vegetable. Its nature very closely parallels the
Egyptian slavery experience—and that it why it
is the most preferred item for maror.
Lettuce has a gentle and pleasant taste only
because we pick it when it is young. But leave
the lettuce stalk in the ground for a bit longer,
and it turns bitter and pungent. What starts off
sweet, turns sour in the end.
This was the exact course of events in Egypt.
Pharaoh did not begin enslaving and crushing the
Hebrews conspicuously. It began very slowly,
enlisting them into the task force for pay. (The
term “avodas perech,” crushing labor, is
explained by our sages as “peh rach,” a soft
mouth.) Once he had the Jews working for him
under his domain, once the Jewish defenses were
down, the harsh labor and slavery began. Like
the lettuce stalk, it all seemed sweet at first, but
given some time it turned bitter.
The Frog
I once read of a fascinating scientific
experiment. If you were to place a frog in boiling
water, it would jump out. Its instinct protects
itself automatically from danger. But if you were
to deceive its natural instincts by putting the frog
in cold water, and then slowly warm the water,
the frog will remain in the water and it will, in
fact, boil to death.
That’s the way slavery, oppression, and all other
forms of degradation function. If you throw a
person into a terrible, degrading experience
suddenly they are going to fight it. But if it is
slowly incorporated into them, and it becomes a
habit, then their natural instinct to rebel is dulled.
Pharaoh and Hitler
That was the cleverness of Pharaoh, and the
meaning of his words in the opening of Sefer
Shemos: “havah nischakmah lo,” ‘let us treat the
Jews cleverly.” Pharaoh didn’t just take them and
throw them into ghettos. He didn’t make them
slaves right away, only gradually, little by little,
taking away their rights, and before they realized
it, they had the status of slaves. It became a habit
and they themselves became accustomed to it.
That water was comfortable at first, but slowly
and surely, it began to heat up. Before they knew
it, it was boiling over.
Hitler used the very same tactic to take away
the sense of freedom and independence from the
Jews, and turn them into subhuman objects. The
prescribed program for the Jewish people was
first the Nuremberg Laws, and little by little,
layer by layer, peel by peel, their rights were
removed. Jobs were taken away, identification
badges were required to be worn on garments, no

Jew could run for political office; their status as
honorable law-abiding citizens of Germany no
longer existed. Hitler’s trick was to heat up the
water slowly, so that the Jews would not realize
immediately where he is heading. Gradually the
water became hotter, until before they knew it,
they were slaves to the Nazi regime.
I’d like to believe that had Hitler announced,
upon taking office in 1933, that all the Jews were
going to be burned in ovens, to purify the Aryan
race from Jewish vermin, the Jewish people
would have fought back to stop the horror.
Decay and degradation do not just happen
suddenly. They have a clever way of creeping up
and robbing you of your capacity to fight back.
The instinct of fight or flight is taken away and
like the robber who cuts the wires to the alarm
system before he does his dirty work, so too,
Pharaoh or Hitler, or others, weaken the defenses
of the victims with an insidious, pernicious, step
by step program.
Breakup of the Family
This is true in our personal lives as well.
Couples don’t get divorced in one day. Children
don’t get alienated from parents in one day.
People don’t become alcoholics or other addicts
in one day. Bernie Madoff did not become a
mega-thief in one day. It is a gradual process. We
make small mistakes; we ignore small symptoms;
we fail to challenge the small habits and instincts.
We ignore the small daggers at our heart. We
deceive ourselves that it is all still sweet,
functional, and fine. And then, before we know it
the monster has grown strong and we are
drowning in despair and grief.
So at the Seder we eat lettuce. Not the mature
and embittered type, but rather the lettuce that is
still tasty and sweet. Because the sweet lettuce is
the bitterest of them all. In life, beware of the
lettuce. Kill the devil when it still appears to be
benign.
We All Do Our Part
A remarkable ceremony was instituted by the
Chassidic master, Rabbi Naphtali of Ropschitz.
The cup of Eliyahu Hanavi, symbol of the
messianic future, was passed from person to
person at the table. Each person poured a little
wine into Eliyahu Hanavi’s cup from his own
cup, until it was filled.
The tradition expressed the truth that Eliyahu
Hanavi’s cup is filled from all of our wines. We
must act together, each contributing his or her
own best talents and energies, to bring Eliyahu
Hanavi’s promise to the world. No one is
excluded from the work of bringing our world
toward redemption. Each of us has something to
do to ignite the world with love.