We are taught that rushing is never a good thing.
Yet the moment of our nationhood, the exodus itself, happened in great haste. We may attribute it to the rush of the refugee, who leaves in the dark of night with just the clothes on their back.
But the Israelites left; they did not run away. They sat down to eat the Paschal lamb on the eve of their departure. They took the gold and silver the Egyptians left them. After ten plagues, signs, wonders, and indeed the devastation of Egypt, the Israelites did not need to flee.
Prior to their departure God commands them to eat unleavened bread on Passover. Only later we are told about it being unleavened due to haste: “And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had taken out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, since they had been driven out of Egypt and could not tarry; nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.”
Did matzah come about by chance or is there something intrinsic about the food the mystics call our “bread of faith” denoting a rush?
The Hebrew word for delay is seldom used in the Torah. It has only been used once before, in the dramatic story of the destruction of Sodom.
Prior to its destruction, angels were sent to rescue Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family. They implore him to take his family and leave, but his family laugh at the suggestion. Finally: “as dawn broke, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two remaining daughters, lest you be swept away because of the iniquity of the city.”
On the one hand, Lot is literally being saved by the grace of God. We would expect him to get up and go. But on the other hand, this is no small ask. He is being asked to leave everything he knows. However corrupt or dangerous, ultimately Sodom was his home.
And so the following verse reads: “But he tarried, and the men took hold of his hand and his wife's hand, and the hand of his two daughters, out of the Lord's pity for him, and they took him out and placed him outside the city.”
The Torah communicates not just through what it says but particularly through the cantillation notes. The note over the word “tarry” is the famous shalshelet note, which only appears four times in the whole Torah. It is the longest note and Rabbi Sacks describes it as always denoting “existential crisis”.
Lot just did not want to leave, and eventually had to be “taken out”. Lot never recovered after leaving Sodom. He went to live with his daughters in the city of Zohar and the last scene we see of him, he appears as a tragic, passive and pitiful character.
When we compare the Israelites at the exodus, we see a totally different response. They did “not tarry”, and the accompanying cantillation note is short, quick and uneventful. Despite having been in Egypt for hundreds of years, despite their uncertain future, despite terrifying change, they knew it was time to leave.
They could sense that their destiny would be shaped by their decision in this one moment. They would not just be “taken out”; they understood that nationhood required them to step up as active partners with God.
There are some decisions which require careful thought. But such choices are not between moral absolutes. Good and evil are binary. As such when we have moral clarity, we do not need time to make decisions. Such a decision is not rash. In fact, it may well be the product of a lifetime’s search for morality.
At seder when we tell the story of leaving Egypt in haste, and as we crunch the matzah which did not have time to rise, we recall our forebears throughout history who made such critical decisions without delay.
Most heroes did not aim to be such; they were called on at a time of crisis or emergency, and in that moment, they knew what they had to do and acted fearlessly without hesitation. The testimonies from October 7 have shown how many ordinary people acted in an extraordinary way. Their heroism was that they acted without delay, ready to sacrifice their own lives to save others.
When we sing the words of the Haggadah: “in every generation they have risen up to destroy us but God has delivered us from their hands”, we lift our glasses of wine.
The wine reflects our prayers for Divine salvation, compassion and peace. The matzah shifts our focus to the other side of the coin. It relays the courage of a nation who generation after generation stepped up as active protagonists to co-write the script of humanity.
Seder night offers us a moment to acknowledge the contribution and sacrifice of so many. And it also invites us to follow in their footsteps, and to be brave enough to “not delay” in making decisions, which, however scary, we ultimately know are right.
Lauren Levin is rebbetzin at South Hampstead (United) Synagogue
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