This series is devoted to short but complete Torah morsels that
can be used at the seder. This series is reprinted from
Rashi is Simple with permission of the author, myself.
Complete postings may be found at http://www.shamash.org/rashi/

In todays posting we review the Passover Hagaddah requirement to
        >Recite the Biblical chapter 5-26-5:11
We try and explain why this chapter was chosen for the Passover
seder



#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*# (C) Dr Hendel, 1999 *#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*
Why has this chapter (5-26-5:11) received such centrality in
the Seder? Why is it learned by finding cross references and
confirming verses for each phrase?

I suggest that the key of the seder night is educating the children
The ideal would be to make them all into sages. But we all know
that on the Seder night we have many simple people, apathetic people
etc. We only have one night! What is the best way to introduce them
to talmudic research?

Our sages suggested teaching them the most basic research technique
        >Cross referencing
On the one hand this technique is accessible to all people. On
the other hand even scholars find it time consuming and laborious.

So that is exactly how the Hagaddah is constucted--for every phrase
in this chapter a corresponding verse is found in the Bible


For those into games and excitement you can convert this part of
the Hagaddah into an interactive dialogue game
        >Who knows where it says THE JEWS WERE SMALL IN NUMBER
        >Who knows where it says THEY BECAME GREAT IN EGYPT
        >Who knows where it says THEY WERE TORTURED BY EGYPT
Etc. For each phrase in 5-26 we then must find the appropriate
verse eg
        >WE WERE SMALL   = WE WENT DOWN TO EGYPT AS 70(1-46-27)
        >WE BECAME GREAT = WE MULTIPLIED IN EGYPT(2-1-7)
        >WE WERE TORTURED= THE EGYPTIANS TORTURED US (2-1-10)
#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*# (C) Dr Hendel, 1999 *#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*