ACHARAI MOT

This is like a person who has become severely sick, and all the doctors have despaired of finding a cure for him. Finally, one great doctor discovers the proper medicine for him.

However, when the sick person takes this medicine, his condition becomes worse, his entire body breaks out with sores, and it seems that only a few moments lie between him and death. He says to the doctor, "Is this medicine, and is this what it does?"

The doctor answers, "You should know that your illness has penetrated very deeply into your body. The strong medicine I gave you has extracted the illness from within you to the outside of your body. Now that it has gone out, I can give you another medicine which will cure you completely."

The verse from Psalms which we recite in kabbalat shabbat is the same case. We see the wicked flourishing like grass. All the workers of iniquity sprout forth like mushrooms after the rain. The ways of evil people prosper. In other words, the sickness has appeared upon the body, but now the inner being is clean and purified. Now there is hope for fulfillment of the verse's conclusion, "...to destroy them forever."

When the chasidim asked the Rebbe what was happening, what was the reason for his sighing, he said, "I am in great sorrow over the holiday of Pesach which will soon be over and leaving us. When is it better for a Jewish person than the holiday of Pesach? During the holiday he is completely attached to the Creator. Wherever he turns he encounters mitzvot like matzot or the prohibitions of chometz (leaven). He cannot turn his mind away from them.

"But now," the Rebbe said with a sigh, "we are drawing close to regular days. Eating of chometz will be permitted.... My heart is heavy over the precious mitzvot that we are leaving, and I am saddened over the attachement to the mitzvot from which we must part."

We answer reciting the verse, "For the sake of this (matzoh, maror and all His mitzvot to do them) G-d did for me when He took me out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:8). Then the author of the Haggadah stipulates, "...Me, and not him. If he had been there, he would not have been redeemed."

Since this is an answer to the wicked son, why is it not directed to him? Why does the author of the Haggadah suddenly speak in the third person? Would it not have been more appropriate to say, "...Me, and not `you'. If `you' had been there, `you' would not have been redeemed"?

Some commentators explain this quandary with the following parable. Firefighters are called to put out a fire burning in a house. When they arrive, they begin spraying water upon the surrounding houses without paying any attention to the one that is burning. The people who were there complain that the firefighters were not called to spray water on the houses that were not burning, but to extinguish the fire in the house that is being consumed.

The firefighters answer, "Fools! Do you not see that the situation of the burning house is critical? It is doubtful that we will be able to do anything to save it. However, as long as the fire has not spread to the other houses, it is possible to protect them, and that is why we are spraying water upon them."

It is the same with regards to the answer given to the wicked son. If a child arises and begins to speak heresy, before we try to straighten his views, we must take care of all the other children, to spray water upon them. Water is Torah. First, we must strengthen the other children and innoculate them in order that they should also not be burned by the fire of heresy.

Moreover, the verse used to answer the wicked son is the same verse used to answer the simple son who does not know what to ask. Indeed, in the Torah this verse is used explicitly in reference to the simple one. The reason is that when the wicked son asks his question the fire of heresy has already taken hold of him, and we must first address ourselves to the children who have not been infected as yet. We teach them the foundations of the liberation from Egypt, and say to them about the infected one, "If he had been there, then he would not have been redeemed."

(Lekach Tov)