Mostly it’s teenagers who like to point out that the experience of Shabbat is mostly about negatives. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. A younger child is swept up in the sweetness of family time but a teenager often starts to chafe at the restrictions. Thankfully, they usually grow out of it, but the phenomenon is familiar.
When you pay attention to the framing of Pesach in this week’s Parasha, you see that the teenagers are right. Pesach, like Shabbat, is dominated by negative commandments. They are in fact deeply right. But just like they don’t know how right they are, they also usually don’t know why it has to be like that.
As you look through the Parasha, you start to see a trend which holds up in several places in reference to Pesach. The verb that repeats over and over is Shmira. It means to guard, but the Gemora says that it always means the introduction of some negative commandment. Like the word “Al” or “Pen,” it refers to negative commandments.
U’Shmartem et HaAvoda Hazot (12:25) Shmartem et HaMatzot (12:17) Chag HaMatzos Tishmor (34:18) Shmor et Chodesh HaAviv (Devarim, 16:1)
The same thing can be seen in reference to Shabbat:
Shmor et Yom Hashabat (Devarim, 5:11) Et Shabtotai Tishmaru (Vayikra 19:30) Shmartem et HaShabbat (Shemot 31:14) V’shamru Bnei Yisrael et HaShabbat (Shemot, 31:16)
The reason for this is found in the Sefer Meshech Chochma on the Chumash (R’ Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, d. 1926). He says that what defines both Pesach and Shabbat is this framework of the negative. The repetition of the word Shmor is not an accident. The days are defined by this and even the positives fit into the framework of the negatives. As an example, even the word Kiddush is about the separation of Shabbat from the rest of the week. That separation comes because of the framework of negative commandments.
This is one of the keys for contemporary Sabbatarians. This group was traditionally Christians who don’t work on Sundays. The contemporary approach is adopted by those who define the Sabbath as a day “to unplug” or “to go off the grid.” It’s all about the restrictions of the Sabbath.
R’ Meir Simcha’s insight explains an otherwise bizarre assertion the Gemora makes when it comes to why women are obligated in the positive commandments of both Shabbat and Pesach. Normally, women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments. But they are obligated in both Kiddush and in the eating of Matza. When the Gemora raises this question, it says that because they are obligated by the negative commands of Shabbat and Pesach, so they are also obligated in the positive commands of the day. This explains it but what do the two categories have to do with each other? According to R’ Meir Simcha, we now know why the positive commands of these days are yoked together with the negatives. The whole framework is negative.
The reason for all of these restrictions is because all of the preparation in Egypt was to prepare them for an extraction. They were not to be in Egypt anymore, to be sure, but also not to be dominated in any way by Egypt after the Exodus. One must cease all of the ways of Egypt in addition to walking away.
The same also goes for Shabbat. The extraction from the week begins with unplugging. All of the ways of the week must cease before anything else can happen.
Is this the entire goal of these days? No, of course not. All of the commandments of Pesach in this week’s Parasha begin with a positive commandment announcing Beit Din’s obligation to create each Rosh Chodesh. This is the first way to contrast freedom with the life of a slave: Taking ownership over time itself. A slave has no control over his or her time. This is one of the great positive goals of the experience.
Learning how to exercise that freedom will be a process, however, that begins with a negation of Egypt. One of the educational purposes of the plagues in Egypt was to contrast the Jews’ experience with that of the Egyptians. When it was dark for them, it was light for us. But this announced something deeper. What is light for us IS darkness for them. This brings out the contrast. But to live the contrast one must first negate Egyptian ways. That is why Pesach emphasizes this first step -- the negation of Egyptian ways.
Every Pesach, and every Shabbat, shows the way forward by first asking us to leave the dross of the everyday behind.
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