I would like to take a few minutes to share one of the more fascinating insights of the Rebbe on the Haggadah. In this piece, the Rebbe addresses the nusach, the wording, of the Alter Rebbe in the Haggadah. The Alter Rebbe seems to stand alone against virtually all other Haggados, because he writes this passage differently from the way it appears elsewhere. As far as the standard Haggados are concerned, this wording is unique to the Alter Rebbe’s Haggadah.
That naturally raises several questions. Why would the Alter Rebbe include something that none of the other Haggados have? What is his source? Why do the others omit it? What exactly is happening here?
The Rebbe gives a remarkable insight, and at the same time a very simple, almost balabatish explanation. But first we need to understand the structure of the Haggadah itself.
When we read the Haggadah, it is not always obvious how much of it is actually built around a passage from Parshas Ki Savo. There, the Torah discusses the mitzvah of Bikkurim. When a person brings his first fruits to Yerushalayim, he is required to declare certain words of gratitude and reflection before Hashem. He thanks Hashem for giving him the land and its produce, and that reflection begins, as it does in the Haggadah, with the words: Arami oveid avi.
From there, the verses continue by describing the difficult beginnings of our history: Vayorei’u osanu haMitzrim—the Egyptians treated us badly; Vayitnu aleinu avodah kashah—they placed hard labor upon us; Vanitzak el Hashem Elokei avoseinu—we cried out to Hashem, the G-d of our fathers. These are the verses in Ki Savo that the Haggadah elaborates upon.
Now, the Haggadah’s explanation of these verses is essentially drawn from the Sifrei, the Midrash on that section of Devarim. The Baal Haggadah is quoting and adapting the Sifrei’s exposition of those pesukim. So when the Haggadah explains the phrase Vayitnu aleinu avodah kashah, it is really presenting the Sifrei’s interpretation of that verse.
What does the Sifrei say there? On the verse Vayitnu aleinu avodah kashah, the Sifrei explains the phrase by referring back to the original narrative in Sefer Shemos. It says: K’mo shene’emar—as it is stated—and then cites the verse: Vaya’avidu Mitzrayim es Bnei Yisrael b’farech, “The Egyptians made the Children of Israel work with harsh labor.”
In all the standard Haggados, that is where this section ends. Then the Haggadah moves on to the next phrase in Devarim, Vanitzak el Hashem Elokei avoseinu, and explains that as well.
But the Alter Rebbe adds another verse, one that does not appear in the other Haggados. After Vaya’avidu Mitzrayim es Bnei Yisrael b’farech, the Alter Rebbe continues with the verse: Vayemareru es chayeihem b’avodah kashah, u’vilveinim u’vachomer, u’v’chol avodah basadeh, es kol avodasam asher avdu bahem b’farech—“They embittered their lives with hard labor, with mortar and with bricks, and with all kinds of labor in the field; all their work that they imposed upon them was with crushing harshness.”
So the Alter Rebbe includes a second verse from Shemos that no other Haggadah includes. The question is obvious: why?
The Rebbe points out that this is one of the real difficulties in the text. He notes that, as far as he had found, this wording does not appear in any other Haggadah, with the possible exception of a Haggadah called Tefillah l’Moshe of the Ramak, where something similar may be implied. But generally speaking, none of the Haggados have it.
The challenge is that the Haggadah is quoting the Sifrei. So in theory, one should simply look up the Sifrei and see what version is there. But the Rebbe explains that this is not so simple. Since the Haggadah was printed independently as its own text, printers of the Sifrei and the Yalkut Shimoni often omitted from those sefarim the passages that had already become standard parts of the Haggadah. Printing was expensive, and there was no need, in their eyes, to reprint material that people already had separately in the Haggadah.
As a result, if one wants to trace the Alter Rebbe’s wording back to the Sifrei, it becomes very difficult, because the relevant section often no longer appears in the printed editions of the Sifrei at all. So how can we verify whether the Alter Rebbe’s expanded version is original?
The Rebbe notes that there is, in fact, an edition of the Sifrei with the commentary of the Malbim, and there the second verse—Vayemareru es chayeihem—does appear. That already gives support to the Alter Rebbe’s version.
But beyond manuscript support, the Rebbe argues that the logic itself demands that both verses be included. After all, the purpose of bringing a verse from Shemos is to elaborate on the words avodah kashah in Devarim. If so, why would the Sifrei cite only the first verse, Vaya’avidu Mitzrayim es Bnei Yisrael b’farech? That verse does not really add anything. The verse in Devarim already says they imposed hard labor on us, and now we are supposedly bringing a proof text from Shemos that simply says they made us work harshly. Nothing has been clarified. No new details have been added.
Even more striking, the Gemara in Sotah explains that the first use of the word b’farech can be read as b’feh rach, “with a soft mouth,” meaning that Pharaoh initially lured the Jews into the labor through persuasion and smooth words. According to that interpretation, the first verse is not even really describing hard labor in the straightforward sense at all. So why would the Baal Haggadah bring specifically that verse to explain avodah kashah?
Therefore, says the Rebbe, it is obvious that the intention must be to include the second verse as well. That verse actually spells out what the hard labor consisted of: embittering their lives with mortar, bricks, field labor, and crushing עבודה. That verse truly elaborates on avodah kashah.
At this point, however, another question arises. If this is so clear, then what happened to all the other Haggados? How did they all end up with only one verse?
Here the Rebbe offers a brilliant explanation. He points out that both verses end with the word b’farech. The first verse, Vaya’avidu Mitzrayim es Bnei Yisrael b’farech, ends with that word. The second verse, Es kol avodasam asher avdu bahem b’farech, also ends with that same word.
The Rebbe suggests that in older shorthand copying, scribes may have written the opening words of the first verse and then marked the endpoint simply with the word b’farech, intending not the first occurrence of that word, but the second one, at the end of the following verse. In other words, the notation was meant to indicate that the quotation runs from Vaya’avidu Mitzrayim all the way through the next verse, concluding with the second b’farech.
At some point, however, a copyist or printer misunderstood the shorthand. Seeing the word b’farech, he assumed it referred to the first occurrence and ended the quotation there. Once that happened, later Haggados simply followed that mistaken reading.
According to this explanation, the common text found in other Haggados is the result of a simple misunderstanding in transmission. The Alter Rebbe, however, preserved the fuller and more correct version. That is why he includes both verses.
It is a tremendous insight. It explains why the Alter Rebbe’s text must be regarded as the correct nusach. It also explains how the mistake entered the other Haggados. And it shows, in a very clear way, why the Alter Rebbe’s wording is not an innovation at all, but rather the restoration of the original and logical reading of the Baal Haggadah.