The one hundred and forty-fourth "room" in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Tuesday, 15 Nissan, first day of Chag HaMatzos, 5703.
First of all, let us address the name of Chag HaMatzos. It could have been called Chag HaPesach, but in the Hayom Yom calendar the Rebbe notes "Chag HaMatzos". First, this is the name written in the Torah - in the Torah the festival is called "Chag HaMatzos". And it is also known what the Rebbe brings in his commentary on the Haggadah in the name of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, regarding the various names of the festival: The term "Chag HaMatzos" is the term by which the Holy One, blessed be He, refers to it in the Torah, in order to praise the Jewish people - that they went out of Egypt and did not take provisions for the way, to the point that their dough did not even have time to become chametz. Therefore, the praise for the Jewish people is "Chag HaMatzos"; whereas we call it "Chag HaPesach", because we want to praise the Holy One, blessed be He, who passed over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt. But the praise for the Jewish people is "Chag HaMatzos".
In the daily teaching there are several emphases and customs brought regarding the Seder night, and after them the teaching, and in the middle also the daily study portions. We will start with the customs emphasized here for the Seder night.
The first point: "For Maror and Chazeres - both chrain and romaine lettuce (salat)". This appears in the diary recorded by the Rebbe when he observed the conduct of the Rebbe Rayatz during the festival of Pesach in the years 5691 - 5695: This was the custom of the Rebbe Rayatz, that on the Seder night, when eating the Maror and the Chazeres, he took for both of them both chrain and lettuce "salat". What is the point here? In the language of the Mishnah it is written "maror" and "chazeres", and they are indeed two different vegetables: what is called in the Mishnah "chazeres" is what we call lettuce, and what is called in the Mishnah "maror" is what we call horseradish, what is called "chrain". These are two of the six items on the Kaarah.
In practice, the Haggadah uses the two names - in one place it says "maror" and in the other "chazeres". Why are they not both called by the same name? The Rebbe writes about this in his commentary on the Haggadah, that the explanation is only according to Sod: according to Sod there is a hint in the letters of M-R-O-R, and a hint in the letters of Ch-Z-R-S, and according to Kabbalah the maror is connected to the upper Segol and the chazeres to the lower Segol, and therefore their names are changed. But truly, in practice, we take the same two ingredients, both where it says "maror" and where it says "chazeres". This is the first custom.
The second thing: "Kiddush while standing". As the Rebbe also writes in his commentary on the Haggadah shel Pesach, that our custom is to recite Kiddush standing, both on Shabbos and Yom Tov and on Pesach. There are differing opinions on this; there are those who hold that one should recite Kiddush specifically while seated, because this is the manner of freedom. And here too, in the Rebbe's diary from the year 5695, he saw the Rebbe Rayatz reciting Kiddush, and asked him about the matter of standing, and the Rebbe Rayatz answered him: "With us, they always recited Kiddush while standing".
The third thing: "Ha lachma - the hei with a tzeirei". What is the emphasis here? Many communities have the custom to say "Ha lachma", the hei with a kamatz; and here the Rebbe notes that one should say the hei not with a kamatz but with a tzeirei - "Hei lachma". The source of this is in the writings of the Arizal, and the Rebbe explains this in great detail in Likkutei Sichos, volume 1, page 98 and onwards until the end of the sichah. When Yosef HaTzaddik said to the Egyptians "Hei lachem zera", he thereby added vitality to the kelipos, and the rectification is by our saying "Hei lachma" with that same expression. And as the Rebbe explains there in the sichah at length, in this entire passage there is guidance on how to rectify the action of Yosef. It is worthwhile to study the sichah inside and see how the Rebbe explains the continuation of the matter; but the hint is that we specifically begin with a hei with a tzeirei, in order to emphasize, as written in the Arizal, that this comes to rectify the hei of Yosef HaTzaddik.
The next thing among the customs: "During the blessing for eating Maror, one also has in mind the Maror in the Korech". What is the intention here? There is a disagreement between the Sages and Hillel regarding how to eat the matzah and the maror - does one eat each one by itself, matzah alone and maror alone, or does one wrap them together and eat them together, as Hillel did (in the time of the Beis HaMikdash, with the Pesach offering). And since there is a disagreement, our custom is to both eat according to the opinion of the Sages - each one separately, and also to eat according to the opinion of Hillel - wrapped together.
However, when reciting the blessing for the matzah and the blessing for the maror which are eaten each separately, it is written in the Shulchan Aruch that these blessings are meant to include also what will be eaten later in the Korech. That is, during the blessing for the matzah one must have in mind also the matzah that will be eaten afterwards in the Korech, and during the blessing for the maror one must have in mind also the maror that will be eaten later in the Korech. In the Haggadah itself, when the Alter Rebbe lists the customs, he only notes the point that one must have in mind during the eating of the first matzah for the Korech, but he does not note this regarding the maror. And the Rebbe writes on this "tzaruch iyun" (it requires investigation) - why he did not copy it from the Shulchan Aruch. And so that we do not think that there is a practical change here, that during the blessing of the maror one does not need to have this in mind, the Rebbe notes here in the custom that during the blessing for eating the maror one does indeed need to have in mind, as written in the Shulchan Aruch, the maror in the Korech, despite the Alter Rebbe's omission of the matter in the Siddur, which remains in need of investigation.
Daily study portions: Chumash, Acharei Mos, Shlishi, with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim, 15th of the month, two chapters - chapter 77 and chapter 78.
Tanya, on this day we still say chapter 41. The daily portion begins from the word "Vehineh", and ends on page 114 with the words "ulevusheihem k'nal".
Here there is a reference to an additional custom and teaching connected to the Seder night: "At the first Seder, my father and teacher, the Rebbe Rashab, would abbreviate in order to eat the Afikoman before chatzos (halachic midnight)". Indeed, it is written in the Shulchan Aruch that one should be careful to eat the Afikoman before chatzos of the night, because it is compared to the Pesach offering: just as they ate the Pesach offering before chatzos, so too the Afikoman must be eaten before chatzos. And so they truly practiced, as it is written in the Shulchan Aruch, to be careful on the first night that it should be before chatzos.
Interestingly, when the Rebbe would conduct the Seder night meals in the presence of an audience, in the 5720s, there was a certain bachur who had a "fixed role": the Rebbe would ask him at every Seder night, close to chatzos: "What time is it?", and he would say the time, and the Rebbe would abbreviate accordingly so that it would be before chatzos. One year they placed a clock next to the Rebbe, because the large wall clock was broken. But in order not to deprive the bachur of his fixed role, when it drew close to chatzos the Rebbe asked the bachur: "Well, what time is it now?"; the bachur automatically looked at the fixed clock and said "nine", since that is what was written on the clock. The Rebbe smiled and of course proceeded to the Afikoman. There was an insistence on the first night to eat before chatzos.
"But on the second night he would prolong", however, on the second night of the Seder they were not particular about eating before chatzos. As he mentions here regarding the Rebbe Rashab, so too did the Rebbe Rayatz conduct himself, and it is also related about the Alter Rebbe, that on the second night he would prolong the Seder night, in the explanations and in the meal itself - "starting before the ninth hour and concluding at 3 - 4 after chatzos", somewhere at three or four in the morning, long after chatzos; since on the second night they were not particular about the matter of chatzos, "and he would prolong in the explanation of the Haggadah".
The final point: "The Alter Rebbe said: Meichla D'mehemnusa (food of faith) - the first night, Meichla D'asvasa (food of healing) - the second night". What is the intention? It is written in the Zohar that the matzah has two spiritual properties: in one place it is written in the Zohar that the matzah is called "the bread of faith", and in another place it is written that the matzah is called "the bread of healing". It is related that the chassidim in the time of the Mitteler Rebbe exerted themselves to understand what the order of things is - does the property of "Meichla D'mehemnusa", the food of faith, start first, and afterwards the property of healing, or vice versa. When they could not reach a conclusion, they went to ask the Mitteler Rebbe, who was then appointed by his father to be in charge of the young bachurim. He answered them, and noted that the Alter Rebbe - his father - said: first "Meichla D'mehemnusa", the food of faith, and afterwards "Meichla D'asvasa", the food of healing. That is, the order is that on the first night the matter of faith begins primarily, and on the second night the matter of healing begins primarily. On both nights there are all the properties, but on the first night the emphasis begins from faith, and on the second night it begins from healing.
And what is the difference if ultimately we have both of them - whether we begin from faith or from healing? The Alter Rebbe explains: "When healing brings faith, by saying 'Thank You, Creator, for my healing'", if a person was ill, Heaven forbid, and the Holy One, blessed be He, helped him and he recovered, then the healing caused him to strengthen his faith in the Holy One, blessed be He - "Here, You brought me healing, and therefore I believe in You; thank You, Master of the Universe, that You healed me".
"He was, after all, sick". But if this is the order, there is a problem here: he was sick and became healthy, and only at the end does he believe; true, he has both healing and faith, but in the meantime there was a period of time in which he was sick.
"But when faith brings healing - there is no sickness from the start". But if we begin in the opposite way - first of all faith - he does not need to wait to undergo an experience of illness and be healed from it in order to believe; he believes from the start, without the test. And when we begin first with faith, and the faith brings the healing, then from the start he was not ill at all, but was healthy from the start. And this is the reason that the Alter Rebbe said that this is the first night and this is the second night: when we begin on the first night with the matter of faith, there is no need to arrive, God forbid, at an unpleasant experience, but on the contrary, the faith brings the healing with it.