The Bitterness of the Marror – and the Bitterness of Tisha B’Av (Adapted from the Hakdomo to Sefer Shev Shmaitso, Os Shin)

 The Bitterness of the Marror – and the Bitterness of Tisha B’Av (Adapted from the Hakdomo to Sefer Shev Shmaitso, Os Shin)

By Eliakim Willner

Eliakim Willner is author of a newly released volume of select Pachad Yitzchok Maamorim, in English with commentary, and of “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaTorah: An Appreciation of Torah Study”, a translation with commentary of a work by the Maharal of Prague, both published by Artscroll/Mesorah. A continuation of the Nesivos Olam series, “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaAvodah: The Philosophy and Practice of Prayer” awaits publication, as does “To Be A Jew”, an adaptation with commentary of the Hakdomo to Sefer Shev Shmaitso, from which this article is drawn.

 

A Strange Connection

Chazal make a curious connection between the Seder night and the night of Tisha B’Av. The Shev Shmaitso, in his introduction, explains the relationship between these two apparently disparate occasions.

We begin with the source for this connection in the Medrash Rabbah (Eichah Rabbah 3:5):

“‘He has filled me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood’ (Eichah 3:15). With what he filled me with bitterness on the nights of Pesach, per the posuk, ‘they shall eat it with matzo and marror’ (Bamidbar 9:11), he sated me with wormwood on the nights of  Tisha B’Av, the ninth of Av.”

The Medrash is drawing a parallel between the bitter marror of the nights of Pesach and the much more bitter “wormwood-like” experience of the night of Tisha B’Av, when the two Batei Mikdash were destroyed. Tisha B’Av always falls out on the same day of the week as the first day of Pesach, but the connection between the first night of Pesach and Tisha B’Av runs deeper, as the Shev Shmaitso will explain, based on another Medrash in Eichah Rabbah 1:20.

Avrohom’s Argument to Hashem

“On the night of Tisha B’Av our forefather Avrohom entered into the kodesh kodoshim. Hashem “took him by the hand” and strolled with him through its length and breadth, and asked him, ‘What brings you, my cherished one, to My home?’ (Yirmiyahu 11:15) He responded, ‘My Master, where are my children?’ Hashem responded, ‘They sinned and I exiled them among the nations’. Avrohom responded, ‘Were there no righteous among them?’ Hashem responded, ‘…the many perform evil design’ (Yirmiyahu 11:15). Avrohom said, ‘You should have focused on the righteous among them’. Hashem responded, ‘Their many were bad, as the posuk testifies: “…the many perform evil design”’.

Upon close analysis there seems to be something amiss with this dialog. Avrohom asks, “Were there no righteous…”, seeking mercy on the basis of more merit than sin. Hashem responds in a manner implying that in fact that this was not so. Why, then, does Avrohom persist by suggesting, “You should have focused on the righteous”? He was just told that there was no majority of righteous!

Transgression Cancellation

It seems to me that we must understand Avrohom’s argument in light of a concept presented in the Drashos of Rabbi Yehuda Moscato (Nefutzos Yehudah), who has a novel understanding of the principle of judgement being based on the conduct of the majority. He writes that this judgement works through the mechanism of “transgression cancellation”, such that if person A is a murderer, person B, a thief, person C, a bribe-taker, person D, a usurer, etc., the transgression categories “cancel each other out” – meaning that since most people do not fall into each individual category the net result is that no transgression category will have a majority of the population.

Thus, the population can be judged favorably, in this lenient understanding of the concept of judgement being based on the conduct of the majority, even if the net sum of overall transgressions in the population exceeds the net sum of overall mitzva actions.

Another way of viewing this “mitzva-centric” approach is to consider each mitzva individually, asking of each, “are the majority of the population observant of this mitzva?” If the answer is “yes” that counts in the “favorable” column. If the answer is “no”, that counts in the unfavorable column. After all the mitzvos have been processed in this way, the two columns are summed, and positive or, G-d forbid, negative judgement is applied based on the column with the highest value.

Bitul of an Issur with an Issur

This is analogous to the principle expounded in Zevachim 78a that if one combines and eats a mixture of pigul, nosar and tamei he is exempt from penalty. There are various disqualifiers that prohibit the consumption of meat from a korban. The three mentioned here are pigul, which is meat from a korban offered with improper intent, nosar, which is meat from a korban whose time limit for consumption has expired, and tamei, which is meat from a korban that was rendered ritually impure by contact with a person or object that was itself impure. Penalties are imposed on those who violate these prohibitions by eating a minimum olive-sized piece of any of those meats.

The reason for the exemption of penalty is the principle of bitul, annulment. If a prohibited substance is mixed with a larger amount of a different substance, the prohibited substance is nullified. Here, all three substances are prohibited, but the prohibitions are different, and with respect to each of the substances, the others, although prohibited in their own right, are capable of nullifying that substance. (This is a complex topic; see the Gemara and commentaries for additional detail and explanation.)

Avrohom’s Lomdishe Argument

Now, let us apply this principle to our question on the Medrash. Originally Avrohom asked if there were actual righteous people among the nation, meaning “righteous” in the classic sense of overall merits outnumbering overall transgressions. Told that there were not – “the many perform evil design” – Avrohom responded, “You should have focused on the righteous among them”, meaning that Hashem should have applied the mechanism of “transgression cancellation”. Although each of them were guilty of several categories of transgression, they were “righteous” with respect to the categories of transgression that they were did not violate, in comparison to the “un-righteous” others who did violate those transgressions. The transgressions of person A are not the transgressions of person B, etc.

This answers our question on the Medrash. Avrohom was not asking the same question twice. Having been told that considering all the mitzvos in aggregate the nation had more transgressions than merits, Avrohom contended that a favorable judgement should nevertheless have emerged, using Rabbi Moscato’s “mitzva-centric” understanding of judgement based on the conduct of the majority.

To this Hashem responded, “Their many were bad…”, meaning that prohibitions do not “cancel each other out”. Only the sum total of transgressions versus merits is significant. There is no “transgression cancellation”. And on that basis the destruction of the Bais HaMikdash and the exile were deserved.

Pesach: The Refutation of the Argument

Now let us return to the original Medrash’s equation of the “bitterness” of the marror on Pesach with the “bitterness” suffered on Tisha B’Av. We do so via the continuation of the previously cited Gemara in Zevachim, which states that the previously cited rule that eating a mixture of prohibited foods is exempt from penalty, where each prohibited food is a minority of the total mixture, is counter to the opinion of Rabbi Elazar, who holds that just as mitzvos cannot nullify one another, so too can forbidden items not nullify one another.

How does Rabbi Elazar know that mitzvos cannot nullify one another? The Gemara states that the origin of the counter-view that mitzvos cannot nullify one another is a practice of Hillel, who would sandwich matzo and marror together and eat them together with the korban Pesach, in keeping with the posuk (Bamidbar 9:11), “they shall eat it with matzo and marror”.

Hillel’s actions presume that mitzvos cannot nullify one another. The Torah commands that we eat both matzo and marror on the night of Pesach. They are separate mitzvos. The suggestion that they be eaten together implies that one cannot nullify the other. We do not say that if there is more matzo, for example, the marror is nullified (and therefore the marror mitzva has not been fulfilled). Hillel’s advice does not take nullification into account and therefore he must hold that it is not a factor. By eating matzo and marror together both mitzvos are fulfilled, Hillel holds, and therefore it must be that he holds that mitzvos cannot nullify one another.

It stands to reason that Hillel holds that the same logic applies to transgressions, and that one transgression cannot nullify others, since there is no reason to distinguish between positive mitzvos and transgressions in this regard. Just as the mitzvos of matzo and marror each remain intact when they are eaten together, and we discount nullification, so also if a person eats multiple forbidden foods together, each food remains intact and nullification must be discounted as a factor. Therefore, Rabbi Elazar states, Hillel must hold, contrary to the original statement of the Gemara in Zevachim 78a, that if a person eats a mixture of pigul, nosar and tamei together, he is not “off the hook” but must suffer the penalties of all three.

(The Shev Shmaitso apparently holds that the view of Rabbi Yehuda Moscato does not align with the view of Hillel, which is normative halacha, and thus would not have a practical application.)

Hillel’s Korech is the Answer

The connection between the bitter marror of Pesach and the bitterness of Tisha B’Av now becomes clear. As Hashem told Avrohom, “Their many were bad” and transgressions do not “cancel each other out”.

The fact that we fulfill the mitzva of marror even when it is eaten with matzo is a signal that mitzvos do not nullify one another, and therefore by extension, and contrary to Rabbi Moscato’s approach to judgement based on majority, transgressions do not nullify one another. And therefore, since without that leniency, judgement based on majority means the more stringent approach of tallying the sum of mitzvos versus the sum of transgressions and applying reward or penalty to the nation based on whichever is greater. And since, unfortunately, the sum of the transgressions was greater, at the time of the Bais HaMikdash’s destruction, the harsh penalties of destruction and exile were imposed.

This is the full and profound meaning of the Medrash which draws a parallel between the bitterness of the marror on the first night of Pesach and the bitterness the destruction and exile of Tisha B’Av. “With what he filled me with bitterness on the nights of Pesach, per the posuk, ‘They shall eat it with matzo and marror’, he sated me with wormwood on the nights of Tisha B’Av”.

May we merit the final redemption and an end to the bitterness of our galus, quickly and in our days!