Nine hundred million angels with nothing to do

The following section of the Haggadah, taken from the common traditional version, argues strenuously against the intervention of heavenly or human intermediaries in the tenth plague, and possibly in the entire progression of the Exodus: 

וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ ה' מִמִּצְרַיִם. לֹא עַל־יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׂרָף, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׁלִיחַ, אֶלָּא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בִּכְבוֹדוֹ וּבְעַצְמוֹ. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְעָבַרְתִּי בְאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה, וְהִכֵּיתִי כָּל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מֵאָדָם וְעַד בְּהֵמָה, וּבְכָל אֱלֹהֵי מִצְרַיִם אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים. אֲנִי ה'.

"The Lord freed us from Egypt" - not through an angel and not through a seraph and not through a messenger, but directly by the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, as it is stated (Ex. 12:12); "And I will pass through the Land of Egypt on that night and I will smite every firstborn in the Land of Egypt, from men to animals; and with all the gods of Egypt, I will make judgments, I am the Lord." 

In the Yemenite version of the Haggadah, an intriguing addition follows immediately: 

Source:  פניני משה - הגדה של פסח נוסח תימן - משה קלזן

"Nine thousand myriads" (ninety million) angels descended with God to execute the Egyptian firstborns, but God sidelines them, insisting on carrying out the punishment himself. This late midrashic tradition was apparently popular among Yemenite Jews. A very close parallel can be found in the thirteenth-century Yemenite anthology Midrash Hagadol, where it is placed in the context of the splitting of the Red Sea (Ex. 14:25):

Source: Midrash Hagadol Sefer Shemot, ed. M. Margaliot (Mossad Harav Kook, 1967), p. 277.

Preserved up to the present time in Yemenite liturgy and lore, the myriads of angels have an antecedent in the (also relatively late) Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Ex. 12:12). 

וְאִתְגְּלֵי בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרַיִם בִּשְׁכִינַת יְקָרִי בְּלֵילְיָא הָדֵין וְעִמִּי תִּשְׁעִין אַלְפִין רִבְוָון מַלְאָכִין מְחַבְּלִין וְאֶקְטוֹל כָּל בּוּכְרָא בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרַיִם מֵאֱנָשָׁא וְעַד בְּעִירָא

And I will be revealed in the land of Egypt in the majesty of my glory on that night, and with me ninety thousand myriads of destroying angels; and I will slay all the firstborn in the land of Egypt . . .

(In the previous two and other printed sources, the heavenly agents are called "angels of destruction" -- מלאכי חבלה -- or demons, and are numbered at 900, rather than 90, million.)

The tradition to which Pseudo-Jonathan alludes seems to have made its way into the Haggadot of several communities throughout the medieval Jewish world. The twelfth-century French halakhic-liturgical work Mahzor Vitry (p. 293), from the school of Rashi, raises but critiques the practice. The author attests that the Jews of Provence accepted it, while those of Eretz Yisrael did not.* He himself rejects the insertion because it is absent from the Tannaitic Mekhilta (which includes strong parallels to this section of the Haggadah), and due to theological and stylistic objections he has to some of its content: 

But more fundamentally: Why was it so important to the Haggadah to negate the role of messengers in the Exodus, to such an extent -- at least in the extended version -- as to conjure up the image of ninety (or nine hundred) million demons ready to execute the firstborns but prevented from doing so? What compelled the rabbis to resist so adamantly the idea that God had semi-divine or human assistance in the Exodus?

Elsewhere, in fact, the Haggadah itself appears to contradict that very notion:

רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: מִנַּיִן שֶׁכָּל־מַכָּה וּמַכָּה שֶׁהֵבִיא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עַל הַמִּצְרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם הָיְתָה שֶׁל אַרְבַּע מַכּוֹת? שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: יְשַׁלַּח־בָּם חֲרוֹן אַפּוֹ, עֶבְרָה וָזַעַם וְצָרָה, מִשְׁלַחַת מַלְאֲכֵי רָעִים.

Rabbi Eliezer says: How can you know that each and every plague the Holy One brought upon the Egyptians in Egypt was in fact made up of four plagues? For it is said, “His fury was sent down upon them, great anger, rage, and distress, a company of angels of destruction.”

Whatever the reason for the rhetorical campaign against intermediaries, the Haggadah echoes, and amplifies, a tension that already exists within the Torah itself.  

In the context of the tenth plague, some verses, spoken in God's voice, emphatically use the singular (Ex. 11:4; 12:12; 12:29), as noted by Mekhilta and our own Haggadah passage. On the other hand, there seems to be a role in the story for a "destroyer" (Ex. 12:13; 12:23). And in Numbers (20:16), there is an explicit reference to a "messenger" who assisted, somehow, in freeing the Israelites.

But our "not through an angel" passage, with its enhanced color in the Yemenite version, takes a strident stance in one direction only. Closely related is the severely diminished role of Moses himself in the Haggadah's narrative. After all, he was God's messenger both to Pharaoh and to the Israelites and should have had a leading place (right after Producer-Director) in the closing credits of the Exodus.

The Haggadah is intent on removing any doubt as to who was responsible for the Exodus. It goes without saying that angels, demons, and human intermediaries have a prominent role throughout the Bible, even with reference to the Exodus. But the Seder night, when we recite and (try our best to) relive our national foundation story, is meant to stand apart. At that time and place, there is no room at the table for angelology, cosmological hierarchies, metaphysical chains of being or, at the opposite extreme, radical materialism. There is only God, Israel, and redemption, both national and personal.

*My thanks to Yehuda Zinberg נ״י for alerting me to Yotzer le-Shabbat Hagadol by R. Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils ("Tov 'Elem," 11th century France), stanza beginning "Kerem Hemed," which refers in verse to the same tradition. See also the commentaries of Pseudo-Rashi, Siddur Rashi, and R. Judah ben Yakar in the Torat Hayyim Haggadah (Jerusalem, 1998), p. 110, and R. Menahem Kasher, Haggadah Sheleimah (Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 186-187.

The many worlds of Rabbi Dr. Michael D. Shmidman, ZTL

From the Sheloshim tribute to Rabbi Dr. Michael D. Shmidman, ZTL
Cong. Orach Chaim, NYC
March 17, 2025

A few words about my father-in-law ZTL’s career, impact, and legacy, which I can only describe in broad strokes, based on my own impressions. But I hope they will resonate.

As a young man, my father-in-law was fully immersed in the American branch of the Lithuanian yeshiva world – more specifically, and this was not at all a given, in the religious Zionist Mizrahi camp of that world – primarily under the influence of his renowned father, Rav Yitzhak ZTL. Great scholars and community leaders frequented their home on a daily basis. But he was also the proud beneficiary of the best American culture had to offer. In his home, there was no inherent contradiction between the two.

Was there ever any tension between the yeshiva world and the secular American world, especially the academic world my father-in-law came to inhabit and later to master so successfully? Of course there was, possibly even more than today. But he and other young scholars of his generation were guided not by fear or conformity, but by confidence in what they believed was right and true, and they met those challenges head on. We are fortunate that pioneers such as he cleared an intellectual and cultural path for our own generation to follow.

I’ll share a telling anecdote he related more than once: Before graduating his yeshiva high school, my father-in-law had a discussion with one of its administrators about enrolling at Brooklyn College for night classes the following semester. The administrator was fully supportive, as was expected at the time, but with a caveat: “Don’t take biology.” Apparently, it was feared that exposure to the theory of evolution and other naturalistic approaches to creation might lead an impressionable young yeshiva bochur astray.

My father-in-law ended the story, very simply, like this: “What did I do?” he asked. “I took biology.”

Now, he told this story not to be flippant or disrespectful – his respect for all educators in every type of yeshiva was unqualified – it was rather out of pride in his intellectual and moral independence, an independence that he believed was well within the bounds of his cultural inheritance, his masoret avot. Throughout his lifetime, in many contexts, he maintained that same confident independence.

My father-in-law was animated by a passionate intellectual curiosity and an equally passionate need to share his knowledge. He was a natural and inspiring teacher who advanced almost overnight from his undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College to become one of its youngest instructors ever, in the Department of Political Science. His passion for learning and his teaching career were inexorably linked. His Torah – I use the word in its broadest sense – was truly a Torat Hesed. “Kindness” or “lovingkindness” does not do justice to the word hesed. The quality of hesed, as described often by Rabbi Soloveitchik, is not only mercy, or the desire to share one’s material possessions, it is also meant in the spiritual sense, of inviting others to partake in your intellectual gifts and achievements. It is both a moral and intellectual abundance that cannot be constrained.

Rabbi Shmidman’s Torat Hesed overflowed continuously from the private domain of his creative mind to the public domain of the classroom and synagogue. As many of you know, his hiddushim – new insights on the Chumash and other texts – would flow like a ma’ayan ha-mitgaber – an unstoppable wellspring – sometimes for only a few minutes when you met him on the corner on the way to or from shul, but often for hours at a time. As a darshan – an interpreter of ancient texts and a gifted orator, whose public addresses were always incisive, relevant, and uplifting – he had few equals.

My father-in-law lived and thrived in many worlds. He was equally at home in the company of roshei yeshiva from REITS, Chasidim from Brooklyn, his students at Yeshiva University, and his colleagues and students at CUNY. He lived in many worlds, but he did not lead multiple lives. Wherever he was and with whomever he interacted – in shul, delivering a sermon or leading the services; in his dining room, giving a parsha shiur; in a classroom, teaching constitutional law or Tanakh; in his kitchen, counseling a congregant; and even on the tennis court – to all of these settings, he brought his entire integrated self.

In this hall, especially, the sanctuary of Kehilla Kedosha Orach Chaim, a beit tefilla le-khol ha-yehudim, Rabbi Shmidman’s integrity and warmth has had an immeasurable and lasting impact; for many of us, his persona saturates the walls and permeates the air we now breath. He and Rabbi Skydell, she-yibadel le-hayyim, have made this a place for every Jew to feel at home.

To be clear: His commitment to traditional Halakha was unwavering and uncompromising, as manifest by his responses to practical halakhic queries, some of which we’re learning about for the first time from your moving stories. He saw fearless leadership as his mission: At his installation ceremony in 1988, his address included what can be called a rabbinic manifesto, listing the qualities required to be an effective rabbi. Prominent among them, he said, “a rabbi must be a leader who is not afraid to lead.” Over the course of his career, including situations where he might have chosen otherwise, my father-in-law lived up to that ideal.

But while always standing firm for what he believed in, at the same time he practiced an ethic of inclusion that transmitted the joys of worship, learning, and religious fellowship to everyone, at any level of knowledge or observance, because his love for every Jew was unconditional.

How can we summarize Rabbi Shmidman’s impact?

For some great men and women, you require the distance of time to properly assess their influence. Here, in contrast, the results are immediately visible. Although it’s impossible to quantify, we know how deeply it was felt and will be felt for decades to come. Beyond the thousands of students and congregants – including second and now third-generation congregants – fortunate enough to study with and learn from him, he had the ability, as many of you know intimately, to touch your soul and often to reorient your life. And he did this with humility and wisdom and grace.

Of course, it was not only him but also my mother-in-law, she-tibadel le-hayyim, who had, and continues to have, such a lasting impact on this community. They were true partners in this endeavor; my mother-in-law was not only his helpmeet, but an independent force. In their own modest way, they were both in the business of crafting souls.

In this, they inherited a great tradition established by the first Jewish power couple. As they completed their journey to Canaan, the Torah says that Abraham and Sarah brought with them not only vast material goods but also ha-nefesh asher asu be-charan; read literally, “the souls they fashioned in Haran.” As Rashi famously comments, wherever they went, Abraham and Sarah brought men and women under the wings of the divine presence. Like my in-laws, Abraham and Sarah’s influence was no doubt achieved by means of a gentle but irresistible charisma.

My father-in-law’s impact on his congregants and students is obvious and will last for generations, but what will be – or at least should be – his enduring legacy for Judaism and Jewish life as a whole?

This, of course, is impossible to predict. But fortunately, lo ba-shamayim hi – it is not for Heaven to determine. His legacy is in our own hands to shape and to realize.

In a word, the world needs more Rabbi Shmidmans — and you don’t have to be a rabbi, or even a Shmidman, to be a Rabbi Shmidman. His ethics can and should serve as a model for Jewish leaders and laypeople alike. Though certainly a unique and irreplaceable individual, and like all of us the product of his time, environment, and talents, my father-in-law’s life-message is timeless and universal. His career was the fulfillment of the rabbinic promise that talmidei hakhamim marbim shalom ba-olam – “Torah scholars increase peace and harmony in the world.” 

Note the object of the sentence, “ba-olam” – the entire world; not just the yeshiva world, not only the Orthodox world; the promise goes beyond even the Jewish world. What he felt, practiced, and transmitted – love of all kinds of learning, love of all human beings, love of what is good and right and, above all, love for his family, his community, Israel, and the Jewish people – should be instituted and maybe, some day and in some manner, institutionalized – in our community and beyond. 

Rabbi Shmidman’s career of hesed – of Torat Hesed – can and should be transformed from one man’s ethic to a great public vision; from a life well lived to a noble lifestyle for all of us to emulate.

What this might mean in practice remains to be seen. But whatever my father-in-law’s ultimate legacy becomes, it can start right here, tonight, with all of us who were blessed and continue to be blessed to be his students. Yehi zikhro barukh.

The wrong blessing for the U.S. government

Please see my letter re. the Prayer for the Welfare of the Government (Ha-Noten Teshu'a).

As an example, see this mid-nineteenth century argument for an alternative prayer (Boston, 1852).

Please also see my longer essay on this subject from 2017.

Rabbi Soloveitchik on Jewish fate and security, in Israel and the Diaspora (1959)

The following is a lightly edited transcript from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s 1959 lecture series, “Religious Definitions of Man and His Social Institutions” (Part 7). The context of this excerpt is a discussion of fate compared to destiny, for both man and the Jew. 

No Jew can say what happens to X cannot happen to me. This is a mistake. I resent very much when Zionist leaders, of the Ben Gurion type, begin to tell us how unreliable the Diaspora is. And I don’t say the Diaspora is very reliable. I don’t say that. But I say something else: If the Diaspora is not reliable, so is Israel.

If -- I must use the Hebrew expression, chas ve-shalom -- the day should come when the American government and the American people should turn antisemitic and begin to pass anti-Jewish legislation, and engage in a campaign of religious persecution or minority persecution, then, of course, we will have no shelter here, but we won’t have any shelter in Israel. Ridiculous!

Many times [I would like to say to] the Zionist leaders, it is crazy because it is nonsensical. Because the security of Israel depends on Western society, and not only on the United States, the leading country, but if Western society should go antisemitic then there will be no safety in Israel. On the contrary, we will be safer in America, even in an antisemitic America, than in Israel, with Nasser on one side and Hussein on the other.

However, there is no security for the human being. This American ideal that man can find security is false. Man has no security as an individual, as I’ve said many times. If I have a big bank account, am I secure? I’m not secure because of the vicissitudes of life. Not only in the economic area. Today, I can move my fingers, the next day I cannot move my fingers. So today, is this security? Who can secure against a heart attack, or paralytic shock? . . . It’s ridiculous when people speak about security. There is no security.

And for the Jew to say, I am secure, is ridiculous. I say, for many reasons therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I say, first of all, this is the prevailing mood in Judaism. But it's not pessimism. The Jew is never secure as a person and the Jew is an optimist. It's a combination; the Jew thinks in dialectical terms. The thesis is right, but the antithesis is also right. The thesis is right: no one is secure. The antithesis is also right, and man should feel secure as far as possible. You see, if you operate with a thesis and an antithesis, this is dialectical thinking. You don't operate with ultimates, either this or that. Then you develop a different approach. I'm saying that for two reasons. I told you that my interpretation of Judaism is not objective. No person who interprets Judaism can be objective. Judaism is an experience and experiences vary as personalities vary. Of course, my interpretation of Judaism is an outgrowth of my own personality, my own experiences.

I lived in Germany for many years. The good years, the seven good years, we say in biblical language, when Germany was ruled by social democracy. Of course in Poland and in Lithuania, you used to have antisemitic violence and outbreaks from time to time. The German Jews and the assimilated Jews – all German Jews were assimilated whether they were pious or not pious -- and don’t forget that German Jewish society was integrated into German society far more than American Jewish society is integrated into American society, because integration is a problem of years. It's not a question that you can resolve by changing the language. It’s a question of mores and a way of thinking. And don’t forget that the German Jewish society was almost as old as German civilized society.

[The German Jews] used to tell me, what happened in Poland cannot happen here. It’s impossible. And of course, Hitler was on the scene a little bit. He was more of a comical figure in 1926, 1927, 1925 – he was a comical figure, no one paid him serious attention; a crackpot from Vienna who didn’t speak a decent German. He spoke a grammatically wrong, faulty German. This is a fact. He never learned how to speak German properly even when he was the leader, the Fuhrer of the German people. "It cannot happen here."

I always felt a certain sense of complacency about it, complacency and security. It happened. It could happen in Germany. And then to say that Germany is different from all other nations? It’s ridiculous. I knew many Germans -- good Germans and bad Germans -- a very cultured people. As far as culture is concerned, they are second to none, as far as philosophy and physics. And who wrote all the beautiful books about ethics if not the German people? The categorical imperative, that man should sacrifice himself on the categorical imperative. Even the Notlüge, the necessary lie, one shouldn’t even say a necessary lie to save his life – who said it if not Fichte, the famous German philosopher?

Why is it? Because human beings can be either devils or angels. And we are all human beings. I'm not sure that even in Israel, Hitler is impossible. Even in Israel it is possible. We are also human beings! With all our charismatic endowments, we are still human beings, and a human being is not reliable. You know what David says, “all men are liars.” That doesn't mean you shouldn’t trust man, but you should always remember that. You know the Talmudic expression, kabdehu ve-chashdehu – pay him respect, but watch out. 

The vicissitudes of life. And there are biological vicissitudes and also historical vicissitudes. At certain periods, a nation might go crazy, might run amuck, and not only an individual. Now the Germans are a sober people again. You have some antisemites, some crackpots, but we have some crackpots here, and who cares about them.

But Jewish history wants solidarity of fate. Disaster for one community, Judaism said, even though distant from and strange to the other community, must alarm and summon to defensive action all Jewish communities.

A Visit from the Rebbe (a parody for Nittel Nacht)

A Visit from the Rebbe*

'Twas the night before Xmas, the night we call “Nittel”

Not a bochur was learning, not even a little;

The seforim lay closed on their shtenders with care,

Not to be opened till naitz would be there;

The kinder were nestled all snug in their beds;

Trying to rid Torah thoughts from their heads;

And I with my AirPods, and mamma with tichel,

Had just settled our brains for a Torah-free Nittel,

When out on the lawn something broke through my dremmel,

I sprang from my bed with a shrill "Gutt in Himmel!"

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the** new-fallen snow,

Gave a luster of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a stretch limousine full of bochrim from shiur;

With a saintly old driver so lively and heimish,

I knew in a moment – ‘twas the Rebbe, Reb Beinish!

More rapid than eagles he and eight chevra came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Itche! now, Mottel! now Yankel and Bumy!

On, Velvel! on, Lazer! on, Ber and Avrumy!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to my roof the chevra they climbed

With volumes of shas and achronim combined.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard, a bit loud

The daf-yomi shteiging of that lebedig crowd

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney Reb Beinish came with a bound.

He was dressed all in black, from his head to his boots,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and shmutz;

New sets of Gemaras he had stuffed into sacks

For every young talmid whose learning was lax.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His mouth hummed a niggun, as if from a fiddle, 

And the beard on his chin was as white as a kittel;

With a wink of his eye and a kind smile he said,

“Minhag shtus is this custom, there’s nothing to dread!”

Then, he admonished, “Not a moment of bittul –

There’s Torah to learn, even though it is Nittel!”

He knew what to do and went straight to his work,

And gave me a sefer; then turned with a jerk,

"Final thought," said he, "verse is more fun than prose!"

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his limo, to the bochrim, "Come quick —

Someone may get the idea I'm St. Nick!"

But I heard him exclaim, with a hartzige lach —

“Merry learning to all, and to all gutte nacht!”

*Inspired by Clement Clarke Moore's classic ballad. See here for Marc B. Shapiro's study on Nittel Nacht.

**Censored

Falling for humans

 Please see my essay on the בְנֵי־הָאֱלֹהִים of Genesis 6 and the Fallen Angels.

A night of midrash

וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ (משנה פסחים י׃ד)

He expounds on “An Aramean tried to destroy my father, etc.” until he concludes the entire section (Mishna Pesahim 10:4).

The core text of the Passover Haggadah is an exposition of four verses in Deuteronomy (26:5-8). It is a midrashic tour de force that places the rabbinic method of biblical interpretation on full display. With their well-honed sensitivity to biblical expression, the rabbis draw out a narrative of the exodus from a terse chronology in a completely unrelated context. 

The price of that creative license is, at times, strained interpretation. Anyone familiar with the Haggadah will acknowledge that some of its derashot stretch the words of the Deuteronomy passage in unexpected and far-flung directions. While we may accept the overall thrust of the Haggadah's interpretative style, we must also admit that its hermeneutical flourishes can be so fanciful as to test the very limits of midrash. 

The Haggadah certainly has little interest in the plain meaning of Scripture ("peshat"). The word "Haggadah" itself is the original Hebrew form of the Aramaicized "Aggadah," a method largely unconstrained by literal or contextual meaning (though subject to its own logic). 

Take, for example, the first verse in the Deuteronomy passage, translated literally: 

 אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט וַיְהִי־שָׁם לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל עָצוּם וָרָב׃

My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation.

The rabbis read the verse differently. They assumed that the "Aramean" was Laban, rather than Jacob, and אוֹבֵד is a transitive verb, i.e., "(Laban) the Aramean tried to destroy my father (Jacob)." Taking this identification for granted, without the slightest effort to convince us, the Haggadah uses אֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי to show how Laban "sought to uproot the whole people," that is, to destroy Jacob and the nascent tribes of Israel.

As a straightforward reading, this interpretation strains credulity (see Ibn Ezra and Rashbam) and I suspect the rabbis themselves would acknowledge that "Aramean," taken literally, refers to Jacob rather than Laban. Yet they crafted this midrash, not to undermine the simple meaning of the text, but to drive home a theological-historical idea. The idea is stated explicitly in the Haggadah at the beginning of Maggid and repeated at its conclusion, by means of the catchphrase בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר (in every generation): 

שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ, וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם.

It is not only one that has stood against us to destroy us, but rather in every generation, they stand against us to destroy us, but the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hand.

בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם 

In every generation, one is obligated to see himself as if he left Egypt.

In short, persecution and redemption are perennial features of Jewish existence. Even before the Egyptian bondage, in a sign of things to come for generations, the nation's progenitor was threatened with annihilation.

By means of midrash, stretched to its elastic limit, the biblical account of bondage and redemption is transformed from a unique historical event into a metahistorical experience, to be reenacted at the Seder בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר, even at times and in places where Jews are free and prosperous. Only midrash can impart this metahistorical truth.

An even more startling demonstration of the gap between peshat and derash in the Haggadah is its interpretation of the last verse in the Deuteronomy passage. Here again, the Haggadah utilizes midrash to make an unequivocal, even extreme, theological claim which departs dramatically from a simple reading of the Torah:

 וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ ה' מִמִּצְרַיִם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה וּבְמֹרָא גָּדֹל וּבְאֹתוֹת וּבְמֹפְתִים׃

The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.

The rabbis thought "the Lord" was superfluous -- from previous verses, we already know that God is the subject -- so they took it to exclude all other agents, human or divine. God himself took us out of Egypt, without intermediaries. The Haggadah states this explicitly and emphatically, underscoring the point with metronomic repetition: 

וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ ה' מִמִּצְרַיִם. לֹא עַל־יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׂרָף, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׁלִיחַ, אֶלָּא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בִּכְבוֹדוֹ וּבְעַצְמוֹ. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְעָבַרְתִּי בְאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה, וְהִכֵּיתִי כָּל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מֵאָדָם וְעַד בְּהֵמָה, וּבְכָל אֱלֹהֵי מִצְרַיִם אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים. אֲנִי ה'.

"The Lord freed us from Egypt" - not through an angel and not through a seraph and not through a messenger, but directly by the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, as it is stated (Ex. 12:12); "And I will pass through the Land of Egypt on that night and I will smite every firstborn in the Land of Egypt, from men to animals; and with all the gods of Egypt, I will make judgments, I am the Lord." 

But is that what Exodus actually says? Were the Egyptian firstborn killed by God directly or by an angel of death? While some ambiguity lingers in the text, it seems clear enough from references to a "destroyer" (Ex. 12:13, 12:23), and from the blood-ritual meant to dissuade that destroyer from entering Israelite homes, that an angel or demon had, at least, a supporting role. Shemot Rabba (17:5), for example, leaves the matter open for debate: וְעָבַר ה' לִנְגֹף אֶת מִצְרַיִם, יֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים עַל יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בְּעַצְמוֹ. 

But the Haggadah and parallel midrashim go much further in seeming to claim that the entire exodus was executed by God without assistance. And this, we know, is far from the plain sense of Scripture. The evidence is in Scripture itself: In his message to the King of Edom, Moses himself says, "We cried to the Lord who heard our plea, sending a messenger (וַיִּשְׁלַח מַלְאָךְ) who freed us from Egypt." (Num. 20:16). Whether this "messenger" is human (Moses) or an archangel (perhaps Michael or Metatron) is beside the point -- there was, in fact, a messenger. The Haggadah's repetitious insistence that the exodus occurred לֹא עַל־יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׂרָף, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׁלִיחַ directly negates the verse in Numbers, almost to the word. Note that a parallel version in some midrashim lacks the phrase וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׂרָף, making the negation even more obvious (see Haggadah Shel Pesah, ed. E.D. Goldschmidt, Jerusalem, 1948, p. 40; Jerusalem, 1960, pp. 44-45).  

Rather than a recitation of events, the Seder is meant to be an exercise in deep storytelling. An historical timeline could only scratch the experiential surface and could, in fact, be better accomplished by a few key passages from Exodus. The four verses in Deuteronomy, by contrast, were deliberately chosen for their extreme brevity. They are a springboard for interpretation, best delivered by the deep readings of midrash.