“And Pharaoh turned and went to his palace, he did not take this to heart either.” (Shemos 7:23)

We see from this verse that even in the middle of an event, one can prevent himself from being affected, no matter how moving it is.

The Seder Night is the night that we try to impress upon ourselves and our children the basic beliefs of Yiddishkeit. Many people go through the ritual of the Seder Night and have a wonderful time, but then simply move on with life. We, however, understand that this is a total failure! If the Seder Night didn’t change us, imbue us with more belief, galvanizing us to serve Hashem with greater verve, then it did not serve its purpose.

Many people can have identical experiences, yet some will be influenced by them and some will remain unchanged. Is there some kind of characteristic that could explain the difference between these people, or is it just a statistical phenomenon?

On this point, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Haleivi Ruderman quotes the introduction to the Mesilas Yesharim: “There is absolutely no purpose in reading this sefer only once, for we more or less already know all the things that are written in it. However, if one reads it again and again, and contemplates that which is written, then it can actually cause the reader to be moved towards change”. The sefer, if read many times, gets the reader to think about himself objectively and realize where he is faulty and needs work.

How much work and how much change? Rabbi Ruderman points to two gentiles, Naamon and Nevuzaradan, for whom Hashem performed miracles (Gittin 57b):

  • Naamon was a king who had leprosy and he eventually decided to consult the Jewish prophet who had him immerse himself in the Jordan River and he was miraculously cured. The gemora says about him that he was very moved, came to believe in G-d, and became a Ger Toshav (a gentile who follows the 7 Noachide laws).
  • Nevuzaradan butchered the best of the Bnei Yisrael after seeing the blood of the prophet Zacharia boil. He eventually cried out to Zachariah, “Didn’t I kill enough of your people?” Immediately the blood stopped boiling. Nevuzaradan ran away and became a Ger Tzedek (a convert to Judaism).

Rabbi Ruderman points out that both of these men saw miracles but were moved to different degrees. The Gemora is teaching us that we must try to move ourselves the most that we can. How is this done? By being engaged in thinking about what we are doing.

The word Haggadah implies that one is telling a story, in order that people become engaged. The mishnah tells us that this should be done via questions and answers. These are ways to get the participants involved. The greater the involvement, the better chance that the seder night will affect the participants in a positive way.

On Shabbos Hagadol there is a custom to prepare for Pesach by reading through the Haggadah. I have seen many people who “accommodate” this custom in five to seven minutes. Indeed, they have trained their teeth, lips, and tongue to quickly move through the words flawlessly, thereby enabling them to do the same on the Seder Night. I don’t think, though, that that is the intent of this Shabbos Hagadol custom. The custom is to prepare oneself for the seder, not to simply familiarize oneself with the text. We should instead become engrossed in the topics, so much so that on Seder Night we will be able to jump right in and “be there”!

I once heard from a world-famous speaker the following piece of advice: “Often I am asked how long I need to prepare for a speech. There are a few rules which are dependent upon the subject and the audience. But most important, do not over-prepare and just walk in there and rattle off the speech without adapting it to the expressions you see on the faces of the audience.”

If someone prepared beautiful divrei Torah on every piece of the Haggadah and drones on and on trying to inspire people, but without paying attention to their feedback, I dare say that not