In my parents’ shul, for many years, they had a special meal between מנחה and מעריב on the last day of פסח called the סעודת משיח. We would sing songs about the future redemption and the children of members who were studying in Israel for the year, many of whom would come home just for פסח, and would give דברי תורה. I gave my own דבר תורה during my gap year in Israel about ספירת העומר and after it was over, some of my parents’ friends started questioning aloud to my father whether I would end up becoming a rabbi.
In any case, the idea of a סעודת משיח at the end of פסח obviously didn’t originate with the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst in New York. The originator of this special meal was the בעל שם טוב, the founder of the Hasidic movement in the 18th century. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, in the early 20th century, took this practice a step further by adding a מנהג to drink four cups of wine at the סעודת משיח, parallel to those we drank at the סדר.
The idea of enjoying a special meal to commemorate the 8th day of פסח supposedly comes from two possible sources. One is the number eight is associated, in rabbinic and kabbalistic literature, with למעלה מן הטבע, that which is beyond the natural. That is why the eighth day is the time for ברית מילה, why שבועות is on the beginning of the eighth week after פסח, why יובל is at the beginning of the eighth שמיטה cycle, why אהרן and his sons began their first day of service in the משכן on the 8th day of the inauguration, etc. In addition, the הפטרה that we read on the eighth day of פסח is from ישעיהו, which includes the verse about a wolf lying down with the lamb, as well as this line:
וְיָצָא חֹטֶר מִגֵּזַע יִשָׁי וְנֵצֶר מִשָּׁרָשָׁיו יִפְרֶה׃
But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse; a twig shall sprout from his stock.
The shoot growing from the stump of ישי, the father of דוד המלך, is seen by חז״ל as a reference to משיח בן דוד, the Messiah who will descend from the Davidic dynasty and redeem the Jewish People from exile as משה once did from Egypt. The הפטרה goes on to talk about peace and justice in the world and the ingathering of the Jewish Diaspora to ארץ ישראל.
But there are more customs that are unique to today. In some Hasidic communities, although they have a stringency not to eat anything cooked with broken מצה pieces, known as Gebrukts, during the rest of פסח, they eat Gebrukts specifically on the eighth day. Zoe Lang explained why in a Dvar Torah she gave a few weeks ago. But taken together with other practices, it is curious that it is yet another singling out of day 8 of Passover.
Furthermore, there is a מנהג among Moroccan Jews to celebrate the day after פסח as another holiday called Mimouna, which means אמונה, or faith. On the evening after פסח, people set their tables with sweet delicacies, like the fruit, nut, and jam crepes called mofletta, baked from the חמץ they repurchased from their Muslim neighbors. They dress in special traditional Moroccan caftans and leave the front door open welcoming in guests, no longer afraid of the various levels of observance in the community concerning חמץ. As neighbors visit one another, they wish each other “תרבחו ותסעדו,” good luck and success, similar to my Grandmother’s saying of ברכה והצלחה לגאנצ׳ משפחה. The question is, why did all of these practices, including reading the prophecy of משיח and the future redemption, develop to be observed on the last day or the day after פסח, always כב ניסן?
Dr. Erica Brown suggests that part of what is behind these מנהגים is the idea that while we are still in the Diaspora, and even after the establishment of a State of Israel, while the world remains unredeemed, it is easy to look at the פסח story and feel depressed upon its close. We talk about this amazing redemption, about this story that has a beginning, middle, and end with our ancestors being slaves, being redeemed, given the תורה, led into the Promised Land, and eventually building the Temple. But we know that the story did not end the way the סדר seems to depict it, that much more happened afterward.
There has been two חורבנות of the בית המקדש, there has been a 2000-year-long exile and oppression in the form of Crusades, pogroms, and the Holocaust. We know that there are hostages buried alive underground with terrorists, without access to hygiene, food, sunlight, or any freedom. We know that there are still threats to our very existence. We know that there is still a need for an eighth day, outside of Israel, still a need to acknowledge that half of the Jewish People are not home in their homeland, that no Jew lives in total safety and peace. So the eighth day comes to remind us that even if the future is uncertain, even if you have no idea how things can turn around, we can still act with אמונה, with trust, that the status quo is not permanent.
Sivan Rahav-Meir cites Miriam Peretz, an Israel Prize-winning educator in Israel, and a Jew of Moroccan descent, explains that Mimouna reflects the faith of נחשון בן עמינדב and the first Jews to step into the ים סוף, not knowing how they will survive, not knowing the waters to split to enable their escape. It reflects מרים’s foresight in bringing a tambourine with her, trusting with all her might that there will be a time to use it in celebration of her people’s safety and independence.
Rabbi Aaron Levine adds that the last day of פסח or the first day after is also about another necessary ingredient for the גאולה שלמה to come, which is unity, which is trust among Jews of different stripes, whether they eat Gebrukts or not, whether they eat קטניות or now. It’s a day on which, despite the intensity of פסח and our anxiety about חמץ, we make room for each other. This is reflected in these מנהגים, as well.
Rav Hutner in פחד יצחק explains that something incredible, a new way of looking at the world with fresh eyes was achieved during the Exodus from Egypt. When פרעה pursued the Jewish People with his chariots, that buried this new insight, clouding their vision of what the future could be like. The end of פסח, in the form of the seventh or eighth day, represents a return to the previous state, the feeling of elation and renewal that comes with redemption.
Rabbi Lamm adds that there is another thing that the end of פסח represents to us that is echoed in Mimouna, סעודת משיח, and these other practices on the eighth day of פסח. The סדר night is primarily focused on getting ourselves and our children to feel like we are the generation leaving Egypt, to experience what the Exodus was like and to understand what it means for us now. But it doesn’t necessarily emphasize what this means for the future, how we should think of the years to come. Perhaps just as the beginning of פסח is meant to be a night of education about the past, the end of פסח is supposed to be a time of education about the future. Rabbi Lamm cites the משנה in מסכת עדויות, which quotes רבי עקיבא as teaching that there that a father bequeaths to his son six things, including appearance, strength, wealth, wisdom, longevity, and:
וּבְמִסְפַּר הַדּוֹרוֹת לְפָנָיו, וְהוּא הַקֵּץ
And the number of generations before Him, and that shall be their appointed end
Rav Soloveitchik explains that this refers to the importance of one generation passing on to the next not only what he knows of the past but also his אמונה in the קץ, his belief in a final redemption in future generations. Rabbi Lamm points out that this idea is first referenced in the תורה in the context of יעקב wanting to relay precise information about the future to his children and grandchildren:
וַיִּקְרָא יַעֲקֹב אֶל־בָּנָיו וַיֹּאמֶר הֵאָסְפוּ וְאַגִּידָה לָכֶם אֵת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָא אֶתְכֶם בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים׃
And Jacob called his sons and said, “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.
רש״י there explains:
ואגידה לכם. בִּקֵּשׁ לְגַלּוֹת אֶת הַקֵּץ וְנִסְתַּלְּקָה מִמֶּנּוּ שְׁכִינָה וְהִתְחִיל אוֹמֵר דְּבָרִים אַחֵרִים:
He wished to reveal to them the end of Israel’s exile but the Divine Presence departed from him
חז״ל often refer to יעקב as ישראל סבא, as Old Man Israel or Grandpa Israel, both because he is referred to by פרעה and others repeatedly as a זקן and because he was the first to successfully pass on his מסורה to all of his grandchildren. His son יוסף is said to have merited to even have his great-great-grandchildren raised on his lap:
וַיַּרְא יוֹסֵף לְאֶפְרַיִם בְּנֵי שִׁלֵּשִׁים גַּם בְּנֵי מָכִיר בֶּן־מְנַשֶּׁה יֻלְּדוּ עַל־בִּרְכֵּי יוֹסֵף׃
Joseph lived to see children of the third generation of Ephraim; the children of Machir son of Manasseh were likewise born upon Joseph’s knees.
Appropriately, then, יוסף was also the one to teach all of כלל ישראל about the eventual future redemption from Egypt:
וַיֹּאמֶר יוֹסֵף אֶל־אֶחָיו אָנֹכִי מֵת וֵאלֹהִים פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד אֶתְכֶם וְהֶעֱלָה אֶתְכֶם מִן־הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב׃
At length, Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. G-d will surely remember you and bring you up from this land to the land promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
Rabbi Lamm and Rav Soloveitchik each talk about their experiences with their fathers or grandfathers, feeling as if, by learning with their parents despite the generation gaps between them, they together could bring scholars of the past into the present, into conversation with them. They felt as if the רמב״ם and ראב״ד, the רשב״א and the ר״ן, were right there in the room, arguing about the גמרא right along with them. Parents and grandparents and teachers ensure that, as William Faulkner wrote:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Similarly, these relationships can also ensure that the future is not just a dream, not just a wishful thought, but a reality that we feel confident will come to pass, if we can live up to it. בְמִסְפַּר הַדּוֹרוֹת לְפָנָיו, וְהוּא הַקֵּץ.
As we say יזכור and remember those grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles and teachers and friends no longer with us, it is an opportunity, as Rabbi Lamm explains, to try to revive that bridging of the gap between the past, present, and future, to feel like נצח ישראל, the eternity of the Jewish People. In a time of great uncertainty, may the message of the eighth day of פסח help guide us toward that better time of fulfilled אמונה and of גאולה שלמה, of complete redemption for all of our brothers and sisters.
דורש לנפשי 