Going Into the Darkness to See the Light
Rabbi Shabsi Bulman
Pesach 5765
Said R’ Abba: All agree that Israel was redeemed from Egypt at night as it is written (Devarim 16,1), "Hashem took you out of Egypt at night." However, they actually left only the following morning (Berachos 9a). Strangely, the Torah teaches that Hashem "took us out of Egypt," while we were yet in Egypt!
The Haggadah tells of the Sages in Bnei Brak recounting the Exodus "all of that night." The Haggadah continues with R’ Elayzar Ben Azarya finally establishing the mention of the Exodus every night of the year.
Our discussion of the Exodus focuses extensively on the suffering in Egypt, and obliquely grapples with the reasons for the subjugation (the Covenant of the Parts, the foretold 400 years, "our forefathers were idolaters"). Thus, our study must reveal that without the purification through humility and suffering, and without the transference of subjugation from Egypt by the Rebono Shel Olam, we could not have become Hashem’s Chosen People. Thus the Redemption truly begins with the beginning of the subjugation.
At the End of Days we will be able to give blessing for and appreciate even what is now seen as misfortune. But even in this world we are given a glimpse of that understanding at least in our study of the Exile in Egypt and the redemption through it and from it.
The Sages discussed ("Misiparim") and illuminated the long night as the Sapphire stone ("Sapir") catches and radiates the points of light, says the Tifferes Shlomo of Radomsk, until their students saw the night lit up as if it were already the lit-up morning, to recite the Shema, and to the extent that one could discern and mention the Redemption even on the long dark nights throughout the year.
As the Passuk says, Hashem took us out of Egypt, not only when we left in the morning, but while we were yet in Egypt in the night revealing that the entire Exile was in fact part of the Redemption from Exile.