“Behold I Am Like a Seventy-Year-Old Man . . .”: Madness or Mystery—A Midrash on a Midrash

Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah said: “Behold I am like a seventy-year-old man, yet I was never convinced that the Exodus should be referred to every night until Ben Zoma explained it to me through this verse, ‘In order that you may remember the day of your departure from Egypt all the days of your life’ (Deuteronomy 16:3). ‘The days of your life’ indicates only during the day; ‘all the days of your life’ includes the night as well.”

For well over fifty years I have recited this midrash, this rabbinic interpretation found in the Haggadah, every year at the Passover seder. Until now, however, I have understood its meaning one-dimensionally, namely as a prooftext for a halakhic decision to require the recitation of references to the Exodus in the course of the evening prayers as well as during the day. Ben Zoma brings the passage to reinforce the obligation to remember the departure from Egypt in the context of the law dealing with the fringes of the four-cornered garment, despite the fact that wearing this garment is not mandatory during the night. Thus we have a necessary scriptural exegesis supporting a legal decision pertaining to evening prayer practice.

This year, as I prepared to celebrate the Passover of my sixty-ninth year of life (approaching the seventy-year mark indicated quite prominently in the above passage), I was poignantly prompted to pay closer attention to this excerpt. I felt that a deeper spiritual meaning lurked behind the curtain of strict legal considerations and implications. My awareness was more expansive and I entertained a wider frame of reference emerging from this text.

The key word that evokes this more imaginative interpretation for me is the word kol, “all.” This single two-letter Hebrew word provides the platform for special application and spiritual direction. If the text wished to convey the idea of remembering only during the “daytime,” then it would have sufficed to simply indicate y’mei ḥayyekha, “the days of your life.” Since there is nothing extraneous in Scripture, the word kol, “all,” must carry with it significant spiritual ramifications.

In my writings on the notion of gratefulness in Jewish thought,¹ I have pointed out repeatedly that the idea of “allness,” kol, is key to our understanding of God’s role in the world as a Source of all things. There are countless references to God as creating and sustaining everything: from God’s bountiful activity in providing food (as reflected in the phrase ha-zan et ha-kol from Birkat Ha-mazon, the Grace after Meals) to the acknowledgement of God as Creator of all things (u-vorei et ha-kol, in the first blessing preceeding the Sh’ma).

I would like to share Naḥmanides’ commentary on the passage in Genesis which describes Abraham’s old age and the unique blessing bestowed upon him at that time, the one that reads “And the Eternal blessed Abraham ba-kol, with everything”(Genesis 24:1). Naḥmanides understands this verse to mean that Abraham was blessed with the divine attribute of “allness”—that is, Abraham was distinguished by the capacity to perceive “allness” as a way to cope with the darkness, the nighttime of life. Remember that this passage of blessing is presented in Abraham’s old age, after he has lost his beloved wife Sarah. Life for Abraham at this juncture was his “nighttime,” the lailah of his years. Experiencing the approach of the end of life, with sunset fading and darkness beginning to envelop his days, he yet felt blessed, spiritually liberated, due to his ability to see all things from the perspective of kol, “allness.”

Against the backdrop of the concept of “allness” (kol) as a path of spiritual perception, we can then understand the statement of Rabbi Eleazer ben Azariah in a different light than the one of legal illumination. The underlying reality of liberation, of freedom, is the crux of not only this particular passage but of the entire enterprise of the...