Let me begin by reminding readers that we are following Rambam’s list of mitsvot that apply to all Jews in all times, so that we can develop some understanding of Judaism’s essential demands of its adherents. Like last week’s mitzvah, this week’s two mitsvot are deeply familiar, due to the alacrity with which Jews observe them every year. Nonetheless, a few points are worth making. Rambam’s phrasing in the Sefer haMitsvot certainly deserves emphasis. He uses the phrase ke-fi tsahut lashon hamesapper, according to the storyteller’s skills of articulation. The commandment is thus not defined by any particular set of words found in any particular book(s), but is to tell the story as well and fully as each individual can. That in turn means we should be striving for length and detail in describing the greatness of what God did for us, the cruelties the Egyptians committed, how God took our revenge, and to thank Him for His kindnesses. This, Rambam says, is the meaning of Hazal’s motto that whoever tells more about the Exodus is to be praised.

Since our times repeatedly show us that more is not always better, we might wonder at Hazal’s desire for it here; Rambam’s expression of the issue provides at least one answer. Complex phenomena—and the Exodus certainly qualifies— cannot be easily or quickly understood. The attempt we make on Seder night is to fully describe what God did for us; at a minimum, that requires understanding (perhaps reliving) our situation before God stepped in, God’s actions in taking us out, and the subtexts of those actions (setting up a permanent relationship with our people on the basis of that event, for example). Accomplishing such a textured retelling is a daunting task for one evening’s work, and people will succeed to varying extents depending on their capabilities.

Rambam’s description of the mitzvah seems to exclude an opinion often quoted, that discussing laws of the Seder, such as the definition of matsah or maror, also qualifies as sippur yetsiat mitsrayim, as telling the story. For this Rambam, that would seem to only hold true to the extent that our investigation of those halakhot improves our understanding of the original events. If, for example, a deeper understanding of the rules for baking matsah helps define the haste with which the Jews left, or the vegetables that qualify for maror help define their troubles, it would make sense that delving into those halakhot could help in our retelling of the story.

An issue Rambam does not specifically address here is the obligation of women. While we generally assume that women are as obligated to tell the story as men. Rambam does not specifically include women; his silence, coupled with the time element in this mitzvah, leads Minhat Hinukh to question whether women are actually so obligated. Others, however, point out that in the Sefer haMitsvot Rambam generally notes when women are exempt, and does not here. Silence might more likely mean that women are equally obligated. The question then becomes (probably for Rambam, but certainly for other rishonim), how we know that women are included in this commandment.

One possibility is that the commandment of matsah lets us know to include women. Matsah, too, is a mitsvat `aseh she-hazman grama, but there the Talmud explicitly expands the obligation to women, noting that anyone who is prohibited from eating hamets on Pesah is included in the obligation to eat matsah. Perhaps, then, this reasoning extends to telling the story as well. Of course, the problem with that suggestion is that the Talmud does not mention sippur yetsiat mitsrayim in that context.

Two answers can be offered. First, Minhat Hinukh notes that Ran said, in terms of Shabbat, that the Talmud’s reasoning about kiddush—that anyone obligated in the shamor, or prohibitions, of Shabbat is obligated in the zakhor, or kiddush, obligation—actually extends to all the positive commandments of Shabbat. That would explain, for example, why we assume that women must also fulfill the positive elements of rest we discussed in a previous sheet. Even though the verse of zakhor only directly applies to kiddush, then, Ran assumes the Talmud simply means that the verse teaches us that, since women must safeguard the day by observing its prohibitions, we take that to mean that they must fully experience the day.

A similar logic for Pesah would expand the mitsvah of eating matsah to the other positive commandments of the day. In support of that logic, we can note that, both here and in the Mishneh Torah, Rambam mentions that the obligation of zekhirah on Pesah is similar to the obligation of zakhor et Yom haShabbat. There are many reasons Rambam could have chosen to draw that comparison, but this is as good a candidate as any (that here, too, women are included in all the `asehs of the day by virtue of their inclusion in the lo ta`asehs).

A second possibility focuses on Rambam’s decision to place the mitsvah of eating matsah after the one of telling the Exodus story. Since the commandment to eat matsah comes two verses after the obligation to rid ourselves of hamets, we might reasonably have expected to place them in close proximity as well (although he does not attempt to follow the order of the Torah, here the two mitsvot are close both conceptually and physically). His inserting the storytelling imperative in between perhaps shows that he saw that mitsvah as inherently connected to the matsah-eating one (it is a bread over which we tell many stories). If so, he might have thought that all those obligated in eating matsah necessarily are obligated in telling the story, a logic that would have included women. Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah.