I saw the following thought in Rav Avraham Bukspan’s sefer. This is a beautiful insight and something to remember for the Pesach Seder. In describing the instructions given to Bnei Yisrael to be carried out during their last night in Mitzrayim, the pasuk says: “You shall take a bundle of hyssop and dip it into the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood that is in the basin, and as for you, you shall not leave the entrance of the house until morning.” (Shemos 12:22). No one was allowed to leave their house the entire night, not until the next morning.
Our Seder is basically a reenactment of Yetzias Mitzrayim. We try to do everything like they did the night before they left Mitzrayim. However, there is one anomaly. We do one thing at our Seder that was not done at that first Seder! When we say the paragraph “Sh’foch chamoscha...” (Pour out your wrath upon the nations who did not know you), we open the door.
Why do we open the door if we are trying to re-enact the first Pesach Seder? We should say “Don’t open the door! Keep that door closed. Nobody leaves here until morning!”
Rav Bukspan says that we know from many different sources that Klal Yisrael were not worthy of leaving Mitzrayim based on their own zechusim [merits]. “These people worship avodah zarah and these people worship avodah zarah!” The reason the Ribbono Shel Olam brought about Yetzias Mitzrayim was in the zechus of the Avos and in the zechus of Moshe and Aharon – but not in the zechus of the Jewish masses.
The Zohar writes that when Lot and his family were saved from the city of S’dom, they were warned: “Don’t look back!” The reason they were not permitted to look back is because when the midas hadin [attribute of judgement] is rampant, only people who are righteous and are therefore “zoche ba’din” [merit salvation based on judgment] are saved. However, even though Lot was the best of the people of S’dom, Chazal say that he was guilty of many of the same moral shortcomings as the other inhabitants of S’dom. The malachim warned him not to look back because if he looked back, he would be caught up in the decree of judgment along with everyone else. In fact, the Zohar lists three times in Chumash when people were not supposed to look because they were not zoche ba’din: (1) Noach in the teivah was told to not look out; (2) Lot could not look back at the destruction of S’dom, and (3) the Jews in Mitzrayim could not go out during the night of Makas Bechoros [the Plague of the First-Born Sons]. Klal Yisrael were not permitted to go out that night because they too lacked the personal zechus to escape that decree. The midas hadin ruled in Mitzrayim that night and undeserving Jewish firstborns could have been killed as well had they “looked.”
A person who is not worthy of a miracle or salvation should not look. The reason why we open the door during our Seder is in the hope that, G-d Willing, we will be zoche to salvation ba’din during the future geulah [redemption]! Therefore, when we conduct our Seder, we anticipate being zoche to personally witness the Divine wrath poured out upon the goyim. The Sefas Emes in fact says that in the pasuk “And you shall not go out from the doorway of your homes ad boker” (until morning), the term ad boker is an allusion to the future redemption, when we will hopefully be fully zoche to witness that salvation. (R’ Frand)
