“and carry forth the ashes out of the camp unto a pure place" (6:4)
This refers to the cleaning of the Mizbeach of the ashes from the Karbanos that were sacrificed the previous day, a task performed each morning at the beginning of the Avodah in the Beis HaMikdosh. The Gemarra Yoma brings that it was a great honor for a Kohen to do it. What lesson can we learn from the ceremonious taking out the ashes from the altar each morning? The Rabbeinu Bachya points out that this mitzvah teaches us a lesson in humility. It commands those holding the highest positions in the social hierarchy, people like Aharon HaKohen and his sons, to personally look after the ordinary work involved in cleaning up. This means that it might be a job for the regular Kohanim, therefore, the Torah teaches that the Kohen has to do all duties whether it is sacrificing the Korban as well as cleaning up the ashes. (Chovos HaLevovos - Shaar HaHachna’ah 82).
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch comments that the taking out of the ashes that remained on the altar from the previous day expresses the thought of what has already been accomplished. Woe is to him who thinks he can rest on what he has already achieved, and who does not meet the task of every fresh day with full devotion as if it were the first day of his life's work! We are told to consider our holy service as something absolutely new, as though it had never been done before. We are obliged to approach the duties awaiting us each day with the same feeling of joy that we felt on the first day. "Carry forth the ashes out of the camp." Every trace of yesterday's sacrifice is to be removed from the hearth on the Altar, so that the service of the new day can be started on completely fresh ground. Understood in this way, the instruction that the Kohein was to remove the ashes while wearing worn-out, less valuable clothing (R’ Eli Munk based on Rabbi Hirsch's commentary).
The heilige Rav Aharon Perlow of Karlin the author of Sefer Beis Aron would reprimand his chassidim when they would not clean the tables after a Seuda. He said it is more important to sell the zchus of cleaning up, much more then to sell Aliyos for the Torah reading! This is in line with Rabbeinu Bachya. Everyone is eager to set the table, and admiring a beautiful setting of silverware, and fine food, as this gives a boost to your morale. Whereas, cleaning up might make you feel like a janitor!
With this notion I thought that this can be the reason Chazal says in the Haggadah:
And even were we all wise, all intelligent, all aged and all knowledgeable in the Torah, still the command would be upon us to tell of the coming out of Egypt; The question arises: Why does Chazal have to stress and list each level, when it could have commanded: Every Yid is required to tell the story? The answer can be, for instance if we would tell a great Talmid Chacham who is toiling in difficult subjects and immersed in them, and tell them to learn a simple Posuk with a child, he would feel humiliated. Yet alone to tell a child a story. He would rather share his insights with other scholars and expand on them! Therefore, Chazal say ... and the more one tells of the coming out of Egypt, the more admirable it is. Just as the taking of the ashes of the Altar was a zchus, the same is telling the story of Yetzias Mitzraim. Put the ego aside and perform the Mitzvah of "And you shall tell your child on that day". Even the greatest scholar has to lower himself and tell the story. The Torah relates to four types of sons –one who is wise, one who is wicked, one with a simple nature, and one who does not know how to ask. To each level, the father has to adapt the story. That is why the Hagadah brings Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria and Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon reclined at the seder in Bnei Brak. And they told of the Exodus from Egypt all that night; These were the masters of the Mishnah and they spent the night telling the story to their students, and not delivering a deep discourse in a Sugya.
The Chasam Sofer says that it is natural for anything that is performed daily to become routine and dull. The cleaning the ashes was a daily act, yet we find in the Mishnah that they eventually had to make a lottery who has the merit to do it. It is for this reason that the Torah instructs one to tell the story of Yetziyas Miztraim on the night of Pesach, even though we recite Yetzias Mitzraim everyday, and we did it at last years Seder, it might seem routine and dull. This night when telling the story of exodus do it as the Kohanim thrived to do the ashes, and then ... (Yehuda Z. Klitnick)
