Or HaChaim on Exodus 12:8/אור החיים על שמות י״ב:ח׳

1 ואכלו את הבשר, "and they will eat the meat, etc." Pessachim 83 states that the emphasis here on the Israelites eating the "meat" means that they were not to eat the horns, the hooves, the sinews, etc. This exegesis is strange since we have a rule that the expression את always means that something is to be included not excluded and the Torah here wrote את הבשר! Perhaps the addition alluded to by the word את can be traced to the Mishnah Pessachim 7,11 that "the parts of the lamb that are permitted to be eaten are those which are analogous to the parts of the ox that are permitted to be eaten." Ravah explains Pessachim 84 that what is meant are parts of the animals which become soft as a result of boiling them in water.

2There is also a disagreement between Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (folio 84 Pessachim) about the permissibility of sinews which though soft after boiling revert to becoming hard when taken out of the water. Rabbi Yochanan feels such sinews are not permissible as food as they are not analogous to "meat," whereas Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish feels that the sinews are sufficiently analogous to flesh to be included under the heading בשר.

3ומצות על מרורים, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The plain meaning of the verse seems to be that the roasting of the lamb whole is a symbol of freedom. Freedom means wholeness. The requirement to eat bitter herbs with it is natural; Egyptians used to eat roast meat with something pungent as this enhanced the taste of the meat and enabled the person who ate it to thoroughly enjoy his meal. Letting the bitter herbs precede the meat in his mouth made one more conscious of the contrast and of how something which by itself had tasted bitter would suddenly transform the whole meal into an enjoyable experience. The unleavened bread also contributed to that feeling. We therefore find that there were three components which combined to make the meal enjoyable.

4These three components symbolised three things. 1) The exile which had embittered the Israelites' lives; 2) The suddenness of the Exodus so that even their dough did not have time enough to rise. 3) The fact that G'd "passed over" the houses of the Israelites which was a major element of the redemption. This "leap-frogging" severed Israel's previous dependence on the Egyptians which had appeared as incapable of separation. I have explained the nature of the good being inextricably intertwined with the evil in my commentary on Exodus 11,5. Redemption meant the tearing asunder of these bonds between good and evil. These three phenomena had to be experienced simultaneously otherwise the whole redemption would not have been possible. If a single element had been lacking the other two would not even have been miraculous at all by themselves. Without the exile experience no other refining process could have been effective and could have borne fruit. We have explained in our commentary on Genesis 46,3 how the descent into the immoral environment of Egypt was a necessary prelude to "rescuing" the souls that had been taken captive by the forces of the קליפה at the time Adam had eaten from the tree of knowledge. This is also the mystical dimension of Kohelet 8,9: "there is a time when one man rules over another to his detriment." Had the Exodus not occurred as abruptly as it did, the Israelites might well have returned to Egypt to become ever more deeply mired in that moral morass. This idea is best expressed by the author of the Haggadah shel Pessach who claims that: "if G'd had not taken us out of there (at the time), then both we and our forefathers would have remained subservient to Pharaoh in Egypt." This is what the Torah means in 12,39 when it testifies that "they could not tarry any longer." The principal element of the redemption was the פסיחה, "the skipping over." Hillel (Pessachim 115) symbolised the importance of the simultaneous occurrence of these three elements when he insisted that we must consume the meat, the bitter herbs and the unleavened bread as a single "sandwich."