You shall take a bundle of hyssop and dip it into the blood that is in the basin[2]
Hyssop bundles do not loom large in any collection of Jewish symbols and icons. That is fitting, because they are don’t really loom large anywhere. Chazal[3] call the hyssop shrub the lowest of wooded plants.
Nor are they particularly valuable. Their insubstantial street price, however, does not do justice to their enormous power. These bundles, say Chazal,[4] enriched the Bnei Yisrael. The hyssop brought about the despoiling of Egypt at the Reed Sea, the despoiling of Sichon and Og, and the despoiling of the 31 rulers in the land of Canaan. That meant a huge quantity of booty.
On the simple level, the hyssop’s importance was as the applicator of the blood of the korban Pesach to the Jewish doorposts and lintels. The avodah of the night of the 14th of Nissan launched the future of the free Jewish nation. None of the victories over the Egyptians and other enemies would have been granted to them by Hashem, had they not performed that avodah.
So, yes, the argument can be made that the humble hyssop led to great riches down the line. Surely, however, the hyssop had no more than a supporting role in the performance of the avodah of leyl Pesach. The lamb was much bigger, far more costly, and it took far more commitment to slaughter it (as an Egyptian deity) than to use a hyssop bundle as a paintbrush. Why do Chazal credit the agudas eizov? Furthermore, its involvement was such a peripheral detail, that it doesn’t even show up in Hashem’s instructions to Moshe, only in Moshe’s recap of Hashem’s words to the Bnei Yisrael!
Chazal’s point is that G-d included the very unassuming hyssop plant in the Pesach avodah to convey a critical lesson. The korban Pesach was the very first mitzvah given to the people as a whole. Hashem deliberately included in it and item of little worth or prominence. He wished to teach them that the service of HKBH was not related to cost or size. He wanted them to learn that Man serves Hashem in the small things as well. We serve Him through subordinating ourselves to Him, not through looking at sticker-prices.
Yimiyahu said,[5] “I did not speak with your forefathers, nor did I command them about olos or shelamim
on the day I took them out of the land of Egypt.” But He certainly did![6] What the navi meant is that it was not the presenting Him with offerings that was important at that historical moment. It was their subjugation of their hearts, coupled with an appreciation of the value of a mitzvah, which created the bond between them and their Creator.
Those can come through very small things.
- Adapted from Be’er Moshe, by the Ozharover Rebbe zt”l ↑
- Shemos 12:22 ↑
- Shemos Rabbah 17:2 ↑
- Vayikra Rabbah 30:1 ↑
- Yirmiyahu 7:22 ↑
- The korban Pesach itself is a shelamim. ↑