Where’s Moshe?

By Yochanan Gordon

The redemptions of Purim and Pesach are not isolated events, but part of a single continuum. Chazaldescribe them as geulah achas. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov teaches that while we conventionally view the year as culminating in Adar and beginning with Nisan, in the era preceding Moshiach the cycle will begin with Purim itself.

This framing helps illuminate a striking parallel. The book of Purim, Megillat Esther, famously omits the explicit name of Hashem. Yet Chazal point out that He is present throughout, embedded in the repeated term hamelech. Even the name Achashverosh, as noted by Meorei Ohr, alludes to Acharis v’reishis shelo—the One who is both beginning and end.

If so, it is equally striking that Moshe is entirely absent from the Passover Haggadah, despite being the central agent of yetzias Mitzrayim. This omission becomes even more puzzling in light of the verse we recite daily: Vayaaminu baHashem u’v’Moshe avdo.

At the same time, Pharaoh’s decree to cast every male child into the Nile, while sparing the females, demands interpretation beyond its literal meaning. His astrologers foresaw a male savior and sought to eliminate him. But on a deeper level, this narrative encodes a spiritual dynamic.

In Likkutei Moharan (Torah 30), Rebbe Nachman of Breslov explains that “ben” and “bas” correspond to two modes of intellect: sechel elyon and sechel tachton. The former is the higher, ineffable root of an idea as it exists in its Divine source; the latter is the articulated, limited expression of that idea within human understanding.

Every concept exists in both forms simultaneously: in its pre-cognitive origin and in its expressed form. The drowning of the “male,” in this framework, represents the concealment of the higher root, allowing the idea to emerge in a form accessible within the created world.

This is precisely Moshe’s role, to unite sechel tachton with sechel elyon, bridging expression and source, and thereby making a dwelling place for the Divine in this world.

With this, we can return to the Seder.

The central mitzvah of Pesach is sippur yetzias Mitzrayim, telling the story. The Torah emphasizes: vehigadeta levincha bayom hahu. Ideally, this is a transmission from teacher to student, parent to child. At the same time, Chazal praise one who elaborates at length, and the Haggadah recounts how great sages—Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon—remained immersed in the discussion all night.

This creates a familiar tension. Some participants require a simple, accessible telling; others seek depth and sophistication. The Seder leader must navigate both.

This tension is not a distraction; it is the very essence of the avodah.

For the omission of Moshe from the Haggadah is not an absence, but a transformation. On Pesach, we do not speak about Moshe—we embody him.

The one leading the Seder stands in Moshe’s role, uniting different levels of understanding, connecting the simple with the profound, and revealing the higher root within every expression. Whether the conversation is elementary or advanced, it remains within the realm of sechel tachton. The task is always to connect it to sechel elyon.

This also explains why even the greatest sages are obligated to recount the story. No matter how much one knows, the measure of sechel elyon continuously expands relative to the level of sechel tachton. There is always a deeper point of connection to be made.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov illustrates this with the bas ayin, the pupil of the eye. When one gazes upon something vast, like a towering mountain, its immensity may defy description. Yet the entire image is contained, in miniature, within the pupil. So too, every articulation of Torah, no matter how simple, contains within it the full depth of its Divine source.

This perspective reshapes the Seder experience. Even when the discussion feels limited, one must recognize that the entirety of the deeper narrative is present in concealed form.

More broadly, this becomes a way of seeing every Jew. The Zohar teaches that each person contains a spark of Moshe. Just as the Torah is composed of 600,000 letters, each corresponding to a soul, so too every individual contains the whole within themselves. There are no extraneous letters and no extraneous souls.

This is not merely an idea; it is a responsibility. To carry a spark of Moshe means to step into his role—to connect, to uplift, and to reveal the Divine root within the lived reality of others.

Moshe is not absent from the Haggadah. He is present in every person who sits at the Seder and accepts the task of bridging heaven and earth. 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.