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91传媒

Disembittered by the Maror-Mirror Sweet

[additional-authors]
January 12, 2022
Kan Taengnuanjan / EyeEm/Getty Images

The Egyptians embittered, Hebrew wayemareru, the lives
of Israelites, which were, however, sweetened by their wives,
their mirrors showing them, the midrash says, how lovely they all were,
which made the husbands consummate the love their wives would stir
in them by showing them in mirrors the astonishing reflection
of their fair images that they beheld, relieving the dejection
they all had suffered, being by the tyrant Pharaoh loathed.

By love renewed, bedazzled by these images, they became betrothed
to one another, lying under trees just like the one in Eden,
and multiplied their seed like Johnny Appleseed, their lady-seedin’
displeasing Pharaoh who鈥檇 forgotten, fully, Joseph who鈥檇 once saved
his country. He all Israelites except the Levites first enslaved,
and then tried to exterminate, but failed, since the reflection
of mirror images of wives and husbands led to the conception
of babies for the Hebrew nation, mirror-maror sweetened,
as if they, Eve- and Adam-like, unsinfully re-Edened,
midrashically updating the two Adams, Adam Two
transforming Adam One鈥檚 first image to reflect a Torah Jew.

This may explain why we all add on seder nights haroset
to our maror, quite unembarrassed when with sweetness we emboss it,
recalling how in Egypt we with mirror images distorted
our bitterness and, by Hashem transformed, decrees of Pharaoh thwarted.

Exod. 1:14 states:

讬讚 讜址讬职诪指专职专讜旨 讗侄转-讞址讬值旨讬讛侄诐 讘址旨注植讘止讚指讛 拽指砖指讈讛, 讘职旨讞止诪侄专 讜旨讘执诇职讘值谞执讬诐, 讜旨讘职讻指诇-注植讘止讚指讛, 讘址旨砖指旨讉讚侄讛–讗值转, 讻指旨诇-注植讘止讚指转指诐, 讗植砖侄讈专-注指讘职讚讜旨 讘指讛侄诐, 讘职旨驻指专侄讱职. 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; in all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigor.

Wayemareru et hayeyhem. They made their lives bitter-sweet with mirrors!

Rachel Adelman鈥檚 article in聽, 鈥淎 Copper Laver Made from Women鈥檚 Mirrors: Who were these women and what were these mirrors used for? Reconstructing the narrative: the historical-critical method vs. midrash,鈥 inspired, but is not responsible for, the bilingual maror-mirror wordplay on which this poem is based.


Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored 鈥淟egal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.鈥 He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

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