Shemot 12:1-2, 26-27
This Month Is Yours
Israel’s first mitzvah as a nation is a calendar, and Seder night is built around a child’s question.
For children, teens and adults
This is the last stretch of slavery, before the tenth plague and before anyone walks out of Egypt. Hashem gives Moshe and Aharon the first mitzvah addressed to Israel as a nation, and it is not about courage or faith. It is about who owns the calendar. Then, in the middle of the instructions for the Pesach offering, the Torah does something odd: it stops to imagine children asking their parents what all this is for, and it writes the answer down in advance.
וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל־אַהֲרֹן בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֵאמֹר׃
Shemot 12:1
Vayomer Adonai el-Moshe ve'el-Aharon be'eretz Mitzrayim lemor.
And Hashem said to Moshe and to Aharon in the land of Egypt, saying: