One of the most puzzling passages of the Haggadah is found in the transition from the introductory section of the Maggid to the section that is the heart of the Pesach story. The introductory section, which begins with Avadim hayyinu (We were slaves) and ends with Vehi sheamdah (This promise stands) -- the first passage where it is customary to cover the matzah and pick up our wine cups -- focuses on the mitzvah of telling the story of the exodus, rather than on the story itself.

The section that follows recounts the story of our liberation from Egyptian bondage by reciting and elaborating on that story as it is encapsulated in the formula that the Torah prescribes to accompany the bringing of the first fruits to the Temple (Deut. 26:5-10).

But just before beginning the exposition of those verses, the Haggadah offers an odd comment: "Go out and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob. For Pharaoh decreed only against the males, but Laban sought to uproot all, as it is written (26:5), 'An Aramean sought to destroy my father, and he went down to Egypt.'"

Just as we are about to begin telling the story of our oppression in Egypt and of the miraculous liberation that followed, the Torah pauses to suggest that Jacob's father-in-law Laban was actually worse than Pharaoh.

In the Haggadah's interpretation (which is followed in the translation above), the first three Hebrew words of the formula prescribed for the first fruits, "Arami oveid avi" are understood to mean that an Aramean (Laban) sought to destroy my father (Jacob). That interpretation is derived from Sifre, and is also reflected in the Targum Onkelos (the ancient Aramaic translation of the Torah) and in the commentary of Rashi.

Many commentators disagree with that understanding. Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Abarbanel and every English translation other than Artscroll understand those three words to mean that my father was a wandering Aramean. (There is a slight difference between Ibn Ezra, who understands the Aramean in question to be Jacob, and Rashbam, who understands it to be Abraham, but both have the same basic understanding of the meaning of the phrase.)  In its original context in the Torah, the bringing of the first fruits, their position seems more logical than Rashi's.

It's not hard to understand, though, why the Haggadah would choose to interpret the opening phrase of this recitation as referring to Laban's attempt to destroy Jacob rather than to Jacob's status as a wandering Aramean.

Immediately before this passage, after all, the Haggadah ends the introductory section of the Maggid with words: "not one alone has stood against us to destroy us, but rather in every generation they stand against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands." The opening phrase of this recitation for the first fruits, according to the Haggadah's understanding, reinforces this general principle. Not only was Pharaoh not the only one who sought to destroy the Jewish people, but he wasn't even the first; Laban came before him.

But even given the Haggadah's understanding of this phrase, its elaboration of the phrase doesn't necessarily follow. Surely we can assert that Laban sought to destroy Jacob without insisting that he was worse than Pharaoh. After all, even though Pharaoh's decree to kill Jewish babies was directed only against the males (as the Haggadah text suggests), that doesn't change the fact that he was seeking to destroy the people as a whole, which eliminating all males (had he succeeded) obviously would have done. Moreover, nothing in the Torah suggests that Laban was bent on destroying Jacob and his family.

So why does the Haggadah open the central segment of the Maggid section -- by which we seek to fulfill our obligation to recount the story of our liberation from Egypt -- by asserting that Laban, who had nothing to do with our bondage in Egypt, was worse than Pharaoh, who is the quintessential exemplar of evil in that story?

Before attempting to answer that question, we first need to figure out what it is about Laban that the Torah (as understood by the Haggadah) is referring to. Most commentators point to the fact that, when Laban found out that Jacob had left Laban's household after serving him for 20 years, taking Laban's daughters and grandchildren with him, Laban chased after him (Gen. 31:32-54).

When he caught up with him, Laban told Jacob: "I have it in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father said to me last night, 'Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good or bad'" (Gen. 31:29, JPS translation). According to these commentators, Laban intended to destroy Jacob and his family when he started chasing them and did not do so only because God appeared to him in a dream (31:24).

There are two problems with this understanding of the Haggadah's words about Laban. First, it is difficult to imagine that Laban would really have killed his daughters and grandchildren. If anything, Laban's words during this encounter with Jacob suggest that he was angry because Jacob was taking them away from him.  One of his complaints was that Jacob had left without telling him, not even giving Laban the opportunity to say goodbye to them (31:28 ).

The second problem with this understanding is that it does not explain why the Haggadah brings up Laban's story at all, much less why it judges Laban to be worse than Pharaoh. Laban's action in chasing after Jacob has nothing to do with the story of Pesach. Furthermore, how can we suggest that Laban was worse than Pharaoh when his intentions, however evil, were never carried out?

But there is another way to understand the Haggadah's statement about Laban. While Laban never carried out (and probably never would have carried out) his implicit threat against Jacob, there was one evil intention that he did carry out. As we all know, after Jacob had served Laban for seven years in order to marry Rachel, Laban tricked him by giving him Leah instead (Gen. 29:21-26), and he only agreed to give him Rachel as well because Jacob agreed to serve him for another seven years.

Jacob's service to Laban during that additional seven year period --- the Torah's first example of involuntary servitude -- is a foreshadowing of the later slavery in Egypt, so there is an inherent connection there between Laban's actions and the Pesach story that we're supposed to be telling.

But there's another connection that may be even more significant. Had Rachel married Jacob initially, her first-born, Joseph, would presumably have been Jacob's first-born. Indeed, the Torah tells us that only because God saw that Leah was not loved (hardly surprising given the circumstances under which Jacob married her) that He gave her children first (Gen. 29:31). Had Rachel married Jacob from the beginning, Joseph would have been the legitimate first-born, and the jealousy and hostility of his brothers would not have occurred.  And since it was that jealously and hostility that led to Joseph's sale to Egypt, eliminating it might well have changed all the events that followed.

Thus, the Haggadah is right that Laban's action was in a sense more problematic than Pharaoh's, but the reason is not because Pharaoh only oppressed the males.  Rather, the Haggadah tells us, Pharaoh only decreed (gazar) against the males, i.e., ordered his people to throw them into the sea, while Laban sought to uproot (bikesh la'akor) everyone, i.e., his deceit of Jacob created the circumstances that (but for God's help) could have doomed the Jewish people at its inception.

Pharaoh's worst act was his decree against the male children, but that decree clearly was not as effective as he wanted, since even Pharaoh's own daughter disobeyed it (Ex. 2:5-6). It's noteworthy that although the Torah records Pharaoh's decree (Ex. 1:22), it does not record a single instance of a Jewish baby who was thrown into the Nile -- unless, of course, you count Moses, who was placed into the Nile by his own mother, in order to save him.

And if, as the Midrash tells us, Moses spent 40 years in Midian before returning to Egypt to become God's instrument for liberating the people, it is clear that the decree about drowning the male children had very little effect; otherwise, by that time, there would have been few Jews left to liberate.

Laban's deceit, on the other hand, though it seems more benign on the surface, actually had more far-reaching consequences. Without the intra-Israelite jealousy that the deceit produced, Joseph would not have been sold, and the Egyptian bondage might never have occurred. The consequences of that deceit and the ensuing jealousy did not end there, moreover, for without it the ultimate split in the Kingdom of Israel after the death of Solomon -- with one kingdom dominated by Judah's descendants and the other by Joseph's -- might never have happened.

Without the fratricidal hatred between Joseph's descendants and Judah's, we might not have lost most of the tribes in the Assyrian Exile, and we might not have become so accustomed  to sinat chinam (groundless hatred) -- the very sinat chinam that led to the destruction of the second Temple and that, continued to this day, remains a primary obstacle to its restoration.

Understood this way, the Haggadah's highlighting of the significance of Laban's evil teaches us a critically important lesson. The external decrees of anti-Semitic tyrants, however despicable, are temporary and, for the most part, only partially effective.  In every generation, the Haggadah says just before mentioning Laban, God saves us from the hands of those who would destroy us. We celebrate Pesach because Pharaoh, like all tyrants, was ultimately defeated.

But the challenge posed by Laban's deceit is more difficult to overcome. Laban sowed the seeds of intra-Jewish hatred that has lasted from his day to our own. It was hatred among the children of Israel that led to our exile in Egypt, and it is that hatred caused, at least in part, each exile our people has suffered since then.

It is that hatred that remains with us to this day and that is, as it long has been, the primary barrier to the ultimate redemption. Thus, after assuring us that God will help us to defeat the external tyrants, the Haggadah instructs us to "go out and learn" the deleterious effect of Laban's deceit, for those effects, unfortunately, are all around us.

This Pesach, as we once again celebrate the defeat of Pharaoh that led to our people's first redemption, we can but pray that, with God's help, we will soon succeed in the more difficult task of defeating Laban, by banishing from our people the sinat chinam whose seeds he so effectively sowed, and thus bringing about the final redemption not only of our people but of all humanity.