Welcome to our Haggadah/Bitachon series. We're now up to the unit of Avadim Hayeenu . The Ritva writes that this is the beginning of the Haggadah - the answer to the son's question. And as the Gemara says, we start with the negative and end with the positive. And the reason is , says the Ritva in his beautiful words, לתת שבח והודאת לה׳ יתברך המאשפות ירים אביון To praise and thank Hashem Yitbarach , that H e lifts up the destitute from the dumps. This is an important part of our theme- we're not just telling the story, we're supposed to be feeling Hakarat HaTov and say Thank You to Hashem for what He has done for us. The Rambam, in his sefer Moreh Nebuchim section 3, chapter 43, when going through certain mitzvot , says that holidays of Sukkot and Pesach teach us De'ot and Middot . De'ot are the proper mindsets, and Middot are the proper character traits. The De'ot / mindsets of Pesach is to mention the miracles of Mitzrayim and realize hatmadatah l'dorot (this is an important line) that it's not enough to say that miracles happen, but rather that miracles continue to happen. (We see that in the V'hi She'amda , which we'll get to later on). So the Rambam , in his very succinct way, encapsulates the cognitive message of Pesach - הזכרת אותות מצרים / Remembering, mentioning the miracles, the signs, and התמדה לדורות /its continuation for generations. And what is the midah one should have? That a person should remember the bad days during the good days. We're in the good days now, so remember the bad days. Why? בעבור שירבה להודות לה׳ so that you will increase your thanks to God. And, what's the purpose of the thanks? V'shalumad midat anava v'shiflut , to teach you the trait of humility. As we mentioned in Ha Lachma Anya , anya is humility . The Rambam is telling us the purpose is to remember. Avadim Hayeenu -We have to remember the bad times in the good, and thank Him, and ultimately come to the anava v'shiflut . And we eat the matzah and maror to remember what happened to us. Remember what he says, the chesed Elohah , the kindness of God and the promise He made to our forefathers because they were Anashim shleimim b'deotam u'midotam . They were men full of De'ot and Middot Who are those forefathers? Avraham , Yitzhak , and Yaakov . He says this is one of the fundamentals of Torah Tiluyah Alav , that the Torah depends on. שכל טוב שהטיב ה׳ לנו / All of the goodness is that God ever did to us , ויטיב / and will do good for us , is in the merit of the Avot . That's why he talked about the Brit Ben HaBe'tarim , it's all about Avraham Avinu; and it says Yaakov Avinu goes down, Yitzhak Avinu is also mentioned in the Haggadah , when it says, I chose Yitzhak . This is where the humility comes in as well, to realize that it's in the merit of our forefathers that we're here, not because of what we did. Thanks, praise, humility, remembering where we came from- that is the beginnings of Avadim Hayeenu . The Avudarham says that's why we say in Avadim Hayeenu , ' Kulanu Zekeinim , even if we're old men,' and we heard this for years already and we know everything, we still have to say it, because you have to arouse your happiness and your thanks. This is not a cognitive experience; it's not just to tell me something that I don't know. No. I have to get myself to thank Hashem and be happy for what He has done for us to drive in the Hakarat HaTov . If HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not take us out, we would not be out! That's a fact. Nothing else could have gotten us out. He quotes the Midrash that says that it's like an embryo that's stuck inside its mother's womb. It's stuck there and it can't get out. It has to be pulled it out. Likewise, we would still be there, and we would have become entangled in the Egyptian culture and mindset. Therefore, God took us out and created a whole new existence. A new birth. So we thank Him for that fact on this night. We became a whole new nation- and that never would have happened. It's impossible. Even in the greatest dreams, it's could not happen. Only God can make it happen. In a mashal , in the sefer Zevach Pesach , he says, Maybe 600,000 people could not have been let out, but what if it had been just us and our children, and our grandchildren? Who knows, could we have gotten out? No. He says, Can millions of sheep fight off a lion ? No. Millions of sheep can't fight off a lion. There are certain things that just can't happen. Therefore, he says, there's only one way out of this, Yecholet Eloki Urtzonot / The ability of God and the will of God . He says the purpose of this is not to make you feel like you got out. We'll talk about that later in the Haggadah . The purpose now is to tell us Gevurat Hashem Yitbarach V'chasdoh , God's strength, His power, and the kindness that He did , to humble ourselves to the One that saved us, and only He could have saved us. No one else. It's like the patient that there was only one doctor in the world that could perform this life-saving operation and no one can else do it. That's the feeling that we're supposed have on the night of the Seder .