Disembittered by the Maror-Mirror Sweet

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’d forgotten, fully, Joseph who’d 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’s 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:

יד וַיְמָרְרוּ אֶת-חַיֵּיהֶם בַּעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה, בְּחֹמֶר וּבִלְבֵנִים, וּבְכָל-עֲבֹדָה, בַּשָּׂדֶה–אֵת, כָּל-עֲבֹדָתָם, אֲשֶׁר-עָבְדוּ בָהֶם, בְּפָרֶךְ. 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’s article in thetorah.com, “A Copper Laver Made from Women’s Mirrors: Who were these women and what were these mirrors used for? Reconstructing the narrative: the historical-critical method vs. midrash,” inspired, but is not responsible for, the bilingual maror-mirror wordplay on which this poem is based.