What the Sages' Seder was Like

One of the most famous anecdotes in the Seder is this one:

It is told of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar, the son of Azariah, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarphon that they once celebrated the Seder together in Bnei Brak. They discussed the Exodus from Egypt all night long until their students came and said to them: "Rabbis, the time has come to recite the Shema."

Reviewing the Shai LaMorah Passover Haggadah before davening this past Shabbat morning, I came across two novel ideas that I'd like to share. 

First, "Bnei Brak", the city we all know in central Israel, just east of Tel Aviv, writes Rabbi Zeev Berlin in "Zevach Ha'Pesach," a commentary on the Haggadah, is NOT a place, but rather a description of the decor. The sages reclined on bnei brak, the finest and most resplendent of bedding, i.e. silk pillows, brak meaning luxurious, or opulent.

They reclined comfortably, feeling totally at ease, lost in the moment and losing sense of time to the point that their students needed to spur them to hasten themselves to get ready to say Keri'at Shema. Parenthetically, I'd like to add that I was puzzled by why the students should interrupt their teachers, if they were already in the middle of a mitzvah; one engaged in a mitzvah is exempt from another mitzvah (some say, because it disparages the first mitzvah). But here, I think one can posit at least two different answers, one which doesn't hold water, but the other, rather reasonable.

The first could be that if you are going to lose out on a second mitzvah, then you are allowed to temporarily stop so as to accomplish both, but at the same time, preparing one's self for the recital of Shema I think would have been a larger interruption, truly detracting from the first mitzvah. (Rabbi Tarphon, himself, halted his journey (Berachot 1:3) to recite Shema with utmost intent.) I think, therefore, the simpler - and better answer - is that given that the letter of the law is that one needs to recite Shema by sunrise THE LATEST (the Mishna teaches that one who had a seminal emission and is in the mikvah moments before the break of sun recites Shema in the mikvah (as long as the waters are murky enough) so as to not lose out on the mitzvah (Berachot 3:5)), and the mitzvah of telling over the Haggadah is strictly at night, the 5 sages, bedecked on silk pillows and totally immersed in the mitzvah needed their students to come and tell them that the night had elapsed, dawn had come and gone, and they were about to lose out on Kriat Shema if they didn't hurry.  

Secondly, on the same abovementioned anecdote, or vignette, there is an interesting interpretation brought down by the Hida, the Jerusalem-born Sephardic scholar and kabbalist, Rabbi Haim Yosef David Azulai ben Yitzhak Zerachia (1724 - 1806). The mention of the five sages is prefaced by the statement that each and every one of us, regardless of lineage, or erudition, needs to tell over the story of our Exodus from Egypt. Of the five scholars, shares the Hida, only one technically should have had to have told over the story, namely Rabbi Eliezer.

The other five had no place in the Egyptian bondage. Priests, or Kohanim, were not enslaved. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah was a Kohen, as was Rabbi Tarphon. Furthermore, not only were priests not enslaved, but the entirety of the Levite tribe was exempt from toil (perhaps similar to how Joseph had left the Egyptian priests' lands untouched). Thus, Rabbi Yehoshua, a Levite, too would not have had to have retold the story – his ancestors were learning whilst the masses suffered. And furthermore, Rabbi Akiva, perhaps the greatest of the Talmudic sages, and the father of the oral tradition, was the son of converts, so his predecessors too had no place in the Egyptian bondage.

Therefore, teaches the Hida, we see clear proof that the other 4 sages and Rabbi Eliezer are analogous to each other; there was no difference between Rabbi Eliezer whose ancestors suffered and those who did not. "In each and every generation, every Jew needs to see himself as having left Egypt!"