5784/2024 Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Yiboneh Tu B'Shvat Seder

[Music] so first I have just a brief introduction and we are going to inter up my introduction with a song and it's not you um first I want to thank every one of you for coming every one of you give yourselves around thank you so I want to thank n andil for allowing us to use their Hall h there actually is a surprise announcement Rabbi PES for PES uh I didn't oh you didn't ask you okay um batm last pesak Rabbi brtz led the Seder here in this room and we're waiting to hear if that's going to happen again uh we want to thank H David and Natan and Sim and my wife Dena I don't know where she where is she she always it's number 10 or maybe 100 one of those with a couple zeros at the end uh always puts a very nice spread together and works very hard and there are many volunteers behind her um they know who they are I don't know if they're all here now they were here earlier today so much so many people help and there is one individual oh she's not here okay she's over there somewhere uh Leia shui and her husband couple who's helped make the soup the delicious soup thank you uh we also have sponsors throughout the year we didn't have many um sponsors for the evening but we do have one special sponsor and that is the um by marily and Jonathan Bloom they dedicated tonight for the learning for the ilama of M Ruth bad Abraham who we my wife and I knew very well and very special in the Shama uh she passed away on Tu Bish and um every year they do uh help us and the learning is dedicated in her memory should be for a blessing um before I go on I wanted to take a moment because we are I get very emotional we are in the middle of a war for our very existence and um there's really no words to the the courage of those who have taken time out of their lives milim and the people who are of course age appropriate to uh to fight for us so we want to um back up here with Sim and we're going to I think just Sim I don't know but we're going to singu together we can all sing together as we're saying [Music] a [Music] it's [Music] know I'm [Music] you who is [Music] my [Music] who be [Music] my is simp so I'm assuming that many of you do know what y does but for those who don't for those who do this will be a review um for those who know my wife's story a little bit uh she had this Vision she really wants to build a house for Hashem as we know King David in Psalms speaks about a lot so there's three pillars of Judaism Torah and in terms of the word whether it's building the Bas of mikdash which we all want and desire there are other concepts of building a house for hem such as the Jewish home but uh since we spoke about these three things Torah as you know y has Torah classes every day sometimes on on chabas as well um so if you want to know more about the different T classes you look up on the website and I encourage everyone to get on our mailing list okay the second thing it's not in order but I'm going to talk about it in a second so that is doing lots of and what we do and what we have done and we will continue to doem is to recruit and direct volunteers uh to various different projects and organizations such as a soup kitchens and packing food for the needy and for survivors of Terror in the last 3 months we've collected and distributed tens of thousands of shekels to displaced families from the North and the South tens of thousands of shekels we've donated and not you know through through you through you you're your Bonet you guys are your banet uh to organizations who are making tias for the and we've distributed 50 sets of toiling and we're talking mahadin gasos we're talking a lot of money here to the IDF and we do it through the raban of the ID of the IDF okay regarding aod so I don't want to take anything away from the rabbi one of the main ideas of tubish is the beginning the beginning like even before the beginning pre- beginning of the fruits so when the as the rabbi will say the root Roots themselves becoming saturated or beginning to take the first half of the winter rains and only then bringing it up that will eventually eventually become fruits so this idea of what y would like to do in terms of aod obviously we're doing something right now because this involves prayer aod is basically on a certain level equivalent to prayer it's really in a certain sense our aspirations to germinate ideas that will eventually become fruitful so one of the um goals of yan on our original um what do you call it the protocol is to uh build up a uh a bacon esset so that's a little bit of a big you know we have so many shes so many shes is here we need another one so the truth is we need another Minion and I've gone around to many of the rebant in this neighborhood and I requested to open a beginners minion what's a beginner's minion a slow minion and nobody's interested why okay people have to go to work I get it but for some reason so we're going to set a lower goal we've already started a minion m shabas in my I guess it's my house but in my Courtyard uh we Dive In Mar 10 minutes after everyone else is I'm not finished but after everyone else starts uh it's called tophit shabas so it's the tophit shabas minion in the neighborhood if anybody's interested it's always 10 minutes after chabas is uh technically over um but our goal this year we're going to we're going to get a safer Torah I think that if we can get a safer Torah we'll make one write one we'll have it have it written that's the first step in starting a a real Sho okay so let's hear it everybody's pledging now no I'm kidding reach deep down into your pockets no um so the star the star of the evening is Red by britz I mentioned uh we're thanking him for being here but now I just want to introduce him on a thank you on a more um personal level uh he probably doesn't need any introduction but for those who are not familiar I'm going to read these big words he was and he's the rabbi amatus of the Woodside synagogue named aava Torah in Springs in Silver Springs Maryland he's presently the ra of kilus or he has he has received his Jewish doctorate from Harvard Law School and he graduated Magna Kumi and he um he speaks and teaches in many yot and seminaries in Jerusalem and this is the plug he's our star in and just you should know we have a YouTube channel and it's unbelievable we have more views than our but anyway um we're getting just the rabbi alone 50,000 views a month this the rabbi alone uh We've uh over 13,000 subscribers and over 2.2 million views for a little you know Mom Pop YouTube channel not so bad and we're not um monetized right we we rely on everyone's donations um without any further Ado no I'm fine yeah sure okay hi everybody Shalom and it's wonderful to see uh so many people coming out uh to a s and I'm going to really divide my talk into two parts um I will talk about the food when we get to the food so right now I want to talk about some general ideas of tubish and then later we'll connect it to the actual things will be eating and the meaning of it the notion of as it is the new year for trees first appears in the mishna the mishna of M Rashana actually says there are four days of the Jewish calendar that are called rosashana not just rosashana uh the first of Nissan is called a Rashana and the first of elol is called a Rashana and the first of Tish is of course called rashash H and again each one of them has a distinct use we're not going to spend time on that and then it mentions the final Rashana of the year uh is an argument between B sh and B where which makes it consistent with the other rash Shas that are the first day of the month but B for reasons we'll discuss says 15th of shat and as is normally the case in when there's an argument between be sh and usually wins and there for the 15th ofat is said to be the RO of el now the big question is what does it mean what is the significance of the new year of trees so surprisingly and maybe somewhat disappointingly the talud itself gives very very technical explanations about the significance of rash and does not directly address spiritual dimensions for example uh the gamorra talks about Ora that you're not allowed to eat the fruits of a tree for the first three years after the tree is planted but a year ends on the 15th of shat for trees rather than Tish so therefore the Ora period might be extended so it's a technical issue and also in terms of truma and M which may depend on what year something belongs to so a fruit belongs to the old year if it buds even after Tish but before Tu bishvat so essentially when you walk away from the Gamora you don't necessarily see any deeper spiritual meaning behind the 15th of shat there areos there are certain Halos that apply to the 15th of sh nevertheless particularly among the makalum among the mystics of spat and now we're already talking about the 1500s where you have R mosha civo the Rak and he was followed by the Aral Ria and this was the great flourishing of cabala uh in in spat we find that deep spiritual meanings were uncovered about the 15th of shat and the medum of the Aral initiated the custom that is very widespread called the tub bishvat seder paralleling the pesak Seder so the tuat Seder was a creation of the mual in the 1500s by the tum of the Aral actually the Aral himself did not necessarily as far as we know we don't have any record of an actual tubish Vater but in the generation following the Aro and it became widely observed among spim somewhat observed among among ashim who were not almost totally not observed meaning it was not uh a common practice you know if you have grandparents who came from Poland or Russia uh they did not necessarily talk about a tubish Seder what's interesting is that Tater has become more and more popular among allim particular in the land of Israel in recent years some have given it an environmental twist it's kind of the Jewish Arbor Day or the Jewish Earth Day and although that may come from a less Orthodox Source there is actually legitimacy in that as I'll I'll talk about others still connected to its mystical roots and still others try to integrate the mystical spiritual meanings with the celebration of the environment let me just mention a few basic nkut does that one should think about because Above All you have to understand the one thing about cabala and none of us are well I'll speak for myself I'm not an expert in cabala and I assume most of us are not necessarily experts in it but one of the most important issues in all cabalistic ritual is to use a modern term the concept of mindfulness thinking about what we're doing not going through things in automatic pilot taking even what we might have called the animalistic functions of life like eating and the light but to think about what it is that we're doing and as a result Elevate the action to a higher purpose so I just want to talk about some of the themes that we should be thinking about as we enjoy this very very beautiful uh reest first and foremost it's very very clear that Modern Man the human being has become very disassociated from nature when we think about the Jew certainly the Jew in galut and even to a large extent in ER Israel here we're large largely urbanized creatures we don't really have a sense you know you ask a t a typical City kid the joke goes uh where does chocolate milk come from so they'll say Well it must come from brown cows or or something you know we don't have a sense where food comes from we don't have a sense of The rhythms of nature the rising of the Sun the Stars the constellations in fact even to this day when people learn gamorra that talks about constellations most of us have no idea what on Earth it's even talking about the Big Dipper the Little Dipper the signs of the zodiac we're very disassociated from the natural rhythms of life but an authentically jewish Consciousness is very very sensitive I'll give you a simple example you know according to Hal the optimal time for ding Shak ding the of Shak is when the Sun rises that's called daving vasin so we start daving a little before sunrise and we hit Shon vasin now I remember once it was my father's yard site and I had to go to a vasin minion and um I think they they were measuring what time it was in a windowless basement which had no view of the sun whatsoever and they were timing nates they were timing sunrise by an atomic clock and I had begun the amida I think 2 seconds after Sunrise based on that clock and they told me I could never DAV for the omit again because I was not following the proper Pace now keep in mind that although Hally they're following vaim I think they're kind of missing the point the notion of vaim was to inspire me at the rising of the sun and the beginning of a day it's as if the whole universe is singing a song of praise to God and I want to join my song to the universe the issue was not atomic clocks one second before one second that first of all the sages didn't have those clocks the sages were directly connected to the Natural experience of life when the Sun rises when the sun sets chabas was over not 42 minutes or 72 minutes or 90 minutes whatever sheet you have shabas was over when you looked at the sky and you saw three stars in the sky problem today is because of light pollustion we don't see any any Star you know Hashem tells Abraham I will make your seed like the stars of the heaven well I look up at the sky maybe I see two stars that's not so great ah but if you ever go to amuka place where there's no artificial light you see Millions all of us oh yeah now I get it so we're so urbanized we're so disassociated from nature and there's a lot that we're missing we're missing seeing the glory of Hashem in the beautiful world that he created so part of tub bishvat is to connect to God by looking at the wonders of the diversity of Pat that he put into the world how wonderful it is how colorful it is the different tastes the different textures these are things we think about during this time David talks about appreciating God by looking at the stars and the sky and the Sun and the Moon and this is what is connect to Hashem by looking at the wonders of nature know there's a famous mission in Pera that says if a person is learning Torah and he stops his learning to say how beautiful is this tree he's deserving of death so many people look at that as almost an anti-at what are you looking at trees for but I think the cutari says a beautiful twist he says you know why he deserves to die because he looked at the tree and he considered it a stopping of his learning the other way around when you look at the tree it is a hsh it is a continuity of your learning and then it becomes holy then it becomes good for you to look at nature as a separate entity not connected to your God Consciousness that is what is a tragedy very amazing typical karei Twist on the earth soer as a whole essay I can't even reproduce it on what you you think about when you eat an apple a banana all the different things you think about that we take for granted and see the of hasem connect to God by the Wonders of Nature and this leads of course to yet another theme that is gratitude I spoke uh last night in my regular about the importance of hakar that hakar is so fundamental that it's the very definition of being a Jew we are called Yim why are we called Yim Yuda is only one tribe out of the 12 tribes why are we all called Yim the explains Leia called her fourth child yudah because she said hasem now I am grateful why is she grateful for number four because she knew there would be 12 tribes and she knew it would come from Four Women R Leia B and Zila 12 divided by four is three she figured every wife is entitled to three you're not grateful when you get what's entitled M come when she had number four she wound up having six but when she had number four she said yet I got more than my entitlement that's gratitude says the every Jew must go through life with the feeling that God has given me yes the very translation of Jew grateful person thankful person one who appreciates one who who sees the kindness of God in every step of one's life so is Manifest number one in looking at the foods that has given us and in particular those of us who have the great great of being in herit for the land that hasem has given us and know how important that is must mention we give thanks to you the beautiful land precious land living in Israel is not easy there are ultimate challenges as R PO said all of us know we are engaged in M we are engaged in war there are people that are dying and of course there are hostages who are still in prison and when we say we should be thinking Leora they're there they're still there this is not just a song this is a prayer so living here has certain dimensions of tragedy there is no question almost everybody in this small country knows somebody who lost somebody that's the nature where it is if not in this war we've had others this is not our first war either and yet we can't allow our commitments and our prayers which we have to have to obscure the Gratitude we also have to have at the same time both have to exist simultaneously grateful for the gift cognizant of the sacrifices that that gift sometimes entails that's what Life Is Life is the mar and the M famous Israeli song The Bitter and the sweet all come together and in many ways maybe we don't fully appreciate the sweet unless we also go through some of that bitterness that makes the sweet even sweeter so I think a dominant mindfulness aspect of the T Bish is gratitude gratitude to God and the truth of the matter is even gratitude to the inanimate gratitude to the Earth you may ask me where do we find a concept of aarat to the inanimate well we see it by the makos if you remember the first two plagues of Bloods and frogs which were done by Aon hitting the Nile so Aron had to do it and not Moshe and the gamor says because Moshe benefit ited from the Nile it shielded him it protected him he had a debt of to the Nile therefore he could not be the instrument of afflicting the Nile to the water we find similarly on Shabbat when we make kides we cover up the bread because normally you begin a meal with bread but Shabbat you begin with wine the bread is going to be embarrassed whatever that means exactly we owe the bread a debt of gratitude because bread is the staff of life so we cover up the bread so it won't be there when we glorify the wine but what does that all show even to the inanimate and therefore there's aov to the Earth aov for yielding the richness that we see in life right so that's our second aspect of thinking of gratitude from an environmental perspective to bring in some of the modern twist part of environmentalism is our responsibility for future Generations um I don't know if we have well we have carab syrup I think but the the lowly carab the buxer that we ate Generations ago that was absolutely inedible by the time it reached by the time it reached America but whatever it is so there's a famous story in the gamorra Tinus that these trees took 70 years before they yielded fruit Ando one of the great rabbis the great tan saw an old man planting a carob tree and said to the old man what are you doing you're going to be long dead long dead before any fruit at all comes out of this tree and the man told Kono my grandparents and my great grandparents parents planted trees so I would enjoy the fruit I plant a tree so my descendants will enjoy this Nar has a story hono was like a Rip Van Winkle who slept for 70 years and he saw the great great grandson harvesting the fruit this means intergenerational responsibility I'm not going to get into a political discussion of climate change and global warming or conservation how you do it is up to you and it's not my expertise anyway but the notion that I'm doing fine and like Louis the 15th 14 I don't remember one of the Louis said after me the Deluge is not the way a Jew thinks a Jew does not only think about themselves a Jew thinks about the future in all ways and therefore the environmental aspect also says that Hashem gave us a beautiful Earth A Beautiful World we have to do what we can to to preserve it spiritually of course and even physically even physically to be M the Earth that AES gave us right so these are ideas of and these are ideas of appreciating God through nature let me mention some thoughts that come out in the mualim's writings themselves one of the earliest works of cabala that we have perhaps the earliest is a work that is called saer the book of creation some say it was written by a and some say it goes all the way back to Adam Harish so you can't get much earlier than that and the sa which you can actually get in English online even so good luck but it basically talks about how Hashem created the universe by combining the spiritual powers of the letters of the olive base just as two atoms of hydrogen when combined with one atom of oxygen creates water so when God combines different combinations of the olive base something is Created from that some new entity is created and sa gives you formulas for this creation and in fact the gamar tells us that there were aim who used to make a cow make a calf from saer which they would then she and eat for Shabbat uh the creation of the Golem which some say the morale made others say that's a not a true story that's another issue but the Golem is created through safer and and the like so one of the things that savet does is for every month of the year it connects it to a letter of the olive base obviously not all letters are used every month has a letter and that letter is linked to a sensory function like smell taste and the like andin every for every Roes he goes through the sa passage and tries to explain it for the month of shabat this is what saer yir says God took the letter sadic and he made it King Mel over the word laita is a word that means ravenous gluttonous eating freshing as we would say he took the letter sad and he was M the letter over that's all it says so what does it mean that the very first sin of involved a sin of eating they were commanded not to eat from the atas and they ate so the Kil that came into the world came through an a as a rebellion against God and that's called leita that's ravenous gluttonous eating because you're not doing it to serve God you're doing it for your own appetites the month of shabat not not even to much the whole month of Shabbat is mug to allow the sad so the letter sad means a person that's a sadic to rule over the animalistic aspect of leita by converting eating into a spiritual exercise of Holiness and Purity and that is a Chua and a ton for the Primeval sin of the a of pass now this itself is very interesting in other words if our initial sin was rebelliousness by eating the ultimate ton is not don't eat the ultimate tkon is yes eat but do it to serve God it's very interesting so therefore the month of shabat is mugal theoretically we should do this the whole year but in particular the month of to give the sadic shalita rulership over what otherwise would be leita and in that way beak the ultimate sin of humanity which was the of the and when the were theer one of their primary themes is our eating leem Shay is a rectification of the sin of Adam Harish and in eating theas that's one cabalistic theme the TK of theas there is another theme everyone is familiar with the gar that anyone who eats food without a is stealing from God because remember there's a contradiction in verses one p says God is the owner of the earth and its fullness another PK says in hilling in he gave it to people so are things of this world mine are they Gods so the gar says it depends before you make a braa you're stealing from God once you make a braa you have permission now it's yours right so everyone knows the well-known statement anyone who eats without AA is stealing from hasem okay but there's another statement right after that that's a little less known it says one who eats without a br is stealing from their father and their mother their father is God their mother is am Israel um we call am Israel our mother our nation is our mother it's interesting different cultures refer to the National unit differently a Germany about the father land Russia talks about the Mother Land well although the Russian are not great sikim but at least in Judaism we also refer to am Isel as the aim Hashem is the of so the gamorra says when you're stealing you're not only stealing from God but you're stealing from your nation now how is that so I understand stealing from God because God owns everything until he gives me permission but how am I stealing from my nation so the makalum say that every time you make a braa you are releasing spiritual energy from that food that brings a blessing not only to you but a blessing to the world so when you eat without a braa and that's spiritual energy is not released you are depriving CLA Israel of a little bit of bra that you could have brought into the world so point out that it's especially important again this is a lesson for the whole year but at least aish is a where you have special kavana in your Bros to release a spiritual energy from the food that can Elevate the world improve the world bring it to a much better place now granted I understand the amount of brocc that come in when I eat a single grape or raisin may not be that big but you never know and I don't want to make people crazy about this but you you know you never know the the mitzvot that we do have Ripple effects that we can't imagine you know maybe a hostage got released because of something we just don't know but what we do makes a difference that's where mindfulness comes in an awareness that our little actions are not insignificant not little they're great they're powerful they're transformative they're transformative for us to be sure but also for CLA Isel and for the world right so that's the second theme to make the Bros to release the spiritual release the spiritual energy but there's a third idea I want to explore and then we'll have some singing and and some eating and the actual discussion of the food I will defer to when we have the symbolic Foods and that is we know the M tell us that even though tubish is called the rosashana for trees but a human being is also called a tree where do we find that a human being is also called a tree a when it says when you wage war against the city you are not allowed to cut down the fruit trees because it says now what's interesting is the p is actually saying a tree is not a human being in other words it's it's making it's saying the opposite it's saying do not cut down the trees is a tree the enemy like the human enemy that you should so people don't realize this the actual is making the point that the tree is not a person that's why it's not an enemy and you don't destroy the trees but kazal on the level of Dr give double meanings and they understand the PUK to be also saying that in some ways every human being is like a tree in what way are we like trees well a few different ways some say we're like upside down trees a tree has its roots in the ground and it grows towards the heaven we have our root in shamayim we're an upside down tree we're growing into the Earth maybe that's why we're so confused we're upside down vertigo all these things we're upside down El that are rooted in sh that's one aspect another aspect is that a tree starts off with a little seed the mightiest Oak the redwood tree at some point in its development was just a seed and in that seed is tremendous potential a potential that you don't see a potential that you can't perceive but it's all there so too in every human being there's a hidden potential a potential for greatness remember every God hador that ever lived was once a newborn baby and in that newborn baby there was the vnon and reer and abay and and Mos going all the way back and therefore the idea that we're retriev means we should remember our potential our greatness the greatness within our children in fact this is connected to tuat in terms of the Agricultural cycle as Rabbi po alluded to why is tashat called the new year of the trees there are no fruits we're in the middle of the winter there's nothing you see there is nothing I see when I look at a tree on tubish nothing's happening ah nothing's happening on the outside but in reality the sap within the tree has risen and it's that sa this is prebudding will produce a bud and from that bud will be a fruit so tuat is a celebration of the Hidden potential within not only the tree but the hidden potential within us in fact the says this is why I made it earlier B sh said the new year of the tree is uh roses because the gor says that even though theak like B because of their humility B Shai were more acute mentally so they could see the potential even at an earlier stage than basillo right the two we difference comes from be shami being more acute in that in that way and again there are many other analogies as well just as a tree has roots we have to be rooted in Torah and Mitzvah just as a tree produces fruit we have to engage in the Good Deeds that are are fruit just as a tree produces shade which benefits other people we have to you know spread our shade over others they're all sorts of metaphors so if it's true that a human being is compared to a tree then when Tad is the rash the trees it also means it's a Rashana for a human person in what way is that so why is it a R for humans I thought rashash for humans was R so here's what the says there's a passage in the tal of jusi that says the following any tree that budded before tubish got its nourishment from last year's Reign any tree that buted after Tu bishah got its nourishment from this year's rain because you had enough of the rainy season the says the word g re does not only refer to physical rain but all of the BR gives youa learning fertility and Hashem decrees that on finalized on yum but this is an interesting until to bat you're living on last year's guest this is quite quite amazing meaning to say even though this year is 5784 until tonight you were living off the Gan of 5783 starting on tubish tonight you're living off the new Gan of 5784 now hopefully that'll be better it might be worse but he's says a sensitive person will feel the difference between their life tuat and their life before TUV because it's a different G so this is a time when we're drawing down the Bros that God gave us on rashash but now it's like those of you who know the the way Congress works you know money is authorized but it's not actually appropriated until they decide to spend it this is when the authoriz gets released this is releasing the so these are some ideas that we should think about with our connection to God making Bros to release the kadosa in the food for the benefit of not only ourselves but am Israel to recognize our own potential as an Elan and to draw down the Bros the G that God has given us on rashash and uh as they say there are specific foods and specific combinations that the balum advocated uh we will we will not be doing the whole thing uh there there there sheas that would make it much longer than we're able to do it tonight but I will save that uh when we begin to eat the symbolic Foods I will talk about the meaning of those particular things so be again we very much appreciate all of you coming and uh we hope that our mindfulness in the BR that we make our attempts as poultry as they are to be the of the should bring from Hashem mercy and R and Yeshua for erel for am Isel for all people who are in s and shivya and may we be to see their Redemption because of am the is [Music] is everybody [Music] this I [Music] need [Music] sh the heart of sh is [Music] the is you [Music] Des the this [Music] the every night my every [Music] night here [Music] the [Music] so like it's interesting that uh the ban S one of the great cic works of the 19th century actually mentions on you should pray that you will have a beautiful esrog for the coming year so uh there is indeed a big connection uh with esrog and uh Tu bishvat uh but now I just want to discuss a little bit about the food rituals that are connected uh one of the first innovations that the mual put into the tubish Seder is that we drink four cups of wine just as we drink four cups of wine at the pesak Seder and what now there are a few differences though keep in mind uh the four cups of wine at the PES seder have to be a minimum quantity here we let you off a little easily there is no to drink any minimum quantity you can just take a little sip that's one difference a second difference is that at least we make a b PR on each cup because each cup is a Mitzvah here we'll just make bra pruin on the first cup and the other cups we will drink without a bre and the third interesting difference is the mualim structured the four cups in a very interesting pattern cup number one is totally white wine cup number two you add a little drop of red to the white wine cup number three you add more red cup number four is you add so much red to the white that you don't even see the white wine so you're going from Pure White to virtually pure red what is the significance of this so as you might expect there are cabalistic significance and then there is more modern alternative interpretations the modern interpretation often links it to the changes of the Season white represents the winter a time where things are in potential but they're not yet into fruition and then from the winter you move into the spring where you begin to see the redness you begin to see the fertility you begin to see the fruits and then more red takes you into the summer fruits and then finally the fall which is the crescendo of everything reaching its final stage and therefore we go through the agricultural cycle of pure white which is potential Tu bishvat is potential as I said before culminating in the actualization of the redness of the produce the fruit the leaves everything else that is one interpretation which again I think it's a very nice interpretation the makalum however expressed it in a different way they looked at white as the ma of RA the maid of compassion the maid of and they look at red as the mid now in cabala we say that God's Divine influence goes through four different worlds that there is the highest world of pure spirituality that is called Aus the world of emanation and then it gets a little bit more concretized and physicalized or reified and that's the world of creation the world of Bria and then the angels for example are from the world of Bria then it goes into the world of Yer the world of formation and finally it hits the physical world we have the world of AIA this is often abbreviated ailos Bria y AIA now start stting from the bottom World our world AIA God's presence is largely obscured so it's mainly readed we see midin we see judgment we see severity we see punishment but ultimately at the highest level everything starts off as pure compassion compassion is what Hashem gives to the world but it gets obscured it gets masked it gets covered up and therefore what we're doing is the first cup is drawing on the pure compassion from the world of atut which is then brought down in various combinations of red you know it's very interesting that this is the meaning of shma we say sh ishem is which is the name of Mercy elu is Elohim which is the attribute of judgment and Punishment hash from my perspective I sometimes see ra and I sometimes see but that's from my perspective ultimately it's the unity of RA from it's ra that becomes nites it gets dressed masqueraded in in and I once heard a beautiful from from a that you know you know when Moser Reno asked Hashem show me your ways so the gamorra explains he was asking Hashem why is there suffering in the world why do sadim suffer so Hashem says I'm going to put you in the Clift of the Rock I'm going to put my hand over you very difficult passage and when I pass by you will see me from the back you will not see me from the front and the garan BR says mosenu saw the knot of hashem's head filling God is wearing Fillin and Mos saw the shill hasem wears fill again there's so much in this passage that we don't understand but this is what it says so the person said the following if you look at the head Fillin there's a knot in the back and there are two straps that come in the front there's a left strap and a right strap in cabala right represents and left represents th so from the front I see and I see from the back I see that both eminate from the same Source he's showing Moshe what we think is then is really in Disguise sometimes the is open and sometimes it's mysterious so therefore the white reminds us of the pureet that accompanies us even as we add the red in different levels moving from the world of aute where everything is kindness to the world of H the world of concealment and the like now so you have these two interpretations one is more ecological reflecting the change of the seasons and the other is more of a spiritual idea of understanding the hiddenness of God's even in a world of again a message that is very appropriate to think about in the difficult time that we're going through that is a reference to the wine uh with reference to the food I talk about the food now or you want to maybe we should do a little bit okay so let's do a little eating and then I'll I'll discuss what the eating is about first should we go this okay um first yes yes okay so let me just say so we're going basically we're going to start let me mention there are three different ways the food is arrayed just like when you file your American Income Tax there is the long form and the short form there is 1040A and 1040 regular so too there is the short tubish seder and the long tubish seder the the short version goes with the CH we go with the seven species that ER Isel is praised for wheat Sora barley geen grape or raisin fig Theon pomegranate Z olives and Das honey and honey of course in that P does not refer to be honey it refers to date honey so is the there are many complicated about the order in which you make the bra I thought I would talk about that but given the fact that everybody has made all the Bros already so I I don't have to discuss the BR laws but okay you've already done that uh so I'll save that for uh another time uh but the shim are the meim that have been praised now I once saw a book and I I wish I knew more scientifically about this what is so great about the sh like why are they the ones that God chose so one of the explanations is that these are meim that normally cannot grow under the same climate meaning they they require ire absolutely contradictory climactic needs and the greatness of ER is very very unique that we combine like every possible climate in this tiny little country uh rating from Heron that has snow to the ne which is a burning desert and therefore erel everything can grow even those things that are normally mutually exclusive and the person went to a scientific study I wish I remembered more of the data in which they showed that you normally are not going to get these seven in the same in the same geographical area and that's part of the greatness of erisel it is a microcosm of every type of fertility uh that can can exist so that's the shortest form sh there is another version that does 12 Foods shasam plus five others and that's based on a mystical idea that yut V the Divine name of God which has two of the same letters two hes you can actually rearrange it in 12 different combinations and therefore each food releases a certain shefa from a certain Divine combination that's the idea of 12 and in fact every month is connected to a different arrangement of the letters of sham havaya every tribe is connected to a different arrangement of the shame Hava that's 12 we call that the intermediate form and then there's something that even yon is not is not going to be willing to tackle and that is 30 30 fruits and vegetables and the 30 is divided into three groups 10 fruits that are totally edible like grapes no seedless grapes 10 fruits that are edible but have an inedible pits like an apricot or a peach and 10 fruits that are inedible on the outside like a coconut or an orange but they're edible on the inside and the notion is that the fruits that are totally without waste represent pure Holiness the fruit with the pit represents some internal blockage but most of the fruit escapes the blockage and comes out and the third level is those of us that have blockages that stop our potential from coming out and as we progress in the Seder we want to liberate the blockages that exist within our personality so the makolum saw in the symbolic eating ways of releasing blockages going beyond our boundaries going beyond our constriction and of course I mentioned in a number of my Shor that the balat says it's very relevant to these the statement a person must regard themselves as if they were taken out of Egypt what does that mean I was never in Egypt how can I regard myself that I was taken from Egypt so says the balat the word MIT doesn't have to mean Egypt MIT can mean blockage constriction limitation boundary as says from the narrow constricting places K call out to God so says the balat every person has a MIT I might have the MIT of arrogance or laziness or lack of self-esteem whatever it would be anger that's my MIT and when Hashem took the Jews out of MIT he put a coak in the world that we can become liberated from our own Ms so it doesn't mean every person must imagine they were in Egypt but every person must identify their MIM and then know that God will take them out of the mitan if they truly want to be liberated which is the first step and the makalum kind of Applied this idea to the fruits meaning the fruits that have Pits on the inside or blockages on the outside represent blockages preventing the good from emerging but as we eat we liberate those blockages and that's why we go from the pure Holiness of the sadim to those that have various blockages inside and they too will find tikon they too will find Redemption so that would be the 30 again it's it's complicated but I think we're basically going to go with the shim and the four cups of of wine so we're going to follow the order of the Kish the order of the Kish itself uh wheat points out that wheat is normally identified as human food barley used although when eat barley barley is identified with animal food and the concept is the rebi says that eating wheat is working on our Godly soul and eating barley is to even use our animal soul in the service of the Creator so I think everyone probably already made the m so there's no extra braa you recite but we'll leave the U the wheat and The Barley either bread or if you didn't have yeah do you do you have on the table do you have mut barley or just what do you have for barley have question yeah so why the body is for the animal so why we need why we need body today yeah we need the body are making it or weit for you didn't hear you what we wait for you no no no no go ahead everyone eat you don't have to wait for me just uh eat yeah uh because the body is the vehicle by which the soul can can do its work what do you have for barley uh oh we had the barley soup oh the soup okay okay everybody hi uh now let's let me just explain something yeah we're going to continue with the symbolic food will drink wine after a certain sequence now the first fruit that we'll be eating because the wheat and The Barley or maon note but the first boret PR H we are eating now if you've already made a break for eight you don't not make a br but if you did not make break for your eight so we normally make the BR on a shim fruit rather than another fruit but the BR we make is the order of theim now and the next one is going to be Olive now you may ask me an immediate question wait a second here the PUK says s wheat barley we had that Geffen Vine grape TAA so Gein is three fig is four pomegranate is five Z sheman Olive is six dasas dates is seven why am I saying make a br on six we ought to make a br on three the answer is kazal teach us that in determining priority we look at how close it is to the word erit and the word erit appears twice so geen is number three from the first ER Mas Z which is number six is number one from the second arits and therefore we will make the braa on the olive with kavana that we cover all of the fruits that we're going to eat so we're going to break PR your AIDS now the specific meaning of olive olive is a very important food uh in the Torah Olive of course is the is the source of the light of the manora which is the light of the Torah and also Olive is produced by squeezing and grinding and that teaches us an important idea that the Jewish people achieve their greatest potential through the struggles and the work that we go through so we're going to make a beret PR eight if you haven't made the on the Olive and that will cover all the other fruits that we're going to [Music] eat now here is a a lot of people don't know theoretically once you've made the BR and the fruits you no longer have to follow the shiv order the sh order is only what you make the bra so theoretically we could do pom we do anything but just for convenience and it's not a we're just going to continue the Shiva mean him order but you should understand that it's no longer mandatory at this point so the next one is the number seven which is number two from the secondat and that is the Tamar the the date uh we find in safer toim that righteous people are compared to the date pal sadik Kar that sadic shall flower like the Tamar then it says kaera is like a Cedar of Lebanon and the maam explained a cedar is big and Majestic but it doesn't produce fruit so there are two types of sadim in the world there are sikim who are righteous and mighty and holy and that's wonderful but they're not necessarily involved in the lives of others then there are sadim who are so involved in the lives of others but they don't have time for their own spiritual growth is blessing us that we should combine the twoim we should be like the Tamar that creates fruit that helps others and we should be like the cedar who also concentrates on our spiritual growth that is the Tamar once again there is no extra BR that you make open yeah you should check it open up the uh the day and just visually inspect it okay next thing is we now do number three from the first arat and that's going to be grapes grapes are out of season in Israel it's not like New York where everything is in season all the time so actually that's why we're more attuned to Nature here because we we do have seasons so instead we're doing dried grapes which are raisins and once again um just like olives the best of the grape comes from squeezing the wine and therefore CL is also compared to a geen once again no braa is recited we already covered it with the braa and the olives in this connection we are ready now for the first cup of wine that represents the purity of God's mercy from the world of vilot and like the other interpretation the dorcy of the winter which although its appearances are nothing is happening there's a whole world beneath our appearances of growth and potential uh there's grape juice available if you want and we do makeen you do not have to recline to the left and there's also no minimum amount you can have as little as you you want or as much as you [Music] want [Music] okay next is a fig some people are M with figs because of infestation uh they're cut in half so you should at least visually inspect uh the TA is a very very interesting fruit uh number one it's a totally edible fruit there's nothing that goes to was there's no pit so you can eat the the whole thing we know that some say that the atadas itself was a fig tree was a TAA and that is why when were ashamed because of their nakedness they used the leaves of the Fig Tree because that was their sin and that was the source of their embarrassment uh but ta is also described as Torah it says in Mish y he who guards the Fig Tree shall eat the fruit and say that refers to the conscientious study of Torah you guard your Torah you will enjoy the fruits of your Torah so the TA is a s of Torah learning and and devotion sor our last one is the remon the pomegranate and you might remember this from rosashana uh the pomegranate very very interesting uh the gamorra says a statement of RAB Shimon Benes po Isel even the Sinners of [Music] israelim they are as filled as a pomegranate with mitzvos as the pomegranate has seeds there's a folk tradition I I don't think the sour Kaz that says a pomegranate has 613 seeds can I get the 613 mitv and parents and Rashana occasionally use this to keep their children quiet by asking them to count the seeds uh in the pomr but it does represent the notion that they Malayan mitv I think we've seen it again not not that anyone is a sinner but we see it that even people who are very very far from to they want to gravitate to MIT like in we see the tremendous greatness of every Jew and that's what the pomegranate represents I want to point out that the author of this statement is reab shim Benish and some say that he's speaking out of his own life r had a very checkered background Rish was a highway robber Rish was a bandit in a prior life and he attacked raban and raban convinced him that if he would study Torah he would get to marry RAB yanan's sister the sister wasn't consulted but whatever it is and R lugish eventually became a great great great Torah scholar he was R yanan's student but also kind of his colleague and equal so when he says even the Sinners of Israel have a tremendous hidden potential he's actually speaking about himself you see because he said look at me and look at what I was able to become so you don't write people off you don't write yourself off recognize even the PO Israel now there's another aspect of reman if you're remember among the great rabbis of the mishna there is one who became an apostate one who became an aorus and this was the very unusual person Elisha Ben Aya who is called Aker the other one and rabi mayor was his devoted disciple and even after Alisha Ben aoya became a heretic rabi May used to ask him questions in Torah the gives a story Alicia B abuya was riding a horse on yum Kipper that fell out on chabas and was eating a non kosher sandwich so like all the AAS non kosher food yum Kipper chabas riding the animal all these things and ra is running after him asking him Shas and answered the Shas at some point told Rie mayor you're not allowed to go past this point because we've already walked the 2,000 Amos it's to me it's always fascinating that Alisha B aoya didn't want rev mayor to violate the Torah that's fascinating today people who are atheists are in the kir business you know they want to be marar they want to they do Outreach atheist Outreach actually it's a big deal it's called um Street I don't remember what it was but whole thing they websites uh uh YouTube videos Elisha B aoya did not want dreev mayor to follow his way and he actually told him go back and rebi mayor broke down and said to his rebi you know dud Chua come back and Alisha B aoya said I Heard a Voice from Heaven saying return my wayward children except for a I was told Hashem doesn't want me R salic used to say it wasn't the Heavenly voice that he heard it was his inner voice he was despondent God would have welcomed him too but his own voice said I'm too late it's too late for me but the gar discusses in kiga how could rabie mayor learn Torah from such a heretic and rabie mayor's answer was it's like a pomegranate I get rid of the inedible Rines and I eat the edible seeds right so the pomegranate also represents the idea that even when part of something has to be rejected there's still a uh that is good so that's yet another message of the pomegranate so again we should eat it and have cavana that to see the goodness and the greatness of every single Jew even the PO [Music] Isel and now we'll do the second cup of wine in which you add a little bit of red to the white y thank you no no braa is [Music] recited okay we have completed the seven species I don't think we're going to get to 30 but at this point we eat other fruits and vegetables uh let me just remind you that um things like pineapple you have to make a braa prama and and the like uh the nuts are generally you know tree nuts so um these are covered by by the hoes um it's very interesting that the gar the gar and the medish both talk about the Jewish people compared to a nuts because a nut has a shell and just as a nut even if it gets dirty and rolled in the mud the core of it remains edible so to a Jew even if outside there's all sorts of persecution there's a pure Essence that remains untainted so the nut itself is a remes to CL [Music] Israel Arab if anybody wants let them know has carab syrup yeah we have uh we don't have carobs but we have carab syrup which is covered by your sh there's no no that you make on it uh the carab remember the story ofo the 70 the 70 years and uh it shows us our intergenerational responsibilities she sh Shing in all the I give sh share [Music] to [Applause] she still the sh love know [Music] from this sh love oh [Music] I think right my life in this world that's called home that I possess blessed I and I of of beond everything that I know while walking down life's path singing out Life song say to myself [Music] the [Music] watch you down singing song sing to [Applause] myself [Music] my friend the wait cont but he does not he in his knows for certain and clear that all will turn out right it's time me sing song to [Music] myself [Music] I'm standing at the mountain waiting the door it and there you know well know this best found she right there you turn around while walking down singing out song sing to [Music] myself [Music] another [Laughter] are than you yeah let me just have the the mic M again unbelievable thank you you can leave it on this okay I'll leave it okay it'll stay up I can yeah no this is much better than okay now we do the tap uh we don't have to have honey uh to bishvat although it doesn't hurt uh once again the Jewish people are compared to an Apple we're compared to so many different types of fruits and here kazal have a very interesting observation that the apple is a little unusual because it is a fruit that is produced before the leaves normally you have leaves that will protect the fruit and then you have a fruits with the tap you get the Apple before you get the leaves andal say just as the apple is anomalous that the fruit emerges before the leaves the Jewish people were anomalous that when God offered us the Torah a normal person says let's hear what the Torah says and then we'll do it we did not say let's hear what the Torah says and then we'll do it we said the other way around we will do we don't don't even know what it isma and now we'll hear what you're offering us and therefore it is the opposite of the norm and the Apple which is the opposite of the norm is the Jewish people themselves now I will say that in modern biblical scholarship there's an interesting debate if tapak is actually an apple or an apricot there are those those who interpret tapak to be an apricat uh I don't know about and leaves but again most ma most Rim say that tap is what we call an apple it is interesting that the apple is not of the shim it's a separate thing but the Apple also has its great significance in describing the unconditional loyalty of the Jewish Jewish people again no braa is recited [Music] the Coconut's not from Israel right didn't hear you what the coconut is not from Israel I I think not you only make a yeah well well no you can make you can make a sh whenever it's a seasonal frood you can make it on fruit but this is like dried coconut right it's not it's dry so you wouldn't dry you don't make it no that's me the almonds the tree nuts shaked the word shaked in Hebrew is a verb that refers to acting quickly acting with alacrity acting very fast and the Almond is called shaket because it actually blossoms earlier than any other tree even while it's still the winter it kind of comes quick uh one of the old Israeli folk songs for Tu bishvat hash I remember it from kindergarten and a Masid a person who is very devoted to Torah learning is called shakan one who gets up early to study the Torah he beats the crowd so to speak and therefore once again the fact that the shaked ripens even during the winter is a reminder that CLA Israel perseveres even when conditions are not not great but we still keep the Tor keep the mitv and it also reminds us of theid of Z that when it's time to do something right you don't wait what do say mitzvos those who act with alacrity do the mitzvos as soon as they can and that's an important remes don't push things off when you have an opportunity for a mitzvah C don't let it become do it as soon as you can so the shed reminds us of the need to act and do good as soon as you can without being bringing in a pessimistic note we never know how long we will live in this world we don't know and as we know in our tragedies now people are taking what we think is before their time so you can't put off tomorrow what you're able to do to today because we don't always know about our tomorrows we only know about this minute and therefore we have to try to make every minute count in our lives and that is what the shaked represents our final is a special treat that Rabbi Poston personally made you have pieces of Candi esro SM here water yeah well maybe it may take a little water the almonds you know get stuck in the throat estrog of course we take on suos and I mentioned from the that on tuat you pray for a beautiful estrog in the coming year everyone knows the famous midash that the four species of suos represent four different types of Jews the lul love that has fruit uh without a fragrance that represents people with uh learning Torah without good deeds and then the hadasim that have fragrance without fruit represent Good Deeds without Torah the ARA the willow doesn't have taste doesn't have fruit that represents the Jew without anything but the srog represents the highest level of the Jew the Jew that has a beautiful for fragrance good deeds and and Torah inside now in truth we're not always going to be able to be an ESR but at least we should hope that there are going to be times in our lives where we can be esrog juice and if it's true as the saying goes you are what you eat so maybe you eat the esrog maybe you become an ESR in some ways and that should be our prayer and that should be our hope now we're going to have cup number three which is more red wine still added to the whites added to the white added to the white here's your answer and this represents as we are descending into the lower Worlds the pure mercy of aot becomes covered up with redness but it's still there and this takes us to the next highest to our world world the world of Bri the world of I'm sorry the world of the world of formation which will then lead to the lower world uh no braa has [Music] recited the last one just just no there there should be some white in it but5 yeah our last cup looks like it's completely red but there's actually a little white a little white in it and this is the world of AA our world where God presence is often concealed often hidden it looks like a world of M but we have to know that and it's in its Essence there is still ra and compassion even though it is covered up and often [Music] mysterious shom shalom shalom sh Shalom oh shalom shalom shalom sh sh shalom [Music] shal [Music] is sh yes I am our say sh sh God sh sh sh [Music] sh [Applause] shal sh sh my oh God [Music] is oh God he even [Music] Liv in your char [Music] [Applause] Liv [Music] youry [Applause] Liv help [Applause] got he made he made us name [Applause] me name me name me name me [Music] [Applause] name [Music] Shining [Music] again [Music] my [Music] oh