Charlie Harary: The Unlocked Haggadah

Before we begin, I want to wish a refuah shleimah to David Farid Chaim ben Aziza Dina should have a refuah shleimah meheira. To to Robin Khazak, thank you for organizing this and always being available for Kol Yisrael wherever it is, wherever they need. And Khazak is an organization doing so many amazing good things. The Shaarei Menashe a shul that is near and dear to my heart, especially the heart of my parents. And my father who's mother here today and uh a shul that is made a stake in our community that stands for so much good, so much Torah, so much tradition, and so much chizuk. So, I appreciate it. So, I want to share with you a little bit of how this started and it's going to be a little different than what you may be used to. This is a little bit more of a of a of a walk through the through the Haggadah. If anybody wants a Haggadah, we have sitters here. Um it's page 100. It could be helpful if you're going through it. Just make sure you don't put any chametz on it. Um but it could be helpful as we're going through it cuz the goal here is very very specific. This is not what would maybe a typical class and taking an idea with Hashem's help, taking an idea and trying to break it open. This is a different game. The hope here is we're going to have to take a walk through what is one is I think one of the most interesting moments of the year. And I'll tell you where this started from. And we can hopefully, you know, jump in together. And if you have to go in the middle, I understand that it's going to be a little bit of time that we're going to spend here together tonight. So, of course, you know, Zichron Menachem told you before we begin is an organization that we're very close to that does an enormous amount of good. Um if you have the time, especially now for Pesach, if you can go to the site and and participate, I'd really appreciate it. If you go on the site, we're actually going to put we'll take the notes from tonight and put it on the site as well. So, if you go to zichronmenachem.org, you'll have a pop-up. You can put your name and we'll send you the notes. And also, we have also on that as well, we do certain times we we there is certain particular I believe you others have asked for certain tefillot. So, it's an opportunity if you want to be involved in that and say, "Listen, I have a few minutes I can I can give to daven for somebody else." When you organize certain tefillot, we'll get your name as well. So, if you go to zman.net or you'll get a lot of here and then hopefully a lot more. This began really in a conversation I had with Rabbi Leff a couple weeks ago when he said to me that you have to understand what's happening on the seder night. And and if you go into the sifrei chasidim, you'll see this as well. By by definitely in the sifrei also by the Sefardim, you see this as well in the world of pnimiyut. But he said it the way he said it really shook me. He said that you have to understand that on the night of Pesach, the amount of or, I don't I can't say this, I'm not holy enough, but on the amount of or that comes into the world on Pesach night is unbelievable. There's no night like that for the whole year. I saw a long time ago when someone said for that they said something like halaila hazeh, but the idea is that Pesach seder he was explaining has so much light, has so much or. And when you have or, it it it it penetrates into the darkness, the spiritual darkness, and it fixes. If a person is dirty and they go and they put water into the dirt, the dirt the water cleans out the dirt. So, in my head, the way I understand it is if you go into a period of time in which spiritual darkness is what causes our problems. Our separation from Hashem is spiritual darkness. The tzaros that we have many times in this world is just a manifestation of spiritual darkness. If you have a night that has so much or, so much light, the amount that it could do for your life is unbelievable. That's what he was explaining to me. And he said that if you go through a seder night properly, we as a nation may not achieve what's called national geulah. We may not see Mashiach. But geulah is not a binary thing. It's not either it comes or it doesn't come. Geulah is also personal. If somebody is struggling in work, if somebody is struggling in in a relationship, somebody is struggling with maybe a child. When you're struggling in life, many times what you want is a geulah. Ga'al Yisrael and Tnei Esrei is on the personal side. If you go through the Bracha of Shemoneh Esrei, when you get into the world of Ga'al Yisrael, when you go look at at at that word of it's not on the the the the the the the the the national side, the group side. It's not by Matbe'a Shel Yisrael. It's beforehand. Because it's a concept of personal Geulah. And a person goes through the Seder, and if you go through the Seder, you can accomplish from a Seder for you, your family, and your loved ones a personal Geulah. It's available. Or you could not. At least the way I understand it, the way I see the world is through certain prisms. One of the prisms I see the world is through coffee. That happens to be one of my biggest loves, and I get very nervous if there's no coffee, which is why I have it here just in case. And when you fly, when you go places and you fly, one of my fears when I fly is I will be in someone else's care, and there may not be coffee. And I think about that, cuz it's what happens when you're obsessed with coffee. So, I have to plan. What happens if I'm on a plane? And what There's like a half an hour that we're going to sit on the runway. The service isn't playing. What am I going to do for an hour on the runway without coffee? So, I take a thermos with me. And I fill it up in the club or wherever I get I have hot water. I bring my own packets. So, just in case I have to rely on the on the stewardess to give me coffee. I got I can't I can't put myself in that in her hands. So, I was one time going to the club getting ready to go on a long flight, and I remember going to my bag, and I stick my hand in my bag, and I pull out no cup no thermos. I'm like, what And I realized I left it on the on the kitchen counter. So, I had to go to the club. I had to survive with a little hot coffee. And I remember seeing that they had so much hot water. It was unbelievable. It was Bar Chava. Hot water, forget about it. But I only walked out with one cup. You know how long that lasted me? It was just I got it I was done by the By the time I got onto the plane. And it dawned on me when the Rabbi explained to me, and this is what we're going to talk about tonight. It's plenty of hot It's plenty of or. The question is are we going to be okay? There's plenty of or. Leil Seder, it's plenty of or. There's more or on the seder for you and your family, your grandkids, your friends. There's enough or for Geulah. Hashem is saying I have enough or coming into the world. I'm bringing Eliyahu Hanavi to your house. I'm going to bris. Eliyahu Hanavi's coming. It's a massive You can either walk out of the seder with a tiny little shot glass of or for your year or you can walk out of the seder with a massive tub of or. The question we have to ask ourselves is what we're doing tonight is with Hashem's help trying to become a klee, a vessel within which the or can rest. And what Chazal has given us to help us do that is the seder. Now, before we jump into it, I just want to explain why we're going to again, stay as long as you want whether online or here. It's going to take a little bit of time. I'm not running. It's okay if you have to go. The goal for tonight is to if we can together understand what is taking place on that seder. And the reason is because if you think about it and this is what the Chazal say with the rabbi said and what Chazal say is if there's a machlokes in the Gemara Rosh Hashanah between when the world was created and in the Gemara there's a machlokes between Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer about whether the world was created in Tishrei or in Nissan. And Tosfos there says "Eilu v'eilu, they're both right. One was created l'maaseh, which was Nissan, and on Tishrei olam hamachshavah, it came into Hashem's mind to create the world." And everyone talks about that means and I heard so in the name of the Arizal. What it means is that on Tishrei he created the spiritual world. That's why all of our yom tovs is Tishrei because we care about the soul. So there even though the Gemara says that the world was created on Nissan, we hold by Tishrei in all the Rosh Hashanah because we say really the beginning of the world is not the physical world. The beginning of the world is the spiritual world. The din is on spirituality. The din is going to manifest in the physical. But that's why we go crazy in Tishrei. But it doesn't mean we have to forget about Nissan. But we're done with Tishrei. We get to Nissan, we forget the Gamara. In Nissan, the world was created physically. It's still a creation of the world. It's still a massive thing happening right now. Okay, it's not the Tishrei creation. If you look at what's taking place in the Seder, the way you would look at Tishrei, the game changes. Because no one rolls into Yom Kippur with like, "Oh my gosh, what's everyone doing? Why is everybody in white? It's just Maariv. Wait, it's not just Maariv? Like what are you talking about? Oh, we have to fast? I should have prepared. I should have ate something. KAPAROT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? SLICHOT?" Because when Yom Kippur rolls in, you're ready to roll. But you go to a Seder, myself included, and guys roll in like, "HEY, WHERE'S MY HAGGADAH?" LIKE WHAT'S GOING ON? LIKE WHAT'S HERE? WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT'S GOING ON? Are you doing? No clue. For Yom Kippur, a guy rolls in no clue. No clue. You have your whole year lying on. No clue about the din in 25 hours. You're thinking of Neilah when you first walk in. You're placing yourself. You you're you you you've eaten. You've thought about it. You've said forgiveness. You've gone through Slichot. You go through all these Hachana's to get to Yom Kippur cuz you know that you can't leave Yom Kippur with nothing in your hands. You can leave Yom Kippur and you put everything on the table like it's a regular day. You see say myself you see Seders, it's like a regular Yom Tov meal. Guys roll in like whatever. And then you get there. And while you're there, it's a Yom Tov meal with a lot of stuff to say before you get to eat. And that's what it comes down to. No prep. No thought. So the Rabbi told me what he said, "Listen, you know why 30 days you have to start to learning Hilchot Pesach? Cuz the Ohr starts to seep in. It starts seeping in all the way in." By the time you get to the Seder, by the time you get to the Seder, there's so much Ohr that you can have. The question is did you become a clay. But when we go through this right now, if you don't have the mindset right now of I'm walking into a physical Yom Kippur. It's not a spiritual Yom Kippur. It's not a Yom Kippur in which I'm going to retract from the world and get the are that's available for my retreating. There's are of Yom Kippur and the are of Yom Kippur comes when you pull away. Okay, it's an avodah and it's a real avodah and we work hard on it and we stand the whole day and we dabble the whole day and we fasting the whole day. But we know there's something going on. So people are geared up for it. If you walk into seder, if we walk into the seder without the same mentality I got a week. And in my one week, I'm going to stand in front of the world of the the farm say the malachim are standing by by layal seder and they're watching your house. The malachim are they have a chance to bring to all world. Look at what's going on to my kid. How many kids are doing seder? 100,000? 500,000? THERE'S 7 BILLION people in the world. How many people having seder tonight? You get to be one of those people? The pamalia shel mala are watching you and inside is looking and the world around us is on fire. We're saying hallel at night when I haven't saying kria krishma. Layal shmurim the rabbi said there's no masikin. Everything is open and you come into our home and if we roll into the house as if it's like a yom tov meal plus a seder of things to say we we expect are? We have to understand that from now until kadesh ur'chatz, we got to walk in ready. Clay. This is once a year you get to be a clay without fasting. You get to be a clay with eating. We don't want to walk in and be a hot cup. You want to walk in and you want to be a tub. So you can have are that you get the entire year long. That is the backdrop of what we're going to do tonight. And what And the goal for tonight, again, stay as long as you can. Feel free to come and go as you want. You want to put your head down and sleep, whatever. It's all good. What we're going to do tonight is we're going to Hashem's help, we're going to go through the Haggadah. Because the Haggadah could be one of the most misunderstood nights of the year. The script that Hazal has put in front of us is so brilliant and so misunderstood. So misunderstood that you can go through the Haggadah and you can roll with it and you come to say some Seders and by the time you're done, you got four kids sleeping on the couch and two kids went to quickly to bench by themselves and everyone's like, you know, limping out and they walk out and they go, "That was amazing. Thank God one more and I'm done." And by tomorrow night there's like a relief. You don't got to do Seders anymore. You have to come home and eat like a normal person. It's going to be Shabbos. You get to You don't have to have say anything from kiddush until finally eating. And that inside feeling of like it's over, this was a burden, is totally the wrong way. It's the inside feeling you get from Yom Kippur as well, unless you do it properly. So, if we go through it, hopefully we'll see the themes. We're going to see what's really happening, what we're trying to accomplish. And if we go through that here, hopefully when you get to your Seder, whether you're if if you're leading a Seder, we've got a lot to talk about. Even if you're not leading a Seder, if you're at a Seder and the Seder goes off the rails, at least you don't lose the year. And you don't lose the R. You have Hopefully you will have something that we can hold on to. And by the way, the goal here is take what you want. I'm going to try to go through it slowly. You know, take whatever you want with it. This works that we're We'll go through it together, okay? Good luck. I hope you're with me and I hope I By the time that I'm done, there's anyone left in the room. Okay. Let's begin with one question. The ultimate question we have to ask ourselves is the is the obvious question. Which is the story of the Seder is a very obvious story. If me and you, let's begin by understanding the design. If we in this room, let's What happened if right now the rabbi gets a phone call? It's Moshe Rabbeinu. He says, "Listen to me, Rabbi, I know you got a a holy congregation. We just came out of Egypt. I need Hashem commanded us to have a holiday. I need something that we can do. I need a script. I need a storyline. Can you help me design what the holiday is? All I know is got to be we have to recreate the moment where we were together in Egypt. And in Egypt they sat together before they left and they had a matzah sumurim yochlu b'heseiba. And they sat together before they left. It's got to be that." You just figure out the program. If we were doing that right now, while I'm speaking, think to yourself, what would the program be? What would you design if you were sitting around and saying, "I have to figure out how to get this out to my people? What do I do?" The answer is it It's almost so easy, it's almost too easy. If me and you had to figure out the program for for the night of the seder, what we would pretty much do, I would think, is we would say, "This is great." It isn't Bless you. This isn't a midrash. This isn't a story of Avram walking through the kivshan ha'eish. This isn't a story that we hear by the Gemara. Thank you. This isn't in the Torah. This isn't a furush in Torah sheb'al peh. We have parshios. It starts off in Sh'mos. He doesn't know Yosef. It goes all the way down to detail. We have all the makos. We have the back and forth. We have who's going, who's not going. We have the Yam Suf. All you have to do to make this awesome is you sit down, put food out on the table with Jews, and like just open up Sh'mos. You can cut and paste a little bit. It gets to be a lot. It's a lot of parshios. Cut and paste four or five parshios and roll through it. It's dramatic. Hollywood likes it. Every animator likes it. Like how many times have you heard these stories before? It's a a dramatic scene. What would you not do? The Haggadah. Like we were in Bnei Brak and then we're here and then we're there in Yom Kippur Rosh Chodesh and we have four sons and who are these four sons? And we have Manischtana. And then we start the thing we go here, we go left, we go right. If you look at the story of the Haggadah, you look at it and you're like, I don't I wouldn't say any of that stuff. There's like so many starts and stops, there's so many pump fakes throughout the whole time. We're going to start, we're not going to start. If you look at the what happens in the Haggadah, it doesn't line with what would be the most obvious way that you would teach the story of the Seder, which we which would be the actual way Hashem told it to us in the Torah. And the reason I believe is because you have to understand the difference between a story and a narrative. What is the difference between a story and a narrative? So, Reb Noach Weinberg has a great Torah on great speakers. Reb Noach Weinberg tells over he goes, one of the greatest, most effective speakers of all time is a man named Nosson Hanavi. Who was Natan Hanavi? I got to I'm going to go back and forth. It's in my head. Who was Natan Hanavi? We have equal opportunity on both sides of my family. Who was Natan Hanavi? Nosson Hanavi. So, if you remember the story of David and Batsheva and Uriah the Hittite, the Gemara is very clear. David didn't do anything wrong, it's all Kedoshim Kedem, we're not talking about that. But at some point, Kodesh Baruch Hu decided that Hashem was that that that David had to be told that what happened with Uriah the Hittite was not 100% appropriate in at David's level. So, he went to the the Navi at the time and he said, "Go tell David." So, you're the Navi, you're going to tell Natan HaNavi, you're going to tell David HaMelech, who by the way, if you look at the Gemaras, he was technically still right, he did the wrong thing. One thing you don't want to happen is you don't want to be defensive. You don't want to say you're wrong. He's David. You have to make sure that he's [clears throat] going to say you're right. You have to do this delicately. So, what does he do? Remember the story? Story of Navi. Story is that he goes over and he tells him the following story. He says, "There was two guys. One guy was very wealthy, he had a flock of sheep. And one guy was very poor, and had one little sheep, so one little cute little lamb. And the lamb was like a daughter. Slept in the bed, ate it ate from his hands, went went to the table, and he loved this little lamb like he loved one of his kids. Well, the rich guy wanted to make a party. And the rich guy says, "I need to feed my people." So, what does he do? As far as I remember the story, what does he do? He goes over to the poor guy's house. He's got a flock. HE TAKES his one little sheep. He brings his sheep. He checks his sheep. And he feeds the people with the sheep. And David says, "He was What? Are you kidding me?" And he says, "This is you. You're the king. All these wives. We have to give this guy one." What does David say back? Kadosh Yisrael. Reb Nachman says the most masterful speech in Tanakh. What's the difference between a narrative and a story? I've got one of the famous storytellers sitting here. What is the difference between a narrative and a story? A story is about the people in the story. You tell a story, it's about the characters. You heard about the guy who went and then and you tell a whole story about a guy who went and went here and he went there, right? Awesome. I can't believe it. A narrative is when you're using a story to deliver a message. It's not about the story. It's about the message. The story that David Hamelech hears is almost irrelevant. All that's happening is Natan Hanavi is acting like a pediatrician. And he's saying, "I got to get this little kid to take his medicine, but he's not swallowing a pill. He's three. How am I going to get the medicine into his body? I have a good idea. Bubble gum. I know. It's going to have to feel like bubble gum and taste like bubble gum, and he's going to drink it like bubble gum. He doesn't know any better. And if I can put the medicine in the bubble gum flavor, he's going to take his medicine." A narrative, what a narrative does is a narrative is I got to deliver a message to you, but you're not going to hear it. If I come up to you and I say, "Here's the story, you did the wrong thing." It's not going to have a delivered effect. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find something that I'm going to use, and it's not relevant, and what it's designed to do is to have It's called a straw It's called a straw man. It's designed to have you go on my side of the fence and look together at the thing and go, "I can't believe that happened." And as soon as you say, "I can't believe that happened," the story unlocks, and you realize, "Oh my gosh, that's me." It hides a message. The Seder, believe it or not, in my humble opinion, is not about how we left Egypt. Cuz if it was, we'd be looking at shmos. The Seder is about our role, our connection to the fact that we left Egypt. It's the mesorah being passed down. It's that we are part of the story of leaving Egypt. Because the goal of a Seder is not for us to sit down and go, "Wow, a long time ago, there was these crazy tzadikim, and Hashem split seas and brought plagues. Can you make Are we almost done? Can you pass the food? When will my food be ready? Are we finished yet? I'll meet you at Diane's." That It's irrelevant to me, but I checked my box, Hashem is happy with me, we called it a day. The goal of the Seder is to pass the mesorah. This is the moment where Jews are supposed to say, "I can't believe I get to be a Jew. This is amazing. I love this." The goal of a Seder, when you're done with it, is your people get up from the Seder and go, "Hashem Elokeinu, this is insane. I can't believe I I I I'm I'm here." The sto- The way we do this is we use the story of Pesach not to tell the story. You want to hear the story, go look at it in shmos. We use parts of the story on Pesach to tell the narrative. And there's basic fundamental values of what it means to be a Jew. And these fundamental values of what it means to be a Jew needs to get passed down in the family structure, in the friend structure. And so Hashem designed it. Now, that's why Rebbe Nachman says very, very clearly, he says, "That's why you got to make sure you're hitting up to the kids." So, if you're at a Seder and you've got little kids and you've got 40 guests, you don't punch your kids to the corner of the table. That's not the goal. You're not trying to juggle in front of guests. You're trying to pass mesorah. And the ultimate goal of passing mesorah is to your family, is to your loved ones. The goal of the Seder is not to tell the story of Egypt in some complicated way. The goal of the Seder is, "How can I pass over the values of what it means to be a Jew using what took place a long time ago so that the people around my table, in specific my number one obligation, my own family, walk away year after year and say, 'Oh my gosh, there's nothing better.'" If you accomplish that, that's what you're here for. That's called are. And if you don't and instead the Seder becomes annoying and exhausting and boring, then you accomplish that and that's not are. It's not are to think that Judaism is boring. It's not are to think that like I can't believe I'm almost done with this. And so whoever's running the Seder or if you're in the Seder, you have to understand the goal of what we're going to do tonight, hopefully not too long, the goal is what's the message. Because there's nothing that we do, nothing is designed, it's it's the most brilliant design. Nothing on this day in this Haggadah is stam. It's placed and carried in the mesorah for the following reason. Because Nachman I know he taught us, "I got to teach you a very specific value and here we go." So, what are those values? So, let's begin. Before we do, I got one announcement. If you're running a seder, very important. This is like practical seder runners. You have to understand you're playing to the people that you need to give it to. You're playing to the kids. You're playing to the humans. Today, if you're 35, your attention span is probably right around the 4-year-old. You know what I'm saying? Like if you think about it. We have very short attention spans. Which means you have to make sure you have time in the seder. You have to When you run a seder, you have to realize that the seder's got to move. It's like a It's like a flight. You got to take off on time and you got to land on time. And you got to make sure that the time you're in the air is done properly. So, you have to understand a few quick tips. There're three major time sinks in the seder that you have to be careful of. And this is where a lot of seders go off off the rails. Number one is the start time. When you're coming over, who you have over, this person's coming, when did you come over? Sometime after Maariv, somebody walks in, happy holidays, hugs and mirth, good yontif, depending on where you're from. Oh, my gosh, what's going on? Where are you sitting? I want to sit there. He shouldn't sit there. He can sit there. Everyone is balagan. By the time you start the seder, it's 45 minutes after you start the seder. Rav Ovadia is very clear. Rav Ovadia says, "Start the seder as early as possible." If you're running a seder, figure out who's coming, tell them to come at a certain time, do the math. Calculate how long it takes to come home from shul, prepare everybody's seats. And this is from Rav Ovadia. This isn't like my ideas. You want to get your seder started. Number two, very important. Maggid is not meant for very long, complicated divrei Torah that nobody can follow except for the person saying it. That's what Shulchan Aruch is there for. Manage it. When you look at your table and you're just out to lunch, you want to say something? Sure. 28 minutes later. Do you want to say something? Absolutely. 35 minutes later. Before you know it, you lost the crowd. Because you've You know, you're in control. Which means if you're running a Seder and someone has a long thing to say outside the narrative, this is what you're eating for. And the last thing, which is really important, and this is the hardest one for us to get, but I if you if we get through this now, it'll be easier later. This is not a Yuntif meal. Yom Kippur is not a Yuntif tefillah. If you come to Yom Kippur shacharit, it's going like, I don't know, usually they finish Yuntif at like 2 hours. What do you think? 2 and 1/2? You're going to be blown out. It's Yom Kippur. You're standing the whole day. And if the guy has an hour break, you're happy for the hour break. This is not a Yuntif meal. Which means whoever is preparing the food should not be thinking, I'm going to plow everybody with an incredible spread like a regular Yuntif. Shulchan Aruch is not meant to be 2 and 1/2 hours long, and when you're done, you're too full for the afikoman, which we're going to get to according to some of the rishonim, is the ikar achilas matzah. Those three If you can think through those three areas and be able to be in charge of the time of Maggid, Shulchan Aruch, and pre, you've got a lot of time before everybody checks out to deliver a lot of goods. And if you're in charge of it and you're thinking beforehand, it's great. One last thing and then we'll jump in. Someone gave me this advice, it changed my Seder. Make bags of everything you have to eat. It's a game change. Which means Erev Yuntif, buy it um um a a a a scale. Ask your rabbi how much each thing should be. Don't be there like, snap. As you like, you know how you're sitting there at your Seder, and as the baal habayit is eating, can't talk, he's cracking off matzahs. Oh, it's probably enough. It's probably enough. I had too much. I had too much. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. SIX MATZAHS IS A KAZAYIS. THERE'S NO WAY. EVERYONE'S YELLING AND SCREAMING. Don't do that. Beforehand, you weigh it, you make baggies, ziplocks, and you've got matzah, maror, afikoman, korech, and this way you fly around the menses. And anywhere else you can save a few minutes, why? Because we're on. You got to see it that way. You're on. It's Yom Kippur. It's just Yom Kippur for your guf. You're on. You have one night. You got to deliver. You got to be in. And the more you can take away the distractions and the and the time waste, the more the seder could be filled with the good stuff. You're not stuck in the 3-hour meal and three kids are sleeping and you got to wake them up and shove them back to the table. And it's 2:00 in the morning and no one knows where where everybody is. It's very important you think this way. Okay, let's jump in. Number one, Kadesh. What's the message of Kadesh? Why do we start with Kadesh for? The Sefer HaChinuch says, why do we do yaiyin for? She she vi teva lefi she teva adam mis'orer bo harbei she so'ei demisame'ach. What is the yesod of wine? This is so critical. And if you think about this, you can share it or not. It's up to you, but I want you to think of this. Wine is the most critical property for simcha in Klal Yisrael. Why? Because the Kodesh Boruch Hu saying, as the Sefer HaChinuch says, you're mar harbei when you're so'ei demisame'ach. Yiddishkeit to so many people is when you're down. I was on the phone yesterday with a person. When she was like, "When things are crisis, I find Hashem. When things are good, I don't find Hashem." I'm like, "Of course, because you're used to always turning into the Kodesh Boruch Hu during crisis." So many people, myself included, all of us condition ourselves to find Hashem in challenge. But when things are good, it's not the Abershter. It's not Hashem. There's no connection point. I don't know how to connect to Hashem with my good. He gives me my good. He's my amazon.com, the amazon.god supplier of my good. But once I get my good, it's my good. Kiddush begins with the following way. It's going to feel good. It's supposed to feel good. Yayin is supposed to be mesameach. The simchas of tonight is not because we're fasting and because we're crying and because we're davening and because there's a crisis and everyone has a tefillah because okay, there's stuff going on in the world we have to be aware of. We can't be out to lunch. There are people that are brothers and sisters that are that are suffering. But the fact that you're sitting around the table and you're thinking this way and you're sharing this way that it's okay it's supposed to be that our connection with the Kodesh Baruch Hu comes with simcha. Tonight's goal is to connect with the Kodesh Baruch Hu simcha and for many of us we don't know how to even do that. Whenever there's simcha we turn off Hashem. So yayin begins because the goal of yayin is to teach you the following core lessons. There's two lessons of yayin. There there's many. I'm just giving I'm offering to reject whatever you want to reject, take whatever you want to take. Number one is that if you notice something very interesting about wine. Wine comes from grapes. Grapes are sweet. When things in life are sweet, you can choose to either have just the right amount and feel good or overdo it and intoxicate yourself and and feel bad. When you look over and understand what the Kodesh Baruch Hu is doing, he's saying every time something good happens in your life, it happens through wine. Every bris, every wedding, every simcha, every Yom Tov, every Shabbos goes in the same path. I'm teaching you a lesson. This is sweet times. Drink just enough that it actually enhances your night. Do not intoxicate yourself good and you're going to throw up. Because that's life. Life in Yiddishkeit is I want to take whatever you give me and I trust the proportions in which you give it to me. I know what I can do with this person and not that person, with this food and not this food, with that time and not that time. When you walk into into the Seder with the perspective of I have to get the balance of sweet in my life. And only Hashem has that balance. And if I'm lined up with the Kodesh Baruch who's balance, I'm going to have a life that is feels good without going overboard. Wine begins the Seder in a new way. This is the launch [clears throat] of the other side of Tishrei. This is the launch. Kol Nidre is where fasting. Kadesh is where enjoying. And when you start your Seder, you have to understand that the goal for tonight is to show Hashem I can connect to you more through the simcha. Give me more simcha because you want to see how much I can connect you through simcha. I don't got to do that stuff. I'm anyways you want me. I'm your I'm your I'm your child. When a person starts with the Kadesh, the thinking should be whatever it is, I want to live my life and my life is Kadesh. My life is a life in which every sweet thing you give me, I'm going to turn to you to balance properly so that I can live my life soid umes umes sameach. And we begin with Kadesh. Important to note cuz the goal for tonight is that this is the night of the guf. Very important that when you pour the cup, you should pour for each other. You know that, men and women, and make sure you're reclining. That's very, very important. Try to use red wine. Urchatz. Why is it we go from there to Urchatz? What is Urchatz about? Urchatz is an amazing thing cuz Urchatz is a setup. We're not really We don't really do this. We don't really wash for vegetables. Well, if you have you dip a vegetable, you have to wash, but that's not really part of it. It's almost as if we're setting up the vegetable in order for us to wash. Why? So, if you think about it, what is washing? Washing is an unusual thing. The Meshech Chochmah says that the goal for Yetzi'as Mitzrayim really is the goal of clarification and birur. What we're doing tonight to Kodesh Baruch, we're saying, "Hashem, Hashem, I am choosing you. Throughout the year I may be conditioned. Throughout the year I may be robotic, but tonight I'm going to be clarifying myself that my ratzon in life is for you. How does a person show his ratson? Really he speaks a lot to me. How does a person show his ratson for real? What is the true manifestation of somebody's ratson? So the Mishnah speaks about it and Sifra speaks about it. And you see this again and again and again when it comes to kedusha, you see whenever time we get into kedusha, what do we do to get into kedusha? We're washing our hands. This tumah, where does the tumah go to? Our hands. Hands represent our actions. Even if you think about it in the English language, when someone says someone's hands are filled with blood or their hands are clean or they washed their hands of it, what they're saying is my actions are filled with this way. You begin the seder and you Well, the goal of the seder is, I'm with you. I'm with you. But guess what? My actions have not been with you. I haven't been fully with you. Honestly, I haven't been with you. Orchot comes in and says like the Mishnah says, says Orchot's is action represents ratson which represents clarification. The first thing you do before you begin the the the the the seder is, you walk over and you wash your hands. The way you like you're waking up in the morning. And what that state especially in the morning also is, we're starting straight. We're starting starting fresh. My actions are fresh. I'm walking into the seder, I'm I got to elevate and my actions are fresh. I'm starting anew. Let's get rolling. It's a new day. It's the recreation of the physical world. I am resetting my actions and tonight begins a new connection to you, Hashem. Karpas. What is karpas? So that you take the celery, you dip it into the salt water. Reb Dovid Forman once had a great connection that I saw later that they brought out in the Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch says, why do we dip the karpas into the salt water for? And this by the way is the great question that people love to ask. I know how many times you get this. I get this a lot a lot. The whole night we're trying to thank Hashem for taking out of Mitzrayim. Who put us into Mitzrayim? Right? Like really? Like Shkoyach. He took He took He took me in jail then you pull me out like it's the least you can do. Good question. So the Shulchan Aruch says, why do we dip right away? Al yedei hativul yikchu vi hu es kutones Yosef vi yitblu oso badam. You know what last time you saw a dipping was? By Yosef. Hinei hativul harishon hu zecher l'oso hativul. Rebbe Menachem says, who's commenting on the Mishnah Torah says, why do you karpas for? Because karpas is kar pas, kutones pasim. We're supposed to have galus. We're supposed to be in galus, that's for sure. The Midrash Tanchuma says that we're supposed to be The Or HaChaim says that we were supposed to be in galus. That was part of the Bris Bein HaBetarim. However, the galus could have been a lot of different ways. It could have taken place im tzois hamachirah he siblei midas ha'eretz zeh. V'ulai she lo hayah samachiras Yosef, it had or not been machiras Yosef, hayu Yisrael misgarim b'makom acher v'lo hayu yordim l'Mitzrayim. The Bris Bein HaBetarim says you need galus, but what does galus really mean? Maybe galus is someone takes over Eretz Yisrael. Maybe galus is you go down the block. Maybe galus is not going to be slavery. Maybe galus is not to stick in babies in instead of instead of uh bricks. Why did they end up in Mitzrayim for? So literally, why did they end up in Mitzrayim for? When they sold Yosef, Yosef went down to Mitzrayim. And when the fast came when when when the famine hit the land, they went down to Mitzrayim. So the feel when you're dipping the karpas into the into the the salt water, what you're doing is reminding yourself that my actions really are my responsibility. We brought ourselves We brought ourselves down to Egypt. I'm not saying everything would have been perfect. And this I'm not saying you can figure out things in life. Don't Whenever you do this, you can't logically go backwards, right? Every man's a husband, doesn't mean every husband's a man, doesn't mean every man's a husband. You can't reverse the logic. But just because we can't figure out why things happen doesn't mean that we're not responsible for things that happen. The beginning of the Seder starts with us saying, "My hands are clean, but my my my actions really matter. I brought myself down to to Mitzrayim." And we get down to Karpas, and then we get into Yachatz. And what is Yachatz? Yachatz is when we break the Matzah. What do we do? We take the Matzah and we break into two pieces, the Dalet and the Yud. The small piece goes back, the big piece goes out. And for those of us in the room, we get into the world of Misharo Tam, which is what separates the men from the boys, the Misharo Tam thing. And then we ultimately have that piece of Yachatz go away. And what does that represent? What that represents, the Maharal says, that whenever you see brokenness, it's really Galus. And the piece that goes back into the into the into the piece that goes into the Afikoman that gets hidden is the bigger piece that represents the Carbon Pesach, which is Geulah. And so what you're really doing in this incredible way before you even begin the Seder is you are reenacting what it means to be in Galus. We're sitting here today, we've cracked it, we're now sitting in Galus, and the piece of Geulah that represents that Pesach is hidden somewhere. Why is that so critical for? Because there's a difference between something being lost and something being hidden. The famous story that I saw on chabad.org from the Maggid of Mezritch, who has the story of It's a lot of Rabbis have the story, but I heard it in the name of the Maggid. He was walking by once, and he sees a little boy crying. And he says to the boy, "Why are you crying for?" And he says, "Because we're playing hide and go seek, and nobody's found me." And he goes, "Isn't that the game? You won." He goes, "No, everybody stopped looking." So what's P'shat? They didn't find them. P'shat is the whole reason why you play hide-and-go-seek is that somebody finds you. Why? Because when you lose something, this is losing something is between you and the object. Losing is I had something and I lost it. Hiding something means that there's a third party involved. If the thing is lost, that's between you and it. If the thing is hidden, that means somebody else took it and hid it from you for a purpose. If Think about what we do. It's an amazing thing. We tell the kids we're hiding the afikoman till the end of the seder. Go find it. What does that even mean, go find it? Why go find it for? The answer is it's the story of our lives. THE STORY OF OUR lives with the story of the seder is the story of a people that's sitting around and the Kodesh Baruch Hu says, "It's cracked. It's called golus. You know where golus is? It's hidden. The aleph is hidden." And we're like, "Uh, whatever. I hope you bring it out someday. Like, I don't know. Let me know." And Kodesh Baruch HU IS LIKE, "NO! [clears throat] THAT'S HOW IT WORKS. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO COME up for it." And we're like, "Uh, I don't know. Send the kids." We begin the story of the seder with the whole story [laughter] of the seder. Geulah is hidden. We got to go look for it. We got to bring it to us. That's the story of our lives, you're never giving up. That little kid who thinks he's getting the little tchotchke from from from from Bobby and Papa or whoever. The whole night they're hacking, "Where is it? You put it by the couch? Is it underneath?" The little kids who think they're scoring big. They're like, "The whole night it's all about that afikoman." Why? Because that's what it means to be a Jew. It means your whole life is about where is Hashem's aleph? Where can I find it? Is it in tefillah? Is it in Torah? Is it in chesed? Where is it? Because I'm halishing for it, cuz otherwise I'm stuck in a dark world. And the Sifsei Chachamim says something amazing. He says, "Sifsei Yeshua is Sifsei Yeshua is it's not a waiting. We wait for Mashiach as if Mashiach as if we're sitting around like minding our own business and one day we're going to get a text. Holy cow, Mashiach. Maybe that'll happen, but that's not our job. Our job isn't to sit around passively. When the Seder Shalom says our job is to go out and bring it and look for it and search for it. And the Seder Shalom says, when you search for it, you release and you find the R of Geulah. It's a process. That's the idea. You drag the light of Geulah into your life when you're looking for it. It's an active. We didn't say a word yet in the Seder. We're in the opening four. And if you're you're you're locked in, we've already told the Kodesh Baruch Hu I'm elevating my life to follow you in the good of my life. I'm changing my actions so that it's going to be aligned with you and it'll be clean. I realize that I'm responsible for everything that I do, and even though it was set for me to do something, it didn't have to be this hard, but I tripped up. And my life is supposed to be to find you, and somehow I realized that it's not lost, it's hidden, and hidden means come look for it. And that's how we begin the Seder. Somebody with me still? We're okay so far? Anybody need to go? If anybody needs to go, it's okay. We can break. I can turn around. Okay. Now we're getting into the into into Maggid. I want you to look at the at the Seder if you can, just to state Let's do Seder management for a minute. Seder management has five parts, and when you get into a part, you have to own the part and know where you're ending. Part one is opening four. You want to get there nice. Part two is Maggid. Maggid is really split up into three parts, and you have to understand this. And the reason why this is so critical for us. When I first saw this, I was shocked. Because Seipp Yes Mitzrayim is actually not until the middle of it. Usually when everybody checks out in Maggid, and we're like, "Meet you at Dayenu." When that moment comes and goes, "Meet you at Dayenu." Everyone starts leaning it, and they meet at Dayenu. Usually what they're doing is they're skipping over the actual part that you have chiyuv have to read Cole CPR assessments, right? You go through market and for the first 10 to 15 parts of market, it's not the CPR assessments, right? It's the setup to the CPR assessments, right? So market begins. I would market begins. Remember, the whole you sort of do this with joy and with enthusiasm and we're watching. This is a big you sort of for those who are part of it and if you're not leaving the seder, it doesn't matter. If you're at the city, you have to understand something. And we did we did a show on this quote whatever we did a show on this. People pass masora not by what you say, by what you feel. When Rabbi told me that in America today, the only traditions that are left in America today is sports. A guy's from Boston, he moves to New York, he goes to Yankee Stadium in the bleachers with a Red Sox jersey on taking his life into his hands. Gets beer bottles, gets cursed at. >> [clears throat] >> His yarmulke once he gets on the train the yarmulke goes off. But he's willing to go through regular American guy. Doesn't have to be a Jew. Regular American. Why? And then he leaves the stadium and they go, "Why'd you wear a Jew just switch to become a Yankee fan? You're in New York." He'll go, "Never." And you go, "Why? What's the big deal? You don't you don't own the team." My grandfather was a Red Sox fan. My father was a Red Sox fan. I'm going to give up the family masora? You're like, "What are you talking about?" And the answer is because when you see your family care about something, that becomes your identity. If you're at a seder table and you care about what's taking place, the people around you say, "This thing is not important. It's me." It's me. You you don't change your identity. You change your preferences. You don't change your identity. People that weren't connected to Judaism walked into the Holocaust and said, "I'm still a Jew." Once it became their identity, they don't change their identity. So, depending on where you are, if you're sitting at a seder and you're not running it, you have to feel it. You have to bring it By the way, if you're sitting at a seder that's going off the rails, then you got to bring it on yourself. The Kodesh Boruch Hu is building your klee. You got to You got to own it yourself. But, if you're sitting at a table and you're not leading it, you're in you're in the People are watching you. Everyone's watching you the whole seder. You have to be on. And if you're not going to walk into maggid pumped, you're telling your family this is not important. What's important is eating. And this is in the way of my food. That's more That's a That's a clearer message to your kids than whether you you you line you say the right lines. So, as you go into maggid, deep breath, and you go in with enthusiasm. Halachma anya. What is halachma anya mean? You begin right away with halachma anya. This is the matzah. You point to the matzah. What does it mean halachma anya? So, Rebbe Nachman spoke about this for a while. The entire goal of what we're doing from now until the seder, from now until the seder, you have to understand something. The What we're doing is not cleaning for Pesach. For those of you who are zocheh to be home to clean for Pesach, I want to tell you something. And we spoke about this. I It's on TorahAnytime. If anybody wants to see the I have a whole class on it. From him. I just had an interview with him. Every second that you're shvitzing to get rid of chametz, what you're doing on a spiritual level is you are working out your [clears throat] internal gaiva. Gaiva is our selflessness. It doesn't mean you have to be arrogant. Gaiva's not just arrogance, it's self It's selflessness It's selfishness. It's I'm a self. I'm a human. I'm a person. I'm separate from Hashem. I have needs. I I assert my needs. Wherever there's an aspect of our gaiva, that aspect of our gaiva is lacking the Kodesh Boruch Hu, lacking Shechinah. And our life, our job is to grow and to continuously refine ourselves until we have no gaiva. What we're doing to free When you clean for Pesach is you're actually going through It looks like you're cleaning food. It looks like you're cleaning dirt. Looks like you're taking your cars to to to to to the to the to the the cleaning thing. It looks like you're you're cooking and all you're doing is cooking with Pesach ingredients. It's not true. That's only the surface. What you're really doing is you're going through an avodah. Like the cohen looks like the cohen is a shochet. The cohen's not just shocheting, he's being ored something in the in the carbon. What you're doing whenever you're cleaning your chametz is what you're really and the more shvitzer the rabbi says, the more you're compensating with something later on. What you're really doing is you're taking out that piece of you that is still has the bit of gaiva and you've had that in mind. When you're cleaning your house, have in mind that whatever that means, this is a spiritual avodah. The cohen gadol is busy with blood and stuff and he's sticking his hands in cows, but he the regular cohen, he knows it's a it's an avodah. This is an avodah and the avodah here is halachma anya. Your entire avodah, the schlepping, the going, the cleaning, everything, the beer chametz, the getting on your floor, the walking over to beer chametz, all that we do from now until that moment is we stare at a piece of matzah and go, "Ha lachma anya." Anya's from the word oni. I'm nothing. I'm just what Hashem gives me. I don't have anything. I I I don't have anything. I don't have my family. I don't control anything. I don't control my children. I don't control the future. I don't control the world. Look what's going on. One day I can fly. One day I can't fly. One day it's this. One day it's that. I mamish, if I'm being honest, I need klum. I am that matzah. For real. Oni. I've been wor- I've been shvitzing over it. My whole life. The reason why my relationship isn't better cuz it's about me. The reason why I don't connect to Hashem, honestly, it's cuz it's about me and it's uncomfortable. The reason why I haven't been able to give stocker properly, I haven't been able to to give myself properly to somebody. The reason why I'm on the phone with someone who needs my help. The reason Whatever goes on in your life, if you really think about it, you will realize that so much of the problems in our life really is this inflation that we have in ourselves. We're so insecure. We've identified with the the so much that we forget that who we really are is just a piece of Hashem, the rabbi always says. You come to the Seder and you're exhausted from all the stuff and the first thing you say at the Maggid is kids, family, parents, you see that matzah in the middle? That matzah? That's me. Halakhma anya. Cuz you know what? The truth is may I in your words be. Cuz I don't need to be anything cuz I'm connected to the Kodesh Baruch Hu. That realization that it's not about me. It's about him changes everything. We think that it it it blocks us. We think koach is what makes us and I got money and I got power and I got this and I got that and I got stuff and I got maasim tovim and I and I had tzitzis and I know Torah. When you walk into a Seder and you look at that matzah before you begin and you say before we start telling the story want I want to realize anwekum. Something amazing happens. Kol dichvin yechevei fo. I don't I'm open. I'm not like hocking. I don't I have enough food. What's enough food? It's all open. Kol dich yechevei fo. Hashta hacha lishana haba'a b'Aretz Yisrael. There's no boundaries anymore. You see what holds us back in life and I've gotten this from the rabbi a billion times. What holds us back in life is what I can do. Anyone ever done this before? Someone goes, "Can you help me with something?" And you right away go, "I can't." How do you know? No, I know. I I I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't collect that. I can't I can't. How do you know you can't? You know how you know you can't? Cuz you haven't. And for most people, their did their history predicts their destiny. How do you know you can't do it? How do you know you can't grow in Yiddishkeit? How do you can't read? How do you I can't learn? How do you can't learn? You know how I know I can't learn? Cuz I'm already 28 years old and I haven't. Really? That's it? I mean, I'm something. And I'm something. And with with who I am, I know what tomorrow is. I'm 80 years old. I'm 80 years old and I can't. Really? You're not going to make it through this seder. Cuz you're not going to make it as a Yid. If it's about you. So, we begin with it's about you Hashem. And the second you think that you go, ah, if it's about you you can do anything. Therefore house is open. Yeah, it looks like we can't be in Israel next year. Mashiach can come. Possible. You know what? It's all possible. Because what we don't understand is that the more humble we make ourselves, the more chametz we get rid of ourselves, the more opportunities are open to us. The only thing holding us back is ourselves. It's the anee that holds us back. And when you're about to take over and get piece of the mesorah, you begin with it's not me. And then we get into the next piece and I'm going to go quick, so just stick with me. Hold on. I got to make sure I'm done on time. There's a lot more to do. We get to the next piece, which is one of the most interesting pieces of the world depending on your family. This is really a big huge That's wonderful. Ma nishtana the 45 Let him Let him Let him Take your time, honey. Take your time. Whatever you need. The guy's like, let's go. Let's go. And mommy or grandma's like take your time. We have all day. Ma nishtana No one's in a rush, honey. This is the part we torture these poor little kids who are like superstars in school and they're like, MA NISHTANA THE minute they look around and they stage fright and they're like, you have to. I think we should really have a little bit of rachmanus on the kids. Do the best they can and then we have We make sure you By the way, this is important. We missed this. You have to say every word in the haggadah. Every word You have to say every word. It's not with your eyes. You have to say every word including ma nishtana. But if you notice something about ma nishtana, that we don't answer any questions. Nobody says, oh, you know why? Because we usually You just ask questions and everyone's like, shkoyach. Yay! Like and then someone gives him a treat and he moves on. And then the whole game is asking questions. The whole like thing. You look at the Gemara. Why do we dip twice? Because of What's going on? The answer is very simple. The Kodesh Boruch Hu created the Torah ambiguous on purpose. Because he doesn't want you to follow like a robot. He wants you. Which means if you're sitting in the seder and going, "This doesn't make sense." Welcome to being a Jew. It's not supposed to make sense in the first the first iteration. The Kotsker says, "The God that I fully understand is the God that I don't want to follow." People are confused about the Kodesh Boruch Hu. Yeah, it's the Kodesh Boruch Hu. You're supposed to be confused about the Kodesh Boruch Hu cuz you're not Hashem. Why is Torah so weird? Why That's how Torah is set up. There's a stop and there's a bow pack and they don't connect and there's a piece here and there's a piece here and someone darshans this and darshans that and there's two opinions and they're both right but this opinion is wrong. I don't understand. Good. You're not supposed to understand. You know what you're supposed to do? You're supposed to ask. You know why? Because the only people that ask questions are the people that care. Mom's was a school teacher. You sit in the room, you say something in a in a class, one kid raises their hand. It doesn't matter what the answer is. That kid's getting an A. You know why? Cuz the kid cares. Everyone else is out to lunch. Hashem's telling you a message and you're telling people a message. You're not waiting for some kid to choke on a Mah Nishtanah. That's what we're doing. We're just waiting around and torturing a kid. This Mah Nishtanah is the key to the whole entire story of Judaism. You're thinking it, you're saying it. This is life. Life is it makes no sense and there's no answer afterwards. Shkoyach. Wait 20 years, you'll get it. Or you'll get it right away. But when a person comes in and says, "Wait a second. I don't know anything. I thought I knew last year. What do I know? But I got to ask." Now you're opening. Now you're heading into Yiddishkeit. Now you're entering into the seder. And the Seder begins. Avadim hayinu b'Pharaoh Avadim hayinu b'Pharaoh Mitzrayim. This is by the way great fake out. Everyone thinks we're starting with Pharaoh, right? This is like the fake out one. Avadim hayinu hayinu and then we make a left turn. Now we're in Bnei Brak. Wait, how do we get to Bnei Brak? I thought I was in Egypt. Wait, I thought we were ALMOST DONE. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. WHY PUT A HAT ON THIS GUY? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? GOT FOUR SONS WHO GOT ME THAT WAY. WHAT'S going on? Huge fake out. What is going on over here? Avadim hayinu b'Pharaoh, what does it mean? At the end it says had we not been taken out, we would have been meshubadim in the parsha. I saw this in the name of Rav Dessler where he speaks about a great yesod that we have to think about. The yesod is like this. What does it mean meshubadim? So he has a whole tiny He doesn't say this directly but he in his you can take it from what his paragraph is. What is the difference between avadim and meshubadim? Cuz the pasuk says we were avadim and then we became meshubadim. What's the difference between avadim and meshubadim? Avadim is we were physically connected. Meshubadim is we were connected. We were enslaved. Slaves and enslaved are two totally separate things. Slavery is when I'm forcing you to do something. Enslaved is when you are being forced to do something. It's different. When you engage in something, someone could force you. When you're a young kid, someone could say you have to be a doctor. And we're forcing you to go to school to be a doctor. That could be slavery. But what's hap- the way your mind works is as you engage in something, you invest yourself in something. If someone forced you as a kid to be a doctor, 20 years later, you yourself want to be a doctor. How did that work? Because you have to understand how your brain works. Whatever you invest in, you think you like. And if you don't know that, your his- your future is your past. If you don't know that trick, if you don't understand that whatever you did, whatever you did it in your history, that becomes who you are through neuro connections or whatever it is. So you have to realize that the things that we are connected to in life usually are the things that we may not have chosen when we started our lives. I may not have chosen my job. I may needed a job, so I went to a place and they gave me work to do and I'm working in this company. 10 years later, I'm sitting at the seder worrying about whether or not I got an email cuz I got to answer because we got a deal closing. Wait. Didn't you weren't you just looking for a job when you got out of Israel? It didn't even matter and now your whole day is worrying about the client. How'd that work? Maybe when you were younger you were thinking like, "Why do I got to worry about what I wear? I just want to have fun with my friends." And then they made you wear something nice because you have to look good in front of your friends AND NOW 20 YEARS later you're thinking to yourself, "She's wearing the same thing. I should have bought that. I can't believe that I didn't buy that dress." WHAT HAPPENED? WHY ARE YOU ENSLAVED to it? The answer is because the way your mind works is that if you're engaged in something and you're not aware of it, it enslaves you. If we wouldn't have been taken out by Hashem when we were taken out by Hashem, we would have been in Egypt and we would have been enslaved. We wouldn't made it Well, we may not have been working every day and every night when it's light and when it's dark, whatever, but you know what? We would have been Egyptian. How do you know? Because when Hashem says later, "Take the carbon Pesach." How many people called so left Egypt? 20%. How's the 20%? Cuz they were slaves. So how come 20% left? You should have everyone leave. Cuz they were so stuck in the culture. They were so stuck in that culture, but this culture enslaved them. If you don't get it, if you don't get this point, your life is going to be a very close copy of yesterday. If you don't If you can't look at the things we do and say, "Why do I wear that? Why do I buy that? Why am I competing with this guy? Why am I so worried about this email? Why is this person's success bothering me so much? What is going on? Why am I not free to be able to turn around and pursue Hashem? What is enslaving me? I know, it's the stuff that I wasn't even choosing when I was a kid." It's fine, but you got to see it. Three generations gone. Look at the assimilation charts. Three generations, they're gone. Look at the wealth charts. Go look at the wealth charts. Three generations, they're gone. In three generations, your brain's already lost. You forget where you come from. You sing at a seder? This is a moment where you say to yourself, how much am I worried about and how much of what I'm worried about is because it's really important or because I've been conditioned to worry about it. I got kids in the room with some people. This is what am I doing to them? Cuz in 10 years from now, they're not going to remember that I was just worried about whether or not they can get a whatever. Starting right now. I'm at the seder. Cut. L'chaim Anya. Hashem amein. What am I making myself nuts for? How come I'm happy for that person who has success? What am I working so hard for? I can't take a minute to breathe? I'm on my phone all day? Why did I buy 40 outfits this week? I have to worry about how I look all the time? I'm so insecure? What's going on? I used to be a person that would be connected to Kodesh Boruchu. The answer is, it's okay. Meshubadim. I got it. Meshubadim. I got it. Hashem amein. Afilu kulanu chachamim. The next portion. We keep on rolling. Stick with me. These are values. Afilu kulanu chachamim. What does that mean kulanu chachamim? Kulanu yode'ei Maseches Torah, mitzvah aleinu lesaper betzi'as Mitzrayim. What is yetzi'as Mitzrayim? Mitzrayim is the Torah. This is a big yesod. Torah is not material information. Torah is not I got it and I'm done. Torah is a cover for depth. Every year, every time, every round through parshas, every time you review something, every Gemara, every holiday, every time we say to ourselves, I know this already, I know this already is I don't know this yet. I'm stuck. I'm meshubad. I'm stuck in this world. When I look at Torah, I'm seeing where it helps me. Truth is, I have to see where is the wisdom that I've been missing. I'm sitting by Haggadah. I'm looking and it I know the story. You think there's one person walking in that seder that doesn't know the story? You think your kids don't know the story? They spend half the year with the story. Kids are backing up trucks of props for the seder. Do the kids look Nope. Everybody No one's going, "Wait a second, did they get out? I hope so. Wait, they Yes, cuz I I wasn't sure with the with the first born. I'm like, no one's doing that. We know it already. And you're looking at you're reading this and you're going, "I know it already." And you get to this line, you look down and you go, "I don't know anything already." I think I know it already. I know nothing. Cuz you know what? I have a mitzvah to go through this again because there's a lesson this year that I'm going to get about my life that I missed last year cuz I didn't live it yet last year. There's a lesson in the parsha this week I'm going to get I didn't get last year. There's a lesson in my tfillah this morning in shacharis that I'm not going to get cuz yesterday's shacharis is not today's shacharis. That's what it's like to live in spiritual wisdom. And if we don't believe it, forget it. And in case we didn't know for sure, now the the the Haggadah takes us down to Bnei Brak. And in Bnei Brak we have the greatest rabbis of all time. And the greatest rabbis are all sitting around all all all day, all night, and they're going through through the through the Haggadah. Why? Because that the Haggadah is showing you if you think you got it, you trust me don't got it. But it goes deeper. Here's how it goes deeper. Listen to this. I got this a little bit from the Maharal. This is from the Maharal. A little bit. All of it. Maharal explains that whenever you see in Torah darkness in Torah means exile. It's separation from Hashem. Hashem is darkness. Hashem Hashem's absence is darkness. Light is Hashem's light. So truthfully when you see shacharis, yom, day, that's geulah. That's a a representation of geulah. When you see layla, night, it's a representation of exile. Listen to how this reads now. It's unbelievable. Listen to how this reads. My seder of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yeshua and Shimon and Akiva, they were living they're staying in Bnei Brak and they were all night listen to how he says it. Misaprim B'Tzias Mitzrayim Kol oso halaila. Listen to these words, they're awesome. What's he says Mitzrayim? What are we talking about? Getting the matzah, geulah, emunah, Hashem's with you, I'm a nothing. That's the Tzeias Mitzrayim. I didn't believe in Hashem, I believe in Hashem. When were they doing it? Kol oso laila. What time did they live in this world? When did these people When did this study group in Bnei Brak live? After what? After the Churban Bayis. It was the darkest time of all time. Remember how Akiva walked around laughing? Remember the end of end of the Gemara? Remember? The whole Can you imagine being alive during the Churban Bayis time? The darkness that descended on Klal Yisrael? They felt abandoned. Hashem just burnt the Beis Hamikdash down. These are the people that were are rebuilding the Beis Hamikdash. They're rebuilding the the world from the ashes of the Beis Hamikdash. You know what they're doing all night? You know what they're doing in the exile? You know what they're doing in the darkness? You know what they're doing during hard times? They're engaged in Tzeias Mitzrayim. Emunah, emunah, emunah. It's hard. Emunah. It's hard. Emunah. Until when? Until the talmidim come and say, "Higi'a zman shel shacharis." So somebody says, "Why How come they didn't see that the sun? Why did the talmidim have to come get them?" They're looking outside the window and it's getting lighter cuz you look outside the window it's dark and then all of a sudden there's there's dalos and from dalos there's nates and the sun comes in gradually. That's not how geulah doesn't work that way. You know how geulah works? Terrifying. You're stuck in something and you're davening to the Kodesh Boruchu. There's an issue with the business, there's an issue with your family and all of a sudden Hashem gives you a geulah and when Hashem gives you a geulah, it's like this. Every second, any second. Bnei Brak is a story of people that were stuck in darkness. And you know what they did in darkness? These are the biggest rabbis of all time. You know what they did in darkness? They turned to the Kodesh Boruchu. Emunah. And out of one second, you know what happened? That guy talmidim walked in and said, "Higi'a zman shel shacharis." You know why? Kids, family, myself. You know why? It's a narrative. It's the narrative. I'm not trying to figure out what took place in Bnei Brak. This is our life. Where have I been all year? Why have I not believed in Hashem? I look back at my year, there's 10 times where I spent my time worrying and it worked out. When am I going to learn? He runs the world. Enough. How much simcha did I lose in my year? How much emunah have I lost? Kol Yisrael Layla. The rabbis are showing us, believe in Hashem. Who cares how it works out? It's his problem. He wants you to sit around and deal with Yitziat Mitzrayim, Kol Yisrael Layla. And then the next paragraph, what happens? One of the great rabbonim, Rebbe Eliezer The next paragraph is We're going to keep on flying. I want you to get as much as I can. I'm trying to go I'm going I'm going quicker as I'm speaking. Like, those of you who are not from New York, I'm really sorry. This is really this is much more complicated. Rebbe Eliezer ben Azariah, Hareini keven shivim shana. So, the story in Gemara Brachot, you know the story in Gemara Brachot, look it up. Rebbe Eliezer ben Azariah, they at one point they took out Rebbe Gamliel who was the Nasi, they needed somebody else, they appointed Rebbe Eliezer ben Azariah. He was only 18. His wife said, "You look very young." A miracle happened and he looked his his beard grew white and now he looked like he was 70 years old. Hareini keven shivim yoshana. Listen what he says, listen how beautiful this is. This is tight. How are these two? Listen to this. Yesterday, the last paragraph, look at this this is like I don't know. This is If you if we have this at the Seder, can you imagine sitting at a Seder reading this and looking up to the Kadosh Baruch Hu and saying, "Hashem, I'm I'm going to work this year to believe in you more?" Can you imagine that? Can you imagine stopping your meal with and telling your kids a story about emunah? Beleilos, that somebody had real emunah and faith and you tell your family, "This is what it means to be a Jew." That's a clay. That's a clay. That's our Hashem has a place to go. What does Rebbe Eliezer ben Azariah say? Hareini keven shivim yoshana velo achiti shetamrei chish ba'avodah Beleilos. Now you understand the words. This is the You can see it from this perspective, right? I was not zocheh to do what? To engage in Yitzius Mitzrayim, which is Amunah B'leilos. Who said you could do that? Who said leilah is supposed to be for Amunah? Who said that? Maybe leilah should be a shul pushing you away. Ah, and Chazal and Zoma she says Yitzius Mitzrayim, kol yemei chayechah. Chachamim say it means when you get to the future you'll remember the past. Rebbe Elazar ben Azariah says ben Zoma came and said, "Listen, I knew Pesach is the night of Amunah. Pesach is the night of are. Pesach is no mazikin." Rebbe Elazar ben Azariah says, "Pesach is we don't say Krias Shema al hamitah. Pesach is hallel. I got that. You're telling me you want Amunah? I got it. Once a year, Pesach. I can do this every night? I do this every day? Wait, this works on a Tuesday? This works in the middle of the year? I can say Yitzius Mitzrayim every night? Kol yemei chayechah. Okay. That's awesome. Hashem is telling you, me and you. Tell the family, me and you. Me and Hashem. Amunah. Narrative. This is why you're a Jew. You get this. Our friend has the greatest story of You know the famous story of a friend in the waiting room? Our friend is sitting in the waiting room in a hospital and he looks around and there's all these wonderful people that are not connected to Kodesh Boruchu and they're playing crossword puzzles. He looks at every Yid and they're zogging Tehillim and he says to him says to himself, "Ashreinu ma tov chelkeinu." You understand this? We actually can have a situation in which you can say a bunch of words from Dovid Hamelech and the what? The surgeon's hands work better? What kind of What kind of gift is that? We have and we do this and we take it for granted. We take for We take tefillah for granted. Who has the gall to think they can walk They can sit in their house and someone God forbid is sick and they can open up some Hebrew words and because of they say it, what? The world deserves to be different? You're going to control world politics now? You can't The UN can't do it and Trump can't do it, but a bunch of Yidden that sit around and by the way, everyone here believes you can. Everyone in this room believes that a bunch of ladies killing to hell them is much more powerful than the entire every politician. And we all know that for sure. You put people If you take this out of the room and go put a million dollars, who do you bank on to decide the future of the world? These 40 ladies saying to hell with them or or the UN? Come on, is there even a chance? What kind of guy faith is that that we have? What, cuz your mouth you get to control the world? You know what that's called? A munacha balailos. That's the Haggadah. That's the seder. That's what you're giving over to somebody. Do you realize how lucky you are? You're 4 years old. You're 12 years old. You're 28 years old. You think it's nothing? You think your mouth means nothing? Do you know how lucky you are? You don't even appreciate it. You think you can open your mouth and the creator of the world changes the whole trajectory? Yeah, you do believe that, don't you? That's awesome. Pause. Welcome to being a Yid. We're passing the mesorah on to over tonight. We're talking about this. Baruch Hamakom Baruchu. Let's keep on rolling. Again, take whatever you want. Use whatever you want. It's going to be online if you want it, and I'm going to give you a handout. Just take it in. We're building. Baruch Hamakom. Why is it Baruch Hamakom? So, the Rabbi named Rabbi Kalmenson from Chabad, he has a great line. Whenever we When do we say Hamakom? We usually say Hamakom when things are not great. Hamakom yinachem eschem. Cuz it says Hashem's here. It's his place. Baruch Hamakom Baruchu. We're talking about Hashem's giving us the Torah. Baruch she nosan lanu nosan Torah l'amo Yisrael. Wait. You Hamakom for Torah? That's what we do for Torah? What, it's like it's like a We need to give somebody nachama? So, he goes, you know why? Because can I get arba banim divrei Torah? Because malachim get it in a second. And kids, if they were malachim, they'd go to school and they'd get it in a second. And if I was a malach, I'd be sitting there going, "Oh, I love this." But we don't got that. So, Baruch Hamaklishu Hu "Okay. It's how it's how it's designed. Don't panic. But there's four archetypes. And he speaks about how each one is a piece of us. And I want to go through each one cuz if you really want to do the Arba Banin properly, the Arba Banin is in your head. The Arba Banin is around your table. The Arba Banin is in the world. But really, really, really, if we're honest, the Arba Banin is us. The first Banin is the Chacham. What does the Chacham say? What makes him a Chacham? He doesn't know anything. Usually, the Chacham is the one that knows. The Chacham says, "Ma Edos V'chukim V'mishpatim? If you're such a Chacham, why do you have to ask [clears throat] me what's going on? Shouldn't you know what's going on, Mr. Chacham?" And the answer is what makes him a Chacham is he's asking, "What do I do?" As a kid growing up, I remember I used to be as a young boy, we were my whole life surrounded an orange ball. That was my life. Until I graduated high school, everything surrounded a basketball. Every Sunday, we watched this video called Come Fly With Me with Michael Jordan, mid-90s. Anyone under the age of 45 has no idea what I'm talking about. Come Fly With Me, Michael Jordan. When you finish watching or it was Larry Bird, depending on the moment. When you finish watching Come Fly With Me, Michael Jordan, you're a ball player, you know what you did afterwards? You did not turn it off. You know what you did? You went to the backyard and you practiced the moves. As if you're going to be Mike You put the thing on, you wagged your tongue, you did your moves, you did your whole thing. What if it was snowing? It was snowing. What if it was freezing? It was freezing. You know why? Cuz when it comes to ball, I wanted to be a Chacham. And the second I see someone doing something, Ma Edos, what How do I do this? How do I do this? I got to do it. You want to know if you're a Chacham in Yiddishkeit? You want to have a good good you want to have a good metric to see where you're holding in Yiddishkeit, when someone says something, your response is how do I do that? That means that's valuable. Cuz if I said to you right now, I have an incredible stock everyone has to buy, and it's not SpaceX everyone's selling SpaceX. I'm going to have a great stock that everyone's got to buy. Trust me, it's going to go nuts. You're not going to come away if you care and you believe me, let's say, you're not coming to be like, "Stop with the stock stuff." You're going to be like, "What what what's going on?" Cuz I care about money. If I care about money, you know how I If you know how I care about money? Cuz when I'm done speaking, you're going to want to do the thing that's going to get you money. Here's a metric in your life and in my life. You can measure your relationship to Torah based on how much you want to do when you see something is true. That's why they say I ain't my teeth. Off off off to ombre Loki Hill Casa Pesach ain't my tear my heart Pesach people know. They say, "You know what you got to do? Teach him to the offie common." Kid wants to learn, kid wants to know to the end. Be honest now. We're in the seder now. This is this is Russia Shana for the year. Honestly, in your head, when you're going through this, say to yourself, how much of me is really a hakam? For real. What's the Russia? In our world, since we live in a very material world, we think Russia's are people that hurt our bodies. Not like that in Yiddishkeit. You can't hurt anyone's body. That's like a olive base. Russia's in Yiddishkeit hurt your soul. Someone is trying to get you out of Hashem. Someone trying to shmad you is a Russia. You don't have to In our world of America live and let live, whatever everyone does what they do. In the Torah language, a Russia is somebody who is trying to hurt his or someone else's soul. That's oil and harbor. That's forever. Is there inside us? There is. You know what he says? Mah avodah hazalah chem. Oh, please. Oh, you got to be It's kosher. It's kosher. It's kosher. Oh my gosh. Why'd you let him home from Israel? I'm telling you the whole thing with the whole You don't have to wear that. You don't got to eat that. For real? Another thing we got to do? You got to be kidding me. I got to speak to your rabbi. You didn't even hear it yet. Why do you say that for? The answer is deep down. Okay, sometimes people go a little nuts to say that. Usually it's when it first comes out, it's I can't do that. I can't. I do enough. I do enough. I do enough. I haven't been zapped. I'm good. I don't need more. And when you start bringing things up to me, if you tell me the thing that I ate isn't kosher now, what you're telling me is there's more work to do and that mah avodah zu lachem. That's for the That's for the fanatics. Not for normal people. Cuz we all believe that everyone to the right of us is a fanatic, that everyone to the left of us is barely Jewish. We figured out Yiddishkeit to the perfection. And the minute someone from that's more says do something, my brain goes, "Oh, you got to be kidding me. It can't be true. You know why? Mah avodah hazos lachem. Because that's what those people do. Now, you may not do You have a rabbi. You have a guide. You have Shulchan Aruch. It's not about doing it. This is a This is your The Rebbe would believe you when he says, "You want to know where you're holding? It's your instinct." This is This is like taking a This is like taking a personality test during the Seder. This is real. I'm sitting at a Seder and I'm having a Yom Kippur experience through food. And I'm asking myself, "How much of Yiddishkeit do I look at and go, "Ma avodah zalachem?" You got to be joking me. I'm not telling anybody, but this is called building yourself into a klee. What do you do with these people, you say? You're missing it. You're really missing it, cuz you know what's going to happen? Kodesh Baruch Hu is going to ask something of you. You know how we got out of Egypt? I'll tell you how. Nine plagues, and then the Kodesh Baruch Hu said, "Go down the block, take their god, and put it in the house." Ma avodah man, was that avodah? Trust me, that attitude in Egypt, you'd be still in Egypt. I'm just telling you straight. I'm And we all have it. All of us, if we're being honest, has a piece of us that says, "Relax." And not, "Really?" I could try. You know why? Cuz that piece of us is the chametz that's inside us that says, "If I didn't, I can't." And if it's unfamiliar, it's not true. That's called chametz. Ha lachma anya. I don't know. Do I know the koachus that I have? Everything's possible. Tam ma Ma hu omer? What is Who's the tam? You know what the tam is? The tam is the robot inside us. The tam says, "Ma zos?" I'm here. What do you What's that? Why do I fast? I don't know. Why do you eat matzah? I don't know. I'm just eating matzah. Why do you eat mar- I don't know. Why do you do Judaism for? I do it. Why? I like candles. I don't know. Why do you do anything? I don't know. I mean, you don't know. Huh? You ever ask? Huh? Why? I don't know. I'm busy. I got stuff going on. I'm I'm on my phone all day. I got You know you You know the app You know the WhatsApp groups I'm on? I'm I'm I'm watching Israeli fight F-16s all day, cuz I think I'm part of the Mossad. I got to make sure I'm up to date with everything going on. I can't possibly spend 10 minutes to figure out why. I do Judaism. They're not rushes. Not Hakams. You know what that part of us is, honestly? The Tom. Tom says, "Nazos?" I don't know. And then there's the Shaino Yodail Esho. You know something that's interesting? Look at the actual language, you will see that the answer to the Shaino Yodail Esho and the answer to the Russia is the same answer. Shaino Yodail Esho, we say You got to be also leave it say to me in time. You know why? Cuz the Shaino Yodail Esho is so far, he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. It's not even in my world. I'm so far away from this. I don't even know to ask that question. I don't do it. I don't know it exists. Wait, there's something called What are you talking about? Like you have to wait to eat? What do you mean? I didn't know you have to wait to milk a meat. What? That's That's a thing? That's not a thing. I don't like on the show we did. The guy came on and said his seder, they said you can't have bread. Doesn't mean you can't have nothing. So you can have crackers, that's not bread. You can have brownies, that's not bread. What? That's not true. You can't have anything but you can't have bread. That level of ignorance, which we have, is really close to Russia. I'm so far that it just seems like it's too hard. And we we're getting there. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. But you see what we're doing? You see how we You see what the You see what the Baal Hagada is doing? The Baal Hagada is saying, "You're about to engage in the most important story of the year. If you engage in the most important story of the year and you're not there, it's not going anywhere." If you're about to go to the most important story of the year and as you get there, you're really not interested, you got to call it out. Cuz if you're not interested and you get there, what's it going to do for us? What's it going to do for you? So, you get to the bottom, and we're almost ready for the story, and you get to the bottom, and you don't call people out. Like, you know, saying that you're the Russia, you're the Thomas, not the best idea. But, in our own minds, looking down and saying Hashem, between me and you, yeah. Yeah. I lied. I remember karpas a minute ago. My work my my I remember my yakha my my my my my rakhats. Khadash my orkhats. I got it. This is like a This is like a You're going through a process. Okay, we're going to keep on rolling for a minute, and then we're almost done with this part. But, I got the clock. We're going to be done on time. Okay, Rosh Chodesh. Why is Rosh Chodesh yakha me Rosh Chodesh? Why? Here's the good stuff. Now, it's going to turn around now. Why in the world do we think we get thought on Rosh Chodesh for? Cuz what's Rosh Chodesh? Rosh Chodesh is Hashem's way of saying, "What time do you want to do it?" It's an amazing thing, by the way, which you don't appreciate. You know on Rosh Chodesh we set Beis Din sets Rosh Chodesh, which means Beis Din decides. It's famous famous Mishnah. The Beis Din decides when Yom Kippur is going to fall out. Wait, I thought Hashem decides when Yom Kippur is going to fall out. You mean the all the ar of Yom Kippur, chuvah? Tonight, we're going to sit around and have ar. Massive ar from Shamayim. Wait, that means that the Beis Din decided when Pesach is? So, the Beis Din's going to tell Hashem when to bring the ar? That's incredible. You know why? Cuz you're a partner with Hashem. The minute Hashem gave you that, you said, "Maybe I should start saying it then." Cuz being a partner with Hashem is incredible. And And And the last piece before we start getting to the end is the next one here, which is something that we really miss, which is with Yehoshua's charge. The next thing we say is mitkhila avodah zara. What is that? And it's really important if you have a minute to go look at this. The next piece of of the of the Zara is Yeshua at the end of his life. We only get a couple of snippets. At the end of his life Yeshua gathers around the people in Sham. And he says in the beginning your grandparents were over the Zara. And then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then it's you. Welcome to Israel. This doesn't belong to you. You're part of this list. You're part of a race I'm taking you got a mission. Why do we put it here for? Cuz this is the whole reason why we're here for. All the stuff we're doing until now. Why do we care that you're going to time and why do we care about half the things we're talking about? You know why we care so much kids? You know why we care so much myself? When we get to this part of the you know why we care so much for? It's cuz we turn to the saying wait, I'm in this. I'm part of this mission. I'm part of this nation. You picked me to be in this. And if you picked me in this it started by my grand grand grandparents that I voted voted Zara and it goes all the way down to me. You're sitting at the seder and you realize that all the stuff beforehand is there because cares about you. He doesn't want you to be a Tom. He doesn't want to be a show. He doesn't want you to be someone that's walking around and not getting it. Why? Because I have to be doing this. There's only a few people picked into this nation. Once you say that and you get it and by the way when you're doing the seder you're going to do all this but you got to understand it to know what what parts to say. Once you get that and you're getting it you go to the last piece but the last part which is Amda and could be the most powerful moment cuz what is Amda? You've gotten through all these pieces. Think about how much work potentially you're doing to get to this point. You're even exhausted listening to me doing it right now. Wait till you're in the seder. This is why you have to make sure everybody's here on time. This is the point of the night. The whole point of the night is to go through all these pieces and saying there's depth and Muna Belaylos and Bnei Brak and to make sure that every single night of Elizabeth and Zachariah and Hashem is with you and there's a Muna and don't be a don't be a Russia and all this comes down why? Because you're a partner with Hashem and you're part of his bris. And once you get that, once you get that, you know what you do with it? You take your glass and you say "Vehi she'amda l'avoteinu" which means they tried to kill us. We don't care. I'm untouchable. We're unbreakable. Do you see this? Do you see what's going on over here? Do you Are we Are we putting the pieces together? We're worried about the guy down the block? I'm worried about what I'm watching on the news? They're trying to hurt us. I got the Kodesh Baruch Hu. I'm saying it at night. I'm lifting my glass Vehi she'amda l'avoteinu. V'lo acher bilvavai. V'haKodesh Baruch Hu matzilenu me'yadam. This is and sounds like a lot, digest it. I'm going hopefully be done on time. We'll be done on time, Michelle. But I want you to get it cuz it's so critical cuz you can't miss it cuz this is the night that you got to pass it over to somebody. And if that somebody is yourself, it's worth it. The whole This is just the setup. This is We didn't get to the We didn't get to the actual Sipur Yetziat Mitzrayim yet. This is why all this This is why so many things go off the rails. This is a lot of work and we're not even at the mitzvah yet. We didn't get to the story. Why? Because the Ba'alei Haggadah are saying because if you get to the story and you don't think you're part of the story, you miss the story. If you get to the story and you can't raise your glass and go wait, wait a second. Holy cow, I'm putting the pieces together here. Ha Lachma Anya Ma Nishtana Avadim Hayinu I am a product of yesterday but I believe in the Kodesh Baruch Hu I got to go deeper. The four sons, where have I been all year long? Where have I been all year long? I could have picked me. I'm I'm not a 16-year-old girl. I'm not a 48-year-old woman. I'm not a 50-year-old guy. I'm not a lawyer or a doctor or a nurse. What's going on with me? Why have I not gotten this? I'm on mission. I'm put in this world by the Holy One. I'm sitting at a table cuz Hashem chose me to be in it. That's I'm in Yeshua's speech. You can't get to the story if you don't think the story is about you. If you don't think the story If you think the story is about Moshe Aaron, you can't get to the story. You lift the cup. I'm not scared. I'm not scared anymore. I'm not scared that I don't have enough money. I'm not scared that I don't have enough COVID. I'm not scared that I'm not at this part of my life already. I'm not scared that these people have more than me. I'm not scared that some of the guys are going to have a fear on. I'm not scared I'm not scared. I'm not scared. You know why? I have Hashem. I'm on mission. That's the end of part one. And now, believe it or not, and you're tired of listening to this. Now we are getting to the actual narrative called Sipur Yetziat Mitzrayim, which means in your Seder, if everyone's on the couch at this point, you're not fulfilling Sipur Yetziat Mitzrayim. Which means get through this quickly if you need to. I don't know. Pick one thing to say and then fly. I don't care. You got to get here, but realize why we're setting the whole thing up to get here. And now we're in Sipur Yetziat Mitzrayim, and Sipur Yetziat Mitzrayim has two pieces to it. Two critical pieces, and you have to get into it to understand it. And we're going to pick pieces, but I don't have that much time left. When you get to the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim, if I didn't know better, and I would say to you, "Okay, you see all the things that we did until now? Awesome." Now we're up to Tisha B'Av. What would you think would happen? You would say, "Finally, shmos, I got it. Tell me where we're starting from." We don't. What do we do? So what is the What does the mission say? Mar says, "Where do we start from?" Darsh me a rami oved avi yigmor kol a parsha kulah. What is I saw this first word written in warm form in many years ago. He asked this question. It's kishmac. What do we do? You know what we do? We read something called mikra bikurim. What's mikra bikurim? Thousands of year Hundreds of years later, Jews leave Egypt. They enter the desert. They go into Eretz Yisrael. Till everything works out with David Hamelech and Hamelech. Then they build the Beis Hamikdash. Years years years years years later, whenever the the seven minim and the farmer picks the first fruits and he wraps a little thing around the fruit and he gathers the fruits and he brings it to Yerushalayim and they dance and sing and he puts them into a basket in the hands of the kohen. It's called bikurim. There's a mitzvah that the people have, the farmers in Eretz Yisrael during the times of the Beis Hamikdash, when certain fruits the shiv'ah minim were were were were were came out, they brought them to the Beis Hamikdash and at the Beis Hamikdash, they gave the farmer five lines to say. Those five lines are called mikra bikurim. And you know how we teach the story now? We don't go to shmos. We don't read the story the way Hashem told it. You know what we do? We take the five lines that that farmer said and we just say those five lines. And through those five lines, we darshan out the story of Egypt. How? Why? You know why? Cuz what are we worried about potentially? We're worried that the story of Egypt becomes a story. It's not a story. It's a narrative. The farmer has five lines and the lines of the farmer is the perspective of a farmer. Cuz I'm sitting at a seder, I'm the farmer. I'm not Mosha, that's for sure. I'm not Miriam and I'm not Aaron. You know who I am? I'm the farmer. And if you look at the Haggadah, and if I'm begging you, look at the Haggadah before you sit down, even if you're not leading the Seder, so that when you're at the Seder, it's meaningful to you. If you look at the Haggadah, you will see the Haggadah is basically the five lines. And in each of the lines, we take the lines and we tell the story through the lines, cuz we're teaching them it's an arc. The Mikra'ot Gedolot is an arc. Here's how the world works. The farmer of the Beit Hamikdash looks back and goes, "Oh, that's how the world works." We go to the Haggadah and say, "The arc of history is in five lines." We're only reading four cuz we're not getting to the Beit Hamikdash yet. What are the four lines? The first The first line is, "Arami oved avi." Arami is Laban. Laban tried to He worked our father. "Vayigash sham, and we lived there with very few people, and we grew big." Why do we say this four because Laban The The Torah tells us Laban was trying to be oker et hakol. Why was Laban trying to be oker et hakol? So the Sfas Emes says he was trying to mix us up through arvut. Arami is from the word mirmah. Because there's two types of exile. Pay attention to what the Haggadah is saying. There's the exile of power, which is just for the zachar, half. Then there's the exile of Laban. The exile of Laban is the exile of assimilation, which is hakol. I did a little calculations with the help of some some new tools. Just for a second to understand the the gravity of this. From 1885 past the Holocaust, that's a lot of bad stuff that happened to us. That's called paro. The Jewish people had a growth rate of .64%. Not a lot. And we got knocked A lot of people got knocked off. From 1960 to 2020, which is a period of basically the calmest time we've had, maybe since times of the base Hamikdash. 1960 to 2020 our growth rate should have been three times. This is not This is called Galus Lavon. Our growth rate, if it's during power, was .64. What should our growth should should have been when it was calm? Two, three. We'd have four times the amount of Jews right now. You know our growth rate was during that period of time? .35, half. Half the Jews, we ended up with less Jews in the last 50 from that period of time than in the Holocaust. Why? Because we think we're not in a Galus because nobody's walking down your doors with a with a with with a swastika? Galus. Arami Oved Avi, we're in Galus, they're going after Tzar u Shamus, half the people are gone. We had more people born in Paro, we were at 7% growth rate when we let when we started with 70 till we walked out with millions cuz Galus doesn't make sense. We're sitting around our table and we're saying, "Everybody pay attention. Arami Oved Avi, this is not off." You got to strengthen yourself. But let me tell you something, the way we operate in Galus is not normal. Don't be scared. Go We we we we started off small and we ascended L'rov. Don't You don't have to run and be like everyone to be able to be successful. Don't You don't have to do that. The first line of this is Hashem telling us, "Open your eyes, but don't think you go by nature." You start off in Galus and you end up God will arrive. And the second line comes in. And we say V'yiru Hamitzrim V'yanunu, and they give us hard work. What does it mean hard work? So it says have been a hot minute opinion. You know why they enslave us in the first place for? Cuz they said because you're going to come up and you're going to come against us. What? Why would the Jews go against them? Because it makes no sense. So now they're saying the Jews are crazy. We're like, "Oh my god, anti-semitism is irrational." Yeah, it's irrational. It's been irrational from the beginning. It's called anti-semitism. And they put up on us sorry sorry sorry masim. They put on us people that were that are on top of us. Both in the good and the bad, whether they're taskmasters or they're people that are working us hard. They gave us pitum and ramses are things that are futile. When you look at this part of the haggadah and you look at it you will see that this is exactly what we're going through right now. Golus has an end. The taskmaster went from being tough the taskmaster being tough to being maybe like an internet or maybe a social media app or maybe my boss but at the same time that we're building things that are taking us off. And then what do we do? There's a good There's a good thing here we do in our house. I don't know where I got it from. My son-in-law got it from me. He said that you know the idea of Rebbi Nachman says Rebbi Nachman says everybody screams Rebbi Nachman. Try that in your house. You say Rebbi Nachman and everybody goes Rebbi Nachman and they scream. It's a good moment to like get out all that energy. What happens in the in the golus piece over here? I'm going to go quick. What happens in the golus piece at the end? You're in the third line here. This is the story you have to tell over. When you're looking at the haggadah you got to review this. Every line. What's the third thing? Number one is we're sitting in golus. Number two is it gets hard. Number three is when it gets hard what protects us is not some defense force. It's not the ADL. It's not whatever. What protects us is a kodesh baruch hu. Everyone else works for Hashem. We got to see to the top. Ben Nachman el Hashem. >> [clears throat] >> When things get hard we turn to Hashem. Kids, when things get hard we turn to Hashem. You know what Hashem does? He comes running. Cuz you know what? When you're at a park and a daddy tells the kid, "Don't climb on the the merry the the monkey bars." And the kid doesn't listen anyways. He's like, "I told you not to climb on the monkey bars." And the kid doesn't listen and he climbs on the monkey bars and he falls and he screams. Daddy, even if he's upset, comes running. That's how you know who the dad is. You know how you know who the dad is? The person who runs. You're stuck? Benitzhak. You always turn to the Kodesh Baruch Hu. And he sees us. If you look at what it says up here, it's amazing. Precedes the heir rights. He sees the dahak. You know what that is? He sees that that you're not normal anymore. He sees that you're pressured. That's what parents worry about. Are you pressured? Are you stressed, honey? Are you eating? My mother, are you eating? Are you eating? Are you eating? Are you eating? Kodesh Baruch Hu doesn't look down on us and go, "Wait, I told Why aren't you doing what I told you to do?" You sinned. You dipped the thing. Kodesh Baruch Hu goes, "You deserve to be in Mitzrayim." You know what the Kodesh Baruch Hu says? "I got you. You cried to me." Cuz that's how galus works. Number four, "V'otzei eini Hashem Mitzrayim." If you go through these pesukim, you will see this one theme of this whole piece, which is Hashem says, "I'm coming myself." Loy al yedey malach. Loy al yedey saraf. Loy al yedey shaliach. You know why? Because I'm your dad. This is not the story. This is the narrative. And the last piece, and I can send you all for those of you who want more of this, I'll send you all the details here. All the pieces that we have in this last one is all connected to Hashem saying, "I'm coming down." And the last piece is Hashem comes down to save us. The dever shows that it's the one makah that went straight in even power couldn't believe how one animal dies and one animal doesn't. The dam was the first time that Hashem said, "I'm here." Each of these pieces of this thing is all showing us that Hashem comes himself. The story of Mitzrayim is not Shemot. The story of Mitzrayim is an arc. Golus and looks like we're down, don't fall. It gets hard sometimes. Turn to Hashem and Hashem saves you. That happens personally and nationally. That's the narrative of Sipur Yetziat Mitzrayim. When you want to deliver the story to your family, you deliver the story to your family this way. I got to understand the story through the prism of these principles. And then you got to downplay it to whoever's in the room. They're kids, they're adults, that's who gets it. And then we go to the second piece and then we're going to end early, so I'm going to miss a piece of this, which is fine. We'll go to the last piece, which is the story of the Makos. The Makos is a very important piece because that's where the drama is and we usually go through very quickly cuz by this point everybody is exhausted. And all we're doing is if you're Ashkenazi, you're dipping with your fingers and making cute things and if you're Sephardi, you're dip you're pouring it out and you're chucking it with a glass broken thing on your neighbor's lawn. God forbid. Have you heard of the Listen to the Yehudah Nosem Behems Simanim. Why would a Yehudah give Simanim for? So, the answer is that Tzach, Adash, Be'achav are not just mnemonics, they're categories. Tzach, Adash, Be'achav. Tzach is Dam, Tzfardea, Kinim. What took place in Dam, Tzfardea, Kinim? What took place was Hashem introduced himself to the world. I got this originally from Menachem Litke. The Malbim says the first plague is to show I exist. It's a category, dam. The hartumim did dam. Hashem's on their level. Tsardea, they did the tsardea, but they couldn't get rid of the tsardea. I'm up. Kinim, etzba Elohim he, I'm here. Adash. Arov, dever, shchin, is Hashem is in the world. I can split neighborhoods and put the animals through one side and not the next side. I can split characters, horses, and one dies and one doesn't die. And the last group is ba'al hav, borrowed. Arbeh and choshech, there's nobody like me in the world. Never had fire and water, never had locust. If you look at the ma'aser, I'll send it to you, you will see they're not You have to tell the stories as three categories. Is Hashem in the world? He's in the world and there's nobody like him. You know what the the the the mnemonic is to that? Sh'ma Yisrael, is Hashem in the world? Eloheinu, he's here. Echad, there's nobody like him. This is the point of the of the the seder, where if you have time, this is where you spend your time. In the beginning are the lessons that you have to share, but this is the drama. This is where you have to slow it down and tell the stories so people understand what was taking place in Egypt, cuz what took place in Egypt is what taking them out. We're going to skip a little bit and we're going to end with the with the last three. Because there's a cool thing as to why we count four, because it's all going to be based on the but not for now. The last two pieces then we'll and we'll call it a day. The last two pieces is dayenu and then the three things. Dayenu is a great one. Why do we do dayenu for? So, if you look at dayenu, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Ilu natan lanu es mamonam v'lo kar'anu es hayam, had you given us their money and you didn't split the sea, that would have been enough, really? That That not have been enough. If you split the sea but you don't make it dry land, that would be enough? Yeah? Anyone be happy with a split sea and you can you and you and you and you sink? That would not have been enough. If you look at the end you will see that most of the end of the answer is no it wouldn't have been. So why do we say the end of it for? So Noah has a good Noah has a great tire on this. Most people are not happy because they do not have a relationship with the little things in their lives. I was once traveling back from Israel and a friend a friend of mine's son was traveling with me. He's like a very like highly good kid. Like very highly good. The guy, you know, wonderful but very highly good. So we we're in the airport in Israel. We flew back home. And we get to the airport and we come to the security line which is like a balagan and it's like pretty much open. And he goes, "Thank you Hashem that I got through security." I'm like, "What's going on over here?" >> [snorts] >> And we get to the security line and then he gets the thing and goes, "Ah, Hashem, thank you that I they didn't stop me. They didn't pull me off. My my yogurts got through. I didn't take off my shoes." Then you get to the you know there's like you leave you get to the the passport thing at the end and you're like it's not opening. I know they're going to like somehow put me and then it opens you're like, "Ah!" You have a feeling you're like you won something that they opened up for you. Like your passport is fine. And he turns out and he as he leaves he goes, "Ah, Hashem." Not one it didn't it my first time I read the passport. Ah. Kabbalah kill. I'm like, "Dude, you're you're you're you're freaking me out." And then we get to the thing. I tell you the guy by the time we got through the the security in JFK to the Uber, he must have I can't even imagine him and Hashem were like hugging. And then someone's like, "Hey, how's the flight?" I'm like, "Fine." Uneventful. You know what this is? Maybe the most important part of the Haggadah. If you slow down enough to tell the story well and you come out the story, you teach your family. You know why it's so hard to be a kiddish Pesach Jew? You know why we're so good at Yom Kippur and so bad at Pesach for? Because every moment that you got in a car and you ended up getting to your destination and nothing happened, you never looked up and said, "Oh my gosh." And every day you went to bed at night and nothing happened, you never looked up and said, "Oh, Hashem, you got to be kidding me." No bad phone calls, Hashem. Everyone's okay. Door's locked. Body works. Everything is okay. Oh, gosh, I can't another Shabbos. Ugh. Hashem, you kidding? You killing me. This is too much. And since we don't have a relationship with Hashem this way, you know when we talk to Hashem? When there's a crisis. Yom Kippur. Dayenu was not it would be enough. Dayenu is it would be enough to say thank you. Cuz that's enough. Truth is, it's enough. Cuz you guess what? It's a gift. And if I can go through my day and 20 times in my day stop and dayenu up my day, I'm ready. And then we end with the last most important pieces. And I'll say it now and then just we'll we'll translate it to to to eating it later cuz of our time constraints. Pesach, Matzah, and Maror. And then we're done. No more service. We're in our initial descent. Why is it so critical for? Pesach, Matzah, and Maror. Remember, the Matzah you point to, the Maror you point to, you don't point to the Pesach. It's not the Pesach. Why is it so important for? Cuz what does the Pesach represent? Remember something. And these are the most important lessons you have to share with yourself and others. The Jewish people had nine plagues. They were inspired to the end. And after the ninth plague, Hashem turned to Moshe and said, "Take the carbon Pesach." What that means in our languages, go find a celebrity, in their world it was the lamb, and kidnap him to your home. Go get the quarterback from the Giants and hide him in the basement. What? I'll be dead by night. Yeah. Do you believe in me? Nine plagues. That's what it was like. 80% of the Jews said, "No. I'd like to, but I can't." Cuz there's belief and there's belief. You cannot be a Jew that fully believes in Hashem if every time it gets a little hard, you're out. Being a Hopefully hopefully it won't be painful. Being a Yid means it's going to require to jump in. That means mom and dad, grandpa and grandma, Bobby and Zadie went to the marketplace with their hands shaking cuz they weren't out of slavery yet, and it was the Egyptian god, and they're still living in Egypt, and they walked that little baa lamb into the house, and for four days that thing baa'd away, and just in case that Egypt didn't realize took the god, you took the lamb, and you shechted it, and you put on the doorpost, and the Kodesh Baruch Hu says, "Are you still scared?" V'shamta, did you not hear V'shamta? Didn't you hear the whole Torah on Moshav B'leilas? What are you scared about? Didn't you go through Ah Me'ah V'ah Ravi? Don't be scared. You're a Jew. Don't be like them. Be like you. Pesach, you know when you became a Jew? Not when you came out of the sand dune called Egypt. You know when you became a Jew? When you did that, and you went to your house, and in the middle of the night everyone was screaming, and you thought you were getting it because you didn't know who was getting it. We know the answer. You didn't know the story the story. And at that night, when everyone was screaming and crying, and you thought it was coming to hit your house, that clap that that noise went louder, and it went quieter, and Hashem looked down and said, "This one's mine." Hashem went, that one. Not all of you leave together. Judaism is not a communal everyone go together. Judaism is that family right there. That one. That one's mine, Hashem says. Like you were a little kid growing up, and you play punch ball in the school yard. I got him. I got him. I got him. I got him. I got him. That's called you became a Jew. That's Pesach. It did not happen when you left. It happened when you were chosen. Yeshua Baruch She'amar Haftachah. Remember the setup? It's all setting you up for this moment. Partners. Number one. You're a Jew when you choose yourself to be a Jew. Don't you sit back. Remember the whole Yachatz? You go look for the Kadosh Baruch Hu. Number two. Pesach. You think the Kadosh Baruch Hu can pull off 10 plagues? He can't arrange a late checkout? You got to run out of here? Doesn't he know that we love food? Mommy's got to have the the dough issue for the next rest of our eternity? The Tzemach Tzedek says, he set it up like that. You know why? Cuz if you really wanted to do it, you'd do it now. Now. The Chacham. The setup. You see it's all set up? You want to be a Jew? Is not an opportunity in front of you right now, kids? Now. Learn now. Now. Matzah means I don't walk to Hashem. I run to Hashem. Maror, the Lubavitcher Rebbe says, is the difference between Atzvus and Merirus. Atzvus is I can't. You're sad. Merirus is I want it to be better. It's bitter. You know what you do with bitterness? You know what you do with challenge? Cuz if you're going to play Jewish ball, you're going to be hitting challenge. You want to do a challenge? You dip it in a little Charoses and you make a Bracha on it. It's part of life. It's part of Hashem saying, I got you. You dip it a little bit, not too much. You got it. Don't take it away. It's challenging. Hopefully it's not painful. And you look at it and say, Gamzu L'Tovah. I make a Bracha on my Maror. Three symbols represent the culmination of the Haggadah. If you're thinking through and begging you, go through the Haggadah yourself afterwards. If you're thinking through the Haggadah and you're getting the values and all the setup works and you got the four stories of the Aramiyo V'Oved Avi, the four narratives, and you get to the Makos and you realize Hashem teaching us about himself, you get to these three principles of what it means to be a Jew. Choose yourself. It's hard work. Now. And when you face a challenge a challenge comes to the Kodesh Boruch Hu. And then you end the Seder, you end that Maggid with lifting it, and you end the Maggid with that right level of perspective that I'm the luckiest person to be a Jew. One last thing and we'll call it a night. Matzah is, as the as the as the the Chachamim call it Michla D'Avusa, the the the the Safta, which means in Aramaic healing bread. This is really important. I saw this in the Sefer Pnei Yehoshua today where it says the only Chasam Sofer says the only mitzvah assei in the Torah that is left for eating, now that there's no Korbanos and Ma'aser, the only thing left is matzah. Do not kvetch through the matzah. It is so embarrassing for us to turn to the Kodesh Boruch Hu and he asks us to eat mid'oraisa matzah and we kvetch. This is too much, it's too much, it's so not the moment. If you are sitting at a Seder and you have matzah and maror, eat double. Not may not you you it's up to you. It's this is not a dinner. This is not a Yom Tov meal. It's a Seder. Take down the Yom Tov food. I'm guaranteeing you you will pound Yom Tov. Afikoman is part of the mitzvah of achilas matzah. If you come to Afikoman full, you may not be yotzei Afikoman. When you get to the eating part, do it with simcha. According to the um Mar'eh of a Shemesh, all the chametz has that arrogance. Matzah is what you put into your system now, which nullifies the impact of chametz for the rest of the year. It heals you. It's like medicine. As you get to this part of the Seder, this is the moment where people have to look at it and go, "I get to eat matzah. I get to do this stuff." That simcha changes who you are. When you go through Shulchan Aruch, do it quickly. And when you come back to Afikoman and close, close strong. And as our Rebbe says, you can tell your Seder by the end. And if you have in mind that the goal is that by the time you get to the end of the Seder, people are uplifted, the lessons are clear. And if they're clear in your mind and the story is clear in your mind, it'll be clear. But the most important thing with this I'll end, this is what our Rebbe said and I'm going to share it. You have to make sure you know what's first is first. First priority in a Seder is little children. 11, 12, 13, they are not in the back of the room. You dumb it down for them. If you have older people, you navigate it. Because you want to get to a place where these lessons and those stories mean something. They're a narrative. You have to digest it now for the next week until you put it into your examples and your stories and your moments, so that they can feel like it's coming from you. And when you finish a Seder strong, you end up saying, "L'shana haba'ah b'Yerushalayim habanuyah." Because you realize that you want more than anything else to be connected to Hashem. And when you are, anything and everything is possible. When we approach the Seder like we're approaching Yom Kippur and we realize that there is so much packed here and we are given an opportunity to be alive during this era that we can either experience it if it's not being given to us or we can give it. We realize that we are there is nothing more entrusting and empowering than that. And when you go into with that feeling and because we're living in America we get two shots today because Hashem knows we need two shots. When you sit and you get you get to a place where you're getting something from it. You're building yourself into a clay. We should be zoche to be a clay that is so deep that when we come to Pesach Seder the or that comes into our lives fixes and shines and we and our families come out indish we we have to come out unbreakable. We have to come out walking through walls because we're Jews and we're Hashem's people and we're not scared and we're proud. And with that we should be zoche to not only find the Geulah but to bring the Geulah and to see in this year Yerushalayim Habenuyah. Thank you for sitting through this from Harry B. Lyons.