CHAZAQ’s Torah Talks #6: Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein - Pesach: True Freedom

welcome everyone to yet another edition of our tuesday's timely torah talks we have a very special guest this week we have our very dear friend robbie zachary warstein schlita a man that needs no introduction bar hashem the rabbi has been by for many many years i think since the inception more or less and barak hashem uh has been at the big kazakh events and the programs and everyone knows the rabbi warren seems the founder of ornava which is a huge woman's tourist center and many other great uh programs and and the world-renowned lecturer and then author rabby warstein welcome how are you doing thank you amazing baroque hashem amazing very glad to be able to be here tonight almost pesach amazing very exciting very exciting thank you for your time we know how busy rebbie is and we heard that the rebbe barack hashem just had a reforeshalema you just got koben i got it in the beginning in march everyone know my cavea you know everyone got in the beginning you just had it in bronxton recovered uh how are you feeling and and what do we learn from uh from kobe rabbi well i had i had temperature for almost two weeks wow um not very very high not 104 only about 101 um and uh it threw my whole system so off no strength you know sweating at night like really bad um just no appetite and and it was only a little teeny bit of temperature and and i i i thank hashem now all the time that i'm 98.6 not not any higher and i learned a very big less than that that your temperature could be a little bit off and your whole system so now it's interesting i say ashiyat everyone thinks that shiyatsa is only for going to the bathroom right you come out of the bathroom make ashiyatsa but if you if you if you listen to what you're saying you know she's saying it's not only going to the bathroom it's any you know network people have blood clots from cobra then and they passed away from the blood clots and that's you know that's a pipe being blocked it's not going to the bathroom pipe so i started thinking about you know the whole ashiyaksa um and the interesting thing is if you're not sick what does that mean hashem heals everybody but we're not sick he's not healing me so what does that bracha mean most people go to the bathroom they come out they're healthy what it means is right your body there's so many things that could be going wrong all the time that god has to keep healing it i'm blue i'm sorry yeah i didn't get covered till i'm supposed to go for my vaccination then i got covered but um just to drop off a little cell that you can't see it's not the russian you know uh nuclear bombs coming to to attack america it's this little teeny so very much um very thankful to hashem i am very mocked and everyone should take this up that every morning before i leave shul i stand by the artichoke dish and i say i want to thank hashem that i could smell that i could taste that i could hear that i could see and then i could feel all five senses thank you thank you thank you hashem exactly so when i got kovid the first two days i couldn't smell and i couldn't taste and i really panicked i went downstairs i tried to summon nothing i went upstairs i took rubbing alcohol rubbing apples smelled the bottle okay nothing nothing wow i was like my wife made me tease nothing i said hold on hashem i thank you every day for being able to smell and taste come on give me a break and two days after i got covered i got it all back so i was like thank you hashem and i'm thanking you hashem but i thought i thanked you before coven so yeah we have to thank our chef every day though even more so now that our all five senses work because i know people that have it a year ago and they still can't taste and they can't smell and everything tastes like cardboard coffee tastes like nothing i can't even imagine that so yeah i think what you learned from this whole thing is really more appreciation but for things that you might you didn't you you thought was so natural that you just didn't appreciate so yeah i'm very happy my my fever broke and the minute my fever broke um getting a little nervous after two weeks of fever the doctor was getting nervous too when my fever broke i was like thank you hashem that i'm 98.6 i never said that my wife thank you hashem that i'm 98.6 i'm like thank you from 98.6 not lower not higher thank you hashem it's definitely a very very big lesson we have to appreciate what we have unfortunately people only realize and appreciate what they have once they lose it so let's appreciate everything that we have the health and the happiness of the family and everything all the goods that we have so rewards you we're right before pesach it's the pre-pay saktami tuesday torah talk and uh the simple question is rabbi what's your favorite part of pesach what's your favorite part of passover am i my favorite part of pesach is the seder okay definitely not cleaning the cars that's not my favorite part i like to shop i'm a big shopper really yeah i've always i've always been a big shopper um my when i was 16 years old i wanted to get a license i lived in muncie and sort of made a deal with my parents that if they let me get a license i'll do all the shopper shopping that was already at 16. so i started shopping when i was 16 and my mother didn't need me to chat but i loved it and i'm now much older than that um and my wife doesn't need me to shop but every single friday i spend my whole friday shopping because i go to one store for this one for that and one of my favorite stores is the flower store um i buy the flowers for the house wow i also buy the flowers actually from my high school bcaa so when we opened 12 years ago the girls were not keeping shamans they were very disconnected also they did not have relationships with their parents at all um and i wanted to give them some type of friday i knew they weren't keeping chat some kind of you know feeling for shabbos my father over shalom my whole life since i remember always brought home flowers for shabbas it's very in today 60 years ago it was not in people didn't do it but he always came home with two brothers two flowers that had a rose which is a beret um summon because it has thorns and it has a heart and then he would buy a flower that smelled that was very istay to summon so we always made two brackets and he always brought this we always brought it home so it was just something that you know what your father does you do and i uh and he bought the flowers so i go every friday to buy the flowers for my school and every girl every girl in my high school it's now 12 years i don't miss gets a single wrapped rose one week it's purple one week it's white one week it's red yellow um and i give them this rose and i'm like take it home to your mother for shabbos so at the same time we're making a relationship with shout outs regulations appearance and i also buy a 9x13 pan of chili you never believe it they wipe it out girls they wipe out that so when i go your favorite part is shopping of the seder rabbi walrus team oh so i'm getting to the seder so there's two things it's it's the shopping and and buying you know for pesach and being part of it and when i uh buy the onions and the potatoes and everything else i say i am buying this for the pizza for the seder i went matzah for the seder because it says if you say that then the food has a special nishaman special tabasco dish all right so this is the covenant shop it's the cover giant look over pesach um so that's part of it but the seder itself to sit there with my children and my grandchildren um from the day i got married till the day my father passed away um which was about i would say 40 years that he you know that he may always the seder the seder i always went to him i wouldn't i didn't go to and my deal was i go to him my in-laws i went the other young tobin but the seder had to be by my father um it was until three four o'clock in the morning we yeah we we never rushed it we never got finished before three four o'clock in the morning um dr torres everything and the beauty of sitting around looking at your family and talking about your mediterrane um not only about uts with trying but your mitzrayim your addiction the stuff that you couldn't get out of the stuff that you changed uh you know the jews when they left with triumph they had this slavery type of attitude they wanted to keep going back and like what am i a slave to am i slave to my music am i a slave to my movies am i a slave to what am i a slave to how did i break out do i miss it do i want to go back and everybody would talk about you know their challenges that year amazing amazing so for me the seder um is very very very very special and very appreciative to be able to sit at a table and listen to my grandchildren and my children you know say torah and i say terry it's the seder even by the irreligious and the non-religious and all reform even there there are two things yom kippur that they try to keep the way they keep and um they won't even they won't eat and and the satan the seder is always in the irreligious there was a movie called the ten commandments um that they watch on the seder night i try to tell the kids i was teaching like no moses did not look like charlton heston uh and the mountain didn't look like that and cleopatra definitely had nothing to do with it um so i tried to talk them out of it but but they they want to have some kind of connection to you know to a seder so to me it's it's just an amazing time for family it's family and i love it i love it i look forward to it big time it's amazing that's great to always be together with family and for you to go i'm only have once a year thanksgiving hashem thank god us we have shabbos every single week and so many holidays just last year during the pesach city we were all in lockdown quarantine and we weren't able to go to other people's houses barack hashem this year we're quote-unquote a little bit more free freedom uh what lessons could we learn from last year compared to this year which is a little bit again it's not fully where we could go uh to there's a lot of pizza programs are closed this year uh anything we can learn from a lot of people programs are also open this year oh yeah okay that's great yeah yeah there are i was told there are there are a hundred thousand jews going to orlando all those homes a hundred thousand jews but not to a program to their homes to these homes but but in these homes they're they're private chefs and they're bringing food and stuff to them it's amazing so now i've been doing the program this year i know you guys my program is with my family this year um which i really appreciate because when ornaven did the program i really didn't get to the seder until two o'clock because i went to every single seder in the program and brought the kids frogs and puppets and muppets and so hashem i could do that with my kids this year i'm really looking for it really really really looking forward i think that it's very interesting because last year was lockdown yeah it's ryan was also locked down on the night of pesach you were now allowed to go outside so you had to stay inside with the door closed and have us you know the butt on the inside of the door to remember you know the car and pace uh but the real pay stock total lockdown interesting total lockdown so we would like to have a pace like this here in eric's thrill with the current pace off with no lockdown whatsoever but we do have to appreciate that that yeah that we're that's they were not totally locked down and and thank hashem like you're right we took for granted you know until last year well anybody can come where it wants to come to come and it wasn't last year like and and you know we lost a lot of people this year a lot of good people a lot of siddiqim and and and you know you're sitting at your seder and they're not they're in shamayim i don't know if they have a seduction i'm not sure but they're not getting the mitzvah of leaning and drinking for kosovo's and eating matzah and you have a chance to do that this year you got to thank hashem that that barak hashem you have a chance to sit at the seder it's it's amazing it's exciting and it's amazing i'm looking forward to it we're all looking for it and it's hashem we should be uh we should see the gula as well rabbit any memorable pesachs that come to mind something that sticks stuck out that sticks out uh with the pizza seders maybe something in your programs uh i'd like to tell you a story nothing to do with my program let me tell you story my father sader probably i'm 63 so we're going back oh wow rabbi is that young hashem we're going back maybe 40 years wow okay we're going back 40 years so i lived in muncie this is very important for everyone so um my father always wanted to do something special for pesach we had blue old carpet in the house he decided for that pace out that my parents went out and they bought this white gorgeous white wall-to-wall carpet and he made sure that it was installed okay we had a family over for the first saturday night we had a family over um they were like about just balchuviz and i was teaching the sun a little bit about torah whatever it was and we were my father loved to have people over we invited them over for the sailors they never saw my father went to four o'clock and and and it was just a gorgeous table whatever it was amazing father rabbi like you rabbi no businessman regular businessman so this is a true story we're sitting at the table and the kid the the young 13 year old kid that i was teaching by accident knocked over his glass of wine on the white carpet on the white cloth but i'm not talking about a little glass i'm talking about a cup of wine all over the white carpet my mother was gonna freak out i mean you took my wine stain on a white carpet and my father says not a problem ten minutes later the elia nubby cup which is five times the size my father leans over to get our gun and he knocks i mean and that whole cup spills on the floor so he tells us his name without rummy he says the ramen you see if you wouldn't have done it i didn't i would have done it so it doesn't make a difference when we clean my stain will clean your stain and he made them feel like nothing happens he purposely knocked it over purposely yeah wow what a lesson in the middle of the table it wasn't near him no that was to me hit us he wasn't a rabbi it wasn't a rebbe but the clinic i saw there and these people were so nervous because the white carpet who carpet the wall seat whatever it is and my father said to the kid he said okay if you would have done it i would have to clean the car have the guy come anyway so clean your clean wine and we had them for sedum for for many years after that yeah so he wasn't a rabbi but he was my ready amazing amazing lesson unreal honestly i don't have anything i don't have anything to pay that program that even comes close to that i remember rabbi morrison you you recently brought hashem you you gave up in person cheer in uh in uh by kazakh and and you said something very interesting over about how every single person should set up the the pesach table can you just uh reiterate that point i remember that was very powerful it says in the cavaliers that you should not have a non-jew set your table because hashem's coming to the seder for the table should be set by a jew by a young girl the whole thing but when i went through my pesac program the waitresses were spanish whatever they weren't job we didn't hire jewish weaknesses i came to the table and i'm like i'm the one who taught this like uh oh the whole table is set so he took all the dishes off and all the glasses off put it on a chair straighten out the thing and then reset the table amazing oh yeah we used to do we used to do that i mean we had some amazing i also had a very program that nobody had oh this is an interesting thing that everyone this is something you should hear listen to this this is amazing hashem sending me this message you have to hear this my father had a minig minhag to make the the mara so you have romaine lettuce but we eat the white horseradish you have right so you can buy it you can buy it ready made in those days you really couldn't buy it right anyway but now you can buy right now i want to tell you there's a store in boro park that sells ready made you ready everybody salt water it's 99 cents i saw it today a jar says salt water 99 cents people are so lazy they can't even take water and put salt in it i was like oh my gosh everything's ready everything's pre-made everything's pre-made anyway so my father's mini i made with the yeti i know where it came from is that we made the moral we grinded the mara with our own hands with one of those metal grinders very hard to do right before the seder so the white horseradish would be so hot feeling fresh would be so hot you'd feel it so when we used to sit there as kids and this is beautiful as we used to grind it it goes into your nose and it makes you cry you can't even control it it makes you cry it was like a whole game we put we put like washcloths on our face it was like i got some ice up and i don't have a seder my grandchildren my children everybody has to take a turn and grind everybody the littlest kid everybody why my father used to say that when you do this and you're crying say a prayer to god and to pray it to god is if i have to cry this year tears of pain these should be the only tears i cry wow every single pesach say tonight i said that prayer and my grandchildren and my children we make it and the little kids like i'm like say hashem if i have to cry in tears is here this should be the only time i cry listen whoever's listening do it do it 100 that's amazing rabbi unbelievable i never heard of that and uh so many lessons we're learning from this torah talk rabbi unbelievable let's end off with one final message rabbi watson you can give to our audience whether it's a story whether it's in inspirational insight something about pesach for us to take home there's so many gems that we've already uh heard one final one rabbi okay so this one um is extremely important message for everyone especially after a year like this so this is the the jewish law and the code of law in the shogunate says that taro says that's how you say it how do you use it right it's made from apples um and red sweet red wine i think try them use dates maybe we use um cinnamon apple wine sweet wine now what is sclerosis in memory of it's in memory of the bricks right it's the made like a brick sometimes it tastes like a brick but it's made like a brick i don't know if you get that tells the thing that comes in the box they collect seducka it's a brick it tastes like a brick but anyway so they used to take when you when the jews didn't have enough bricks they used to take if they didn't fill up the map that they needed to do they took a jewish baby and they stuck them in the wall instead of the brick and the baby would die in the wall and then the jews would have to cement it we can't even imagine the nazis didn't even do that it's like it's like you can't even think of a baby and making them into a bunny dog we should never know beyond anything you can understand ask the rabbis if it's in memory of such a terrible thing why is it sweet it should be made with vinegar and the and the says it should be made with sweet wine red wine to remind you of the blood of the children that's why red wine is says so that should be sweet it should be the most bitter thing in the world and you take your mara which is bitter which is in memory of getting whipped and beaten and you dip it into the chlorosis to make it sweet the chirosis is worse than the maura that was okay we were slaves there were other people in america that were slaves it's bad don't get me wrong but but you're dipping it into babies blood to make tomorrow better it makes tomorrow worse here's the message everyone listen carefully so the answer is a madrish a fascinating mattress when the mitsrim came when the jews were caught and they were going to kriya samsuf and the mitzvah were behind them so the the angels of the mitzram said they did have what deserved the jews did avoid why are they any better than the other ones and the angels of the jews said well they used to take kids and throw jewish kids into the into the yam stuff and therefore when the jews went through and the egyptians were in it they said now you have to do me that connecting media i don't know how you say that in english but miraculous they drown that they drown jewish kids god now you have to drown them right you get you get what you did so listen to this the angels of the mitzvah their angels they know how to learn said that the law is that if a king there are three things you're not allowed to do you have to you have to if someone says kill someone you're not allowed to kill them if someone says bow down to you know like commit adultery you can't do that but says if you do them let's say they put a gun to you and say kill you kill this kid and you kill them you're not lisa because you're an onas you were forced so you should have given up your life but if you don't you don't get punished so the midstream said to hashem you can't punish the egyptians the the king told them to throw the children into the nile if you don't listen to the king it's death so they will force the ones to kill the kids and therefore according to your jewish law they're potter you can't so therefore you cannot kill the egyptians and god turned to the malach mikhail and said they're right what do you have to say so the measure says he ran he flew down to mithrayam took a baby out of the wall a dead baby out of the wall and came back to shamayim and threw the body of the baby at god's feet and god said what is this and michal said the egyptians put these babies in the wall but parole if you look in the torah pyro never told him to do that paro said throw the kids in the water but he never told him if there's not enough bricks put kids in the wall that was the mitsrim which shot him so hashem said and what do you have to answer for that to the and the mitchum had no answer so he said cullen finish them now and that's when all the water killed them so even though it was terrible that these children were in the wall because of the children in the wall the egyptians were wiped out what do we learn from this that sometimes things that look very bad is really very good for you so take the mara which is bitter your life that you're going through whatever you're going through which is bitter and dip it in the chirosas and learn from the karo says that even though it was very bad it was very sweet because it saved the jews and therefore your bitterness will become sweeter and therefore take your mara and dip it in the jar and understand that what looks bad to you is really good and that will help you get through your murderer i call it about everything for the best oh wow that's the lesson unbelievable lesson even though there's so much craziness and so much problems and so much bad going on in the world we have to look it's for our good a man came to me this morning i'll end with this the man cave just said you know people really he said there was a leaf on a tree and the leaf was watching all the leaves in the fall all the leaves were flying on the floor flying going up flying down and it was like very jealous i'm stuck to this tree i can't do nothing i can't roll i can't fly in the wind and he was so upset and he was crying to hashem i'm stuck on this tree and everybody's partying and all the other leaves are flying oh i can't take it and then at the end of the fall before the winter the leaf just disconnects from the tree and it's like ah i'm floating i'm partying i'm dead because i'm disconnected from my life source so eight sky and hilum everybody to those who hold on to the tree you're alive don't look at everything that's going on in the world movies the parties the guy yeah everyone's partying and dancing and damn they're dead everyone's having a good time and you're like i don't want to go to yeshiva i don't want to be tied down go to school i want to go to public school i want to smoke up i want to party i want to be all over the place yeah but as long as you're connected to the tree as long as you're connected to kazakh the little ones are connected to torah you're live ah we're having my true freedom torah it's kind of beautiful what is freedom rabbi freedom in america everyone thinks freedom is do whatever you want do whatever you want yes yes yes yes what's the one word a slave can never say no when you tell a slave pick that up yes sir clean that up yes sir if he says no he's dead that's true so what's freedom freedom is the ability to say no a slave always says yes freedom's the ability to say no that's a person who's free no i'm not doing this no i'm not following this no i can say no that's freedom so when you sit when you sit by the seder everybody and you're talking about yo you tease me try him pick something in your life that is an addiction or something that you just always say yes to which is not good for you and be able to say no so that next year you could say last year i was in ebed we said free i said no wow rabbi waller freedom in true freedom unbelievable for the inspiration powerful powerful words as usual we want to thank you rabbi for all that you do for kaiser for the jewish people completely 100 recovery we should be seeing each other with the gulashina with the clean redemption spilling their days i mean thank you very much everyone everybody that's a happy birthday everyone happy birthday you