Passover In a Time of War - Rabbi Dovid Kaplan

[music] >> Back in 1991, uh those of you remember when uh Israel was under threat from uh Saddam Hussein, he should rest in pieces. And uh a young man here at Or Sameach, he approached me and he said to me, uh he wants to know, you know, they used to sound the the sirens and then we had sealed rooms. And uh the defense establishment had given us all sorts of rules, taping down the windows, taping down the doors, everything else. And this young man came over to me, he was a uh free-spirited Californian, looked like he stepped right off the cover of uh Surfers Illustrated. And uh he came over to me, he was in his early stages of observance, and he said he wanted to know if when the next siren goes off, if instead of going to his sealed room, if he's able to go into the Beit Midrash and stand by the Aron Kodesh. So, I said to him, "No, you can't." He said to me, "Why?" So, I said to him, "Well, for one reason, the yeshiva has to follow the directives of the defense establishment. So, you're going to have to go and do go into your sealed room. But more importantly is that I told him that when you if you stand by the Aron Kodesh and then nothing bad happens to you, you're going to be convinced that Hashem was watching over you. Your job is to go into the sealed room and then when nothing happens to you, to realize that it's that Hashem has been watching over you." So, here we are uh in a situation where sirens are going off and the military is fighting and there's this unmistakable sense of [snorts] everybody that in Israel, uh you know, when you live through it and you just have that feeling that Hakadosh Baruchu is watching over us. That feeling is very, very appropriate and suitable for this time of year as we go into Pesach. In Pesach, we commemorate having left Egypt, Yitziat Mitzrayim. And all the miracles that took place in Egypt and the splitting of the sea and then in the desert, they ate the manna. And everything that happened to the Jewish people was being convinced and it was a series of this realization that yeah, we're we're under direct Hashem's direct supervision, what's called Hashgacha Pratit. Hashem is watching over us in very, very minute every detail of our life ultimately is being supervised by Hakadosh Baruchu. And as we go to Pesach, one of the ironies of Pesach, when you look through the Pesach Haggadah, so here it is the retelling of the story of having left Egypt and there's one name that's missing from that Haggadah. That you will not find in the Haggadah and that's the name of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe does not appear anywhere in the Haggadah. Isn't it interesting? The Torah, he appears in every parsha other than parsha Tetzaveh. From the day he's born in parsha Shmot, he appears in every parsha. Yet, when it comes to the Haggadah of Pesach, the retelling of the entire story, Moshe Rabbeinu doesn't appear. And the reason that's given is that we should make no mistake and think that all the miracles, everything that happened which Moshe was the one performing the miracles and certainly assisting Aaron in the first three, uh we should make no mistake and think that our redemption and salvation was brought about because of Moshe Rabbeinu. We have to realize the Haggadah where we're retelling the entire story of Yitziat Mitzrayim, realize that this is all under Hashem's direct supervision. Hashem and only Hakadosh Baruchu, Moshe is an agent of Hakadosh Baruchu. That's the basic backdrop and the basic idea here. But there's a fascinating insight, you know, the Gemara in Berachot says that tells the story of King Shaul. Now, King Shaul, Saul, uh his father had lost some donkeys and he sent Shaul with his attendant, he sent them to go search for the donkeys. Shaul went off and he traveled for 3 days and they didn't find the donkeys. And they found themselves very near to where the prophet Shmuel HaNavi, Shmuel the prophet, was living. And they decided to go ask the prophet. You know, in those days you could go and get to go to the prophet. A prophet could look at you and he could tell you what your purpose in life is. A prophet could tell you what your potential is and a prophet could tell you all sorts of interesting things. So, Shaul HaMelech, Shaul, he wasn't the king yet, he and his attendant, they went to the uh they wanted to get to Shmuel HaNavi to ask him where these donkeys are. And they didn't know how to get there. So, the Nach says they saw a group of girls and they asked these girls, "Where does the prophet live?" Now, normally if you ask that question, you just give kind of an address, you know, Maple Avenue. Just give them the address. And instead of that, the girls gave them a whole long took them about three or four sentences just to tell them where Shmuel HaNavi lived. That's what the Nach, that's the story that comes out of the Nach. The Gemara asks, "Why were the girls why did it take them so long to get to the point? Why didn't they just give an address? Why did they have to give them a whole a whole minor speech over here?" And the Gemara offers three reasons. Reason number one, the Gemara says, is that women are talkative. Nashim dabberot ya say. The Gemara in Kiddushin says that Hashem brought 10 parts of speech to the world, women took nine parts of speech and men took one part. The rest of the world took one part of speech. Women are talkers, number one. This is a fact and it's not a good or a bad, it's a fact. And one of the reasons women have to speak is because women have to raise children in the home. And one of the things you have to do to teach children and educate them is you got to talk. Uh women in general talk more than men do. And if you ever want to see uh if a woman uh goes shopping with her 3-year-old toddler, so often when she comes you know, when she comes home, there's a play-by-play recital. "Okay, this is where we're putting the Cheerios on top of the refrigerator. Say bye, Cheerios. Bye, Cheerios. And this is where we're putting the bananas. Say give it to your banana. Bye, Mr. Banana." You know, when I could tell you on the rare occasions that I went shopping with my 3-year-old toddler, there was very little Mr. Bananas and Cheerios. They they only learned two words, don't touch. That's all they learned from me. You know, the mother has to talk, it's a gift if used properly. She obviously she could live her life encouraging people and doing chesed with her mouth and complimenting people, building people up. If a person misuses it, so then they can end up uh being inconsiderate, saying inappropriate things and uh speaking lashon hara. So, it's not a good or a bad, it depends how you use it. It's a tzu na, it's an ability that women have. The first answer the Gemara gives is the reason that they took them so long to get to the point is because women are talkers. Number two, says because Shaul was very tall and handsome. And the girls wanted to look at him a little bit longer. So, it took them a little longer to get to the point so they could spend a little more time looking at looking at Shaul. And number three, the Gemara says, is because at this point Shmuel HaNavi was the leader of the people. And the Gemara says, "Ein Malchut Nogaat Bechaverta Afilu Kemal Niima." One sovereignty, one ruler, does not encroach on the time period breadth. Which meant, for example, if Shmuel was supposed to anoint Shaul at 1:00 and at that moment he would be officially the king of the Jewish people, it wouldn't take place at 12:58 and it wouldn't take place at 12:59. It would take place at exactly 1:00. And therefore, in order to delay Shaul reaching Shmuel, so the girls spoke a little longer cuz if it wouldn't have been briefer, he would have reached earlier and Hashem isn't going to allow that to happen. Now, what's remarkable here is that anybody who sees this Gemara, you must ask yourself, "Why are there three reasons that are given? Why isn't one reason adequate? The reason they spoke a lot is because Shaul women talk or because Shaul was tall or because Ein Malchut Nogaat Bechaverta. Why are three reasons necessary?" And the answer to that is a very fascinating answer. If you stop and think about it, there are three types of functions that are taking place at once. Number one, there's what we call teva, there's nature. Number two, there's bechira, free choice. And number three, there's what we call hashgacha, which is Hashem's supervision. Now, if we examine you'd see very closely over here, you have number one, teva, you have nature at work because natural law is that women speak. Women talk more than men do. Women are talkers. So, at one level, nature is at work over here. There's also free choice, bechira, they chose to look at Shmuel at at Shaul, they chose to speak longer so that they could have more time to look at show. And number three there's a and the means that is running the world. And with all three of these are working in perfect perfect unison. That is managing with nature and with free choice it's still all under divine supervision. That it's going to happen in exactly the moment that wants. And so that's really the message of Pesach. Is that everything that happened in was was a result of direct involvement direct practice. That's the first idea here. Idea number two is that we have to realize that in life itself we are all to certain extent experience this. We make our efforts. And when it comes to making our efforts we have to make the right choices. And we have to go with our natural abilities. But we also have to realize that the results are not in our hands. The result is will decide. A classic example is a person has to make the right choices. Imagine there's a guy standing by a 12 lane highway. And he very recklessly closes his eyes and runs across the street. And as he gets to the other side of the street he manages cars are slamming on their brakes skidding all over the place. But he manages to get all the way across. And on the other side of the street he finds a wallet with $40,000 in it. The second guy waits for all the traffic to clear. He looks both ways very carefully. Makes his way across the highway. And right in the middle of the highway a light aircraft crashes into him and kills him. Now who made the right choice? The first guy or the second guy? And the test is going to be if you're the third guy what are you going to do? Well, let's read the data. The first guy closed his eyes ran across the street and found the wallet. The second guy was very careful and he ended up getting killed. So what are you the third guy going to do? Are you going to close your eyes and run across the street? No, you're not. You're going to look carefully both ways. You may also look up because of the void aircraft. But you understand he did the right thing. But just because he did the right thing the results are still in the hands of the world. The says that once met the angel of death the and the angel of death looked depressed. Someone said, "What's the problem?" He said, "There are two men two of your servants beloved servants of who I've been sent down to terminate their life and I have not been successful. So I look at depressed." So said them well, you know, I'll lock her and he left. summoned these two men and he called in the head of the men the demons. had communication with them. He said, "I want you to take these two men. I want you to transport them to the city of Luz. The city of Luz was an ancient city where no one died inside the walls of the city of Luz." And said to these men, I want to the I want you to take these men to the city of Luz so they'll be protected from the angel of death. They were transported and just as they got to the gates of the city of Luz the angel of death was able to get them and terminate their life. The next day said I saw the angel of death and he was all smiles. So what are you smiling about? He said, "Because exactly where I needed them you sent them because that's where the place where they were prepared day to die." Now if you ask did do the right thing? If any of us were in place we would have done exactly the same thing. And the lesson of the is that on the one hand we have to make the correct choices. And the other hand we have to realize that at the end of the day it's all under supervision. Pesach is here. We make the correct choices. We live as Torah Jews. And has our life of Torah what we have to do. We have to make the correct choices. But we also have to realize that at the end of the day the results are not in our hands. We have to make the best effort. The results are in the hands of it was his in every in today with missiles flying and it's in every one of our lives. And we all and we hope that we should see for salvation for everybody should stay safe everybody should stay healthy and that we should ultimately see under the ultimate redemption in the future very quickly and everybody should have a good and happy Passover. Hi, this is parents of a proud alumnus of Now what you just watched is one of the many programs that provides leaving its impact on hundreds of thousands with so many more waiting to be reached. The central campus in Jerusalem has over 300 students presently learning there. And now you can be a vital part of spreading that Yeshua's for Israel Hi. This is parents of a proud alumnus of America. Now what you just watched is one of the many programs that provides leaving its impact on hundreds of thousands with so many more waiting to [music] be reached. The central campus in Jerusalem has over 300 students presently learning there. And now you can be a vital part of spreading that bounty of knowledge worldwide by logging on to donate.ohr.edu. We can step up to the plate at this pivotal moment of growth and bring the next generation of Jews