The Hidden Depths of the Passover Haggadah - Part 5 - Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb

this is the beginning of the official recital of the actual Exodus and the introductory paragraph sale mod literally go out and learn I'll talk about that in a minute I'll be Kaitlyn on Romeo isos Leah convey what did lovin the aramean try to do too Yaakov shape our logo sorella alyce caron pharaoh in his attempt to kill Jews only made a decree against the newborn males for love and BK schleck or as a cold lova wanted to try to uproot everything Shin mr ok now this verse is going to be approvers going to explain to me whether he'll see that he was trying to uproot everything arami evade avi so the way the hugger is reading this puzzle is irony means i'ma aramean somebody from Iran that's lovin lovin hi rami evade with an Aleph means to destroy of course its present tense so and then avi is my father and my father is Jacob that's the way that God is reading this verse the question is what's referring to where do we find in Robins history that he had such an idea all you find is this but Yakko takes up residence with lovin this is uncle and then he says you should serve for nothing name your wages I'll work in order to marry ruffle samia's go by and then he gives him lay instead of ruffles oh yeah sure we'd have we put the younger before the older work another seven years for the sake of ruffle and it works in other seven years probably marriage them right away there's two of them a week apart doesn't wait to the end of the seven second years second seven years and then after 14 years Jacob says okay I finished I want to go home and love it says you I guess time I had a blessing because of you and please stay and Jacob says okay well I'm wages now I want something to to the building we on the wages and Jacob stays another six years and then love and gets jealous Jacob's doing very well and love its children horde Jacob's first cousins also become jealous of him and there's already talk of doing something and Jacob hears about this and he runs away that's way this whole family I was flexing his servants so luvin catches up lover catches up he accuses him number one of stealing the family God's in lovins house which rock hill actually had taken but yakim didn't know that and also he says you ran away like a fool if I had known that you wanted to go I would have caught a celebration and celebrated with music and song and dance and we would have sent you off like a hundred people he ran away stolen the like so and then he says I want you to know love ancestor Jacob I have power to do you evil I have power to do you evil but your God Kate to me last night and said don't speak to take about anything good or evil don't touch him don't handle don't Harmon but I have the power to do that so Jacob says okay you think we stole something of yours find it I give you permission go through everything that's mine and see if you find it it goes through everything doesn't fine then Jacob take a place out of his position he says you came you ran after me like I was a fugitive you attacked me I'm you accused me first of all you say I stole something from you put it here in front of your people of my people let everybody see publicly whether I stolen from you of course you didn't second of all he says uh why did I run away because you're a liar and you're a cheat we had an agreement what my wages should be and you changed it a hundred times and if I had not run away you would have stolen your daughters and children and all the livestock from me that's why I ran away so luvin says who are you accusing me listen these women are my daughters these their children are my grandchildren surely I wouldn't do them any harm surely I wouldn't do them any harm okay but love and 12 hours ago you said I have the power to do you all harm that's what you said you all harm only your God came to me am I in a dream and told me I can't do that now all of a sudden he says who I certainly wouldn't do anybody harm for he says the daughters are my daughters the children are my children the flocks are my flux who's speaking now the daughters of my daughter's children of my children the flocks of my flocks lovin is telling him straight to his face it's all mine it's all mine none of it belongs to you now those words are pretty brutal on the surface the underlying message is this you came to my sphere of influence came to my town my culture a different set of values different set of priorities you have your weird ideas okay I can't change you but the future belongs to me because your daughter your your wives are my daughters your children are my grandchildren the growing up in my village in my sphere you'll die and your ideals will die with you and the rest will remain with me now what you're running away my plan was that you will live youth your weird ideas and diet be out of the picture and all the rest will be long world to me that's where it says that he wanted to up everything you want to kill them didn't want to kill them he wanted to destroy the Jewish project that was his goal now that's what's behind army / navy now let's go back to the beginning of the paragraph what does the ones that are they going to say say Oh Maud go out and learn if you know a little bit about Jewish sources those words stick out as very unique in the talmud when someone invites someone to a discussion what words does use use the words tour schmatte tour means come shmeh means here come and hear that's the invitation in the thumb the invitation in the haggadah is go out now come go out and learn to think what kind was it division into invitations and I want you to know that in either shall me and in the Czar the invitation is come and see tuaca z what talk I meet so these are three different invitations come in here come and see and go out not come at all but go out and learn to be worthwhile you can ask other people what is the difference between these three different approaches come sounds like we can have a common discussion together we share enough common information we share enough common logic light on the background that we can have a discussion and try to come to a conclusion here means we're going to talk which means going to take time it'll be a strain on your attention span because it's going to be an investigation come and see sounds like something's more open walk observer I'll be like a picture you see the picture all at once you might have to think about it but you see the whole thing all at once that's your sháá me and the Tsar go out sounds like you're in danger of making mistake here you have background you have certain assumptions and if you rely on them you're gonna make it you're going to make a mistake be careful step out of your natural background assumptions because what's going to be required of you here is something that's not ordinary understanding the truth here is not ordinary go and learn where is it not ordinary first of all the verse that we that is quoted here doesn't have to be read the way that got it reads it irony ave davie we read an aramean destroy my father but it could be read another way Oh vague to me wander and it can mean my father was a wandering aramean after all yeah Koch was in our AMA also and he left her thrill and went and spent time over there so have nothing to do with love mom lovins name doesn't appear in this verse and seven of a fortune take it that way my father wandered in a row meaning Jacob number one and number two the story that I told you is a story of inference it's not on the surface of the passage where Ronald lovins life and this interaction with Jacob is is discussed it's by inference and by analysis so the God is telling you be careful be careful don't rely on your natural assumptions because the Haggadah here is hit to get something that versio did do something which is a message that's very important but needs to be a lie scared yeah thanks a lot of golden one what I kind of understood from others but this paragraph right here's we're starting to talk about exodus of Egypt just beginning in the whole time until that for the purpose of us to go out and learn from Egypt different parts of the world we were inside listen I say we and like our forefathers an Adonis what they were is lieutenant learning and then like when we were going out sorry they were listening now when we're going out to the rest of the world go out and learn you can't just only now we tear your money's going to go out and understand the world around you too well I'm not going to comment on the thought that you're especially I think the thought has some merit but the but the text isn't going to bear that this is an invitation to studying the Torah and see in these invitation to insight learning it says what did love and want to do anything equal to verse and says the verse tells me what he wanted to do that's not going out and learn from the world around you on the country it's an invitation to study the toes the whole next section is going to be quoting verses and analyzing so there's nothing here indicating that you're going to learn from the stock market or sports or from traveling to India and so on and so on that's not the indication here maybe there is some merit in that but that's not what this text is talking about okay now what happens now is a very interesting structure in the book of Deuteronomy and Lauren the Torah talks about as farmer who brings his first fruits to the temple which is a bit ly has to do it when he comes there's a certain texts that he is supposed to recite that text is composed of four verses which give a very brief synopsis of the fact that would we were Egypt and God took us how to give us the land that I'm a farmer and here my first fruits for versus what the I got it does is to take those four verses break them down into their smallest phrases the smallest elements and then clarify each one by citing some material from the book of Exodus which is relevant to that subject that the person that Ronnie's talking about so it's here's the verse from Deuteronomy Deuteronomy says ABCDE and then the the I gotta will say a that's like this person in be it's like that verse in Texas so it is a classical to Munich type of learning you have phrases you're not particularly clear what they mean some of them are very general so look up in other text to find out what they mean I bring it together and use one to illuminate the other the Haggadah is telling the story through an exercise of textual analysis which means to say that I got it you could have many ways to tell stories you could suggestively job tell a story we could have taken the book of Exodus itself the first I teach actress is just read them and then we'd have house and I count to the story that's how the haggadah is choosing a format that's familiar to scholars and it's indicating that you should do this with it intensity you should do this with searching logic you should do this with analysis question it's about and for those we said with the four questions the it's not just story time you know kids with their hits down on their arms on the table a teacher in a soft voice we need to saw a story and the kids will fall asleep this is that story time this is analysis time okay so let's take a look this is what the this first verse that we had in the previous paragraph is the first verse of that section to run anime evade avi which the haggadah take says an army was trying to kill my father trying to open destroy him by one place I me over 80 v iyer admits rhyme and he went down to Egypt by yoga shaman he dwelt there let me say my ad with a small number of people by ishaan Lajoie came there a nation good ol great but soon very powerful arrived and very numerous that's what the verse says so now the world will take it apart phrase by phrase right here with drama we went down to Egypt Jacob without the Egypt all those are Pee Hadleyburg God's borough who set up the conditions that forced us to go down to eat we didn't volunteer to go down it wasn't as if we said Boyd Canyon is boring let's spend some location time in Egypt there was a famine and they were desperate and Joseph became the second in command in Egypt so it was a natural thing to do by oh gosh are they dwelt there mallamma shallow yard Yaakov avena mr. ko miss Ryan Ella gursha legore means to dwell in a very weak sense obviously the word gear comes from Lagoon there are two concepts of gear one is a convert to them to your religion and the other is what's called the garret o shopping is this person living if you live in Israel and he does not accept the Torah he lives according to what the Jewish standards are for non-jews that's how he lives that's what LeGarrette Oh chef legore is different from la chef it if it said by a ship by a ship means become a citizen take up residence become a permanent part of society by our shawn says the hug artemis jacobs thought was to go down there's a famine going on but we're going back it's only temporary shin mr as the verse says by yamuna pyro legore beaux-arts bottle when Pharaoh interviews several of the brothers and he says to them who are you weary from what are you what are you doing who are you here where they went they say we came to dwell in the land legore not mush evett or key a mirror let saw Nichelle over there there's no grazing pasture for our animals in the land of Clan Kilauea Auburn on the family's very severe there the Otto and now yesh who now have a devil Eric ocean here is already a hint of an illicit transition they start by saying log or parts ball we Came legore but then they say yay Shifu issue is not lagoon Yeshua means to take up residence and become a citizen so it looks like in their very words there's already they aren't as clear about it as as Jacob was in fact that's what happens the famine the famine ended immediately upon their arrival even though Jacob Joseph had told everybody that's going to war for another seven years another five years they came down at the end of the second year but in fact it ended so if you came down because of the famine you might expect them to simply turn around go home but they didn't so already you see in their mentality part of it was not quite the same at with very few number in number question Mr Shiva never gerardo i was at mr. I'm of your ancestors came down with 70 that sound question well Kenneth coalition miler open at work as well who has made you like the stars of the heavens in number a few things to tell you here first of all going down with 70 is said three times twice and precious at once in San Jose that means that the Christian scriptures we said we went down with 74 75 it's a little peculiar it's a little peculiar secondly people all want to know if we came down with 70 and 210 years later we left with three million three million isn't that what turning 10 years and you follow the Midrash which says that eighty percent of the Jews died in Egypt so that means there must have been 15 million of whom 12 million died wow that's right 72 15 million so I used to be bottled by that until I sat down with a little calculator kind of Caucasian are you having your watch or whatever your phone and get guess what if you have 70 people 210 years is seven generations because the average time of pro activities between 20 and 40 so 30 is average time if each person leaves behind 4.7 descendants you go from 70 to three million 4.7 is that's so gigantic Lee impossible you know the average of nine point two nine point four children per family we have lots of families big isn't it and if you say aww but you said it could be 15 million 5.7 5.8 will do that for you so it isn't an extravagantly impossible number it also means that the midrash that says that they gave birth to six at a time is not coming to answer an impossible mathematical situation I'm not it's true did he ever desist it was a special America that's a place but not not and by the way the numbers that i'm using are cheap numbers because when it wants say that you left within 15 million that's not only the seventh generation they'll still be people alive in the sixth generation count I didn't count them only counted seven generation so really it could be less and they came down with wives I didn't count them so it could be less I'm doing it on the outside so isn't such a gigantic in this by the way is an indication things that sound mind boggling it sounded possible it sound very challenging don't be afraid investigator investigate them and then you may find indeed that they're not as challenging as you thought furthermore it says a several times in jena scores brothel promises that the Jewish people are going to be like the Stars once like the Stars once like the earth once like the sand of the sea shore right and there it's it's clear it means numerous they're gonna be numerous a lot as that i often get emails from people who say how could you make a promise like that do you know how many stars there are the current estimate is 10 to the 22 or 23 though now I've seen recently that it's gone down for some reason or other maybe only ten to the twenty ten to the twenty is the one with 20 zeros Jewish people me there isn't room for one with 20 zeros people in the galaxy this it's just not it's just not big enough so isn't that an impossible prediction is that impossible promise how can God promised that to the page here's the answer I'm not going to prove it to you the answer is that when the Torah says as many as the stars in Heaven's is not referring to the stars as counted by modern astronomy and the prove it is that Moses says to the people then 3,300 years ago that you are like the stars in the heavens and Solomon says the same thing when he built the temple they all come up and he says you're like there's numerous designs in the heavens so whatever it is saying it's not beholden to astronomy as it develops either it means that the stars are impossible to count I think they estimate in our times that make it i can see thirty thousand stars okay our skies are polluted so could be that they saw they could have seen warp a hundred-thousand-dollar maybe what it was but we can't count them God says to Abraham it takes an outside at night just look at the heavens look at the Stars and count them if you can count them so and then he pauses God pauses and commentators say so Abraham's counting one two three and God says didn't see you can't count them can you well your children be like that now why can't you count them not enough time one of the problems is if you have you ever seen a milky way ever glad in that place would you never dinner it's worth it it's worth traveling hours to do it it's awesome yes cause the desert especially oh that's a desert by the air is absolutely clear there's nothing around the problem is that when you kind of star you can't check it off oh I count that I wanna County that once they've crowded together look away especially just a blanket of stars so maybe it just won't be possible to count the juice for whatever reason and anyway we don't have to worry that there aren't ten to the twenty juice the turret never meant to promise that okay then it says we're going to be a now I know some people are worried about this there's no we're going mean aren't you and isn't it really sort of nasty say you know you are going absolutely nation it means nation and the Torah calls us are going many times because we're a nation right and now what's the idea it was a what's the semantics of it the word is just a play on the word Divya Divya means a body could be out with a vote with a vowel not without with a mother base it means a body what is the body I'll take a human body so you have all sorts of things human body is a skin and that skin separates it from everything else you're leaning on the table but your arm is is you and the table is wood and there's a boundary which says no that's where you end that's where the table starts right so Aggie I is something which has its own integrity it's only its own definition it's only space set apart from other things you have a mixed population of people it might be that your people doesn't set itself apart that certainly today in the United States you couldn't say that those who whose ancestors came from Italy and those whose ancestors came from Island those ancestors came from Greece I make up separate bodies in the United States today is a melting pot the vast majority the children grandchildren become America with some flavor but you can't say that they set apart and noticeable and and distinguish the way a body is or tables or chair is each one of those things stands apart so what were being told here is that part of the development the Jewish people in Egypt was to become something that stands apart that's just multiplying they started right when they came begin but there were a family with just the family spoke another language have a different that profession as you are there it's natural to become assimilated it's to the park that's the idea of going godot assume great and powerful as it says very super lube ashisu by you booba it's moving along what Ebola it's ours or some now here the hugger only wants my god smooth portal issue su means they were fruitful and they and they multiplied and they became many and he came very powerful very very they filled the land the land was filled with them now for rob robinson is a multi splendid word when i was a word that has very very many different connotations Rob means big big is very ambiguous a big nation is one that has lots of people a big mountain is a single thing that has a lot of volume big body of water big in art in more general terms can mean an adult you become mature when you get bigger when you'll be big you know these things will happen so since the text already indicated that they were numerous I gotta says when it says by Rob it's not going to be numbers anymore and i quote a verse from ezekiel very famous verse riverwalk its mi casa de mis atif because it was talking about a woman and addressing her and he says as much as the grass or the growth of the field God set you petir be again Rob you became much particularly and you became big great Viterbo II bad I'd I'm you achieved a certain level of development Shaddai in the whole new your breasts were work formed sorry Samia your hair was grown the hot hey Rome feria and you were utterly naked I don't think this is a very arresting image you talking about a young woman who has physically developed she's just come to the point of physical development and she's totally naked this is the symbol that he's using to the Jewish people subscribing the Jewish people in Egypt we reach a certain size we reached a certain strength but we had no missiles not only did we have no meat sauce but many of the Jews were idol worshippers the clothes that they didn't have we're spiritual quotes and that's what the picture of this naked woman is supposed to to express the idea of being in an utterly utterly without human dignity you are presenting yourself in the world as an animal does when you're a movie and you're a developer even being that means there's something essential missing from you you're just not functioning the way you main functions you two became great a number and powerful general function where nation functions the nation functions with an identity with a culture with a set of values with a picture of the world you didn't have that you didn't have that because you didn't have the missiles you didn't have the toe that was your condition Egypt that's the the so the word rob here becomes a two-edged sword yes the certain development a certain maturity but the way the hugger explains it it's also a hint to this verse in in Ezekiel which uses the word robbed twice it's a hint to an utterly immature personal problem as opposed to physical book that's that verse next verse by rail or son Mohammed stream by animal as within it well okay I'll explain it now but your regular word by yo-yo comes to the word which means evil and it can be explained two ways in the commentators that split why does it say they did us evil which they obviously did the other is to say they made us evil now they did evil to us but they made us you and the deeper commentators say that the one depends upon the other no nation has the power to injure us unless we make ourselves vulnerable if we were doing what God rojo wanted for us well enough no nation could touch us known as you could touch it but when we fail then they have access to us so the Egyptians first caused us to fail costas they set up conditions under which we failed and then once they do that they could injure us david says buy a new moon we talked about like I'm only hell of a new II almost universally the translation is to afflict what does it say here it says they made us suffer what doesn't really mean that the word really means they impoverished us and on these of porpoises it means they deprived us the normal range of goods and acts and opportunities that people usually enjoy will you be suffering when that happens you guys know who you are you're the kind of person you are there are people who make themselves poor voluntarily they don't do it in order to make to hurt themselves Andy they can be very happy people there's a movement that people is very small in the United States who go out to live in the forest I don't use electricity and they create everything with you know with their own non power tools and all the rest they don't live high off the hog but they're happy they don't need it they don't want it so this is really a neutral word they did evil to us and they impoverished us by deploy depriving us of the normal range of inputs but you do a later show they put upon us hard work now the I gotta takes apart each phrase by a Reyes on the tree the Egyptians made us evil and did evil to us what should I havanese hoc malope in your bed I kisses animal come over those of them also a little bottle of our arts let us be wise lest the Jewish people increase and if there'll be a war they'll join our enemies and they will make war against us and they'll leave the land now this is a very challenging worse this first does not wear its meaning on its surface first of all the verse ends with the thing that the Egyptians are worried about because we'll leave the land why do you think they would leave the land what motivation would they have a leading length it's not because they're slaves they aren't slaves yet this is the resolve of the Egyptians to make me sleep so they actually so what will be the motivation to leave the land in fact Rashi says there is a style in the turret and it's carried over in certain Jewish oops even to today if you are worried about something happening to you and your people and you want to discuss it you don't say the words we're going to have a disaster even it's hypothetical you don't say those words and one way you can say is they'll have a disaster of course in context what you mean is you're talking about yourself you don't say it that way here the Egyptians why is it not practical because what are they worried about this may be a war and the Jews will fall for fight on behalf of our enemies and go win the war and then what do you think teachers are going to do if they're really gonna fight on behalf of the enemies what are going to do the kind of take over that's what they gotta do then I can leave why would they leave remember at this point in time they're not slaves they want to leave the Khalif just go no they're really worried that they're going to take over if we suddenly declared that we weren't going to control the Palestinians anymore what do you do we do all go to Saudi Arabia oh they would take over and kick us out that's what they would do that's what they want so the practice read on the surface the worried Egyptians is just not reasonable so they say is maybe they'll join our enemies and they'll deal war and of course the via war they'll take over and they'll kick us out but they don't say that but anyway this was the resolve to start the oppression against the Jews by n minus they caused us pain or they could cause this deprivation now watch this this is really this is really subtle very subtle question mr IC bowl of sorry miss him they the Egyptians put officials of taxes on the Jewish people Lamar and oh so Vasilisa in order to punish them impoverish them with their burdens was the motivation of the Egyptians to give free labor absolutely people I feel like they're going to go purgatory separate businesses busy keep them suffering keep them down trodden so they don't have any courage didn't have any any sense of their own importance it's a psychological ploy to destroy their character that's why it says the Egyptians put tax collectors on the Jews in order to impoverish them punish them with their burdens not in order to get free free labor out of them this is the basis of the magician let's say for example one of the Egyptians did they employed industrial psychologists they made men do women's work and women do men's work because they're not only are they working a back-breaking day but they've no sense of satisfaction at least I did a good job no you did a clumsy job you did an efficient job this by the way there's a wonderful book which I recommend to you called to vanquish the dragon about the experiences of a certain group of by shackle girls in the Second World War their heroism which is just phenomenal and one was a expert seamstress so they put it to work sewing a uniform for the German army and there was a certain quota of course you have to work seven days a week so the quota that you turn out she was so good that when they weren't looking she soaked extra clothes and hid them and I work was top quality I came to shabeh she pretended to be working she didn't really work and when she was asked to turn in her quota she turned in the clothes that she had made the previous six days and put and hidden them so she ended up not working on shops ok now you read this and there's clearly a point of pride I'm so good at it I did it faster than everybody else high quality and I was able to keep shabbos right Egyptians were smarter than the Germans the Asian said I don't want them to have even the pride in the workmanship that a woman to a man's work and I man to a woman's work so the end of the day they probably a clumsy job that they came to take pride in the job that they did the whole point of it was to break them then it says this here is crucial I get this all the time by even re risk-averse the Pharaoh spsom says they built storage cities for Pharaoh and the names of two of them I give their right I don't know how many emails I have received which say cheer your kyojin shows that the Jews did not build the pyramids so therefore the Torah has to be wrong but excuse me storage cities and I pyramids pyramids were the burial places of the upper upper upper class they're not storage cities so and the Torah says storage they are a nice Cano's turns and you at the pyramids does anything about it never never said that we built the pyramids so it's one of the many many cases where people raise an objection based on not reading with the third says carefully by you till a new our the caution they put upon as hard work washing Emma by aveda miss Ryan as place over for it they caused us to work before a fourth can mean oppression difficulty it can mean that plus I'll see here a number of different ideas hit do that i'll tell you one today hosted a thursday ok melting this is a very deep one that's explained by teachers i'll do that on southern your session they want to break up the word farrukh into two words pet rock patrick means is a soft mouth how did they get the Jews into being slaves how do they do that midrash explains his files Pharaoh declared a day of national service there was an American president to said ask not what your country shall do for you ask what you can do for your country right John Kenney can't fairly declare the day of national service everybody all the Egyptians all the other nations that were there as a big Empire everybody's going to do a day of service for the for the Empire okay and the Jews joined it like you know like everybody else except for Levine Levine didn't join and Pharaoh and his and his henchmen of how much was produced and then I said to the Jews so that's your productive capacity you're staying on you're staying on we need your service in continuous basis the others were others were released so the Levites smelling a rat said what happens is big and that's how the Levites never did get it that's the pair of the soft mouth make a proposal everybody's equal everybody will join in and volunteer to to do something for the for the for the Empire and then we were caught by you