The Hidden Depths of the Passover Haggadah - Part 8 - Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb

we're at the bottom of the page the recital of howl begins I pointed out earlier that how low which is really Psalms 113 to 118 usually is recited as a single unit here two of the paragraphs recited before the meal and to our sighted and the rest of you said it after the meal we pointed out that that's not really an interruption because the whole purpose of the night is to re-experience what happened the first Seder in Egypt and they went through the proceedings and we're offering praises to God throughout so and the meal was part of the mid so that they that they performed so it doesn't count as a as an interruption now I want to just point out the the breaking of how into the two parts the first two paragraphs refers specifically to the exodus from Egypt the first introduction of the second is exquisite with the rest of Hollow is much more general and first to God's general activity in the world and to the future so the breaking point is is a natural breaking point the first song on 13 verse paragraph followed I've been able to penetrate skin deep we're just talking about King David is the biggest big accomplishment and I'm not saying that what I have is plums the depth but I think I can explain to you at least on the surface some of the themes here which I really I think very very very deeper fundamental the psalm has nine verses and they break up into three groups of three the first three describe the idea of praising God praise your servants of the eternal or of God praise His name because the name for now to Eternity time of rising the Sun so what's going down he praised name of god that's the first three I'm going to question the the translation a little bit but that's the first three then the next three describe God's position piece of B the world who was like I share our God who dwells on high now here I'm gonna change the translation right away because it's not literal and literal as much more powerful who lowers himself to look upon the heavens in the earth he lowers himself I skip the further viruses got his high above all nations on the heavens this his glory was honored who was like him who was who was on high and lowers himself those people who think that God lives in heaven you can go back to ancient Norse times you know and northern Europe has nothing to do with us God doesn't live in heaven and there's a created thing and it's no closer or distant from God than pebbles I was infinitely beyond everything that's created that's Lord Himself to look at it he's not living there if I were the place where he's living he wouldn't have lower himself you'd be throwing there that's my point my point is he has to lower himself even to look upon the heavens cause he transcends everything Evans is just a name for a part of the created world nothing to do with the verses that I quoted it's not contradictory it's not contradictory it's another consideration that you might bring in to clarify this situation but what I said is not contradictory I said he's above and beyond - everything is equally above the heavens of the earth and that's why the verse says that he has to lower himself to look upon the heavens you're bringing an extra fact which would be interesting to discuss and analyze but it's not relevant to explaining this in a consistent fashion ok the last three verses describe what he does and particular it's taking care of the poor the destitute and childless women taking care of them that's the overall structure of the of the somme and it we have to understand what the order is what the why the three subjects are related to one another so let's go back to the beginning for a few minutes and then I'll try to fill in the details there are a couple of things here that I want to point out first of all a little item it says that God's name should be blessed from now until forever and then it says from the rising the Sun till it's setting God's name is blessed one could worry that the second is included in the first the first says from now forever the second says from sunset to sunrise to sunset that means only daytime nighttime will take off it's not relevant it doesn't happen taking that way that's where you're the translator in this book this this pamphlet has it but there's another way to take it the rising of the Sun to the setting of the Sun doesn't have to refer to time rather it could refer to space from east to west from where the Sun rises to where the Sun sets not when it rises and when it says but where it rises and set so the prior verse which says from now until that forever is talking about time and this one is talking about space it means God's praise is occurs everywhere and everyone everyone and everywhere then it wouldn't be redundant and some of the commentators take it that way that's one point the other point which is the philosophical point is this we're talking about praising is praising objective or subjective when you say something is great one thing is better than another piece of art piece of music architecture landscape sculpture when you're praising something is that objective or subjective most people naturally assume that it's subjective when you say that something is great what you're expressing is how you feel about it but you're really expressing is that it impresses you it inspires you there's someone will say that Beethoven is greater than problems and doesn't say the Brahms is better than Beethoven greater than Beethoven that will say they thought me the disagreement he likes perhaps better Beethoven better he likes Brahms better that's all there is to it there's no objective fact behind praise there is good reason to think that that's not corrected that praise is objective this can be supported by an analysis of the one-hundredths I'm not gonna do that for you I was gonna make a philosophical point for you at the point that I'm making that was laid by John Stuart Mill it's not my idea and many I think who think about these matters and read about these matters agree I wouldn't say it's universal but it's but it's a widespread view what does it mean to say that somebody's objective in particular it means that you could be wrong you can make a mistake someone could convict you of making a mistake let's see whether in praising something someone could be wrong objectively wrong here's an example imagine a person who has never seen or heard of basketball you meet him you talk to him maybe he's an Australian Australian Aborigine or something say you've never heard of her see basketball Wow have I got something to show you so you take them to a basketball court in Sydney and the two professional teams are there and they're warming up and suddenly he grabs your arm and he says Wow did you see that that guy jumped into the air and while he was in the air he threw the ball into the hoop man to jump shot from the foul line okay what a great shot he said him sorry sorry that's not a great shot many high school kids can can make that shot that's a common shot that's an everyday shot maybe during the game you'll see what our two really great shots but that's not a great shot when you said it was a great shot you were wrong that wasn't a great shot in particular great things are rare they're not everyday they're not on every street corner and that's something that everybody can do by definition that's not great so by saying something's great you might be making a mistake if you could be making a mistake you can't be just objective if you say I was impressed by that shot I was moved by the shot I was inspired by that jet that's fine that's your private psychology no one can say you were wrong about your own private psychology even though there's also tricky because you could be lying so there's also what you say can be true or false you can't make a mistake about it or either that's tricky the point there that's being made is that it could be objectively wrong by saying that it's great now John Stuart Mill push this with the following idea let's suppose you have two items of the same category so that can be compared to poems to paintings to musical compositions and everybody who is capable of appreciating both prefers one of it might be that lots and lots of people prefer the other one but that's because they're not capable of appreciating this one let's take Shakespeare and Mark Twain I think it's fair to say anybody who's capable of appreciating both of them prefer Shakespeare I mean it's a fair generalization about all people who are capable of understanding both of course understanding Shakespeare is hard the language is hard the references are number of people can understand Shakespeare is very very small but in a comparison between two items the only people that are relevant other people can understand both of them sure lots and lots more people enjoy Mark Twain then enjoy Shakespeare but none of them is capable of understanding Shakespeare so the reason why they don't prefer Shakespeare just because they don't understand how do I know that because everybody who understands both prefer Shakespeare the person who says that Mark Twain is great or even a little same thing mark 20 squared as in Shakespeare I know there's only saying that out of ignorance usually when a person offers a judgement that's based on ignorance we discounted it's not a reliable judgement because it's based on his ignorance I'll give you an example which is a little out of date but I think it makes the makes a general point I was imagining a young youngster into by age 15 years old and he's watching videos about what goes on the rest of the world and he sees skiing in the Alps and he says or something it's cold there and they're going fast and it's Dasia I see some of them falling and must be awful then he notices that they're smiling wait a minute they're smiling they look happy I wonder and then he thinks am I really so different from them we all have similar bodies we all speak languages we all drive automobiles but could it be that if I did that I also would enjoy it why not are we that different is that any reason to think that his brain is configured differently from theirs that he won't get happiness out of it it's just different and he doesn't know how to do it but since they know how to do it seems to be getting to be getting happiness out of it that's now going to be an objective fact those people who learn how to do it get pleasure out of doing it because the vast majority people who do narrative that pleasure I say it's dated because that would Dubai they have artificial methods without official snow I think goes skiing right there and Dubai they have to read look at the absent and then be inspired from afar so the same thing is true with Shakespeare and and Mark Twain if I love Mark Twain and I do I think Mark Twain is a wonderful author and I find Shakespeare I'm Shakespeare challenged as they say nowadays and I therefore don't read it much I could say to myself I must be missing something because everybody who could understand and appreciate both for first Shakespeare so I must be missing something so then saying that Shakespeare is greater than Mark Twain isn't just an expression of feeling it's saying something that could be verified both in terms of a survey and in terms of people who convert by Salinger here is an expert on classical music so my but with him I spelled the capital leave me I could feel a little II I performed festive music many many years and I love guys music and the one composed of whom I found boring was Mozart I just couldn't hear it and he encouraged me over years to try again and try again and try again and because I had great respect for his knowledge and his and his understanding and sensitivity I did keep trying and then eventually had a breakthrough and I was able to hear it now but it took a long time for me to get on the right page the other hand I was in college I was thinking about covering news of course the last quartet that we study was by Bartok about this fourth string quintet the professor put it on those were records so we're sitting there and this noise starts to play in the room thinking are you kidding this is just noise this is awful we're supposed to listen to this okay it's a course I guess I have to listen to it so I decided I'll listen that took about five minutes and then the two or three minutes later something clicked and I began to hear it became one of my favorite pieces of music and and that I find it very enjoyable and inspiring to this day something has to click where you get on the right wavelength if you have the ability right away or it may take time to develop that ability when I was in high school I had a few friends but I wanted to share back with them so I took the fifth Brandenburg Concerto the first movement which has a long harvest Accord solo at the end when that happens accord soul was playing I'm climbing the walls it's just absolutely the most exciting thing in the world I'm playing it for them and they're sitting there out of friendship with me and there twiddling their thumbs are looking at their watches and wondering when is this going to be over and I realized Bach is not there for everybody you have to spend a lot of time listening I Ford baa but this thing and thinking and being explained to you to the point where you then can appreciate what's going on only then can you test whether it's worthwhile and of course everybody who gets to that point it's Roberta so praising is something which is an objective evaluation that's why I can be wrong that's why I can by the way we have music critics and opera critics who go to performances and write up their evaluation of it the next day who cares how they evaluated what are they telling me their private psychology who wants to read that what do I care whether he had a good time no because they know the music well they hear things in music I don't hear they appreciate it when they write it they're telling me what's really going on rather than what piecemeal or fragmentary experience I would have so we're talking about praising God we're talking about doing something that's objective that's why the very first verse says praise you servants of God because the one toy is servants the ones who are closest to him the ones who know him best so to speak those are the ones who are qualified to issue praise because they know best and the rest of us we follow suit by the way in the prayers there's a famous verse kadosh kadosh kadosh a ship's well cause holy holy holy the Shama falls the whole earth is he feels the whole earth glory fills the whole earth those words are spoken by angels and every time we say them we say just as the Angels say so we are also saying what are we communicating we would never come up with those words we never think of those words the angel said them so we can quote them because the angels are close enough to come up with relevant words correct words and we know the praise is correct even though we wouldn't have authored that phrase I don't know so this is a very important idea that prays in general is objective praise can be criticized or confirmed and praising God then therefore is something which we take from those who are closest which could be the angel or those who are the prophets who received some of it by God and those who know know those sources best okay that's what we have to say about the first three verses the next three verses picture God as transcendent now when I answer your question just minimal terms the way God relates to the world is multiple it's not single it's not a single idea God is the infinite creator of the universe that means he is infinitely different from everything else he is create or we are created he is permanent and we exist only because he continues to give us existence his existence is self-contained our existence is derived from him the gulf between us and him is absolute and categorical this pictures God from that point of view for that position of being beyond technical dermis transcended transcends the world also God is related to the world in an intimate fashion and although people do say things like he is everywhere strictly speaking that's not correct can't be any where because we're means a physical and he's not physical so he's not physical he can't be at a physical position when we say that he that he relates to the world the whole of the world all of the world every piece of the world what we mean is that his will keeps the world in existence everything is dependent upon his will from the large to the small down to the tiniest electron photon strings if they exist or quarks and non empty space itself because space has virtual energy all of it depends only on the continuous activity of his will to give it its existence and in that sense nothing is divorced from him to imagine something divorced from thing is to imagine something it will cease to exist that's not the same to say that he's in the table or is in the room that's much too physical that can't describe anything other than physical things physical things can be in rooms God can't be in a room so saying is I'm the present that he is everywhere is my point of view loose poetic Oh interesting you know expressive but not literally speaking true and therefore there's no problem understanding what's being transcended now the last three verses are going to describe what God does we're now being told this is what God does from that position of ultimate transcendence ultimate Infinite Creator divorce that means that what he's being described as doing is absolutely fundamental now this is going to be the purpose of the whole creation this is not something local not something temporary this is something which is expressive of the purpose of the creation as a whole picturing him as standing outside the entire creation means that what he does in it is from that perspective of governing the whole so the last three verses are going to be absolutely crucial in describing what God is doing now let's look at the last three verses he raises up the poor from the dirt some do they translate here the way they usually yeah from dust I want you to know this is a wrong translation and it's everywhere but where did he was a far a far means dirt dust is a vac it's a different word in Hebrew both words are used in the Tanakh and it makes a gigantic difference because everything lives because of dirt all plants require nourishment for dirt all animals live from plants some animals live from both other animals and plants everything is nourished ultimately by the desert dust nourishes nothing there is a great desert in the southwest of the United States you know what it's called called the Dust Bowl that's a way of saying there's nothing grows there of course that's an exaggeration some things do in deserts but a very very sparse dust blows in the wind and has no use whatsoever there are translators the poor translators are faced with the problem here we often refer to our relationship to dirt but the word dirt sounds dirty it's like you know you know I'm gonna talk about that it's not refined to talk about dirt dust sounds poetic but it's dead wrong it's dead wrong dirt is rich dirt supports all life anyway so what does it say he says raises up the poor from the from the dirt from the trash heaps elevates the destitute and yonas is more severe than down destitute well she be to place them with now your translation says princes other Saint Nobles literally the word here means philanthropists and that thief is someone who gives and supports others there's a word for a prince that's Tsar that's not the word that's used here so here we're coming across the first problem you're taking poor people and placing them with philanthropists is that the opposite is that what you would expect going to relieve someone's poverty do you place it with the rich or with the comfortable why would you raise a poor person up and make him a philanthropist that's one problem then the next verse says he takes the barren woman and places her in a house as a mother of of children with joy that's how it ends so let's see what we have here there are poor people whom God cares for somehow and there is a barren woman who becomes a joyful mother of children I think we should ask why are those two categories chosen aren't there lots of people in trouble well that's sick people what about injured people people are unfree because of political oppression there are lots of people in trouble why do you keep David pick these two categories in particular there's a statement natales important to understand save incorrectly I'll tell you literally but then I'll explain it to you it says there are four categories of people who are thought of or evaluate 'add as if they were dead now as you'll see in a moment it's this that's being overstated but the Talmud often does that four categories of people who I would put it aren't fully alive who are these four categories of people the poor the blind the childless and the matura someone who has what is often mistranslated as leprosy these four categories of people are as if they're not fully alive and it's an asset if that don't word says that since they have one of them one of the categories you go around and shoot them because they're not alive but there's they're lacking some crucial element of life what element is that they lack the normal range of opportunities to give they lack the normal range of opportunities to give and they step divide into two subcategories one is because they lack the normal range of resources to give and the others because they lack the normal range of connection with the needy to be able to give let's see how it works a poor person a poor person could be charitable poor person can give you can give up the little money that he has he can give advice you can give service but he can't give money money is one important means of charity one important means of giving and if he's poor he can't do that so he's lacking a resource by which he could be able to give the normal range again not saying that he can't give anything can't give it Wharton things but he's lacking one important resource to be able to give blind people can be very wise and share their wisdom and information and their advice but they can't drive you to the supermarket and they can't give you suggestions about how to decorate your living room and some of the so on and they need help they need to be driven from place to place they need sighted people to find things for them often enough so they also lack the normal range of resources to be able to give they can give many things but they don't have the whole we're normal range childless people when you will be married and have children you will discover in yourself an ability to give that you probably didn't dream that you had your child you're eighteen months old wakes up in the middle of the night crying or screaming and there's nothing obviously wrong could be colic colic isn't murder baby can scream all of his waking hours for two weeks and there's nothing wrong or at least medical science there's no anything that's wrong and didn't valuing you do about it interesting the children don't seem to end up traumatized but the parents might get sanitized by it so what do you know you picked the child up and you carry the child and you sing to the child and you paced back and forth and you don't get tired and you don't get irritated and you don't think on my next day shot because I did your your child is in pain and I speak as a father who did it not only mother's doing sometimes fathers do it as well you discover a spring of caring and giving that you didn't know that you possessed the childless don't have the connection to flesh and blood recipient or could be a doctor children but she recipient who calls out that giving in you the matura is by law he's excluded from all human company he has to be excluded from the city and somebody comes approaches him he's got to call out that he's tummy and one them to stay away from him so he doesn't have contact with people to be able to give to them so the Talmud says these four categories of people lack the normal opportunities to give and therefore therefore they're described it's not fully alive what message do you hear up to this point that really life is about giving that's what life is about that's the essence of life essence life is giving and if you're not the position to have the normal opportunities to give then you're missing some level of life okay that's the message up to here now notice what King David did King David chose one out of each of the two subcategories he chose the poor out of a category of those who don't have the normal resources and he chose two childless out of the subcategory of those and another normal range of opportunities so King David is here making reference replication to the two subcategories how did he choose each one out of the descent categories each of which has two items I think he chose the most common poverty is much more common than blindness and childlessness is much more common than having this condition called Sorrows so King David is making reference to these two subcategories okay now if you're really following me you can put two together and get for it what then is God doing what is God doing and caring for and tending to the poor and the childless what is he doing he's giving them life he's giving them life because the four categories four instances of the Talmud of people who done of the normal range of opportunities to give aren't fully alive what does God do for the poor person he gives him the ability to give and thereby gives him life what does he do to though childless he gives her children which then draw out the giving in her which means he's giving her life now we understand why King David opposes the poor to the philanthropist not to the rich and not uncomfortable but to the philanthropist what's wrong with being poor what's the tragedy in being poor attractive eating poor is only that you can't give to others that's the tragedy because it it decreases your spiritual life you become one of those categories in the table because you don't have that opportunity to give so God says I'm giving you I'm replacing what you're missing by being poor you don't have the range of opportunities the resources to give I'm now making it possible for you to be a giver and thereby I'm giving your life that's why King David opposes the poor to the philanthropist because that's correcting the spiritual problem in poverty see there is interest in the spiritual problem not the physical problem so now we understand why he made that opposition understand the choice of the two categories and I think there's a much deeper point here this isn't even of the reason why the ability to give defines life any shortness and the ability to give means that you have less life the reason for that is because that's what God is doing what is God doing all the time just giving the whole purpose of the creation is to give the benefit to provide since that's all that he's doing that's his only purpose that's the most holy the most exalted a human being is created in God's form sharing something of God's nature so to speak which enables him to also do what God is doing when human being does that he has real life the new beings not doing that he doesn't realize so what this son is telling me is that what God does from that position of transcendence that greatest position position expresses the whole purpose of all the creation what he does is enables human beings to be godlike that's what he's doing because that's the purpose of creation the whole purpose of creation that human beings should be godlike I don't think I'm reading you too much in I think I'm really too much in and as a statement for King David it's absolutely okay those this this 9 verse son I think is you as a capsule picture of maybe V or a fundamental idea about you you want to see this with now as it's an essay look at the way of God but Sato the first two chapters from which I'm taking the ideas but as I say I don't think I'm reading too much in its pretty pretty much pretty close to the surface I just do the second paragraph you don't finish for today when when Israel left Egypt the house of Jacob from a people that spoke a foreign language remember those who are here going started with the kiddush where the killer says that he chose us from all languages and we expressed the idea that language colors how you how you think was any of you here when I spoke about that no so let me just read just make a remark about that in the end of the 19th century there was a French linguist that I guess he was a philosopher also who made the following remark he said we French are very fortunate because you see the French language is perfectly suited toward the way the mind works in French you have the noun first and adjectives afterwards that's because when the mind thinks about something first to think about the object and they think about its qualities so the French language mirrors the way the mind works pity the poor English because in English adjectives come first the english-speaking person is crippled because this language doesn't reflect the way the mind works it's out of step with the mind can you imagine being crippled like that a we French we're so fortunate that we don't have that problem poor fellow he was a bit naive people pointed out later that maybe being taught French as a child forms the way your mind thinks and maybe someone who grows up in an english-speaking language being taught English his mind works differently because he was taught English is a child who says that the mind has an ironclad structure that's in impervious to the way the child is trained on the contrary the language forms the way the mind works okay there's a great great deal of truth in that even though I know what Chomsky writes about language in the fact that isn't in a grammar and all the rest now I don't think chapter would disagree with that I'm surprised I said so far now Hebrew then means if you grow up with Hebrew a child to grow up learning Hebrew speak Hebrew that will form the way your mind works so you talk about the culture the values of a culture the priorities of a culture the worldview that's embedded in a culture the language is going to carry a great deal of that because the language forms it each generation and you can see this in differences between Hebrew and other languages which although the fiction Ares link words together if you think about them a little depth you find that - that the differences are crucial thank you Shalom which in most dictionaries is rendered as peace but they they connote qualities that are very much different for one another in English you can say accurately that the graveyard is very peaceful it's true it is peaceful it could never use the word Shalom for the graveyard never because Shalom means complete full integrated missing nothing comes from Shelly it's a positive concept peace is a negative concept it means absence of disturbance conflict not a positive concept at all so when you have this linkage of Shalom and peace it's a gigantic difference people think they do something Jewish when they say peace upon me brother but it's just not doing their job so when we say when it says here that God took us out of eight people that spoke a foreign language it means he took us out of a culture that was utterly different from us and in some ways opposed to us it's a cultural removal that's what the verse is describing here then when he did that Yehuda in Israel this is speaking from a percolator perspective were God's holy one and his those who are subject to his kingdom and when he did that the natural world just fell apart in front of them the sea parted and they went across when they had to come to land of Israel and the Jordan River was flowing Jordan never stopped the mountains danced like young goats in other words the exodus from Egypt is a world shattering event is that a local political change it's not a local really relief of slavery the fact that it was accompanied by this kind of open miraculous means that the whole of nature is subject to this project the project of taking the Jews out of Egypt and giving them the Torah I'm bringing the Land of Israel is something that's fundamental for the whole of creation and the bench is the fact that when they were in need of water God brought water out to them from the from this from the rough stone and there I'll just mention one little thing I'm going to quickly times it the second time they got water from the stone God told Moses to speak to the rock he didn't do it gigantic story but the SIP on the simple level what was supposed to happen was this guy's was the state of the rock the Jewish people are here and they have no water and the thirsty and the rock was supposed to spontaneously deliver its water it has water the verse says quite clearly it has water I supposed to deliver its water for the Jewish people if you observe this what would you see Moses has to rock cheers people out of thirsty ass becomes the water that means that the whole of nature wants to support the Jewish people wants to support do people miraculously the rock has water just tell me did she was a thirsty and iron comes that was a visible demonstration supposed to be then it happened supposed to be a visible demonstration of the great position of the Jewish people that they are fulfilling the purpose of the entire creation and therefore nothing in the creation could stand in their way that's what's including expressed in this paragraph one of the many things expressed in this paragraph that the Jewish people have that position and that the exodus was to demonstrate that position you