Pesach: The Holiday of Hope - Rabbi Tzvi Sytner

[Music] 3 300 years ago 210 years of slavery millions of jews enslaved to the worst tyrants in jewish history but after 12 months of some of the most unnatural events in jewish history the plague of blood swarms of frogs and infestation of lice a rampage of wild animals all the animals die boils covering the body from head to toe and then hail pounding the earth like meteorites then comes locusts that swarm through and eat everything in their path and then of course darkness and the killing of every firstborn egyptian child and after all of this the jewish people are now ready to go from slavery to freedom now just imagine it's two weeks before leaving and god calls a huddle with moshe and arun moses and aaron and he's about to convey to them the first message that the jewish people will hear as a nation what do you think he tells them a message of perseverance a message of strength a message of faith no god says from now on the jewish people will calculate their calendar based on the moon yes where's the message of perseverance why the moon what's the significance this is what god tells them at the end of a 210 year slavery what's the significance of the moon the moon has an incredible cycle at the beginning of every month the moon is barely visible it's just a sliver of light by day 15 it grows to its fullest and brightest and then it slowly disappears again as it gets toward day 30 of the month when it completely disappears into the darkness unlike the sun there are times the moon is so bright and so full and beautiful and times that it is so dark and so bleak that it's barely visible that you look up in the sky and all you see is darkness but even though we can't see that moon right now we know that it's going to come back to its fullest and brightest the first message the jewish people receive as a nation is the message of the moon because god is telling us that as a nation there will be dark times of tribulation and there will be bright times of celebration but no matter how dark no matter how bleak or how painful or how many tears were shed during those dark times it will end and there will be hope and light again on passover we're reminded that we suffered terribly in egypt and that god took us out as a nation and as individuals and it will happen again there will be dark challenging times but just as god took us out then he will take us out again the sages teach us that the jewish people were at the lowest spiritual points we were the furthest from god when we were taken out of egypt because there's never a point of no return even if we feel that we've sunk too low even if we feel that we've gone too far that we're not worthy of being taken out of being saved never give up hope because just when the moon seems like it's never coming back that it's gone forever and the skies look so dark is when it comes back in its fullest and brightest and so will we