Who's A Hero?- Rabbi Moshe Benovitz

as we continue our celebration of the holiday of pesach it is important as always to know exactly what it is that we are celebrating that question could be understood on any sort of deep level what are the themes and the ideas that motivate the entire celebration of the yomtum of pesach it could also be understood on the most basic of levels what is the holiday of pesach seems like a little bit of a silly question one that any grade school student would be able to answer but of course there is here too a good amount of depth and food for thought the question of what is the holiday of pesach for we see an interesting phenomenon as is pointed out in a well-known idea from the caduceus levy review levy points out and highlights the fact that the torah consistently refers to the holiday of pesach as matzos whereas we jews as i mentioned at the outset refer to the holiday as the holiday of pesach why is there this discrepancy why do we reject the classic name provided by the torah and provide an alternative name pesach instead of matzah is the role of man in the holiday of pesach pesach is the role of god god looks at the holiday and he is excited about the level of commitment the statements and expressions of faith that are brought forward through the mitzvah of masa the jewish people with no reason to have enormous confidence head out bar as the navi describes they head out to the desert into the unknown with nothing but matzah on their backs the ultimate expression of faith and belief in god whereas we the jewish people are not focused on our own actions we are focused on the miracle of god's own behavior this is a well-known idea which speaks a little bit about the bilateral relationship that exists between man and god god is looking to us while we look to him with a capital h there is a further application of this idea which is even more wonderful and even more exciting for us to consider as we go through the yomtov of pesach in the world of journalism they actually speak about a similar concept in the world of journalism there is a phenomenon of man bites dog being the headline and the story the news as opposed to the more standard and expected dog bites man that expression is meant to imply that if a person encounters something entirely predictable entirely within the realm of expected behavior it is not headline news the dog biting the man as we sing about in khadgarya is a natural course of events it is only when man bites dog it is only when we have a disruption to the natural order that there is something to be excited about and something to say what is it that we celebrate on pesach what is it that we are focused on on this great holiday on the simplest of levels we would all answer that it is the miracles that god did to us the disruptions to the natural order that are achieved during makasdam to achieve during kriyasyamsaf achieved during the entire story of the exodus what an unbelievable god what an awe-inspiring display but the true believer the true mama understands that there is nothing surprising or unexpected about any of those activities god's ability to suspend nature god's ability to perform miracles is the most natural and expected thing in the world it is dog biting man man's ability to recognize the divine man's ability to make small concrete steps towards self-improvement and betterment to resist the tide of cultural expectations and human norms and to work to be a little bit better that is front page news that is a miracle that is completely unexpected when we view ourselves as if we left mitzrayim when we celebrate on the holiday of pesach throughout the yom tov what it took place in mitsrayim we would be wise to focus not only on what god who is capable of doing everything did for us but what we demonstrated as our own capabilities and possibilities the smaller miracles of human excellence human achievement and human greatness especially in the realm of avodah sachem swimming against the tide of cultural norms to achieve a little bit more have a wonderful wonderful yomtov