Passover Exodus: Break free From Modern Slavery & Reclaim Your Soul - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

Egypt means a lot of things. Happens to be where my father was born, where my family lived for generations. And and unfortunately, I haven't been able to visit Egypt because I'm too afraid. My grandfather actually almost did get killed by a few of them. Someone lied and said he was a spy for Israel is the version of story that I think is the most reliable one. And they they they mobbed him. They tried to lynch him. He was stabbed and he had to be actually ironically saved by an Egyptian police officer or security guard who knew that he was a good person and it was a lie and saved his life. Then they had to take him to a hospital where he wouldn't be killed there too because once word spread that you're a you're a spy, you just have to be a Jew really to have a good excuse, but you're also a spy, so forget it. It's the biggest mitzvah not to kill you. So they had to take him to a hospital where they could where he would be protected. Almost like the Godfather movie. If anybody saw the Godfather when Don Corleone was almost assassinated and he was in a hospital and they were coming to finish the job in the hospital. So that's what my my grandfather had to thank God live through. Anyways, Egypt can mean a lot of things. Egypt, literally the words Egypt, which in Hebrew now is Mitzrayim. Mem, tzadi, resh, yud, mem. Mitzrayim means borders. A metzer is a border. And Mitzrayim meant that it was surrounded with borders and with a type of borders that that locked you in. One interpretation and one interpretation of Mitzrayim and why no slave ever left Egypt that ever escaped from Egypt, it was a known thing that no slave was ever able to leave Egypt was because they used powers of sorcery and different manipulative [clears throat] spiritual powers to keep all slaves in. And a slave wasn't able to leave. But let's open this up this idea up a bit before we just take it at face value. So face value we said they were great sorcerers, they used hocus pocus, and they were able to manipulate real spiritual worlds with real powers external. We're going to get to the internal holy powers that come more from the realm of holiness direct really more from Hashem himself. But Hashem created external powers and they used those to keep all slaves trapped, Jews included. Israel was a part of that. And even Israel could not escape. But let's let's let's kind of talk Egypt 2026 cuz if this talk doesn't apply and relate to me, then what does it really matter? What does a Seder night matter if it's just children's fairy tales that I think we're reading. So I might come and listen, look at my my watch, look at my phone, just you know, decide what else there is to go do. And I might come and listen and leave. Or I'm not even listen and leave. Just come and leave. Or I could be there like a statue of just physically and and every my mind is somewhere else. You know, I lived through those type of Seders. When I was young, we weren't religious and we had a Seder night because, you know, if you're Sephardi at least, you do connect with with some heritage, some customs. But we didn't really have a Seder night. We didn't understand anything. We just went through a quick Seder and so that day we after we could go to the movies or a night club. That's that's what our Pesach night was about, freedom. Freedom to leave and go out and party. But let's appreciate what that really means. If I'm free to go out and party. And so here's what I want to say. Mitzrayim, Egypt, with the confining borders that can become like a trap, a prison, is what we're talking about. And it's even hinted to in the word Mitzrayim. Cuz again, take a look at the letters. Mem, tzadi, resh, yud, mem. Mitzrayim. It ends with a mem and starts with a mem. But look at this beautiful point. The beginning mem, the first mem is open. They invite you in. Egypt invited us in. In fact, we volunteered. And so the Egypt that we're speaking about invites you in. It says, "Take a look at my window. Very nice window. It's all for sale or for free or whatever you want to define it and come on in. Come on in." And we chose to go into Egypt. We chose to start working for for for patriotic or re-patriotic reasons in Egypt. And then the final mem is closed because it's a one-way it's a one-way ticket. It's a ticket in and no ticket out. You can't leave. Once you go into Egypt, you're trapped. And this is in fact what we're saying that the sages revealed to us that they used trickery and sorcery to bring you in and trap you there. Now, let's let's go deeper. The sages already tell us that uh that Pe Pesach Pe is Pe sach. And also Pharaoh is Pe ra. Pharaoh itself can be read as Pe ha ro, is you know, phonetically. Pharaoh. They What did they do? They tricked us. They manipulated us. They seduced us. Which is in fact the yetzer hara. We know about the yetzer hara, the evil inclination that wants to lure us astray. But let's talk 2026 right now. What does it mean to be addicted to something? Okay? And what does it mean to truly be a free thinker and to choose what you want? So the truth is the Zohar, one of the deepest Kabbalistic works we have, talks about two different types of ratzon. Ratzon means what I want. Ratzon is a desire, is a want. But there are essential wants and then there are non-essential wants. For example, if I want a car, so that unfortunately, maybe in some cases is an essential want, but that's not really an essential want because a car is only a means to an end. I only need a car to get somewhere. Or, you know, if you want to pervert what a car is really for, I need a car to make me feel like somebody. But but that's not real. And so the car is not an essential want. We can't say that the me, the absolute deepest me within me, wants a car. It doesn't want a car. It might need a car, but it doesn't really want a car. The want we're talking about is the essential deepest want that is an expression of your essence, the essence of who and what we really are inside, has no answer to to why you want it. Anytime you can answer why you want something, so that's not really an essential. For example, I want a cup of coffee for the energy it gives me. I want nice shoes because I want them comfortable. I want a nice car, comfortable, good car cuz I want to I want to travel and feel good. But the essential want is a real want. And so here's what we have to understand. We can be forced to do something, which is called ones, when things are against our will. But we could also want things that is an expression of our will. But the question is which will? If you haven't gone to your essence, then you're playing basically kids games. You're playing with with with external secondary wants and your whole life becomes a means to an end, which is really a dead end. Because you're not really expressing and living for what you truly want. You're you're living for external things that will never satisfy you inside. And this is Mitzrayim. There's the two interpretations of Mitzrayim in everything we've said until now with the sorcery and the trapping you in and the luring you in is this. One way to to to get me to do what I don't want to do is to force me to do it. That's that's the simple slavery of Egypt. They forced them in the end to do what they wanted and took away their freedom. And that's a certain level of addiction. Addictions ultimately steal away our freedom. When we become robotic and trapped in our own addictions, so so we give we we have so to speak given our life away to those addictions. The extreme again, and we hope we never wish this on anybody, but look at the extreme case. The extreme case is is a real drug addict that's beyond control. Take a look. You don't have to, you know, I don't know if you know anybody, but look in the movies where they portray it. There's no more person there. It's a soulless person that's no longer a person. They'll do anything to get their next fix. And it's a sick sad story and then people that have money and want money and power are being used and abused these people that are trapped now in these addictions. But there are more subtle expressions of addictions. We we end up living a life that's really just a product of our addictions. And that's not freedom. That's servitude. Servitude to our animal. Servitude to these secondary petty wants that have become the totality of our life existence, which are ultimately a dead end road. A table, if you don't use it properly, it's just some wood. A car is a piece of metal unless it's using you it's being used to get you somewhere. Now, going from point A to point B only has value if there's value in that journey. But if there's no value in the journey, then even using a car to get you somewhere is a relative value or not. It may or may not be of any value. If you're going around in circles like a merry-go-round, well, okay, that's fun for a ride for a kid to have a good time. But if your life becomes a merry-go-round, then you've gone nowhere but around in circles. And certainly you're going to be dizzy and foolish. So so let's understand. There's a relationship, and this is a deep concept, we it we find it in our in our prayer literature. There is a relationship between being forced into a life that you don't want to be be involved in. There's a relationship between being enslaved and forced to do what your master wants. And there is a relationship between that that forced result and your ratzone, your desire. Your ratzone. Where do we see it come together as one? We When we pray in the Ashkenazi literature, we say, "God, forgive me for the sins I've done the ratzone or the ones." Forgive me for my sins that I've done willingly and that I've done because I was forced. And the question is, why [clears throat] would these two opposite themes be put together in one statement? What does being forced to do something having to do with have anything to do with being chosen choosing to do something? They have nothing to do with each other. But the answer is ultimately so deep, it's because one affects the other. Your your desires force you into your behavior. That's a self-imposed forced behavior. For example, look at the story of Egypt. The Jews were free. They were free. And they volunteered to build cities for for for power. They volunteered. They wanted to do it. It was a free choice which became servitude. Became servitude. Now, I'll make this into a joke so we could maybe not laugh but appreciate it in a more light-hearted way. That that first time I I tasted chocolate, I was free. Until I tasted it. And now I'll be eating chocolate the rest of my life. The what the before you taste something, you're free from it. Once you taste it, now you're trapped. Because let's ask ourselves, what kind of power does something have to have that's external to you to bring that that cause you to come to it and internalize it? That's a power. That's a sorcery type of power. Meaning this the things that we have an inner craving for are things we want with such a passion that of course if you if you if they if it got you to taste it the first time, you will continue to taste it until you become an addict to it and it becomes the new definition of your life that you're trapped into. That's being trapped in Egypt 2026. The social media platform that you chose to join because you thought you were going to make money from it and now every time a bell rings, you ring.