Pesach Reveals the Secret of Jewish Survival - Rabbi Yisroel Reisman

[music] >> One of the most famous lines in the Haggadah is the words Man Nishtana Halaila Hazeh mikol Halailos. [music] Something said by the child at the table. He asks, as it's usually translated, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" In the Gra Haggadah, he makes the following point. He says Laila ends with a kamatz hey. It's a word that ends in the manner of a lashon nekeva. Words in Hebrew are divided between words which are masculine and feminine. And typically, the kamatz hey ending is a feminine ending. If so, it should say Man Nishtana Halaila Hazeh mikol Halailos. Hazeh being the feminine form of Hazeh. So, the Gra asks why it says Halaila Hazeh. Why the feminine Laila here is expressed with a masculine description. And that is to that he answers that this night is like Yaim. He's referring to the concept of Laila Kayaim Yoyair. That Pesach night was in many ways like a day. Day symbolizes a time of liberation, a time of joy, a time of redemption. Darkness always symbolizes a time of challenge, a time where God seems hidden, a time where everything around the person looks dark. Says the Gra, "The night of Pesach is Halaila Hazeh. Even though it's night, it's described as masculine because Laila Kayaim Yoyair." This is a vart of the Gra, a thought of the Gra, which in of itself seems rather understandable and easy enough. The Turch Mima in his Perisha Parshas Ki Sisa, the pasuk mechaleleha mais yumus, in his notes, brings this Gra, and he writes that it makes no sense. As a matter of fact, the language he writes is ech tov bedavar pashut kazeh. The Gra seems to have made to have made an error. While it may be true that the kamatz hey ending is typical of words which are feminine, Laila is not one of those words. The word Laila throughout Tanakh is always used in the masculine form. Most famously, Balaila Hahu nodeda Shinas Hamelach. Laila Hahu, Hahu is masculine, and Laila is described as masculine. Or by the dreams of the Sar Hamashkin and the Sar Ha'ofim. Vayachalomu chalom Balaila Achas. They had a dream, Balaila Echad, rather. Balaila Echad in the masculine form. It doesn't say Balaila Achas. And that's true universally throughout Tanakh, the word Vayivku Ha'am Balaila Hahu by the Meraglim. They wept Balaila Hahu in masculine. As a matter of fact, in the Haggadah itself, just a bit past the Man Nishtana, we find that Hayu Mesubim Bivnei Brak kol Osai Halaila. Osai being the masculine form, not kol Osai Halaila. And the Turch Mima is certainly right. The word Laila is always a masculine word, despite ending with a kamatz hey. I guess the Gra would be ascribed to some talmid chacham, to somebody who recorded or reported what he said erroneously. It must be a mistake. The Pele is that the Shlah Haggadah has a very similar idea, similar vart. As a matter of there, it's on the episode of Hayu Mesubim Bivnei Brak kol Osai Halaila. Similarly, he says Laila is feminine, Osai is masculine, and he asks the question. He says Laila Kayaim Yoyair. The night of Pesach is different. Couldn't Could it be that the Shlah and the Gra both made the same mistake? It's not a mistake they could make. Perhaps talmidim of two great people in two different centuries in two different places made the same mistake. It's something which really uh begs for some type of a uh of an explanation. It may be that there's a much deeper meaning here. Laila always represents time a time of hester panim. Throughout Tehillim, with one exception, Laila refers to a time of tzaros, of difficulty. It doesn't mean the time between sunset and sunrise. It means Lahagid Baboker Chasdecha. In times of joy, we talk about God's kindness. Ve'emunasecha Balailos. And at night, we talk about faith. Laila, more than the actual 12-hour period of darkness which is natural in the world, Laila represents a time of darkness in the sense of mood, of attitude, of a time a time period, a dark time period. We say, "It was a dark part of our history." Dark or night represents a time of challenge. Laila is a feminine word. The Gra and Shlah are right. Yet, we always found it used it in the masculine. Yes. There's always an element of Laila Kayaim Yoyair. The primary Laila of the Jewish people is the night of their birth, the night on which they brought the first korban Pesach, the night on which they were let go from their exile in Mitzrayim, and went on to become a people. That night, say the Shlah and the Gra, is Kayaim. It's darkness, but it has an element of day. It doesn't end there. It's always that way for the Jewish people. It's always that way. In Tanakh, Laila, despite it being a feminine word, is depicted as a part of Yaim, depicted in a masculine way. In the idea of redemption. Most mitzvos ma'asiya, as most mitzvos asay, which are unique to a time period, are performed by day, either by day and by night, as in the mitzvah of Sukkah, or if limited to either day or night, it's a day mitzvah, the shofar, the esrog and the lulav. Most mitzvos are day mitzvos. The exception is the Seder night, where we have mitzvos that are unique to night, because that's the first night of the Jewish people, Laila Kayaim Yoyair. And it represents an example, a dimension of all the many nights of a very long, challenging, and bitter galus. There's always an element of Yaim. There's always an element of light. There's always the growth from the from the galus, the koach barzel, the purifying element of Jews who have faith in the dark periods. They're dark, indeed, but they have Yaim. They have an element of Laila Kayaim Yoyair, of the light, the hidden light of a day which is masked by the darkness of night. The Jewish people have been through much, the Holocaust perhaps being the worst of the time periods of this long galus, the darkest of all. And from the Holocaust came a lot of light. Came a rebirth of Torah among the Jewish people. Came the world of Torah in the United States, which didn't exist previously. And most of all, came Hakadosh Baruch Hu's mercy on the Jewish people in bringing them back to the land of Israel. We come back to the land of Israel that it should be a time of Yaim. It should be a time of day. Should be a time of light, despite all of the challenges. The light of the Jewish people are those Jews who have grabbed onto, who have returned to a way of Torah, of Yiddishkeit, who have become people who are proud, proud Yidden in the mesorah of our avos. Many years ago, about shuva from Eretz Yisrael came to us in the United States, and he stayed with us for Shabbos us. And it came Pesach time, and he said he's going to go back to his parents and try to teach them what an Orthodox Jewish person's Pesach is like. His parents had a set of had dishes that were Pesach dishes. Why? When their grandparents were from and saw that their children sh- went off the derech, shed the beauty of Yiddishkeit, the this young man's great grandparents gave his great grandparents a gift of Pesach dishes. Maybe someday he'll use it. And those Pesach dishes were passed to this young man's parents. And now he was going and he said, "Okay, let's d- let's use the Pesach dishes, the new dishes still unused from the last religious family in this chain." He calls me 2 days before Pesach from his parents' home. Very sad. Why is he sad? You see, his parents don't have separate milk and dairy dishes. They have one set of dishes. And when they got a set of Pesach dishes, it too was one set of dishes. It made no sense to give them two sets of dishes. And what's he going to do now? One set of dishes for meat and dairy? That's a problem. As we were talking, he mentions, "And you know, it's a funny thing. The dishes my great great grandparents bought are glass dishes." And I realized the great grandparents in their sadness and their children going off the derech bought them Pesach dishes. They knew they didn't keep separate meat and dairy, so they bought glass. There's an opinion which we rely on bishas hadachak in time of great need that glass doesn't absorb taste and can be used for dairy and for meat. And now these great grandparents looking down from on high see their great grandson who is making a Pesach. And I told them they knew what they were doing. The glass dishes are Pesach dishes. For dairy, for meat, perhaps try not to put hot dairy directly on them, but more than the practical aspect of the dishes was was that plan of the great grandparents which came out now in the great grandson. This summer I was in Or Sameach and a young man came over to me, yeshiva man, a kollel person, and he said, "Rabbi Reisman, do you remember?" And mentioned his father's name. I said, "Of course I remember him." In the in the '90s he came to our house as a baal teshuvah and he had this incident with Pesach. He said, "Yes, I'm his son." It's these generations that bring light to the darkness of our galus. It's these generations I was just taken aback. I I embraced this young man and said to him, "I love you and I don't even know you." Imagine. This is taking place in Eretz Yisrael. Or Sameach is the center of the universe. It's the place where the light of a great darkness comes forth. A darkness, the Holocaust was a terrible darkness. It was a physical darkness. There's a spiritual darkness in many corners of the world where Jewish descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov are being raised without Torah. And here you have the bright light of Or Sameach. The bright light that is the product of Reb Nota Shiller, who I was fortunate enough to learn from so many summers when I met him in Or Sameach. And Reb Betzalel Weinbach, a talmid of our yeshiva Torah Vodaath, who I also knew for a number of years in the yeshiva. And they created this bright light. Or Sameach, or is light. It's a light of joy in the darkness of our galus. It's a place for which it is said halaila hazeh, the masculine form of night. And so we come together on the Pesach at the Pesach seder. We remind ourselves, manishtana halaila hazeh, the youngster saying the manishtana may not realize the depth that the Gra saw in it. And the Gra saw in it this, the idea, laila hazeh, what do you know? Laila has a yom aspect to it. If you look in the language of the Gra Haggadah, he doesn't refer specifically to Pesach night. He says that laila has in it yom. It's true, of course, primarily about Pesach night, but it's what we can make out of the darkness of the many nights of this long galus. And so, together with the celebration of zman cheiruseinu, we tip our hats to Or Sameach, the place that spreads the cheirus, the cheirus to so many who would not otherwise have it. A kosher v'sameach to one and all. Hi. This is Paris Morhaim, a proud alumnus of Or Sameach. Now, what you just watched is one of the many programs that Or Sameach provides, leaving its impact on hundreds of thousands >> [music] >> with so many more waiting to be reached. Or Sameach's central campus in Jerusalem has over 300 students presently learning there. And now you can be a vital part of spreading that bounty of knowledge worldwide by logging on to donate .ohr.edu. We can step up to the plate at this pivotal moment of Or Sameach's growth and bring the next generation of Jews home.