Pesach: "Talkline With Zev Brenner" - Rav Daniel Glatstein on the Haggadah

thanks for joining us talkline Network radio America's longest running Jewish broadcast network the voice of the Jewish Community welcome to the podcast you are now tuned in to this episode of our podcast today we are going to interview some of the greatest and most influential Minds in our field and now please welcome your host you're listening to talk line with Zev brener America's Premier Jewish broadcast on the air since 1981 and we're back it's always wonderful to have Rabbi Daniel J gladstein with us he is a prolific writer he's the r of kahila T feris Mori author of Daniel gling hag that's the one that we're talking about now that's most relevant to this time of year so Rabbi gling thank you and welcome back to the show Hi zeev how are you thanks for having me on thank you you know people don't realize that when the time perm comes around it's really 30 days before pesak and you're really supposed to learn the laws and and the whole concept of ha and PES yeah absolutely you know the two these two Yim they're they're uh attached at the hip right because the perm because people don't realize in the perm story they don't understand the fast of Esther really was over pesak and people didn't have the pesak Seder that year that's right that's right yeah so do we do we have to make up for it we have to make up for it by uh getting this new hagada definitely it's it's a great haod you have a lot of insight in there and what's going on any insight as to the the current situation how it ties into the hag to perm yeah actually um I'm glad you brought that up because you reminded me that there's this little secret in the hag that I think we'll find very relevant for this year you know the the ha basically begins with the custom of carass and all the commentary struggle you know what exactly are we doing we take this what is carpass even mean I know there many remm there many Illusions but what is the most basic definitive explanation for carass is it just something an odity to get the kids to ask so one of the earliest sources it's really amazing is you know we do so many things in say there to commemorate the freedom to commemorate the bondage but there's one aspect of the whole experience that seems to be ignored how do we get down there in the first place and the answer is we sold y so why isn't anything performed why isn't there any custom to commemorate the sale of Y isn't it dipping and the answer is exactly firstly the carass the word carass is a compound word car is aown it's a in Hebrew it's from a sale and pass comes from k r who's the one of the earliest commentaries on the on the rambam he says the reason for carpass is to commemorate how we got into the mess in the first place and and as you say the Benes writes this as well the dipping of the carpass is reminiscent of the dipping of Joseph's tunic in the blood to remind us okay we know God freed us we were in bondage but how we get there it all started with the carpass and we have to ask ourselves so who did we sell Yos to who was Yos sold to he was sold to Y he was sold to Arabs you know it's it's amazing there is a custom that many families still have to take the A and to sling it over the shoulder and the gamar sayses and Rashi explains like Arab Merchants that you should sling the like Arab Merchants why would we want to do anything like Arab merchants in the haug he explains it's to commemorate how we were how we got to Egypt in the first place we sold y to to Arab Merchants so that's how the starts it reminds us we got into this mess because Ys was sold to is but if we go to the very end of the the last the last passage of the the and you have these like eight characters you have the the goat of course but you have the cat and the dog and the stick and the fire and the water and the the cow and then you have these final two characters you have the uh the slaughterer and you have the malas the angel of death so who exactly do these eight personalities represent and the amazing Rim kki in his hag he says that the eight characters represent the eight Exiles we know we know there are four basic Exiles Babylon Persia Greece Rome but the Rashi and zakarya says each Exile was a dual Exile so it was Babylon and the chadan it was Persia media it was Greece and Macedonia and the last two were Ed and isma where the was Ed and the last Goos is is so you see the Symmetry the begins we sold y to ISM that's the carpass that's the slinging over the shoulders and it ends that the final Exile where we have to deal with the Mal who the angel of death so it's a very appropo metaphor for yes absolutely and even says that the medish Likens to but in light of what's happening today the book ends of the ha was we got into this mess through selling Ys to isim and last stop is Goos is that's pretty amazing I love that there's only one thing though I believe according to the huni and rashbam that the brothers did not sell Yosef they had left him in the pit and it says the midan Drew him from the pit and they're the ones that sold him to the ishma and to the ish group and therefore the brothers soos that's what they didn't recognized everything fits in much better with this simplistic but realistic reading of the sukum of the versus and braus yeah that's you know the the rashbam famously writes that he uh he fought with his grandfather Rashi but it makes sense if you look at theim and that's why because always bother me R glad I know you're an expert in Kish the brothers look come to Egypt they look at their brother they haven't seen him in 20 some years so they say the reason why they didn't recognize yoseph 10 Brothers didn't recogn because he had a beard he spoke Egyptian and I said to myself if you saw your brother after 20 years and he had a beard and he had a little spoke a different you wouldn't recognize your brother but the reason why he didn't recognize him according to the rashbam is very easily they were convinced he was dead because they went back to the pit and they didn't find him there and they were snakes and scorpions so he was out of the mind that's what they even said you even said our brother is dead right right well according to accordingly it's uh the more of the onus is put on the ishim for uh put for selling Y and to right they're still responsible for selling ysf that was the first hostage then you know yosf was the first hostage correct yeah and and they got they got a pretty penny for him even in those times but I also saw another thought it says in the in the ha they were forced down because of the debor because of the word we say the word of God however s interpret they were forced down because Debra the de all the bad thoughts and words that they said about one another so that's another example of what you're saying is that the Bad Blood between the brothers forced him to go down to Egypt yeah yeah that's an important theme on P you know the says the word p is p the mouth that speaks that there's an idea that their spiritual capacity of speech was in bondage and pesak is the liberation of the the mouth that speaks you know amazingly the gar the first blot of the gar all it talks about is the importance of cleanliness of speech of not saying tame impure but rather saying not not pure that whole subject is the opening of which indicates that that cleanliness of speech purity of speech is an integral and essential a fundamental aspect of the P Our Guest is RAB by Daniel J Glon prolific writer his book on the hag is called Rabbi glat David Daniel glazin on the ha you one of the things that intrigues me I know we spoke about it last year and bab treby writes about it we have a lot of Jews that are disconnected from Judaism now according to most polls and you look at UJ Federation they say about 90% of Jews do celebrate Passover pesak and SU form what that means but they have some connection but there are some Jews that have absolutely no connection to Judaism uh they're the fifth son that don't show up at the at the Seder at all and we find it even today those that are protesting against Israel and supporting the Palestinians I know one synagogue they even making a mish for the Palestinians for each week which I don't think they make it for the Israeli soldiers so let's look at the fifth son and does the hag there any way of reaching out to them through the hag look you know the the sorry and the unfortunate verdict of history and we see this from is that not every Jew made it out of Egypt in fact the majority of our people didn't make it out and we have to do everything we can most importantly to educate our people because if you have Jews in support of the Palestinian and not their own brothers that means their their level of Jewish Education is so minimal that they don't understand what it means to be a Jew you know who understood what it meant to be a Jew Hitler knew what it meant to be a Jew Hitler said that the Jew inflicted on the world two imperfections the imperfection of the body and the imperfection of the personality then imperfection of the body was the circumcision and Perfection of the personality was morality the Jew represents morality Justice and common sense to the world and we have to do everything we can to educate our Brethren but when that great day comes we don't know we don't know exactly who's going to be privileged to enjoy it and experience it and to be there because when God took us out of Egypt only 20% of the Jewish people made it out so you know we're we're concerned for that proverbial fifth Sun but we just hope that he'll be there on the end of days well there are lots of Jews that are becoming connected because of the events of October 7th uh in fact uh I think one of the rabbis in piston New Jersey Rabbi Eisenberg I believe his name is was at the rally in Washington DC and he comes across a man and he talks to the man he's full of tattoos and he Tred to travel from upstate New York and the bus company refused to take him he slept in so many different ways just the determination to be there so he says to to Rabbi Eisenberg you give me a blessing give me a Braha yeah I don't really give BR he says for give me a br I should meet a Jewish girl so he gives him a br and he hugs him and then he finds out he gets an email a little while later that at the rally he met a Jewish girl and they're going to get married they're going to celebrate Hanukah etc etc so beautiful story beautiful by the way you mentioned about only 20% of Jews left Egypt rashim mawab has a wonderful thought which always bothered me because all the plagues in Egypt were supposed to afflict the Egyptians more than the Jews if millions of Jews died during the plague of Darkness it meant that the Jews were inflicted more harm than the Egyptians were how is that possible and plus how did the Egyptians not notice that millions of Jews died so rwam said that that you didn't have so many Jews die you had a certain amount of Jews died but you look at through generations how many potential people they had going through them either through the end of time or through the end of the base of migd so there you have millions of people but not actually that di the potentiality of that and that to me makes more sense than to have so many people die and we don't like I said like the Egyptians shouldn't suffer less than the Jews and they wouldn't notice the Jews are gone just something which always bothered me I think rashab has a brilliant answer to yeah but you know there there is a tradition that uh maybe one day these four fifths will will come back will be able to retrieve them but you know we read in par that they they left literally armed but over there says every Jewish family came out with five children so what exactly is going on every single had exactly five children well they they got together and they decided on everyone having the same family planning every Jewish family had five children and how could that be we know they gave birth to shisha six and six out of shot so the explanation is they didn't have five children per family it's four fifths of the Jews died out so every family that survived they had to take care of their children and four other families of children who parents didn't survive so it's only the men between 20 and 60 four fifths died out but their children were still around so each surviving family took responsibility for their children and the other four families of children that didn't have parents and this was the Merit when we say that the Jewish people left with uh one of the tarum says they left with great Merit what Merit did the Jewish people have the Merit they took care of their uh their friends who were deceased they they took of care of their orphans so look we have to take responsibility for our Brethren and the most important thing is to ensure that uh that every Jew has the ability to to study and to appreciate our Our Heritage now when you're talking about it says that which could mean fortifi to one out of five which is what you were alluding to I think Sofer has a a thought which is very powerful and he said was if the Jews had arms why didn't they use against the Egyptian why did God have to do all these Miracles splitting the sea he could have done a miracle like we did during khah you have a group that that are slaves and they have a great miracle and they kill the Egyptians but he said because the Egyptians invited them in in Hospitality it's a question of how carus and to recognition of the good even though they slaughtered and killed and tortured and maimed the Jews they SL to have this level of gratitude where they couldn't kill them with the weapons which is a very powerful thought yeah reminds me of the Nazis in the our time and age where Germany is you know still around and made reparations and there may be some of that hakar to reserv Germany based on what theam s had said well you know it's hard it's hard to Fathom I mean a threshold right so right but based on what theam soer said you know it's certainly a powerful thought the level of gratitude that we're expected to have um before we go I want to focus on because one of the things that people talk about their the measures that says when the Egyptians were drowning in the sea the Angels wanted to sing Shir and God say my handywork is drowning you want to sing Shir the different interpretations of what that really means perhaps you can share some of that with us okay I want I I'm glad you asked about that I want to share an interpretation from R Schwab who you cited from before and I think an interpretation that is very relevant to the events are taking place today you know the question is if the Angels couldn't sing because the Egyptians were drowning so why were the Jews allowed to to sing We we did sing We Sangha we commemorate that song you know there's an idea that a Mal cannot do two he can't do two can do two things at once can't do two things at the same time you know human can multitask an angel can't multitask what does that mean an angel he can't um he can't juggle and Sho gum at the same time only a human being could do that soab explains like this an angel can only have one perspective and therefore if the angels are going to sing they cannot simultaneously feel the pain and empathize with the suffering of the Egyptians so therefore God says for you to sing would be cruelty because people are drowning people are dying people are suffering and an angel does not have the sophistication to on the one hand rejoice and sing over the salvation and on the other hand feel the pain of suffering human beings but a human being who's created in the image of Hashem we have the sophistication to to simultaneously feel the pain of those who are suffering and yet experience the joy and the Ecstasy of the Salvation so we were able to sing because at we were able to feel the pain of the suffering Egyptians and still at the same time Rejoice over hashem's salvation Angels couldn't do that you know people always say well you know are you happy that innocent civilians are uh are dying you know how do you rejoice the answer is look a human being is very sophisticated we're grateful that Hashem is the ezem leading us to victory in Gaza and that the IDF will be able to destroy Kamas but at the same time we do have feelings of empathy for for those who you would legitimately consider uh an innocent civilian whoever th that may be and if if that's even possible because we know so many of them support and supported what was done on October 7th but in terms of having a human feeling of empathy we Jews are able to empathize and at the same time rejoice in our Victory and it's not a contradiction that is the the the greatness of man right we're not rejoicing that they're drowning we're we're better bookstores we're working now on sa being published by artscroll it should be out right after PES God willing and uh a few more things in the queue on the horizon looking forward always have wonderful insights and if you want to real understanding of the holidays or humus just read reic glass's books and you'll have a tremendous appreciation of what's written so thank you for joining us thank you for your time thanks very much thank you for tuning in to talk with Zev brener America's Premier Jewish broadcast the pulse speed of the Jewish Community for continuous Jewish programs talkline network.com or our 24-hour a day listen line at 64174 0389 for past shows you can find us on iTunes Spotify Amazon YouTube Instagram and all major podcast platforms or Jewish podcast. org thanks for listening to the chine network.com follow us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram wonderful