Pesach: True Meaning of Freedom - Rabbi Chaim Veshnefsky

the city of helm which was not known for a great measure of sate hold wisdom there once was a man who was having an identity crisis when he used to go to the public bathhouse and he wasn't wearing his like his clothing had no identification so he didn't know who he was so he decided he's gonna solve identity crisis by wearing a red string around his big toe so of course when he went to the bathhouse the string came off and the string ended up with someone else's big toe so he walks over to the fella when he says to him he says well you have the red string in your toes I know who you are can you tell me who I am unfortunately today's world there's a lot of externalities superficiality we don't really remember who we are and that's something we want to avoid at all costs we really get in touch with who we are one of the great ways to do it is the holiday of pets ah that's coming up and I just would like to share with you a quick thought and then I could tell you some stories the holiday Pesa we say something in the prayers and the trealose the haciendo hashem elokenu is ver Cosmo ah da ha we should carry over the blessing of the holiday into the whole year and one of my teachers if I give real building himer gave a beautiful analogy what that means somebody can go to a store we've all had the experience especially before pets are all going to the store buying things even many people who avoid going shopping there they have no choice but to go shopping before that's off they load up cart after cart and sometimes you go to the store and you pay and you leave the cart there and you're about to load the cart into the car and you get a phone call you get distracted and then when you get off the phone you get in the car and you realize hey wait a minute where's the car I forgot it so you go back to the store you get the cart the worst thing you can do is remember about the cart the next day you don't take anything home with you you spent all that time and all that effort and all that money and there's nothing left what you don't want to do with the how they pass out is gain nothing but a few pounds you want to walk away with the things that you gain the inspiration and the ideas that you you gained on the ump if you want to be able to take that with you the whole year you want to take the contents of the cart load it into your car and take it with you and that's what the Hacienda means fahashi I knew our symbol of k2 is because Claudette Hall we should be able to carry over the blessing of the holiday throughout the entire year we shouldn't leave it at the store but we should take it with us and that way we'll actually have grown and become better because of the yom tov the theme of past stock the thing we want to take with us is hey Ruth now there are two words in Hebrew for freedom one is der our own it's a root there's a term called see pardner our he's a wild bird a free bird and the holiday of Pesa the word root is used not to roar when it comes to the freeing of slaves in the Jubilee year the words aurorus used pass our hey Ruth what's the difference between the two the answer is that the the words are our means physical freedom a person is physically not bound by anything you're able to go where you want do what you want the way trade route really has nothing to do with that a maja Ben Corinne Ella me show sake Bottari the only one who's considered free is someone who's involved the study of Torah and God's instructions of how we should live our lives what did that supposed to mean that's obviously not talking about physical slavery that's the famous statement that our sages make so what does the word henrich really mean Revilla called Galinski a very very famous speaker great rabbi he what he was went through the Second World War and he was in Siberia during the war and in the Siberian labor camp he was there incarcerated with many people who were not Jewish and one of them was a fellow who used to wake up in the middle of the night and would put on his generals uniform he was the Lithuanian general who was captured by the Soviets and sent to the to their their form of a concentration camp in Siberia but in the middle of the night he would wake and he would put on his uniform and then he would take it off and go back to sleep and after seeing this a few times of yaacov Galinski went over to him and asked him why do you do that why in the world are you putting on that uniform you're losing precious sleep we get so little time you have so little so so little time to rest why are you doing that every Rock of Galinsky heard from this Soviet general a very profound thing he said I am NOT a slave I am a general and I never want to forget that I'm sitting here slaving like an animal wool day and at night I get up and I put on that uniform to Remember Who I am because that's my essence we as Jews have to remember who we really are we're not just another nation with a light to the nation's we're special we're the ones who everybody wants to emulate whether they admit it or not we are the ones who have real coats have real freedom and that is what the world really understands that we have and sometimes we ourselves don't understand what it is that we have what is it that we have what are the special gift that the Jewish people have what is that generals uniform that we wear so I'd like to share with you something that I heard from the Weinberg which has really come from an ancient Jewish sources it's not his idea just he he gave a beautiful analogy for it there are different levels of pleasure that people can experience the lowest level of pleasure is physical pleasure sometimes it's called lust the next level of pleasure is emotional pleasure what's the difference in physical and emotional pleasure let's take a bowl of ice cream somebody could sit down and eat a bowl of ice cream and enjoy it tremendously but the next day when they when they think about that ice cream they cannot re-experience that pleasure they don't feel at all there's nothing but their taste buds it's just gone when when they sit down with another person a friend of those they haven't seen in 30 years and they finally able to sit down with them and schmooze with them and talk to them and brings back all the great memories and have a bowl of ice cream together in an ice-cream shop that bowl of ice cream is not about the taste buds it's the emotional pleasure of sharing food together with somebody having a meal with them someone I haven't seen in 30 years and re-experiencing remember all the good things that happened between us that's emotional pleasure and when I think of it the next day I still can experience that it still feels good that's the second level of pleasure most people stop at that that's all the experience physical pleasure and emotional pleasure family reunions etc those are things which are emotional pleasure what most people are missing out on a spiritual pleasure and spiritual pleasure that's the real deal that's the real stuff and I'll give you an example of what we mean by spiritual pleasure those people who may be familiar with New York City know there's something called the Circle Line Manhattan which is the financial center of the world downtown Manhattan Wall Street area everyone's very very famous stock market the heartbeat of the economy of the United States is in Manhattan it's a very popular tourist attraction so a fellow comes from California the other side of the United States and he saves up money finally wants to go on vacation he's going to go to the Big Apple to see New York and he takes a cruise called the Circle Line the circuit line goes around the island of Manhattan it takes about two three hours and he's able to see everything from the ship all about Manhattan and also can see the other boroughs of New York this fellow happens to be a lifeguard and he's the first day of his vacation he's standing there on the Circle Line watching the the massive skyscrapers and a fellow leans over the railing and he falls into the water into the East River now the East River is one of the most polluted rivers in the world it's not the place where you want to go pleasure swimming so the guy falls into East River and he's a lifeguard and he knows he has the capability to save this man's life but he doesn't feel like doing it because I'm on vacation now doesn't this guy know I'm on vacation what does he think he's doing like a schlemiel falling into the East River on the first day of my vacation do you know what that's gonna require me to dive in and save him or try to save him first of all the river is polluted and it smells so I'm gonna dive into this river I don't know if I'm gonna end up with some kind of disease or who knows what second of all when I dive into the river life-saving is a dangerous endeavor the person can thrash in the water if it's a big person they can hit you in the head and knock you out it's not so simple if you when you endeavor to save save someone's life that you're going to be able to do it without losing your own so I should risk my life who is this guy Delino and then it's conscious kicks in he says you know the man is drowning and I know how to save his life how can I not dive in so he decides I'm gonna go in he dives off the side of the ship and his his luck would have it dirty is part of the river and this man is thrashing in the water and he goes over and he tries to save him he puts one arm around him starts swimming with the other arm and this is a big fellow a big local guy huge and of course he whacks him in the head almost knocks him out he has a massive headache and he almost passes out he finally is able to swim with him to the side he's over there now he's next to the land and he passes out in a coma he ends up in a New York City public hospital which is not necessarily the best care he's in a coma for two weeks he only had one week for vacation he blew the whole vacation plus another week he lost money from his job his vacation he's waiting all year for that was destroyed and now he has a huge dude dr. bills you're not happy about this after he wakes up he finds out that the fellow whose life he saved happened to be a husband and a father of five small children and he thinks to himself you know what it was worth it it was worth it Hebrew with this vacation but he paid a price for something that was worth it now here's a fellow what's fast forward this fellow this lifeguard then he was in his 20s now he's 85 years old and he looks back at his entire life and he thinks about all the different pleasures that he had in his life all the ice cream he ate the times he met his friends he hadn't seen in decades the physical pleasure the emotional pleasure and he thinks back and he says to himself what is the single greatest pleasure that I had in my entire life he says do you know what that was that moment that I found out that I saved the woman from becoming a widow and five little children from becoming orphans that was the most pleasurable over to my entire life it was all worth it that's spiritual pleasure that's real-deal pleasure that's high-class pleasure that's really what the soul of a human being is yearning for it's not the ice cream it's not the ice cream parlor with your friend it's that real bona fide enjoyment of knowing that you really accomplished something that is a route that is famous when you're able to conquer yourself and make a real life decision about what's right and not be bound by the chains of physicality and you could do the right thing regardless of what your body is telling you that's real freedom that's that's not to roar toward means I can shop anywhere I want I can run anywhere I want that route means I do what I really want to I complex I really want to accomplish in life that's okay right that's what life is really all about the fellow from Cal was so focused on externalities he thought it depends on the red string so many human beings in their lives they focus on externalities the status symbols their job they lose a job they feel worthless well that's a normal human emotion and it's okay but you're not worthless you have to look about what you accomplished in your life what spiritual pleasures the job which opportunities did you have someone was was not nice to you and you didn't retaliate you didn't take revenge who's the bigger person I always tell people and my job is as a rough as a rabbi the one who apologizes first he's the one who won because it takes guts to say I'm sorry that's a root that's what it's really about where do we see that in the Yom Tov of Pesa the Jewish people in order to merit leaving Egypt they needed to do something I took a lot of guts it displayed there he wrote and that was two things one number one they had to circumcise themselves but the timing of the circumcision was before they brought the carbon passer carbon Pesa was the Paschal Lamb it was a form of an offering to God and it was so significant because the lamb was something that the Egyptians worshiped it was taking something an idol that a nation prayed to and destroying it before their very eyes was a tremendous risk to your life because they could ride they could kill you and the Jews had to go and slaughter that and they had to go and take it and dry roasted on a spit which she could smell the aroma all over the country that means it wasn't a hidden thing and it was hull wasn't chopped to pieces or they know what it was and had to do it in the Egyptians faces the Egyptians don't know about it and they had to do when they're weak from the circumcision they weren't able to go to battle in case they were attacked naturally what will we do we like to do it to avoid conflict we don't want to do things in people's faces you don't want to get people upset especially something in a religious issues you know you're not supposed to talk about religion or politics with your friends because people get emotional you get upset about these things and they're doing this in the middle of Egypt but they conquered themselves they control themselves they did what they needed to do that's what God wanted from them he wanted them to display something which is the equivalent of a miracle to not do what your natural tendencies are to do what is right not what is easy that's what they were expected to do and that's what they did they circumcise themselves do you think those cells basically defenseless at the same time they went they slaughtered the karbonpad soxhlet pace out the Passover lamb and they dry roasted it and it was dry roasted whole recognizable and they said it's what we got to do it's whether it's dangerous or it doesn't make sense but God told us to do it and that's why they merited to be able to leave Egypt and be able to achieve the truth a route which was when God gave us the tour at Mount Sinai he gave us an instruction book of how to live our lives how to control our character traits how to not get angry how to be kind even when we're not in the mood how to control ourselves that was a result of the Jews displaying that in Egypt the first time and that's what the Youngs of a pacifist so that would you want to put into your cart this pass off is the ability to display real favorite to do that which is right not which is easy that's what it's all about when you sit there at the Seder and you're eating matzah we'd much rather eat bread and you know certain things that we don't even have in the house and things that we avoid doing we bow to God's will we do what he wants us to do and the lesson is to take with us the entire year that what the thing that trumps everything else is the right thing not the easy thing everyone should have a good jump if inspiring holiday and we should merit to be able to be together all together in your show lion fulfilling the commandment of carbon tessa as one nation you