89: One More Chance

Hi, this is Rabbi Ulanski, and welcome to the Rabbi Ulanski show. And whether you're watching on Torah Any Time, our friends over at Torah Any Time, or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, we're happy to have you along for this adventure. And uh I wanted to speak about a special holiday that comes out this week. There's a little hint. I don't know if you can figure it out, but it is in fact one of my favorite holidays. It is called Pesach Sheni. Everything you always wanted in Pesach, but less. And uh the uh the minig is we don't say tachnun. And at some point you eat matzah. I know we miss matzah. Yeah. And uh this gives us a chance. And uh as the chazal tell us, Pesach Sheni was a very special time. Because you got your korban Pesach, you got matzah, you got maror, and you don't have to clean up the house. It says you can have matzah and chametz on the table together. And uh you know, it's a really fascinating time. And so that's why uh if you want to eat, you know, uh your matzah, you can eat it. Right? You can have it together with uh with actual chametz. You still can't make a brachah. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Right, if you are very careful not to make a brachah, here's your chance to finally taste a matzah brei. If you've never tasted a matzah brei, let me share with you my matzah brei recipe that I received al pi mesorah from my father alav hashalom. You take two and a half matzahs, break them up into small pieces. You don't want it to mamash turn into matzah meal, but small pieces. And then you pour hot water on top of it, shake it in the strainer, so it gets distributed. Get the water out. Put it into a mixing bowl, add four eggs, beat it together with a little salt. Get a frying pan. Not a small frying pan, and not a big frying pan, a medium frying pan. Add water to it. Uh don't do that. Add oil to it. Make sure the oil is hot. It's very important. Not just a little drop of oil, not a spray oil. You have to add some oil to it. There's a little bit of oil on the bottom there. Make sure it's really hot. And then you pour it in, and smooth it out. And then put something on top of it. I usually put a Corelle plate. That should give you an idea about the size of the frying pan it should be. About the width of a large Corelle plate. You put it on top. Lower the heat a little bit, cuz you don't want it to burn. And after the top is mostly done, once it's it's it's not solid, but it's uh not liquidy. It's not like mamash oozing. Then, depending on your skill set, you'll either shake it around, slide it onto a plate, turn the plate over, and now do the other side for about a minute. If you're talented like my father, then you flip it in the air, catch it. If you're not talented like my father, in the words of Mr. Wizard, kids, don't try this at home. Cuz then you'll be have a big gloppy mess all over the place. But if you can do it, it is one of those cool things that we do. I usually let it go a little bit, then I do another flip, mostly to show off, and uh take it out. There are two ways you can eat it. You can either go with the eggs, and put salt on top of it, have it salty. Or you can go with the matzah part, have it more like a pancake, put some sugar on it, put a little pancake syrup, whatever you like. And this is it. This is Pesach Sheni. So uh what what's going on with this holiday? Uh partly it's an opportunity to use up all that leftover matzah that you still have. Some years I don't have any matzah left. I have to go borrow matzah from somebody. But uh but what's the what's the logic of this particular Yom Tov? And I'll explain to you why I find it particularly meaningful. It's in Balak. Balak describes for you the only Pesach they were supposed to have in the midbar, because we came out of Egypt on Pesach. We traveled seven weeks in the desert to Har Sinai. We received the Torah on Shavuot. We waited 40 days and 40 nights till Moshe came down with the second luchos. Unfortunately, we miscalculated. And he comes down and finds on Shiva Asar b'Tammuz that we had built a golden calf, egel hazahav. He breaks the luchos. He says, "I'm going to go up for another 40 days and see if I can get God to forgive you." He goes up another 40 days. God forgives us. And then he goes up a third set of 40 days to get the second set of luchos, second 10 Commandments. And he comes down on Yom Kippur. Somebody said to me, "It's strange how everything tends to happen around the holidays." I guess everybody was off anyway, right? And uh then he tells us to build the Mishkan. We start collecting all the material. We start building the Mishkan on the 15th of Tishrei. And then the Ananei Hakavod, the clouds of glory that had left us, come back again. Um uh the Vilna Gaon says the significance of Sukkot, why it's about the Ananei Hakavod, the clouds of glory, is because they came back when we started building the Mishkan. We finished the Mishkan on the 25th of Kislev, which in the future would become a holiday. And then the last week of Adar, we practice putting it up. We put it up and take it down. We put it up and take it down for a week. And then on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, we put it up for good. That's the Mishkan. And then the Nesi'im, the princes of each shevet, brought their offerings, starting with Yehudah. And every day another uh nasi brought his set of korbanos. That went on for 12 days. And on the 12th of Nisan, Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe, "This is the only korban Pesach you're going to bring in the desert, because after this you're going to go into Eretz Yisrael. Won't be any need for another one." And he announces that on the 14th, we're going to bring our korban Pesach, and on the 15th, we're going to eat it. We're going to have uh celebrate Pesach in the desert. And some people come to Moshe, and they say, "Moshe, we uh we're tamei." So he says, "Yeah." He says, "But we want to bring the korban Pesach." He says, "I understand, but you can't bring it when you're tamei. You know that." Lama nigara? Why should we be left out? We don't want to be left out. It's not our fault. According to one view in the Gemara, these were the people transporting Yosef's bones. We were doing a mitzvah. We were doing what we were told. Why should we get left out? So Moshe says, "Listen, that's how life works." Sometimes you have an opportunity, and uh listen, you blow it. What do you want from me? What do you want from me? Jackie Mason says every Jew knows a building he could have bought uh 50 years ago for $100. See that building? I could have bought that building. They talked me out of it. I could have been a rich man today. Everybody uh has opportunities, and uh opportunities slip away. You know? There was a guy called the Mezuzah Rabbi in Bnei Brak. And he would look at your mezuzah and tell you and answer questions for you, because since the mezuzah is like a shield that protects your house, he can see what happened. So a friend of mine, Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz, shlita, he was asked once to translate for him. And this fellow comes to him with his mezuzah, and he looks at the mezuzah, and he says, "You're trying to find a shidduch." He says, "Yeah." He says, "You already went out with your basheret, and you told her no." And uh Baruch said at the end, when he was leaving, this guy was sitting outside on the steps. Had a list of every girl he ever went with out with, trying to figure out who it was. Sometimes opportunities slip out of our hands. What can you do? We uh Abba Eban, foreign minister, Israel's foreign minister, once said about the Palestinians that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Uh quick perusal of Jewish history will show you that unfortunately the Jews have a similar philosophy. How many times were we so close and it slipped away? We just had in daf yomi. Those of you who follow daf yomi, as you know, I give an online daf yomi sheer. You can go to the website and sign up for it if you like. But um we give a daf yomi sheer and we just had the story if Tzeva'ot had not accepted the lashon hara about Mephibosheth and he hadn't split the field that belonged to Mephibosheth says the kingdom never would have been split. And if the kingdom was never split then Jeroboam ben Nebat would never have put up the golden calves that he put up to stop the people from going back to the Beit Hamikdash. The Jews wouldn't have served the avodah zarah. The Jews would not have gone into galus. That's a pretty heavy message. Look how terrible it is to accept the lashon hara. You feel feel bad about it afterwards, but you know sometimes just can't can't undo a situation. The famous story with these two girls were talking on a bus about their friend Shani Chani Bani, whoever it was. And they said, "Do you believe he got engaged?" You know, she says, "Yeah, well, you know." She says, "Yeah, but to a really good boy." Who? Uh Moshe Moskowitz, you know. She says, "Really?" She says, "Yeah, but you know, she's not so tzniua. She was talking to boys, you know, she went here, she did this, and she got such a good boy." So this woman sitting in front of them turns around and says "Thank you so much. I'm Moshe Moskowitz's mother. I didn't know any of this about her. I'm going home now to break off the shidduch." The two girls were devastated. They of course didn't want that. A few stops later she goes to get off the bus. She turns to them and says "I'm not Moshe Moskowitz's mother, but I could have been." And sometimes we say things, we do things, and we'd like to believe there are no consequences. Somebody made a lot of mistakes in his marriages. He was the first one to tell me he made a lot of mistakes. Made a lot of mistakes. And uh his wife decided to throw him out of the house and wanted to get And he he started putting his life back together. He became a Breslover. And he said to me, "Nachman always says, 'Believe you can be mekalkel, you can be metaken. I'm going to fix this situation.'" The day after he gave his wife a get sometime later I said to my wife "Guess it's not always true. You're right to believe you can always get rid of everything." My friend Benji Reisman told me a story about a guy from guy from family suddenly became wealthy very quickly. I mean, ridiculous amount of money. And uh he left his wife and children for years. Started running around with models and actresses and started uh getting involved in all kinds of party scenes and stuff, you know, for years. And at some point he blew through his money. He looked at his life. And he comes back home. And the children look at him and say "What do you want me to say? Hello, Tati? You left us. You don't get to You don't get a do-over on that. You missed all the years. You missed my bar mitzvah. You missed Suddenly you you show up now and you want You want everything to be back the way it was." The meraglim came back from Eretz Yisrael. And they said, "That's it. Eretz Yisrael is going to kill us. We don't stand a chance." And they went from house to house shaking hands with everybody saying goodbye. So they said, "Tomorrow we're all going to die. It's over. Moshe Rabbeinu might survive, but the rest of us are all dead." And the people cried that night. And Kodesh Baruch Hu said, "After everything I've done for them I destroyed Egypt. I destroyed Amalek. I destroyed Everything you saw me do. I split the sea. I brought down the manna. After everything that I've done, you still don't believe in me? Forget it. You guys are not going to go into Eretz Yisrael. You're going to go off into the desert. You're going to die, and that's the end." So the people hear this. And they get up the next morning and they get dressed, and they put on their sword, and they get their helmets, they get their things, they go, "Come, we're going to go and conquer Eretz Yisrael." And Moshe Rabbeinu says, "No. No, that ship has sailed. You lost that opportunity." And the people said, "But we had one bad night. I mean, like, you know cut us a little slack. What do you want us to do?" "I want you to go into the desert and die. Your children will go into Eretz Yisrael." You mess up sometimes. That's how it is. I feel really bad. Feel really bad. This woman went hiking. Just happened today. She poses on some rock up on a mountain to have her picture taken. She falls to her death. Really sorry. There was this video that went around years ago. People were texting. And person's texting, you know, you're texting, you're looking down at your phone. And they smashed into another car, into a pedestrian, whatever. They killed people. They feel really bad. I I wish I could take that back, but I had to send the text. And these people are on the video saying If I If I had If I stopped to think, what What can you do? I wish the person wasn't dead. I wish I could bring him back. So you tell me, I'm sorry, you tell me, but listen. Can't bring the korban Pesach. And the people say, "Why should we be left out? We don't want to be left out." Go speak to Kodesh Baruch Hu. Moshe Rabbeinu says, "I I don't know what to Speak to Kodesh Baruch Hu." And Kodesh Baruch Hu says, "You know what? Let's give them another chance. This korban Pesach they can't bring because they're tamei. In another month we'll play through again. There'll be another korban Pesach. Uh everybody who missed the first time can do it the second time. What an unbelievable concept. What do you want from me? I was tamei. I missed the opportunity. And you could do I I lost the chance. Pesach Sheni is an unbelievable thing. Means if you want it badly enough, you can recreate an opportunity. Cuz I don't want to be left out. I live in Eretz Yisrael. There's this amazing phenomena. It doesn't work every place. I go out and I'm near Pesach. People downstairs come out of the Pesach. The person upstairs comes out to his Pesach. People in the next building come out to the Pesach. American money. So what does it say for dollars? They leave. L'man gorah. Listen, you could just say, "Well, what could I do?" That's what happened in the beginning before before we put this whole thing together. It's such a weird experience. I may have mentioned this in an earlier podcast. An onen is ossur to do mitzvahs. My father passed away on Shabbos. The funeral was going to be on Sunday. I set my alarm clock like I always do to go to shul. The alarm clock goes off and I said "What am I getting up for? I'm not allowed to daven. I can't put on tefillin. I can't make brachas. If I do make a bracha, nobody's allowed to answer amen. Go back to sleep." So I usually go to a 7:00 minyan every morning, so I set my alarm clock 6:30, 6:35. Give myself time to get up and get ready, get to shul. And before we had our Pesach minyan so uh so it's about to feel was like I don't know, 11:00 or something, you know. You know, why bother setting your alarm clock, you know? You get up when you get up. It's amazing cuz the guys who are in my online Daf Yomi, they have to get up we do it 8:00 in the morning Eastern Standard Time, so you know, I have to get up in the morning to come to shul, get up to daven and then, you know, come to the come to the Daf Yomi. It's an amazing thing. Some of my shiurim that I used to do in person now are online besides my online shiur anyway. I I have a much better attendance uh online But suddenly in whatever minyan I don't want to be left out. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes you get what can you do? Sometimes you can't. Got an email from somebody in a particular community in Israel. He says we tried making a mirpeset minyan and then uh people started complaining we were waking up the kids. Couldn't do it. Sometimes you can't. But the ratzon Pesach Sheini is about the ratzon. If you want it badly enough an amazing concept. And then with my ratzon the this this you can do anything. I have never been able to pull the Bas Paro trick. I've tried it many times. Bas Paro saw Moshe Rabbeinu and she reached and her arm went 100 cubits. I've tried that. Never never been able to do it. I try. I'm sitting at the table and I don't like to bother people by reaching and reaching. Eventually somebody passes it over to me. They pass it. Maybe why my arm has never been able to stretch like this. People uh intervene, but uh If you want it badly enough Pesach Sheini is about second chances. About other opportunities. I I mentioned in the last podcast I don't know what we're going through or what we're going. Like I mentioned there are plenty of people ready to to share their insights. I have to tell you I mentioned Rav Chaim Greenwald is upstairs from me and his son had a bar mitzvah. Tazria Metzora he said over this word from the Aish Kodesh. For those of you not familiar with the Aish Kodesh the Aish Kodesh was in the Warsaw Ghetto. He wrote this sefer and he buried it with a little note that if anybody ever finds this send it to Israel cuz there won't be any Jews left in Europe. Maybe in Israel someone will publish it. And he writes an amazing concept. Like concept. It says why do you get a negah tzara'as on your house? Why do you get this tzara'as, this mark on your house? Because the Canaanites used to hide their treasure in the walls. So if you get this mark then you know you know dig here. X marks the spot, you know? Break it down, you'll find the treasure. But that's not the halacha. You have to show it to the kohen. And if the kohen says it looks like a negah tzara'as, we close the house for a week. You take everything out because what's inside is all going to become tamei. Take everything out. And uh and at the end of the week a week of tumah you're tamei. Can't eat kodshim, can't eat terumah, you're tamei. At the end of that week if they say it's negah tzara'as, you break down the wall you find the treasure. So says the Aish Kodesh if so you see a negah tzara'as, why don't you just start breaking down the wall? Why do you why do you have to be tamei? And he says an amazing thing. Uh mind-boggling cuz he's writing for our time. He says sometimes we see how Kadosh Baruchu is merachek us. He makes us tamei. And we might make the mistake of thinking that Kadosh Baruchu doesn't want us. That he's sending us away. What you see from this is sometimes in order to get the treasure you have to go through tumah. You have to go through something else. And he says in our days, he's talking about the Holocaust. When there's no chadarim to send our children to and there's no yeshivas, there's no battei midrashot and battei knessiyot, we can't daven, there's no mikva'ot. We could chas v'shalom think that Kadosh Baruchu doesn't want us. But it's not true. This is the process we have to go through in order to get the treasure. Now I don't know why. He doesn't give a reason why. But you see the Torah sets it up. But sometimes we have to go through a process. These people were tamei and okay, so I'm going to miss out. No. Kadosh Baruchu is going to create a new yom tov just for you called Pesach Sheini. Don't think it's I was tamei. Kadosh Baruchu doesn't want me. Doesn't want my avodah. It gives you a new opportunity. Gives you another chance. Opportunities. I said to somebody uh you know they were coming over this and that mess. They said this is called the new normal. I said this this can't be normal. Can't go on like this. Reb Mendel Bigel open, who I've mentioned before on the podcast is a legend in uh Jewish education. So he heard the last podcast, you know. He says I can't leave the house. I'm I'm I'm I'm immune suppressed. I I can't go out. I said so what what's supposed to happen? How do we get out of this? And he said to me the same way we got into it is the way we'll get out of it. If Kadosh Baruchu can close down the whole world in a second he can open it back up in a second. How true. How true. I spoke last week about look at the unbelievable ability Kadosh Baruchu has how he can close down the whole world. Reb Mendel Bigel says and the same way he closed it down he can open it back up. How? I don't know how. I This is the final tumah. This is the final rehook. Someone told me there's a publication in Brooklyn 50 pages of death notices. 50 pages. Devastating. I don't know why this is it. This is the end. The final thing that we have to go through. Yeah. There was another time about 30 years ago when we all had to lock ourselves into our rooms and put on masks. It was during the Gulf War. But that was cuz Iraq was shooting missiles at us. Now we have to lock ourselves in our house and put on masks cuz we're afraid of each other. Afraid of each other. The rehook. The final one, but this is what we go through in order to be able to get uh the tremendous matanah. Jewish history unfortunately has had too many incidents like this. And as we mentioned don't miss an we have unfortunately never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Ger Rebbe 1948 he says the gates opened up for geulah. And only the tziyonim only the zionists took advantage of it. We didn't take advantage of it. Then they pointed out that gates of teshuvah up and only the bal chuva were using it. Some people didn't take advantage of it. And now this is the final opportunity for everybody to say, we are going to take advantage of this last situation. There's always a phone ringing. There's always an email beeping. There's always a text messages going. There's things are going on constantly, constantly, constantly. Who has time to think? Says the Mesillas Yesharim, when the essential parts of a vote of Hashem is his bodedus, time to sit alone and think. This is our chance to think. Hashem is giving us a chance. A little bit of quiet. I mean, unless you have a lot of kids you don't like them in your house, in which case forget about it, but you know, this is this is that opportunity. This is that final tumah that we go through in order to be able to get the tremendous matanah that's waiting for us on the other side. To all of you who have lost tremendous nachamah, Hashem should should give you the strength to to go on. Though we have to know that uh but it's always darkest before the dawn. I want to say there's a Ziggy post that says it's always darkest before it's pitch black, but because I'll say it differently, it's always darkest before the dawn. And when it gets dark, that's when the stars shine. When it gets really dark, that's when you can see even the small stars. Says Rashi at the beginning of Sefer Shemot, the Jewish people are like stars. Each one of them has a name. Each one of them is called out by their name. Now is the time for us to become those stars. To go through this process and come out better than we went in. I don't know why. Anyone who does as an old expression, those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know. I don't know why and neither does anybody else. But we know that Hashem can open up new opportunities for us. Could you imagine everybody's polishing to get back to shul? Everybody's polishing to get back to shul. Could you imagine if they all go back and they start talking? I I I I I don't I'm not polishing anybody in klal Yisrael who's been waiting so long to get back to shul. What an opportunity. I went shopping today. Had to wear my mask. It's so sad cuz nobody can see me smiling at them. I have to draw a smile on my face. You know, you want to I hope I have expressive eyes, you know. Is there an expression like laughing eyes, you know? In any event, Hashem should give us the koach. Go and eat your matzah brie. Enjoy your Pesach Sheini. And understand that if we say we don't want to be left out, Hashem will open up new opportunities for us to be able to have our vote of Hashem. And that's it for this week. Um if uh you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my uh website rebelskyshow.com. You can leave comments. You can uh um listen to the uh I don't have an a cappella version of the Rabbi Alasky Show theme, so somebody wrote me and said, maybe you should have a contest. Let let people submit um let them sing the the theme song a cappella. See who does it the best. You can use it during the three weeks and the and the and the sfira. You know. So if you want to give you an opportunity, submit your uh your a cappella and uh and that's it. You can look at my upcoming events. You can sign up for the online shiur. Uh and that's it. Happy Pesach Sheini, everybody. And keep strong. I'm Rabbi Alasky and this is the Rabbi Alasky Show.