Afikomen - Stealing Attention (Pesach 2021 #2) (Ep. 130)

hi i'm david dolowski and this is the ruby on ski show and this is our second episode in our special pesach program welcome to our peace open program and uh we have a sponsor i read you as it is written it's been 10 years since seminary and while i've lost touch i never stopped listening and we're listening to your shirum from aramis silsharm classes it was all i had for a while but a year ago i discovered your podcast and down the rabbit hole i went starting with episode one that was a lot of fun i uh i didn't have my fancy bookcase then that i used this to to film in front of my withstanding a little corner of my bedroom man looked more like a hostage video but but it was a lot of fun i'm so happy that you were doing this and i'm honored to sponsor an episode may you live to 120 and it's a shem um it's no it's no secret i i have health problems uh i have different things and here in israel you're not allowed to ever reveal anything i was once in a drug store and a friend of mine was like three people back and he calls out to me he says how you doing hashem he says hashem and why are you in the drug store i said hashem medicine for my gout hashem medicine for my high blood pressure and all the israelis are like you know and the drug it says you have to tell everybody everything but what can i tell you i mentioned this in the past some people uh say that um you know i feel like before you say something you stop and you consider if it's appropriate or not and regardless you say it anyway so what can i tell you i wear my heart on my sleeve that's just the way i am but uh the famous story of this is album elsa where he developed tuberculosis developed the percula tuberculosis because the butcher was trying to rent out his spare room through yeshiva nobody wanted to because it smelled so bad because he used to leave the hides hanging so this is almond milk felt bad for him so he rented the room and from the hides and all that he eventually developed tuberculosis so uh after this was discovered he was already he'd already arranged the sugar and the girl's family wanted to break it off and the girl did they went to the time and uh and [Music] you'll live a long sick life my mother was suffering from heart failure for like 30 years she had diabetes she had everything you can imagine my mother had you know and people would say to me and she lived almost to 90 you know people said how's your mother doing i said maintaining a usual low level of health you know so amir hashem uh i i appreciate this make it to 120. if only to keep my spiritual illness going kidding spontaneous my brother moshe all good things and uh you know uh the person has sponsored this anonymously but uh you know uh we we had this course of being together uh for years and we've been in touch and the true test of a friendship is it doesn't matter how often you see each other but when you do it's something special so thank you so much uh for this and i hope it'll be a swiss for everybody so now i have a special uh treat for you all right a little video treat i'd like you to watch my grandchildren begin to say this is a smattering of my grandchildren i have i've been blessed with many grandchildren and uh usually you have some kind of a say of whether or not you're gonna have children but uh grandchildren that's completely out of your hands thanks chris so here are a collection of my grandchildren doing the manager [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh okay hope you enjoyed that i know you never get a chance to hear them manage to know this is not all the kids will be in my sailor save them understand that but isn't that nice a nice thing you know so uh so why am i doing this because i want to talk about the children it's got to be the little kind of love my little little little kinder love it's gonna be the little okay anyway children children are a big focus uh of the seder obviously we do a lot of things to get the children to ask what ultimately is the purpose of therapist says the gemara so the children should ask they see you dipping a vegetable uh what's going on you make kiddish you make a mozzie then you take the seda plate off the table what's going on i fill up the cup all of this is of course to inspire the children to ask them and they practice it in school [Applause] foreign anyway so uh there's the manuscript and then we're basically done with them yeah some people want to write the bed somebody put them in the bed before they even get the answer yeah and uh the children are apparently left out of the process so i want to discuss a very strange uh minute in claudia's cell and this is of course the minigame after there are two versions of it one version i i can't really explain and i'll show you why in a minute uh the father takes the effie comb and hides it someplace and then the children run around looking for it the reason i have a problem with that is because you're basically encouraging the children not to be at the seder so uh i understand you know it was like this little kid was on an airplane running around making trouble knocking over things and the stewardess said kid do me a favor play outside i guess if you want to you know get the kid to uh you know you know be out of the way it's a great method you know keep them busy you know but uh we want the kids to participate right so um so the other minute is what my father did and since it's my minute it's clearly the correct one and that is he would take it and stick it in between his pillows that he was doing haseva on and you had to try to steal it from him now my father was not one of those um uh warm and fuzzy kind of dads he wasn't going to make this easy for you that wasn't his philosophy my father didn't know how to say a nice thing he just didn't he told me once it was a sheta when you do something right i expect it when you do something wrong it's my job as a parent to point it out but that's not why i think it had more to do with his general upbringing he just couldn't he just couldn't bring something to say nice things so um so he uh he was not going to make it easy so my older brothers you know who are much more proactive they worked very hard they would they would form teamwork to try to steal the africom you know it was very hard at one time one of my brothers was bringing my father in his soup and spilled it on his lap desperate times demand desperate measure my mother's like ah when you lean forward they grab the other company so okay you know i've learned from that i wear asbestos trousers but um uh you know it's uh the idea is the kids have to try to take the african uh of course you can't finish the sailor without the africom so you say to the kids okay give me back the afrikaamen and the kid says only if you give me a prize now begin the negotiations what do you want uh that's too much i'm not going to get you that again you work out uh some kind of a deal and you get your matzah back which by now is basically matsumiel you know and you sprinkle a little bit on top of a different piece of matzo which between me and you you could have used in the first place now what is the message of this minig well the message is clear and that is we want to teach our children the importance of stealing and extortion steal things and then extort money from the person who wants it back now this comes in handy later when your kids want to get a house or want to be supported in cola but uh at first blush that would seem like strange values to try to teach actually where does this come from so i saw it brought down once that it's actually brought down from uh utilizing it's right because when we left egypt we asked the egyptians to borrow their gold and silver clearly we had no intention of giving it back and so therefore we teach the children to take the offi comment and not to get it back unless they had some kind of a cash prize now one could ask the question over there well isn't that a little dishonest isn't that generous is that a good thing to do so uh the gemara tells the following oh and alexander the great captured israel so different nations showed up to bring complaints against the jewish people and one was a representative from egypt and he said you know the jews borrowed our gold and silver borrowed our clothing by killing they never gave it back they stole everything we demand alexander yeah that you make the jews return everything that we have alexander didn't know what to do he was busy starting his department store just kidding anyway so uh so he said to the jews well answer them so they select somebody and he says no problem let's calculate how much 600 000 people working for 430 years should be paid and uh you know basically you'll give us the difference so the egyptian said give me a chance to respond then he stuck out of town why because we were slaves we were entitled to be paid for our work which we were forced into uh why those particular numbers that some such explains is because it was really six hundred thousand was only hamushim it was one-fifth so even though we were only there for 86 years that the actual shiva took place it was five times six hundred thousand people but the torah uses the number six hundred thousand so go and tell them that it was really five times that amount so but we know it was really 86 years but it's written in the tour of 430 years so it says it was the same proportion because 86 times 5 is 430 and 600 000 times 5 is the amount of jews that were actually there so it works out to the same 600 000 people for 430 years uh is three million people working for 86 years but okay but it means that when we took the gold and silver we were entitled to it right krishna says the nation that enslaves you won't judge and you'll walk out for refuge with great wealth why because either they'll pay you because that's the right thing to do or i'll make sure that you get it because you're entitled to it so we walked out of egypt with all of these things because between me and you we were entitled to it there was this uh scary um video about somebody made years ago this is a very high-powered father and he's got meetings all day and he's running his ramp and uh his son is holding a little jog pennies and he calls him up and he says dad can i ask you a question he says no now i'm busy i'm busy and he keeps calling he keeps going he says okay what do you want so he says how much do you make an hour what do you want to know there because just tell me what you're making allen he says i make so much so he looks it he looks at his jaw of pennies and says can i buy 10 minutes of your time this actually tells a story about this teenage girl stole the african and the father says okay what do you want she says how about a conversation i'm sorry these things get to me yeah i it's not because i'm emotional it's just since my heart attack comes out it's going to my medications but anyway they're saying stories i can't tell without crying but you know but the idea is how many parents will tell you the most important thing in my life on my children how much time do you spend with them i can't i'm busy making money for my children is he doing things for me i haven't got time so we come to the seder and we send these kids to school take good money for the tuition to learn and manage tainan the little kid stands up in the chat and then we say good now go to bed and the adults are going to have a secret or go in the corner and play with your new toy that we got you you know so the kid is taught to steal our attention because you're not going to end the sata without me don't forget about me what an important message i have to tell you how many times i see parents we don't have time for their kids they're busy learning they're busy working suddenly the kid goes off the direct get all the time in the world they run to this gundle for a bracha they went to this rabbit for abraha you know they take the kids on trips they do whatever they can to try to get the kid back but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure yeah the seder is uh connected [Applause] it's about the children so somebody was at the seder of a merchant shapiro and there were and the whole seder was the children timing stories telling them the russian times and things so someone said well of course because he loved he led by the footnote and that's what witness said it was someone said to me i know somebody was ever put in the seder and it was the same thing he spent the whole time doing to the children yeah um somebody was by a aggressive sheaver's house he told me and uh he's telling jokes telling stories every time a kid says something he tosses him a nut you know he's giving him nuts he says and i always try to you know be part you know i'm a sailor you know i would every now and then i didn't lose your question because i don't know here i haven't done it it's kid-centric kid-friendly um every now and then i try to find fun things you know that for the uh for the seder you know so one year i was in america before pace off i always go to like the when i go to target i go to like the the discount center going out of there and they had these um alligators rubber that you put it in your finger and you pull it back and it shoots across the room so the targum you know translates spardaea as uh as crocodiles it's like when you picture the little you know frogs jumping around everywhere you know when they're crocodiles that's a whole different picture so when we came to it i explained that i gave all my grandchildren the little crocodile forget it it was the time of their life [Laughter] and it's uh you know um the the the fact is that the kids remember these memories um i was in a question and answer once completely many years ago and one of the people asked the question why do we say yisker um so okay uh there was uh more of a lumbers to the question because really yusuke was meant to be said on your kippur because he rushes because of kipper because even the dead are judged and so you bring them up et cetera and move to the shelter golem and the truth matter is why are we talking about dead people on onta if we should be talking more about uh you know more positive thoughts etc so uh i used to say that the uh my friend dr stern who is one of the top implant specialists in the world he's based here in the usual line but he goes to america you need implants yeah um i highly recommend him but in that event he obviously named for the altered kiln and um he says when the person would ask a question and share he would very often say the ashton terence is ah but it's faith the terences first answer is i don't know but here's the second answer yeah i didn't give what he thought was the answer so i've picked that up so i didn't say this but i thought to myself the action characters are faced i don't really know but i'll tell you what i think i said the holidays are a time when we're so keenly aware of the people who are no longer with us um we sit at the seder and a lot of people who themselves may not be observant say this is what my father used to do my father used this my father did that you know we specifically around the holidays remember the people who went before us children have such keen memories um for the seder i used to make uh this thing called gun-eating chicken i'm not going to give you the recipe it's in the asia torah pesach cookbook you can get it yourself yeah it's in a orange ginger sauce it's uh very very tasty very nice yeah and we used to make it every year and one year you know i made something else and the children were appalled they spoke to my wife because they know it's wasted time to talk to me and uh said the sailor is gone eating chicken now it's not brought down in any sparring i've looked it up now where does it say you know neglect uh off gun below say that you know but this is what we used to kids remember kids know the way that you're supposed to do things so as much as possible you say to and you have to ask yourself how do i make it kid-friendly so one way to do this is by giving them a certain amount of latitude when it comes to the songs if you're from my generation you know [Music] love i say no no um for my kids that's the one i want to say so i sing mind and i say go ahead sing yours there was one year where the children together all got together and they came before the seder and they said uh we uh want to sing the seder to uh to tune we made up tunes for each burger okay but uh the way you make the story come alive meaningful like i told you a relationship there would sit there and tell them over mid rashford tell them all the stories and so some people would put on hats and little little skits and they dress people up and they they do all kinds of things and you know okay you know whatever works i remember when i was in ncsy so uh we had a series of talks about group dynamics um and uh and they gave you different um icebreakers and openers to you know get people uh if you wanted to give a class you know so they they came up with all kinds of different uh methods and tricks and things and uh i would teach this over to uh to advisors so they say do you use these i don't have to use this i'm so good i have a gift for getting people annoyed yeah so that when i ask a question it really bothers them i may have told this story once you know i uh i was like kylo and i asked some kasha you know and and the guy there says that's a double rollovski i said what do you mean like a klutzka show no no all day and you should be asked questions but when you ask akasha after you ask it it bothers you you're left with like yeah sometimes what i have to say about all right just ask the question i don't give the answer just to get just to get people yeah why is that they do you know and so if you uh say okay i have to tell over the story you tease me so i am how am i going to do it in a way that makes it meaningful for the kids and there are kids of all ages what's going to be meaningful to a little kid is not going to be meaningful to an adolescent because now it's going to be meaningful to a teenager is not going to be meaningful to a more adult child and you try to run the seder on different levels that's going to appeal to different age groups at different times and uh um my regular rabbi yaakov wales at sao he once developed a go the game where every time he asked a good casual so he got a point and you know there was like a little board there and then you collect prizes and yeah there's no question about it yeah i know certain people they they have treats or whatever the treat is you know and every time a kid asks a good question oh here's my treat the problem is that you know the kids who don't ask good questions they don't get any treats you know so to my mind there's a participation award and that's what the afrikomen is now the fact that i stayed up for the seder means i get a present you you owe me something for the fact that i'm here so um think about the kindle at the saturn yeah there's an old expression that says there's a lawyer with 10 years experience and there's a lawyer with one year experience 10 times not the same thing and so uh there are people who have had 10 pesos and there are people who had one peso tenta and it's the same thing and so uh high volume virus is asl every person has to see himself as if he came out of egypt which means that the key word when it comes to the seder is relevance it's got to be meaningful to us we have to give it over in a way uh i may have told this it was one of the nicest introductions i ever got um bobby klein from mkhitaryan i used to speak to just for his introductions he's got great introductions and uh he he said you know the hatsotros the trumpets that moshe made were buried with him and they had to make new trumpets and he said mayor shapiro says because even though the tune stays the same the instrument has to change from generation to generation this is that will ask you the instrument you need in this generation ah that was one of the nicest introductions i ever got um but uh it means i have to look at the seder and say how is this going to be meaningful to the people who are gathered together here it takes effort it takes work yeah um if you're cleaning for pesach shopping pays off cooking prepare stuff all of those things that's a lot of preparation easier than going away to a hotel hotel you have to you know do all the packing and you know and schlepping and all that kind of stuff if you go to orlando you get this close-up boat you get to pack up everything slap everything and then cook and clean and serve so it's all my list yeah so you're right there's there's a lot of preparation don't just have another saver have the seder for the children who are there obviously there are children there and it's just adults whoever it is okay so you have to make it meaningful to each person who's there but the focus and that's the stories that i heard from various condolence the focus are the children don't let them become props don't let them become lost in the process make sure that it is a kid-centric seder and however that takes place whatever you have to do to make that meaningful and exciting there are ways of creating anticipation and children become giggling as exciting as it's gonna be you know yeah and you can see this when it comes to still in the epicone i'm not as tough as my dad was but uh you know you don't want to make it too easy you want them to feel like they have to work hard to get it now in order that there's some sewer to the seder you know we we always say you can't steal me after coming to the um you know once that happens there are little children creeping all around me you know and uh when i always do the same thing i say got it give it back and i i remember my little children i get that you know and they're like okay there's zaby and others others have been trained by their parents not unless you give me a present all right i'll give you a present all right here's our bag you know so uh but but the excitement and anticipation when uh they ask israel stay with us and you'll be for us through your inaudible the excitement that a newcomer to judaism has we're going to enjoy that vicariously through you it's always when you see people come to headshot the first time go to the chrysler the first time experience them the first time you see the the excitement the light or that sometimes we tend to take for granted right you ever go to somebody's house like wow this kitchen is beautiful yeah they've had everybody for a few years you know they've noticed all the flaws all the imperfections someone come from the outside looks and says wow magnificent so we want the children to be our eyes to say that that we should have that excitement to be able to maintain that thrill and childlike wonder that people can sometimes lose so don't forget the little kindle off at the uh at the seder and uh make sure you have treats hi when i was growing up it was barton's chocolates i don't know if they still exist i haven't seen them for years my father used to give me at the same give every every kid there a whole chocolate matzah solid chocolate monster it had little like nuts you know pieces of nuts inside of it so it gave it a little bit of a crunch but it was so exciting get that chocolate matzah so uh we went to when we did our shopping me and my wife i looked around for it why it might be little treats little bags of uh cotton candy you know things like this that we can give the children that they should be able to have that sense of excitement okay that's it for this episode if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website libraryland.com you can leave a comment you can uh sponsor an episode you can send an email and we'll see you next time this is deborah lowsky and this is it's the rabbi orlovsky show torah and simbra ready to go the rabbi orlovsky showed knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme no it's the rabbi orlovsky show on rabbi orlocky.com [Music] till next time till we meet again it's throughout my orolowski show it's the rabbi orlowski show it's the rabbi orlowski