The Weirdest Shabbos (Pesach 2021 #1) (Ep. 129)

hi this is deborah rolofsky and welcome to the first episode of our exciting pesach program and uh we haven't done this in a while last year it uh of course was during the 15 days to stop the spread which is now over a year and uh coronavirus of course has changed uh the pesach uh situation uh there are pesach programs i saw that are open but you can be sure that here in the ravioloski show our faceoff program is open and running i have my matsutai and uh we're uh we're going strong and uh we have a sponsor for the first episode it is sponsored anonymously in honor of paul laster all over shalom's which falls out on the 13th of nisan uh i i have to say uh captain paul laster i had the course of knowing captain laster he is his story is so incredibly fascinating uh he was a secular jew who was concerned for the future of the state of israel and he said that you uh you're going to have a problem in your army because if the people don't know what they're fighting for if they don't believe in judaism or they don't they don't forget about believing in it if they don't recognize judaism they don't have jewish values why give your life for a jewish state emigrate someplace where it's uh not so many problems yeah that was his uh contention so he went to the israeli army again as a secular jew to say we have to teach uh judaism to uh the armed forces and they put him in charge of the idf because the eye actually the israeli air force uh because the iaf yeah i guess uh because the air force is the most important branch because it takes so much money to train a pilot you want to make sure that they're still dedicated there was a story of a terrorist um who was in prison and he writes that he was basically ready to give up on the cause and you know say we just have to make a peace with israel and uh it was during pesach and he saw his one of the guards in the prison was uh eating comets so the arab terrorist says to the jewish uh guard you're not allowed to do that and he left and he says what do you think i'm worried about some law from 3000 years ago and he writes when i heard that i doubled down and said let's stick to our principles because these are people who don't believe in anything anymore and we'll win this world so that's what captain laster basically came and said to them you have to teach them uh basic principles about judaism and so um he arranged for the pilots to study enorsamaya take them to different programs take them to meet with different uh religious thinkers from all streams and eventually uh the air force cut his program because too many of the pilots will be coming from that wasn't his intention his intention was just that they should develop a jewish identity so eventually of course he found his way back as well and uh his accomplishment uh and accomplishments on behalf of the jewish people is something uh to be noted and so is the shaman should have an aliyah and the world is a better place for having had him in it okay and uh a quick uh shout out every now and then i get asked to give a shout out a shout out to my good friend robbie amy cohen uh who i had the scores of meeting and having a cash with over the years and uh we uh we went together with racial once mr shapiro took an abrahack and uh he brought me in to see his dad with devin cohen who gave me a whole bunch of his swarm and inscribed them to me which i i prize and cherish to this day and uh he's given me some great stories anyways his birthday so a shout out i mean we love you and uh happy birthday okay let's get down to business yeah this is an unusual year if you haven't noticed i'm not just talking about corona gosh not for ready yeah um it's uh dr fauci in america basically told people who've already had the vaccine that they should still wear two masks uh okay anyway it's been an unusual uh it's been an unusual year on a lot of a lot of accounts but be that as it may we um um where uh know that just from a calendar point of view i don't know if that's a real word or if i just made it up but uh listen i can coin a phrase if i so choose from a collective point of view this has been unusual uh shabbos hanukkah wasn't partial to me case that almost never happens yeah i mean it happens but it's rare um i swear batteries came out on friday it's the only fast day that you fast on friday when it comes out everything else you push to a different date they had a servant a base we of course here in jerusalem had a three-day purim and now we're going to have erev pesach on the shabbos well claude israel is making a seam this week on mercedes in daffy mee we of course uh er here in my own share um that we give adaption only share that you can join just go to the robert elonski website if you want to sign up we're starting him already we were a little bit ahead but uh um there's a lot of sugars that discuss what happens when arab pesach comes out on shabbos because you start to bring a corporate peso as a general rule you're not allowed to bring carbon ice on shabbos except you know there's a special dispensation to bring it and uh people had to bring their own knives to the base of mikdash there was a run on knives as you can imagine the kimono says that one year they counted and there was 1.2 million carbon pesocks offered up so uh knives were premium you had to work fast to do all those code runners in the period of time that you had people would bring their own knives they come out discussed how'd you get it there in charge ended up sticking it in the wool and letting the animal carry it but uh once they shifted it they would wait on the hard bias they couldn't go home that night they would go home and they first roasted the pesach so uh so there was always challenges when it comes out this year of course is one of those years and what is the challenge it's been a lot of years i don't know how many people remember i was just talking to somebody who definitely i know for a fact you know was alive the last time and they're like what are we doing i don't remember any of this so i'll tell you what you do you have to be all pacific air shops yeah now you know normally uh the night before heir of pesach you do your bad eco with a candle and a feather and a spoon searching out for all of the comments and then you burn it every person in the morning well that's not gonna work because you can't walk around with a candle friday night you certainly can't burn it on shabbos so thursday night we will do our badika's comments and we'll do sreyfas comments on on friday morning but of course you have to hold on to some comments you have to hold on to some comments why is that because you have to eat three suitors on shabbos one of them at night and two of them during the day now ideally you should eat the one at night at night you should eat the one in the morning before hot sois and you should eat the one shall i show this in the afternoon but you have a little problem here and that is pesach you can't eat you can't eat matzo gemara gives a very dramatic description of what it's like when you eat uh matzah on air pesach which i will not share with you you're welcome to go and look up i get into enough trouble as it is the last thing i want to do is quote a gemara that could somehow get me into even more trouble but uh maven yavin and those who would like to look it up you can go look it up you know i've heard for years from kids who when they learned voracious in elementary school and they skipped the story of yehuda and tama they all run home and learn that's why i think uh in many girls high schools is to skip safe of a yikra they forget you'll run home and read it you know i've spoken to girls in high schools like you say hypnotist makes you forget the number seven does it count to ten one two three four five six eight nine ten yeah so uh every every high school i go to it's four-year high school i said uh what what are you doing flemish gracious nobody so i imagine it's because it's kajamin tumantara and so they figured that this way you know you'll uh you'll run home and you'll read it because you think it must be one of those sections you're not allowed to talk about in public if so it's brilliant absolutely brilliant yeah when i uh speak in england and south africa uh they used the term brilliant for like it was nice you know an american you speak this oh that was very nice you know it was good it was enjoyable when you go to these places they go brilliant rabbi and i was like well yes i suppose so but anyway uh so you can't eat it and face the truth of the matter is that there are those who have admitted not to eat it for the month before and i have to tell you i never have such a diver to eat matzah as i do the week before beza it's obviously psychological yeah go through them with super machinima super it's always greater if you keep a mitzvah when you're commanded because it's psychologically more difficult because when i tell you you can't do something you want to when i tell you i have to do something you don't want to if you don't believe me just look when it comes to a fast day there are people who never eat breakfast they're mothers they have shed tears have something have a cup of coffee everything i don't like to eat in the morning they never eat breakfast sometimes they forget to eat lunch i've met people like this three four o'clock in the afternoon and they're like hmm i didn't eat anything today i i do that sometimes my wife said what are you talking about you had this yet this year okay but besides that but there are people don't eat breakfast somebody said they can't need lunch there's no problem except on a fast thing nine o'clock in the morning they're pacing up and now what am i going to do i didn't eat anything today oh my gosh how am i going to make it through what time is it 901 oh my gosh maybe i shouldn't go to work today i better lie down i think i'm getting a headache you know what time is it 902 oh how am i going to handle it so what's the problem i didn't eat anything you never eat anything i know but i always could you tell me i can't i'm stuck and that's why i have no problem staying up very late at night except on schwarz night i'm sitting at the suit at 10 30 at night and i'm falling asleep because i have to see how i can't stay up yeah i always get depressed on circus the pressure to be happy so uh you know it's there's a certain psychological aspect so when you tell me a month before you can't have much i'm thinking that is so exciting because there are certain things that are just such a thrill now to those of you who do not eat your breasts you have my greatest respect i certainly don't want to say anything to disparage anybody's uh personal uh observance and uh i did not grow up uh not in cabrox we grew up eating the brother but uh one of the great delights is you know because you don't really have too many cakes that are made with matzo meal because they come out pretty heavy so the miracle of potato starch yeah so uh so when we um you come home from school see me kiddish yeah well yeah there's your wash already i mean it's just a matcha you know wash and you can go through a box of matcha with no problem cream cheese and butter and jelly and again for those of you who don't need the brushes you don't know what i'm talking about but trust me but that's not even great the two greatest thrills is when you have filled the fish with crane on a mata the other one is chopped liver it's so exciting yeah and uh you end up just eating a tremendous amount no it's just the nature of it because uh mats are just just crackers you know it's amazing you know it comes to color people are like you know i don't want to imagine anything you know so you can't have any monster face on and you can only eat um hummus till approximately 10 30 in the morning whatever it is so subs amount of healing and um and that's it now you have a problem because i gotta get in two meals in the morning like 10 30 in the morning so what do you do so i mean i'm diving very early you have to go to sean if the dog can you hurry home and uh you wash and you eat uh your bread and then you bench and then you take a walk around the block i have to say that walk around the park in the morning see everybody walking around is a kind of dramatic moment i mean the last time i did that was after i got a shiver from my mother the ref took me and my brothers we all had to look around the black it was a it's a dramatic kind of a walk so this is a little less dramatic but you see a lot of people walking around the block to make have sick then they come home they wash again they eat their second sudah and they bench right now this is so nerve-wracking because your whole house is basically you have to be patient so what do you do friday night now some people actually are homestead they might almost have common stick of food in disposable calum or whatever uh i i may have mentioned this last year you know my in-laws like every place up in the morning you know they had to have a space attack they were all set and my father would go out and buy bagels and they would sit down on the pacific kitchen table with a paper bag they eat their bagels wrap it up take it to famous comments and that would be just too nerve-wracking for me right uh it's it's it's a pressure you have to be ready and then everything we'll pay to take before shops which is become a status symbol when will you pay today oh we we were basically wednesday wednesday we don't pay monday monday we were basically like right after poorer but i am i was at the tuba spot on uh over here we had an extra holiday we've been eating basically now for four months really we never changed over we've been eating basic the entire year yeah so uh so when your house is pacific and you know we are in that state now we're sort of like half and half you know grandchildren come for uh comfort shoppers and running around the house like cookies and very nerve-wracking so you have to have everything all done here are these okay for my spartak friends uh well pesach you can eat these these kidneys cookies that basically look like real cookies not like the potato starch cookies that we eat that really you should eat them with ketchup basically french fries but uh you know they have uh they have these kidneys cookies that are like real cookies and so people give their children the kidneys cook the problem is that when you're doing bodhigas comments you can't really tell the difference between the kidneys cookies and regular cookies and you're like finding these little hair pieces of cookies all over the house so uh kind of nerve-wracking my good friends of the amishas make their whole house face stick they pick up their family in cold way they come back like this everything's all set you know so uh so you have to decide okay so let's say i'm not bringing in a whole common sticker supper but i have to make hamilton so there are people who get a challah you know and they slice it up and everyone eats their kazias um this is a little problematic because it tends to make a lot of crumbs now my good friend rebel yitzchak summers the rev of ancient los angeles we went to yeshiva together the first time in 1975. i was only three years old but uh he uh he uh i had to squish when i brought me out for shabbos a number of times and uh we need a suitor by his house and he tells me that if you use a straight blade uh knife it doesn't make any crumbs the problem is that people use serrated knives and that's when you end up with crumbs but otherwise you wouldn't have any crumbs so i could think about that i've never actually tried it i really should because i still use the color knives that came with the board you know i stick the handle back on and you know try to hold it carefully but hey man um so that's why the advice that they give you is to eat pita now i remember two uh air of pesach bosom ago and a lot of little kids and i bought too many pieces i have explain this this is this is important to understand yeah do you ever go over somebody's house where there's a mother of father uh a teenager and you and they make like four pieces of chicken everyone takes like one piece of chicken and so there are there are no doubles you you had a piece of chick okay uh i can admire that i can't relate to it but i can admire it i've seen this sometimes you're hungry [Laughter] but you already had your piece of chicken that's it salads green beans that's more than enough for you cup of tea you're done now my mother had six boys and uh you have to say that i grew up in a house where we express our uh our love through food that was really the main way to express that yeah um it was it was tough you know i'm trying to keep seder and house you know with these six rambunctious young men so uh you know so but the easy way was food stick something on your mouth you're not talking first married uh something happened at work i don't remember what it was it was some kind of problem i was on the way home my mother called my wife and said uh he had a bad day make a mistake put a mistake that's that's how we deal with tension that's what we do with problems that's how we express love what a mistake yeah so uh my mother on a rosh hashanah used to make her uncle felt the fish balls this size and i'm not exaggerating and then stuffed cabbage and then her own chopped liver sometimes she would also make eggs and onions to get a little bit of both on that plate yeah and then a choice of soup she'd make cabbage soup with flunket and if you got that you get a big piece of flanking or you got uh chicken soup and then you had a choice of uh well you have a choice i think you got everything in the bowl you know you got a canada and you got a choice of alphabet noodles or regular noodles and chinese noodles on the tray and uh on the table and uh rock you know and my father used to uh get either cash or a piece of potato coco and put it in you know and then you came to the main course which was always a turkey and a brisket my mother could not make one of those two in fact when i was one time coming into america so my brother calls me up and he says listen don't tell mom you're coming because she'll make a turkey and a brisket now you know if she doesn't have enough time she'll only make a brisket you know or a turkey and i have to tell you it's not that easy to finish an entire turkey with me and my mother i mean i made a yeoman's effort but you know my mother would make a pot of soup and as i'm eating the soup she's refilling it as i'm eating it i was like no i i just can't so i have to throw it away oh okay there's a norse uh story of thor with the giants and he they give him a drinking horn to finish and he can't finish it turns out it was it was uh attached to the seas and he drank half the sea yeah that's nothing if my mother was giving him chicken soup [Laughter] but uh you know and then about three hundred dollars a bakery cake you know i mean and that that was rosh hashanah and uh uh at the seder it was the same basic thing only uh there was uh no uh stuffed cabbage but she had everything else i would be way behind you know because i was still you know eating my mods and stuff you know and the courses are just lining up you know in front of me because i just can't get them now my eloise my mother-in-law would make soup twice a year uh eric kipper and pesach you're eating matzah and eating more it was so much fun that then we eat them both together and then at the end you have to eat more monsters how much can you eat how much could you eat so you have some soup it's a boiled chicken you know you know grace potatoes i don't know you know that's it cup of tea piece of cake now we're ready for uh you know so me and my wife came from two different perceptions you know in fact my mother when she used to make chopped liver she had a very specific way of serving it to put a lettuce leaf on the plate and then you put on the chopped liver and then there were three slices of cucumber and two slices of tomato and a green pepper circle on top and a radish flour and uh sometimes you know what i haven't given a recipe in a while it could be my mother's chocolate recipe i don't think i have a kid uh get about a pound of cashew delivers or uh half a kilo or if you're in israel get a medium mixing bowl with chopped onions fry them up with oil and then use a meat grinder put in the livers and the onions and at the end three hard-boiled eggs now always put in the hot boiled eggs at the end because the liver and the onions get stuck inside the machine but the egg helps to push it out and if some egg gets stuck in there i don't understand but you know fried onions anyway so uh you know put it through now if you don't have a meat grinder attachment you can use a food processor but you got to be very careful it's very hard because um you want it to be like a little grainy you know you don't want it to be a pate i mean some people like it a pate but to me it should be a little a little body to it personality is this [Laughter] so uh you know so like what i would make top liver my wife would be like it's too much work and i said why what's the big deal because because it's our shabbos and you're sitting there with the little knife cutting little radish flour and i was like but how else do you serve chocolate she goes what if i just put it on a plate and put it on the table and i was like i don't know i've never done that i've never even seen it i don't know how it works you know it turns out that you can eat it that way i didn't know i learned something but um and if you put it on my mouth anyway but um uh so uh so i come from a house where we just we always make too much food it's just too much food that's that's how we that's how we cook is my mother didn't know how to cook in small amounts it was impossible so um so we tend to make more food than you know my wife has been converted you know so that we make enough food and she's like do you think this would be enough maybe we should throw up another pan of chicken i don't know should i make another cake do you think that and i was like i'm sure it'll be fine you know this goes against all of my training you know anyway so i knew that we have to eat pitas right two two meals and all you're basically eating is pita you know so i think yeah okay so a pizza person i got a bunch of little kids and because i thought pizzas would be kind of boring so i bought those like thick yemenite pizzas anyway we're gonna have two meals and we got like 15 of these gigantic pizzas left i'm sitting there ripping them into little pieces flushing them anyway so uh be uh careful if you're going to go with pizzas or what colors or with any of these things people are not going to eat too much of this because you're not eating your meal with uh with it now where do you do it the whole house is facing it so you can do like some hasidim do uh my son is nadia to uh a langston family and he says they put down plastic at the table they eat their mozzas and then they take up the plastic and take it away so there shouldn't be any crumbs they're very nervous about your brush so i guess it would be a similar thing on your pesach table you can put out your plastic and eat your bread over there you know what i mean and then wrap it up take it to the toilet shake all the crumbs in and it's one thing if you have a backyard or you have a porch you can do it there and then you have to sweep it up and flush the crumbs down the toilet whatever's left um you could um but then you have to make sure you clean out the broom yeah so uh for nerve-wracking if you have if you have an apartment building your lobby you can put it there you know you know have uh more room to be able to try to get it so okay these are these are things that you have to do but it's uh yeah it's a little nerve wrack now really you should be eating some sugars later in the afternoon so uh people are going to be able to eat uh you know uh at least some fruit or things like that for shane charles shooters some people eat canada because since it's boiled it doesn't have the tom of matzah and so they would have them make a messiness on it but okay all right these are these are the challenges coming up um the other downside is you can't even start getting ready for the seder until the night so i just heard that uh my upstairs neighbor was kaye greenwald or seminar he just told me he's gonna set the whole cedar it's got a lot of people coming everything's gonna be all set up et cetera and they're gonna get in the kitchen yeah um we have a hudson i guess what to eat out there have everything all set up um but it's uh you know it's a uh depends on the weather it's supposed to rain in there until it's coming weeks see what happens but um uh you have to get everything ready the good side is that at least you're relaxed you know you don't have you don't have uh the crazy air face stuff going on uh you have to eat you have to make sure to eat um my son-in-law mama katkas who was nice enough to host that's the shop is uh he said uh you know i'm gonna miss out on one of the great treats because of pesach now people are busy changing over and things are mr hindish the hair whatever you're eating yeah he says my mother would just fry up the schnitzel pieces with potato starch and you could just everyone know the whole family came over uh earth pesach and would eat the fresh hot schnitzels right out of the pan so he says to see i'm going to have to miss out on that because i can't fry on travis i guess you could make a mad beforehand but uh not the same thing just not the same um some people end up not eating uh or face off because it's so crazy you know um when uh i had discuss to uh be a scholar residents on occasion uh they sometimes make these spreads sometimes it's like tuna and egg salad and salad and stuff like that that you can you know have part of some places that make a little flesh could spread you know people eat obviously there's no matcha there's no bread you know they eat guns fine yeah um the last time arrow shot is i that eric pays out of the chavez um i had this close to be in the kinah hotel near the yankee merit up north skolnick a dear beloved friend who runs a wonderful tourist uh services organization called travel deal if you're looking for anything in eric's show that you need to take care of i highly recommend it and uh he would bring my family up and ensure treated us spanish like malchus and it's just wonderful and uh those are some of the some of our finest memories and uh he himself and his wife are just the most wonderful people we um in fact a couple years ago we just went up for the day you know and they just you know i said you know we'll eat supper and i'll do a shirt you know and he just the whole day couldn't couldn't do enough to me it's just just such wonderful people but i remember i was there in arab praise shabbos and they have like a little like you know hot serra and piles of pizzas and you'd wash and you need your pizza and brush yourself off and go into the dining room which was all basically they can have you sued them um what happened to everything afterwards i don't know maybe the arabs took it back you know and they dealt with that i don't know what they did with it but wow isn't that great just go someplace else you eat your pizza and you walk away and leave it for somebody else to deal with um i do this with many things in my life actually but this is a great time to be able to do it but uh what can i tell you it's uh it's an unusual year it's an unusual situation you have to make sure you have all your seder preparations done beforehand grind up your horseradish and keep it in an airtight container so it doesn't lose it's wash your lettuce you can make your little bags of murra beforehand but make sure it's dry because if it's wet it could be a problem make your horizons make your um make your uh roost just your your shank bone or whatever it is that you're eating you know for your on your seda plate and boil up your eggs and you know all those sort of things get all that done beforehand um make as much of the food for the south as you can beforehand so that you can hopefully uh start to use seder you know as quickly as possible um here in israel they changed the clock mamish era of uh thursday night there was a night before base they couldn't wait another three days so we don't have to start to say this so late but uh what can i tell you the people who run the state of israel don't always have those uh considerations the date they chose um to expel the jews from gaza and they picked an english state for whatever considerations and only later they found out it was tisha belt they realized the optics of dragging a bunch of jews might not be the most positive message [Laughter] but uh you know the un headquarters before 1948 when they came they set up the un headquarters in jerusalem they chose a mountain that in christianity is known as the hill of evil council again i would have considered that before but uh that's it face off is uh it's a it's a special time so uh get your preparations get ready and then face like a king sit back relax uh go into the seder well rested and uh hopefully all of your preparations are done although i must say there's still enough time for the chef to come and you'll all come here in your line i think they'll take off the coronavirus restrictions by then and you'll all come in and we'll be standing there on the higher bias yeah with our uh corbin passox waiting to go home saturday night roast them and eat them the right way and mr hashem will all share that pesach experience together so that's it for our first episode in our face-off program uh if you'd like to find out more about this show you can go to my website rabralofsky.com if you want to find out about our new uh scepter that we're doing in daffy and join up for this year yeah you can uh sign up over there i still am giving myself uh one on sunday one on monday you can sign up from there even though they're ongoing but i always give a quick review before every class so that you can fit in wherever we have to be um if you uh uh you can make uh leave a comment about the show you can send me an email i could sponsor an episode whatever works for you and that's it for the first episode of our special pesach program i am debbie dolowski and this is the reverend livestream it's the rabbi orlovsky show tora and simcha ready to go the rabbi orlovsky show knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme no no it's the rabbi orlovsky show on rabbi orlovsky.com torah anytime youtube and more [Music] show till next time till we meet again throughout my orlowski show it's the rabbi yolovsky show it's the rabbi orlowski