Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Appreciating the Good by Recognizing the Bad

Okay, good evening again. Thank you for for coming and once again I share tonight this dedicated to the Refuah Shlema of the young man Binyamin Yisrael ben Chanita who's going through a very difficult time. And we pray that Hashem should give him a Refuah Shlema besoch shaar cholei Yisrael and all of the Torah that we're learning and in many other places as well should all be for for his benefit and a zechus for klal Yisrael generally. We are of course this week beginning the second Chumash. And in English, the second Chumash is known as Exodus which is a very logical name. It is the story of the Jews leaving Egypt. The rabbinic name for the book of Shemot is Sefer HaGeulah, the book of redemption, which is also a very sensible name because we were redeemed from Eretz Mitzrayim. That's one of that's what the process is called. But the Netziv in the Hakdamah, in the introduction to his commentary Haamek Davar, brings in the name of the Gaonim that every Chumash has its own a nickname. So, for example, the book of Bereishit is called Sefer HaYashar, the book of the upright, because it describes the lives of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov who are called upright and righteous. The book of Vayikra, I'll come back to Shmos in a moment, is called Toras Kohanim, the laws of the priests, because so many of the details in Vayikra are about sacrifices and the service of the Mishkan. The book of Bamidbar is called Chumash HaPikudim, the book of Numbers, which is actually corresponds to the English one, because the book of Bamidbar has the counting of the Jewish people, both at the beginning of the 40 years after they left Egypt and at the end of the 40 years, the new generation. And the book of Devarim goes by the name Mishneh Torah, which means the repetition of the law. In fact, actually, that's what Deuteronomy means. Deuteronomy means second law, because much of the book of Devarim, not all of it, is Moshe Rabbenu reviewing the commandments that had already been given before his death. So, every Chumash has a nickname, Sefer HaYashar, Toras Kohanim, Chumash HaPikudim, Mishneh Torah. What is the nickname for the book of Shmos? So, the the Netziv brings from the Gaonim, it is not, like as the Ramban has it, Sefer HaGeulah, which would make perfect sense, but it's simply called Chumash HaSheni. Shmos is called the second book. What type of name is that? That's not very descriptive. Of course, it's the second book, but it tells me nothing about the significance of the book, it tells me nothing about the content of the book. Why can't we give Shmos a nickname like we give every other book of the Chumash, of the Torah? So, the Netziv explains very beautifully that Chumash HaSheni doesn't just mean it's the second Chumash. It means it is part two of Bereishis. In other words, Chumash Bereishis is Genesis part one, and Chumash Shmos is Genesis part two. That's very important. In other words, the significance of the title is linking Chumash Shmos to Chumash Breishis. How is that so? Genesis, Breishis, in fact, that's what Genesis actually means, uh is a book of creation. It is the creation of heaven and earth. It is the beginning of the creation of the Jewish people by tracing the lives of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov and the birth of the 12 tribes. But we know that creation had a purpose. There was a reason God made the world. And that reason, our sages teach us, and Rashi brings it in the beginning of Breishis, God created the world, really created the universe, so that there would be a nation, the Jewish people, who would accept God's Torah. That is the why of creation. So, consequently, Sefer Breishis is the fact of creation. And Sefer Shmos is the why of creation, that the Jewish people leave Egypt and they accept the Torah at Har Sinai. So, consequently, it is quite logical to call the book of Shmos part two. Part one gives you the facts and part two gives you the significance of those facts. going to discuss this a little later on when we talk about Matan Torah, the receiving of the Torah. Uh but basically, if the Jewish people would not have accepted the Torah, the world would have ceased to exist. Chazal actually envision that the 26 generations of creation that existed from Adam until Moshe were living on credit. They were living on borrowed time. God was waiting to see, of course God knows the future, but in the sense he was waiting to see if the Jewish people would accept the Torah. And if they would not have accepted the Torah, the world would have reverted back to its primeval stage of tohu vavohu, total jumbledness, confusion, emptiness. It's very interesting, even tohu vavohu is kind of a contradictory term. It connotes both emptiness and a jumbled confusion. Now, based on normal human logic, you can't have both. If something is empty, there's nothing there. And yet tohu vavohu is a combination of being empty and jumbled and confused at the same time. That's the primeval state of the universe. That is what it would have gone back into. And that is why the book of Shemot, Shemot Sheini. Now, the book of Shemot really has three themes in the evolution of the Jewish nation with a few detours, sometimes in the wrong direction. The three themes are the Exodus from Egypt, number one. Number two, the receiving of the Torah at Sinai. And number three, the resting of God's presence amongst the nation by the building of a tabernacle or sanctuary. Now, as I say, there were some left turns, there were some detours like the sin of the golden calf, so to speak, that took us away from our mission for a while. And there are still repercussions. But in terms of the positive trajectory of what made us a nation, we have these three stages. We leave the servitude of Egypt to become committed to God. We receive and connect to God's will as expressed in the Torah. In other words, we understand that the purpose of freedom is not simply to be free. The purpose of freedom is to submit to God's authority. I think I've quoted perhaps more than once the beautiful metaphor of the Indian poet Tagore, who is not obviously not Jewish and he wasn't even talking about Jews. I don't know if he knew any Jews. But he once described the human soul as akin to a violin string that can produce beautiful resonant music. If I take a string, a loose string, and I just put it on the kitchen table, it's loose. It's free. It's unencumbered. There is nothing that's restricting it. What music will you be able to get out of it? Nothing at all. All of the beauty that is within can be expressed only when the string is tied down across the bridge of the violin. That's a very powerful metaphor. We sometimes think if only we would be free, if only we would have no restrictions, if only we would have no limitations, then we could fly, then we could be everything that we're able to be. But the lesson of Judaism is exactly Tagore's metaphor. It is only by submission to God that you achieve freedom. Because the freedom that is not connected to discipline and responsibility is not human freedom. It is simply the freedom of the wild animal. That's why Chazal say that the sacrifice that is brought, the grain sacrifice that is brought on Pesach is barley. That's called the Omer. And the special grain sacrifice that is brought on Shavuot, the holiday of Matan Torah is wheat. And at least in those days before the invention of cholent barley was primarily animal fodder. So, the idea is a Passover which celebrates freedom that is not yet linked to acceptance of God's Torah is the freedom of the animal. When you have Torah at that point it now becomes human dignity. And therefore, it's very very important that the Torah links Yitziat Mitzrayim with Matan Torah. Because once again, Matan Torah is act two of the Exodus. Because an Exodus without Matan Torah would be counterproductive, would be destructive. In fact, in Western civilization, I mean there are a lot of issues that Western civilizations are facing today. Islamic fundamentalism and the like, but even before the rise of Islam, which is kind of the latest thing that we're facing uh the primary issue that we were facing was a loss of morality, a loss of values based on the elevation of freedom above everything. The idea was that freedom meant there were no limitations, no moral constraints. Whatever made you feel good was by definition right. But what that did was that created a tremendous sense of aimlessness of depression of despair of violence. Because you know, the truth of the matter is even if we like to play the game if only I'm free, I'll be happy. Deep inside we know. This is certainly true for Jews and it's really true really for all human beings. That our soul comes from God. Our soul is the breath of God. We crave purpose. We crave being connected to something that is greater than our physical satisfaction of needs. And when we don't have that, we try to kill the pain by alcohol, by drugs, by sex, by diversions, by recreation, by workaholism. Because the pain never goes away. The pain of not having a meaning, not having a purpose, not having a goal besides your own gratification. Eats you up alive. So, the truth of the matter is even people who are very, very far from serving God, in their hearts of hearts, feel an emptiness and a pain that they try to kill by all sorts of diversions. But distractions only last so long. And at some point, it hits a person like a ton of bricks. You can call it midlife crisis. You can call it burnout. You know, there are a lot of different terms you can use. But it's the realization, what is my life about? Where is it going? What's the purpose? What's the point? And that is why it is so critical in the Jewish structure of things, that we have to connect Matan Torah with Yetziat Mitzrayim. In fact, although this is not our topic tonight per se, that is why even during the Passover festival, we begin the countdown or the count up to the counting of the Omer. It's like we almost begin celebrating Shavuot in the middle of Pesach. Because once again, Shavuot and Pesach are not really two separate holidays. It is Shavuot that tells us what the value of Pesach is. There was a well-known disciple of Sigmund Freud who happened to be Jewish. Freud was of course Jewish and many of his talmidim were Jewish as well. Uh Eric Fromm. Eric Fromm was not a was not an observant Jew. Uh I believe he might have committed suicide if I recall, but whatever it was, Eric Fromm once made a very very fine remark. And he said, "We make a very big mistake when we define freedom as freedom from something. That's only a negative. Freedom has to be freedom towards something. And if the freedom is not towards something, it's simply escaping a bad situation. Hey, it's good. It's I mean I'm in favor of escaping bad situations. I'm not against that, but that still doesn't give you a purpose. What do you do with your freedom? And that's a real real problem. Now, it could be when people lived in poverty, all right, so listen. You you you what you did with your freedom was you spent the whole day looking for bread or whatever it is, but but precisely when you live in a more affluent society, the issue of what do you do with your freedom becomes a much more acute and painful question than perhaps it might have been when you had to spend so much of your time on mere animal animal survival. So, that's the first two events in the book of Exodus. The Exodus from Egypt culminating in Matan Torah. But then there's a third event that's really kind of the cherry on top of the sundae. And that is to make yourself a tabernacle for God. You know, um when the Torah describes the building of the Mishkan, again I think we'll talk about this in more detail in a few weeks. The commandment was build for me a tabernacle, a dwelling place. Mishkan means dwelling place. V'shachanti di so I will dwell b'tocham in their midst. God doesn't say I dwell in that building. God says I dwell in your heart and in your soul. That building, whether it's the Mishkan of the desert or whether it's the Beit Hamikdash of Yerushalayim is a symbol of the divine presence that rests in our heart and in our soul. And you know why the temple gets destroyed? The temple gets destroyed when the divine presence is not here. When it's not here we lose the building. When it is here the building comes back. The building is kind of that litmus test of the divine presence. I I shouldn't I shouldn't quote uh non-Jewish religious music, but there's actually a beautiful hymn, I think it's an old Shaker hymn about the Lord make me a sanctuary. Again, there's nothing about Yushkein in this uh it's a but it's a beautiful old uh song, around 200 years old, that talks about let my heart be a sanctuary for your presence. And that's actually based on what our chazal taught. V'yasu li Mikdash make a temple v'shachanti b'tocham so I will dwell within you. And that's where Shemot takes us. Shemoth takes us from abject slavery to the greatest thing that can happen. My very life is a sanctuary for God. That's the Shekhinah. The word Shekhinah, which we mean divine presence, comes from dwelling. So, Shekhinah, see, God is infinite. God, by definition, cannot be contained. But the aspects of God that are capable of residing in this world, that's called the Shekhinah. And we make ourselves the Mishkan, the dwelling place, uh for the for the Shekhinah. So, the centrality of the Exodus is very, very apparent. Uh not only do we annually observe a Seder, where we go through the whole Haggadah, but I don't know if you know this, but every single day of the year, there's a mitzvah from the Torah to verbally remember the Exodus of Egypt. We have to do it once in the daytime, and we do it once at night. This is a mitzvah d'Oraita. It goes by two different names. The annual mitzvah of talking about Yetziat Mitzrayim is called Sipur. Sipur is elaborate, the Haggadah. But every day, we don't go through the whole Haggadah, obviously, but Sekhirah, you must remember. That is why we we we we That's at least that's one of the reasons why we say the third paragraph of Shema. See, the mitzvah of Kriat Shema is only the first two paragraphs, at most, Shema and Hayah Im Shamoa. The parashah about the tzitzit is not really part of Shema. So, why do we say it? So, there are a few reasons. In the daytime, we say it because the mitzvah of tzitzit is a reminder of the 613 commandments of the Torah. But at night, where there's no mitzvah of tzitzis, why do I say that third paragraph? Answer, because of one verse at the very end, I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt to be your God, your Lord. And when you say that, you are fulfilling and I think the ArtScroll even has a little note there, you should have kavana to fulfill the mitzvah of remembering the Exodus. Every Shabbos when we say kiddush, we're talking about Shabbos. We say zecher. This is also to remind us of yetziat Mitzrayim. The mitzvah of tefillin was given to us to remind us of the Exodus of Egypt. Many, many commandments are connected to yetziat Mitzrayim. That's how important it is that we remember every single day. We're going to discuss in a few minutes, why is it so important that I remember the Exodus, but I want to bring up another point first. When Chazal composed the Haggadah, they they imposed certain requirements in the structure of the document. And the Mishnah mentions that one of the requirements of the narration of the story of the Exodus is it is not enough to simply say that God took me out of Egypt. You got to begin with the negatives. You got to talk about the slavery and the suffering and the humiliation and the idolatry and the paganism that even the Jews were guilty of. Meaning, it's not enough to talk about the good part of the story. You got to talk about the bad part of the story, too. And if you only talked about the good part of the story, you talked about the plagues and the Red Sea and leaving Mitzrayim with great wealth, all the good things that Hashem did, you just sang the Dayenu with a lot of enthusiasm, you would not have fulfilled the mitzvah until you describe the bitterness, the degradation, the shame and the humiliation. This is a halakha and the Haggadah was written based on that premise. This halakha is called in the Mishna maskhil big nus u'mesayem beshvach that you begin with the bad, the shame, and you culminate in the praise. Why is that so important? Why can't I just go to the good stuff? That would shorten the Seder, I would get to the matzah ball soup uh more quickly and the like. Why do I need to go over the bad stuff? Now, don't we often say, "Forget about the bad memories, focus on the positive?" So, I'm going to give you three reasons. The first reason is a relatively simple reason, and that is it is the nature of human beings that we don't appreciate the good things in our lives until we've experienced the bad things. A person often does not appreciate economic security unless they were poor and didn't have it. A person sometimes does not appreciate the gift of health until God forbid they're sick. Those of you that have uh parents or grandparents who came uh either survivors of the Holocaust, they would be older now, or people that came from oppressed societies like the old Soviet Union, they tend to be very patriotic when they come to land of freedom, whether it be the United States or whether it be Israel, or other Western countries, they tend to be very patriotic, right? They'll support that. They will celebrate the 4th of July. They will vote. Uh Yom Ha'atzmaut is a big deal. Because they know what it's like to be oppressed. They know what it's like not to have freedom. And when they have freedom, they appreciate it as a gift. But nebach, those of us who were fortunate enough to be born into free and affluent societies and to go through much of our lives without poverty, even if we're not affluent, but at least, you know, middle class, and with the relatively good health, and with political and social freedom, and with mobility and educational opportunities, in some ways we ought to be more grateful. Because we didn't have to go through the difficulties. And yet, it's human nature exactly the opposite. We take things for granted. So, it's an unfortunate truism of human nature that we have to remember or experience the bad and the negative in order to appreciate the good. You know, the Chovot Halevavot gives a very, very nice mashal. He says, "Imagine you were a person who was born into abject poverty. Your home was a pit in the ground. You lived on, you know, nothing, you know, a piece of bread the whole day. Your clothing was rags. You were dirty and filthy and sick with illnesses, never getting any medical treatment. And one day a benefactor, a king arrived, took you out of the pit, cleaned you up, gave you a bath and a haircut, dressed you in good clothing, gave you a home and a comfortable bed, and gave you wonderful food. How grateful you would be to that benefactor. How much every single day that you got up, you would be thanking you thanking God, thanking the benefactor. Your heart would be filled with gratitude. Now, imagine the same scenario, except instead of being the guy in the pit, that's how you were born. You were born with that roof over you. You were born with that bed. You were born with the medical guy. You were born with the education. You were born with the clothing. In a way, your life is much better than that guy because you didn't have 20 years of that deprivation. But you would not have the feeling of that gratitude. So, answer number one to my question, why is there a point of reliving, re-describing, imagining slavery, degradation, humiliation? It's simply because it's only by utilizing that imaginative reconstruction of what it was like that I can feel the enormity of gratitude that I must have because God took us out of there. In other words, it's a before and after. I need the before to appreciate the after. Now, that's a very straightforward, simple answer, and that's a perfectly valid answer. I'm not questioning that answer. Well, I am questioning it. I do I do have a question on the answer though. And my question on the answer is this. The problem is God is the one who put me into that slavery. You know, God told Abraham, "Your children will be enslaved in a land that is not theirs for 400 years." Now, granted, God took us out after 210 years, 190 years early, because if we would have stayed even another minute, right, our sages tell us, we were on the 49th level of tumah, of impurity, we would have been sinking fast, and even the amount of time it takes for dough to become chametz. We would have hit level 50. So, God had to take us out early. But, I mean, imagine if I took you, I kidnapped you, I threw you in a prison cell for no reason, I locked the door, I come back 290 I'm sorry, 210 years later, assuming you're still alive, I'm still alive, and I say, "Be grateful to me because I'm letting you out 190 years early." Well, you may not want to complain in case I throw you back again, but surely in your mind you're thinking, "Why should I be grateful to you? You're the one that put me into slavery in the first place." So, to make the argument, I got to remember the slavery because it is the slavery that generates my gratitude to God raises a very serious problem, and that is God himself is the architect of that slavery experience. So, where where where where should my gratitude come from? So, because of this, I think we need to move to a bit of a deeper answer. We were free before we were in Egypt. We were free, we became slaves, we become free. If the freedom we had after the servitude was nothing more than returning us to the freedom that we had before the servitude, we could legitimately be angry at God for putting us through this. What was the point? But, the deeper insight has to be that we gained precious gifts not just from the freedom from slavery, but the slavery experience itself was transformative. The freedom that we acquired as a result of going through the slavery experience is not simply putting us back to exactly where we were before. Rather we have become transformed. We have become elevated. We have become changed. And therefore the deeper meaning of beginning with the bad and culminating with the good is not simply appreciate the good by remembering the bad. But recognizing that the so-called bad itself was part of the redemptive experience. It is not just the leaving of Egypt that was redemptive and transforming. It was the slavery of Egypt itself that contributed to the formation of our character. How is that so? In what way is that the case? So, I'll give you two reasons how that is so. I mentioned last week a statement of Khazal that although the Jewish people reached the 49th level of Tuma and in fact 4/5 of the Jews hit level 50 and they were gone. But the 1/5 was 49 and slipping. They did have certain residual merits that kept their head above the water. Even though they were sinking, but they kept their nose above the water by these residual merits. And the merits that I mentioned last week taken from the Mekhilta they didn't change their names, they kept their Jewish names. They spoke Lashon Hakodesh. They spoke the Hebrew language. They did not intermarry outside of the Jewish wives. And they did not speak Lashon Hara to the authorities in order to gain some advantages with the ruling uh people. Now, last week we discussed that these were not indicia of religion. In fact, the Jews were idol worshipers except for the tribe of Levi. The Jewish men were not practicing circumcision except for the tribe of Levi. They were not Orthodox Jews. These are not indicia of frumkeit. These are indicia of what you might call ethnic identification. I identify as a Jew. And last week we spoke, I don't want to repeat, we spoke about the idea that identifying yourself as a Jew, rejoicing when good things happen to Jews, and feeling saddened when bad things happen to Jews. The sense that these are my people, you are my family. Even the guy that goes over to you in the airport and says, "I'm a member of the tribe." Trying to say, "I'm with you guys. You're my team." is what kept them from hitting level 50. It didn't stop them from hitting level 49, but it's not enough. But it made all the difference between those who were redeemed and those who were not redeemed. So, that seems to indicate, that Chazal seems to indicate that the one thing they had going for them in Mitzrayim was they did not assimilate. They kept a sense of group consciousness. The kasha is there's another Chazal. It's a contradiction in midrashim that goes in the other direction. The other chazal states in the beginning of Shemot it tells us that Yosef died and all his brothers died and all that generation died. And then there is a new king in Egypt who does not know Yosef. Again, Rashi explains machlokes in the Gemara, uh does it mean he literally didn't know Yosef, he was a new guy, or no, he was the old king but, you know, what have you done for me lately type of thing. He, you know, he consciously just didn't think about all the good that Yosef did. The medrish tells us the following scenario. When Yosef and the brothers died and you have a new generation the new generation actually said if we were so successful and so beloved and so accepted in Egypt even when we keep our own separate ways and we live in Goshen and we don't mix with the population how much more so they will love us if we join them, if we assimilate, if we become like them. And God said I cannot allow that to happen and I will put hatred in the heart of Pharaoh so that when you think you're going to be accepted and embraced and loved by the umos haolam God will make them hate you. So you know you have to be different. I wrote a little article a few years ago, it was in Jewish Action. It was called the hidden blessings of anti-Semitism. I'm certainly against anti-Semitism, why not in favor of it. And obviously, we pray every day that no Jew should be harmed. I mean, unfortunately, there were incidents where Jews were murdered, and we we pray all every day that no Jew should be harmed in any way. But on some level, even anti-Semitism serves a certain purpose in the world. Because it reminds the Jew that you have to be different. You can't fully mix. Now, this is an interesting paradox. On one hand, Jews are, properly so, active members of every society that they live in, and we try to be forces for good. But in every country that Jews live in, religious, not religious, people try to be productive. They add to the culture of the society, the science, the medical progress. How many, you know, Jews have won Nobel prizes? Really, by far the highest percentage of any of any possible group. So, Jews do not withdraw from society. We contribute, we try to contribute in positive ways. But a Jew has to have a sense of being different, of being apart. And if that is not coming from internally, Hashem will cause it to come from outside. There's no saying in Yiddish, if Jews don't make Kiddush, the will make Havdalah. By that he means, if a Jew does not sanctify his life, the are going to separate you forcibly. And then, the Babba Rebbe used to say, it was easier to be from in Siberia than Suburbia. Suburbia, you know, I could be whatever I want. Right? So, consequently, anti-Semitism is that little bit of a reminder, you got to be different. You got to be different. And that is what prevented the Jews from assimilating. So, now we have a contradiction here. Uh the first midrash I told you was the Jews on their own remained apart. The second midrash says they wanted to assimilate. So, the Ba'al HaSulam says it's not a contradiction. Their initial impulse was to assimilate after Yosef died. It was the slavery that made them realize we have to be different. So, in that sense, did the slavery serve a positive purpose? It did. It made us realize that all we have is each other and Hashem. That's all you need. You don't put your trust in other nations. You don't put your trust in other political leaders. There's a famous saying, "Nations do not have friends. They only have interests." So, if a nation kind of supports me, a lot of it is because, you know, the the interests are the same for a certain amount of the journey. When those interests diverge, everybody pursues their own interests. So, Mitzrayim taught us I don't mean to be in this I don't mean in this cynical negative way. Mitzrayim taught us don't put your trust in man. You are a Jew. You need to be separate. You need to be apart. You need to connect to God. So, what Mitzrayim gave us was not not the Exodus from Egypt, but the slavery of Egypt. What it gave us was a sense of group cohesiveness. Cohesion. And reminded us that we need to be separate because if we're not separate, if we try not to be separate, they will make us separate. You know, Theodor Herzl and again, I I do not say anything negative about Herzl. It's It's true that Herzl was a totally ignorant Jew about Judaism. He knew nothing about uh the practice of Judaism or the mitzvahs. But his heart was a good heart and he sincerely wanted to help the Jewish people. So, I'm not here to knock him at all and indeed uh he did many many things that would be regarded as positive. But Herzl's overall philosophy, the establishment of political Zionism, was based on a certain theory that the anti-Semitism that was rampant through Europe would be cured by normalization. If Jews would just be like every other nation, instead of have their own country, their own army, later I think Ben-Gurion said their own bank robbers, you know, stuff like that. They're normal. If they would just be like everybody else, the nations would not hate us. So, Herzl's idea of a Jewish home would be to create a country k'chol hagoyim. As opposed, for example, even within Zionism, there were other streams. For example, Ahad Ha'am, who also was not observant, but Ahad Ha'am was a cultural Zionist. He thought that a Jewish state or a Jewish society would have to have some unique Jewish quality cations in order to make a meaningful difference. But Herzl was not that way. Herzl basically said normalization was the golden key to everything. The truth of the matter is, the Navi Yeshayahu, more than 2,000 years ago, declared in the name of God that normalization is not going to work for the Jewish people. When you say you want to be Kohal Hagoyim, God's response is "Hayol lo siye." Ain't going to be. Not going to happen. A Jew will not be allowed to be Kohal Hagoyim. And if we don't realize it in our own in our own, it's going to come to us from the outside. In fact, in a very frightening prophetic passage, Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, the Or Sameach, the Or Sameach died, I think, in 1926, well before the Nazi rise to power. Hitler was I probably fundamentally a totally almost totally unknown. And yet, the Meshech Chochmah wrote in his book on Chumash, the Meshech Chochmah, and he died in 1926, and this passage, I don't know when it it may have been written 30 years before that, writes that those Jews who think the culture of Berlin is the new Yerushalayim, that in its philosophy and literature and music and science, they will find their redemption, will see that from that very culture will come death and destruction. I mean, this is way before the Holocaust. And to this day, it's a bit of a mystery how did the Holocaust emerge from Germany? I I do understand that the majority of Jews were killed in Poland, the Ukraine, etc., but obviously the architects of the final solution were German. And it's still from a psychological and sociological standpoint, it is kind of a mystery because Germany, by far, was the most civilized country in Europe. The highest level of philosophy and literature, music, and science. If you would have met, you know, your na- your German neighbor in 1925, you know, would tip his hat and say, "How are you?" and have a good day. And you would have a nice conversations with them. When 10 years later, he might be throwing your baby, you know, into a fire. How did it happen? You know, in some ways we understood the Polish, the Ukrainian, the Hungarian, they were brutish, you know, they were always brutes against Jews. So, they became very willing participants in the German genocide. It's not so much of a kasha. But these were cultured people. But Rav Meir Simcha predicted that when we elevate that culture to be the dominant force of our lives, it will turn against us. It'll turn poisonous. It will bite us. This is the nature of things. And this is one of the lessons we learned in Mitzrayim. Rav Soloveitchik used to point out, though, that there's kind of a dichotomy, kind of a contradiction in Jewish life that's encapsulated by Avraham Avinu when he's negotiating to buy the Cave of Machpelah for the grave of Sarah. So, he prefaces his negotiation with the two words, ger vetoshav anochi imachem. I am a stranger and a resident among you. Well, which is it? Are you a stranger or are you a resident? Rav Soloveitchik says, "That's exactly the position of the Jew in the golah. I am a resident. I actively work in society to be a positive force. But I also have to have a sense of being a stranger. If I don't have that sense of being a stranger, then I'm not going to realize my purpose and my mission. That's why it was so tragic and farcical at the same time. I think it was just two or three years ago at the ordination of Hebrew Union College in in Cincinnati. Uh this is the reform seminary. So the class had invited as the guest speaker a certain Jewish novelist. I don't remember his name. And the Jewish novelist actually said he didn't see the need for a Jewish people anymore. They kind of did their job. Why should there be a Jewish people? Again, this is not just talking about, you know, don't keep mitzvahs. That's what he meant with that. He's saying he didn't understand why there needs to be a Jewish people. Why is there a Jewish state? Why is there a Jewish people? Why would a Jew think that they should marry a Jew? Uh why do you observe holidays? Whatever Judaism gave to the world, he says has been assimilated in Western values. And don't be Jewish anymore. He's speaking to future rabbis. Reform rabbis. Reform rabbis. I want to point out that the administration of Hebrew University of Hebrew Union College themselves were very upset. I mean, basically certain things are even upsetting to the reform rabbinate. But this is God forbid what the new generation is taking anyway. No, you know, the old fights used to be, "Oh, Torah's not from God." Okay, you know, that's bad enough. Obviously it's bad enough. Now, we don't need a Jewish people. But that's so that Hebrew Union College would be obsolete. That's why they would have said. Well, that's probably so. They would certainly lose all their tuition. That's right. He was basically I mean he was basically arguing, "Don't have rabbis." I mean I you know, self-destruct. And you know, that's what happens. The Jewish people would disappear unless we have a sense of being distinct. So, that is uh point number one what we gained from the Exodus. Remember, I'm trying to answer the reason why we have to talk about the bad is because we gained from the bad. So, what did we gain from the bad? The need to be different. But, there's another point that almost moves in the opposite way. You know, the Torah says many places that we have to be compassionate to the ger, to the convert, to who who joins Am Yisrael. In fact, the word for ger means stranger. And that's very evocative because the convert who joins Am Yisrael, particularly in the olden days when land was so important, less so today. Didn't have property, didn't have connections, didn't have family, didn't have influence. They came like a stranger. And the Torah says in more than 30 places, "You must love the stranger." It says ger, which means convert halakhically, but I think we should focus on the literal wording here because love the stranger because you were strangers. We weren't converts, we were strangers in the land of Egypt. Let's think about that. You know, we we live in a society where people are victims of abuse, tragically. Could be emotional abuse, sexual abuse, spousal abuse, all types of abuse. And if God and if Baruch Hashem they get out of that abuse. They sometimes develop a very hard shell over their personality in which they don't want to be connected to that anymore. They try to go on and forget that stage in their lives. What does the Torah say? The Torah says, "Never forget the slavery you went through. Never forget the humiliation, the pain, the suffering." We We mention it every day, twice a day. Because that will be the source of the empathy and compassion that you will have for the downtrodden. What is the Torah telling you? When you're sitting pretty on your land, in your uh your field, your country, your government, and you see people that are outsiders, that are downtrodden, that are poor, that are vulnerable, don't distance yourself from them. Remember, you were once where they were. And that is the source of your empathy and your compassion. And that is why it's part of the DNA of the Jewish spiritual personality, the Gemara says, that a Jew is compassionate. A Jew wants to engage in loving kindness. And we get that from two sources. We get that from the Avos and the Imahos, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, Zilpah. And the second place we get it was the vestigial memory of being in Mitzrayim, which gives us compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. And that is why even Jews who are very, very far from Torah have that memory. Whether it be in the civil rights struggle in the United States, whether it be the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, whether it even be the largely misguided struggle for Palestinian rights here in Israel. Again, there are a lot of mistakes that are made, and a lot of those judgments are pure crazy. I don't want to get into the politics. But, I will credit them with having a good heart. And I would credit that heart as reflecting the compassion that a Jew has for the downtrodden. Again, perhaps it's inappropriately applied. That That's a That's a major issue. But, this comes from a good place. Even the somewhat uh crazy connection of Jews to democratic liberal politics. I know I'm going to get hit on both sides on this one, so I try to keep my uh I've learned already to keep my political comments down to an absolute bare minimum. But, what I'm going to say is that as crazy as some might consider it to be, it fundamentally comes from the heart of trying to have more compassion, a a sense that one set of left leftist politics might be more is perceived, again, perhaps erroneously, as more compassionate. So, in a way therefore, there are two different things we got from the Exodus, not from the Exodus, from the servitude, that almost run in opposite directions. The first is the sense of Jewish exclusivity. I got to be part of my group. I don't assimilate. I have to be connected to the Jewish people. But, the second is the sense of compassion. First and foremost to Jews, but even its universalistic aspect. Don't forget your origins, no matter how wealthy and powerful and influential you are. Remember what it's like to be a slave. Remember what it was like to be downtrodden. Remember what it was like to be humiliated. Remember what it was like to be the bottom person on the totem pole. Because through that memory, you will feel the pain of other people. That's exactly what empathy is. Right, that is the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is, oh, I feel sorry for you, but I really have no idea what you're going through. Empathy is a much deeper emotion. Empathy doesn't just mean I feel sorry for you. Empathy says, I feel what you're going through because I went through it. I know what it's like. I understand you. And that's a precious gift. And we didn't get that gift by getting out of Egypt. We got that gift by being in in Egypt. And the like. You know, some of you may have read uh the book All for the Boss, a very, very fine book. If you haven't read it, it'd be nice to read. Uh this was written by a uh Rebbetzin Rebbetzin Chaim who uh died a few years ago. And this was a biography of her father, a great, great tzaddik, Reb Yaakov Yosef Herman, who emigrated from Europe to the United States and eventually uh spent the last years of his life in Eretz Yisrael. And his famous uh his favorite saying was, everything he does is for the boss. He always referred to God as the the boss. And she tells a story about her father that her father actually came to the United States with his parents around World I think around World War I and uh his parents couldn't make it and so they went back. He was only 11 or 12. They went back to Europe and they left him here to fend for himself. In those days there were no child labor laws so kids, you know, could work. And they set him up with an apartment in which he would have to pay $5 a week for a room. And he would be he was able to afford that based on the job that he had. As soon as his parents left the United States the landlord raised the rent to $10. Double the rent. The kid could not afford 10 bucks. He was evicted. And he was evicted Friday afternoon. And he spent a whole Shabbos, Friday night in Central Park all alone sitting on a park bench only having two little rolls in a plastic bag. He couldn't even carry the rolls around. There was no air left. And one can imagine, perhaps one cannot imagine how frightened this little boy was. Doesn't have parents, doesn't have family. He doesn't have a roof over his head. And even in terms of a job, in those days the way it worked was if you didn't come in on Saturday you had, which was a working day you had to find a new job on Monday. Sunday was off. Meaning every week you had to find a new job. So he really had no sense of hope. But he had strong faith in God. Even as a child. And he felt that God would somehow take care of him. But that night he prayed to Hashem with something a little unusual. He said to Hashem, "If you take me out of this situation, and if eventually I get a job, and if eventually I get a wife." He's thinking he before Bar Mitzvah. "And I have a family, and I'm doing well, I pray to you, God, that I should never forget what it's like to be alone, frightened, and lonely. That my success should not obliterate the memory that I have, so that when I encounter people who are frightened or lonely, I will remember what it's like, and I will feel for them." That was his prayer. His prayer was, "I don't want to forget this moment. I don't want to forget this feeling." And if you know the the book, Baruch Hashem, uh he eventually uh got married. He was a successful businessman, although he lost it all in the in the depression, okay, but he had some years of great success. And he and his Rabbitson had a literally an open house, in which they might have a hundred people at one time. And he did have his share of great Rosh Yeshivas, to be sure. There were many Rosh Yeshivas who came from Europe that the Herman house was the only home they would eat in. But he also had a lot of people that we would not necessarily invite into our houses. The mentally ill, the homeless, people with anger when they didn't get what they want, they would take hot cholent and dump it over his head. People who would stay for months on end without even looking, you know, for another place to go. And when people would ask Rabbi Herman, "How can you bear these people?" He says, "I know what they're going through. And if you knew what they're going through, you would not find it difficult to take care of them." A marvelous thing. Yet the season of was a I'm sorry, not the season of going through it. Was a gift. Now, all of this was to answer a question. Remember the question The question was, "Why is it so important to talk about the bad?" Because the bad is actually the good, too. And this is actually a lesson in life that goes even beyond the season of going through it. In all of our lives, there are challenges. There are adversities. There are disappointments. Things do not always go our way. Certainly in the era of Corona, many, many things are not going our way. And a person can sometimes be crushed and broken and confused and not know where to turn. But in many cases, if we think deeply enough, we can discover precisely from the adversities and challenges hidden strengths and potentials that we never knew we had. Courage that we were never aware of, resilience that we didn't know was there. And in retrospect, we can look back at the difficulties and the challenges and we can see them as gifts and opportunities. Not easy to do. Much easier said than done, and I'm certainly not lecturing from any position of superiority. I struggle. But I hope that all of us can take even the challenges and even the dark moments and use them as beacons of light. Not only light at the end of the tunnel, but light in the middle of the darkness of the tunnel itself. And this is the lesson of maskil biginos um Messiah Mishpokhe beginning with the negative. Because the negatives themselves become the positive. So we should all have a shabbat tov, a good week, and a shabbat shalom. And to be as Hashem uh we hope that Hashem should bring a a refuah shleimah to all of the holy Israel, especially Binyamin Yisrael ben Chanita. And uh the mageifa and the plague of of corona should be uh banished from the earth. Thank you. Amen.