Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Experience Redemption

I just want to tell everybody again because of the uh quarantine, because of the segah, we're having our class uh in Yeshiva Darchei Shmuel, but I'm always grateful for my uh relatively few live attendees. Thank you for Thank you for coming. And uh today uh we're dedicating the sheer in memory of uh Chasia bas her yahrzeit being on the 8th of Shvat, and this is by the uh by our Rick Devinsky. And uh as we've done for quite a few times already, we we also pray for a refuah shleimah, uh for the young man Binyamin Yisrael ben Chanita, who's going through a difficult time, and we hope that Hashem should give him a refuah shleimah betoch sh'ar cholei Yisrael. And uh we are still, of course, in the parshios dealing with the Exodus of Egypt, and in parshas Bo, which is the third parsha in the book of Shmos, the Exodus actually happens. Now, it's very interesting issue. If you look at the Haggadah of Pesach, which is the annual mitzvah to talk about the Exodus, the primary text that we use, the primary text is not from the book of Exodus at all, it's really from the brief declaration when a person brings first fruits and declares how Laban the Aramean tried to destroy my father, and my father, you know, Yaakov, and my father went down to Mitzrayim, and he became a great nation, but then the Egyptians made us slaves, and then we prayed to God, and then God took us out of Mitzrayim, and therefore I'm bringing my first fruits. The whole Haggadah, the narrative portion of the Haggadah, is based on expounding and elaborating on those four verses in Deuteronomy. And one might ask a very simple question, why go to a recapitulation of the story of the Exodus when you could go to the actual story of the Exodus? Why don't we sit at the Seder and read the book of Exodus? Let's read the book of Shemot. Why do I read four verses that a person recites when he brings first fruits and have an elaboration of those verses? And there are a few different answers that are given. One answer actually is a simple matter of length. If you were to read the story of the Exodus in the book of Shemot, you would have to read 12 chapters. By contrast, Deuteronomy gives you the story in four verses, and we elaborate and we supplement by drawing on verses in Shemot, but, you know, we really have an encapsulation of the story. So, it actually makes more sense if you only have a single night and only a few hours to kind of take the shorter version. I know that many people don't look at the Haggadah as an abbreviated version, but in point of fact, it actually is because the actual story of the Exodus is much longer. The Haggadah has one or two lines on the 10 plagues. Well, the 10 plagues take up a parsha and a half in the Chumash itself. But there's actually a deeper reason why we we choose the book of of uh Devarim, uh Deuteronomy, rather than the book of Exodus. And it's a well-known idea that Moshe Rabbenu's name is not mentioned in the Haggadah in the course of the narration of the story. We talk about the slavery, we talk about the plagues, we talk about the splitting of the Red Sea. But Moshe's name is conspicuously absent. Now, that's not 100% true. If you look very closely, and perhaps you could you know, offer a prize to uh your any of your kids that can find this. Moshe Rabbeinu's name is mentioned once in a verse referring to the Red Sea. But in the basic narrative of the Haggadah, Moshe Rabbeinu's name is omitted. And why is that so? Moshe Rabbeinu plays such a pivotal role in Yetziat Mitzrayim. And part of the answer is that Yetziat Mitzrayim is recognizing the power of God to redeem, the power of God to change nature. And there's always going to be a problem when you have a great leader, a leader that is an unbelievable prophet, that one might confer on that person qualities of divinity. And therefore, it's almost necessary to deemphasize Moshe Rabbeinu's role in the Exodus. So, we will give all of the credit to the Almighty. That we shouldn't look at Moshe as some powerful, magical, charismatic leader who was able to do all of these things. In fact, uh the commentaries point out that that was actually one of the reasons why Moshe Rabbeinu was a stutterer. Moshe Rabbeinu was a handicapped person. He could not speak. His words came out garbled. That way, one would not attribute his success to charisma. One would see that he was only a tool in the hands of God. And that is why his role is deemphasized in the Haggadah. So, we should ascribe the Geulah to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. In fact, this is also one of the explanations why his grave is unknown. We don't know where he's buried. You know, he's buried on the east bank of the Jordan River, somewhere in Jordan, but it's the plains of Moab, Mount Nebo, but we don't know what where that is, what that is. We do know where Aaron was buried. In fact, there actually is uh in Jordan uh a monument to the cover of Aaron, and people some people dare to go there to pray. It gets a little It's not the easiest place to get to, both legally and and even physically, but we don't know where Moshe's buried. And part of that is because there was a real fear that Moshe's gravesite might be made a shrine for worship. In fact, I don't want to apply to other modern tzaddikim, but that's somewhat of a problem even today, where certain places where tzaddikim are buried uh instead of praying to God, people sometimes pray to the tzaddik, and that is a form of idolatry, unfortunately. So, now let's figure this. If Chazal wanted to structure the narration of the Exodus in a way that de-emphasizes Moshe Rabbenu, you wouldn't be able to navigate the Book of Exodus that way, because every pasuk in Shemot talks about Moshe Rabbenu. So, we don't want to use that text, because that's going to overemphasize an aspect that we want to diminish. So, we look around. Where do we find in the Torah a brief summary of Yetzi'at Mitzrayim that doesn't even mention Moshe's name? The answer, the four verses that you recite when you bring the first fruits. So, therefore, that was chosen both because of its brevity and conciseness, but maybe more fundamentally, because it does not overemphasize Moshe Rabbeinu. Fact in the Sifrei Chasidim there's a beautiful little drasha. If you remember in the Haggadah and again forgive me for mentioning the Haggadah, we're not really in Pesach yet, but since we are in the parshios of Yetziat Mitzrayim, so I think we can draw on the Haggadah for a little bit of understanding. If you remember and this actually is a pasuk in this week's parsha, when Hashem tells Moshe, "Ve'avarti be'eretz Mitzrayim, I will pass through the land of Egypt and I will smite the firstborn of Egypt." Right, Makas Bechoros. So Chazal have an interpretation. They emphasize, "Avarti, I will do it. Ani v'lo malach. I and not an angel. Ani, I v'lo saraf. Saraf is also a burning angel. Ani, I v'lo hashaliach, not an emissary." So there are like three things that are being excluded that seem to be repetitious. "I and not an angel. I and not a saraf. I and not a shaliach. Hashaliach, a messenger, an emissary." But in the Sifrei Chasidim they point out that malach, the first letter of malach is mem. The first letter of saraf is sin, which is the same letter as shin. Mem, shin. And the first letter of hashaliach, which is a little unusual, the emissary is hey. Mem, shin, hey spells the name Moshe. So when God is saying, "It's me and not A, B, and C." It really means and not Moshe. Now, Moshe Rabbeinu, of course, was the anav mikol adam. He was the most humble of all people. I can assure you Moshe Rabbeinu didn't mind giving credit to God. And indeed Moshe Rabbeinu's whole life was giving credit to Hashem. But the problem is people might misconstrue. People might assign to Moshe a greater prominence and take away from the fact that this was the redemption of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that is why the Haggadah does not mention Moshe Rabbeinu. And that is why uh the the the pesukim of Devarim were chosen rather than Shemot because in the long narrative of Shemot uh omitting Moshe Rabbeinu is impossible because he is literally embedded in every single pasuk. So, that's just a little thought about the structure of the of the Haggadah. But what I want to talk about tonight is the idea, and again this is a little bit of a continuation of what we've been doing over the past 2 weeks, but I think we'll hopefully touch on something new. And that is the centrality of the Exodus lies in the fact that not only do we have to recount the long story once a year or twice a year outside of Israel, that's the Seder night, but every single day we are supposed to remember the Exodus from Egypt verbally. Not just in our heads, but verbally. Day and night. Right, this is Ben Zoma's favo- famous rule that we are obligated to mention mention Yetsi'at Mitzrayim both in the day and at night because the pasuk says, this is also in the Haggadah, Lema'an tishkach et yom tzeitcha me'eretz Mitzrayim you shall remember the day that you left Mitzrayim kol yemei chayyecha all the days of your life. So, if it would have said days of your life, perhaps that's only the daytime because that's when we left Mitzrayim in the morning. All the days of your life tells me even at night. Meaning, there would have been a hava amina, there would have been a supposition that since we didn't leave Mitzrayim at night, perhaps I don't have to mention the Exodus. So the drasha of kol yemei chayecha, all the days of your life, includes even the night. And you'll recall from the Haggadah, it's also a mishna in Brachos that the chachamim even go further and they say that even when Mashiach comes and you'd figure the redemption of Mashiach is going to be so much greater. Why do I have to talk about yetziat Mitzrayim? Even when Mashiach comes, you're going to have to mention it. Right? So at night you have to mention it. According to the chachamim, even when Mashiach comes, you have to mention it. Now, keep in mind that these mitzvahs go by two different names. The mitzvah of Seder night is called sippur yetziat Mitzrayim. A long narrative. The mitzvah of the whole year is called zechirat yetziat Mitzrayim, remembrance. A shorter form. And they're derived from two different verses. Again, mamash two different verses. The verse of sippur is the familiar verse v'higadeta l'vincha, you shall tell your child b'yomo, on the day of the Exodus, that because of all that God did for me, I am celebrating. That's the mitzvah of sippur. V'higadeta l'vincha, hence Haggadah. The word Haggadah, which is narrative, is derived from higadeta l'vincha. And then, the other pasuk of zechira, or the other source for zechira, is another pasuk, l'maan tizkor et yom tzeischa me'eretz Mitzrayim kol yemei chayecha, all the days of your life. Practically, let me just explain how this is done. You know, we dive in Krias Shema, we say Krias Shema in the morning, and we say Krias Shema in the evening. Now, Krias Shema really only comprises the first two paragraphs, Shema and Vayomer Hashem El Moshe. The third paragraph of Shema that talks about the tzitzis is not part of Krias Shema. So, why do I say it if it's not part of Krias Shema? So, in the morning, I say it because it refers to the mitzvah of tzitzis, and tzitzis is a reminder of all of the commandments of the Torah. How so? Because tzitzis is a gematria of 600, and it has eight strings and five knots. So, 600 + 8 + 5 is 613. So, after I say Shema, I want to think about all of the 613 commandments of the Torah, because after you accept Hashem's malchus, you then want to accept Hashem's mitzvahs. But, that's only an answer for the morning. But, at night, there's no mitzvah of tzitzis at night, because the Torah says you must see your tzitzis, and at night, in the absence of artificial light, you won't be able to see your tzitzis. So, night time is not a mitzvah There's no mitzvah of tzitzis at night. You don't have to wear tzitzis at night. If you put on a tallis at night, you do not make a bracha. That's why on Yom Kippur night, when people who wear a tallis do wear a tallis at night, they have to put it on before sunset in order to be able to make a bracha. So, the question is, why do I say the parsha of tzitzis at night? And the answer is because in addition to tzitzis, there is a verse in that parsha that talks about the Exodus. "Ani Hashem Elokeichem." "I am the Lord your God." "Asher hotzeisichem me'eretz Mitzrayim." "Who taken you out of the land of Egypt to be for you a God. Let me point out, when you say that pasuk, you should have intention that you are fulfilling a Torah commandment to remember the Exodus. And by the way, that that's true in the day as well. So, in the day, I have both the idea of tzitzis and the idea of yetziat Mitzrayim. At night, I just have yetziat Mitzrayim. But, the yetziat Mitzrayim is a common factor in both the daytime recitation and the nighttime recitation. Okay, and I think the ArtScroll Siddur even says that when you say this verse, you shall have kavana to fulfill the mitzvah. Now, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, a great Rav Chaim of Brisk, who died around 1918, used to ask a very interesting question every Pesach seder, I guess. People of the family heard it many times, but he would always ask this question uh at the beginning of every seder. If there is a mitzvah to mention the Exodus every single night, so even leil Pesach, there would be a mitzvah to mention the Exodus. What is the Torah adding by a mitzvah of sippur that you wouldn't already have in the mitzvah of zechira? Now, you may say, "What type of question is that? The whole year I don't have to say the Haggadah. And now I have to say the Haggadah. It's adding the Haggadah." Well, not really. Because keep in mind that when the Torah says sippur, it doesn't tell you how much you have to say, and it doesn't tell you what you have to say. The Haggadah is a rabbinically constructed text. So, yeah, rabbinically, obviously, I got to say a lot more Pesach night than I would have to say during the year. Yeah, granted. But, from a pure de oraita standpoint, let's assume I wanted to do the minimum I could get away with to fulfill the mitzvah deoraita of sippur, wouldn't that just be the zechira? So, what is the Torah telling me to do leil Pesach that I already didn't have to do because of the mitzvah of zechira bechol yom u'vchol shanah? Rav Chaim explained that although the Torah does not give you a text, it does not tell you what you have to say, the Torah does mandate a structure. There is a certain structure, and this is the structure of upon which the Haggadah is built. There's a certain structure that you need to fulfill sippur that you wouldn't need for zechira, and therefore the mitzvah of sippur obligates the creation of a narrative that follows a certain structure. And Rav Chaim identified four elements in the narrative structure which are unique to annual zechira that don't apply, I'm sorry, annual sippur, that do not apply to daily zechira. Element number one is derech she'eilah u'tshuvah. That means the whole year I just say God took me out of Egypt, right? That's all. Pesach night, the story has to go through a question and the answer format. There have to be questions. There have to be questions. The Mah Nishtana, of course, is a formalized statement of questions, but even if you're by yourself, even if unfortunately, maybe in Corona times, more people even have to experience this, even if you're conducting a Seder all by yourself, you have to ask questions. I also want to point out that the Gemara indicates that the Mah Nishtana is kind of a crib sheet. It's kind of for cheaters who don't come up with their own questions. So, we give you the questions. Ideally, a person should have his own questions that he's thinking about, debating. In fact, I remember this even as a as a young child, it struck me as very funny. I I don't know how old I was, maybe 7, 8, 9, I I don't remember, but our family was invited to a Seder, someone else's house, and the kids of the house were asking their father all sorts of questions about Pesach. A lot of questions. No, the questions they were good questions. And the father was getting impatient because he wanted to start the Seder. So, he said, "Stop asking questions. I got to do the Seder." I hope you can see uh the irony in that. One of the main purposes of the Seder is to ask questions and then discuss the answers. You You don't look at questions as a distraction from the main event. It actually is the main event. But So, that's element number one, question and answer. I'll talk about why that's important, I want to enumerate the elements first. Element number two is something the Mishna calls Maschil Big'nus u'Mesayem Bishvach. You got to begin with the bad and culminate in the good. It's not enough just to talk about the good part of the story. The whole year, I just say God took me out of Egypt. Pesach nights, and we we you know I I I have to kind of remember the slavery, the degradation. I have to emphasize how bad things were. And we actually talked about that element a few weeks ago. Right now I'm just going to enumerate it. Begin with the bad, not just the good stuff. Talk about slavery, talk about idolatry, talk about immorality, talk about paganism, talk about humiliation. Talk about genocide of the babies. You can't just talk about the good stuff. Element number three is a statement of Rabban Gamaliel, that's in the Haggadah and it's taken from the Mishna. That call me shalom yomar. Anyone that doesn't explain three rituals, Pesach, the eating of the Pascal lamb, the sacrifice of the temple, matzah, eating the matzah, maror, eating the bitter herbs, anyone that doesn't explain these commandments, lo yatza yedei chovato, he has not fulfilled his obligation. Now let's think about that. What obligation did he not fulfill? One interpretation might be, you don't fulfill your mitzvah of matzah unless you explain the significance, or maror or Pesach, but that's not true. The mitzvah of matzah and maror and korban Pesach I fulfill by eating them. I don't have to explain their significance. So when it says lo yatza yedei chovato, it does not mean you're not yotzei the Pesach, matzah, and maror, but it means you're not yotzei the obligation to narrate the Exodus. Now, this is unique to Sipur. The whole year, I don't have to talk about the Pesach, matzah, and maror. But leil Pesach, I got to talk about the Pesach, matzah, and maror. Rav Chaim says that if we ask the question, "What is the mitzvah of zachor adding?" I'm sorry, "What is the mitzvah of sipur adding to the mitzvah of zachor?" We've identified three elements. Element one is question and answer. Element two is beginning with the bad and culminating in the good. And element three, which really is three sub-elements, the need to explain the significance of Pesach, matzah, and maror. Now, finally, there is a fourth element that Rav Chaim's son, the the famous Briska Rav, Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik, said may actually be the hardest mitzvah to fulfill. And that is a statement in the Haggadah, which is taken from the Mishna. Chaiyav adam liros et atzmo k'ilu hu yatza miMitzrayim. Every person must regard himself or herself as if they themselves were personally personally liberated from Egypt. Now, this is a unique obligation of Pesach. The whole year, I simply remember what Hashem did. Leil Pesach, I have to experience the redemption itself. It is not just remembering, it is experiencing. So, what I've done so far is I've enumerated in the name of Rav Chaim the four structural elements that differentiate the annual mitzvah of Sipur from the daily mitzvah twice daily mitzvah of Shema. But, what is the spiritual significance of this? What do these elements mean? Why are they important? How are they relevant to the struggles and challenges that we face in our lives? And the key to this is to start with element number four and we'll work backwards. Element number four is going to be the great key to understand this. Element four says each person must regard himself and women are included, himself or herself as if they themselves were liberated from Mitzrayim. What does that mean exactly? Are we supposed to lie to ourselves? I was never in Egypt. And even if as a tourist I visited Egypt, I was not a slave in Egypt. So, what type of mitzvah is it each person must regard himself as if they were liberated from Egypt? It's one thing to say, I'm grateful for what Hashem did to my ancestors because if he wouldn't have done it to my ancestors, I wouldn't be here. See, that's stated in the beginning of the Haggadah. If God wouldn't have taken out our forefathers, we would have assimilated, we would have disappeared. That's making a point that we have to be grateful for what Hashem did in the past because without that past, we wouldn't be here. But that's not the same thing as saying I myself was a slave in Mitzrayim. What does it mean? It's not true. I was not a slave in Mitzrayim. Cabalistically, there are different interpretations that all the future souls that would eventually be born were in fact enslaved within the bodies. You know, that's a cabalistic explanation. But I'll keep shut. It's not true. So, how do we understand this element number four? Each person must regard themselves as if they themselves were liberated from Mitzrayim. So, I'm going to give you two explanations. One is a relatively simple explanation from the Rambam. And the other is a deeper explanation from the Baal Tanya. The Rambam's explanation is simply harnessing the power of imagination to generate appropriate emotion. Those of you who are movie devotees or cinema devotees, not that I claim that I am, but there is a phenomenon called method acting. No, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, et cetera, in which in order to really experience a role properly, you have to imagine that you're in the situation. And when you imagine it and you put yourself in that role, then all of the feelings and emotions that you would experience had you actually been undergoing that experience come to the fore. So, the Rambam says, he doesn't use method acting a per se, But, we need to do method acting. I have to be grateful to God because he freed me or freed my ancestors. But, you know, that was so long ago. I was never a slave. I was born into affluence. I live a comfortable life. How am I supposed to connect to that historical experience that happened 3,000 years ago? Almost 4,000 years ago. And the answer is, you got to use your imagination. Imagine what it's like to be a slave, to be whipped, to be humiliated, to have inadequate food day after day, year after year. Your children are ripped from you and and sometimes murdered, thrown into the Nile. Imagine it. Yeah, it's not true. It's not true that it happened to you. But, by imagining it as an experience that you had, you'll now say, "Baruch Hashem, God really did good by us." So, the Rambam understands that the Hayav Adam Lirot, the idea that each person has to regard himself as if they were liberated, is a way of harnessing the power of imagination to generate feelings of gratitude, which otherwise you might not have because you're too distant from the experience. So, yeah, it's method acting. It's play acting. But, it's play acting for a very legitimate purpose to feel the chesed of Hashem in giving you liberation. This is what the Rambam says. And again, it's it's actually it's very very true. I think I may have mentioned, I'm not sure if I mentioned here, even last week, Rabbi Yisrael Levinson, one of the great great great baalei mussar, once said that a baal mussar, a person who is working on his relationship with God, has to have a good imagination. You have to imagine what it's like to leave Egypt. You have to imagine what it's like to stand at Mount Sinai and get the Torah. You have to imagine what it's like to experience kriyas Yam Suph. The more vivid you can picture these things, the more they'll have an impact. If you don't have this capacity of imagination, then you're not going to feel the power of these events. All right, so there is such a thing. But the Baal Tanya, the Alter Rebbe, the first Rebbe of Chabad, offers another interpretation that's very, very intriguing. He says that, you know, Mitzrayim itself doesn't only have to mean Egypt. Yes, Mitzrayim means Egypt, an ancient empire that historically enslaved the Jewish people, no longer exists. Obviously, modern Egypt is not ancient Egypt. Uh modern Egypt, there are Arabic people. Ancient Egypt was uh different. They were related to the Canaanites more. But Mitzrayim has a secondary meaning that's also very important. Mitzrayim can mean limitations, constrictions, blockages, constraints. David Hamelech says in the Psalms, Hallel, min hametzar karasi Kah. I call out to God min hametzar, from the narrow confining spaces where a person feels trapped. Anani bamerchavcha, God, I am calling to you from the narrow places that are suffocating me. Anani bamerchav, answer me with expansiveness. Open up my bonds and constraints. So, Mitzrayim comes from the term boundaries, constraints, constrictions, blockages. Seen in that way, every Jew, indeed every person, has their own mitzrayims. Every person has factors in their life that enslave them in one way or the other. I could have a mitzrayim in terms of my arrogance, my gaiva, or it could be my low self-esteem and depression. I could have a mitzrayim of laziness. I can have a mitzrayim of anger, of lust, of hedonism, of inability to put my life together because I'm confused. This is an inner mitzrayim. And as the saying goes, it's easier to take the Jew out of mitzrayim than take mitzrayim out of the Jew. There can be an inner slavery that exists even in the world of freedom. And that inner slavery can be a lot worse than the outer slavery. I normally don't quote him as a a Jewish source, but some of you might remember the entertainer Mr. T, who was a a black entertainer. I'm I'm mentioning his race for a reason, in a moment you'll see. And uh he's a big guy, big, tall, strong guy, kind of a bouncer type person. And one of his uh uh things that he did was he always wore gold jewelry. And he was once asked why he wears gold jewelry. And his answer was a very very interesting answer. His answer was that I want to emulate and connect to my ancestors from Africa who came to America as slaves. And they came in chains. And I wear chains. But the difference is their chains were iron and on their leg. And my chains are gold and on my neck. But other than that we're doing exactly the same thing. We're wearing our chains. Now, I don't know if Mr. T intended a profound remark or not. Uh but this is actually a quite profound remark. Mr. T is saying, look at his kodesh. Mr. T is teaching us that the gold chain around the neck can be can be every bit as enslaving as the iron chain around the leg. You could be a slave to the rat race, to money, to competitiveness, to anger, to arrogance, to success. And this could cause you to, you know, destroy your family, not care about your spouse, not care about your kids, not care about your life. And when you hit the age of, you know, 50, 60, whatever it would be, and you've achieved all that you can achieve in this material world, it can hit you like a ton of bricks. What's my life about? What's the point? What's the purpose? Alexander the Great, who had conquered the whole known world, died at the age of 30 or 31. And legend has it, it may not be true, that he died of a I mean, he died of a plague, but but the the legend has it he died of a broken heart. Because at the age of 30 he had said, "What other worlds are left for me to conquer? What do I do with the rest of my life?" You know, from the beginning of our careers in our very, very ambitious society, we're always working towards some goal. You know, in New York City, this is pre-COVID, I understand there were some kindergartens that were so restrictive, it was so hard to get into, there was a 5-year waiting list. That means as soon as your wife is pregnant, you better put the kid on the uh on the waiting list to be able to get in because this was a kindergarten full of political connections and business connections. So, now we start early, get into the best kindergarten, the best playgroup, best college, best law school, best medical school. And then you want to become partner or head of a clinic or whatever it is. There's always another thing to aspire to. But at some point, we're all going to hit our limit. At some point, we know we're not going to be president of the United States. Although, based on modern times, you know, you never know. You know, we're not going to be on the Supreme Court. We're not going to win a Nobel Prize. We're not going to get a gold medal in the Olympics. We know that. We know that certain achievements are not going to be ours. We've maxed out. We've hit a plateau. What's the rest of our life supposed to be about? You can call this burnout. You can call this midlife crisis. You can call it any number of phrases. But all I can say is, if we don't build a foundation that goes beyond ourselves, if we don't live for an ideal that is greater than our selfish gratification, that can carry you for a certain number of years, but I can tell you it's going to run out. It's going to run out. And then you have a deep existential crisis. What is my life about? I've been a slave to so many ideas. And now I see they have enslaved me. They have not liberated me. I lived under the illusion that money, power, influence, wealth would give me freedom. And I discover it's a mitzrayim. So, here's what the Baal HaTanya says. Every person has a mitzrayim in them. When God liberated the Jews from mitzrayim, Egypt, he put into the world a spiritual force that by connecting myself to the Exodus, I can be liberated from the mitzrayims that enslave me. It's kind of a symbiotic, parasitic connection. And therefore, the inner meaning of the statement each person must regard themselves as if they were taken out of mitzrayim doesn't mean does not mean each person must imagine that they were in Egypt and they were a slave and they were taken out. But rather, each person must identify their mitzrayim and believe that Hashem is giving them the capacity to be liberated from their own inner mitzrayim. Now, what that means is when we think about the Exodus narrative, there are actually two different stories that are being recounted that are going on simultaneously. On the collective level, and I don't want to disparage this because obviously this is fundamental, it is the historical narrative of the Jewish people becoming the nation of God, that God remembered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He liberated us. He gave us a Torah. He brought us to Eretz Israel. We became his nation. This is who we are. This is our national identity. And this story is lovingly transmitted from father to son, from mother to daughter. Intergenerationally and then and we know of course that even Jews that are very far from mitzvot try to keep some semblance of a Pesach seder because there's a vestigial memory that this is who we are. That's the national story. But that is what we call a dover hashover l'chol nefesh. That applies to everybody, every Jew. Every Jew is part of that story. But there's a second story that's being told that is private, personal, idiosyncratic, individualistic, that as part of that national story, I recognize my own personal mitzrayim. And I recognize that by connecting to the Exodus, I am connecting to a spiritual power that can enable me to be liberated from my own mitzrayim. Now, on that level, everybody's story is different. My mitzrayim is not your mitzrayim, and your mitzrayim is not somebody else's mitzrayim. Everybody has their own journey. Everybody has their own yetziat mitzrayim. But each person, if they tap into this, can be liberated in whole or in part from the inner mitzrayim that is afflicting them. It's a beautiful interpretation. So, you're not imagining that you were a slave in Egypt, but rather God is taking me out of my mitzrayim. But only if I want to go. Remember this, right? 4/5 of the Jews died in Egypt cuz they didn't want to leave. You want to leave your own mitzrayim, okay, baruch Hashem? You got to want to leave. Then God will take you out. So, seen in this way, I want to suggest that once you understand that yetziat Mitzrayim is about identifying my personal mitzrayims, then you can look at the other steps as ways in which I can link to my own personal exodus. So, let's take the other three elements. Element number one was she'eilot u teshuvot, the idea of question and answer. Why is question and answer so significant generally? Like somebody once asked me, "Why does every divrei Torah begin with a question?" Think about it. It's very rare that somebody just gets up and starts saying, "I think the Torah is giving me such and such a message." Like the typical way a divrei Torah is given is you ask questions, and then you explain it and give answers. Cuz you know, if somebody just gets up and pontificates, I say, "Well, you know, why am I interested in his opinion on something or my opinion or whatever it is?" But if you're answering something, hm, okay, I'll pay attention to that. You're answering something. So, what does a question do? A question excites curiosity, of course. But a question also indicates a desire to move to a new place. When you ask questions, you want to know something. You want to expand your horizons. Now, there are two types of questions. There is There are questions that have question marks at the end, and there are questions that have exclamation points at the end. In other words, there are questions and there are statements. Judaism welcomes questions. There actually is no such thing as an illegitimate question. You want to learn, you want to know, you want to grow, you want to explore. Again, not every venue would would the question necessarily be appropriate. I mean, you know, sometimes you're doing one thing, you don't bring another thing, but ultimately a person who has questions deserves to be able to discuss them. On the other hand, hostile attacks, opinion, whatever it is, that may be a result of arrogance. So, in leaving our Mitzrayim our personal Mitzrayim, the first step is be a seeker of wisdom. Ask honest questions. Be willing to challenge both yourself and challenge others. Right? Questions. I want to know. I want to grow. I want to understand. I'm not happy with I'm not content with the way I am. And this, by the way, is at any level, at any level of your Judaism, of your life, of your accomplishment. There's always more that you can learn, more that you can do, more that you can know, and the questioner is the one who is seeking wisdom. That is why a great scholar of Torah is not called a chacham, is not called a wise person. A great scholar of Torah is called a talmid chacham. That either means a wise student or a student of the wise. Why would I call an accomplished rabbi who's been learning for a hundred years? Why would I call him a student? Because the greatest sign of wisdom is you're still a student. You're still learning. You don't take the position, oh, I know everything already. I once heard from a very very very famous academic something to the effect, the first 20 years of my life I listened, the rest of my life I talk. Meaning, nobody can teach me anything. That's very very foolish. Pirkei Avot tells us, Aizehu chacham? Who is a truly wise person? Halomed mikol adam. One who learn can learn from everybody. So, the maila of showel of of she'elo teshuvah is your willingness to keep on growing and keep on learning and not simply staying in place. They say about the great German-Jewish philosopher uh Franz Rosenzweig who became a a pretty traditional Jew uh towards the end of his life, although he died tragically young from multiple sclerosis. That at some point, as he was getting more and more traditional, keeping Shabbat, keeping kosher, so some of his Jewish friends mocked him. They made fun of him. And they said, you're becoming like a Jew from the Middle Ages. I bet you even wear t'fillin, as if that's the most embarrassing thing you can say to a person. You even wear t'fillin. How crazy are you? And he looked at them and he said, not yet. And it's been pointed out that not yet is a very different response than no. In truth, he wasn't wearing t'fillin. He could have just said no. What's the difference between saying no and not yet? When you're saying no, you're saying my life is a done deal. What I was yesterday is what I am today and what I am today is what I'll be tomorrow. Not yet recognizes that life is a continuum of growing and learning and progressing. Who I am today does not have to be limited by what I was yesterday. And who I can become tomorrow is not limited to what I am today. And everybody has to have a not yet, everybody. You know, one doesn't keep Shabbos completely. Well, I'm not yet keeping Shabbos 100%. And if one learned the Talmud a thousand times, one say, I haven't yet mastered the Yerushalmi. You know, whatever it is, the not yet is really a common denominator that all of us have to have. And that's how we liberate ourselves from our own mitzrayim. The second element I actually talked about two weeks ago, just encapsulated in a in a sentence or two. Maskilin dig nosh to begin with the bad and culminate in the good. We gave a whole share on this, that the inner meaning of that is to understand that even in the adversities and challenges of life, there is a hidden redemption. That it's often the challenges that we have that bring out our greatness, bring out our resilience, our courage. I refer you to Victor Frankl's magnificent book Man's Search for Meaning, in which he shows that it's precisely confrontation with difficulty that has the potential for greatness. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily we will rise to that occasion. We often fail. But in every challenge, there's a magnificent potential for spiritual growth. And therefore, the inner meaning of beginning with the bad is not simply remember how bad things were so you'll appreciate the good, which is one understanding, but to understand that even in the bad there was good. Remember we talked about the fact that the Jews in Egypt learned compassion and empathy from their slavery. They learned group solidarity from the oppression that was forced upon them. So, they took the negatives of that experience and they grew from them. We then come to Rabban Gamliel's three mitzvahs. The Pesach, the carbon Pesach, the matzah, and the maror. I'm going to go in reverse order for a moment. The maror is tasting bitter herbs to remember slavery. Remember slavery. What lesson does that have with respect to our own inner mitzrayim? The lesson might be that the first step to being spiritually liberated from your enslavement is to be honest enough to recognize you are a slave. If you live in a state of denial, you don't a person doesn't recognize they have an anger problem or selfishness problem or an egotism problem, they're not aware that there's an issue here. They'll never be able to correct it. So, the maror says, if you want to be free, acknowledge what it is that enslaves you. Stare it in the face. And when you stare it in the face, you can do something about it. You can own it. You can recapture it. You can direct it. You can change it. But if you live in a state of obliviousness and denial, nothing's going to happen. I remember when I moved to a Silver Spring, Maryland and I had to commute to Baltimore every day to teach at the University of Maryland Law School. So, those of you that know uh that part of the country, part of the US, you know, you have to take a road, a major highway, 95 North. But, if you veer off the wrong uh way, you're 95 South and you're going into Virginia. So, I was driving on 95 North and I didn't see the turnoff. I just was in the extreme right lane and all of a sudden I'm noticing the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, which means basically you're going into Virginia. And I was thinking to myself, "Oh, gee, I don't remember the Washington Monument on the way to Baltimore. Could I be going 95 South?" Oh, I didn't want to I didn't want to admit to myself. I can't even explain this logically, so don't expect any coherent explanation, but I didn't want to admit that I was on the wrong road. Because if I admitted I was on the wrong road, I didn't know how to correct it. So, I started telling myself, "You know, maybe you do see the Washington Monument on the way to Baltimore. You just never noticed it before and now you're noticing it." And I was trying to convince myself of this, which was obviously ridiculous. But, what's the point? If you're lost, you can do nothing about it until you admit that you're lost. As long as you think you're going the right way or you convince yourself or you trick yourself, can't do anything Nothing's going to happen. Right? You'll just do the same thing. I mean, like Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing thinking you'll get a different result." I mean, there was no way if I keep on driving on 95 South, I'm going to get to Baltimore. Well, there is a way. 95 South ends at Key West, Florida. And then I could just make a U-turn, but that would have taken like, you know, 15 hours or 20 hours or whatever whatever whatever it would be. So I would have been late for class that day. So maror is be honest to yourself. But honesty is not enough. There are people who have gone to psychotherapy for many many years. They know every conflict they ever faced in their lives. They have insight galore. But they do nothing about it. The lesson of matzah is take action. We know that matzah and chametz uh what's the difference? You know, matzah good, chametz bad. So, you know, a common explanation is chametz is puffed up, it represents arrogance, skiva, conceit. Matzah's flat, it's humble. And that's, you know, indeed a very good explanation. But maror has an has an additional take on it. Maror says chametz also represents inertia. Because when water hits the flour, you don't have to put anything in it. You don't have to put yeast in it. You don't have to put a starter in it. When water hits flour, chametz will happen automatically after 18 minutes. Matzah you have to bake. Right? The water hits the flour, you must put it in an oven within 18 minutes or it's no good. So, a difference between chametz and matzah is chametz is the life of inertia. And matzah is taking decisive action. So, if maror is the cognitive awareness of what I need to correct, matzah says do something about it. Seize the moment. You know, all of us have in life moments of inspiration. It could be any It a Pesach seder, it could be Yom Kippur, it could be a wedding, it could be just walking the streets of Yerushalayim. You're at the Kotel, but even after the Kotel, just walking you you you realize you're in Eretz Yisrael. And a person feels inspired, a person feels moved, a person feels connected to God. But you know, if you don't concretize that inspiration in a good deed, a chesed, can you been out Baruch Hashem there's so many beautiful projects, a chesed, a learning commitment, uh calling up a friend uh who you may have some an antagonistic relationship. If you don't try to use the inspiration to concretize it in some spiritual accomplishment, feelings come and go. And when it passes, it's gone. And you won't necessarily be able to recapture it. Matzah says, "Take your feelings and take your insights and concretize." You know, there was a famous American academic, Robert Hutchins, who had who was the president of the University of Chicago at the age of 25. He was older than a lot of the student I'm sorry, he was younger than a lot of the students that he was president of. And somebody once asked him why he doesn't do physical exercise. You ought to jog more or whatever it is. And he responded, he does get the urge to exercise every once in a while, but he knows if he lies down and waits a few minutes, it'll pass. So, he doesn't let it bother him. And that's true with ex- it is true with exercise, uh but it's also true with a lot of things. You get inspired, but you let it pass. It just disappears. So, matzah says, "Concretize your inspiration in some type of action." And the beauty is, it could actually be a very small action. Because it's like a bridge. When you initially build a bridge, it may start with a single cable. A cable. Right? It might be a, you know, 4-in cable or 10-in cable. And then you can do another cable around it, etc., etc. Because mitzvah gereres mitzvah. Once you do one mitzvah, you get a greater spiritual strength. So, maror is be aware of the slavery. Matzah take action. We then have carbon Pesach. We then have the Pesach offering. Now, there's a lot of things to say about Pesach offerings. I just want to say one thought. One of the unique halachos of the carbon Pesach is you cannot bring it alone. Even if you have a big appetite and a small lamb and you could finish the whole thing yourself. You have to join with others. Either I bring it with my family or if I don't have a family I have to be part of a group. I have to bring the Pesach in a group setting. I can't bring it as an individual. And here the important lesson is in our spiritual exodus from Egypt we can't be solitary. We have to connect to people that are engaged in that journey as well. Now, it's true that each of us has our own unique challenges and our own unique slaveries. But we connect to people that are trying to grow, trying to move. Optimally, it should be within our own families, but sometimes we don't have that opportunity. So, we find families. We find people that we connect to. We work together. What does Hamelech say in the book of Koheles? Two are better than one. Because when two people, when when you have two people and one person falls, the other can lift him up. When one person falls, and he's all alone, who will pick him up? Think about this pasuk. Obviously, this pasuk literally refers to something like ice. I slip on the ice. Who's going to pick me up if nobody's around? But metaphorically, there's a much broader application. In life, there are times that we feel alone, that we feel afraid, we feel inadequate. We feel we're not able to succeed, so we falter and we fall. But if I have a friend, he he or she can give me strength when I'm weak. And I can give them strength when I'm strong and they're weak. We help each other. We build on each other. We give strength to each other. Carbon Pesach says, you want to leave Mitzrayim, you got to connect to other people to be able to do it. You're not going to be able to do it all by yourself. I mean, sometimes there are circumstances, a person is in Siberia in a prison cell, then God will give you the strength. I That's very, very true. But most of the time, we need to connect to others. So, this is the lesson. Every person has their Mitzrayim. Question and answer, be a seeker of wisdom. Matzah beckons us. Understand that in the challenges of life, there is redemption. Maror, have the honesty to to admit your slavery. Matzah, do something about it. Pesach, find a community of people in which you can grow together and move together. One final little question, I know I'm running a little over, is if maror is identifying my slavery, And matzah is doing something about it. One might expect that we should eat the maror before we eat the matzah. But at the Pesach seder, we first eat the matzah and then we eat the maror. How can I solve a problem before I identify what the problem is? I don't know what to solve. So, here I would suggest there's a very deep idea. And that is although it's true sequentially that I got to be of my deficits before I could change in a positive way, but I have to internalize the capacity for change before I focus on my deficits. Because if I were to focus on the maror right away, I might get depressed. I might get depleted. I might feel defeated. And I wouldn't realize I have the psychic strength to change. Therefore, first know you can change and grow. And then focus on whatever needs to be fixed. So, you need to internalize the lesson of the matzah before you focus on the maror. Now, again, I just want to end with this sentence. I I realize that I'm talking about Pesach. It's not yet Pesach yet. Uh but let me point out that the commentaries tell us that the same way at Pesach time, Hashem puts the power of liberation in the air that allows me to be liberated, we experience a similar phenomenon in the weeks that we're reading about Yitziat Mitzrayim, that I can tap into that power. So, these weeks are actually mini Pesach. They're Pesach without the issue of chametz, right? So, you don't have all of the restrictions, but these are weeks in which I can tap into these potentialities. May Hashem give us the strength and give us the insight to be able to do so. All of us know the great great challenges that are faced throughout the world and again particularly uh to my beloved friends in America, my own children in America. Uh we know how difficult things are. It is not just COVID. COVID is is hard enough and that's a worldwide problem. But it's the political instability, the unrest, the polarization, the hatred which has even come to violence and the like. And it's a time of great great confusion. But we do have to know that these are weeks in which Hashem will allow us to achieve a spiritual liberation. May we have the wisdom to rise to that occasion. So, shua tovin people let's talk again.