Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Freedom From Our Own Constraints is THE STORY of THE JEWS

[Music] okay hi everybody thank you thank you for coming and uh our sh tonight is dedicated a ra Sha to Nat Ben zel and B Ben fra and as always for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and especially for the safe and quick return of our brothers and sisters held in captivity um obviously you know although it seems life is relatively stable here but there is a war going on uh there are people whose lives are in danger and we still have to think about it we cannot allow ourselves to be indifferent or complacent Al for shom MOS schomo Whose y side is on the eth of shat the mother of ariny and benzar we also have an anonymous donation for the and our hostages to return safe and totally healthy to their homes and tm's protection for all of Israel and for the G in these days uh finally we'd like to invite everybody to the annual tuat seder uh which will be Wednesday night so you'll be stuck with me for two nights in a row uh we have Tuesday nights regular she and then there's a two then there's a tat seder Wednesday night it'll be at Nim right Nim uh live music by Kim David he's a wonderful performer in fact many many people point out that their favorite part of the boness sh is is the music beforehand which is from D so you'll get to hear it more than a little uh snippet and that's Wednesday night January 24 and to register just send a an email to TU bishvat I guess it's all uppercase it looks like one continuous word at eon.com and the payment instructions will be sent as a reply uh we look forward to your participation uh again uh tuat have become much more popular uh even among the nonic non- cabalistic worlds and it is a beautiful beautiful custom and ultimately it inspires us to to gratitude and and expressing our love and appreciation uh for the gifts of er Israel so it's it's a worthwhile uh exercise to to participate in and of course uh it is rooted in cabala it started with the tomm of of the Ral and although we will not be doing heavy heavy heavy cabala but obviously some mystical ideas will hopefully uh come out in the course so uh we're continuing uh The Saga of yat MIT and uh the way the paros are divided are kind of odd because one would have expected perhaps that the 10 plagues would all be in one para but it's not really that way you have seven in last week's para the last three in this para some even want to say that the name of the para is Bo ELO go to parro and Bo is batri gimmel three because there are three instead ofro Bo elro which is grammatically not the best word to use canotes the no there are three more Marcos that are there and just as a general idea just a general thought it's not even tied to any particular Maca the Macos are a very peculiar thing you know if the purpose of the Macos is to get the Jews out of Egypt there surely were simpler ways God could just take God could have wiped out Egypt take the Jews out or God could have left Egypt around and just take the Jews out this notion that God brings makos and yet God hardens Pyro's heart so he's going to say no so the whole thing gets stretched out longer than it would have been obviously shows us a very important idea that the purpose of the Macos were not to Simply get the Jews out of Egypt there would be no reason for a protracted process that took a year from start to finish and there would certainly be no logic in God impeding the process by hardening pyroar I I'll talk about the theological implications of that but rather the purpose ofat is really toold it is to get the Jews out to purify them to remove them from Tuma so they'll ultim Ely receive a Torah and fulfill their mission in the world certainly but it's also the notion that God wants to demonstrate his Mastery over nature his Mastery over mankind the notion that people the greatest of nations are just puppets and God is like the Puppeteer or the marionette master and therefore this is a demonstration of God's greatness God's omnipotence God's control over nature and God's control even over the will of man and therefore it's not simply a matter of just getting the Jews out of there but it's to to that the war that the Jews and the mitam and the whole world should understand that there is a God and that is why this process took the form that it took now the emesis that um there's a whole discussion in many many many sources uh but I'm going to focus a little bit on rambam on my manes in the laws of repentance in h Chua the rambam develops at Great length the idea of is Free Will and the reason why the ramban was addressing Free Will is number one because there were uh currents in Islamic philosophy the almadad that took the position that God controls everything and therefore God predetermines if you're going to be righteous or not righteous and it's not in your control the same way God controls who will live and who will die God controls who is good and who is bad in Christianity that was echoed much much later in the calvinist doctrines of predestination so there were religious currents in the rambam's time they were coming from Islam later they came from Christianity that denied the reality of Free Will and the ramban went to Great Lengths to talk about the idea that free will the ability to decide to be righteous or evil is your decision it is not God's decision and the rambam argues that is a necessary corollary of reward and Punishment because if we have a system where a person is rewarded because of virtuous Behavior whe whether it's this world or the world to come that that's not relevant to this question If a person is rewarded for virtuous behavior and a person is punished this world next world for evil Behavior reward and Punishment canotes responsibility accountability responsibility connotes the freedom to choose one way or the other it would be immoral it would be unjust to punish a Russia if he was programmed to be a Russia and it would be unjust to reward a person for just doing what they naturally would do anyway so the rambam argues the whole concept of sares presupposes Free Will presupposes accountability responsibility and therefore amazingly enough as say everything is in the hands of Heaven the decision to fear God to serve God you are the master of your Fai you are the captain of your ship it's not up to God thing I mentioned before when I was in Yeshiva many years ago so we would greet our Ros at the begin at the beginning of every and he would always ask us you know in yish are you going to learn well this month and we would give the from answer you know if God Wills we will learn well and he said wrong answer Hashem certainly wants you to learn well the issue is not does God want you to learn well the issue is do you want to learn well that is the real answer because amazing amazing thing that God has a hands-off attitude Visa our decision uh to serve him and this is in fact the rambam has language that one might have have assumed is a little bit of hyperbolic a little bit of hyperbole he says every person can be as great a sadic as Moshe Renu wow great a sadic as mosha rabeno and as big of a Russia as yava Ben nevat the first king of the 10 tribes who not only sinned but he led everybody else astray with golden calves that he built and you can be the biggest sadic the biggest Russia maybe another time I'll talk about does the is the rambam serious when he says I could be as great as mosenu you know I understand every person could be exotic as great as Mosher raenu that sounds a little bit little bit too much okay maybe we'll we'll talk about that another time now in the r now why does the R put in why does he put it in the laws of repentance actually it's very very simple because number one it is that necessitates Chua because once again if my good and evil were predetermined there would be no need for me to do Chua for my bad because it's not my fault so number one is the reason why I must do chuva and number two B is the reason why I can do Chua because once again without B how could I change right so B and Chua are very very very connected B is the why I have to repent and B is the how I'm able to repent so both of them are going to be EV so in his discussion of B though the r the T the rambam raises four questions I guess P four questions these are different four questions four questions about the nature of Free Will so I want to go over them very very briefly uh it's actually it's not the main thing I want to talk about but but I think I think it's useful as a perspective on the 10 maros generally question number one is uh is uh a philosophical question not a textual one and that is how do you reconcile with Divine omnipotence now Divine omnipotence mean God is all powerful so how can I do something against the will of God God Wills that I live my life in a good way B says I can violate the will of God God is that not a contradiction to God being all powerful so the rambam's answer essentially is that yeah God is certainly all powerful and God could has the power to stop me from sinning it is God's decision not to stop so whatever it is that I'm doing against the will of God actually becomes the will of God mean meaning the following this is a little bit of a brain teaser if I it depends how you ask the question if I ask the question does God want me to do evil the answer is no God does not want me to do evil so then you'll ask a question well if God does not want me to do evil how can I do evil against the will of God that's undermine God's omnipotence but the answer is God does not want me to do evil but God wants me to have the ability to do evil in order that I make Free Will so in a sense Free Will is the higher will of God at a greater level of abstraction meaning God does not want me to sin but God wants me to have the power to sin and the reason for that is because only when I have the power to sin is my doing good a virtuous moral Act of spirituality otherwise it's just mechanical otherwise it has no particular meaning so it depends how you ask the question it is not God's direct will that I do evil but it's God's will that I have the capacity to do evil which automatically means I have the chance to mess things up and therefore my manity says rambam says this is not a contradiction to omnipotence of the Creator but then there's a second question this is also philosophical the other two questions are going to be textual questions the second philosophical question is is B and this is a famous question and kids often ask this question it's a good question and you know and that is it is a contradiction to omniscience not omniscience is God's knowledge of the future right God knows the future so the question is how do you reconcile Free Will with God knowing ahead of time what's going to happen so let's assume we say I wake up this morning morning or tomorrow morning and it's up to me to decide to Davin or not to doin no one's going to make me doin right so I have free will to do it not to do it I have free will to talk lashara or not now the thing is though God knew yesterday what I was going to do tomorrow God knew it a 100 years ago God knew it a thousand years ago God knew it a million million years ago so how can one have a choice of doing a or b if by the time I exercise the choice it is already known what I'm going to do right so that's a that's a famous question the question basically is God knows the future so at the moment of choice there is no longer a choice to be made so the rambam's basic answer the rambam gives a philosophical answer which very much annoyed the rivot the rivit said if you can't answer the question don't ask it uh and the rambam says that we really can't answer this question because unlike a human being where my knowledge and my Essence are two different things there's me and there's what I know because Hashem is an indivisible Unity God's knowledge is the same as God's Essence we don't even know what that means exactly and therefore Manan says the same way that we can't know the essence of God we can't know the knowledge of God because knowledge and Essence are the same and therefore we just don't know now people offer a little bit of an explanation and they say that God's knowledge of the future is not based on a concept of time in other words the question of how can I have free will today if God knew my choice yesterday is presupposing a temporal sequence of a past that is earlier than a future but God exists above time so God sees what we call the future as equivalent to the present moment now the same way if I see you doing I'm just seeing what you're doing I'm not interfering with your choice God's knowledge of the future would be analogous to a human observer's knowledge of the present in which it's God's knowledge of a present moment even that's a little misleading uh and therefore it's not in other words the question presupposes God already knew before but from God's perspective it's not a before it's a concurrent and therefore uh being above time the Dilemma goes away Nowa the riid didn't like any of this the rivid actually says if you can't answer a question clearly don't ask it and the rivid gives another answer which I think is quite astounding uh the rivot is trying to defend free will it seems in my very very humble opinion obviously that he's actually undermining free will the rivet's answer is that God really does not know the future but God predicts the future at a 100% rate of accuracy now the example would be the following the example would be uh let's say um you come home and mom makes you you know you visit your parents and mom makes a dinner say a milk dinner and she always offers you ice cream and the ice cream is always two different flavors you can have vanilla or chocolate now she knows that for the past 30 years you've always asked for vanilla but she always gives you the choice and you always have the choice to pick chocolate but Mom knows you so unless you're going to surprise her she pretty she's pretty sure you're going to pick vanilla now you could surprise her so God since God knows every single thing about our past based on his past knowledge he's able to predict what we will do but not that he knows he doesn't know because deriv it argues deriv it argues this is philosophically a daring position God cannot know the future because the future hasn't happened yet there there is nothing for God to know God cannot know the future there is no future this is what the rivit says but God can predict now even I as a human can predict but my predictive accuracy may not be correct now the the reason why I find this rivit extremely problematical is it echoes a position of the famous or inFAMOUS perhaps American psychologist John Watson at the very beginning of the 20th century he's called the behaviorist where Watson said if I knew every single thing that ever happened to you in your life if I knew it every single thing I could predict how you're going to behave because every human being is a product of all of their inputs and the only reason I cannot predict it is because I don't have perfect knowledge if I had perfect knowledge I could predict it now it seems to me that if you take that extreme position that is a blistering attack on the notion of free will because that basically says you are an automatic product of everything that happened to you so if the rivot is saying God can predict because he knows everything that happened to you I think you have a real problem with real but this is the the ribot's uh Point okay so these are the first two questions huh yeah I didn't hear you uh the inputs didn't finish to to come um oh okay so uh no but the so so you're asking the question according to the rivid uh how does God know what I'm going to do a 100 years ago because there are more inputs that will be coming that God is not aware of that that's a very excellent question that that is that is a good question you do with tra I mean tra upsets the whole balance of the past well yeah okay but uh again the rivot seems to be saying that you can even predict who's going to do tra TR until now you're not going to I mean that's what yeah okay but the rambam's answer is that God's knowledge is not within time and therefore God is simply observing the present moment and the same way if I observe a present moment I'm not interfering with your choice okay now question three and four of the rambam are textual questions they are not uh as abstract philosophical and that is let's go back to the Covenant of the parts the brisban abarim right that's when Hashem tells abam that your children will be enslaved in a land that is not theirs and they will be aliens and uh persecuted Etc and then they will leave with great wealth well I will judge the nation that enslaves them and they will leave with great wealth as indeed they left this week's par so the fundamental question is God seems to have decreed that the Jewish people would be enslaved in a land that is not theirs if God has decreed that this would happen that would mean the Egyptians did not have free will so how could they be punished for not having free will that's the rambam's third question and there his answer is the following his answer is that you will note that Hashem did not say that Egyptians would be the enslavers he said Eris Lam so God did decree that the Jewish people would be enslaved but the nation of Egypt and certainly every individual Egyptian had absolute free will not to engage in this evil behavior and therefore they are accountable now granted if they would have chosen not to enslave the Jewish people somebody else would have God did not decree that they would do it and if God did not decree that they would do it they would be accountable now ran has a problem with the ramban because the ramban's argument is well yeah but if it's God's will that there be an enslavement then whoever does it should be doing a Mitzvah not a but that that's a different question meaning the ramban was simply asking where's the Free Will if God decreed it and the answer is they had free will not to do it that's the free will question ramban is is asking a different question what is the morality of punishing them and the ramban's answer is we look at motive their motive was not to serve Hashem Etc I mean this is always the issue the bad stuff was decreed by God but the bad guys are still accountable for their Free Will I mean that's what we would say about the Holocaust that we say about everything okay but question number four is the biggie it's true that in the bris Bim hashm did not decree that the Egyptians Enslaved the Jewish people so they had free will to enslave or not to enslave but by the time it says God hardened parro's heart and be sure be sure you understand these are two different questions people sometimes uh collapse them the question of the brisban abarim and hasem hardening par heart are two different questions and the answer that the rambam gave to the Brisbane absar is not going to be an answer to God hardening parro's heart because the simple meaning of God hardening parro's heart is that parro if left to his own would have broken under the pressure and he would have released the Jewish people but God wanted him to be stubborn so God could do his wonders and his miracles and demonstrate his power there you have a real problem parro and Egypt are getting Maca after Maca after Maca not not because of a volitional sin that they committed but because God as it were over rode the exercise of free will that would have released the Jewish people early as a result of that pressure that's question number four how do you understand God hardening parro's heart so here the rambam offers a thought and this is actually an echo the mishna Torah he wrote in his 50s and 60s but this thought actually appears much earlier in Theona praim which is the rambam's introduction toos that was written in his 30s uh in fact there's a remarkable consistency in a lot of the rambam's thoughts and the rambam was very proud of this he sometimes gives you these little biographical notes he says compare what I wrote to what other people have written about this problem and you will see the superiority of what I am suggesting right so the rambam very much held of this particular thought and here's what the rambam says the rambam points out that we know that in the scheme of divine punishment for evil there are many many different forms that Divine punishment can take Divine punishment can be inah could be in geham Divine punishment can be physical death Divine punishment can be illness Divine punishment can be poverty we don't really know why God chooses this medium or that Medium Divine punishment can be loss of function a person could lose an arm a person could lose a leg a person could lose their eyes by the way the rambam is not suggesting that it's only because of punishment there are other reasons besides that but but in the realm of punishment these are possibilities of punishment again we're not suggesting that's the only reason these things happen so the rambam says the same way punishment could take the form of loss of limb punishment could take the form of loss of certain faculties including free will a punishment for sin can be the loss of Free Will so you're not going to do trua so the rampam points out the phrase that God hardened parro's heart does not appear in the first five makos the first five makos parro hardened his heart it only appears in the second half so says the rambam because parro repeatedly refused to acknowledge hashem's power because parro hardened his heart over again and over again and over again and over again he reached the level where God took away his free will now even that doesn't mean totally Hashem hardening parro heart doesn't necessarily mean he had no capacity but but in other words but God took away the natural inclination he would have had to give in in order that Hashem should punish him not for the in other words the punishments of parro and MIT were not for their refusal in the last five it was for their refusal in the first five in which they otherwise would have done chuva God didn't want to give them that opportunity so all of the punishments they got were in reality for the first five and that's the rambam's idea that the ones of Hashem can be that the DAR are withheld from you so you will get your full ones without the ability or at least with a an imper ability not impossible but an imper ability uh to do tra in some ways it's reminiscent of a legal issue that people raise sometimes in a secular sense let's say uh driving while intoxicated right so what would you think about such a defense a guy gets totally drunk drives an automobile and kills somebody his argument is well what do you want I was mentally impaired I was not of proper mind when I drove the car I was not physically able to control the motor vehicle how can I be responsible for what I did when I was drunk how can I be responsible for what I did when I was when I was on a drug a drug trip I was temporarily insane I was insane I was impaired I had no Free Will at that point but the answer is it it is true that you didn't have free will but the reason why you didn't have free will was because of the choices that you made when you had free will to drink and the like and therefore you will be responsible even for the consequences that ensue when you have reached the point of no return because you put yourself at the point of no return by the that you you did actually some uh have offered this as an answer to another question that I've had for many years and that is what's so great about mashia uh because you think about this we say mashia we don't have the at so I get to do Mitzvah without struggle uh and the like well the question you might ask is what's the value of doing mitzvos without struggle and without Yara isn't our theme always that God rewards you because you've struggled because you've worked because you're overcoming things to do do Mitzvah without any struggle does not seem to give me any credit maybe I'm better off in the world of struggle and when I die my soul should go to why do I need an Earthly Forum where I do Mitzvah without struggle so someone is say it's the same type of idea in the positive way and that is if through your struggle you became a righteous person and therefore you graduate to a Messianic era where the Mitzvah are done effortlessly you will get credit even though there's no real when mashia comes but it's a consequence of the B you exercise now so the same way parro is going to be responsible for what he doesn't have any volition because it came from his volitional Rebellion against God this can also work out in terms of the Mitzvah that I do without struggle but they come because of the life that I lived when I struggled so I'm going to get credit because that is also a consequence of my it's an interesting perspective because otherwise the truth is I mean I I hate to say it it's hard to otherwise understand what is so great about mhia because here's the thing ultimately even when Mia comes we're still going to die until resurrection of the dead so our nitus is not mashia our eternity isah so the ramban writes the purpose of mashia is that we'll get more by doing more mitzvah but the question is why would I get more if there's no struggle but the answer is it's comes from the struggle that you put in and therefore even the automatic pilot Mitzvah are going to acre to your credit right that's uh I think someone told me this in the name of the SAT Reb interestingly enough to explain the Mila the Mila of mashia okay so this was a bit of an introduction to uh the whole issue of Free Will Free Will is a very very very perplexing topic and there's also all sorts of ramifications um I have free will well I can choose to be righteous or not but does my free will enable me to harm somebody else right uh you know it's the old problem of the person who goes into a 7-Eleven if you're familiar with United States 7-Eleven and um a a robber you know kills him now did the robber have to pull the trigger no he had B on the other hand uh this person is supposed to die otherwise he wouldn't have died so what would have happened if the robber wouldn't pull the trigger uh would the guy live if that's so the robber is able to kill him even though God did not decree that he should die or do we assume that he would have had a heart attack or something he would have died anyway I mean what does that mean with the Holocaust uh the nazzis Hitler and all the Nazis ukrainians poles everybody that was involved in the Holocaust they had had free will not to do it so what if they would have decided not to do it are we to assume that 6 million people would have dropped would have dropped dead that's kind of a little unusual there would have been co co or there would have been you know something uh and the like so it's it's hard to know now there's one of the difficult questions which I'm not even going to address but just something that can drive you crazy as you think about it is the intersection of My Free Will with respect to other people who get affected by my free will which seems to contradict the idea that God decrees the fates of everybody on rashishana and Jim Kipper right the guy who got killed in the 7-Eleven did God did God decree that he would die at that moment and how does that match up with the Free Will of the guy who could have decided not to pull the trigger it's a difficult difficult question there's a lot of ink that has been spilled and the clarity is very very difficult again there are and other other sources I do discuss it okay now I don't now I want to get back to the par itself this is more of a a perspective on the Macos and Free Will and God hardening Pyro's heart and that is um let's go back to a statement in the hagada that I talked about uh two weeks ago and I'm going to continue it and that is the state of Rin Gamel he this is from the mishna ran Gamel said anyone that does not explain three mitzvos does not fulfill his obligation and the three mitzvos are actually in this week's para PES eating the Corbin PES matah eating matah and eating the mor we have to explain them and that's why in the ha there's a paragraph about each of these mitzvah P now what does it mean he has not fulfilled his obligation which obligation has he not fulfilled so there actually is a mlus among the commentators among the reim how to interpret the mishna there are some that actually say he has not fulfilled the mitzvos of eating the matah the mar and the P meaning you haven't fulfilled the eating obligations unless you explain their significance that is view number one and I'm not going to deny there is such a view however many Rim say that's not EMS many say heyy the Mitzvah of matah I fulfill by eating it I don't got to explain it just I don't have to explain Su the Mitzvah of p i by eating it the Mitzvah of by eating it so when it says it doesn't mean you're not but it means you're not theah of narrative the Mitzvah of in other words it's basically telling me that in the Mitzvah of recounting The Exodus you must talk about not that it is in P it's in the which would actually mean an interesting thing that would actually mean that even if you don't have P but you're going to recite the ha you still have to explain in other words it's not simply to fulfill the Mitzvah of eating it's to fulfill the Mitzvah of ha now why is this so important so let me remind you again of another text in the that we spoke about uh at length two weeks ago and the explanation of the balat every person must regard themselves as if they themselves have been liberated from and if you recall I don't want don't want to repeat the whole sh but if you recall you know I raised the question what does that mean I was never in Egypt I was never a Slave What does it mean that I have to regard myself as if I was a slave in Egypt and the Beautiful powerful explanation of the balatan is that the word MIT has a double meaning MIT does mean Egypt that ancient world Empire that enslaved us and debased us and brought us to the 4th level of Tuma and that is a historical event that vad happened and Hashem took us out with the makos the C yam right that's primary meaning but MIT has an additional meaning it refers to boundaries limitations constrictions blockages and every person has their inner mitzah every person has something that enslaves them something that blocks them it could be my anger it could be my arrogance it could be my self-loathing my depression my lack of enthusiasm in a Hashem my inability to connect with other people my lack of Shalom bias the estrangement of parents and children I mean the list is endless unfortunately this is my MIT this is my struggle so says the balat when Hashem liberated the Jewish people from MIT he put into the barer a spiritual kak that if I latch onto it and I connect to it I can be liberated from so the obligation that a person has to see himself as if he was taken out of MIM doesn't mean I have to imagine as if I was a slave in Egypt and taken out of Egypt but I have to identify my own inner MIT and believe that hem will give me the kak to be liberated from my own M which means therefore that every element of of the hagada has a double analysis you might call it a lower meaning or a basic meaning and a more idiosyncratic meaning the basic meaning is of course the historical story that has so many lessons in which a parent lovingly communicates that message to their children about God's Providence God's kindness God's might in taking us out of that slavery and giving us the Torah all of that is true but that we will call the common story of am Israel that is the story for everybody but then there's another dimension that is personal and idiosyncratic and private that as I connect to the general story I also recognize Within Myself a personal mitam that as part of this story I can become liberated from my MIT now maybe that's something you share with people at a Seder or maybe not that makes no difference but there is the communal slavery and there's the individual slavery and indeed the SW say that the inner slavery may be more difficult than the outer slavery that's the old saying you can take the Jew out of MIT it's harder to take MIT out of the Jew so seen in this way let's go back to Rabin gam when talks about the importance of P you can analyze them in terms of how they pertain to my individual MIT and how these are liberators the are these are vehicles that help liberate me from my own I'm going to go in reverse order I'll explain why later I'm first going to start with Mora Mora what is Mora Mora is the the Mitzvah to eat something bitter in order to commemorate in order to remember the slavery and affliction of Mitra now granted we don't insist that the bitterness be extreme extreme Romain lettuce is hardly like horseradish although there are purists who insist on the horseradish although I do want to warn people I'm sure everyone knows but some people don't know so I I want to pointed out I mean I'll mention it again before PES and that is the Jarred horseradish that's pickled with vinegar is absolutely not Kosher for the Sader so if you're having horseradish it got to be the raw unpickled graded or not graded but it cannot be the horseradish in the jar one needs to know that you're not y the Mitzvah with Mor that is cooked or pickled in something else okay now how does that pertain to my inner mitz Rams so this is the interesting point the very first step to become liberated is to recognize you're enslaved if you don't acknowledge the bitterness in your life meaning the aspect of your life that needs to be rectified you can't take any steps to rectify it so morar is to have the honesty and courage to confront that which is enslaving me you know all of us have a tendency to sweep problems under the rug ignore things and what happens is the rug gets higher and higher and higher off the floor till it hits the ceiling and at some point if you don't deal with that inner slavery it's going to consume you it's going to destroy you so par paradoxically the first step to freedom is to admit that you're a slave until you admit you're lost you're not going to take any steps to find the right path you know um when I lived in Silver Spring right outside Washington so I was a professor at the University of Maryland law school which is in Baltimore the main campus is College Park which is actually close to Silver Spring but have to go to Baltimore so for those of you who know the east coast of the United States so you got to go on a major highway for around 45 minutes 95 north right so you go from Silver Spring 95 North you go to Baltimore but there is a turnoff to 95 south so if you're not watching and you're in the right lane you could find it so in my early years when I wasn't so familiar with the pathway I wasn't thinking my mind was wandering I was driving to Baltimore and all of a sudden I noticed the Washington mon uments the Jefferson Memorial the Lincoln Memorial those are not things you see when you're going to Baltimore those are things that you see when you're in Virginia o what am I doing here Virginia now I can't even explain this I'm just going to describe it I can't explain it I didn't want to admit I was on 95 South CU I didn't really know how to get off I know if I go all the way to Florida I just do a U-turn but you know I didn't know what to do so I was playing Mind Tricks so I wouldn't have to concede that I was lost I you know I was saying to myself I remember this you know maybe you could see it from Baltimore you just know you just you know you never noticed it before you know maybe that's it now as I was going through that I knew it wasn't true but I didn't want to admit I was lost because I didn't know how to find the right way but you understand until I admitted I was lost I would be going the wrong way Forever Florida was quite a few hours so and the same thing with Investments all the time the the old expression of uh throwing good money after bad you invest money in a venture and you lose money but you don't want to lose $10,000 so you put in $55,000 hopefully it'll be better it'll be better better But as Einstein said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result it doesn't once in a while does a miracle but we're not so on Miracles you know usually the same cause will have the same effect that's the way Hashem normally normally made the world so Mar says you got to acknowledge there's a problem and then you can start fixing it right so the greatest slavery is the person who doesn't even and admit to themselves that they're enslaved because they can't do anything about it because they're they're not willing to admit there's something that they got to do something about so that's Mor sees the opportunity to identify what I need to be maten now then we come to matah now matah is a very very interesting uh what you might say it's multiple symbols of matah even in the itself matah has a certain ambiguity matah is called Leoni the bread of Affliction the bread of slaves the bread of poverty the Ezra writes as a traveler he saw in India that the maharajas were giving their slaves matah because it's stuck in their stomachs for hours and hours and they didn't have to feed them a lot of bread and whatever so matah is like moror slavery but matah is also the sign of redemption at the same time we did didn't have time to let our D rise right so mat is both a G symbol and an abda symbol that's why you'll notice there are different explanations from it all comes together it's a Simon of and a Simon of the by which we had to leave MIT but there are other symbols for matah as as well uh the morale points out and of course and mat some say is a sign of arrogance it's puffed up matah is flat it represents humility that's a well-known theme is GAA mat is Anova but maral has another interesting point he says represents inertia and matah represents ATO when water hits flour if you do nothing at all you don't need yeast it will become after let us say 18 minutes mcus exactly in other words you don't need to do anything to make something matah requires action you have to arrest the fermentation by heat before the 18 minutes so the morale points out even the letters of and mat are very interesting they share two common letters a me and it's IC but is mat although different order is hey you can look at a hey as an arrested in other words the the left leg is stopped before it hits the top action stop it stop the process so moral says that matah I'm sorry represents inertia letting things right matah represents taking decisive action so here is the relationship morar is the cognitive awareness that I have a problem but just because I'm aware of a problem that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to do anything about it there are people for example who have been in psychoanalysis all of their lives and they know every single problem they've ever been through every trauma in their lives uh all the way to birth traumas and maybe pre-birth traumas perhaps preconception traumas probably not but who knows they know the whole story every single thing and they relive it and they rehash it but they haven't taken the decisive action uh either because they enjoy kind of being admired in in all all of this so if Mara is the cognitive awareness of my flaws matah is the imperative of doing something about it you know they say um there was a great American intellectual it was really a child prodigy uh Robert Hutchins who became uh president of the University of Chicago at the age of 22 I mean he was actually younger than many of The Graduate students in the University very very brilliant a man um and uh he was once criticized uh for not taking care of his physical health to that degree so someone said now Dr hutkin don't you ever have the urge to exercise a little bit so he responded I certainly have the urge but I know if I just lie down for a few minutes uh I let it pass meaning you know I you know I have the urge but I won't let it bother me well in Rus well first of all that applies to all of us including myself uh very much as well but in Ras it's very much the same thing all of us at various moments have certain spiritual you know arousing but we let it pass it passes by just uh you know the inspiration doesn't last you know you could be inspired a peser yum Kipper uh AA of a child or a grandchild there are times of you feel very close to hasem but if you don't concretize the experience by action it just passes inspiration comes and goes unless it's concretized now once you concretize it then we have kaz's promise Mitzvah Mitzvah one Mitzvah causes another Mitzvah it's like the way they build a bridge you know you build a bridge with a single cable across the span of water and the cable can sustain another cable then another cable and another cable that's how you build it's the small actions that build up that core of spirituality inspiration can be an impetus to do that small action but if you don't use it as an impetus it just fades it just goes away right the carak minion of Friday night may not last very much after the minion is over unless you it like you learn a half an hour or something you know whatever whatever whatever it would be so morar is awareness of what I need to correct matah is the imperative of action we then come to carbon PES again I'll explain why I I switched the order now Corbin P has many many symbols but there's one interesting of the Corbin p and that is you cannot bring the carbon p in thear but the ra you cannot bring the Corbin p as an individual meaning I got to bring it with other people even if I have a very big appetite and I have a very small lamb so I could finish the whole thing myself the is I have to bring with other people either my family or if I don't have a family I must join a I have to join I cannot do it alone and that's once again a very important lesson and that is in our journey to Liberation in our journey away from the inner MIT that enslaves us we can't do it alone we need each other we need to find communities in which I can give to others and others can give to me all of us have weak moments now schl in the book of cois very very interesting beautiful perplexing contradictory book but one of the famous verses in goalis is two are better than one because if one Falls the other person can pick me up and if I fall by myself who's going to pick me up now goalis is not only talking about snow and ice although that's true as well he's talking about life in life there are times that we're weak there are times that we're confused there are times that we're uncertain and then another person can pick me up and they're there for me and I'm there for them ideally this is hopefully what a marriage is about each one strengthens the other but there are other avenues besides marriage or in addition to marriage or instead of marriage whatever it would be there's Community there's friends there's finding people in which you share your spiritual journey you know the rambam writes it says in P you should get for yourself a friend why is friendship important what's so important about having a friend so the ramom gives three reasons actually it seems he got it from Aristotle but okay but the but the ramom mentions these three reasons reason number one I'll call utilitarian meaning if you lose your keys at the airport and you don't you don't know how you're going to get home if you don't have a friend like who you going to call so friends are like life insurance policies maybe you know maybe I'm not going to need them but just in case it's a good investment on a pragmatic basis to have people that you can call we'll call that the utilitarian practical aspect of friendship the second aspect is loneliness you know human beings our social creatures we want to have people that we can talk to and those are those are valid too but the rambam says the real Tas of friendship is what we would call spiritual connection that we share goals of serving Hashem we share goals of mitz we share goals of Torah and each one gives to the other person in their moments of weakness so yeah people can have friends on many levels you can have a friend that's a social friend so to speak you know you see them at a bar mitzvah say hello that's good okay but the deepest friendships are those when each one is giving the other person now by the way those friendships might be more difficult because if I'm I am truly truly a loving friend then I will sometimes bring up delicate and difficult issues that the other person would rather not discuss and of course I have to be open to them bringing it up to me see if somebody's only a social friend you know I don't have to you know take a for you know different things that are not they're doing that are not so great you know I can whatever I can let it go I'm not saying I should let it go but but whatever but I you know it's kind of not my business but if I really love and care about somebody you know there's going to be that issue so ironically the deepest friendships might sometimes be the most difficult friendships marriage might be a very good example of that because precisely because you care about each other you bring up things that are not just you know the easiest things to bring up and you don't sweep them hopefully you don't sweep them under the rug so it turns out that P is a blueprint for achieving my own identify your slavery mat do something about it P find Community big or small where you share the spiritual goals and you work together now the only uh final question I would point out is that if Mora is to identify my problem and matah is to do something about it then you might ask the question why at the Seder do we first eat matah and then we eat Mor how can I address Mata is action how can I address a problem before I know know what the problem is it actually would make more sense eat Mor to to to identify your slavery and then eat matah to show that you're capable of doing action so here too there is a psychologically profound idea although it's true that I certainly cannot address a problem till I know what the problem is I must internalize my capacity to address problems you see if I started with morar which is an awareness of my inner slavery what might happen is I might be so overwhelmed with my that I might be depressed I might feel I have no way of going on so the first step is I have to know that I'm capable of change I'm capable of decisive action I am better than my worst moments only after I internalize the message of M can I then identify my and then in I combine the mat and the mar the problem and the solution you see it's very logical matah convinces me of my power of change Mar then requires me to identify what I need to change and korak is taking the problem and chewing it together with the solution the ability of imperative action so the point I'm making is that every aspect of the Seder is both historical and idiosyncratic and again I I don't want to deemphasize the history the history is fundamental to is there is the history of which is our story this is the story of the Jewish people but I'm just adding that superimposed on the story of the Jewish people is the individual Journey that we take in our own and therefore every ritual of the Seder is understood on those multiple multiple levels now again this may sound like PES talk but nevertheless as I indicated the shal and other tell us that in the the spiritual light of p is shining and therefore the that we get in we also get during these particular weeks and therefore we should latch on and may hasem liberate us from all of the things that enslave us thank you [Music] Jeffs it's