Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: I Will Take you Out, Save you, Redeem you and Take you as Mine

[Music] hi everybody uh because of the segue we're doing our shirt from my normal office and yoshibato samayak instead of the yael show in baca but again i do appreciate the live audience i have as small as it is but it's good to also talk to actual human faces uh today's shir is sponsored in memory of binyamin zev benjarav yosef and pearl of chicago and vulva it is this 58th york site on the second day of shavat and we hope that the jiffrey tower should be nishmatau to bring him to a higher and higher place in ghaneden and in addition we are continuing to pray as we have for a number of weeks already uh for the young man binyamin israel then hanita that she'd have a refugee layman israel he and his family are certainly in our thoughts and our prayers and god willing he should get better and should get stronger we are of course in the book of shemos and we are dealing with the parshiots about yet mithraim and if you remember at the end of last week's parsha moshi robano was the very reluctant leader hashem gave him a mission at the burning bush and moshe in spite of his being the most humble of all people argued with god quite strenuously a number of times to turn down the mission and moshe rabbanu used all sorts of strategies he said he's not good enough he said they're not good enough he said there are better people to get he doesn't know how to talk and he argued with takaris barco are weak in many many different ways finally moshe avenue runs out of arguments and he and our own go to pyro our own of course is moshe's interpreter so to speak moshe does not speak well he is heavy of tongue and he mumbles to our own and iron is able to communicate in a much more eloquent speech and what happens contrary to their own expectations is that not only do things not get better but things get worse pyro decrees you guys are too lazy the jewish people have too much time on their hands that's why they're agitating for freedom and civil rights and liberty let's kind of change the rules here instead of giving them the raw materials such as straw to make the bricks we'll make them gather their own straw they still have to have the same quota of bricks and when moshe abandoned walks out of pyro's palace after the rest of the jews have gotten the news they're all looking at him like what do you think you did for us and in truth this breaks moshe raven moshe rabbanu says to god lava why have you made things worse for these people why did you send me um from the time that i came hey raleigh you made things worse moshe bainer is saying okay maybe i'm ineffectual maybe i didn't do the job but do things have to be worse am i the cause of additional suffering that breaks moshe avenue because once again out of the goodness of his heart the very last thing that he would ever imagine that he would have to do would be to be the vehicle of punishment the vehicle of destruction the vehicle of making things worse now it's interesting the madris has a very interesting comment mosher abbayno complained to god with the word us as meaning from then you're using the us as a basis of complaint i swear to you that that very word us that you're using as the basis of complaints will be the very term that you will use when you celebrate the redemption of the jewish people and that of course is the famous song on the red sea which was the culmination of the redemption of the jewish people from egypt which begins with us yahshua moshe then moshe will sing this song and the commentaries explain that it's not simply a verbal game of association there's the badass and the good us but rather the negative us that from the time i came you made things worse is actually a bee's line to the redemption of the good us that just as the night is darkness is darkest as the expression goes precisely before the dawn the slavery of egypt had to descend into the most unbearable state before there could be the light of redemption the jewish people had to realize there was no choice they had to realize there was no alternative they could not make peace with their matsev only when the slave realizes how utterly intolerable is their condition are they ready for the gift of freedom because as long as you think this is okay then you're not really ready for the next step and therefore it had to get worse before it could get better in truth this is a little bit of a metaphor for exile as well and again we're going through difficult times now besides covet the copper is almost unfortunately on the back burner in light of much of the domestic turbulence particularly in the united states but i'm not a navi of course and i'm not in any position to offer any type of definitive reading of what's going on but part of what's going on is that god wants the jewish people to understand how fundamentally intolerable life in the galat is and will become because when we realize that as comfortable as we are in the galot it is not our home it is not our reality it is not our spiritual focus then we are ready and enabled for redemption so although i think all of us hope and pray that no jew should suffer really no no person should suffer we pray for mercy and compassion and goodness and justice but if indeed there are going to be hard times ahead that too is part of the messianic process so we realize that galot is not our life and we look to eric israel we look to yerushalayim we look to mashiach look to the basa mikdash and once again we look at the egyptian exile as our precedent it had to get worse before it got better and that is what the medrash means the very word us that you use as a complaint against my ways will be the key to the redemption that will be encapsulated in us yashir moshe now it's interesting that god in the beginning of this week's parsha and again we have to always remember that you always have to connect the parshiot even though we have a different story reading every week but sequentially the story is continuous after moshe rabbeno complains which is the very end of say of parashat shmot in voira god gives moshe moosa he gives them he says you don't have the faith of your forefathers i appeared to them i made promises to them but those promises were not fulfilled in their lifetimes but they had faith that there would be an ultimate fulfillment why are you not like the others for those who are gone who cannot be replaced and this hashem is actually drawing an unfavorable comparison at least in this context between moshe avenue and the others avraham yitzhak and yakov i appeared to them with the name shakai the name god almighty which is a name that is used when god imposes limits ahmad shakai shindalajit we we pronounce it chakai all mildly allah die he did not allow the world to progress beyond a certain point so that refers to god putting limits on the world they experience so to speak god limiting his beneficence ushmi hashem but my attribute of yudkevke which is the divine name of mercy and compassion and expansiveness lo no doubt elam i was not known to them by that name they did not experience the realization of that aspect of my divinity and yet they did not deny they did not weaken in their faith how can you be so little of faith so be it as it may god then says to moshe tell binay israel i'm making the following promise the god of mercy and as rashi says the god of faithfulness if i say it's going to happen it's going to happen i am ultimately trustworthy and i am hashem vote say see islam i will take them out from under the burdens of mithraim fearsome revelations of my presence and i will take them unto me for a nation and i will bring them to the land of israel the land that i promised to avram mitsuken yakov it's very well known that this pasuk is actually taken as the source for a very common very popular well-known ritual that we engage in at the seder one of the mitzvos of the seder leo pesach is to drink four cups of wine at various points and interestingly enough people don't realize this because the reason is so well known the babylonian talmud does not give a reason for the myths of dalit cosos just says you got to drink four cups of wine and you position the kosovos at various points of the seder the first coast is kiddish the second coast is haggadah the third coast is birkata maza you bench over a coast and the fourth coast is the recitation of the hallel after benching and then you drink the fourth cup but why the number four there is no reason that is given in the babylonian entitlement by contrast the jerusalem talmud does give the reason that's very very well known and that is the four kosovos are connected they correspond to the four terms of redemption in god's promised emotion hodseisi i will take them out he salty i will save them they go out the i will redeem them i will take them unto me for a nation and even though there is as i quoted a fifth term of redemption for hey vasey i will bring them to the land that is not really counted because that is primarily a reference to the ultimate messianic redemption which has not yet occurred but in terms of leaving mitzrayim we have four the shonot of gaula and to correspond to the four the show note of gaula we have four kosovos again this is a very well-known reason that even kids in elementary school hater learn but interestingly enough it is not from the babylonian talmud it is from the jerusalem tournament caneget arbol the shyness of goula the question becomes what is the significance of for the show note of google yet see it's mithralium was a unitary event god took the jewish people out of mitzrayim that's a redemption one redemption why is that redemption described with four different of the show notes of giula so i want to share with you two midrashim and the midrashim are not necessarily consistent they're not necessarily moving in the same direction but i want to look at these two midrashim and i want to connect them madrish number one says that before the show note of corresponds to four evil decrees of para para made evil decrees in a various sequence and god redeemed us from each of those evil decrees evil decree number one was obtuse the actual enslavement of a free people was an evil was a perversity so the vote says he means i will take you out of your abdus out of your servitude gazette number two which was already gone before you see at mitralim was when pyro initially told his soldiers i'm sorry initially uh he told the midwives that was the original point he told the midwives shifran puah who were actually miriam to kill the jewish males that were born because he had seen with astrology that there would be a savior of israel that would be born he wanted them to be killed so this is the gezera of the miyal dots of the midwives to kill the babies and hashem that gezera was annulled simply because shifur and poor refused to carry it out remember they made up the story that the jewish women give birth before we get there and therefore there's nothing we can do so the second gezera was the gezera of the mialdot the third gezera was when pyro had his soldiers do it to the babies throw the males into the nile and the fourth gezero was the last step when pyro made the jewish people gather their own straw which made their life much more difficult so because there were four evil decrees of pyro servitude midwives soldiers and straw that is why we have for the show notes of giulia because there were four primary adversities from which god has redeemed us that's midrich number one metrics number two takes a totally different view of this medusa number two says the reason why there are for the show note of gula is because the dalit cosos and and even these terms of gula do not only refer to the s mithraim but they are prophecies of comfort regarding all of the exiles that the jewish people will experience in the future we know and we talked about this i think a number of times that according to rabbinic tradition particularly the way they interpret verses in the book of daniel and the book of yachaskel and the book of zachariah the jewish people are going to undergo four exiles in the course of our history this is not counting egypt egypt is pre-exiled because we weren't in eric israel but from the time we come to eric israel till the coming of mashiach there are going to be four exiles and in fact this is summarized in the chanukah song mahou so we talked about this around chanukah time there is the babylonian exile where buchanan destroyed the basa mikhnash and then there was the persian exile where the persian empire overthrew the babylonian empire and during the persian rule over eric israel that is when the second temple was constructed shortly after ahashverosh of purim infamy and then eventually the persian empire was conquered by alexander the great and that initiated the gr the greek rule over the land of israel and then there was a brief interlude of around 100 years of the hasmoneans but ghazal considered the asmonians to be part of the greek rule of eric israel because the hasmoneans themselves became hellenists and then that was succeeded by the roman rule the gullus which is said to be related to asaph and the romans not only conquered eric israel but in the year 70 between 68 and 70. they destroyed the basa mikdash they sent us into galut and to this very day although hashem we have israel to this very day the goddess of adam the goddess of asaf has not really ended and it will not end until the coming of the mashiach these are called the four kingdoms babylonia persia greece and rome and even though the roman empire is long gone but the effects of what they did still remain and let me point out as well that rome eventually became the seat of the catholic church which was perhaps still is the dominance sect within christianity and given the fact that the fate of the jewish world was always linked in usually negative ways to the ascendancy and the power of the christian church we are still within the gallup of edom now we did talk i don't want to repeat everything that we talked about a lot that there is a lot of talk about the gallup of ishmael which is the arab states and the fact that they have such a stranglehold over the world in terms of islamic fundamentalism the control of the oil supply and the like and certainly the fate of the jewish state and really the faith of the western world is very much bound up with the powers of the galat ismail which is said to be the very last stage before mashiach but it's a complicated interaction but essentially in rabbinic literature the galuta of ishmael is not regarded as a separate gallaudet it is regarded as an augmentation and an intensification of the galot of edom and again one could explain this in a very simple way it is still indisputably the case that the vast majority of jews in the world are living under the rule under the government of western civilization which comes from rome yes they are affected by ishmael they are affected by islamic terrorism they are affected by oil uh ishmael in other words is negatively impacting on the galata vadom but the fundamental galore to steal the galois of western civilization so be it as and i should also point out that the talmud and the medrish were written before muhammad so as a result there actually is never a reference really to the rise of ishmael that primarily appears in the writings of the mukubalim that were already in the 16th century which is way when the islamic empire was at its ascendancy so be this it made therefore madrid number two links before the show note of galah to the four golios as if to say just as god redeemed us from egypt god will redeem us after he already has redeemed us redeem us from babylon from persia from greece now this has already been done and bizrat hashem bakarov from the goddess of adam so these are two midrashim that i want you to think about side by side the question they answer is is a single question why do we need for the show note of google and four cosots of wine to commemorate the exodus of egypt answer number one because paro in egypt promulgated four evil decrees servitude the midwives being ordered to kill jewish babies the soldiers killing jewish babies and straw that's answer number one answer number two to correspond to the four exiles after mithraim babylon persia greece and rome so the question becomes is there a way of connecting these two midwestern now again you don't have to connect to mid-russian but each matrix could stand on its own and express a different idea but there's an intriguing suggestion made by the hidushi harim the rim abbreviation rabbi yitzhak mayer alter was the first the founder really of guerrero hasidah so he was the first guerra rebbe establishing his court in the polish town of gare near warsa and he wants to connect the two midrashim with the following idea each galut as it unfolded babylon persia greece and rome is really an expansion of one of those gezeros of pyro so the gullis above al corresponds to xavier number one the godless of persia corresponds to gezera number two the godless of greece corresponds to gezera number three and the goddess of adam asaph the roman gulus corresponds to gezera number four why would there be this correspondence so here is the the point that he makes it's a very disheartening point in some ways when hashem told avraham your children will be enslaved in a land that is not theirs and they will be afflicted and oppressed 400 years but the nation that enslaves them and afflicts them i will judge and they will leave with great wealth so god told avraham that this decree will be on the chill on his descendants for 400 years we know that from the time yaakov came to mitzrayim until the time that the jewish people left mizrahim was only years hashem took us out a hundred and ninety years early and yes rashi explains that god recalibrated like a gps he recalibrated the count so we count from the birth of yitzhak but you have to understand that that's a recalibration the original intention was 400 years in mitzrayim god had to take us out early because after 210 years we were on the 49th level and had we remained even a few minutes that it takes for doe to rise we would have hit 50. so god had to cut it short by 190 years that sounds great but the rim says there's a tremendous cost had we been able to stay in mitzrayim for the entire 400 years we would have purified our souls from all its impurities and we would have been ready for the ultimate redemption and we wouldn't have needed the other gullies we would have gone to eric to sell immediately we would have built the base basement mashiach would have come and there would no longer be suffering but because we cut the process short because the gezeros of paro never ran their full course we needed all of the goliyot that we have again the the closest analogy is chemotherapy if god forbid a person has cancer and the person undergoes aggressive chemotherapy to kill the cancer but there are times where the chemotherapy is so toxic that we have to discontinue the chemotherapy because it will kill the patients the chemotherapy will kill the patients so we stop the treatment but the problem is when you stop the treatments the cancer inside may continue to grow until eventually you'll have to have a more drastic treatment to be able to get it out this is exactly how the fiduciary rim describes the gulles we needed another 190 years but we couldn't have it because it would have killed us so god took us out leaving certain spiritual cancers within he had to do that otherwise we wouldn't have survived but the problem is those cancers require more and more drastic chemotherapies and that's why because we couldn't last 190 years we need thousands and thousands of years of gullus that's why it's a disheartening message we could have held out another 190 years we wouldn't have needed any of this and therefore he points out this is his that each gogus corresponds to a gazera of paro that was not allowed to run its course and therefore you were going to connect the four gezeros of pyro with the four exiles okay that's kind of the correlation because since this gezera was not carried out to its fullest extent there needs to be a goddess that corresponds to it so we'll compare these lists side by side the first gazero of pyro was simply enslaving us taking away our autonomy taking away our independence that corresponds to the exile of bubble because indeed that's exactly what babylonia did babylonia conquered the land of israel conquered the land of israel and destroyed the temple so what does bubble represent bubble represents removing our independence taking away our autonomy uh making us slaves see the other goliaths didn't do that because it was already done meaning if you think about it when persia took over then greece took over then rome took over we already were in a subservient dependent state they did not make us subservient the nation that made us subservient was in fact bava and therefore the galoot of baval corresponds to the gezera of abdus now we then come to the second decree the second decree was when pyro ordered the midwives to murder to strangle a jewish baby that was born a male we could say that that was genocide he wanted the killing of the jewish nation at least in terms of getting rid of the men well what happens [Music] okay what happens with the goddess of persia after esther the outstanding event so to speak in the persian exile was haman's decree of genocide to wipe out hashem he was not successful but that corresponds to egypt as well because the aldot also didn't kill any of the boys so harmon was not successful but if bavel corresponds to servitude persia corresponds to genocide and murder and therefore that is the second xero of pyro now the exile of greece is a little bit more metaphorical not as straightforward the third gezera also appears to be genocide in which the soldiers actually took the jewish men and threw the jewish babies and threw them in the nile and unfortunately this was carried out to some degree meaning there were jewish babies who lost their lives by being thrown into the nile this corresponds to greece now why is this so so here's what the traditional room says this is a bit more metaphorical he says that water water is both a positive force water is a life-giving force you cannot live without water water purifies water cleans water sustains life water enables growth the tyre is compared to water but there's another characteristic of water that water can drown you and suffocate you okay i drink a glass of water that's good i stick my head in water and i don't take it out after seconds or minutes that's bad i die greek culture like the torah lahavdil is like water there was wisdom there there was knowledge there was understanding there was beauty again we talked a lot about this around chanukah time but if you totally immerse yourself into the greek culture it becomes suffocating choking it kills you now that is what happened during the greek period during the greek period many many jews became enamored of hellenistic culture i think i pointed out even before antiago santiagos tried to coerce people to become hellenists but in truth many many jews were buying the hellenist philosophy without any coercion they were enamored with greek philosophy mathematics science literature athletics so if bavel represents political subjugation and persia represents genocide the trial of the greek galut is assimilation in fact in many many ways the situation of a jew in modern western society is really part of the greek exile it's the greek exile within the roman exile i've mentioned before the babachirevi easier to be from in siberia than suburbia that suburbia gives me all of these different opportunities why be jewish so you see how this is a bit metaphorical if the third gezera of pyro was drowning the babies in water the greek exile was drowning the jews in the water i.e the wisdom of greek culture and assimilation so it played out in a non-literal way the third gezero of pyro was quite literally destruction by water the galut of yavan is destruction by assimilation and again i don't want to uh overstate this point but it's a very very important point in many many ways assimilation is a greater danger for jews than persecution strangely enough historically jewish religious life tended to flourish in many eras of great persecution precisely when we have unlimited freedom is when people leave judaism and embrace the values and marriages of secular society interestingly enough in the 19th century during the napoleonic wars in europe so there was a mach lokas among the great hasidic rebbies of poland when napoleon invaded russia should we pray for napoleon or pray for the tsar some rabbis basically said life under zyrus russia was so oppressive so bad the jews were confined to the pale of settlement which changed every few months they had to move and relocate there was the cantonese in which jewish little children were conscripted forcibly into the cyrus army for 30 years there was taxation there was poverty there was anti-semitism there were programs and napoleon promised liberty and freedom and equality so some rabbi said let's pray for napoleon he will give the jews such a better life the altar evidence the first obamacare we have shared solomon of lyadi who was living under cyrus russia he said the opposite we should pray for the tsar's success because as wretched as life is under the tsar our bodies are afflicted but our spirituality is strong on the other hand if we have an environment that opens up the gates of freedom then we will see a wholesale assimilation of juice like horses going down a hill you won't be able to stop it and as a result the alta rebbe actually raised money for the czar's army i believe he got a medal and interestingly enough uh after the communist revolution of 1917 100 years later the communists used that as an excuse to persecute chabad i mean they they just needed any little excuse by saying that the altar rebbe was a counter-revolutionary was an imperialist as a result uh they used that as a justification to imprison the chabad rebbies later and the like so the goddess of bravo once again servitude first gazero of para the gullis of persia genocide that's the second gezera of pyro of the uh mialdots strangling the babies the third gezera is assimilation the goddess of greece and that corresponds to the soldiers throwing the babies into water because metaphorically water represents wisdom and water is life-giving but when you stick your head in it to the exclusion of the other things that you need it will kill you it will destroy you spiritually but now we come to the last decree and it's difficult to understand how the last decree corresponds to the worst and longest gullus and that is the decree of straw and the decree of straw corresponds to the goddess of adam the goddess of asaf the roman goddess which is so much longer than any other ghost the goddess above el was 70 years the gullus of persia was a little more than 50 years the gullus of of of greece was around 250 years but the goddess of adam of asaf is more than 2 000 years it's less than 2 000 years almost 2000 years since the destruction of the temple but rome conquered eric israel before that point so the roman exile is at least 2 000 years old how does that correspond with straw so here the aryam says a very interesting idea he points out that the gola that the gezera of kash is described as the people must scatter to find their straw they're not going to be given the straw they must scatter he suggests that the dominant characteristic of the exile of asaph is that it is a goddess of scattering now in what way is that true it's true in a number of ways first geographically the dispersion of the jews throughout the world is much greater in this scholars than it was in any prior regardless and then all the prior goddesses so you had jews in babylonia uh jews in persia they were kind of localized but the idea that there will be a jew in every single corner of the world that's part of the piezor the scattering of the goddess of enzyme there are jews everywhere in one way that's negative because we want the jews jewish people to come back to eric israel but you know the gemara says there's a positive role for the scattering of jews throughout the world and that is it is a way to bring the light of judaism to far-flung corners so that garam converts good converts the shamas that are jewish the shamas will be connected to the jewish people again judaism does not proselytize we are absolutely not in the business of encouraging people to become jewish that's not what we do in fact we believe that a righteous noah the righteous gentile who keeps the seven commandments of noah has a share in the world to come like that's almost a unique teaching of judaism that judaism is not exclusive in being a road to salvation we do believe that different people will have alternative routes of being connected to god so we don't proselytize that we sometimes even discourage but if people never get exposed to judaism they will not be able to make a choice right it's up to you you know the gear makes the choice but what choice do you make if you don't have any information so ghazal actually saw that the dispersion of the jewish people throughout the world was a way of spreading the teachings of judaism and by the way conversion is only one way that that's accomplished the truth of the matter is even people don't convert judaism has quite a few teachings that are very relevant on the universal basis the dignity of man the fact that every human being is the image of god the equality of rich and poor in the eyes of god in other words jewish ideas are important in the world even if you're not going to be jewish they're important ideas and of course one could add that with the internet the jewish scattering throughout the world together with a lot of other things that get scattered is enhanced exponentially because the whole world can be reached i remember one of my friends is a prominent rabbi in baltimore in the shiva near israel rabbi youssocha france some of you might listen to ishiori so i remember in one of the advertisements for his classes it says rabbi franz has listeners on every continent and i think it says including antarctica so jews everywhere antarctica et cetera when we get people in the moon or mars there'll be jews up there too although i have to say there's interesting halal questions is the torah binding when you're not on earth that's an interesting quest interesting question now when you're in an airplane you're still in the earth's atmosphere so you got to keep the torah but there is a sheila do i have to put on philly on mars or keep shabbos okay and i won't get into that maybe we'll talk about it another time so one level of piso is simply geographical dispersion another element is the psychological divisions that exist between people remember what the gemara says the first basal mikdash was destroyed because of the primary sins of avodah zara idolatry gilliarrio sexual impropriety and srivika stamin murder but the second base of mikdash was destroyed because of hatred that exists among jews polarization coldness indifference cliquishness that's also piezoer when we talk about being scattered we're not just talking about geographical dispersion we're talking about emotional distancing and estrangement and this is a tragic cancer that is still with us it is not just the estrangement between religious and secular but the estrangement within religious different types of hasidim it is the estrangement in which we create our own little clicks our own little groups and everyone outside of our group just doesn't matter it doesn't count so that's a second element of pisor scattering and the third element which is really related to the second element is the emotional distancing within families the lack of shalom in between husband and wife parents and children the idea that people who should naturally love and care for each other often don't know how to communicate they don't know how to connect they're living two different types of lives and to quote thoreau lives of quiet desperation all of this is pisor pizor is geographical dispersion pizor is the sinatra nam that exists among the jewish people pizor is the emotional estrangement that exists within families and let me say that in the broader political culture without commenting too specifically on what's going on in the united states you see the estrangement the inability of people to be able to join together for the common good because each one's selfish and parochial concerns become so dominant that you can no longer even hear what the other person wants to say and you result to censorship to violence to brutality rather than have a debate have a discussion find common ground so connecting the galata connecting the straw with the galata vadom is both involve being scattered being separated in many many different ways let me add as well that one characteristic of the straw straw was that it created what we call a zero-sum game meaning like this when everybody got their straw and they had a quota of bricks so my gain was not your loss meaning if i could make 20 bricks that wasn't stopping you from making 20 bricks meaning each person had an equal opportunity to do a good job but when we have to fight over the straw i'm looking for this looking for that then every piece of straw that i find is a lost opportunity for you and that suggests a type of society where you're no longer working cooperatively but you're engaged in an up one minship in which in order for me to win i gotta take something away from you all of this is the connection between the galoot of edom asaf and the gizera of straw but let me mention a final aspect of the notion of scattering i can be scattered geographically i can be emotionally distanced from my fellow jail i could be emotionally estranged from my wife and my children and my parents meaning i can be separated from people but there's another type of estrangement in which you are alienated even from yourself in this age of the internet in this age of the information explosion access to information that was literally inconceivable 20 30 40 years ago we sometimes find ourselves so overwhelmed with inputs that we have no way to truly decide what's important in our lives i remember years ago i once saw an ad in one of the washington papers about a specialty delicatessen and it said we offer 300 types of mustard so i thought to myself wow let's imagine that my wife told me right before shabbos could you go to the grocery store and pick up a jar of mustard and i walk into a grocery store and i see 300 brands of mustard let's assume they're all kosher i think i would be paralyzed with indecision what do i do where do i go i'm simply scattered and confused within myself i don't know what to do i don't know where to go somebody says uh get a devour torah off the internet putting a saggy but now category of itself well you know i i don't know cause i got together do i talk about the internet on departure i don't know how many thousands of things you're going to see whether it's a a text or whether it's a video what do i choose where do i go unlimited information is not an unmixed blessing you know there's information overload there's paralysis there's the inability to prioritize there's the inability to have clarity where do i go what do i do what do i focus on and that's a different type of piezor that's a different type of scattering that is not scattering these are the other people that is scattering and confusion within yourself what are my goals in life how do i achieve my goals how do i prioritize what's important and what's less important how do i not just live in the moment but have some type of vision where i want my life to go that confusion is a self-alienation where you can't even integrate all of the different components of yourself and then therefore what the reduction is telling us is that you see at mitzrayim is kind of the paradigm it is kind of the model for all of the goliaths that we experience there is the gallup of servitude and the gallup of genocide and the galata of assimilation and then there's the galoot of being scattered scattered geographically scattered emotionally vis-a-vis my relationships with others and scattered within myself in which i cannot get a clear sense of where to go i don't have what is called moral clarity an ability to prioritize and therefore when we think about yet see at mitzrayim we are not just thinking about the exodus of egypt that occurred in the past but how desperately we need it see at mithraim from the mitzrayim that is within us the egypt that is within us the old saying goes it is easier to take the jew out of mitzrayim than it is to take mitsuram out of the jew these are confusing times these are times of trouble a worldwide pandemic which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives but even worse than the so many too many lives that it's taken is the fear and the path and the economic and social and psychic costs of lockdowns it is also a time of confusion politically in which people can no longer talk civilly to each other political debates now become literal occasions for enmity and hatred and the foundations of the consensus that enables a society to remain stable even when there are spirited disagreements nobody is saying not to debate not to disagree not to argue every page of gomorrah every page of gomorrah is filled with argument and debate certainly judaism is very much in favor of that you know the old saying two jews three opinions but there has to be a sense that we're one people there has to be a sense of has to be a sense that people are striving for striving for a common goal here i know that i'm mixing back and forth the jewish people and the world generally but i am talking about both as jews we have a special responsibility for the jewish people but what i'm saying is not just a message for the jewish people it's really a message for societies we can disagree and we should disagree but we can do so and we must do some with a common respect for the humanity and the dignity of the other the idea that every human being is created in the image of god the foundation of jewish ethics is a universalistic principle that holds true for all humans and all societies but this peace or this confusion this estrangement this alienation prolongs our exile in very very bitter ways and when we mentioned that hashem took us out of mitzrayim every single day we should couple that with a prayer that he take us out of this mitzrayim as well so i hope and i pray on behalf of all of us all of the jewish people all of the world the rakaris park who enable us to experience the redemption but it does have to start with us we have to take concrete steps and then god will respond may we be zoha to rise to that challenge thank you in the short sure [Music] foreign