Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Pesach, Matzah and Maror 3 steps to Redemption

[Music] okay so we're obviously in the parsha of the actual UCS mitzrayim the Exodus and parshat bow and a parakeet bass chapter 12 of safer schmoes we find that the Jewish people are given a number of commandments that they are supposed to observe the Seder night the night before they leave they're going to leave the morning of the 15th of Nisan and they were commanded on Rosh Hodesh Nisan two weeks earlier to involve themselves in many Commandments such as the korban Pesach putting the blood on the doorway the doorways and unbel int'l the eating of matzah the eating of Mara and these are myths wrote that have continued every year so I want to focus really on a statement that's in the Haggadah of Pesach that is taken from a Mishnah Robin gum will hire American will used to say call me Shelly our marshal OSHA to farm halal Luba Pesa anyone who does not explain three things connected to Pesach know your cell you take over so has not fulfilled his obligation and those three things are korban Pesach why we eat the carbon Pesa matzah why we eat matzah and more or why we eat more now let's focus on the first part of the sentence whoever does not explain these three things has not fulfilled his obligation which obligation have they not fulfilled so the commentaries say right that right off the bat it does not mean the obligation of PASOK Matsuura the obligation of eating the carbon peso the obligation of eating the matzah the obligation of eating the morrow are you fulfill those obligations by eating you don't have to explain just like for example you fulfil lulav and etrog you don't have to explain anything so when it says lo y'all see you they say let's say it does not refer to those mitzvahs it refers to the Mitzvah of narration there is mitzva the neither pesado to discuss the exodus so part of what you must do is explain the symbolic meaning of pisaq matzah and more so the question is why is that so important I mean one would have thought that the story of the exodus is simply the story of God taking us out of Egypt why is it so important to explain the symbolism of the foods that we eat and indeed what is the symbolism of those foods that we eat of course today we don't have a base on mikdash we are not yet soca' to bring the Corbin pizza we hope and we pray that already this coming Pesach we will have the opportunity to bring the Corbin Pesa but nevertheless just as we say with Dominic who neshama Hiram safar say know that when we talk about what we don't have God credits it as if we have the core bun that is certainly true with the carven pays up itself so here I have to go back to a point that I think I made a number of times already and that is let's take another statement in the Haggadah high of Adam lyricist at smell a person must regard themselves as if they themselves were taken out of Egypt and the question becomes how is that true I was never in Egypt and what why can it be said I must regard myself as if I was taken out of Egypt so I think I mentioned to you two different explanations one is the Rambam and one is the bhava tania the alter rebbe the first Rebbe of Chabad the rambam says that the dinner of kaya varam lyricist at smoky lulu yas'm mitzrayim is a matter of what you caught my call imaginative visualization or even method acting if you want to be a little flippant about it and that is the Rambam makes the points that in order to fully appreciate the meaning of an experience you sometimes need to visualize and imagine going through it so in order for me to be appreciative of God redeeming our forefathers from Egypt I need to imagine what it was like to be a slave I need to imagine the whipping the abuse the the back-breaking labor the humiliation the lack of privacy and by just like a method actor by putting myself in the emotions of that moment by visualization by imagination I am able to transpose myself to that moment in time and then I can relive or experience even for the first time the fullness of that moment and the greatness of the freedom and liberation that God has given us which means according to the random the statement that each person must regard themselves as if they were taken out of mitzrayim is not a truthful statement it is frankly a make-believe statement but it's designed to facilitate feelings of gratitude and emotional connection to that experience that is the round button and indeed it's something that we sometimes don't always emphasize in Torah Judaism the power of imagination the power of visualization in my pure drive I wines which give a sure about the PSS the Rebbe the h kodesh the last Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto and he talked quite a lot about the idea of visualization this was actually one of his Hasidic themes including visualizing the day of your death in terms of trying to feel what are going to be your regrets and you leave the world ends somewhat daringly he even talks about visualization of the almighty with the recognition that that's not a true visualization but he says if it helps a person in governing to visualize a man with a what long white beard embracing him he is permitted to engage even in that type of visualization because that could bring him to an emotional state of inner duvet coats cleaving of course there you have the caveats that he must understand that this is not a true picture but this is a means of arousing certain emotions obviously that particular visualization was quite controversial and I hasten to add the Rambam would almost certainly I could say with certainty would disassociate from that type of visualization because if you know the general philosophy of the round on the round bomb was a warrior against any type of anthropomorphic conception any type of human-like conception of God I mean essentially if we had to summarize in one sentence why the round bomb wrote the guide to the perplexed although there are many many themes and the guide to the perplexed the number one theme of the guide to the perplexed is the lack of physicality and corporality in the nature of the nature of the essence of God now that does raise peripheral I mean important questions but their peripheral through my topic tonight that's the old idea of you know on one hand the Rambam makes the point and this is kind of a cornerstone of Jewish belief that God does not have a body on the other hand if we posit God cannot have a body by his very nature we run into the difficult questions of God's omnipotence if God can do whatever he wants then why can't God have a body if he so desires those are you know famous questions difficult questions no the along the lines can God commit suicide can God make an object that he can't move etc that that's always a problem no there was anything that defines God could be seen as a form of limitation of God and that runs head-on into a collision course with the notion of omnipotence that there's nothing that God cannot - dad interesting question I'm not going to talk about that question tonight but I'm just bringing it in because the Rambam does employ visualization and imagination not in imagining God as a physical being you know he does not go as far as the Piazza snur Rebbe of Colonia most common Shapiro but that's how he understands you must regard yourself as if you were in Mitzrayim imagine what it is like to be a slave again those of you that are familiar with Lee Strasberg or Marlon Brando and method acting understands that that is what a method actor does he kind of imagines himself to be in that experience shot number two is from the ballet Tanya and this is not a contradiction but it's another perspective that Mitzrayim does not mean Egypt at all mitzrayim means limitations constrict and constrictions blockages and seen in that way every person has a mitzrayim an inner material and that inner mitzrayim is something that enslaves me from within it blocks me it constricts me it could be my egotism it could be my arrogance it could be my selfishness my laziness my lack of self esteem my lack of self awareness my inability to connect to others my inability to love God and the inability to even connect to my own inner feeling all of this is blockage all of this is Mitzrayim and the bhava tonya says when God redeemed the Jewish people from Mitzrayim he put a power into the world that enables each and every one of us to become liberated from the inner mitzrayim that enslaves us so this statement each person must regard himself as if they were taken out of mitzrayim is not to be translated each person must make believe they were a slave in Egypt but rather each person must honestly recognize the inner mitzrayim of their hearts and recognize that by linking to the spiritual phenomenon of each cioth with ryeom they can achieve their own internal liberation from whatever it is that enslaves us that's a very very powerful idea because what it tells us is that UCS metrium is not just a historical event but it introduced into the world a certain process a certain color a certain power that I can tap into now the truth of the matter is that is consistent that is consistent with the general understanding of time in Judaism sacred time is not linear it is really cyclical when we commemorate historical events it's not simply there was an event and we are remembering it but rather these events bring into the world spiritual energies and when those days come again in the calendar cycle those spiritual energies are reignited they become present every Moana and I'm able to tap into those spiritual energies to achieve whatever it is I need so Shifu out would be the the clerk of the Torah coming in Sukkot is feeling the protective presence of God Pesa is that about freedom from my inner my inner myths right I think I had mentioned on the Sunday and again I apologize for people who go to more than one share of mine sometimes you'll hear some repetition and I apologize for that but as Robert Lipinski says you know a person eats his grandmother's chocolate cake more than once and they don't complain and and that is that you know the largest Seder in the world is in Kathmandu it used to be at least I'm not sure today Chabad runs the Seder for more than 2,000 people many of whom most of them I think are Israelis who are doing their travelling daren't that many Native Jewish Napoleon's in the Powell and this is 2,000 personal Seder huge Seder it's quite amazing logistically it's amazing and how do you run the Seder that size without a microphone yesterday posting as a maybe a smaller issue but it's a similar issue in our big Seder and the like and they have an interesting custom an era of Pesa when they burn their high mates everybody takes a piece of paper and writes down a bad character trait that they would like to destroy along with the comics and they burned that character traits with the Cummings now you might hear that and if you're a traditional Jew you might say oh this happened guard stuff this is like hippie-ish from the 60s this is not what a traditional Orthodox or what could you does but in truth it fits very much the idea that the burning of the high mates is also the burning away of all of those blockages within me just prevent me from connecting to God and even though the actual physical idea of burning the paper might be a little new but in fact there is a prayer that people recites since the Durham when they burn the hummus not everybody recites it but the prayer says just as I have married it to burn the physical 11 may I merit to burn the eight sir Hara that is within me again Tosh look is very similar although they're using water instead of fire you know people go to the river go to the water on Rosh Hashanah and they throw bread crumbs into the water and they say - based on a person - Allah from Sulis young kolkata some let us cast into the ocean into the sea all of our sins and people may have an idea that somehow they're throwing their sins into the water well repentance doesn't work that way it's not that easy you can't just transfer your sins to the crumbs and throw it into the water but these are symbolic gestures that are reflective of internal processes that a person has to go through so there we're using the symbol of throwing our sins into the water by comments we're using this symbol of burning our sins one can talk about why two metaphors the metaphor of fire and the metaphor of water but this is the idea that the ciaz Mitzrayim is the coax to be liberated from all of those in slavers that we have within selfishness egotism laziness lack of self esteem whatever it is so those are two explanations in each person must regard themselves as if they have left mitzrayim we have the Rambam imagination visualization we have the bar Latonya the inner mitzrayim that is within you now we now come back to Rabban Gamliel anyone that didn't explain three things the pay sucks the matzah and the morrow has not been yelled say his obligation of recounting the artists if we follow the ballot Anya's paradigm we might suggest that Pesa matzah and morrow are various concretization of steps that a person takes to be liberated from their own inner mitzrayim and therefore they to represents symbols I'm going to go in reverse order and I'll explain at the end why I'm going in reverse order let us first start with the idea of Marwan right there is a mitzvah that Leo Pesa we must eat something that is bitter a bitter vegetable now some people use horseradish some people will use romaine lettuce which has a slightly bitter tin so it doesn't have to be overly bitter but there has to be some type of bitterness and the purpose of eating bitterness is to remember that we were enslaved how would that apply to the ballot Anya's paradigm so the suggestion would be that the first step that is necessary to achieve spiritual liberation is the honest acknowledgment to yourself that you are in a state of slavery if you live in a state of denial you can never achieve liberation because you don't have the honesty to acknowledge that you're a slave now in other words I have to acknowledge that I need to work on something after you acknowledge my arrogance my selfishness my temper if a relationship is not working I have to be honest enough to look at it and look at me and see what is not working and what can I do about it if you sweep things under the rug and you live in a state of denial then eventually the rug gets higher and higher and higher till the pile of what you swept under the rug it's the ceiling and then there's not a lot that you can go to so more or is the idea that in order to achieve freedom you have to have the honesty and the courage to acknowledge slavery and by the acknowledgement of that slavery you have taken the first to achieve freedom that is when Margaret is so essential as part of the freedom process I remember when I first moved to Silver Spring Maryland and I was teaching at the University of Maryland law school in Baltimore which is north so those of you that know the American highway system know that you have to go on a major highway 95 and you go 95 north from Silver Spring which is the Washington area to Baltimore so 95 north is the route you go on automatic pilot and just go straight but as you're driving there is a turn off 295 south so if you're in the right lane you could very easily as you're driving find yourself 95 south so in my early years I was daydreamin or something and I'm driving along and all of a sudden I am passing the Washington Monument the Jefferson Memorial the Lincoln Memorial those are not the things you see when you're going north to Baltimore those are the things that you see when you're going south towards Virginia so all of a sudden I realized with dismay that I had never seen these things before I mean I had seen pictures of them and I they I must I must be going on the wrong road but I did not want to admit I was going on the wrong road because I wasn't sure how to correct myself so I was going through a mental process that I can't really explain but I was trying to justify to myself you know maybe I'm not lost I said you know maybe maybe you can't see these things from 95 north yes you never noticed it before now maybe you're going the right way or maybe if I just keep on going somehow it will correct itself this is enumerable a situation of many investors this is the idea of what throwing good money after bad you invest $1,000 the business fails you keep on putting it in and of course we know as Albert Einstein famously remarked insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get a different result but this is what life is because we just don't want to acknowledge that we have to make a change we just you know it's hard to make a change so we continue to go in the same way with a kind of immature magical thinking that's somehow it's just gonna get better now in my case it is true that if I would go all the way to Florida all the way to Key West Florida indeed 95 south ends and you just make a little u-turn and you can go north so I could have kept on going but I would have been late for class that would have taken me quite a few hours of driving and the very first step to finding my way was honestly acknowledging that I've lost my way and that is what Marla is recognized the slavery be strong enough be honest enough to understand when you need to address a situation and that is what Marla is as part of our journey we then come to matzah now this is a very interesting question why do we eat matzah on Pesach what does matzah symbolize so it's very very interesting that the Torah itself has two different accounts of why we eat matzah and it's a little ambiguous on one level matzah is called lefm oniy the bread of poverty the bread of affliction the bread of deprivation seen in that light matzah is a slavery symbol of the ebenezer points out that when he was a traveler Devin Ezra was a world traveler and he mentions that when he was in India and he saw the slaves that the Maharajah's had they would commonly feed them matzah because matzah stays in your digestive system a very long time and therefore there's less of a need to eat that much matzah so matzah was the slave food that the Jewish people were given in material and therefore matzah like mark is a commemoration of slavery on the other hand we have another account of Matson which is a totally different accounts that matzah is the food of redemption because what was it when the Jews were baking their bread on the way out of Egypt they did not have time to let their dough rise and ferments why didn't they have time so the simple meaning is because pyro and the Egyptians were telling them get out Kabbalistic Lee the interpretation is that the Jewish people were on the 49th level of impurity and had they stayed even the little amount of time that it takes for the dota ferments they would have hit the 50th level so whether it means the Egyptians didn't give them time or whether it means God didn't give their time we had to bake our bread in haste we had to bake our bread without giving it the time to rise this is called in the Torah keepers own SEPA zone is in a state of hurriedness to be rushed not completing what we needed to do and therefore when we eat matzah it is a commemoration of the Gullah the redemption that took place in a state of hurriedness so you understand these are two opposite reasons meaning matzah as a symbol of slavery which is left Oh monie and matzah is a symbol of redemption which is low he speak but say Come shall have a saint allotments there was no time for our dough to rise and that is why the Haggadah reflects both of those motifs in the beginning of that Gotha we say in Aramaic Harlock Moragne this is the bread of affliction that our forefathers ate in with Ryan and then at the end of that Gotha we mentioned Robert Graham Leo who brings in lo he speak but say come shall ever say NOLA Hoffman's our forefathers did not have time to let their dough rise that GU Lots Mitzrayim was in a state of sleep a zone by the way that is that itself is some very deep significance because the commentaries tell us that because we left Berkeley pass on we did not complete the process and that is why we need golus at a young Lazare had we not left Berkeley pizon had we completed the process that would have been the ultimate econ the ultimate rectification and there would have been no need for a later goalless right so these are two motifs in matzah there's the matzah of freedom the matzah of slavery but the morale brings another perspective a new perspective to the idea of matzah and that is the difference between matzah and hummus right chametz on Pesach is bad and matzah on Pesach is good why eat matzah we don't eat comments now it's a very familiar idea that Hornets represents arrogance and conceit puffed up and matzah represents simplicity and humility that's a well-known idea but morale adds another perspective and he says that Carnot's represents inertia and matzah represents constructive action because here's the thing when water falls on flour you don't need to do anything for it to become comments if you simply leave it alone for 18 minutes unbaked unbaked it will become krumitz you don't need yeast you don't need a starter car mates as the halacha defines it is a process that will occur automatically if the dough is left undisturbed for 18 minutes before it's baked that's why in conscientious matzah factories they clean the machinery within every 18 minutes meaning they'll stop production because in case there might be pieces of dough that were not fully baked and if it was there for 18 minutes it returning to comments and it might contaminate the other mats out again once it's baked there's no problem in fact this is the source of the Hasidic custom some of you might have of not eating do Bruck store in Hebrew not eating Shibuya right there are many many seceding that have a custom they will not eat any matzo or matzo meal that was soaked in liquid a terry restrictions they cannot have Koenig luck they cannot have matzo balls and Pesach because matzo balls would involve cooking matzah meal in soup or boiling them in water and how logically that's not a problem because once something is baked it cannot be hummus anymore but the min of not eating Sharia was based on a concern that perhaps it was not completely baked and therefore the contact with water could cause this is actually a homer that started with the lot of the first Obama to review the bottle of Tanya and it's spread among all I see them in fact there's a fellow who wrote a book this is a tremendously funny but they serve McGann's F Magan is a professor of Islamic Studies I think it at bar-ilan no oh he may he retired okay he wasn't married alone when he wrote the book anything was very left but said my Ganga wrote a tremendous book about John Lennon and the juice I don't know if you it's a crazy thing basically this was a a critique of Lennon's song imagine write down one of John Lennon's songs is imagine a world when you don't have separate nations you don't have separate religions you don't have all the things that divide you and we're one big happy family and we're United why do we have to live in a world of divisions and Zev McGann wrote the book to basically say you cannot have a love of humanity unless it first starts with particular eyes detachments the parent who does not love their child cannot really develop love and compassion for others and therefore you need particularism in order to move to universalism now that sounds ponderous and heavy but I can tell you the book is hilarious it is funny and it's filled with all sorts of crazy stories so he tells the story I guess at some point he wasn't that author lecturer he wasn't familiar with this that he's invited that he says he looked forward of the whole year to matzo ball soup by the Seder so he's invited to a friend's Seder and my gut is very long a lot of commentary his stomach is growling he's really dreaming of the matzo ball soup and finally the great moment arrives you know they finished the mother hagatha and they ate the matzo and they ate tomorrow and they ate the color sandwich and he smells the soup the aroma of the chicken soup wafting from the kitchen and all of a sudden they bring him the ball and all there is this soup there's like nothing in it so he says oh you know did you forget something here he says no everything's fine so when he does rest he figures there's no what happened so he just takes his own matzo and he crushes it into the soup so he says all of a sudden there's a shriek and the woman like dives he described the woman dives across the table it takes the terrine of super takes the super bowl of soup and she throws it there on the 4th floor she throws it up the more peasants he doesn't know what's going on he says all I wanted was matzo ball so the person said you can have matzo balls the rest of the year not on Pesach because this is this was his introduction to the mimic of not eating curia but in terms of Halawa it's very very clear that something can become qanats only when it's in an unbreaking state on bait state so says the my RAL therefore comments is the paradigm of inertia not doing anything to make hunnits hunnits happens matzah takes decisive action in arresting the fermentation process by exposing the dough to heat and therefore the morale says instead of just looking at the idea that car mates is arrogance and matzah is humility which is true Carnot's represents inertia and matzah represents action and the reason that significant is the following Marlow gives me the cognitive awareness that I have problems but matzah is the imperative of doing something about it you know there are people who go to psychoanalysis and they have perhaps a very deep insight into all of the traumas that they've suffered through life going all the way back to birth and maybe even pre birth trauma and even preconception trauma you know who knows they go all the way back etc and they understand the significance of every negative interaction that ever occurred in their lives but the question becomes what are you going to do about it right that might be the difference sometimes between a a Freudian analyst and the behavioral therapist Freud emphasized the importance of insight and understanding but that didn't always translate into concrete attempts to deal with something so the lesson of matzo is that it is not enough to be aware of what the issue is you then have to take some decisive action to address it now there was an American academic Robert Hutchins who was kind of a prodigy in fact they used to be a program for the great books program which is kind of exposing you to all of the classics of worlds literature particularly Western philosophical tradition and he was the the editor or the spear header of that huge project and he was kind of a Boy Wonder he became president of the University of Chicago at the age of 25 which is quite amazing he had many graduate students who were older than him and yet he was really a kind of a prodigy and at one point he was asked why didn't he take better physical care of himself they said dr. Hutchins do you ever feel the urge to exercise so he said I certainly feel that urge but whenever it bothers me too much I know if I lie down for a few minutes the urge will go away so I don't let it bother me too much and the truth of matter is that's that's very true with respect to exercise but it's also true with respect to spirituality there are times in life when we do feel deep spiritual arousal and inspiration it may be after Yom Kippur it may be Jura Pesach Seder is maybe when a child or a grandchild gets married is maybe walking in a sunset the usual I am are seeing children play in a park everyone has different moments of inspiration and those are wonderful moments those are moments that want treasures but you have to know that if you don't concretize the feeling in some constructive action the emotion dissipates it goes away very very quickly you have to anchor it even in a small relatively minor action do something it then becomes concretize that then becomes real and it can then become the basis that will bring you to more levels based on Hassan's teaching mitzvot Garris mitzvot that one Mitzvah causes other mitzvahs and the like so one needs to take whatever inspiration you have and do something about it that is what matzah is take some action take something that you put into practice because of that particular feeling or or or inspiration and that's a very important you saw it so if Mara is the idea of cognitively identifying what my slavery is matzah represents the importance of decisive concretize action so that the feeling doesn't just become ephemeral temporary washed away foundation of your spiritual growth as a Jew and as a human being all right so that's the juxtaposition of Mara and matzo we then come to pass second again this is reverse order but I will go back why we are doing it in this order the carbon peso of course was a Corbin that all of the Jewish people had to bring and there are many many helices of the carbon peso but one very interesting halakhah of the carbon Pesa is you cannot bring the carbon Pesa as an individual you must bring the carbon peso as part of a group so I either bring it with my family or if I do not have a family I attach myself to other people and that's called kabura I become part of a cabaret and I bring the carbon peso as part of a kabura even if I have a very big appetite and even if I am bringing a very small lamb the lamb only has to be eight days old and it's culture for a carbon peso so it could be a very small thing I could finish the whole thing myself the halacha is so much focused on the ground but we pass again I mean show Christina so Pesa la orchid a Yakut an individual cannot bring the carbon pass on the carbon passer has to be an expression of being connected to a community whether it's the community of your own personal family or whether it's a community of your adopted family the family of people with whom you identify what's the spiritual lesson or the spiritual lesson here is that when we have to leave the mitzrayim that enslaves us we cannot do so as isolated individuals we need to connect ourselves to others want to go on that same journey now everybody's journey is a little different because my slavery is not your slavery but I need the physic and the strength that I get from others and I also need to be a person that gives others that strength I grow from what I receive and I grow from what I contribute and I need it I need others and others need me and the Pesa is that lesson of what we would call conscious community of connecting yourself to others find people in life that want to go on that journey with you because we can't do it alone hello monolith says and go hell s Tovey imagine I am amino acids two people are better than one because if one person falls who will pick him up when you have two people and one falls pods your kid Mets have a row one person can raise the other person and then my life goes on and says who taught mr. lash if it's a three-fold cord lo been here a Unitec it's not that easy to pull it apart now this is not only referring to slipping on the ice although that's true as well if God forbid somebody slips on the ice it's a lot easier to get up if somebody is there to pick you up especially as we get a little older but it refers to life in general all of us have moments of weakness all of us have moments where we were afraid where were uncertain where we're confused well we don't really have a sense of where we're supposed to be going where sometimes we might feel trapped in a situation which we don't know how to get out of there are many many quandaries that people face and if you're all by yourself in life it's going to be very hard to navigate it so you find connections we need to find connections ideally one has that in their immediate family they're their parents their spouses sometimes a person doesn't have that opportunity either you know they're not married they don't have parents their parents died whatever it will be or even if they have a technical relationship it may not necessarily address those particular needs so we need to find virtual families by a virtual family I don't mean to say virtual in the sense of an internet thing I'm talking about real human relationships but they become our family Mineola have this experience unfortunately when you make aliyah so one of the negatives sometimes positive but sometimes in the heat often negative is that you are separated from your family and loved ones peri hide now today with technology it's a little easier to keep the connection but still there are thousands of miles away and what people do is what you have to do is you have to kind of find a little bit of a virtual family and many people suffer the people who don't do that suffer a lot they do suffer a tremendous amount because as as we're so proud of being self-sufficient that we look at it as a sign of weakness to have to reach out and connect to others but we have to know that we need others and and even more importantly others need us as well so even if you think you don't need other people okay that's fine you don't need other people other people need you what are you gonna say about that right I think I've mentioned before and again forgive the the repetition many of you have heard of the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini who again was a musical prodigy very very brilliant and tremendously talented musician and somebody from a magazine wanted to interview him and so skinny he said I'm really not available for interviewing because I'm not feeling well and I'm sitting at home and my orchestra is playing a concert tonight and I need to listen on radio so I could follow if they're doing the correct job so the reporter said to Toscanini I promise I won't say a word I just want to watch you at work so he comes to Toscanini's apartment in Manhattan and Toscanini had this goes back to the 1950s he had this old fashioned those gigantic radios those big radios and he's listening this was actually the it's interesting Toscanini was the conductor I think of the NBC Orchestra that doesn't sound like that would be one of the great orchestras but in the 50s it actually was a very very distinguished Symphony Orchestra and Toscanini is listening for two hours to this concert on her radio which didn't have the highest quality sound and he has his eyes closed and he's listening for two hours and at the end of the two hours Toscanini said how come there were only 14 violins in the string section that should have been 15 where was the 15th violin so the reporter couldn't believe this you're listening to a concert on a radio and you can tell the difference between 14 violins and 15 violence this is not possible so he went and he checked with the head violinist the lead violinist or the first violinist they call it in the orchestra he said tell me how many violinists did you have tonight so the guy said well we normally have 15 but tonight we had 14 because right before the concert the 15th guy called and said he wasn't feeling well so I figured you know who's gonna notice the difference so I just went with 14 so the reporter goes back to Toscanini and says nice Godot oh yeah sure supernatural miracle you're amazing you're able to tell the difference how could that be with no human being good could be the could have such a sensitive ear and Toscanini said you know listen I know that most people who heard the concert mean even most people were in the audience unless they were counting the strings wouldn't know the difference but when you're the conductor you know that every person makes a difference and I am attuned to the fact that every single person in that Orchestra makes a difference even if most people don't even know what that difference is I know so people say that the scheme is Toscanini story is a muscle for how God views each and every one of us we make a difference we matter we're needed you know we might think our absence and something doesn't really make a big difference well maybe we're the fifteenth violinist maybe we're the 360 it's violinist maybe we're the 360 a thousand violinist but I should note that there's something we add so the notion of community is is interesting it's a little paradoxical I need what others give me but I also have to understand that others need what I have to offer as well that what I contribute is valuable I learn and I give I take and I give back that is what carbon Pesa represents the notion that in your journey from slavery to freedom you need to be connected to others again if I could put in a little plug for you but that which which is our craft our great sponsor of leisure Yoram that is one of the reasons why you burn as so focused not only on the Torah context but also the facet cutting it because that is how we grow by giving to others and by doing with others with whom we learn and with whom we give and we teach by the example of our lives so that's it is not only about the altruism of helping others it's the vehicle of our own growth and our own self transformation so it turns out there for going back to the very beginning of our talk rubbing gum wheels statements that you have to explain Pesa matzah and morrow is really an elaboration of the ballot Anya's idea that every person has an inner Mitzrayim and because of my inner mitzrayim I need to free myself from the slavery within PASOK matzah and Mara are the three steps that we need to achieve that personal liberation Marwa is the honesty to acknowledge my flaws and my failings taste the slavery matzah recognize the imperative of constructive action Pesa find the community with whom you can take that journey because by yourself it's going to be hard we need each other both for what they give us and for what we give them now the final question though is you might question the order let's look at the Seder in the Seder we first eat matzah and then we eat more and then we have the sandwich of the Matteson tomorrow now you might say based on the explanation that we've been giving the order is incorrect because if Marlo R represents the honesty in identifying my struggles and knots is taking the corrective action to make things better one might assume you can't really eat the matzo until you have the morrow meaning until you know what you need to correct you can't automatically correct it so logically one might assume it would make more sense to eat the Marwar and then eat the matzo and yet we eat the matzo and then the marsh so the truth of the matter is I don't want to get into too much of a technical discussion but according to Rashi opinion the way Rashi understands the whole Seder the matzo that you eat first is not the Mitzvah of matzah it is a boat so you're beginning a meal the Mitzvah of matzah is actually fulfilled with the afikomen that you eat at the end so in terms of watches opinion the ritual order in terms of the mitts votes is I'm first eating tomorrow and then eating the matzah and the matzah ate before the morrow is simply been the beginning of a meal now the obvious question in Rashi is so why do you make the bracha on that first matzo a share key - on of a mitzvah service one I will see less matzo if it's only a multi-function that that's a strong question but at least according to Rashi the issue of matzo preceding morrow is not a problem because regarding Jirachi it is more our that is perceiving less but according to our practice that we also fulfill the Mitzvah of matzah first you're back to the question how can I eat monster before Mara so here is the suggestion that I would say and that is although it's true that in my spiritual life I cannot rectify a problem until I'm aware of what the problem is I must internalize my ability to rectify before I focus on the negative because here is the issue if I immediately start focusing on my failures on my shortcomings on my mistakes on my morale on my slavery what might happen is I get depressed I get despondent I lose hope I have a sense that there's so much that I need to correct and I'm beyond the point of no return so before I embark on the process of identifying my negative I must internalize I must convince myself I must be persuaded of my capacity for constructive change and that's the matter so although it's true that the actual business of the matzoh corrective action cannot be undertaken till after the morrow identification of problem but the capacity to take that corrective action must be an idea that I internalized within my psyching before I can confront the negatives I cannot and I should not confront my negatives until I am convinced that I have the inner strength and capacity to address them in a successful and constructive way so yes you're not gonna do the matzoh work until after you do the morrow work but the matzah is the first idea you have to internalize because it's the matzah that gives you confidence it gives you strength it gives you a sense that you will be able to accomplish what it is that you need to accomplish and that is why the matzah convinces me of my capacity for constructive action the mala rawra is the cognitive awareness of what it is I need to correct and then I eat the matzah and the morrow together which is integrating the problem with the solution so to speak I eat them together I have this problem but the matzah tells me I can I can't deal deal with it right so that's kind of the understanding of Rehberg um Leo's idea that passive matsumoto are are the steps of spiritual liberation pisaq community matzo capacity for action more or identifying that which needs to be improved which needs to be to be changed so this is something sometimes you know people who are already in a religious lifestyle this is actually a challenge you know when one is a kosher bachou bar one is a newcomer so obviously every step there's always some new growth right Shabbos kosher etc problem is once you've arrived once you become a person who is keeping all of these myths votes so then it like become god forbid same old same old no now am i the rest of my life I'm just going to kind of just do the same thing over and over again and that's really a tragic mistake because life is about growth life is about transformation life is about making ourselves better or to be more accurate not making ourselves better but uncovering a goodness that is within that has not yet been fully realized so the notion of what is called Heathcott should the notion of renewal the notion of growth is something that applies at every single level they tell the story of many of you have heard of the german jewish philosopher franz rosensweig who was a very very interesting person he and Martin Buber actually translated the Jewish Bible the Tanakh into German and although I don't read German but the homily poets herself testified this was a very very good translation and draws us back is an interesting story rosensweig grew up in a totally assimilated German household in the latter quarter of the 19th century and he was a brilliant student of philosophy and in those days in Germany in order to have an academic career you had to be a member of the Lutheran Church he didn't have to believe in anything but you had to sign a card that you were a member losers and pay some dues thousands and thousands of Jews converted to Christianity but but again it was not a fee a lot it was not because of any type of belief they just did so because they were so assimilated in their Judaism even beyond Reform that they essentially had no religion at all so they figured they'll sign a card what's the big deal roses flag was a person of some greater integrity and he said before he was going to sign the card he wanted to walk into a Jewish synagogue once in his life once in his life and his plan was I'm gonna walk into the synagogue I'll see what I see it's not gonna mean anything to me I'm pretty sure then I'll sign the card but I need to see what it is unbeknownst to him the day that he chose seemingly at random was Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement he had never heard of him prefer he had not read the Bible so an unbeknownst to him the one synagogue that he chose seemingly at random was the only Hassidic synagogue in Berlin which had much more emotional power than a standard let's say synagogue so he walks in expecting to feel nothing and he's confronted with this tremendous power people are crying and pleading and begging and he was overwhelmed with the power and spirituality and this of holiness and he abandoned it that day he was not going to sign the card he was not gonna sign eventually he was able to pursue his graduate studies but for a while he was not able and he became very devoted to exploring the Jewish tradition he became pretty traditional and fairly observant he never became what you might call a totally Orthodox Jew because he died relatively young of multiple sclerosis so he did not finish his journey but he very definitely was a committed Juli organized onyx shabbat theone october learning groups and Shabbat etc so at some point he was asked by some of his colleagues his young Jewish colleagues thought he was just crazy he had been a brilliant student of philosophy and now he's engaging in these medieval traditions he's going over to the dark side primitive superstition so one of them gave him which was perceived as the ultimate insult and taunt I bet you even where it's phillyd which was like the worst thing you could say to somebody and he looked the person squarely in the eyes and said not yet so grab a collision makes the point but not yet is a very interesting response he could have said no no is the answer he which is not where it's filling not yet suggests that my life is still a journey I'm still growing know is shutting a door not yet is leaving a door open and Joey Pushkin suggests and this is a very good suggestion that every Jew needs to have a not yet in their life a goal finishing chefs your new go right that's a not yet and God willing you will accomplish it that's why the CMS house was so inspiring even people who did not commit to da fiel me they were inspired to commit to various other goals because they see that if you pursue a goal you can achieve it and not yet is actually a great unifier among Jews you know we can look at one Jew would say oh I'm more religious than him and he's more religious to me and we can create hierarchies and stratifications but not yet is an amazingly powerful common denominator one person might say well I'm not yet so Misha but another person could say I'm not yet totally avoiding Lashon Hara one person might say I don't yet study Torah every day another person might say I haven't yet mastered the Jerusalem Talmud meaning not yet means all of us are on a journey none of us have arrived none of us have reached the promised land that even if result got to be in the geographical promised land so the fact that one person is further on in the route is ultimately not that important as long as we all recognize that we're walking on the same Road and that is the really genius and profundity of the not-yet statement because all of us IRA not yet all of us are in the process of ETS material we haven't reached the goal till mashiac 30th amazing but Hashem is giving us this color to leave the material from within may Achilles particle continue to give us the bracha to be able to do so may we have the wisdom to make the decision to engage in that process like a good kid [Music]