Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz - The Sadducees Mistake Counting the Omer from Sunday after Passover

[Music] thank you thank you again I we were discussing last week whether we should have a Torah class tonight because it is young as in Quran but I personally thought that indeed the teaching of Torah would be no greater fitting memorial to the memory of the great great tsadikim that have died for our nation and again I do want to dedicate although this year itself is not on that particular topic but certainly I want to dedicate all of our learning tonight to the memory of the kyln Keio boats that have given their lives for the defense of Israel an average Israeli and an EMS for every person said to also pray for those are you limit allowed together presently in the army that know no harm should befall them I mean II know there's a very interesting story that I'm sure you may have heard already but it's worth it's worthy of repeating that Ashlyn was almond or about the great great good old great PO sake was once with a Talmud of his and the Talmud mentioned he was going up north to spots to visit the graves of the great tsadikim theories island of Yosef Cairo you know Scott has many many give rate tsadikim of course you shall I'm also as Kerry said he came but Roche orbits response was a bit more surprising than you might think he said why do you have to go to spots to visit the tsadikim he says whenever I need to visit curate tsadikim I go to the military cemetery and her Herzl and I say to Hill him by the graves of soldiers who gave their lives on kiddush Hashem some enormous was that began you need to have a label he was on the crazy side of things you know again you want to get into politics particularly tonight died you know his son Rushmore about who a snifter very very recently what's very different than his father in terms of their philosophical orientation so I I don't want to get into all of that issue but suffice it to say that Rush Limbaugh's Amin himself was not only a phenomenally great post sake rubbish event on the truck but he was a person who true excelled in his average Israel and in viewing all of those who supported the State of Israel in a very positive light many of his students in fact went into the army there was a time in which the division between so called uranium and helium II was not as pronounced as it is today there was a time even today to some degree it happens but in which I raid them is Shiva students were in the army and it was not considered to be some major dividing point and Mohammed Amin Arabic was kind of almost the last of the breed you might call moderate whatever the label moderate or any tolerance creating Zionists creating whatever here their label you want to put on it but since his patina things have not been quite the same and I think the story is so beautiful because he could have told the Talmud there's so many great conventional subdeacon in Yerushalayim which of course is obviously true but he chose to emphasize the idea that the hi-yah whether he is religious or not religious is greatly greatly beloved by the Almighty because he sacrificed for I'm Israel amazing thing to say for already robbed it truly is it wouldn't wouldn't be said today that much or if the person would say it he would go into hiding afterwards this is what your so Mohammed said so I think it's very very fitting that we dedicate our tour allele Englishman's the highlights of our Denali Israel and I've also made another point which I've said a number of times I want to repeat it and that is we should be very very proud of our soldiers not only because of their military prowess but because of the ethical consciousness that they bring to engaging in war no war is dirty business by the war is in the business of destroying an enemy when you have to destroy an enemy and indeed because I'll tell us how ball the Hargis cohosh game bhai roll Oh somebody's coming to kill you you kill them first so war by definition involves death but the Israeli army is quite quite unique in the ethical constraints that it often imposes on itself to minimize collateral damage to civilians in fact many military strategists feel that the IDF is too protective of civilians of our enemies and often endangering our own soldiers I'm not going to get into the military debate of whether the ICF should be less ethical in that direction but I think it is a source of tremendous pride that we do not glorify the shedding of blood we do not glorify violence we do what we have to do but there's not a cult of rejoicing in the destruction of the enemy I mentioned before both in my ears in some one infamous remark that we can forgive the Arabs for killing our children again i dis associated myself from that part of the remark but the second part i think does have a meaningful aspect that we cannot forgive them for making us kill their children because from a Jewish perspective and our high olam I think have absorbed this pretty thorough very very rare exceptions the death of even the other side is a tragedy that we wish wouldn't have to happen if we have to do it we do it indeed and we do it well but it is really the prayer of every time that that shouldn't have to be and therefore I think that's a source of enormous pride that in spite of the really super competence of our armed forces there was really such an ethic and a reverence for life that is deeply implanted and that comes from you know what casita would call the penciling is that Jewish spark that is within the soul of everybody so again I hope that our words of Torah should be eat Lele nish matam and all of the soldiers who are presently serving and really all of the Jewish people and goats and I were to surround that in Florence I got you protected him from from alarm so as I say though the time the actual topic I wanted to talk about tonight it's not directly connected to that topic and those I want you to talk a little bit about the counting of the O'Mara of that that we're in right now we're in the period of spirit on home air and there's a whole argument among the commentators is it a Torah commandment today or is it only a rabbinic commandment because the Torah seems to say that the omer count commences from the be get from the bringing of the omere sacrifice which is a barley sacrifice on the second day of Pesach as a result most reshow nem actually take the position that when there's no temple and there's no beta mick - and there's no omer sacrifice the counting of the owner is not biblically Mantic it mandated it is only a rabbinic Commandments and that is called Zachary Lamech dust you remember the temple the notable exception is the Rambam the Rambam does maintain that Surat Samir is a Torah Commandments even today because he says that essentially it is not the Omer sacrifice that triggers the obligation it is the second day of Pesach itself so that's a well-known my cloak it's where the sphere of is Manasa is the writer is a Torah Commandments obviously rabbinic Commandments for the most part it does not make a tremendous difference because even if it's rabbinic Commandments you have to keep it right no one's gonna say you don't have to keep it but the point I want to dwell on is this when the Torah tells you when you start counting the Omer it uses a very enigmatic phrase that has a very long history in rabbinic literature and that is it says who sparked mmm you shall start counting me maharat hobbits from the day after the shabbat now what are those what does that critical phrase mean I mean normal Shabbat means Saturday therefore mean maha-rathah Shabbat would mean Sunday and indeed this was the position of the stew Kim the SATA seas which were a sect during the Second Temple period and later taken over by the kara rights even today that the counting of the ombré always commences on the Sunday after the Pesach holiday at least after the beginning of Pesach and of course according to that calculation Shiva wells will always be on Sunday because if the first day of the omere is some day Shiva watch will be the same the same day fact some have suggested that the reason why the Sadducee and the kara right position was somewhat popular is he's guaranteed a two-day holiday in Israel you know as far as you always have the two days of yom tov but an arrant ourselves to get a shabbat an acog together that's great you get a 2 day 2 day vacation so there's a certain popular support for that yes yeah there are there are some negatives in being a a Sadducee to be sure but be it as it may the rabbinic tradition the Pharisaic tradition always was that Shabbat did not mean Saturday but Shabbat simply meant the day of cessation from maja which is which could be applied to the first day of the hug Pesa and we Maharaja Shabbat is the therefore the second day of peso and the commandment knock out has long long litanies of debates and arguments and counter-arguments and how the Pharisees the push him went to very great lengths to prove their point and they had certain public ceremonies without seemingly bunch else took him to exclude the Sadducee position and the length now we will accept of course the the oral interpretation of the rabbi's as the authoritative tradition we will certainly accept that but the question still becomes why does the Torah call it Shabbos after all in other words why would the Torah utilize a tournament for the first day of Pesa that is so potentially misleading me maha-rathah Shabbat so the other Nessa gives an answer but the answer is only a partial answer it's not a complete answer but it says well what else could it have said let's say it would have said me Makarovs ha better the day after the peso now that might have meant the second day of Pesa but the ebenezer says not not at all the the term test site in the Torah actually does not refer to the 15th of Nisan it refers to the 14th of Nisan the day that the Corbin Pesa was brought and therefore the ebenezer argues we maharaja Pesa would have been erroneously interpreted to mean you start counting the omer on the first day of better because pisaq is the 14th me maharaja would be the 15th indeed the Commish itself says when the Commish says when did the Jews leave Egypt the Torah says me makarov at pisaq yotsuba day Israel you see per favore in the Torah mean muscle rats are Pesa is the 15th because pestis is the 14th therefore the evidence were says we Maharaja Shabbat shabbat is a day that you don't do work therefore tells me that Shabbat is the first day of Pesa me Maharaja's the next day but again this is really only a partial answer because if we Maharaja Posada could lead you to the wrong conclusion I mean Maharaja Shabbat can also lead you to the wrong conclusion namely the kara right you're the Sadducee conclusion that studio and summer begins on Sunday so if you're gonna ask me what could the Torah have said to make it fail safe very simple solution give a date we swear to welcome me Jung Shi sha la la kodesh are be shown the 16th of the first month no ambiguity why we must arrest the Shabbos me much why utilize all of these phrases that have such an ambiguity I mean the statuses according to the normal linguistic usage of Hebrew seem to be correct Shabbat means Shabbat see that that's what you're but normally means Yom Kippur is called Shabbat Sabbath Onan and for all but again we do say sabaton they are days of rest but we don't use the word Shabbat except for Shabbat so here I want to share you share with you a thoughts from Mayor simcha Colleen of Dvinsk the message hokhmah the or semana and he says the following when we analyze the difference between Shabbat and Yom Tov we have two basic logic differences and that is a lot like difference number one is the category of ohel nefesh on yom tov although you're not allowed to do melaka but you are allowed to do melaka for the preparation of food or for your chief needs I see you're allowed to cook you are allowed to carry and it doesn't have to be limited to food but things that you need for the cod collectively this is called osho nephesh things that are needed for food consumption or for physical needs so difference number one is yom tov has a hectare called okay nafech and Shabbat has no Hector a vocal Memphis Shabbat has a hectare of peacock that's if somebody's gonna die so then of course you do you do Milazzo in order to prevent that from happening but there's no generic Hector I want to cook because I'm hungry Shabbat so I want to cook of course that's gonna be forbidden right so that's difference number one difference number two is how the sanctity of the holiday is generated the sanctity of Shabbat is automatic every seventh day as soon as it begins is automatically invested with holiness whether it is acknowledged or not even the key dish even though we make key dish but if you think about it key dish does not mean we sanctify the sharpest it means we recognize that Shabbos is sacred time that's why the broker ends barakatahu Shem blessed are You God Makka - a Shabbat you have sanctified the Shabbat yoke this is very different according to Kyle what gives young turf it's sanctity was the sanctification of the new month by the son Henry every fact is X number of days into a month Rosh Hashanah is the first day of the month of Tishrei pass our fee is to 15th so coaches to 15 to 7 so it's counted from Rosh Chodesh but the count is not based on astronomical reality of those photos it is based on the dates that the Sun Hedren decided would be proclaimed as Rosh Hodesh and even if astronomically they proclaimed the wrong date the holiness is determined based on their calculation this is the famous story in the Mishnah in messiahs Rosh Hashanah where Rebbe Yahshua was a member of the Sanhedrin disagreed with robbing Gamliel and the Sanhedrin regarding which they should be Rosh Hashanah based on the appearance of the moon according to avi Osho brush Hashanah should have been one day later and therefore Yom Kippur should have been one day later well the question was that well they didn't see when the question was witnesses testified that they had seen the moon and Revilla schewe had calculated that that would have been an impossibility that they were false witnesses therefore as a result under the default rule Regina would be the next day and therefore Yom Kippur would be the next day Rabban Gamliel who had a penchant for asserting his authority there a number of stories in the Gemara about there ordered Rebbe yoshua to come to him with his staff and his money on the day that Rovio schewe held was Yom Kippur others which was the day after the Sanhedrin SEM Kippur and reveal sure was in a quandary he didn't know what to do he says how can i violate the day that according to my calculation it's the holiest day of the year young people Rabbi Akiva convinced him that there's no problem because Ravi Akiba said even if objectively the new moon should have been proclaimed the day later and Yom Kippur would be day later the holidays are based definitionally on the determination of the baton so even when they get it wrong God says I'll go with you therefore your fear that you're violating Yom Kippur is not rather it's not true because definitionally it's not young people and this is how the hwacha has said this is an extraordinary power of Beit din and the Beit din essentially is the representative of the Jewish nation the sanctified time that is why we say on Shabbat but reflect our Shama kadesha Shabbat you God sanctify the Shabbat on yom tov we say because s yes Rael perhaps ma a.m. you sanctify Israel who thereby has the capacity to sanctify time and that's why when it's Shabbat Daniel Tov the Brahma is very exact Baruch Hashem metadata Shabbat the Israel for Hasmonean not wicked a Israel who has Shabbat to Hasmonean because a Shabbat be Israel has now the only question you might ask is well wait a second so how come we have holidays today today we seem to be operating off astronomical calculations regarding when were Scottish is but if you're telling me that it's not the Astronomy that makes the Empress it is the official proclamation of a Sun Hedren acting through testimony or otherwise then in the absence of a Sanhedrin technically there ought not to be a game at all well the ramp-up addresses that point and the Rambam says that when the Jewish calendar was formulated in the fourth or fifth century and this was towards the last Sun hendren shortly before the Romans abolished the body the Sun had ruined themselves under the leadership of Hillel Husseini who was a great great great grandson of the famous hello they calculated all of the rachet for the same in advance and they proclaimed those dates to be sacred and therefore the Rambam writes the existence of coggan today is not because of the astronomy it is because of the key Jewish ha'qodesh in advance of the last Sun hendren now later sources have added that the Jewish calendar was calculated only up until the Year 6,000 and the reason being because the tradition was mushiya all have to come before the year 6,000 what that means therefore is even though mathematically you could certainly extrapolate the calendar indefinitely I mean you can take thee I mean the calendar has a recurring pattern so the actual astronomy can be extrapolated for 10,000 years 100,000 years a million years nevertheless the proclamation of the Sanhedrin only went until the Year 6,000 which means strangely enough that if counterfactually mushiya would not come by the year 6000 there would not be any again another is the obligation to keep Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Sukkot which simply lamps because there is no key - a cottage that triggers the counting of this man for the mower thing right that's quite that's quite an amazing thing now one of my students nurse a man asked me a kasha what you really a brainteaser I really have to think about this he basically said well that's the case these statements that mushiya has to come by the year 6,000 is actually a nonsense statement in the following way the year 5999 is not going to end until you have a son Hedrick so the same ashiya company here 6000 doesn't tell you anything because it might very well be that 5999 the year 5999 might be a 1000 year years in other words it's just gonna keep going the others you're not gonna move into the year 6,000 if if there's no kiddush I show this for research on it so therefore you can have a long year so the notion that mushiya asked to come you know within the next 200 and whatever number of years is technically not true because the last year will simply never end okay well the point basically the point basically here tomorrow that let's say you're in the Year 5999 okay and you've had Tishrei Tesla on kiss like a base right watch watch adore and diesel and Hiroshima and Thomas L oh and never was she f didn't come in so arrow has 29 days what happens on the 30th day of lol now normally the 38th developer comes Rosh Hashanah but if the Jewish calendar was not sanctified beyond that it doesn't become registered if it doesn't become Rosh Hashanah you are simply continuing in the hollow fakir 5999 so if mushiya is delayed by one year by five years by ten years by a hundred years by ten thousand years you but still in the year five thousand 999 now you can argue that that's not true you could argue that in terms of the calculation of years we're simply working with years we're not working with sanctity and and the like you know that would be a way out of it but the question becomes do you have a new year if you don't have a holistic Russia Shana that'sthat's really kind of the question well the question becomes this why don't we have a Sun Hedren today I know there's a body that goes by the name sanhedrin but they're largely not recognized that's certainly part of it but the technical halawet reason is that in order to have a Sun Hedren you have to have ordination samhita which involves an unbroken all of us all rabbis have fake ordination today real Smitha is an unbroken line of ordination going back moshe rabbeinu and during Roman times that was broken and that makes the convening of a Sanhedrin politically impossible when Messiah comes Leo Hanavi will be able to ordain Jewish domination from him to be members of the Sanhedrin now you may recall maybe you've learned this before there was a very very interesting controversy in the 1500s in spots the teacher of the base Yosef the teacher of Yosef Cairo was of Yaakov Bay Roth and he was of the opinion based on his interpretation of the Rambam that if all of the sages of Israel agreed to recreate ordination they would be able to create it without an unbroken line this is called the Duchesse mission and as a result of Yaakov Bhairav actually formally ordained for disciples reveals of Cairo that my bit the all ship and there's motion Galante and they actually received real real Smita and it's very very clear that if Yakov a Ralph thought that this would be a precursor to machine that was part of a messianic plan but what happened was the commercial i''m did not agree to the proposal of the truck mates watts and there's a result it was kind of dead in the water and it did not continue beyond that generation so generally speaking there is a theoretical possibility of a of a new Sun Hedren but this would depend on that whole debate about the ability of reinventing so to speak the idea of smear so wicked solar we have two nos Caminos two differences between Shabbat and Hajj one is Oaks on their fish and the other is the source of holiness emanating from Crowley Israel as opposed to Hashem imposing the holiness from above now the metric acqua says these two differences in turn are based on a third difference which really explains the other two differences and that is shabbat commemorates an event that intrinsically has nothing to do with the Jewish people at all God created the world of six days in fact there is no inherently logical reason why Shabbat should only be given to the Jewish people the concept of God as the Creator is a universal idea and even the 7 Commandments of Noah require non-jews to affirm a belief in the creator so Shabbat was given to us as a gift that is why he points out it is called Matata it's nothing that we earned it's nothing that is intrinsically connected to God's historical relationship with the Jewish people it connotes a universal transcendent idea that God gave it to us as to have the responsibility to promulgate and proclaim our coup d'etat that tomorrow actually says that a non Jew is not yet converted is not supposed to keep Shabbat in its entirely in its entirety you know a person isn't struck unified if somebody is a candidate for conversion so obviously they have to go through practice and try to keep all the different laws but they are told to be sure that you violate something in Shabbat at least one time turn on one light because so that's that's very true in other words the logic is that even though the idea of Shabbat is a universal idea but God gave it as a special gift to the Jewish people that's why it's called the matzah now but or not something we haven't earned it's a matter of God's grace you know the they tell story about a very very fervent non Jew who was planning on being like the most horrendous Shabbat I raised him in this conversion so he was sitting in here Shiva and he was learning tomorrow all day and he was very very righteous and some of his fellow yeshiva buckram thought he was being a little supercilious a little conceited a little arrogant so they went over them one of them won over them and said hey you know you think you're such a sonic you think you're so righteous well I want you to know every type every Shabbat that you think you're keeping absolutely meticulously you are committing a sin because a non Jew until this conversion is supposed to violate service and I know that you do nothing on Shabbos against the halacha so you're sitting so without missing a beat the non Jew looked up and said oh no no I carry in your a river so I violate Shabbat every every week I so it all depends that's they had to come back on down okay so here is a thing so since Shabbat expresses an idea that is not directly connected to the historical relationship a Shem has with the Jewish people number one we are not the ones who are able to determine its sanctity because it's not because of us and what do you do with their husbands right well that's that's clearly a second motif that was imposed that might explain why not because we talk about the Shabbat as a commemoration of the exodus but certainly if we go back to braces it's very very clear that the sanctity of Shabbat emanated from the fact that God created the world in six days and he rested on Shabbat right when you were a fellow Kamath yo ma cherie TiVo show vods Michal mulatto and the salience eh miss Ryan might be the follow-up reason why God gave us the Shabbat even though it expresses an idea that's not connected directly to us therefore we are not in charge of its holiness the holiness comes from God and therefore Shabbat does not bend to our needs because Shabbat represents an idea that transcends and precedes the formation of the Jewish people certainly yes miss Ryan the purpose of your TSP trial was to give us the Torah so that's thing that because he took us out to give us the Torah read the sharpest counsel man so he says that it's not unique um okay another see so he's learning that this is not a direct connection between Shabbat and yet CF with Ryan it's similar to lose okay okay now this and this is why Oklahoma doesn't apply because Oakland nefesh means the COG bends to my needs but Shabbat is not that way Shabbat does not bend to me I've been to it Yom Tov is a different story Yom Tov exists only because of the unique historical relationship God has with the Jewish people had there not been the exodus from Egypt there would not have been a passive had there not been a mattandsarah there was not a finish for us had there not been the clouds of glory that signified God's providence in the desert there would not have been a Sukkot without us jump ship would have no meaning at all therefore we are the custodians of its holiness through the Sun Hedren and therefore yom tov bends for us in a way that shabbat does not so we have two decisions between young japan Shabbos one is all nefesh and the other is kiddush a qodesh and those two distinctions can be explained by the third distinction that young turf arises out of God's interaction with ami Israel Shabbat arises out of something that preceded the existence of ami as well and represents a Universalist idea and this also explains that locks are very important Aloha that on Yom Tov you are not allowed to do Malacca on behalf of a non Jew you are not allowed to cook onion juice for a non Jew you can only cook for a Jew because once again young just bends to the needs of our me Israel Yom Tov does not bend to anything else and because of this there's another Alaka be sure you know the difference between the derisive the dear abundant cooking for a non Jew on Yom Tov is a total prohibition you are not allowed to cook for a non Jew on Yom Tov now there's a rabbinic prohibition that creates many many problems in this modern day and age in which you're not even allowed to invite a non Jew to a young tough meal even if everything was cooked before because the rabbi's were afraid lest you do some extra cooking for the non Jew so be sure you understand the difference here if you actually cook for the non Jew that is a Torah violation if I invite a non Jew to my meal but I don't cook for him that's not a Torah by the way I'm simply sharing my food but the rabbi's made a Gizella so to invite their going to a Shabbos meal is perfectly okay you know though you may not made it may not be optimal for the atmosphere but how logically you can invite a guy to a Shabbat meal because you're not going to cook for him because you don't cook and Shabbat but on Yom Tov where you do cook for your family the saw coming were afraid scheme' Yarber bish below you might add extra now this rabbinic decree well obviously in this modern day and age both in terms of Jewish outreach and in terms of the fact that so many people have intermarriage relatives and the like this how well in particular opposes very very great difficulties let's imagine in an extreme case that you have a person as a child that's married a non-jew so you're telling me now oh I cannot invite my son to the Seder if he's going to bring his non-jewish wife well if that's going to be the case then my son is not going to come to the Seder and more probability what does that mean I'm cutting myself off you know from my own my own children and of course that's going to accelerate the total dismantling of Judaism within the family family unit so these are difficult issues the one thing I can tell you is the tendency of post Kim has been to be extraordinarily lenient and these things so they have said for example well if you're inviting a couple an inter married couple so really you're inviting the Jew and the non Jew is just coming along it's not a distinct invitation to a non Jew that may cover intra married couples and like that may not cover it I guess that's not Jewish and of course this also creates problems with candidates for conversion you know a candidate for conversion a non Jew who is studying to be a Jew needs to be exposed to a wide variety of Jewish experiences and learning about it in a book is not the same thing as actually seeing it so this year the Seder worked out well this year could happen because it was Shabbat so this year next year I think as well no problem you can have a non Jew at the Seder meal but when the Seder is not Donna Shabbat you technically do have a problem so yeah other program have said as long as you have done all of your cooking meaning if you're not even cooking for your family for this meal meaning you've done all the cooking before so some say you're allowed to have the non Jew because there's no fear you're going to do cooking but if you're still doing cooking for the family then then you actually do have this provision so again I'm not here to give you a shock on this all I can tell you is the tendency of rabbinic Authority has been to be extraordinarily lenient recognizing the importance of values here but again the leniency is only on the rabbinic law of inviting there is no compromise on the prohibition of cooking so for example let's imagine that you're inviting a non Jew who happens to be a vegan okay and so so the non Jew is not going to eat any of the regular stuff that you made so you want to do some special cooking for the non-jews for the non Jew you have to be absolutely certain that all of that is finished before the card you cannot cook special things for the non Jew I'm the itself that is an issue of the eraser that and that you cannot compromise is by and large the post-game have found various various cetera okay so now that we see the difference between Shabbat and we can ask the following question of all of these shallows we go in which hog is closest to they D of Shabbat because if Shabbat means something that you haven't deserved something that you have insurance something that is not connected to anything you've done the measure customer says Pesa has a certain analogy and a similarity to Shabbat now it's true that Pesa obviously arises artificial encounter with ami Israel of course but remember that the goal of peso happened at a time when we were not worthy we should have been in mitzrayim 400 years God that's what God told Avram Hashem takes us out after two hundred and ten years a hundred and ninety years early because we had descended into the forty ninth level of impurity and had we stayed another moment even the few moments that it takes for dough to become commenced we don't even know what that means exactly we would have hit level 50 we would have been a redeemable so Pesa represents an undeserved gift that was totally a matter of God's kindness and grace unlike should wealth where we prepared ourselves spiritually for 49 days unlike succoth which is the aftermath of Yom Kippur in which there was chuhwa and FEMA and Stata Tessa came to us as a gift that was unearned and therefore the measure karma says that is why Pesa of all the mo Adam can legitimately be referred to as Shabbat because just as Shabbat is not not enum Pesa is not not frenum as well it was something that we got that we had not really earned it is then that's why in the word of the word that the Torah use over and over again is he he posed on his we were taken out of Miss Ryan in a hurry when you leave in a hurry that means you really didn't prepare yourself internally you really don't deserve what you're getting and in fact in the very famous prophecy of your hostel which was one of the have tourists that we looked at the Jewish people were described as imma try him as an abandoned baby that was mired in its blood and in its filth and God passed over that baby and washed the baby and took care of the baby and that's exactly it we were helpless we were undeserving we had no merits but our potential and therefore it's must not subpoena and that's why the miss shakakwa says the Torah refers to pass off as Shabbat because just as Shabbat represents a transcendent ideal which does not represent anything we earned were entitled to the goombah of pesos is Shabbos tick so to speak in that particular way but now let's take the analysis one step further why is it me Maharaja Shabbats meaning why do we start counting the on there the day after peso or the day after the first day of messages vacati why don't I start counting the o'mara i'm Pesa now this is a strong question because if you think about it this way the same Rafi not tells us that the basic idea of spirit armor is to create a linkage between freedom and responsibility Pesa is a - a retainer Shiva wealth is a man my time to retain and the Torah doesn't want us to celebrate freedom as an abstraction that simply exists as a value in and of itself it wants to link freedom with submission to God's law in fact the ROM bond actually writes that Pesa and cheveux are really one long holiday and the days of severe a' Arcola mo8 in a sense so if you tell your boss you don't work there with all of my weight you take a long vacation but as I say the job will not be will not be waiting for you so if that's the case in fact if that's the case then the question is a good question if the whole purpose of the counting of the Omer is to link freedom with submission tuition then start on the first day you would have to first Seder right foot slow as many people counts fira ii sailors okay here we don't have a second seder so the whole savior certainly doesn't have sorrento home and by the way in this connection I want to share with you a beautiful thought of the Indian poet aghori who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in their thing in the 1920s and he did not write this about Judaism I don't know if he knew Jews but he wrote this about the human condition generally he said a human soul is like a violin string that is capable of producing beautiful music but the capacity of the string to produce music is only when the string is tied down on a bridge if you take a loose string put it on the kitchen table and rub run your finger over it you will not be able to get anything and that's the paradox we think if I'm free without constraint without limitation I can become the person I am capable of becoming in reality - Gauri said it is only by submission to something higher and better that the beauty within your soul comes out and that's exactly the relationship of pace SH for us so if that's the case the question that becomes a good question why don't we start on pets up itself you know young to reach out your Pesa why the right way we must correct the shadows so here let me share with you a beautiful beautiful muscle that if not when a breslav brings in the name of his great-grandfather who was none other than the Baal Shem Tov dressed up with a direct descendants of the Baal Shem Tov and who have not when starts off with the following question when a person is a hozier bad Shyvana person becomes about Shabbat there seems to be a certain excitement in everything that he does every Shabbat is beautiful and Dominic is beautiful and bearcats Amazone and I sure you outside everything is so great so wonderful so what are we in fact there was a in Lincoln Square which has a wonderful Jewish program for clothes rated Shuba run by rabbi Buckwald who's been doing it for many many years so there was a dinner they had a few years ago with the classics piece on the honoree gave a speech it sounds events available on the Internet it was a very humorous speech why he hates ballet Trueba mm-hmm and he said I hate them because Friday night when I get home I want to have a meal in 15 minutes and go to sleep so right when I'm ready the beds the Bathsheba says how do you understand this rush she's coming here or this run bonds coming here and they want to learn and they want to have Torah they want to sing some eros you don't want to serve all and they don't want to say much Inara I hate them again use a very humorous may sound a little negative it's the only great Hill of course that's correct but it's really a classic almost a gentle indictment of the fact that people who are you know Orthodox by birth or by long years don't have the passion and excitement so the culture that proves Nachman a success how come it is that's the longer we do mitzvahs the less passion and excitement we have now obviously you can give the simple answer that you know you get used to anything you get obituary and things become routine but spiritually that doesn't make sense because if mitzvahs are vehicles that connect me to God then by definition they shouldn't grow stale my connection should get stronger in deeper in one meaningful as time goes on and yet we do succumb to habituation to wrote to routine why should that be so it's almost as if we're being penalized for keeping mitts vote so this is the muscle that he gives from the boss himself he says imagine a baby learning to walk so initially the parents are holding the baby and the baby takes one step one step one step at some point the parents think the baby is ready to do without his own so they let go now what's gonna happen initially is the baby is gonna fall down while plop-plop and the baby if he could he or she could verbalize their thoughts might be thinking how come it was so easy five minutes ago and now it's so difficult am i regressing him only eighteen months I'm already regressing but the answer is it was easy because your parents were holding on to you but now you've progressed to a new level where you have to make it your own if nothing says when a person has not been exposed to the torrent and this is a totally new and unfamiliar way of life for them or if they were religious and left it and is coming back they are in a sense so far from God that God has to carry them God lifts them up God shows them an experience that is not really the level that they're on it's an artificial high everything is so sweet and so good and so exciting the world is in Technicolor but then God says I've shown you what you're capable of becoming now I'm putting you on the ground I'm letting go and it's your job to internalize what I showed you you're capable of doing so counter-intuitively and this is actually tip of Blackman he says when a person has difficulties frustrations disappointments things aren't moving in that same way and the person thinks they're regressing it is actually a sign of God's confidence in them that they are ready to make it their own and no longer need this artificial gift this is spiritually the relationship between pace offense Lewis Pesach is that sudden revelation from God that we didn't turn and we were not worthy of receiving a Shem lives us to the pinnacle of the mountain and we experience wondrous things what because I'll say the lowly maid servant at the Red Sea saw greater images of divinity than even the Prophet UNESCO we saw the keys they are covered but their - Shem puts us down and says ok I've shown you what you can become become it and that is why unlike Pesach which is this sudden Redemption the counting of the armour is gradual graduated step by step by step in fact there's some very excellent books in English and in Hebrew that talk about how each day of the all men should be correlated with a certain spiritual exercise that's awfully sudden revelation severan is the gradualism of internalizing within your character that's what Josh M showed you you have potentially and that is why mean maha-rathah Shabbat is the day after Shabbat because it's a new level Shabbat is what God gives you see wrongful out is what you give back to God in terms of your own work mee-mah correct it's the next day it's a new job the Bravo Tania brings decided the Tania turn is the same from the truth a Torah that this is the meaning of a passage in Shira Shira Shira Shira the song of songs is written of course as romantic love poetry and in fact dhadkan de Kock that there was a strong view of on many sages that it should not even be included in the Canon of tanaga because it was seen as Romantic literature that was not appropriate for impressionable young minds and yet Rabbi Akiva was the one who kind of convinced them to include it and his argument was that she Reshiram is ultimately a metaphor it uses the language and the experience of deep passionate romantic love indeed but it is expressing the love that God has for the Jewish people and vice versa and that is why I'm going to be Akiba says if all of the she remarked oh - Shira Shi rim is kadosh kadosh him now in the beginning of she Reshiram the woman which allegorically is Knesset Israel says to her lover must say meow hi Rekha poor me after you no good son and we can run together so the ballot on you brings from the lower that the phrase Marsh mania forever pull me after you is pestle nor root sir let us run together its votes and again the imagery is not exactly because Pesa we're really not ready for any of this God is pulling us like you pulled a sack of potatoes a gem is taking us out of Miss Ryan even though we really were not ready to go but with shoe else we run with God there is reciprocity we're giving something back to God in terms of not sevenish MA our observance of the Torah ma che Mia Loretta what starts off as passively receiving the divine light turns into actively participating in bringing divinity into the world right and that is why the counting of the Omer is me ma caresses Shabbos you got to leave the gifts that God gives you and make your life and give it that you give back to God and that is kind of the relationship of Pesa versus Spheeris O'Mara and Schwartz so again I wish you all well and again we are learning and may all of Arts Feliz and Yama Sakura and Belial English mutton and of course right after your music around we celebrate yachts mullets and this is the 70th anniversary so 70 is a big one and be Ezra Hashem Hashem always bless Medina Israel I'm Israel and really we hope that his bless things of peace shall be for the entire world [Applause] [Music]