Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Until you Recognize Your'e Enslaved, You can Never Truly be Free

[Music] okay hi everybody shalom and thank you for coming appreciate it um today's this year is dedicated for the aliyah of binyamin israel mohalevi bastavid binyamin ben moshe halevi that is the father of daniel goldstein and this friday is the very first yard site and we hope that all of the debris torah should be for the elevation of all of these the shemots and refuse leima to stephen benkaya and bria batrava i'm sorry stephen ben chava and bryan i'm not sure if it's brother and sister but whatever as well as all of those who are ill whether it's covert related not covert related inoculated uninoculated and uh really those who are healthy also that should have the bracha of remaining remaining healthy and it's a difficult time for us it's been difficult for quite a long time and i'm not going to allude to the more recent scandal difficulties that we faced in claude israel which are also something that necessitate a great deal of krashma nephesh and when we ask hashem for refu and refus hanefesh refusa nephesh also means that the psychological pain of trauma should also be alleviated and people should be strengthened and have resilience and courage to go through the difficulties that life sometimes puts in their way finally uh raleigh poston asked me to express uh all of our gratitude and thanks for those who contributed to the banna end of the year fundraising campaign broke hashem ibanez was able to reach uh their goal and as i've said many times already ibanez is not only a farm for shiyuri torah not just mine again but many many excellent shiretora and as well it is a place of hesed a place of showing caring and concern for all sorts of different needs uh in yushalayam and and elsewhere and through your very generous contribution all of you all of those who contributed have a heileck in all of the torah and all of the said that rabbi and rebecca poston in particular uh carry out on the day-to-day basis and may hashem bless all of these supporters in these cliffs of their and that they should have many many braccos from hakodesh barco and have nakas from their children and good health and parnassa toba and all of the other good good things that hashem gives us in our lives so uh today uh we are still of course in the parshiots of ucs mitrayam parashat bow is the actual yitzhiyas mitsrayam and i want to start off with the observation of the balatanya that i did say last week but i'm going to say it again because it's going to form the foundation of a further thought that we're going to talk about and that is the famous passage in the haggadah that is taken from a mishnah that of adam leeros that each person must regard themselves as if they themselves were taken out of egypt in other words remembering the exodus at least leo is not merely remembering a historical event but it is to feel that i myself was a slave in mithralium and hashem liberated me from my slavery you're not commemorating you are actually experiencing now i want to draw a contrast between that and another statement in the haggadah that superficially sounds kind of similar but it is different in the beginning of the haggadah we say ilu lohotsi akhodesh if hashem parquez have taken our forefathers out of egypt we and our children and our grandchildren would still be enslaved so we have to be grateful because these mediterranean benefited us that we are not slaves now that is not the same as the first statement that is not saying i have to feel that i was a slave that simply says the cs mitzrayim of my ancestors benefited me so that's statement number one statement number two is going way beyond that statement number two is not simply making the claim that you'd see us mitzrayim benefited me but rather i myself was a participant in you'd see as mitzrayim adam right uh that a person lyrosa who yatsami mitsuram so the question becomes uh what is the meaning of that idea i mean that's not true it just isn't true it's one thing to say yeah i benefit from god liberating the jews from mitzrayim because had he not liberated them there might not have been a jewish people therefore i'm here because of that okay fair enough but i wasn't in egypt i wasn't a slave in egypt in what way can that statement even be true so the emphasis the rambam seems to understand it as a form of method acting if i could use this irreverent idea and that is you know method actor marlon brando lee strasberg whatever it would be the concept would be you put yourself in the role by imagining what it would be like so the rambam seems to indicate it is an imaginary exercise so you will feel the power of the events in other words it's hard for me to imagine especially when i grew up free i don't really understand what slavery was so imagine visualize so according to the rambam it is enlisting the power of the imagination to emotionally put you in a certain historical moment which means it is make-believe but it's make-believe enlisted for a good purpose a higher purpose harnessing the power of imagination to achieve a spiritual growth but i mentioned last week and again forgive me for repeating but it'll be necessary for tonight as well the very powerful thought of the balatanya and others say it as well that the word mitzrayim itself has a double meaning mitzrayim does mean ancient egypt an empire that enslaved us an empire that was toppled by the ten plagues and the splitting of the red sea and that is not a metaphor that is a historical reality but mitzrayim also has a symbolic metaphorical meaning that the word mitzrayim comes from maitzard says our i call out to god from the narrow confinements of desperation is boundaries constrictions blockages inhibitions so when we talk about being enslaved in mitzrayim the balatanya says there is a double meaning enslaved in a country and an empire called egypt but it also refers to the inner blockages and constraints that every human being has and in that sense says the balatanya every jew every person not just you even has their own mitzrayim a mitzrayim is whatever is within me that prevents me from connecting to god and realizing my potential a person can have a mitzrayim of gaiva of arrogance a person can have a mitzram of depression and despair there could be anger there could be laziness there could be hedonism there could be greed there could be selfishness these are mine with rhymes and every person must acknowledge that they have a mitzrayim probably more than one as the old saying goes it's easier to take the jew out of mitsuram than it is to take mitzrayim out of the jail so what the balatanya says when god did it see at mitzrayim when he took the jewish people out of mitzrayim he put a spiritual power into the world that enables every person to link to that yet see at mitraim as a cosmic event and become liberated from the inner mitzrayim that enslaves them you know people sometimes debate not not so many not so much from people but you know people generally debate yeah pardon me just have a bad coffee people debate whether the torah should be understood as history or metaphor so for example you talk about adam and eve you know is that literal is that literal stuff or is that a metaphor for good and evil in the world you'd see us misrayam are the of oats are they mythical figures are they historical figures you'd see us mitzrayim did it happen didn't it happen is it a metaphor for something but i would suggest to you that that is a false dichotomy because the torah is both history and metaphor because the historical events themselves are prototypes for spiritual forces that exist in debris you see it with tribe as a perfect example we believe a person with ammuna in the torah beliefs that see asthma striatum is an actual historical event now granted we can have another discussion from other time about the archaeological evidence or lack thereof and what do you do with it but the bottom line is we believe the jews were enslaved in mitzrayim and they were taken out on that level the torah is literal history but history itself is a vehicle for god to implant into the world spiritual powers that can continue to be activated that's why the whole concept of time in judaism is not linear but it's cyclical you understand linear implies past is past we're moving from past to present to future and if i think about the past all i can do is commemorate something that happens but in in in in judaism certainly based on the way that mukabalam explained you're not commemorating a past event but the very same spiritual power that enabled that event to occur reoccurs in that cyclical path so the baba tanya's beautiful insight is each person must regard themselves as if they were taken out of mitzrayim is my statement of emunah that god will give me the capacity to be liberated from my own inner mithraim that the kawak of goula the koaak of charus right the power of redemption the power of freedom that god put into the world continues to be activated and reactivated be eager during pesach but the truth is during these parshiots as well the life of the atheist mitzrayim permeates spiritual liberation now in the 60s they probably still do it kind of the counter-cultural movements the chabura movement jewish renewal movement they put a little they put out all sorts of hagados that uh were theme haggadahs like the civil rights agata uh whatever it is and they even have a gay and lesbian i go that's okay i don't know i don't want to go there that much uh and now putting aside the specific issues of that i don't want to talk about those specific issues but on one level you look at those sagadas and say oh you're you're just doing political correct stuff that has no connection to pesach but on some level it does because the truth of the matter is when we read the haggadah and during these weeks when we read the parshiot de vicious mitralium according to the balatanya we are doing a double message there is the general message of the narrative which is the historical reality of how ami israel became formed as a nation and that is our shared history that is what we have in common as jews yet see at mitzrayim followed by matantora both steps is what made us a nation and that has to be lovingly shared and recounted once a year or twice a year in kutzler it's in great detail and every single day in a more abbreviated way you got to remember it you got to think about it our history made us who we are but that is what i call the communal narrative that is what i call the national narrative the formation of the jewish people but the balatanya is suggesting that there's also an idiosyncratic private meaning to the exodus narrative that pertains to every person's individualistic challenge in their life that is liberate me free me enable me to transcend my boundaries my constrictions my limitations open my heart take away my anger my ego so in a sense generalizing the exodus to all of these other causes has a certain resin again i'm not validating the causes that's a separate thing but the concept of broadening itse mithralium beyond the particular historical event actually makes a certain amount of religious sense because it acknowledges that mitzrayim can exist in many many forms there could be the mitzrayim of greed the mitzrayim of cutthroat capitalism the mitzrayim of abuse both the imprisonment of the abused victim and the mitzrayim of the abuser that somehow got forced well that's i don't think they got forth but somehow is in the trap of these passions that are seemingly not really but seemingly beyond control and they need to be liberated abuser and abused need to be liberated from that destructive slavery that inhibits them that stops them that chains them that blocks them it's siath mithrayam so that's a marvelous beautiful insight from the balatanya that of adam le rotes mitsrayam does not mean i gotta make believe i was a slave in egypt that's not a true statement but i believe i have a mitzrayim and i believe that hashem will give me the wherewithal to become liberated from my mitzrayim provide it i do the work that's necessary to achieve that liberation which we will proceed to talk about to talk about uh in in a moment so we know that when the jewish people uh were commanded to get ready to leave mitzrayim they were given a set of commands on rosh nisan that's two weeks before the exodus they were already given all the laws about carbon pesos and everything else and here i want to start off with a technical question and maybe you've thought of this question it's a it's an interesting question two weeks before pesach god told them that you're going to bring the corbin pesach and you're going to eat matzah and moroar the night of the seder and for seven days you are not allowed to have hamets you're not allowed to have unleavened bread leavened bread and uh you're not even allowed to own it right you know that hamas is unique that not only is there a prohibition of eating hamas you're not even allowed to own comments which is why we have the hold the rules that you sell your comments to a guy etc now rabbinically this is rabbinically if a jew owned hames during pesach that comments cannot be eaten forever even after pesach sausage that's called hamachs uh that's a problem it's less of a problem in israel because the rabbi nuts arranges almost every store jewish store in israel sells its comments on pesach but in the united states it's considered a problem those of you might remember that every uh after pesach every rabbi has to circulate a list of what stores you can buy from what stores you cannot buy from because if it's a non-jewish store you could buy comments after after pesach not during pesach after pesach if it's a jewish store that didn't sell the comments you have to wait until there's a turnover of inventory so that everything in the store that's homemade was purchased after pesach by the way this is actually a much more complicated childhood than you might assume because people think the only thing i care about is the identity of the retailer well you know it's not only that you got to look at the distributor that the retailer got it from so even if the retailer got the stuff after pesach if the jewish distributor owned it during pesach you're going to have a problem that's especially a problem with whiskey you know whiskey is all habits basically scotch bourbon rye and uh whiskey is kept by distributors you know for a long time so even if a retailer jewish liquor store got its uh scotch uh right you know after pesach you know who had it during pesach and as you might expect in the liquor business uh jewish ownership is quite prominent uh and as a result uh there are major distributor problems okay but again these are halachic matters that you need to be to be aware of but the point i'm making is this when were the jewish people given the commandment to have matzah lael pesach not to eat humans for seven days and not to own hamas for seven days they were given this commandment two weeks before pesach two weeks before pesach they were told when that day comes when the 15th of nisan comes you're going to have these laws actually even from therapeutic you know you're not allowed to eat hummus from part of the day now but then we have a question because later the torah says that when the jewish people were going to leave mithraim in the morning they wanted to bake bread they wanted to bake bread but the egyptians were pushing them get out get out get out and god was also going to get out get out get out we didn't have time to let our dough rise because we had to leave zone we had to leave in such a rush that we didn't have time to let our dough rise and that is why we immediately had to bake our dough as matzah unleavens a bread now as you know halachically when water mixes with flour it only takes 18 minutes for the fermentation to be considered hummus so when he said when we say they didn't have time to let their dough rise they didn't even have the 18 minutes now the posture says because parrot was saying get out of here after the mahakaspakhoros pyro said i don't want you anymore the iriza learns a different shot the irizal understands that the problem is that the jewish people are on the 49th level of impurity and had they stayed we don't even know what this means had they stayed even the little bit of time that it would take for matzah to become khanet they would have hit level 50. so i don't understand that the question i want to share with you is how do you understand the second narrative in light of the first set of commandments because the second narrative implies that had let's say pyro and hashem would have said take your time you know you got to leave but you know bake all the bread that you want the implication of the torah is they would have made it comets the reason they didn't make his climates is because they were told on the morning of the 15th leave but the question is if they were given that commandment rosh nisan then they already were told that once pesach comes they're not allowed to have comets not all and i want to emphasize not only were they told they're not allowed to eat comets they were told they're not allowed to have comets so even if they would have been given the time they couldn't defend clements anyway so how can you say for example that the reason i eat matzah is to commemorate the haste by which the jews had to leave egypt it does not commemorate the haste by which the jews had to leave egypt because even if there there had not been a hasting they weren't allowed to have comets because they were already given the issue from rosh right it's a good kasha meaning the khara the israel of khames is not connected to khipazon because they were prohibited to do it even before that so the ran in our veip sachin actually asks this question other we shown you mastakasha as well and the ran makes a very interesting halaq distinction between the first pesach in mitzrayim and the future pesach's now every other year and he actually shows again it's hard to show you this in the language of the sukkim itself but if you carefully examine the language of the sukim the implication is that the laws against ownership of khames only kicked in in year two meaning god gave in other words there are two things the immediate law that applies to you this year is you bring a carbon pesach and you've got to eat matzah the first night but the laws against eating hamates for seven days and the laws against owning commits for seven days were not to be activated until the next year and again and he shows this from the language of the verses iran says that the morning of the 15th the jewish people did have the right to bake bread they ate the night before they ate matzah the night before they ate matzah for sure but the morning of the 15th they did have the ability to bake hamid stick of bread but because of the kippazone in other words the way you understand this is this god gave them a mitzvah rosh whose reason would not be understood until a later historical event happened god tells them in effect this year you're going to eat matzah at the same you know with the carbon pesach next year i'm telling you you're not allowed to have homemade for seven days you're not allowed to eat hummus for seven days you're not allowed to um own hummus for seven days but at that point we don't know why gee why is god telling me next year i'm not allowed to have comments for seven days i don't know god told me that but the answer is you know why you're not allowed to have comments next year for seven days because you're gonna when you're going to try to bake bread the morning of the fifteenth you're gonna be kicked out of egypt so quickly that's this will be a center to the three peasants you understand what's going on meaning on the morning of the 15th the jewish people had the right to bake comets because the law against owning comets and eating comets for seven days isn't going to be activated till next year but until the historical event of kripa's own they didn't understand why and the historical event of kripa's own now makes them understand uh what's going on so based on this rebecca kamineski has a very very fascinating observation if you think about this therefore what was the meaning of the in other words we say we eat matzah and pesach and we don't eat hummus and pesach to remember the khipazon but the first time we had to eat matzah there was no kippazone story yet because we ate matzah the night of the 15th the pazone didn't occur until the next morning so here's the question what was the significance of matzah that was eaten the first seder we can eat matzah during the seder because we remember the zone but they weren't remembering the zone because the kripa zong didn't happen yet so what was the concept of matzah the first seder the answer is matzah itself has a dual symbolism matzah is a commemoration of the redemption from egypt to remind us of how quickly god took us out but matzah is also a commemoration of slavery itself it is called lechamoni it is the bread of slaves the ebenezer writes that he saw evanezer was a traveler and he saw that slaves in india would be fed unleavened bread because it stayed in their stomachs a very long time and the masters didn't have to give them a lot of food so matza is a complex symbol when i eat matzah i remember the slavery of egypt and when i eat matzah i remember the goula of egypt that was on matzah is both abdus and khairus in contra distinction tamar which is only abdus and something like the four cups of wine which is only seiras although that's rabbana matzah is abdus and jerus so the point is the first seder matzah could only be avatars i mean what did they think about they're eating matzah to remember the slavery they should never forget it the bread of affliction the next year matzah acquired the additional symbol of based on you see how the iran understands all of the different verses that indeed the morning of the 15th they could have baked bread because the prohibition against eating for seven days and only clements isn't going to be activated until next year but they didn't know why until the event of kripa zain happened it was like a coke until that point so based on this revival kaminetsky has a very very fascinating oh by the way i want to point out these two dimensions of matzah are illustrated in the haggadah itself because the haggadah begins with the statement in aramaic this is the bread of affliction the bread of poverty the bread of suffering that's telling us that the matzah is a reminder of what it's like to be persecuted what it's like to be a slave but then at the end of margate we bring robin gamlio's statement that the meaning of matzah is we didn't have time to let our dough rise until god redeemed us so that we we move from the matzah of slavery to the matzah of freedom now here viviakov kamineski says a very interesting we know that is that you're not allowed you cannot be you'd say at the seder with matzah that is called egg matzah now this is called matsuhashira rich matzah you can't use matzah which has oil in it or or um fruit juice or egg yolk or chocolate because matzah has to be lesham oni the bread of affliction it cannot be bread that's rich and that a wealthy person might eat now the mice again this is complicated ashkenazim actually have the practice that they don't eat matsuhashira for all of pesach svardham do so maybe we'll save that for another time but the one thing that for sure is whether you're ashkenazi or swardy you cannot fulfill the mitzvah of the seder with matsuhashira because matzah has to be the bread of slavery now there's a sheet of the vilna gone that says a very interesting thing the vilna gone says although the obligation of eating matzah is only lael seder right the rest of pesach i'm not allowed to eat clements but i don't have to have matzah if i don't like math i don't have to eat matzo but the villenegon says every kazayat of matsu that you eat you are fulfilling a mitzvah this is a kiddish of the god this is why there are people who are mahpit every single day of pesach they will eat matzah because even though it's not obligatory but nevertheless uh it is a mitzvah if you do it this is a category that is called in mitzvah ki yumit a mitzvah uvit is a mitzvah that you must do right i've got to reach ma mitzvah kiyomiz is a mitzvah that you don't have to do but if you do it hashem rewards you for a minute by the way as a total digression let me mention that we know that the ramban has the well-known shika that living in eric israel is a mitzvah right the ramban unlike the rambam unlike maimonides says living in eric israel is a mitzvah rav moshe feinstein however has a chuva in which he asserts that even according to ramban it is only mitzvah ki umitz and not mitzvah yuvitz sir moshe kind of gave a green light for people not to make not to make aliyah because he said it's not a failure again i am not being modest at all when i say that i am absolutely lower than dirt compared to ramosa i mean this is not false modesty please be assured of that but i do have to say that ramosha's understanding of ramban is sarik odd because the ramban's language is almost explicit that it is an obligation not just if you do it you get a a mitzvah so that's an interesting shiloh how do you classify aliyah but the garage does say the vilmigon does say that eating matzah every day of pesach is a mitzvah humid so here's what dr kamineski said the mitzvah ki umit of the whole week you can fulfill even with egg matzah why is that so because it's only leo seder that the significance of matzah is the bread of affliction and poverty and the proof is because initially it didn't have the kippazone rationale because the kippazone rationale didn't kick in until the next morning so even though by the next year matzah acquired an additional significance it never lost its original significance as lechamoni so matsashira is not lechamoni but by contrast with respect to eating monster the rest of the week that's only zayter that is not because of lechamoni so zega lucky pazone applies to any unleavened bread whether it's rich matzah or poor matzah it didn't rise so if yaakov kamineski wants to be makhadesh that you could be mikayam the mitzvah kiyumez of the gra with matsurashi right now again i have to emphasize that halachically for ashkenazim this is not going to work at all simply because ashkenazim do not eat matsua ashira for all of pesach for comments reasons there are different other complications but for spartan that do eat again i'm not sure swear to follow the grain here anyway but for the spider we do eat matsuashira they could be out say the mitzvah kiyomiz mata you understand the idea because the kisarin of matsuhashira is it is not a commemoration of servitude but that is an aspect only of lael cedar matzah that is not an aspect of matzah the rest of pesach and the proof is because the first seder it had to be based on lechamoni because there was no other events to which it could be connected so that's again a very very fascinating finish and based on the run you can now understand that the whole sequence of the mitzvoth is a bit more complicated than you would than you would imagine and matzah itself as i say is a complicated symbol because it emphasizes both slavery and freedom as opposed to marauder which is only slavery and as opposed to dollar cosot which is only freedom as opposed to reclining yeah that's a rabbinic requirement that is freedom the seder combines in matzah or the torah combines in matzah this dual uh symbolism so now let's focus on another statement which is connected to these mitzvots and that is a famous statement of rabban gamliel that is in the mishnah and is incorporated in the haggadah anyone that does not explain the significance of the three cardinal mitzvos of the seder does not fulfill his obligation pesach the carbon pesach the paschal lamb mata and more now when it says has not fulfilled his obligation what obligation do you not fulfill if you don't explain these things so here's a very important point he doesn't mean you haven't fulfilled matzah pesach meaning if i eat matza and i didn't explain it i've still done the mitzvah of matzah i ate it if i eat maura and i didn't explain it i've done the mitzvah so he doesn't mean you haven't been yotsei pesach matsumura he means you haven't been yotse haggadah you haven't been yotsei your narrative obligation unless you explain pesach matsumura okay you are youth you're not you'll say the mitzvah of haggadah by the way in a little bit of a note again i know i'm talking a little ahead of the calendar here but these are the parshiots so i'm taking the liberty of talking about some pesach in yanum you know this robin gamlio's statement is towards the end of maggit and towards the end of maggid before the second cup uh people are getting hungry they're looking forward to uh their meal so sometimes the people who handle the food i was gonna i don't want to be chauvinist or will tend to be the woman of the house but you know it doesn't have to be but the people will be getting up and going into the kitchen etc so precisely the part of the haggadah that they might miss is the robin gamlio paragraphs and the truth of the matter is that's the one part of the haggadah you cannot skip you know if you skip the four sons as entertaining as that is you are youth say the mitzvah of haggadah if you miss the robin gamlio paragraph you're not you'd say so if someone is going to get up and go into the kitchen they should say the rabingam leo paragraphs ahead of time either and again in any language because any part of that god can be said in hebrew or english but they have they have to be sure to say it either say it before they go which is best or say it you know before the second cup when they come back in other words that's madafka the one part of the haggadah that's non-negotiable and you cannot skip and yet the experience sometimes uh i've learned that sometimes that's the part of the haggadah that people badafkar might miss uh by going into the kitchen or or whatever it is but be it isn't now remember mentions these three cardinal mitzvoth pesach matsumura so what i want to do in the in the little bit of time we have is connect these three mitzvos to the more global message of you'd see at mitzrayim going back to the balatanya the balatanya again tells us that yet seats mitzrayim is not only about commemorating the liberation from egypt but it's about identifying my own inner mitzrayim and tapping into the power of yet see at mitzrayim to become liberated we can actually look at pesach and mara as different steps that i can internalize in my life towards the achievements of spiritual liberation now i'm going to go in reverse order and i'll explain why after i go through it let's start with maura marwar is eating something bitter although it doesn't have to be that bitter your romaine lettuce is not so bitter but something that has a bitter taste so we should remember that we're slaves what's the lesson to that the lesson for that is that the first step towards achieving achieving spiritual liberation from that which enslaves you is you have to have the honesty to recognize that you're a slave the first step to be free is to recognize there's a problem until you recognize there's a problem there's no way you can do anything about it because you don't even think there's something you have to do so molar is an indispensable element towards achieving liberation because it reminds me that i'm enslaved i'm enslaved to my taivor my ego my greed my laziness i gotta be honest with myself it doesn't mean i gotta parade my sins to other people but be honest with myself i remember uh you know i used to teach at the university of maryland in baltimore and i lived in silver spring maryland so those of you that know that part of the united states so that's south right washington silver spring is south of baltimore so in order to get to baltimore you have to drive 95 north right major highway 95 north uh but there's a turn off to 95 south so if you're not thinking you could actually find yourself going south so i remember one time when i was relatively new uh to the area i was driving along to baltimore and all of a sudden i was kind of in a reverie a little bit of a you know not falling asleep but just thinking about something so all of a sudden i noticed the washington monument the jefferson memorial and i said you know i never saw that going from silver spring to to baltimore now i didn't want to admit i was on 95 south going towards virginia because i didn't know how to correct myself if i was i didn't really know now i could to go all the way to florida i mean 95 south ends at key west florida and then you make a nice u-turn so i could have done that but i would have been very late to class you know it wouldn't have so it's an amazing thing i can't even explain this rationally so don't ask me to explain it rationally i didn't want to admit to myself i was lost so i started telling myself you know maybe you never noticed maybe you can see those monuments uh from 95 north you just never noticed like you're seeing something new and maybe you're okay or maybe if i just keep going somehow it'll get better somehow now this is actually a mistake we make all the time you throw good money after bad right all of these things and of course einstein's famous definition of insanity do the same thing over and over again and expect to get a different result right crazy so the truth of matter is i'm driving along further and further into virginia because i didn't want to admit but my ability to correct myself could only exist when i admitted i was lost i always tell my wife that gps's were invented by male engineers because women were willing to ask for directions so they didn't need a gps a man refuses to ask for a direction so he needed a gps you know otherwise we would be perpetually lost we would never get out of that you know get out of our quandary so this is a very important idea you want to achieve freedom recognize your slave don't sweep it under the rug don't live in denial if things aren't working in relationships if things aren't working and your personality if things aren't working yeshiva do you know recognize it deal with it be honest until a slave knows he's a slave he cannot take steps to freedom now i i do not want to talk about the kai and walder thing tonight really but i just want to say that this has relevance to an issue such as sexual abuse or child abuse whatever it would be in the religious community for far too long we've closed our eyes for far too long we've just denied it right along we just made believe it didn't exist but making believe that something doesn't exist doesn't take it away and if there's a silver lining to this compounded tragedy which is a dark tragedy for on so many levels maybe it takes us out of a state of illusion and it forces us to confront painful and difficult realities and that is painful it hurts a lot but in confronting that reality we're taking the first step to be able to make it better okay and that's what maura is mara is the honesty of recognizing my slavery as an indispensable step towards freedom we then come to matza now we discussed a few moments ago that mata is a dual symbol of uh slavery and freedom that's one one perspective of matzah that's a certainly a very valid perspective in the haggadah but there are other aspects of moss as you know a matzah represents humility because it's not puffed up and arrogant although some of the mozzarellas they make actually look like comets but generally speaking monsters humility but myral has another take on matzah that's very interesting morale points out that chromates represents inertia and matzah represents corrective action let's think about this if water falls on flour you don't need to make it humid you don't need yeast you don't need a starter inertia if you do nothing for 18 minutes it's humid chromates is not created by action commates is created by inaction inertia matza requires that you arrest the fermentation process by putting it in an oven within 18 minutes so the morale says one of the symbols of hamilton matzah one is arrogance versus humility another is inertia versus action so if maraud is identifying my slavery matzah connotes the imperative of doing something about it and this is interesting this might be the difference let's say between psychoanalysis and behavioral therapy psychoanalysis is there again i'm obviously over generalizing stereotyping i i don't want to offend any therapists or analysts but in its purest theoretical form psychoanalysis is about getting insight understanding your condition understanding every trauma you've ever been through birth trauma pre-birth from a preconception trauma whatever it would be and people could be in analysis for 50 years and they understand every little thing that's wrong with them but a behavioral therapist would say what are you going to do about it it's nice to have insight it's nice to have understanding but what concrete changes are you going to do and sometimes people get so mired in this attempt to understand that they don't necessarily move forward in constructive ways that's the idea of professional victimhood it also has a certain relevance here in which a person is so conscious of their victimhood status which can be very real i god forbid i'm not diminishing that but they they're not willing necessarily or ready to move forward so if moira is the cognitive awareness of my slavery matzah represents the imperative of action you know there was a very famous american academic robert hutchins who was kind of a almost a child prodigy he became president of the university of chicago at the age of 25. he was actually younger than many of the graduate students in the school really brilliant brilliant men and he was not taking care of himself physically so someone said you know dr hutchins uh do you don't you ever have the desire to exercise to jog or whatever so he responded i surely do have that desire but i know whenever it uh i get that desire i know if i lie down for a few moments it'll pass so i don't let it bother me now the truth is that's the way it is with exercise for sure and that's why it is with a lot of spiritual life as well all of us have moments of inspiration there are times in life when we really want to make things better and there are many different things that can inspire us might be a peshader it might be living in irish israel going to the hotel it might be when you're a little older the wedding of a child or a grandchild it might be a funeral where a person thinks about life and i gotta you know life is finite and we have moments of inspiration after yom kippur but you know if you don't concretize the inspiration into action it dissipates it disappears it doesn't last when you concretize it it's like you're nailing it down and then mitzvah gareth mitzvah that little step that you took it'll give you strength to do more if you don't concretize it it just manages very very quickly so mauro is linked with matzah because marwa is the awareness of my slavery and matzah is the imperative of doing something about my slavery taking action you know is the same thing let's assume that you've had a disagreement with somebody for a long time you haven't spoken i know i mean i know myself every once in a while you get a feeling why don't i pick up the phone why don't i make that connection well that's going to work if the phone is right next to you by the time you walk to the next room you'll say nah maybe not today that's what happens that's how fast inspiration can wear off the time that it takes to walk from one room to another room maybe not today right so that's what matt says think about building a bridge how do you build a bridge these huge bridges it starts with a single cable a cable it's a thick cable you know but the cable could hold you know ten thousand pounds and then you put another cable on top of that another that then it's thick and then you could then it could bear the weight of tons and tons and tons but you need that single cable to start the process now we then come to pass it again again i'm going in reverse order and i'll explain why i'm going in reverse order now the corbin pesach has many many halachos obviously a whole half of massachusetts is about the corbin pesos half of the track date is about the carbon pesach but one of the very interesting harajus of the carbon passage which is a much locus in the gemara but the rambam soposkins is that you cannot bring the pesach as a solitary individual meaning even if i have a big appetite and it's a very small little lamb only 30 days old so i could finish the whole thing right they have these contests these five five pound uh meat eating contests whatever it would be so you know a little lamb could be uh four pounds i could do it the lakka is you can't the corbin pesach you must join with other people if this is called the chabura if it's your family it's your family if you don't have family you've got to connect to a family or other people form their own you cannot slaughter the carbon pesach for a solitary individual what lesson does that teach us if pesach is about spiritual liberation it's teaching us that in our journey from our own inner mitzrayim to freedom and liberation we have to be part of a community we cannot do it by ourselves we need friends now says in fact that's a very interesting expression make for yourself a teacher buy buy for yourself a friend little what does it mean buy for yourself a friend so some say well a therapist you're buying a friend for 50 minutes this person is your best friend but you got to pay for it but some say the following friendship does have a cost the cost of friendship is your willingness to be a friend right if i want somebody to listen to my sorrows to give me comfort when i have problems i have to be a person who's willing to do the same for him in other words the mission is that true friendship creates reciprocal responsibilities you've got to invest in friendship you've got to pay something for friendship you want a friend you got to be a friend you can't be the person who whenever you have a problem you go to people and you want them to help you but when they need you you know you're not available right i mean unfortunately you know many of us uh have friends like that sometimes but they're not truly friends now the rambam says a beautiful thing about friendship the rambam discusses why is friendship important why do i need a friend for what so rambam says there are three reasons why we have friends one what might be called utilitarian you know there are times in life in which we're in difficult predicaments we lost the keys to our house our car broke down middle of the highway if i don't have friends like who do i call so in that utilitarian sense a friend is like a life insurance policy or an insurance policy meaning i don't really need friends but there are going to be times that i do so it's good to have that investment in case things go wrong we'll call that the utilitarian model of friendship the second bad reason for a friend the rambam says is social human beings are lonely we need companionship irish title remarks in fact the rabbi probably got this from aristotle man is a social animal so we need someone to schmooze to share and all of that is true utilitarianism and social friendship is important but the rambam says and by the way that can certainly be with husband and wife i mean i'm not suggesting it has to be outside the marriage could be in the marriage itself that hassan and kala are called beloved friends itself very very important that the highest title we can give to married life is the friendship of people who love each other but the rambam then says the highest purpose of friendship is not utilitarian or social but is a type of spiritual fellowship in which each one wants to build the other to be the best person they could be now that type of friendship is not an easy friendship because if i truly love my friends and i want them to be better i will sometimes have to point out ways in which i think he or she is not doing their best and i have to be open to have the person point that out to me see when you're when you're friends on a social level so you can let things like let things slide you know the person might be selfish egotism whatever we can have a nice dinner together we can watch a basketball game together and there is place in life for that type of friendship but the deepest friendship is the friendship in which each person helps the other grow spiritually that is of course the highest dimension of a marriage which each person makes the other person better because of their connection that's that's what raya mahuvem actually means so consequently when we talk about the idea of of the carbon pesach and we connect to spiritual liberation what we are talking about is the need to find a community with which you can move forward the community can be as little as husband and wife although optimally should be right it could be a show it could be a yeshiva it could be a harusa ideally we should have some connection to all of these things right because the understanding is as melech says in koheles two are better than one because if one falls down by himself who will pick him up but if there are two people and one falls down one can pick up the other and the threefold cord is even better now malek is not only talking about ice yeah it's true if i slip on the ice and i'm all by myself it may be hard to get up but he's talking about life in a much more general sense all of us have moments of weakness moments of fear moments of hesitation confusion we don't really know where to go and a friend again could be a spouse that's right that's even ideal but when there is a friend in your life they will help you they will pick you up in your moments of weakness and in their moments of weakness you will be there for them so bikitzer just to summarize this very quickly i'll go in reverse order and then i'll explain why i went in reverse order pesach matsumara connotes three steps in achieving our own you'd see personal the mithralian cognitively identifying your slavery matzah doing something about it action finding a community that shares those values and those goals towards spiritual fellowship and the like and that is how you take raman gamlio and you apply it to the personal you see at mithrain that all of us go to go through so the final remaining question is the order because if mara represents identifying the problem and matzah represents doing something about the problem then logically let's think about the seder itself i should eat mauro and then eat matzah because how can i do something about a problem until i know what the problem is so why do i first eat the matzah and then eat the murmur i should eat tamara and then eat the matzo so here's the answer to that the answer to that would be i think that although it's true that i cannot successfully deal with the problem until they identify what the problem is and this is very important because sometimes we think frenetic action will get me somewhere but i might be running in the wrong direction i got to do something about it what i'm doing is i'm running towards the problem instead of away from it but so so it's true you need a clear sense of morale before you can do matzah but psychologically you have to internalize your capacity for constructive change before you confront the negativities because when a person confronts their inner mitzrayim they confront their slaveries they're likely to be overwhelmed they're likely to be depressed they're likely to be in despair and then they get paralyzed so before you start looking into the negativities you remember the matzah the capacity for change and that capacity for change can give me the courage to look into my bitterness right so it's true that you don't do monsters so to speak until after maura but you have to internalize the message of the master first because that will prevent yayush and despair and that is why the order is in ramagamil and in the seder matsumura and then even pesach pesach is mentioned first because you need the support systems too in advance before you engage in the deep kashmir nefesh you need that sense of community that gives you the strength uh to proceed so again although this sounds like a patriot share and the light but in these parshiots of the seats metralium we are all experiencing the light of the exodus and therefore it's kind of a mini pesach meaning to say uh we do and hashem puts these forces into the air enabling us to achieve it see its mithralium and of course the month of shevat is very symbolic as well we know mr muhammad bishop sader as was announced but shabbat is technically in the halaqa calendar the beginning of spring the beginning of spring the beginning of growth pesach itself has to be in the spring and therefore if spring is the symbol of redemption freedom renewal even though it still seems like it's winter out there the beginnings of that renewal is coming in and therefore we can indeed think about yiddishiat mitzrayim so have a good shabbos and again thank you for coming [Music] is