Seeing the Redemptive Potential in Adversity

[Music] thank you Shalom everyone we are approaching the yantif of pesach and we know that pesach there is a Mitzvah from the Torah that the first night of Passage the first two nights we have a whole ceremony called the Seder and the Cornerstone of the Seder is the recitation of the Haggadah but the single most important part of the Haggadah is towards the end of the Magid before the second cup and this is a statement of Robin gumlio that anyone that does not explain the three Commandments of pesach eating the Paschal Lamb and eating the bitter herbs low yatsao has not fulfilled his obligation to talk about yitzia's mithrayim meaning even if I discuss the ten plagues and the sweating of the Red Sea and all of the Miracles I do not fulfill the Mitzvah of hagada unless I explain the significance of pesach Mata in Moro why is that so important yes I have to eat the matzo why do I have to talk about it after all when I take Lula of an esro I don't have to explain the meaning of Lula Vanessa when I hear the chauffeur I don't have to explain the meaning of shofar but when it comes to pesach when it comes to the Seder when it comes to the Haggadah the Mitzvah of recounting The Exodus it is essential to the Mitzvah itself that I talk about why is that so so to answer this question let's explore another question there's another passage in the Haggadah that is also taken from the mishnah and Adam Adamo every person must regard themselves as if they were personally liberated from Israel is not simply commemorative we don't simply remember what it was that Hashem did for our forefathers but we have to imagine ourselves as if we ourselves were liberated now don't confuse this with an earlier idea in the Haggadah earlier the haggad has said that if God had not redeemed our forefathers we might have been assimilated we might have been slaves but that's not saying I personally experienced Redemption that's saying I am grateful for what Hashem did for my ancestors that is what the Seder says at the beginning but at this point it's making a much more dramatic claim it is not simply gratitude for what God did to my ancestors but there has to be mamash a Feeling as if I myself was redeemed from Israel now what does that even mean after all I was never in mitzrayim I was never in Egypt I certainly was not a slave in Egypt so in what way can it be said it's as if I experienced Redemption so let me offer two explanations one is a relatively simple straightforward explanation the other is a bit more complex the straightforward explanation is actually offered by the rambam the rambam simply says that the idea is we harness the power of imagination meaning it is human nature that we don't appreciate a blessing until we experience the opposite of that blessing a person might not experience health or the blessings of good health until God forbid they face illness those of us who have parents or grandparents who survived the Holocaust or came from repressive environments like the former Soviet Union they appreciate the blessings of freedom and liberty much more so than those of us who had the privilege of being born into freedom and liberty so if it's true that you don't appreciate Freedom unless you've experienced oppression and slavery you don't appreciate Health until you have you've experienced illness so in order for me to have gratitude to God for the gift of freedom and Liberation I have to imagine what it is like to be a slave I have to imagine the torture the pain the degradation the humiliation and therefore what you're doing is you're harnessing the power of imagination to generate within your personality feelings of gratitude so according to this the statement that each person must regard himself as if they were liberated from Israel is not expressing an actual factual truth I was not in mitzrayim I was not liberated from Israel but it's using the imaginative faculty to imagine yourself as a slave so you will have hakarat hatov for all that God has given you that is interpretation number one similar lavdale to method acting in which the actor puts himself in the situation so he can experience the fullness of emotions that the scene calls for and indeed Levenstein The Great Mushroom said a bowel Musser must have a powerful visual imagination to be able to experience the pivotal events of God's Divine Providence whether it's experiencing The Exodus or the giving of the Torah or the splitting of the Red Sea that is explanation number one explanation number two is kabbalistic and I'll just mention it briefly and that is even though I myself as a conscious individual did not experience servitude in Egypt but it is said that all of the souls of the Jewish people those that were already born and those that would be born in the future did experience that servitude so in a very literal sense [Music] was enslaved in mithram and was liberated that's explanation number two but explanation number three which is the thing I want to focus on is from the balotanya the alter rebbe the first Obama and he explains that the word mitzrayim has a double meaning mitzrayim does mean Egypt and of course we believe that the Jewish people were physically enslaved by the ancient Egyptian Empire from which God liberated us that's very true but mitzrayim also has another connotation of boundaries limitations constraints blockages I call out to God from the narrow confining places answer me with expansiveness so Miss Ryan means Egypt but mitzrayim also means blockages and constriction so says the balatanya in that light every single Jew has their own inner mitzrayim you can have the mitzrayim anything that blocks me in my connection to God I can have the mitzrayim of anger the mithram of egotism the matrium of selfishness laziness despair depression self-loathing resentments all of these things are an inner mitzrayim that enslaved me and block me and prevent me from connecting to God and as the saying goes it might be easier to take the Jew out of mithram than it is to take mitzrayim out of the Jew so says the balatanya when God took the Jewish people out of mitzrayim he put into the world a spiritual force in which I can grab onto that koak of yet and I can become liberated from all of the mythriams that enslave me so when the Haggadah says each person must regard themselves as if they were taken out of mithrayam it doesn't mean each person must imagine they were in Egypt and they were enslaved that didn't happen historically that's not correct but the inner meaning is each person must identify their own Miss Ryan and by identifying my own mitzrayim I then can latch on to the power of Yates mithrayim and become liberated from the constraints and constrictions and blockages that prevents me from connecting to God so that would mean that every aspect of the Haggadah has a double meaning the simple basic meaning is The Narrative of the Jewish Nation how we were slaves and God liberated us and God gave us a Torah this is the history and Foundation of our identity in our relationship to God and every year countless Jews even Jews who are not necessarily so observant want to share that story and communicate that story and that is the common narrative that unites Jews everywhere in the world that is one level as Egypt the story of The Liberation of the Jewish Nation from Egypt that is what we would call a common the common narrative that is shared by all Jews but in addition there's a second aspect to the Haggadah which is idiosyncratic private and personal each person has their own mitzriimes their own blockages their own constrictions and each person needs to be liberated from that and on the night of Yates metronium on the holiday of Passage God gives us the strength and the inspiration and the wherewithal to be liberated from our personal demons and in slavers double meaning General meaning applicable to everybody personal meaning which will differ from Individual to individual as we identify our own mitzrayims and we seek to be liberated to be made free let's go back now we began with a question of why is it so important to talk about tomorrow one might suggest that pesachmat Samara are three tools that God has given us to become liberated from our own inner mitzrayim let me start in reverse order I'll explain why let me start with Maura what is murder is eating bitter herbs to remember the slavery remember the Affliction remember the suffering how does that link to my personal mithram and the lesson is the very first step you must take to be liberated from your inner slavery is to be honest enough to yourself to acknowledge the bitterness admit that you're a slave admit there are things you have to work on if you have an anger problem a relationship problem a self-esteem issue an arrogance problem an egotism problem be honest until you admit that you're a Slave there is no way you can never become free until you acknowledge that you're lost it is impossible to make any effort to get on the right path you have to first admit you're on the wrong path sweeping matters under the rug May seemingly work in the short term but all I can say is the rug is going to get higher and higher and higher till it hits the ceiling and then there'll be no place to go so Mara reminds me of the need to be courageous enough to be honest enough to acknowledge my slavery and by that acknowledgment I've taken the first step towards my spiritual liberation but then we have the symbolism of matzah now we know basically on pesach is bad matz is good right you're not allowed to have you're not allowed to have anything that fermented anything that rises the symbolism of kramitz and mats is very very puffed up it represents arrogance and gaiva matzah is flat it represents humility that is one interpretation but maharrao offers another interesting interpretation and he says represents inertia if water hits flower you don't have to do anything for it to become hummus you don't need yeast you don't need a starter if you just let it alone if water hits flour and 18 minutes elapse it is coming is what happens by itself in order to make matzah you must take definitive action before the 18 minutes by baking the moistened dough in an oven is inertia matzah represents action and here is the relationship between Mauro and matzah more or is to cognitively cognitively identify what my slavery is but there are people that have great Insight they've been in therapy for many many years they understand every single problem they have going back to birth and maybe even pre-birth traumas preconception traumas if there's such a thing but they don't do anything about it they don't take action they become aware and more aware and more aware and stew in their self-awareness matzah is a reminder that it's not enough to identify problems you've got to take action and they tell the story about Robert Hutchins who is a famous American academic and he was president of the University of Chicago as a Young Man and at one point someone asked him professor Hutchins why don't you ever exercise do you ever feel like exercising and he responded every once in a while I do but I know if I just lie down and wait a few minutes the feeling will pass so I don't let it bother me this is true for exercise but it's also true for spiritual growth quite often we might get moments of inspiration it might be after a Yom Kippur it might be after a pace up later it might be at the wedding of a child or a grandchild it might be just walking the streets of you shall I am and seeing children playing there are moments of inspiration moments of kadusha moments of emotional arousal but if we don't concretize the moment in some type of virtuous action the emotion dissipates and passes but if you concretize it in a virtuous action even if it's small I learned Torah for five minutes I say a chapter of tehilim I give stalker I greet a person with a pleasant countenance then gazal teach us mitzvah one Mitzvah causes another mitzvah and you get stronger and stronger so marar is the awareness of my slavery matzah is the commitment to definitive and virtuous action because only that way will my inspiration be concretized then we come to Corbin pesach the Paschal Lamb which unfortunately in the absence of the base I make touch is the one ritual we cannot yet do today and the carbon pesach has many halachhots but I want to mention one halacha in particular which is an argument in the gemara but this is how we pass him and that is brought by one person I either bring it with my family or if I don't have a family I join up with other people and I bring it as part of a group even if you have a very big appetite and you have a very small lamb and you could finish the whole Corbin pesach by yourself you're not allowed to bring it by yourself you must bring it with others and the lesson here is fairly clear in order to achieve liberation from our mitzrayim we can't do it alone we need to connect to others who share our values and share our journey whether it's husband and wife parent and children Yeshiva fellow Miss Palo elimination some of these or all of these we need to be connected without that connection we can't do it by ourselves is better than one because if two if you have two people and one Falls one person can help the other person stand up but if one is by himself and he falls who will help him is not only talking about ice he's talking about life there are times that I'm weak there are times I'm not inspired but my friend spouse carusa whatever can give me and there are times that they are weak and I can give them tomorrow honestly acknowledge your slavery matzah do something about it find a community in which each of you can help the other and this is how we emerge from our private mitzrayim to achieve freedom one final point in the Seder we first eat the matzah then we eat tomorrow now one might ask a question if Mara is identifying the problem and matzah is doing something about the problem how can I do something about a problem before I've identified what the problem is so why do I first eat matzah and then eat more or logically I should first eat Mara and then eat matzah and the answer I would suggest is this it is true that I can't really take action to address a problem until I become aware of what the problem is so sequentially the marwar gives me the identification and the Masa teaches me to take action but psychologically I need to internalize the lesson of matzah before I internalize the mortar because if I start with my Saran if I start with my failures if I start with my inadequacies my enslavements my mitzrayim what is likely to happen is I will get depressed I will get despondent I will be hopeless and feel helpless and then I'll be paralyzed and unable to go on the lesson of matzah teaches me I can take action I can change I can improve I can grow only after I've internalized that lesson am I then ready to look at my inner slavery do I need the lesson of matzah in order to face the mother and then after I have eaten the matzah which is the possibility of change and then I eat the mara which is the recognition of my inner mitrium I then eat the matzah and the moro together I have a problem and I have a solution and I can work on them at the same time once I know the problem I have the solution of the months so the idea here basically is that mitzrayim is a double slavery the historical slavery of Egypt and the inner mitzrayim of Our Lives and the story of The Exodus of Egypt can become the story of the freedom that we can get from our own inner mitzrayim I wish everyone a Khan in Nissan we were redeemed ubanisan asiden legal and in Nissan the future Redemption will occur as well may all of us Merit this hi this is Perez murakler a proud alumnus of worsome air now what you just watched is one of the many programs that ursamec provides leaving its impact on hundreds of thousands with so 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