Shabbos Ha'Gadol 2021 - Growing Community Larger & Smaller At the Same Time

it says time to go live okay you ready tell me when we're live good evening and welcome back to those who are in person with a joy what a pleasure what a privilege how exciting it is to be together i'm going to open with words that i've never said in the shabbat show versus russia in my life most years because it wasn't necessary last year because i was here alone but this year i asked you if you have a cell phone to please turn it to silent or to turn it off so it doesn't interrupt us i want to begin by thanking our generous sponsors our dear friends the friedman and cohen families who sponsored the shabazikalo drastic loving memory of rabbi simcha friedman of helen kohan two individuals who are not only your teachers and your mentors who are biologically your parents but who are sources of inspiration to all of us we continued to draw from their energy from their lessons from their legacy from their lives they stood exactly for what we're going to talk about tonight the notion the importance of community of caring about that which is bigger than ourselves of a willingness to sacrifice to be of service that defined their very lives we miss them and we thank you for generously sponsoring in their memory for those who are watching virtually you can find the source sheets for tonight rabbi from goldberg dot org slash hagado by ephraim goldberg.org for those in person who are watching feel free to follow in the source sheets or if they're a distraction as i tell you every year just listen and read and learn and review them later i want to welcome you our beloved brs family and i want to welcome our brs global family around the world who we've been privileged to connect with and to learn with throughout this pandemic one of the benefits and opportunities that presented was to create and broaden our sense of community and if you'd like to be part of that brs global community which includes bonus learning opportunities and content you could visit brsonline.org global take a moment with me to remember what it was like this time of year the world as we knew it the jewish world in particular was shut down we didn't have any minion not in our driveway not in our street not in our backyard certainly not in this shul we were utterly shut down everyone was isolated entirely from one another there were people who spent the pesach seder unimaginably all alone one year ago we were divided we were fragmented against our will and not by our design because circumstances spread us apart and it had a tremendous downside the likes of which we will suffer from undoubtedly for years to come people who i said spent the seder alone last year i left my cell phone on and gave the number out that if anybody felt so isolated that they considered something drastic or dramatic if they needed support they should call and i never imagined anyone would take me up on it imagine my children's surprise when they saw me several times over the course of last pesach of itself answered the phone and each and every time it rang it was for a good reason and i'm glad i did last year that separation that isolation that apartness there's no question that had an impact as i said that we will first begin to understand the ptsd as a result in the years ahead but while it was a downside and while it posed countless challenges it also presented opportunities we learned and discovered things about ourselves about our family and about our community how many of us found you know when i darven at home i daven with more kavanagh i move at my pace i dive into the times convenient for me how many described singing kabbalah shabbas together with their family what a monumental experience to be with a spouse with children and to sing each paragraph every person became a cohasen in their own home everyone was a gabai in their own home everybody gave the drusha in their own home everyone was the president of their own shoe there were opportunities for each of us to run our house the way we wanted we went for walks every shabbos we played board games and sang samiros we occupied ourselves not only on shabbos and yanta but throughout the week in ways that we never did and we never imagined that we could and so this pandemic it's been a crisis and it's been challenging but it's also invited us for opportunities last week i attended a funeral of one of our greater community members schwarzman oliver shalom and his wife carolyn at his funeral said he died tragically young and he was so generous to our shul in our whole greater community but she really remarkably stopped at the funeral and thanked hashem and said you know hashem before you took him from me you gave me a year that we spent together 24 7. we had breakfast lunch and dinner together every single day we talked all day and she had the wherewithal to thank hashem that in his last year of life hashem presented the rafale before the market he gave the opportunity that they spent all day together but the challenge of these opportunities that we've discovered about ourselves and about one another is that now we've gotten very very used to them we've become very comfortable apart comfortable staying home comfortable where it's safe not only physically from a virus but in other ways as well people are comfortable no longer making contact with one another and source number one is an article missing your hugs why touch is so important and can mean living longer in a recent poll 60 percent of people questions said they would no longer going forward greet people with a kiss a hug or even a handshake for fear of spreading germs now personally i could do without shaking hands ever again i would be just fine but if i didn't have the ability to hug one another if we couldn't exchange energy if we couldn't support one another in moments of grief and celebrate through an embrace and a moment of joy what would life look like and yet sixty percent the majority of people we've gotten accustomed we've gotten used to this new norm of this pandemic year to physically be apart from one another no it shouldn't be lost that corona did for the laws of shomer nagiya more than any seminary or rabbits and any yeshiva teacher could possibly do but this is not good for us or our mental health if you follow this article studies over the past 10 to 15 years show the best predictor of your mental and physical well-being and health is the number of close friends you have with whom you do all the touching activities hugs have a communicative value they demonstrate empathy they are a powerful tool in reducing our stress response and the article quotes the countless physical health benefits when we hug one another it releases endorphins it releases hormones and chemicals that make us feel invigorated it makes us feel better and what will life look like if we've gotten used to that separateness and being a part how many companies and how many corporations have announced excitedly and boldly that working from home it's here to stay i don't know how many of you have even gone to work have put on clothing from the waist down in the last year have attended a meeting other than over zoom it has been said that it's confusing are we working from home or are we living at work we no longer know the difference between the two and do we see that as a tragedy of circumstance that we're separate apart that we're not able to meet someone at the coffee machine or the water cooler that we no longer sit around a board table that we no longer exchange pleasantries and small talk because every meeting is to accomplish an agenda and a task and yet and yet microsoft twitter square spotify shopify amazon and countless others have announced new policies they're shutting down offices and they're telling everybody stay home and work from home and the workers employees are welcoming that news but i wonder out loud together with you is that good for us is that who we are and who we're meant to be is that the best of what we have to offer source number three the bottom page four was a comment on an article i want to thank my brother-in-law yemen as always for helping me research several of the articles in these source sheets in this comment on an article that talked about people are now davening at home for the beginning certainly of the pandemic and in some places we don't take for granted that everyone's in the same place in this story people are still forced to dive in alone at home and the question is is that tragic do we mourn it do we grieve it do we wish it were and so do we long for when we can go back or like this commentator whose name online is staying home for good i like davening at home faster no tachanan no and i start on time every day there are benefits to being at home you're never late when you dive in at home and nobody's coming by for some ah nobody's coming by to collect stakka and you never say tachen or at least that person thinks you don't when you dive in at home jokes on them but the people who are davening in their driveway or their front yard or backyard who've come to love it and appreciate it and i find very redeemable things in it i'm not criticizing has it become a new normal doctor visits over virtual parent-teacher conferences on zoom no shaking hands and no hugging have we settled into separateness and if we have what does that mean for us and for our future is it the best of who we are and who we can become is it the healthiest way of living that's what i want to discuss with you this evening and perhaps in an unanticipated way i want to share with you in our study of the history of the korban pesach the sacrifice the paschal sacrifice that i believe we can find answers through its history and laws for how we come back together again today now we don't of course have a carbon pesach today shabbos i gave several years ago examined why not and can we bring it back and what would it take or what are the reasons that preclude us from doing so but for whatever reasons universally we don't have a corban passat today we don't bring a pascal sacrifice but we still invoke it and we invoke it throughout the pesach experience the custom that many have it's in source number four on page five quoted in the ishtar god of rav that the says this is why we recite the carbon pasta some have the costume in most years it's hard to do there's so many activities and so many tasks and to do but this year i replaced we have all shabbos afternoon to read the karban pesach i don't know how many do but where does this custom come from so the says you know where it comes from we can't bring the paschal sacrifice but when we read it and when we talk about it um then it says if we brought it now it happens to be rav rook disagrees with the shlo and the rest of this piece shrugs it up and says for the carbon in particular reciting it's not enough it can never take the place of bringing it and that's why there are those who have the custom not in fact to say it but you see that even before the seder begins there is already a custom to invoke the korban pesach the sacrifice of the pesach by reading its story if you look at page seven three of the customs from the seder knight the first is the seder played on the seder plate those learning that daphyomi have recently encountered on the seder plate we have schneiderlin two cooked items a beza and a zeroa we have the egg and we have the shank bone why are they there they remind us of the carbon pesach on the carbon when you look at the seder plate on your seder table you see what is a symbol that should remind us of the carbon passage we have not moved on we've not left it in the rear view mirror the hillock the hill sandwich is a reminder of the way it was eaten at matassas the carbon passage was a great shawarma ashkenazim we eat the cracker matzah that plays with our digestive systems but here here's where not only for kidneys most people think the only reason you wish you were aspartia and pesach is for kidneys but they eat soft matzah it's alofa bread so imagine you take some lamb some more or some kharif and you put it inside a lava bread it's called the shawarma that's what hillar laid on saturday night he had a delicious ishta nur shwarma we no longer have the carbon pesach the lamb element the shawarma in the shwarma but we need that sandwich in order to remember the carbon pasta and of course the afikoman we break the matzah in half we hide half of it in order to remember the carbon passage that was eaten that way now the carbon passage is unique it is distinct it is entirely different than any other carbon and in so many messages for us number one azuma common source five some of you don't know it i don't know in the personal schools people are running out of their homes whether they say carbonus or not the ritual committee that is each person's personal address but at schools at least at one time we began with corbanos we recite the carbonus in fulfillment of that verse in the promise that by reading it and reciting it it is as if we did it and in there we recite an entire chapter from the track date of zwarchem zuma come on that talks about different sacrifices and we talk about categories of sacrifices and an exception to those categories is the passage we single out the pesach because the pesach has its own laws in fact rambam in his introduction to corbin pesach says 15 unique laws of this sacrifice unlike the other sacrifices so for example other sacrifices are eaten either in the bash proper or they're limited you have to consume from the barbecue that is that sacrifice somewhere in yusha conscience him the higher level the more sacred sacrifices can't be removed from the courtyard of the bayside maktash cauchy column the lower more lenient sort of sacrifice is disqualified when taken out of yerushalayim because in that context you shallam is an extension of the beissa mikdash so where you can eat the sacrifice reflects the level of sanctity of that sacrifice where is the carbon passage where can the carbon passage be eaten so let's go back to mitsura and let's go back to egypt together in that first year in the year of the exodus when the sacrifice was first mandated when moshe told the people while yet in egypt have the courage and the bravery and the boldness and the resolve to take the god the deity of your master of your oppressor tie it to the bed post four days later sacrifice the god of the one who's held you captive for two hundred and ten years that's called shabbat sagada it happened on the tenth of nisan we commemorate it every year with shabbos agado and it was an amazing display of tenacity the jewish people a slave mentality a victim mentality had the courage to take an animal that was the god of their master to tie it to a bedpost and ultimately to slaughter it and god says take of the blood and sprinkle it on the doorposts and then attempt lots of ishmael you cannot leave your home until the morning the night of pesach lock down quarantine in egypt god says everybody stay home there's a curfew lockdown order nobody can go out why not why not so the simple reason why you shouldn't go out is because because god is sending some energy some agent who's going to slaughter the firstborn all over egypt there is a tragedy calamity that's going to take place it's not a nato casually wander the streets you don't go for a stroll or a walk because because once that force is out when a natural disaster comes our way khalil a hurricane a tornado a tsunami it doesn't check the mezuzah on the door it doesn't check as somebody at sadiq or russia when they put themselves in harm's way so the simple understanding was don't go out because you're going to be harmed however however of druck points out in source 6 the mission of soham again those learning that recently encountered it asks what are some of the differences between the laws of the way we were first official first given the mitzvah of passage in egypt and then the way we were given the laws of korban pesach later when we came out and one of the differences that is listed is this staying home now if the only reason you had to stay home was a technical reason it's dangerous if you leave your house you could die it is a very dangerous place to be that night the streets of egypt stay home lock the door put on the alarm if that's the only reason a technical reason then why would it be listed among the things being passed says there must be something so much more fundamental in the difference between the carbon passage the sacrifice the way it was offered that first year in egypt and the way it was offered subsequently and what is that difference what is the condition of korban pesach in egypt the condition of the sacrifice the paschal sacrifice in that first year different than subsequent years and what is the message for us for our lives and for our homes look at page 9. page 9 is the 12th chapter of the book of shemos the 12th chapter of the exodus of the book of exodus i bolded one word it appears 14 times in this chapter at least depends how you count and what is that word bias the home a person's house sometimes it's used to describe the physical structure the bricks and mortar other times the people that live there and the energy that happens there but the past the word that's used at least 14 times over and over and over again and clearly not coincidentally in this passage in this section is the word bias celebs israel and over and over again 14 times the use of that word why what is the message about pesach to our home and to our lives now it's interesting where is the blood of the sacrifice of pesach when we offered it in egypt where do you sprinkle that blood on the doorway on the home where is the meat eaten it's eaten in the home who eats it with you preferably members of your family in egypt one did not gather in groups one isolated and quarantined they created a pod the egyptians probably the jews in egypt didn't call them pods yet they didn't know that we were going to structure life as pods but you were a pod you quarantined together as a unit you can't leave your house and why is it that you can't leave the house so the faculty in source number nine says you don't leave your house that night because we were supposed to leave egypt we were in a hurry we were leaving in an efficient expedited way so don't manage your neighbor you don't say hey check out try my shawarma how's your shawarma there's per capita more shawarma in south florida than anywhere else in the world including egypt including israel and when you ask each person who comes to rb and says i'm opening a restaurant i want to ask her oh wonderful what kind of restaurant shawarma are you aware of how many shawarma places no no you never tasted my shawarma so when is it that you go to your neighbor and say you gotta check out my shwarma the secret is you never clean the spit the secret is you leave it there overnight whatever the secret everyone has their secret you don't want to know the secrets but you don't go to your neighbor check out and try out my sharma when you're in a rush to get out says the abar now says it's dangerous what are you gonna flaunt in the face of the egyptians there's someone dropping dead in every one of their homes and you're gonna walk around and skip around and you're going to go show off that you are safe and secure it's a fool's errand you don't do that but there's a much more fundamental reason the mesh says in source 11. and he says you know why the bias the home is so foundational so fundamental so central to the original egypt's experience what happened when we left egypt we became a people so one might think we became a people we are a nation we are at seaboard we are a community bye bye home see you later i gotta go to schule i gotta go to the basement rush i have to go to the board meeting i have to go sit on the committee i have so many things to take care of for the community in that first year when we were first formed the message came across loud and clear do you know where the central place of jewish life and living is stay in your home nobody could go out nobody could go out the night sater is canceled the board meeting is cancelled that's filabot seabour the late marv is cancelled the committee will meet another time there is no other activity that night because the central place of jewish life and living where it must begin and where the story of our people begins is in the home writes that the obligation to stay in the home and to eat was a response to the pagans of their time who would sacrifice and offer their children they literally sacrificed their children but others metaphorically sacrificed children in the name of community and the peoplehood and of nation and so the very first time that we celebrate pesach you know where the besamiktas is you know what the mishkan is in the very first observance of pesach the place that is the holiest is the home and everything that happened in that home follows the regular rules and regulations of the bayside maktash when you bring a sacrifice you sprinkle the blood in our home we sprinkle the blood on the doorpost in the bassaniktash there are boundaries and borders of where you can eat it where were the boundaries and borders of the sanctity of where you could eat that first pass off in the home you couldn't take it out it was disqualified if you left the home and this was the very conversation that moshe has with para in source number 12 when paro's advisors tell him are you crazy have we not suffered enough are you a glutton for punishment let him go so fine you shaved this motion [Music] the young the old we're going with our sons and our daughters our flock and our herds everyone and everything we're all going what's going on in this conversation what does power think he is oppressed his people for two centuries and when he's going to finally let them go what does he think they're going to say anything other than we're all going what was para thinking and what is moshe answer so the commentators all explained para was thinking you claim you want to go out to serve god you want to go out to be of service so who serves god the priests so me vamiya give me a list of the rabbis the rebeccans give me a list of the teachers give me a list of the clergy they can go masha says the clergy what kind of religion do you think this is the central place of religious activity is not the shula based madrish and the only ones who have to be religious are not the clergy the rabbis the repetitions the teachers do you know who's going all of us the young the old our sons our daughters for us judaism is a hag it's geshmak to be it's amazing to have shabbos and to have pesach it's amazing the gift of discipline to keep kosher it's amazing the interpersonal laws that regulate who we are to act like a mensch what do you mean we don't delegate to the priests or to the clergy or to the religious personalities or leaders we are all going to it's geshmaq it's a party it's a hag we're all there and if anyone is missing we're incomplete because that's the way judaism was meant to be lived together a family you don't run out and you don't run apart and so when we're first given this law of pesach in mitzrayim we're given it in the context of a home of a bias 14 times that word is used and the bias becomes that miniature mishkan that minister mikdash the laws of carbon passage within the home parallel the laws later of carbon passage within the mikdash this is a fundamental point a slave has absolutely no control over their family life a slave has to go out a slave has to report a slave has to show up paro intentionally and by design when he wanted to break the people how did he do it by enacting specifically rules and decrees against family life aside from murdering children he tried to divide he tried to isolate the family because he understood a people is as strong as their family life and so what was the response and the antidote we emerged from egypt rededicated to a strong family life we emerge from egypt understanding that the central place from which it all begins and which it must all spread is the health and the strength and the wellness of our home that's where the story begins and that's our religious experience that's where pedagogically we teach that next generation source 13 we say in shema every day everyone knows one of my favorite torah vishinantam we have to teach our children so what do you go to obviously mother daughter are learning vishnata you have to teach your children says the passage yes but first vishnath you teach children and how do you teach children because you speak about our values and you live our vision where when you're sitting at your home what is the conversation around that dining room table when you're sitting on the couch what are you choosing to watch together when the mail comes what are the subscriptions and deliveries what is being read what images and what ideas are being invited into the home our children are watching and they learn not only from our words they learn much more from our actions we can tell them what to do but you know where they're going to pick the most up from what do we do in our spare time and free time how do we conduct ourselves at home do we make a bracha before and after we eat do we say thank you to whoever shopped and cooked that food do we get up to help what do we watch what do we listen to how do we talk when they overhear us on the phone bishop is the central place of learning it is the first and foundational educational experience and when we have mobility and when we're free to go up and about where do we go on vacation and how do we function on vacation and do we find dominion or a shul are we still scrupulous with keeping kosher do we make time to learn each day or does our judaism stay home when we go on vacation are we taking a break from it too because our children are watching all those tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of education are important in our schools are outstanding and extraordinary but the primary place of learning of the shinantan what happens in our home certainly but i want to share with you this evening that i think that the relationship to our home begins even before we talk about transmitting to children because some don't yet have children and we bless them those who want children should be able to have healthy wonderful beautiful children and give them and some have children who graduated their home and they're no longer living at home but the message of the home remains equally relevant for all of us because the message is that our own jewish experience doesn't sit in the khabib shul or our or our makkah at shul it doesn't sit in our spot in the basement it doesn't sit in our spot where we volunteer for our home is the central and primary place of our religious experience it is where we are defined as who we are and aspirationally who we want to be what we find and make time for are we generous and do we share and do we host and do we help our home is what defines us source 17 the pasta can you shia much more familiar to us for my house shall be called the house of prayer for all people such a beautiful interpretation i share with you in source 15. it means the following what do you mean a simple understanding of what the navidavi is telling us is the best is a place for jew and non-jew alike non-jews were also invited and welcomed and non-jews could offer sacrifices in the basal mittal and that's what god is saying all are welcome this is a place of faith this is a place of love jew and nanju alike but this homelandic interpretation this beautiful jerush understands it differently and it says ki bay see my home where i live the roof over my head best when it comes to the other nations and the other peoples of the world the house is a place for mundane secular base activity that's where i shower and i eat and that's where i binge watch netflix and that's where i read magazines and newspapers and that's where i play board games oh religious activity i go to the religious place for the religious activity according to most nations and peoples they segregate religion from life so i go to do my religious activities in the religious location but when i'm home that's a place where i chill where i relax it's a place where i do what i want where nobody's watching where i'm on my own not a jewish home a yiddish home is based if a nanji were to look at our home just a shabbos it's a shabbos we just finished and they would look and they would see you washed and you made a bracha and you made kittish and you made a bracha you washed and you made a bracha and you sang zemiros around the table while you're eating and you shared homilies his shirt torah messages and then you bench you say a blessing afterwards and then you wake up and this one's saying tell him this one's reading a torah book and this one's they say what is this church a synagogue what is your home is that your house or is that a religious place what's going on over here that is our dream and that's our aspiration and that is our goal that our home is a place of religious activity it's not where we go to unwind you don't literally or metaphorically walk through the doorway and take your yarmulke off i'm done being a jew i'm home from maarev i'm back from chakras i finished shabbos i finished my chavruza i served on the board on the committee i volunteered in tamriel and when i walk through the portal of my door now i'm done it's the opposite out there should be a tangent out there should complement and supplement the religious activity i do in my home and so when we first became a people and we first became a nation and god said offer your first carbon pesach i want you to do it in a way i want you to set up your home to be the holiest place in the community your home to be the temple you're home to be the tabernacle you are the priests in your home we are going there aren't just other priests oh they have to be religious they have to be righteous they take one for the team and i get to eat or say or do or marry whatever i want that's not our religion in our religion we are a mamlekhas khan we are all priests in our own home if we have children but especially for ourselves the home is the fundamental foundational central primary place of religious life and living that's why the gemara source 16 tells us when the passage says the nations say we're going to go to the house of god to the basal mitch to the temple it is the house of yaakov and the gemara wonders the house of yaak the god of yaakov hey didn't we skip a couple generations what happened to the house of the god of avraham in the house of the god of yitzchak straight to the house of yaakov yeah you know why because avraham called god's house maria he called it a mountain and that's a pretty accurate description it's a mountain we try to climb it and aspire we stretch we reach we try to climb the mountain of spirituality but you know you can't stay on top of the mountain you got to come down so that's not the best depiction and yet he called it he went to go speak to god in the field and a field is a place of planting and blossoming and blooming a field is a place that generates growth but you know what happens after you harvest it lays fallow it works in cycles so that's not the best example but yaakov what did yaakov call it he called it a bias yaakov called the religious center of life he described the besamiktas if he had to come up with a parallel he said it's a home it's a house and god says you know i like that that's the most accurate description because it all begins in the home says reverse that god himself endorses yaakov's description of a bias a base elokim it's a place of virtue and nobility of honesty and integrity of khasid of learning of generosity and of kindness it is asha mayam our homes are the gateway to heaven yes the shul and yes the best meditation yes yes the volunteer has but our home is the direct gate shara shamayim to heaven learning and growth and breakthrough does not take place outside pesach mitsrayam was in the bias celebs sprinkle the blood in your home and you can't take the meat outside of your home because our home is not just for eating and sleeping and entertainment and recreation it's not just a place to store and accumulate in the mass are things it's not just a place so amazon drivers have somewhere to go our home is a religious center and if you want a small piece of heaven here on earth if you want to welcome god in if you want to feel his presence daily and regularly in your life if you want a fertile classroom and a place of higher learning then it begins in our home it's what we say invention is wonders but my father is not in my father's not a rav or a rebbe my mother may not be an educator so why are we describing him as a teacher avi mori me marasi why are we describing them as a teacher serge of shema kaminsky because by default automatically every parent is a teacher in their home the way we act the way we conduct ourselves the way we behave is transmitting much more directly than whatever we do with our mouths is what we do with our hands and our feet what we do with our actions it's the core definition and destination of religious experience and that's what this year taught us earlier this year we were all relegated only to our homes like that first pesach in mitzrayim we were locked down we were quarantined we had a self-imposed curfew nobody can go out do you remember last pesach there was no minion last pesach we thought if somebody would see me from a block away with three masks on i dropped dead how far apart we stayed from one another people were locked down my parents and in-laws were each a block away and everyone had seder by themselves it's unimaginable two years ago you went to believe me and two years from now even though we lived it we won't believe that story that people were a block away from others and yet we remained alone we remained alone in a bias because that's perhaps where it all begins and maybe maybe the almighty was reminding us to go back to basics and return back to the central place of jewish life and living and to go back into securing the boundaries of our home and realizing that pesach and our judaism and our yiddish kite begins at home that's where it begins esther youngrich robertson youngrich tells a story of each day in bergen-belsen they were given a ration of still bread aeration of bread she says her father would hide a small piece with a great sacrifice and her mother would collect the small morsels and shabbos would approach her father would gather and say close your eyes would gather these children around and say close your eyes my precious children and make believe that we're at home mama's baked fresh challahs and the tables covered with a beautiful pure snowy white tablecloth and the candlesticks are glistening and we can bask in their glow and there are angels all around us and then he would begin to sing shalom aleichem in bergen-belsen to begin to sing the words to shalom alechem to welcome the angels so she describes that one friday night my brother tugged on my father's sleeve and he said tati we're singing shalom aleichem but look around look where we are look where we are where are their angels i don't see any angels here in bergen-belsen and tears rolled down her father's cheeks as he said you you my precious and holy children you are the angels of shabbos and she describes my feet were covered with sores my head with lice i was faint with hunger and i was freezing cold but when my father stood said that we stood a little bit higher because hashem bequeathed us a precious gift and enabled us to soar upward we became the angels of shabbos a parent has an ability wherever we are and whatever difficult circumstance or crisis to lock down as a family and to see one another as angels to come together and to stretch and stretch and to soar upward to be higher and higher and to be angels but we don't stay in pesach that was only the original in the very first pesach and we don't stay in quarantine or lock down that is not the way it was permanently meant to be a transition takes place and i call your attention to source 18 on page 15. later in the book of dvaram the torah tells us that we go from the same and now all of a sudden we're told don't stay home and don't sprinkle on your doorposts and don't not take the food outside of your house but instead of it's time to leave your house it's time for everyone to come together you started right you have the foundation called your home it is the central place of religious experience in life now let's bring it out because we're not meant to live permanently apart and separate and isolated from one another now let's come together where be drawn by says come with me you're not allowed to just offer the pascal lamb wherever you want but rather you have to come along in the very first time we bought that sacrifice bias buy is bias house home home home stay home forge your home mold your home build a home and now that you have a strong and secure home it's time to come together it's time to create a community it's time to be a people over and over again by macomb and the place i'll show you in the place i'll show you but we have a problem because there are millions of jews barak hashem king yearboo we should only spread and propagate and promulgate bigger and wider but we can't all fit around a seder table we can't i can't all spend pesach together we're just talking to somebody earlier today can i know how to 32 grandchildren wonderful we should all be zakha so they can't have all their children and grandchildren and pesach together some of the first days some the second days we can't all fit in one house we can't all fit around one table so the jewish people are all supposed to come together to this place hashem how it's physically impossible how do we achieve that source 19 tells us that the solution was the introduction of a new institution and the new institution is called we're going to create miniature communities subsets of the community small groups of people who together will complement and supplement one another and forge this magnificent community called claustro true we can't all be together we don't fit in one house we don't even fit in one hotel but if we break up into kabuls into small groups subsections and micro-communities then we can still maintain the value of being a community and these kabulas have laws source 20 the rambam just as an example there are many more about one chabura eating with another if two kaburas of two of these groups are under one roof they have to have a majitsa between them a barrier between them everybody has to be on a roster everyone has to be registered there's a minority there's a registration process you have to be accounted for you have to be part of a community nobody can be invisible and nobody can be isolated and nobody can be marginalized because that's not what pesach is about what our people about and what the forging of our nation is about is coming together is a space and a place for everyone is to ensure that everyone's invited to be part at least of a chabura so what is the nature of this carbon passage and i know we're getting into the weeds of halacha and it's late on about see shabbos and i'll get the emails as i do every year just skip to the end where you tell the stories and get fiery and give the message that's the best part but listen because i think this is a very very important message you don't think i want to skip to the end this is an important message the rambam in source 21. in his introduction to the swahili the rambam defines what a carbon passage is he defines the sacrificial paschal sacrifice he says the carbon passage this sacrifice is unique is distinct it's different than all others it is a carbon is an individual sacrifice it has an element of being a communal sacrifice and yet it's offered individually and alone what does that mean so the kumar in yuma source 22 tells us it's paid for by the individual we don't collect all the money the mahatsusa shekel money doesn't pay for the corbin pesach everyone's got to contribute everybody's got to go themselves and own a piece of that animal if they're part of the menu if they're part of the registration of that animal everybody has to be part of it but it has to be brought together source 20 source 23 the gemmars vacuum even when we were allowed to offer sacrifices privately on private altars what are called bama's there's a special law of a special prohibition that you're not allowed to bring a carbon pesach on a private altar why because we're one people one central address that based on make dash everyone's not making shabbos and making pesach for themselves yes we have to break up into haburas yes we break up into small micro communities because pragmatically and functionally is what we need to do and we're surrounded by people we identify and connect with but we don't do it to break apart from one another we do it in order ultimately to combine and collect to be together with one another in source 24 revenaria describes so beautifully and he quotes when it comes to certain sacrifices it is a communal sacrifice not everybody brings a carbon muscle one muscle sacrifice is offered and everybody fulfills with it everybody's you'd say with it um we combine and we connect and we collaborate all of those to be serving together as a carbon sibour it is unusual this is the message of this holiday of pesach the transition from the way we spend last pesach to the way we must spend this pesach is exactly the way god first intended last pesach we went back to basics last pesach we secluded ourselves in our homes last pesach we discovered that i'm allowed to sing hollow with my family in my home that's a pretty beautiful halal too last pesach we discovered i can be the rebbe i can give the sheer i can teach the haggadah last pesach we discovered i can not only make a life i can tolerate or live with but it can be beautiful and i can discover wonderful things because that is the central place of jewish life and living in my own definition that my judaism religious activity is not only outside my home but it's who i am and how i conduct myself it's what i watch and how i eat now i sleep and everything i do within my home that was last year but then it's time to transition to a peso from the doros not last year which must remain an aberration last year was an exception last year is not a new normal last year is not on a pedestal or noble last year was tragic last year must be part of history and now it's time to make destiny with a pesach ladoros to be at seaboard to combine and to collaborate to commune and to collect to come together the way hashem first intended the way it's meant to be you know there were jews who couldn't participate in the korban pesach and they came to motion they said it's not fair to us it's not fair to us no one in the history of mankind since then has ever said when they couldn't keep pesach it's not fair to me they were the first and only ones who ever had i don't have to make pesach but they came to motion they said it's not fair why should we be excluded it's not fair and moshe consults with god and they're given the gift of pesachini look at their complaint a little closer what did they miss the cleaning the cost of the matzah grinding the mar what did they miss that they felt so excluded from why were they so desperately longing to have their fair chance it's very simple the words bisoch bene they said it's not fair to us we too want to be among the jewish people we want to experience this holiday as a nation as a people as a community as a family we want to be together if neria points out he posits against the gemara usham he offers a third suggestion in source on page 18. why is it that you're not allowed to have a corbin passage of just gay rim converts converts cannot say you know what we'll make a conversion a convert whatsapp group and when pesach comes we'll make a carbon passage and the only ones who can register with our carbon passover are people who converted only converts can a converse carbon passage has a catchy ring to it but they're not allowed to it's against and if nerius suggests you know why because this is not a time to define ourselves by our differences this is the time that we come together and we integrate and we collect and we unite and we become one so the con the converts have to come together all of the jewish people and the convert is as much of a jewish people as the one who was born jewish we are all together and we're all united and so the carbon passage has a set time and a set date seabour clause so i'll bring that carbon but everyone has their own khaburo everyone does it in their own way and everyone does it in their own style and everyone does it with their own method it's a beautiful sfarno and a beautiful druk you could take a look at it later in source 25. russia reminds us the gemara conduction this is in fact the source of the notion that we are responsible for one another the whole institution was a beautiful kabul this morning a person's agent or messenger can act on their behalf one person offers the sacrifice for the whole habura how does that work only one is bringing the sacrifice we learn it from the carbon passage because we are united because we come together because we are one that is what this holiday is about there is no better time on the jewish calendar to leave the neighborhood minion and the driveway minion and the davening at home in one's living room and to come back together as a community in a way that is safe for those who are able indoors or outdoors vaccinated masks all in ways that are safe within the comfort zone and with the sign off of your own medical advisor i'm not suggesting otherwise but if there's no other reason and i will tell you right now and i could say this on behalf of rabbi moskowitz and my colleagues everywhere how incredibly frustrating this year has been how countlessly we encounter the very people who say i can't come back to shul i don't feel safe where are they telling you while they're stuffing food in their mouth in the sushi line at the buffet at the simcha they're standing right next to you at well their mask is down around their chin i don't feel comfortable and safe at shul our own behavior is the biggest indicts us about what is really keeping us back to coming to shul is it safety security and health or have we grown comfortable in being apart has been being separate become something which in fact we're more comfortable with pesach is the time to unite it is the holiday of seaboard is the holiday of community of unity it is our forging of our nation and of our people yes there was a place in pesach mitzrayim it begins in the home by his bias by his bias but there moves it shifts we leave the home and where do we go we go to a kabura we go to a seaborn we go to be part of a people the morale says this so beautifully in source 29 it's the holiday of belief of faith that god is one and if god is one then we as children are one and when we are fragmented and divided when we are hypercritical when we stay apart from one another then we're not the one we are not an extension of him and so the whole holiday of pesach screams unity togetherness community of who we can become when we unite and when we are one source number 30 this is from a collection of diaries in the holocaust holocaust and human behavior and a young girl in this entry in the diary describes that the holocaust and living in the ghetto life living malnourished and living tortured and oppressed and living in fear and anxiety it brought out a selfishness it brought out a turning inward she describes the fight the yelling at her father mother cursing them out that she could never imagine behaving that way treating her own family in that manner and yet in that circumstance and at that time a slave a captive somebody who's persecuted or oppressed only thinks about themselves and how they can survive freedom is the capacity to care about others freedom is the capacity to collaborate with others freedom is the ability to say selflessly i'll share what i have with others my good friend rebechaim schachler shared with me the source 31 and the world primo primo levi's book if this is a man he writes the story after liberation when the broken window was repaired and the stove began to spread its seats something seemed to relax in everyone and at that moment tarawski proposed to the others that each of them offer a slice of bread tossed through had been working and so it was agreed only a day before this would have been inconceivable the law of the camp said eat your own bread and if you can that of your neighbor to do otherwise would have been suicidal the offer of sharing bread was the first human gesture that occurred among us i believe that that moment can be dated as the beginning of the change by which we who had not died slowly changed from prisoners to men to people again when you're a prisoner when you're captive when you're a slave not only do you eat what you have but you try to steal and you try to grab whatever you can from others but when you're a free person then you share what you have with others and he describes so poignantly that that was the moment that they transitioned from prisoners to people how did they know they were people not prisoners because they were no longer just trying to survive and to grab in the heart of corona when we were isolating from one another we were prisoners to this virus in this pandemic we were looking out for ourselves and trying to survive and get by and that required us to be a part but now we're free again and that doesn't mean we don't have to be careful brs and everyone else distancing and masks and the regulations and all that we need to do in order to be careful but if we want to prove ourselves we want to break free from this pandemic we have to shift our mentality from survival and selfishness to community and selflessness whereby salvation wrote this source 32 he writes about the seder and the community the meal as medium through which the individual breaking out of his encasement finds the thou begins to address himself to him was introduced by hashem in egypt in the night of the 50th of nisan look at the next paragraph people who spend time in the concentration camps during the holocaust tell me writes to love that something similar dehumanizing happened to most of them oh all emotions were extinguished no compassion no sympathy no said no concern for the thou for the other stirred every human instinct every noble emotion was nipped in the bud by grisly grisly fears and horror when they came back to the gates of the camp after 12 or 15 hours of work the nazi doctor used to look at them and classify them right or left right men back into the cold barracks on an empty stomach and left and then straight to the crematorium there was no time to practice there was no time to experience the need for there was no time to be concerned about anyone else at all there was only fright one horror one fear perhaps the doctor will send me to the left and once the doctor said right the prisoner did not care about anyone else this is exactly what happens to a slave only free and proud people think of others and share with others and that's why in the right hand colony continues a new fellowship was formed around the carbon passage a new community sprang into existence being together living with each other sharing something many possessed in common was made possible by the ceremonial of the paschal lamb coined the term with reference to the group gathering together for the ceremony eating together is a great medium of communication between individuals and therefore everything is shared if you want to prove you care about others we talk about breaking bread with another sharing a meal with another hosting another because when you share it when you host you prove it's not only about you and that's why we begin the saturday night with kodi whoever's hungry come and eat i'm not a slave anymore i don't have to grab everything for me i don't have to live isolated from you you are hungry my door is open sit six feet apart wear a mask are you vaccinated but my door is open i'm not a slave in my mentality i'm not owned by my possessions and things i am a free person and the evidence of my freedom is my eagerness and my willingness to share what i have with you the love includes this again on page 25 the third norm pertaining to a slave is an inability to affect a marriage a slave can't get married judaism apparently considers marriage not only a sociological institution but a metaphysical existential community to marry means to cut down the barriers that separate individuals from each other to substitute for egocentricity and self-concern the bright spaces of joy and spiritual experience marriage is supposed to precipitate the transition from an individual to a communal existence the slave can't be married and while we marry with monogamy but the chabura represents our marriage to other people a sense of community that we're no longer slaves and what is the greatest evidence that we're no longer slaves when we're willing and able and eager to connect with others that my friends is the message of pesach it's time davin outdoors david indoors only if you're comfortable but if you can't physically be together let's spiritually be together it's time to come back to be a community to be at seaboard to be united to be a whole but why you'll say many people discovered within themselves over this past year talents and skills and energy and eagerness they didn't know they had as i said before some discovered i'm the gabba i give the sermon sure i was a nobody i was invisible i was in nothing but in my home or on my block or in my neighborhood i'm in everything shouldn't there be a space and an opportunity for the people like me why should we come back together and why do we have to blend back in and integrate as one what's wrong with being a part maybe we discovered a judaism 2.0 maybe there's a better way of being so i want to end by talking to you about community and why it matters and why you matter and why the institution of community is the only way that we can plot forward and guarantee our continuity now people used to belong to community out of conformity my parents belong my grandparents belong i belong it's what you have to do you belong you sign up for a shul but there's no longer a pressure to conform to belong to community no longer do you have to pay a membership or subscribe or be part of a community for that reason but there's a very much higher reason there's a much more noble reason to be part of community today and it's not conformity it's commitment it's a reflection of where you see yourself and where you see your place it's a reflection of who you care about and what you want to be part of are you a chabura and you've turned your khaburra into at sibor or you are you at seaboard but you're living and operating in one khabura and what do i mean by that pesach gives us this model we're a nation we're a people but you know not everybody could fit around one seder table so we came up with the institution of the chabura these subgroups of registered people who ate the corbin pesach and had the seder together they functioned however as one sibor they were collected together as united as one whole they were not apart or distinct or separate true circumstances demanded that they be operating their unit but they saw themselves as part of something greater they weren't a seabor competing with another sibor they were ahabura complementing a habura to be part of a bigger seaboard our community our shul doesn't have one minion we don't tell people you have to look one way this is the yamaka this is the hat this is the head covering this is the dress this is the nusa this is the sitter you have to use this is how you have to behave this is life to educate your children this is who you have to be this is how you have to vote this is what you need to do our community and every jewish community should be made up of separate khaburos of people of minyan that are true to themselves that are not trying to make everyone conform to one mold but allow those differences to flourish and to emerge beautifully but the mignon have to come together to be one community one call one seaboard one united whole not multiple seaboards competing with one another living isolated and operating on islands by themselves we have to come together to be part of something so much greater because we want to serve the almighty god when my children have to live apart when they compliment one another but are they united are we a family do we function as a family are we loyal as a family do we stay in touch as a family do we have visions and a value in a shared destiny and a shared history as a family are we operating in silos are we operating independent in isolation are we operating in competition with one another we're the jewish people or a family and i'll tell you a secret says rafner we became a family before we got the torah when we recited we make a blessing god first thank you for making us a family and only then after were your family did you give us your torah thank you for making us a family thank you for making me feel part of a people thank you for having me be a covenantal community because you know we all need it desperately desperately what we can accomplish and achieve and the definition of who we are is elevated and enriched when we see ourselves as part of something greater as part of something bigger berovam together and united without having to forfeit and without having to erase our individuality we can have different minions and differentness hosts and different practices and different styles different ways of thinking all to complement one another but not to compete all to collaborate but not to take away is a football player without a team a soldier without a unit a drummer without a band a violinist without an orchestra what is a child without a family we have a name for a child without a family they're called an orphan and a neighborhood minion a driveway minion i don't mean sanctioned and coordinated with the community but i mean that wants to operate in the future in a way that competes with community it is functioning and operating as an orphan a child without a family is an orphan and they are the address and destination of our mercy and compassion not something we look forward or long for we are a family and we are a people we are a nation we all have a longing for belonging and this is the epidemic that's being unspoken about it preceded this horrific pandemic and tragically it looks like it will outlive it page 27 is an article from time magazine that talks about kovan 19 is making america's loneliness epidemic even worse even before the covet 19 pandemic public health experts were concerned about an epidemic of loneliness in the united states the coronavirus has exacerbated that problem most face-to-face socializing with people still under lockdown there is a loneliness epidemic it's not listed in the dsm-5 the official diagnostic manual for mental health disorders but it goes hand in hand with conditions that are it's lumped together with social isolation the two concepts are different it's not just social isolation there are people who feel alone even in a crowded room the health the damage on one's health from the loneliness is inestimable people are losing years on their life people are suffering health challenges from loneliness there is an epidemic of loneliness that covet 19 put a magnifying glass on made it worse but it is not only it long began before it and it looks like it will continue after it and that's where community comes in the antidote to loneliness is community is to be together is to be connected is to be there for one another to not say why should i pay membership i don't really benefit i don't really go to the school so much will the show be there for you when you need it when you have a shyla a life cycle event something to celebrate or something to grieve do you care about the youth department and the continuity of our people do you care about the kassadin to make sure everyone has food to eat do you care about those checking in are those homebound even if you're not benefiting directly from it do we want to connect with something bigger than ourselves to dream aspirationally of a community of values that lives beyond ourselves we are a spiritual family we're not orphans who are living together in an orphanage we are the definition of a new family of a new family who are living together and if you'll say well you know i have my close circle of friends even during this pandemic we stay together we stay in touch we sit in the backyard far apart from one another so why do i need to come to sure why do i need to connect with community can't i continue to live this way page 30 source 34 and we're in the final home stretch i promise i read this atlantic article january and it really shook me because it gave words to something i had been feeling but i didn't know how to express i don't know if you read this article if you didn't take the source book and read it i think it is a brilliant brilliant insight that gives a vocabulary to something that many of us are feeling the author writes amanda mullen in the weeks following i thought frequently of other people i had missed without fully realizing it pretty good friends with whom i had mostly done things that were no longer possible trying new restaurants together co-workers i didn't know well but chatted with in the camino kitchen workers at the local coffee or sandwich shops who could no longer dawdle to chat the depth of intensity of these relationships varied greatly but these people were all in some capacity my friends and there was also no substitute for them during the pandemic tools like zoom and facetime useful for maintaining close relationships couldn't recreate the ease of social serendipity or bringing back the activities that bound us together understandably much of the energy directed toward the problem the pandemic social life has been spent on keeping people tied to their families and closest friends these other relationships have withered largely unremarked on after the places that hosted them closed the pandemic has evaporated entire categories of friendship and by doing so depleted the joys that make up human life and boy human health but that does not present an opportunity in the coming that does present an opportunity in the coming months as we begin to add people back into our lives will now know what it's like to be without them american culture does not have many words to describe different levels of types of friendships but for our purposes sociology does provide a useful concept weak ties weak ties was coined in 1973 by the stanford sociologist mark granovetter and it comprises acquaintances people you see in frequently and near strangers with whom you share some familiarity they're the people on the periphery of your life the guy who's always at the gym at the same time as you the barista starts making your usual order while you're still at the back of the line the co-worker from another department with whom he makes small talk on the elevator there are also the people you might have never directly met but you share something important in common you go to the same concert so live in the same neighborhood freak with the same local businesses you might not consider all of your weak ties friends at least not in the common use of the word but they're often people with whom you're friendly most people are familiar with the idea of an inner circle granovetter posited that we all also have an outer circle vital vital to our social health in our own ways skipping down friends are sometimes delineated by the way we met or the things we do together work friends old college buddies beer league softball teammates but they're all friends and rollins thinks that for the best living well isn't some cloistered retreat with just a few folks the way worlds are created by people sharing with and recognizing each other many different kinds of relationships are important and man does not thrive on close friendships alone turn the page the psychological effects of losing all but our closest ties can be profound and this is the part that spoke to me peripheral connections tether us to the world at large without them people sink into the compounding sameness of closed networks regular interaction with people outside our inner circle just makes us feel more like part of a community or part of something bigger people on the peripheries of our lives introduce us to new ideas and new information new opportunities and other new people if variety is the spice of life these relationships are the conduit for and the conclusion on the next page all of the researchers i spoke with were hopeful that this extended pause would give people a deeper understanding of just how vital friendships of all types are to our well-being and how all the people around us contribute to our lives even if they occupy positions that the country's culture doesn't respect very much service workers or store clerks my hope is that people realize that there's more people in their social networks that matter and provide some kind of value than just those few people that you spend time with and have probably managed to keep up with during the break america even before the pandemic was a lonely country it doesn't have to be the end of our isolation could be the beginning of some of the most beautiful friendships what is a community if not these close ties if not these description of these relationships they're the people you see every day at true you may not really remember their name but you've been dominating next to them or in the same room for years someone you sit with at the da fiomi or the sheer that you attend or go to someone you volunteer for the hustle with who you see on a regular basis and those peripheral relationships are the ones that we've lost and missed the most this year standing outside of show and schmoozing with people having the opportunity out of kiddusher shall we shoot us standing on a buffet line or schmorgen a simcha those relationships matter they contribute to who we are they forge and they mold who we are going to become they're important and they don't happen at the edge of a driveway and they don't happen in a living room and they don't happen at a breakaway of self-selected people in a chabura that lives in isolation and not complementing with others in order to create a seaborn in order to be started part of something which is bigger than ourselves the peripheral relationships are what we need to overcome loneliness but they're what we need to become the best version of ourselves i shudder to think who i would be and who my children would be if we didn't live in a community where they were exposed to and close friends with svardhan and ashkenazim and people who became religious through khabad and davana and those who connect with kaaba and those who are still driving on shabbos this community that we are so blessed to live in and often we take for granted affords us the opportunity for those peripheral relationships true and genuine and true close ones as well but to connect and to learn and to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves to not be orphans who are living in an orphanage but to be a family that connected and collaboratively of living as a community to be a sibo were made up of not of chaburas competing to be independent and isolated sibors about 12 years ago we had a terrible loss in our community some of you knew margot also in allah shalom very very special young woman who died around her 40th birthday and her funeral was one of the most packed i'd ever seen the shul and i'll never forget looking out and even while i was delivering her eulogy seeing people who i didn't think were friends or even knew margo all swine and more than one of them after the funeral when i saw them later i said i saw you at the levi i saw you at margo's funeral i didn't know that you were friends with margot and more than one person said to me rabbi i didn't know margot all swing but the community experienced a tragedy i wasn't not going to show up that's what it means to be part of a community there are celebrations and joys there are festive highs where we want to be attached and connect and to be part of and there are lows and there are tragedies more recently brian gabit the chronolog the shul of the campus was covered with people not all who knew him or close with him but there are tragedies that community goes through that someone doesn't say he wasn't in my khabura she wasn't part of my chabura we weren't registered in the same subgroup together we weren't in the same social circumstance or social circle so i don't need to go to that funeral or i don't need to attend that event or i don't need to step up to help that person to be a cyborg is not to live only in khabaras but the sikh that are part of a bigger seaboard a couple years ago when our beloved custodian theo passed away tragically and suddenly and we held a funeral for his family his african-american family gathered in the boca raton synagogue for his funeral and we didn't know would it just be our staff and his family and you our incredible community showed up why because theo was in your habura you went out saturday night for pizza with him you got together socially with him because what it means to be in a chabura to be a community at sebor because theo was part of us part of our family we show up a couple of weeks ago a woman texted your heaven and said so-and-so is not feeling well had the vaccine a bad reaction you might want to check in you'll have it texted back how in the world do you know so and so it's an older person at the periphery periphery of the community doesn't attend more than twice a year the jewel how in the world do you know them she said oh at the beginning of corona the community created connections of people who lived alone and others to check in on them and i've spoken to her every single friday since and now i talk to her each and every week are they in the same khabura do they have the same life or lifestyle no but they're part of one seibour it's what it means to be part of one community it's what it means to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves yes different miniatures different styles and different approaches in different schools no one is trying to make everyone conform or to look uniform we value our diversity but we celebrate our unity we have to come together and be one because you won't find these opportunities outside of community it's what it means to be part of community the gemara tells us in shabbos chicago i love this insight from riv cook the kumar says any city that has homes that are taller than the shul that neighborhood will end up being destroyed a neighborhood that has houses taller than the shul the neighborhood will be destroyed in fact this is codified the shul is supposed to be the tallest building in the neighborhood and even with the knockdowns until now brs in this building is still the tallest building on montoya's circle hashem we are in fulfillment of this gemara but one desert of cook why why does the jewel need to be the tallest building in the community so that everyone from their backyard the show casts a shadow on everyone's home is it egocentric control is the whole drusha i'm giving because the shul and goldberg need a monopoly and they need to collect the membership because how else will the rabbis get paid so therefore they're preaching community because if everybody breaks away and everyone does for themselves who's going to pay the salary who's going to keep the lights on that's why he's given the dress show maybe that's your interpretation that's not what cook says let me tell you what if cook says you can look inside on the last page page 34. it's always a good sign those words the last page is to be the tallest building it means that the shul has to be the americas it has to be the tallest and highest center of what we all connect with it has to be what draws us and brings us all together it has to be something which is bigger and greater than ourselves it has to be what we are of service to and what we want to contribute and to be part of because together we can do so much more than we can do when we are apart together the difference and the change that we can make as a community dwarf sheba dosha holy things can only be said but sibo or not you need to be at hebrew a community in order to be able to accomplish and achieve and preach holy holy things the chuva but sibo the repentance of at sibor goes far above and beyond what the individual can accomplish or achieve on their own to be a community of learning and a community of action and a community of love and a community of faith a community of concern a community of connection yes we will continue to not only have khabaras we are building more khaburos as we come out of corona we learn more about ourselves and one another we'll create more minyanam as much as space will provide and the plans that we had to expand this campus that corona put a screeching halt to are sure like many others are no longer designing enormous large main sanctuaries but our future campus holds several smaller sanctuaries to recognize the need for different chaburas you were the rabbi or the gabba or the balcore at your neighborhood minion you learned a lot about yourselves amazing fantastic we need you come home come back we have so much to do together we have a space for you to lead we have a place for you to make a difference but do it together do it united do it as one do it as a community the lockdown in mitzrayim was one time was pesach but ever since then we are at sibor to come back together to grow larger by more people moving in and to be a bigger community but to grow smaller at the same time through the chaburas the empty nesters and the youth department through our sunrise minion and through a runner's group and through each subgroup that we have we want more the incredible outreach and the israel advocacy the responsibility of each and every community to find that which speaks to people we have big plans when corona ends and is ending for service learning opportunities and for more empty nester experiences we have enormous dreams and aspirations all hands on deck we need your help don't build in competition building collaboration don't have a chabura which is competing with sibur be a kabura which is part of arthibor united together as one i want to tell you to end what it means to be part of a community that cares last year pesach a family in israel that was living in one community had a widow on the porch next door who was going to be have her first seder not only without her husband who she had been married to for 60 years but because of last year's circumstances without her children or grandchildren but utterly and entirely alone now this neighbor didn't know this woman this widow they were in a community together but they weren't part of one chabura they weren't friends they didn't run the same social circles they didn't overlap other than being part of one community but they said we have a neighbor next door a widow she's all alone they came up with a great idea and they said why don't you set up a table on your porch on your midpass set and we'll set up our seder table on our porch on armor passat and you'll be able to listen and we'll effectively have the seder together you will not have to experience pesach or the seder all alone so they did and they had a magnificent a beautiful sata that went deep into the night in israel and when pesach ended as soon as it was this woman called her children who she couldn't be with in person and they said how was the seder and she said it was amazing you're not going to believe this you won't believe it and the children said what said the family that invited me to sit on my porch at my bear pass that and have the seder do you know that they have the same mahagam they have all the same customs as us and each part we got to of the haggadah they sang the exact same tombs as us they sang the same songs and so i felt that even though abba's gone and it was my first seder and almost 60 years without him i felt like i had the seder with your abba because they did everything exactly the same and the children began to cry and they told their mother how happy they were because they knew something that she didn't what they knew was that this neighbor that week before had determined to call all the children of that woman and to find out them and hug him and ask them to record all the tunes that she was used to hearing so they could produce for her as close to a seder as she had experienced all those 60 years that's what it means to be part of a community is to be so thoughtful is to care is to step up is to show up and if you live in a kabura and you say she's not part of my kabura i don't know her and i'm not responsible for than that woman experiences that pesach alone when you're part of one community what we could achieve and what we could accomplish and where we can go and who we can be the sky is the limit and so i end by offering and extending this invitation i do so on behalf of my colleagues even though they didn't ask me to and i don't know they want me to but we turn to all of our communities and we say come home come back together let's collaborate let's take what we've learned about one another and ourselves and let's use it let's use it to be there more for one another let's use it to be better together let's use it to strive higher together let's use it to go farther together let's use it to achieve more in the world of outreach or in our love for israel and a difference we're making in israel let's create more learning opportunities in mult almatora in more diverse ways let's reach and teach and inspire our children in ways we never have let's serve our members in ways they all deserve let's be true to ourselves and remain in our khabura but let's continue to reach up to reach in and to reach out together as at sibor wishing everyone samaya