Maggid of the Masters: Rabbi Benzion Klatzko

[Music] this is the transmission [Music] very excited for you to meet rabbi vincent of glasgow eva classico is one of the most well-known mcarvin in the country he regularly hosts shabbos meals over 50 people maybe over 100 people takes kid takes groups all over the world brazil spain sao paulo gibraltar obviously israel he also runs a jewish social platform called shabbat.com now in partnership with whatsapp so i thought to myself if he runs shabbos meals for more than 50 people without even blinking he must have the seder down let's go find out [Music] all right thank you so much for for having me in your home uh under the circumstances and it's kind of crazy a pleasure it's a pleasure so so i i shared with you that we're we're traveling around the tri-state anyway uh looking for uh amazing teachers and mentors uh who run the perfect storm and when i thought to myself of people who run um unusual difficult um i don't mean difficult like they're difficult like watching the olympics it's like watching your your shot disabled i have no clue what your peseter table is like and i'm curious what what it is okay um well first off thank you for uh coming by and um yeah pace because it's coming up and the sailors are very very uh a big focus of our not pacer from here uh my kids in one voice say that pesach is their favorite young tiff and i think the reason for that is because uh we really focus on making it a child centric but not kitty child but not kitty it's a little bit different so we don't speak down to the kids but we allow the kids to feel very involved so uh one of the first things that we do in this seder is appreciator warm-up which is that instead of me putting out grape juice and maybe some cat and wine and crackers instead i bring all the kids to the wine store and i give them an allowance and they choose their own wines and it it's a tremendous buy-in it's it's a it's a major highlight to the point that we were once uh invited to spend basic in cancun which sounds lovely but the kids all said but what about our wine buying trip like how do you compare cancun to wine buying but it's it's a really big highlight for them where they're gonna drink four cups and we try to get all the kids to even young kids could drink grape juice or something very very light but you know or small cups but they're gonna drink the four cups and they they want to have their wines so like the older the way we work is the older kids get 25 young kids get fifteen dollars and they have to divide that between two wines they could add on their own each kid needs to have two wines each kid gets two bottles one for each night starting from what age starting from you know eight nine ten you know that don't you know i know the little kids are all choosing the blue bottle you know the blue bottle the moscato it's soda it's delicious but uh i want them to buy in they're they're choosing they're choosing that means everything and then the older kids to show that they're more posh and sophisticated they'll go for the for the older wines or the dry wines and i warned them you're not gonna like it but they they get it anyways and um and that that's the initial buying and that that thread uh winds its way through the actual seder so for example instead of just the father sitting at the head of the table having the three monsters every one of the kids get their own three monsters so every kid has an awful coma every kid breaks it during yaka and every kid has a nice covering and again it it allows the kids to feel like they're not observers and they're not an audience but they're participants and they're a seder and it just it just flips on its head that uh the idea of running crusader versus being part of mercedes so i would say that is that's number one uh the next thing i would tell you is and and cause i'll tell us this uh uh you know not earlier but later uh you know there are the the mice there's one i got the very things i got it and speaks a lot about this that pace is a time that has the possibility of causing stress and whether oh no don't put that on that counter or oh no you we found a piece of comments and it wasn't put in the cupboard what are we going to do now or oh no we're not going to make katzos so let's hurry it up and so the second thing i would say is we uh we work on being as you say ragua or sababa or chillax right very very chill there's no rush there's this sense of tremendous calm are you talking about in the weeks leading up to pesach or you mean specifically saturn night well absolutely the week's leading up you know you're not going to cause an amia [Music] tremendous fear much more so to prepare a minutes but much more so when it's something that has that ability to cause it like and especially seder knight so you have to tell yourself yes my kettle's white it will not stay white yes the tablecloth isn't white it will not stay right yes the mods are whole are whole but someone's going to lean on them with their elbow but it's just the way it is and embrace it embrace the chill of the night there's no reason for stress and the truth is stress can ruin the satan for the kids so every everything you're trying to do in every minute will be undone by tempers flaring and being raised that's not how hashem wants it on they see if there's a relaxed manuka atmosphere in the home so hey sir we're you're you're inviting me of course that we have all over every time we do a mitzvah but we're actually inviting right and our children that mixes are like an occasion for happiness and not the case infrastructure so i i just i'm going to put that in because it's forgot about the minute hugging for a moment but the approach is incredibly incredibly important um so that the whole mindset is is just starting from a place of joy and excitement and and relaxation joy relax and you also you kind of have to let go of the end point you're not driving somewhere how do you balance letting go and you know okay this is going to get stained okay i'm not going to get to do all them and hug him with you have a purpose tonight and you have a an educational goal a mitzvah goal right so the mix of a goal will be accomplished if the classroom setting with the classroom setting is one of joy that's how we're going to accomplish it to the point that uh while i used to and i don't anymore i don't have the ability i allow my kids to do the the afikoman altanai the beforehand [Music] and the key is that there should be a separation where we literally feel like we have traveled through so we even had a point for many years to not have a clock in the dining room like the time makes movements left you know the kids are prepared let's hear them every time people have questions let's hear those questions uh i have a good story i'll share the story let's act it out let's enjoy uh i'll tell you something that we do we're jumping to the middle of the seder but just within that uh framework of course there's a minute to give out treats for good questions and we do that with pistachios we're done with the garlic sauce pistachios because you want to be like the rambam yeah yeah yeah sort of but also anti-candy yeah it doesn't stick in the hair okay we use pillows [Music] but we do something else that keeps the children uh into it and it's a minute one of my sisters married in persian and uh there you go we do that as well we have the scallions and the kids love it the kids love it they love it sorry i it just for anyone doesn't know the persian mean hag is to reenact during dayenu right to reenact the sense of of slavery and bitterness by actually whipping each other with with scallions with long onions and when you say dayenu died because besides us the jewish people told them it's real diego enough while they were getting whip so we remember that with the whipping but of course it keeps the kids very very entertained and they can't wait to stay up for you and there's just so many of these opportunities of course many people uh in college well today reenact the ten plagues uh wonderful wonderful to do that um by uh the avady mahinu we dance around the table with the matza around our shoulders very very epic um some of the other things that we do for the children uh we let's see well when we open the door for ilio and navi so we don't just say but we have a beautiful two that we use and after that tune that leads into another tune and it could take a half an hour or longer and it's it's very gorgeous you know we open the door and we sing it's uh taken from [Music] um [Music] yes yeah but that's the tune we use for that and then we do an old silver summer song he may or not [Music] and then just and then it just evolves into really beautiful gorgeous dancing and the kids stay up for that um without guided we do like many people many families where each of the kids becomes another one of the animals after god the satan doesn't end but we have a whole series of other songs that are part of the german minogue that we have my grandfather's german and then we we composed our own song afterwards the key is to to make to put your personal signature on the event because i'll give us the framework that's what they do but the idea is not to only stick to the framework in the same way that the idea wasn't to sailor khadodi but sing it in the various tunes and if you go to ashkenazi one way that's why the uh another way maybe you want to send it your own way we we have the ability to take our personality and inject it into these menhaden and just make it mine to be conan so how far off script do you veer meaning you you say every word is it about being moses you you add things that aren't in a haggadah or do you use do you skip things or do you say do you reinterpret or so we we don't skip we don't skip back is uh tanak in in its uh origin and uh i wouldn't skip there there is like this six pages in the middle where it goes to all the josh's uh the josh's are incredibly fascinating and it was always my dream to actually take my time during these rushes just like where's the relationship yeah you're like it's kind of so kind it's an amazing thing to do not say tonight right right so we i think the second seder we had a covensator obviously last year so the second seder we spent a little bit of time doing that not nearly what i wanted to but you have to know you know like kenny rogers says kind of all i want to hold and want to fold them there's a there's a time that you gotta just spend your time and there's a time that uh you you're gonna lose you lose everyone and uh the the i would say the the the shortcoming almost the crime the crime of every great speaker is to bore the audience that's the crime that's a felon telling phone so we're at it angle but okay great i'll say that line again there's a felony to bore the audience if you're a speaker and it becomes a felony to bore your children at a at the one event that's supposed to be the transmission this is the transmission of the heritage because everything rides on the pay such story everything if hashem didn't take us out of the trying then he didn't give us the torah they give us the torah then what are we doing here right traditions only take you so far right it doesn't okay drinking four cups and eating you know three four cause some of monoxide and horseradish and more restaurants there's a point so if the kids are bored uh and that also means if you have very very little kids who are not going to get it then put them to bed they're not going to get it and they'll detract from the kids who will get it so that's actually such a difficult question for me is everything you're saying all the examples you gave about uh singing and dancing and uh a lot of song and a lot of like play acting at a certain point your kids let alone you have guests who are older they're looking for sort of like a more intellectually stimulating like that that's what's exciting you know tell me something new like i want to understand freedom i want to like dig into clerus what does it mean to be a bitcoin how do you balance the the conversation about what does it mean to be ben koren with let's let's sing and dance beautiful so i i think there are parts of the haggadah that lend themselves to discussion perhaps more than other parts and if you're running a seder you should be able to have your finger on that pulse so for example anya is a connect connection to gallows it's a connection to inviting guests and it's an intro so there's what to talk about there manuscript well we again we use manuscript to do different languages and make it fun again uh we have somebody do it in english of course so we we understand the question but the real question is what do we do manuscript and then we point out some differences but the four questions really are one question [Music] lends itself what does it mean to be a slave what does that mean we would still be slaves don't the kingdoms rise and fall civilizations disappear so why would we think the pharaohs would still be around and we would still be slaves and perhaps some mindset the idea that uh that we that we say uh i got that at night so there's what to talk about uh the idea that uh that these great rabbis stayed up all night long so that encourages us maybe we want to be like them the idea that there are four sons it's very very deep like this so there are there are triggers so you should be aware if you're going to run a seder what sort of is the the the talking point as it were for each uh for for each paragraph that you're going to say and it doesn't mean that there's only one there there's an infinite amount but you should have at least yours that if you're running the stadium you should know what what do i want to mention over here when you ask a question do you already have the answer or are you leaving it open um so i usually have an approach i have an approach i usually it's a broad lesson i want to teach whether it's a lesson about the hospital or a lesson about anti-semitism a lesson about gratefulness for hashem there is there is an approach i try not to get too esoteric and too into the gematrias and uh i i i'm very uh very lesson oriented with uh with my approach um the kids i know are going to have the gematrias and the wordplays and the drushes and that that's all hayley kathora but i feel like my my my uh role is to be the teacher so when you're starting your lesson plan is it the same lesson plan every year or how much do you prepare in advance for the the token so it is a general lesson plan i know usually what i'm going to stop very often i'll think of something on the spot that i want to share it uh often it will also be connected to current events i i i do like to give current events to the torah's perspective i think it's important uh we're not living in a bubble and some some uh items in the news need translation through uh through torah's to through god's view so i i you know well last year was covend uh there was an election going on uh sometimes there's tragedy in the community that after that has to be spoken about sometimes just amazing things and sometimes there are things that happen in our own personal lives that uh that can be brought out through through that this struck me this entire time we've been speaking you keep referring to your kids but i know i remember your chavez tables having more than 50 people uh like on average chavez i imagine your stater table looks something similar so i'm just curious how how do the guests come into the picture are our guests like children are are or they're treated differently how do you how do guests plug in so in a general year um [Music] we have one seder where we have just family we started that maybe four years ago uh the children expressed uh that desire so one one meal just failing and we farm out the guests and other people have a chance to participate in our mitzvah the the second seder that we have we will add the guests and often we'll have guests that have children as well as imagine we specifically invite people that have that that are divorcees or widows single parents because we're very aware that it's hard enough to run a seder with a two-parent family but at one point family to create that ambiance to create that homey wonderful feeling it's very difficult so we will definitely pull those children front and center i will always put my children next to me that's my mitzvah but next to them will be the other children and often i'll become like another parent to their children of course i'll have their appearance because participate but i will include them after them come the guests who are newer to judaism and may not have participated in the seder until now so they'll be very excited to do so and then the uh i then will have you know people who have been to a seder before they you know they they need to be in our cedar but they they don't need to be so close to the front to see everything because they pretty much know what's going on and as i mentioned when you say next to the only metaphorical you're talking about seating plans yes yeah and uh and we'll we'll scan them throughout we have a we have a we have a very large time development yeah but we are and it will now [Music] that and we include the guests very very much and as a matter of fact we uh we we have a challenge we i learned this from my father and i i think it's a wonderful approach to the saturday when it comes to the mitzvahs of the seder like drinking the wine or leaning or eating the monitoring tomorrow there are certain children certain measurements both in terms of how much one eats and how long one has to eat it in and we give a primer every year for how much to eat and how long to eat it in and we try to encourage people to stick to that often so don't be dainty about a little bit of a little bit of wine a little nibble on a matzah yeah uh both because that's the outlaw and because it actually uh it actually makes the seder more exciting the buy-in and people like they enjoy detail there's a beauty and detail so it's not just a sort of a nebulous fuzzy okay supposedly matzah but no you're supposed to eat smurf and it can't be like this but it must be like that and this is how much you have to eat and then we do take out the our watches at that point it was okay here's how to do it you want to do the more mohammed time you got two minutes keep them on how you gonna do it in two minutes well it begins from the swallow not from the bite well then munch up a bunch and stick it in your cheek so you got a whole cheek to look like a chipmunk you got most of the matcha very doable and people are excited yeah you know we discover this video game uh creators challenge people you're challenged people people love details to tell stories the difference between a storyteller and someone telling a story is detailed so people like to know i don't know what to do they have to lean how far do i mean what do i lean on and so we give lots of detail it just makes the seder fun you said before that you're just not in a rush but what do you you are in a rush because people are getting hungry how do you balance so um they're using the pistachios okay something liberties of the carpets you're not supposed to and uh we we do encourage my wife actually serves a delicious meal before we open it's just gonna be a late night and she puts out chicken and google and like it's just the way to go because this way no one's in a rush yeah yeah um what's like the classical family secret sauce that i didn't i think that's the right question to unlock there's it's a concert that works all year round but uh much much more so on casa which is to really learn how to in the spotlight at the guests and especially the children and the kids should feel like like they're the stars of the show it's incredibly important so like it's a simple thing but i've seen it the other way and i don't understand it so you know a lot of people do the the templates the marcus and the other father takes the here's the here's the cow and the cow is dying you know here's the wild animals guess what the kids have seen it every year they want to be the ones to do it so father don't do it get let them be the wild animals that's how they are anyway let them throw the ping-pong balls by bart let them start let them start give your you know with the optic common because everyone has three monsters so there's not much of a point in stealing nothing even though uh the kids still still not to come with us but uh but instead when you tell the kids you know we'll get you a person you're gonna get a question you're staying there you stay you get it we tell the guests we we made the song called uh coming to a youtube video near you and wasn't at the bottom uh yeah but we tell the guests the famous classical little stream song if you're up late enough you'll be able to hear it then we make a big deal i'll give you up for a little should be up a little smoother now sometimes it's tough we have actually had a few saddam that ended by shadows so we had a we had a minion in the house so we finished the stage and we just had broccoli yeah that's amazing your daughter described your starring as as epic broadways my father's dharm have been something like an interactive broadway show there's been a lot of performing and a lot of audience participation yeah well a lot of what goes on is is very musical there's a lot of a lot of singing the kids are at beautiful voices and they're they're not shy and we very much look forward to hearing the hearing the music it's going to be very epic this year my son's back from israel and another song is coming in from lakewood and they all have really beautiful voices and their harmonies just it's gorgeous um and uh yeah i i if if this doesn't say nothing well i believe in the power of the seder so strongly that last year i had covered that i ended up in the hospital with and and i was so so sick and i ran both sidearm with coven and each one it didn't last till the morning but each one lasted until about 3 30. i was sick with fever goods because i just i didn't want them to feel ripped off there shouldn't be one seder that was not memorable and uh you know i gave it gave him my all and that i would say the secret sauce is to realize that there's no rush that this is this is game time this is what your kids are going to remember this is going to give them their emunah this is going to give them their jewish pride this is the time where they're open to hearing all the lessons that you have to say from to to the joy of the inner strength and don't don't shortchange them buy the best food by me you know i bought backers for all the children beautiful cups don't give them plastic cups we spend so much on our kids education yeah that's right anything else like what um yeah i i'll just throw in one one so we say in our specifically in that order because the mon reminded us what chapters because they didn't get the one on chinese so if hashem had given us the month which was one tova for us uh it fed us but it was my other toy for because it didn't reveal shabbos dying [Music] but the idea of shabbos as a gift all by itself reminds us that that the shabbos remains the makara bracha even in the story of uh of yetis ryan meaning the story of it's kissing trying hashem took us out and that was wonderful but the idea of hashem taking this out only has validity because hashem made the world in the first place and it's hashem who is the boss to the side who goes out and who stays who inherits eretz israel who gets kicked out and that's why we say every shop is kiddish zeke let's see isn't trying actually there's nothing on childhood stuff zacchaeus isn't trying nothing what do we do on childhood executives how is shabbos zechariah but they're intertwined shabbos uh hashem making art making the world creating the world and giving their shabbos are intertwined the same hashem that runs the world that owns the world is the boss of the world and to the side you all will take out a new order you i will bring into eric's israel and that explains the rashi the very beginning of the torah and why does the torah begin with with voracious or should have begun to remind us that the entire point of the entire permission that we have to come into eric's israel is because hashem made the world so we need china's it's that source of brahman so bear in mind that of course we do have shadows with spacer it's gonna be the last day uh you should enjoy it i appreciate it and uh and uh just let it be a memory that our kids uh cherish and pass on to their kids this was awesome thank you [Applause] you