Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: How to liberate yourself from bondage/Egypt

[Music] yeah I said indicated last week I want to continue with something about a statement last week we were focusing on the unique attributes of what does it mean to talk about UTS mitzrayim and I have mentioned the very powerful thoughts of the ballot Anya that the word miss Ryan has a double meaning it means Egypt of course but with Ryan comes also from the same word as mates utter limitation constrictions boundary blockage mm Melek says into he'll him men are mates are karate kata call out to God from the narrow confining place so the ballot Anya explains every person as their own inner mitzrayim could be my egotism my anger my self my lack of compassion my lack of self-esteem and self-worth and this inner miss Ryan paralyzes me and it blocks me and it stops me from going forward and it enslaves them it enslaves me much more than its than an enslavement outside of myself because this is a condition of slavery within the human personality and the ballot Anya says when God liberated the Jews from betrayal he put in a spiritual power that enables each and every one of us to become liberated from our own inner myths right and that is the meaning of the statement that is otherwise a little enigmatic each person must regard themselves as if they were liberated from material now I was never in this room and I certainly was not a slave in betrayal so is the Torah obligating me to make believe that something happened to me which did not happen to me am I supposed to imagine a lie is it like a method acting type of thing put yourself in the moments but the bubble of tiny understands it in a much more metaphorical way each person must I hizmet's Ryan and then tap into the cosmic power of UCS miss Ryan to achieve a liberation which means when you go through the Seder you go through the Haggadah are you have to go through the hummus for these weeks there are two readings there are two things that you're reading in the words one is the story that happened to the Jewish people we were slaves and God we liberated us and that shows God's kindness and God's fulfillment of the covenants to the forefathers and that is the Jewish national story that is the story of our history that is how we became a nation and every year parents lovingly tell that story over to their children and they transmit it as part of a heritage and all of that is true but that is the level of narrative that applies to everybody every Jew reads that and that is the story but in addition to that general narrative there's an idiosyncratic private between the lines narrative in which I focus on my inner Mitzrayim my inner enslavement and what are the steps I could take to achieve liberation no it's interesting I think I mentioned this last week forgive me for repeating that you know sometimes modern scholars who don't believe in the divinity of the Bible or the historical accuracy of the Bible make the claim and it's very frequent claim that there's no historical evidence for the Exodus but the Exodus should be understood as a metaphor for the striving of human liberation and they even look at the patriarchs and the matriarchs are remnants of Yaakov sorry riff kholokov Alya as architects if you're familiar context rather if you're familiar with Carl Jung right this notion of the archetype myths and people posit a certain dichotomy is the Torah history or is the Torah archetype is the Torah factual or is the Torah mythical in reality that is a false dichotomy as a believer in the divine origin of the Torah we are certainly committed to the proposition that the Torah is historical putting aside the six days of creation which has a different dynamic but certainly the stories of Abraham it's a capital of yo say Moshe at the plagues we believe in the historical accuracy of it but instead of posing the dichotomy history versus metaphor the better way the more accurate way of describing it is history is metaphor meaning the historical events of the Torah are not just isolated historical events they represents spiritual potentialities that God puts into the universe yes there was an Avram there was a it's like there was a Yaakov they saw a rift Garagiola Maya but they are also archetypes which represents spiritual ideas that come into the world and thus the ballot Anya is perfectly willing to say that there was a historical excess and at the same time it is a metaphor and a muscle for the Khoa of a human being of a Jew in particular to be liberated from everything that enslaves us you know the for many years I'm not sure if it's still the case for many years the largest Seder in the world was in Kathmandu in Nepal we're come by there to say there are a lot of still it yeah I mean a lot of them are Israelis that are doing their post army a wonder of us their travels over that whatever it would be so they have I don't know 2,000 people or whatever it is so because most of the people that are there are not religious or do not have a fully Orthodox background so they have to improvise a little bit with rituals that kind of New Age type rituals so one of the rituals they do which may strike you as new age and you know people do that that'd be a quite beautiful ritual that fits cow ballistically what is he a birthright as a penalty when they burn the huh mates pay such more error of a slit in the morning so you know you make a bonfire you throw in the bread so everybody is asked to take a piece of paper right three bad characteristics that they would like to change about themselves and they burn it along with the comics understanding that getting rid of comics is not only about bread it's also about getting rid of the arrogance and the conceit and the selfishness and the egotism in the human personality now if that sounds too new agey for you let me point out that there actually is a Kabbalistic prayer that many people recite when they bring the comments that says just as I am burning the physical summons may I burn the comments of my heart that represents the arrogance and the conceit so this new age ritual of burning a piece of paper along with the comics is actually echoed in its feel out there are hundreds and hundreds of years old and in fact even the Gemara itself refers to the æther Hara as sorsha by Issa that means the leavening agents in the dough that is what the in Sahara itself is described about fact they tell the truth story but Ksyusha Rebbe that he spent hours and hours and hours cleaning the house for comments with his casino and at the end of those like several hours the casino felt a great sense of accomplishment we really cleaned this house but the Rebbe was not happy the Rebbe said he pointed to himself he opens his shirt and he said and what about the comments in here did we do because comments in here so they gave the Rebbe a beautiful answer the Mishna says Rebbe any place where you don't bring in hummus doesn't have to be your heart is a heart where they don't bring in behind that was the answer that they gave the Rebbe that he shouldn't worry about the comments that's left over left over there so you know this is an interesting point because on one hand you know when people are impatient with our logic observance they like to turn everything into metaphors and not do anything meaning I don't have to get rid of the bread I'll just you know work on my negative personality traits which by the way is harder than getting rid of the bread but in truth as I indicate this is not an either/or there is the Mitzvah and then there's the inner meaning of the Mitzvah there's the historical fact and then there is the spiritual force than it represents all of those levels are true and all of those levels are interacting that's the same at the same time the morale makes a beautiful point and this is a little connected to betray you know the Taira is a major concern that Pesach fall after the spring equinox or during the spring and there's an immediate problem it's called Kadesh of if the the month of spring now there's an immediate problem the jewish calendar is of course a lunar calendar and a lunar year meaning 12 lunar rotations is only on the average 354 years days rather than average days i'm just giving an average as opposed to an average solar year of the earth revolving around the Sun is 365 again approximations are enough for our example so that would mean that a lunar year will progressively at the end 11 years earlier than the solar year I'm sorry 11 days I'm sorry eleven days so you automatically have a problem if you're one let's say Pesach is in a is April 15 then the next year it'll be April 4 and then the next year it will be in March and earlier in March and then in February so what's going to happen is in a pure lunar calendar Pesach will eventually be in the winter and indeed Ramadan the Islamic calendar which is purely lunar Ramadan can be summer winter fall spring it simply follows a lunar calendar but since the timer says peso has to be in the spring we need to adjust our lunar calendar with a solar adjustment and in seven out of 19 years including this year when Pesach is getting a little too early we add a month of Adar shaming or a jury since McLucas which is the added month to push Pesach later right that's what happens so it's on the average every three years seven out of 19 years so the Jewish calendar is not a pure lunar calendar it is a lunar calendar with a solar adjustment or a solar in circulation as it is Fault in order to ensure that Pesach is in the spring now the Morales is a very simple question what difference does it make what season pacer is you know when people say oh Russia Shawna's early this year well not really Rosh Hashanah is always the first of Tishrei you know if we're sure there would be falling out of the yellow you know that would be early this year a Jewish holiday definitionally cannot intrinsically be early or late it always falls out on the same date so if you have a Jewish calendar who cares that the Jewish people happen to have left Egypt in spring that first year we are commemorating a date the date is the 15th of Nisan so why go to all this trouble to coordinate the lunar calendar and the solar calendar by the solar installation why is it important so the morale offers a very very beautiful point the morale says that because because I'll teach us that God looked at the Torah and created the world the tories the blueprint of the world that means every physical phenomenon is really representative of a spiritual force that is existing into the world physicality and materialism is nothing more than kind of the realization or the concretization of a spiritual idea so here the concept is this spring is spring because it is the time that the power of freedom and liberation come into the world because what is for the spring the ground was dormant during the winter it was apparently non-productive at least related to the naked eye and in the spring the fertility of the earth is released it is freed but says the morale that's responding to the vibes of spiritual liberation that are in the air so pacer has to be during the spring because if a holiday is not just a cup memorization see if it would just be a commemoration just tie it to the date but it's not a commemoration it's a really really special power and what is hinting to you when that power exists is the natural condition of the world and therefore Pesach has to be in the spring because that is the time when God is telling you that the time of freedom and liberation comes into the world right this is notion now you asked a question well gee in the southern hemisphere that's not the case right Pesach was not during the spring in the southern hemisphere but that's not a problem because spiritual vibes enter the world via you shall I am and then they spread so when it's spring here the world is in a state of freedom even if it's not the spring in Australia or South Africa or or or whatever it would be this actually means again I'm not going to talk about too much about the lawyer I should have thought about this but this actually means that a juice relationship to nature should be a very strong and powerful one a sensitive neshama sees in the changes of day to night in the changes of the seasons in the positioning and the movement of the stars and the planets which most people and I include myself are woefully ignorant they see the handiwork of God and they try to discern the powerful forces that Hashem is releasing into the world the forces of renewal rejuvenation the forces of the dormancy and rest to regroup your strength for the coming struggles nature is a reflection of all that we go through in our own lives and our own lives we are part of that pattern of nature that is why we diamond ideally optimally Fela is connected to transition points the best time 2000 chakras is right when the Sun is going up that's for secant so you join in the cosmic song of the universe greeting a new day the best time to determine height is right when the Sun is thinking before sheer but you know as the Sun is sinking Marvis you Davin when it's dark to understand the patterns of light and darkness as also being metaphors for success and struggle that in life there are times of blessing and appreciation and there are times of challenge and adversity and as I ride through the mornings and the evening of the day I understand how to navigate the mornings and the evenings of life so it you should be one with nature in fact there was a great rabbi maybe a Victor Miller who died a few years ago and he taught over many many years he really gave Torah teachings for close to 70 years and one of the themes he emphasized again and again and again is a very basic theme that is found in the promise hell above us much way before every pillar and that is learning to love God by appreciating the natural girl that God created and one of his classic passages he talked about a meditation on eating an apple or a banana I cannot really do it justice but he just talked about color and smell and taste and shape and how God packages things and they certainly in a more maybe theoretical aspect you have people like Einstein who although Einstein did not regrettably believe in the personal God that gave Commandments but Einstein certainly saw in the elegance and the beauty and the fact that billions of phenomena can be reduced the fundamental relatively few fundamental laws and he of course was seeking one law to explain everything he saw an unbelievable intelligence an unbelievable beauty so this is really what one thinks about - Bhishma it's not simply a Jewish Earth Day although there's a component of that but it's a day in which we rethink our connection to the natural world by seeing it with a sense of beauty and reverence and awe and holiness for the grandeur of the creation that God and this fosters love of fashion and this fosters reverence for Asia and I'm just bringing it in it was science effective to Bashar that's coming up because the morale makes the point that's why it's so important that pace occurs during the spring because spring means there's a certainly rejuvenation that Hashem is putting in the air so if I want to experience it Siesta thrive I gotta do it during me I have to do it during the spring it's not just an arbitrary just nonsense just know it's not just an arbitrary designation okay so they send this idea that Pesach is both the historical encounter with the Jewish brother that the Jewish people had then you see it's mature I am and the steps that I have to take from my personal liberation I want to talk about one passage of the Haggadah that was relevant really it's last week's partial but it bridges over to this week's parsha as well there's a famous statement in the Haggadah which really from the Mishnah that Drebin comely offers us and he says anyone that does not explain three things for Pesach does not fulfill his obligation of the narrative and those three things are why we eat the korban Pesach when there was a temple that's why we eat the masa and why we eat the food and if you don't explain those things at the Seder you're not yo say the Mitzvah and I know it's a little early for Pesach I'm mentioning it because we're reading the party has to let me just mention an important I love the conservation that actually means that the statement of Reverend kahlil explaining the peso not saying more or is the single most important part of the Haggadah at least of the narrative if you can only say one part of the gutta that's the part you gotta say in English or Hebrew that makes no difference but you have to say it now what's a little anomalous is that this portion is towards the very end of the module right before people and watch and start eating food so what often happens is that's exactly when either the ladies about commitment can do a Tivoli with nurse when they go into the kitchen to start preparing food and that is specifically the part of the Haggadah that they're most likely to miss so it's extremely important for whoever is going to get up and serve the food that before they get up or at least out or even afterwards they be sure to read in English or nywhere that makes no difference to read that particular section if you simply skip it then even if you said everything else you are not yo say that other there are other parts of that data that if you skip you are yo say for example if you skip the four sons as interesting as that section is you're absolutely outside in other words dead that is not an essential part of a garden it's something we say but if you didn't say it you would still have the Mitzvah if you didn't say the Reverend illegal paragraph you would not have that Mitzvah so the three things you got to explain are Pesa not similar so what I want to do tonight is simply show how those three steps tie in not only to our communal story which of course they do but how it ties into the personal you'd see us miss Ryan that we have to go through to break through our limitations and break through our slavery and I'm gonna take it the reverse order and I'll explain why as I go through it why I'm going in reverse order step number one is Marlin eating bitter herbs eating bitter herbs although they don't have to be that bitter romaine lettuce is actually fine because it has a slight bitter taste so God is very lenient on that although I know some purists insist on real horseradish but I do want to warn the purists that they have to be purists meaning bottled horseradish if it's culture Lovaza is absolutely not kosher for the Seder be sure you understand that because bottled horseradish is pickled in vinegar and anything that's pickled is not kosher for the mitzvah of Moreh so if you're using horseradish you can use raw horseradish that is grated but not the horseradish in a in a bottle you can use it during the meal and you can use it during the rest of basics but you cannot do the mitzvah blower with the bottle horseradish so be aware of that but be this at night what is the purpose of more are to remember slavery what lesson is that for us in our own use yes miss Ryan that the first step to being able to achieve liberation is to be honest enough to acknowledge to yourself that there's something in which I am enslaved if you live in a condition of denial to yourself we're not talking about having to confess to anybody else if you simply sweep the problem under the rug whether it's a an anger problem whether it's a relationship problem whether it's a selfishness problem if you simply don't acknowledge it if you don't acknowledge that there is a slavery there's nothing you will ever do to extricate yourself so paradoxically acknowledgement of slavery is the first step towards achieving freedom I remember when I moved to Silver Spring Maryland and I was commuting to Baltimore because I was a law professor in Baltimore so if you know for those of you that know that part of the United States know that Baltimore is north obviously and you take a major highway called 95 north from Silver Spring from the Washington area to Baltimore 95 north now there was a turn-off though if you're not think if you're not carefully watching the route in which you could find yourself on 95 south no cure the right lane and you're not thinking so I remember I was when I first moved and I was not totally familiar with the drive yet so I was driving to Baltimore 95 north and I was like daydreaming a little bit and all of a sudden I started seeing the Washington Monument the Lincoln Memorial the Jefferson monument the Jefferson Memorial and I had never remembered seeing them on the way to Baltimore before so for like one sinking second am I going towards for Jim at Virginia which I was actually but here's the funny thing I didn't want to admit to myself I can't explain this rationally I didn't want to admit I was a 95 south because if I was I wasn't quite sure how to correct myself so I started telling myself idiotic things I said you know maybe you do see they Washington behind from Baltimore you never noticed it before maybe it was something new and I was thinking or you know maybe if we just keep on going somehow the road will correct itself magical thinking now indeed that is the case because 95 side with ends in Florida Key West and you just have to make a u-turn so yeah I could have kept going and eventually you know I would have corrected myself but I certainly would have been late for class that would have taken a few days or so to make that drive so what was going through my mind it's so crazy as it was I just didn't want to confront the difficulty of acknowledging that there was a problem now obviously by not confronting and the difficulties going to be a lot worse but at least for a few minutes it gives me the ability to make believe there's not a problem in investments this happens all the time this is the phrase throwing good money after bad you put your money in a rotten investment it keeps on losing and losing and losing and losing but you don't want to admit to yourself I've lost a thousand dollars so you put in another thousand dollars in some crazy hope that it'll get better even though that means you lose two thousand dollars Albert Einstein again said if the best insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get a different result although I have a feeling that Einstein might be expressing his disagreement with quantum mechanics in quantum mechanics indeed such a thing is possible but you know Einstein was against the idea of quantum mechanics still because he said God does not play with the dice okay without getting into that issue but overall there you got to acknowledge if you want to change you want to move you want to be positive you don't want to be stuck in the old destructive patterns of life you got to taste the slavery be honest admit understands if there are things that are wrong here and things that if I could change again to quote your paraphrase the Alcoholics prayer if I can change them I'll try to change them if not then I have it then I have to accept to be sure but that which is in the realm of change but I need change but so water we will call it the cognitive awareness and honesty of acknowledging to yourself that there's a mitzrayim in my life there is a Mizraim in my life okay we then come to matzah I'll come back to this now matzah is actually a complicated symbol you know it's an amazing thing you know most of us heard why we eat matzah and Baysox when we heard it in know second grade Lisa V and even if you went to a Hebrew school or whatever it would be and yet as you get older you actually discover that why we eat matzah and Pesach is actually a complicated issue because Pesach has both slavery symbols and freedom symbols Laurent for example is a slavery symbol drinking four cups of wine which is rabbinic is a freedom symbol we're celebrating matzah is actually a composite symbol there are two separate reasons why we eat matzah and the reasons are not even connected reason number one is matzah is called the bread of affliction let him only the bread of poverty the bread of servitude the epinephrine who was a world traveler points out that he went to India he noticed the Maharajah's were feeding their slaves unleavened bread because as we know it stays in the digestive system quite a long time so you eat less of it so when the Jews were slaves in Egypt the Egyptians gave the month that's the meaning of the passage of the Haggadah hallelujah this is the bread of affliction that our forefathers ate in Egypt when did they eat it in Egypt it's not referring to the Seder they ate it as slaves so on that level matzah is a symbol of slavery persecution and poverty that's why there's actually a lava that matzah has to be playing flower in water you cannot eat for the Seder at least you cannot eat monster with fruit juice or egg yolk what's go big matzo because that's called massage Shira that's rich matzah and monster gotta be poor man's bread now that's one reason the other reason is the more familiar reason that's given and that is when we left with Ryan we wanted to bake our bread and we would have let it rise to become Levin's but the Egyptians or a college boy who said you got to leave this very minute and we didn't have time to let our dough rise so the matzah is symbolic of how hurried we were when it was time to be redeemed so matzah is both a symbol of slavery and a symbol of redemption it is a composit symbol many bodies both motifs are let him only bread of affliction and to keep us on the need to hurry because we would have hit the 50th memory though there's a tradition from there result that in Mizrahim we should have been there for hundred years but we were taken out us after 210 years because we were on the 49th level of impurity had we stayed another minute we would have hit level 15 that would have been a redeemable we don't even know what that means exactly another minute but therefore we were taken out and the matzah is a reminder of the speed and the haste by which we were taken out of this room right so matzah is complicated matzah has a double symbol and possibly if you want to develop this further which I'm not going to fully develop it may be there's a difference between the first master that you ease and blow the afikomen maybe one is the slavery and one is the freedom you could split it that way there are different ways of looking at it and of course in the correct sandwich you actually combine the knots and are you combining slavery and freedom are you combining slavery and slavery like what is the meaning of thing not saying the sandwich right there's a lot of elaboration that one could put here but I want to mention two other ideas besides the basic idea that matzah is the bread of affliction and matzah is the bread of redemption and two opposite ideas we do have the famous idea that harm aids which is puffed up represents arrogance and ego and not so which is flat represents humility and there's a fundamental idea that one develops a relationship to God only when there is no affection of the ego when there is arrogance when there is conceit God cannot connect to that person or you as a person cannot connect to God and therefore matzah is the essential condition for that ability to break through your Mitzrayim by not having that ego so that's one idea if the Marlar is the cognitive honesty of my slavery matzah is the obliteration of ego now even on a simple level you can understand why putting your ego to the side is so essential to dealing with problems because when one is filled with egotism and arrogance one is not willing to acknowledge shortcomings and certainly one is not willing to get the help they need because you would have to kind of go to somebody go to a therapist whatever it would be a rabbi and the person of egotism cannot do that by the way this is even a problem among Rabbi so to speak that the rapper himself may be in need of something and the rabbi feels they cannot compromise his position egotism is really and in fact the Ronald Reagan I don't quote him that often Ronald Reagan once remarked it is amazing what human beings can account when they don't care who gets the credit he was pointing out that how egotism really stops things from happening but there's not an ego you're open to people you're willing to learn you're willing to grow you're willing to acknowledge your weakness and then every person in that situation becomes a better person because they're not there to protect their turf or maintain their agendas so matzah is very powerful in the sense of liberation obliteration of ego but there's a second symbolism of not so it's also very very interesting and this is offered by the morale of crack morale says the difference between comets in Massa is not only ego versus humility which is very very true but it's also inertia versus decisive action comments represents inertia why is that so because when flour gets wet if you do nothing it will become comments automatically you don't need yeast you don't need a starter how logically if waterfalls on unbaked flour once it's baked it's not a problem if water falls an unbaked flour it is deemed to be fermented after 18 minutes gotta be destroyed so comments happens Massa you must take action to make it monster to arrest the payments so that morale says when I think of comments I think of inertia just letting things happen matzah is seize the moment and hear the relationship with tomorrow and the matzo is very interesting it may be similar to the relationship between psychotherapy and behavioral analysis well that is more or gives me insight into my condition but you know many people may have insight in their conditions they may have gone through psychotherapy for 50 years they know every trauma they ever suffered starting from birth trauma and maybe conception trauma and maybe preconception troubles you know they know the whole story but okay you might be filled with insight and understanding they may become a fascinating hobby to know exactly what makes me keep it a click or take but the question becomes what do you do about it what practical changes have you made in your life right so therefore if Marla is the cognitive awareness of my Mitzrayim matza is to need to take action and this is an important idea in spiritual growth because everybody in their life has moments of inspiration there are moments in which we just feel we want to be more connected to God now these moments can occur in many many different times it may be after Yom Kippur maybe after a Pesach Seder it may be at the wedding of a grandchild or the birth of a grandchild or a wedding of itself a child whatever it might be it may be watching a sunset in Yerushalayim everyone has a different trigger may be hearing a piece of music a person just feels they want to be a part of something greater than themselves they feel connected but you know if you don't concrete I that feeling it's some type of virtuous action even if it's very small feelings just disappear they come and they go when you concretize them it can kind of take root in your personality and then we have the promise of our sages myths fungi reverence mitzvot one Mitzvah makes you stronger for the next missile you know there was a famous American academic Robert Hutchins it was a kind of a Boy Wonder he became president of the University of Chicago I think at the age of 25 I mean there were many graduate students who were older than Amy really was a prodigy and apparently he was not taking good care of his health so one of his associates once asked him you know dr. Hutchins don't you ever want to do some exercise so he says I surely have the urge to exercise all the time but I know if I lie down it'll pass in a few minutes so I just don't I don't let it bother me I will lie down and I know in five minutes the original go away and you know that's certainly true for exercise and it's true in Berkeley it's obviously even more so I mean let's imagine the scene with you it's happened to me and maybe it's happened to you I don't want to prejudge anybody let's say there's someone with whom you've had a disagreement and it no it is traditional and it is proper that you try to make up with them especially around us on Yom Kippur but even the whole year it's a proper thing to do but it's hard to make that phone call it's hard to break that ice it's hard to reopen a relationship that was difficult try to make things better but every once in a while you really get the urge I'm gonna pick up that phone well if the phone is within six inches of your hand maybe you'll do it if you have to walk two feet by the time you walk two feet maybe not today because the feeling the inspiration can be very very brief and this leaves it's evanescent so morer is be honest to yourself Mozza take action and it also say the first point is also valid that is get ego out of the equation when ego is present you're not gonna move forward it's gonna stop you in effect in life generally I think about it fear of failure is a great great inhibitor in all sorts of things that people fail to do I don't do something because I'm embarrassed that's not gonna be good and people will laugh at me no I'll give you examples outside of religion there are surveys that show and adults make a list of things they regret not doing in their life so they might say you know I regret not learning and I'm not starting to play piano when I was in my 50s I really wanted to do so but I thought you know how good am I gonna be if I start in my 50s or I really like to sing even though my voice isn't so great but I could have joined some a cappella group that didn't have AI standards you know but they would like that people would laugh at me so people say later when they're already you know in their 80s too old to even though then they're not necessarily tall but they might say gee you know if I would have started when I was 50 by the time I was 80 maybe I would play pretty good and I could have had years of enjoyment though the point I'm making is this egotism whether it comes in the form of arrogance or whether it comes in the opposite low self esteem because that's also kind of that an egotistical judgment is a great great inhibitor it freezes you it stops you from moving forward the willingness to fail is a major component of meaning I do my best it's up to Hashem whether I'm successful if I fail when I did my best I did nothing wrong I only did something good and the rebuttal of him for whatever reason you know it wasn't my time to do this particular project it's a whole different approach to life in which you're not looking at life as an experience to confirm how great you are or how bad you are you look at life as a task-oriented the situation where I shall put me in this world to do good things and I do my best to do good things I don't get crushed when I'm defeated and I don't get a swelled head when I'm successful I just keep an even keel and even course to always ask myself what's the best thing I could do for God at this particular moment in my life what's the best thing again if you look at the Tanya you will see over and over again apparently this was something Oceaneer Zalman thought about very very much because he emphasizes and over and over again the notion of beetle beetle is nullifying yourself to Hashem agenda and not necessarily connecting yourself to the ego and I will tell you I've met myself me many many hibachi with him yeah there may be stories the other way too and I can't deny that but I have met many many solution and one of the things I have noticed I think they have internalized I guess they're the last Rebbe he emphasizes that as Robin it comes from the Tanya they have internalized this notion of be so high eh that they're here to serve Hashem and the Jewish people and it's not about them that's an amazingly empowering idea it's not that you're a nebbish under nothing it's the other way around it empowers you to do all sorts of things because you're not afraid of failing anymore because failure and success is not up to you okay so that's the idea of matzo we then come to pestle now korban that stuff of course has many symbols but I want to pick one out of many I could have chosen many many to talk about I'm gonna pick one and that is one of the Holocaust of the carbon peso is it cannot be brought in solitude I have to be part of a caboose ahh it's either my family or I join a group of people even if we're not biological family aim shorten si Pesa I'll hiya kid we do not bring a Corbyn Pesa for an individual even if I have a ravenous appetite and I have a tiny lamb because it only has to be eight days old and I could finish the whole thing I'm not allowed to do it I gotta join with other people so the lesson in our own you'd see on Smith's Ryan is the idea of community that if you want to leave your mitzrayim it cannot be a solitary journey you need to connect to others ideally that could be a spouse in which you work together adults you can and should be a larger community web-based Knesset the Shiva group me but now whatever it would be we work together because we give each other strength Shalimar MELAS the wisest of all people tells us Cinderella's toe very much Naima knighthood two are better than one because if one Falls will pick him up and if you have two people in one Falls the other is there this is not only talking about ice and snow although that's true as well it's talking about life in life there are times in which we are weaker then we want to be there are times that we are strong in their time that we are we but when you have a friend yeah the friend could be a spouse or friends whatever a different context of friendship I give him strength in his moments of weakness he gives me strength and that's why prayer Kyoko says Canella aver now literally can a can actually mean by yourself for friends Bui why would you buy yourself a friend gotta pay for different so some say well it means that that's another therapist you you buy a friend for 50 minutes meaning if you're not so good to have friends you got to spend money for a friend but I would suggest maybe another explanation and that is friendship does have a cost the cost of friendship is being a friend meaning if I want you to be there whenever I have a problem whenever I have to unburden myself but the cost is I have to be there for you because I can't be a person that says I want you to listen to all my problems but when you have a problem sorry don't have time so friendship does have a cost the cost of having a friend is being a friend that's the reciprocity that is needed now sometimes you might be so lucky that's such an extraordinary person then he's willing to be there for you even though you're not willing to be there for them but that's relatively unusual I think in most cases friendship has to be reciprocal but why is it important that French so the Rambam has an interesting discussion which interestingly enough it is actually taken from Aristotle with some modifications I'm attributed but it actually is in the the ethics of Aristotle where Aristotle talks about why is friendship a good thing why do human beings need friendship so he gives three reasons the first reason for friendship we will call utilitarian it's like having an insurance policy at various times in my life I have needs maybe I lost my keys maybe my refrigerator broke maybe I broke a leg and I can't go shopping if I don't have a friend who do I call so in a sense friendship is like an insurance policy meaning even if I really an even if I'm a misanthrope I really don't like people but it's good to cultivate a friend just in case I just kind of the insurance policy model of friendship which is purely utilitarian the second purpose of friendship is social doc you know we are Aristotle famously says man is a social being even if a person is introverted so he may not like crowds but you know even a wanted to one-to-one we like to discuss we like to explore we like to share things with people you know the famous famous joke about a rabbi not soon not too religious who is a fanatical golf headaches and he had to play golf every single day so it was Yom Kippur so before Yom Kippur services he figured no no you would see him so he went to the golf course and he was playing eight halls early in the morning my stomach so the angels in heaven were furious they went to God and they said strike this man dead he's a rabbi he's gonna give sermons is gonna give prayers on Yom Kippur and look at what he really believes he plays golf on the holiest day of the year such a man deserves to die immediately and God says leave it to my superior wisdom I will determine the appropriate punishment and the rabbi gets a hole-in-one very difficult so the angels of heaven say this is what you do to the worst sinner on earth God says yeah who is he gonna share it with who's he gonna tell and that's the greatest Ganon when we can't share these experiences of our lives so that's the second function friendly kind of social and the social unity exists on many levels it can be an emotional social relationship an intellectual social relationship an exchange of ideas we enjoy connecting to other people X Kerber extroverts like doing it in crowds in a loud way introverts like doing it in a quiet way but the catcher is still there but Irish title and the Rambam say there's a third concept in friendship now the wrap-up turns it into a spiritual ourselves does not use the kinds of spiritual but if the concept is to help each other become a better person then the otherwise would be the Rambam would call that a spiritual connection now that type of friendship by the way can sometimes be difficult because when you're simply friendly with somebody on a casual basis so if they do things that aren't so honest or moral or good you know you may just ignore it because you're getting what you need out of the friendship but when friendship is based on helping each other become the best person they could be then that sometimes may be a bit challenging you will bring up something and you have to be willing to hear what that person brings marriage in the best way is that way in which each person cares so deeply about the other that if they see the other person going in the wrong direction they're gonna be they're gonna be willing to talk about it there may be some pain in that friendship but it's a pain that out of love and that is the Rambam rights the canary will conquer their acquiring a friends that will help you be a better person than you otherwise would be fact that is one of the not the only one but that is one of the guidelines in a marriage actually one of the guidelines in the marriage is can my partner help me be better can I help them be better that's actually one of the questions that you ask yourself in deciding if someone is your partner for life so pestsof teaches me community so now just to summarize with one bullet point for each thing Marla is to honestly acknowledge your slavery Mozza factor out the ego number one and number two take action don't simply be aware of a problem take practical action Pesa find a community which shares those values whether it's the nuclear family or a larger community understand you can't do it when you have to do it alone you adjust as in every case in life if we're put in a situation we have to make the best of it but when you're seeking the optimal situation you seek community because that will help you through the moments where you're not necessarily going to be fully inspired so now I just want to end with one final observation and that is the order in which we eat these foods because if Marla is awareness of my slavery and matzah is doing something about it one might have thought I should eat the my I should eat the moreover for the months because how can I fix a problem till I know what the problem is and yet we matzo then we eat more right so why do I eat matzah and then Marla I should eat Amaro are which is identifying my slavery and then I eat myself the answer is this it is very indeed very much the case that before you can address a problem you have to know what the problem is but before you focus on your problem you must internalize your capacity to make it better because the problem is this when I start focusing on my inadequacies I focus on my failures there may be a very unfortunate side effect that I become so overwhelmed and depressed that I literally get paralyzed I feel I'm not capable of improving I'm not capable of changing so before you focus on your slavery you need to internalize your capacity for freedom so I eat the matzah to remind me that I can take decisive action in my life and only when I've absorbed that message can I then face tomorrow and then eat matzah again to connote the ability to deal with the problems meaning before you confront the negatives in yourself you must internalize the strengths that you have to deal with those negatives because if you don't accept those strengths then the negatives are going to overwhelm you okay and that's the idea of the matzo preceding the mark okay so this again as they say the overall lesson here is that the technicalities of the Mitzvah of recounting the exodus are also signposts helping us as we go through our own personalized ucs medallion as dibala tanya explains mitzrayim refers to our limitations though because rats as shannon i hope that all of us will be able to follow this in our own lives much easier said than done 100% of the case and in that way because we're who grant us the true freedom of the neshamah to be able to serve for other sparkly [Music]