Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: I Have Remembered My Covenant, THEREFORE...

my baby [Music] okay everybody good to see you thank you for coming special welcome to think of things from Sharon and all the old friends of ours and uh today's share is dedicated to reforce Lima foreign devorah and if I could just add a personal note my wife was recently released from the hospital after a two-day stay and I would like to also give the shares for schlama to uh Sarah Khan about Shayna and all of these columns should be uh reports Israel [Music] whose yard site is on Shabbos the 28th of tebase again made the debris Torah being Aaliyah for his his nishama we are of course in the parsiosa vincias mitzrayim and in fact this is a very exciting Parsha seven of the ten makos are in this Parsha and the ten Marcos raise a whole bunch of interesting questions which I'm actually not going to talk about tonight about the concept of God hardening Pyro's heart and how do you reconcile that with free will those are biggies those are big big questions in Jewish philosophy and perhaps we will devote some time to that but that's not what I'm going to talk about this week so I'll tell you what I'm not going to cover but things to think about I want to leave you leave you with things that you can work out on your own and the famous discussion about how do you reconcile Free Will with the notion of God hardening Pyro's Hearts but at the very beginning of the Parsha there's a very interesting reference when uh remember remember the context you have to read the partiotes uh in continuity meaning the end of last Parsha segues into this week and Hashem told Moshe rabenu to go to Paro and demand that the Jewish people be released and Moshe goes to para with our own and Pyro says who is this God I've never heard of this God why should I listen to him and Pyro basically said hey the Jewish people have too much time on their hands that's why they're agitating about freedom and Liberation and Pyro makes it worse pyro decrease that uh instead of just making the bricks they also have to collect the straw that they add to the bricks and their quote is not going to be diminished so life becomes even worse Moshe revenu is heartbroken quite literally heartbroken he didn't want to go we argued with God don't send me I'm not worthy get somebody better I'm not a good speaker they're not worthy I'm not worthy he made every argument under the sun he actually argued with God for seven days and seven nights finally God says you gotta go he has no choice moja goes and what happens is things don't get better things get worse and when Moshe walks out of Paris Palace Dustin and Avira have encounter them and say who needs you and malship is frankly broken by this and Moshe says why have you done bad to your people I didn't want to go I didn't think it would be effective but I didn't think it would be worse chastisement he says when I've run music and yaakov had many disappointments in their life they didn't question me they didn't challenge me they just accepted it things don't go your way and you complain but you will see that I will take the Jews out of matrium with the time with a strong hand and that brings us to the beginning of this partial of era I appeared to have run music and yaakov and they did not complain and therefore Hashem says therefore and more living Israel say to Bene Israel I am God meaning I am the one Rashi says that is Neman that is faithful in keeping his promises and there are four terms of redemption that are used I will take them out of matrium I would say see he's salty I will save them they go out Thee I will redeem them and I will take them unto me for a nation there are four the show nuts foreign now it's fascinating we know of course that one of the important rituals of the Seder every year is that we have to drink four cups of wine and these these this wine is drunk at pivotal points in the Seder after kiddish after the Magid after the narration after the benching and after the hollow meaning you recite kiddish over wine and you drink it you recite hagada over wine and you drink you recite benching over wine and you drink you recite how the lower wine and you drink so the mission says already that there's a Mitzvah of drinking four cups of wine at the Seder and even if a person is getting his support from charity from sadaka we must make an allotment to that person for the four cups of wine that's not a luxury it's not an optional thing even the poorest person is given an allotment for the four cups in mind now the talmud bubbly interestingly enough does not give a reason for this the Tom and Bob Lee does not say why four cups of wine but the atomic you show me does give a reason that is very well known to people it's an amazing thing you know the Tama dushami is not as widely studied in fact many people never studied the time of year xiaomi and yet there are certain things in the same that have become very very well known and people don't even realize that from the time that you show me and that is the famous idea that when the sages enacted the drinking of the four cups of wine it was to correspond to the four expressions of redemption in dispersion vote Stacy being salty we got Alti right this is a teaching that even kids in school fifth grade our talks and they should know therefore that there's at least one thing in the tongued you saw me that they've learned actually there's another bubbly as well a very very a lot of that everybody practices you know that according to the halaka and the shohanarach you're not allowed to eat matzah an area of pesach in fact the answer of eating matzah an area of pesach is even earlier than the Israel of eating hamites I'm allowed to eat bread an air of pesach until four hours into the day before you know relative hours I'm not allowed to eat matzah from the beginning of the day now many people have a minute they don't eat matzah from the month of Nissan or they don't eat matzo from Purim these are minhaken but the halacha is you're not allowed to eat matzah an Arab pesach because we want there to be a break so that when you eat the matzah that the Seder you'll eat it with a certain enthusiasm because you haven't had it for a time now in fact the gomores lesson is anyone who eats matzah an area of pesach is as if he's had intercourse with his beetraft before the khupa meaning to say eventually it'll be good but not you're jumping the gun you're going too early that's the comparison to eating Masa and arabesa so it's interesting again just just pointing out that that is not in the Babylonian talmud at all the Babylonian talmud makes no reference at all to a Prohibition of eating matzah Arab PESA it's totally based on the usami so it's comparatively rare idea that this is from the you xiaomi and another thing that's from the usami is the idea that the four close-ups of wine corresponds to the foreign now in reality if you look at the password you'll actually see five terms that Hashem uses Jose I will take you out to be salty I will save you because I will redeem you with Apache I'll take you unto me for a nation but Dennis says I will bring you to Eric Israel there are five lechonas of redemption so why don't we have five cups of wine in point effect there is a rabbit tarafar who actually says you're supposed to have five cups because of a vasey and at least the morale as well as some other authorities actually say that although we don't pass him that five cups are mandatory but a fifth cup is considered to be a desirable Heder mitzvah it's not widely practiced but there are then you get into an enormously complicated problem which I'm not going to get into because it's enormously complicated where do you put the fifth comments that's not so easy exactly where you would position it and there are around 15 different views as where you put the fifth gun if you have the fifth cut but I think for most of us I think four cups Max us out sufficiently that we're not really ready for anything anything more but the question is why wouldn't we have a fifth cup if if the havasi is a lush on a gahoula so the before she explained that the reference I will bring you to the land is not a reference to the Jewish people in the days of Yeshua but it's a reference to the ultimate Messianic Redemption that hasn't yet come so the four of the show notes of gaula are the Redemption that God already gave us the fifth is the garuga of mashiach and indeed that is the source of Elijah's cup Elia right there's a cup at the Seder that we pour and we don't drink and we say it's foreign that's going to announce the coming of mashiach so essentially what we're saying is this is the cup that we're holding for Eliana becomes then we're going to drink it generations of parrots tell their kids they should watch the cup carefully because they will see it go down a little bit as the invisible Leo drinks it and sometimes the father will jostle the table and some of the wine will fall but again as far as I know there is a message that says Elio and Avi visits every state or there actually is a measures when you open the door a Leo and Obi comes in but as far as I know there's no Makara that he actually takes a sip of the wine that already is a little bit of an augmentation of the legend in fact I remember reading was an extraordinarily moving powerful thing a woman actually became a very very prominent teacher but she wrote A Memoir living through the Holocaust and she wrote about his Pearl Benish and she wrote about the last Seder she had with her parents in 1939 before the Nazis came and took them away actually may have been a 1940 meaning to say the ghettos were created already but this was the last time before they were forcibly taken to the camps and when your father opened the door she says he was so sure and the young enough he would come he was so sure and when he opened the door and like nothing happened so to speak he broke down crying powerful the yearning for gaula was that particular moment but okay uh being as it may though the question becomes since he had see Anthony was a unitary event it was only one event God took us out of the Triumph why is it described as foreign why are there four terms of redemption to describe a single event called you'd see us what's right so that it's Civ offers a very interesting explanation which is a bit technical in which he says that the Jewish people were released from mitzrayim in gradual stages over a year meaning the whole duration of the ten planks was 12 months and he says and he proves it from looking at the different responses after each group of makos so it mentions pyro didn't listen but it describes pyro not listening in different ways so that if says that at various points Power released them from hard labor but they still were slaves right so the first Liberation occurred released from hard labor but you're still in servitude the second Liberation is you're released from servitude but you're not allowed to leave the country the third Liberation which is pace of time means you can leave the country and the fourth Liberation is getting the total I took you unto me for a nation so then it said sees the liberation of Egypt as occurring in four discrete stages over that year period release from extreme hard servitude to plain slavery released From Slavery to Freedom but not permitted to leave the country and fourth stage is receiving the tokens and it says there are four of the showness of that because the freedom of the Jewish people took place in four stages foreign offers a different explanation and he says the following he says that the reason why there are four lechonas of gaula is because there were four dangers that an enslaved population faces for which they had to be redeemed four sacraments number one that the Jewish people faced was spiritual survival after all they're in the middle of this perverse corrupt degenerate culture and because I'll tell us that the Jewish people were adversely affected they should have been in with Ryan 400 years and instead God took them out took them out after 210 years because they were on the 49th level of impurity and they were sinking fast the amount of time it would take for their dough to become hummus they would have hit Level 50. we don't even know what that means there would have been irredeemable God had to take them out in haste and they all worshiped Idols other than the tribe of lady they did not practice brismila circumcision other than the tribe of flaming so the truth of the matter is the first most greatest danger that a Jew faces in this persecuted environment is that they lose their sins of how to connect to God they lose their religion they lose their values they lose their morality they lose their sense of ethics so they needed to be saved from that Danger the second Danger was the danger to their physical survival now obviously the Jewish people were threatened in a variety of ways and some level there was direct genocide in which pyro wanted the boys to be thrown into the Nile and the light but other than that even if all you have are labor camps all you have is hard slavery people die of the work they die of the disease diseases again comparable to the Holocaust itself they die of um inadequate food right so threat number one is spiritual assimilation threat number two is jeopardy of their physical survival threat number three is a bit more subtle says one of the great great detriments of slavery is you lose a sense of History you lose a sense of where you come from now those who are older in the audience you may remember the phenomenon of Roots Alex Haley was a black author scholar and he wrote a book about the black experience coming from Africa Africa to the United States although I heard lateral time of the summer of his account was was not historic was not personally Germany he made certain claims about his own personal background it was not Eminence but whatever the overall story was it was very much true and he pointed out that many of those who later became slaves in the United States they came from nobility they came from royalty they had great great figures in their background but that was simply erased from their memory erased from their consciousness their children had no sense from where they were coming their children had no sense that they came from nobility they came from people of accomplishment people of greatness in whatever particular area that greatness was manifest a slave has no sense of a historical identity the Army knew first of all they're they're often separated from their parents separated families are separate you don't know your father you know your mother is Etc so Sakana number three the message says is that a slave can lack a sense of History a lack of where he came from and as the old saying goes if you don't know where you came from you can't really have a sense of where you need to be going I need that sense of a past in order to give me some type of vision for my future the fourth second is lack of Hope that after a while a person gets so broken in spirits that they can no longer even Envision they can no longer even imagine any potential for improvement you just give up the importance of Health in life is even true in a physical medical context there is at least anecdotal research I'm not sure if they have you know absolutely scientifically valid studies that when people give up hope that they'll get any chance of recovery the body itself starts shutting down in irreversible ways people who believe in Voodoo right there are people who believe that if somebody sticks a pet a pin in their Effigy they're going to drop dead now of course Voodoo is garbage no such thing but if you believe it you'll get a heart attack when somebody does the interesting question is would it work even if you weren't aware that somebody was doing it there's no logic to that but at least if you're aware of it and you believe it your body gets offended so one of the great greatest dangers in life is when you lose hope that things can never get better so the message says very simply that the reason why there are four of the show notes of is because there were four soccer notes or dangers from which the Jewish people had to be redeemed they had to be redeemed from spiritual assimilation they had to be redeemed from physical Jeopardy they had to be redeemed from a lack of a sense of History and they had to be redeemed from the danger of a lack of Hope for the show note of gula because there are four sakhan notes they're these slay faces but now he takes the analysis a little further I actually mentioned this in the last week or the week before I don't remember it that there are a number of mid-russians that make the point the Camari says well that although the Jewish people who are in the 49th level of impurity and they were not really deserving of redemption there were four there were four merits that enabled them to be redeemed and exactly what the forest every member says for but the the four are not always the same a few of them are constant some of them are different I'm going to use or the Metro uses the list of four that appears in the makilta which is the medrish on shmos and it says there were four merits which enabled the Jewish people to be redeemed Merit number one is they did not intermarry now one could make the argument well how would they intermarry there were slaves to their Egyptians I mean what Egyptian is going to take them you know for for this but but nevertheless there were Egyptians that were slaves as well and even in Nazi German even in Nazi Europe I mean there were times when uh they wouldn't have a marriage so to speak but there were times when a Nazi would want to sexually abuse a Jewish woman and there's no question that Egyptians would do the same thing and yet because I'll say that women were faithful to their husbands even that great personal risk and it was that faithfulness to the marital Bond that was a great great silhouette that enabled them to be redeemed that's so hush number one number two is they did not speak Russian Hara against each other they did not engage in derogatory speech now let me explain exactly what this means because people misunderstand it sometimes when it says they did not speak Russian arm against each other that doesn't mean they were learning to have Italian's rules and they were careful it really refers to a different type of phenomenon and that is they didn't turn against each other by being informers to the authorities in order to get temporary advantages meaning vis-a-vis each other I don't know maybe they were gossiping and indeed people ask the question because we we find that um when Moshe rabena say they didn't speak Russian Hara when Moshe rabbenu killed the Egyptians right so uh so later Justin Bieber because when when they're fighting right they're hitting so one says oh are you gonna kill me the way you kill the Egyptian so Rashi says Moshe said ah now that I know they speak latinara I don't know if they're worthy of being redeemed so they did speak Russian but when they didn't speak Russian Harbor it's a different idea it's not the from I don't speak English it's we have a united front as slaves we're not going to turn against each other to get some Advantage you know one of the among the superimposed on the enormous tragedies of the Holocaust was another level of tragedy it would sometimes out of extreme need there were Jews who would turn against other Jews to get a little more food a little more medicine some improvement of living conditions you know we're not in a position necessarily to judge in fact I read a story again an amazing story that a man was walking this was around 20 years ago a man is walking with his grandson I think it was here in Arizona and he sees another elderly man in the distance and he says to his grandsons it's just unbelievable she says to his grandson huh that was my best friend when we were growing up and I haven't seen him in 50 years but he made no effort to go to him so the grandson said what do you mean your best friend you haven't seen in 50 years let's go let's go but so the grandson keep the thing he's your best friend you didn't see him in 50 years you don't want to talk to him how is it possible to the Grandfather said I'd rather not say but but eventually he broke down in the story basically was that 50 years before he had hidden papers to get out of Europe for his wife and children and he happened to mention to the man where he was concealing the papers and when it was time for him to leave the papers were not there taking them for his own family the man who had the papers lost his first life and children so he felt he couldn't really talk to this man again but then the grandson says so go and punch him in the face go kill him so he said to his grandson you don't understand how desperate people were you don't understand how scary people are I can't talk to him because of what happened to me but I don't hate him people just acted that way because they were crazy they were crazy with grief and crazy with suffering and crazy with fear again I can't interact with him I'm not going to judge a meeting 36 okay it's uh this is almost Beyond uh human capacity but BB it doesn't may therefore when Ghazal say they didn't speak Russian horror what that really means is they didn't turn against each other to get advantages we are united in this struggle now the third Merit that the Michael dementia is they kept their Jewish names they didn't use Egyptian names and the fourth that it mentions is they continued to Speak the Hebrew language so again the kitchen the four merits of which the Jews left from According to the Matilda is they didn't intermarry they didn't speak Russian Hara they didn't change their names they didn't change their language now there are other things that also talk about Jewish clothing and the light but let's go he's going with them so here is the very ingenious correlation that the message makes that when you face danger of any kind and you need God to redeem you there must be some behavior on your part that addresses the danger that will bring down the divine blessing that will protect you this is called the language of Kabbalah in order for there to be is sarusa Mr Russell an Awakening from above meaning God brings down something it must start with is sarusa an Awakening we talked an Awakening from beloved and Arusha de la Ayla requires is so if there are four dangers there has to be something we're doing to counter those four dangers and only then do we Merit hashem's Redemption so the message was going to correlate the four merits to the four dangers and this is how he sets it up danger number one was spiritual assimilation a loss of your values a loss of your ethics a loss of your sense of what is Holy in mine what Behavior did the Jewish people have that shielded them from being destroyed in that way the faithfulness of the marital bonds because it's true that the Jewish people were idle worshipers the Jewish people had abandoned many many things but the one thing that they maintained was the sacred Bond of husbands live in shalom is with that preserve whatever little Sparkle remember their 49th level of tumor so they're not so great but the little spark of Holiness that was preserved was the holiness in the relationship of husband and wife and that was the spark that prevented the total spiritual assimilation which then brought God down to redeem them from them now the second sakhana was danger to physical survival that was countered by the united front of not speaking Russian horror I don't mean this in the spiritual sense that in the Merit of what's an hour God will protect you that that happens to be true as well but that's not the dynamic dynamic is different that when we are physically threatened what will keep us safe is the unity of not giving in not abandoning your fellow person at the famous remark united we stand divided we fall or as I believe Benjamin Franklin I put it we must all at the time of the Revolution we must all hang together or we will surely hang separately and therefore what protects us from physical annihilation is Unity you know every few years newspapers in Israel run surveys regarding what are the biggest problems that Jews and Israel face and they try to get answers from religious non-religious secular all types of people and you know they're unfortunately there are quite a few things that can make the list whether you're talking about Islamic terrorism whether or a nuclear war whether you're talking about the cost of housing or even the cost of cottage cheese or shortage of butter you know we have to hold such a different issues here but the water when the water is a perennial issue uh but uh the issue that is always number one in these surveys given by the most respondents whether it's religious secular Arena whatever it is the lack of unity among the Jewish people or whatever you want to call it our ability our apparently inexhaustible ability to fight over everything uh just never ends and it's understood by everybody that when there's actors among the Jewish people we're protected against enemies who try to destroy us and when zelbaka rocked us we're weak and were vulnerable so if faithfulness to the marriage bond is what protected us spiritually it's the not speaking Russian horror which means not turning against each other for temporary advantages that preserves us spiritual I'm sorry but you're just physically like physically right so the marriage is spiritual and the not speaking Russian is physical we then come to the third circular the third Sakana was a slave lacks a sense of History where do I come from I come from nowhere well today is not changing your names because again this is a little bit anachronistic but the message points out that it was common in quality Israel that you name people after ancestors again so I didn't do it even if someone is alive ashkenaz and do it only after someone's dead but a child is named after a Bubby a grandmother or grandfather every moment of their lives they recognize that they have a past they have a yes if the little boy is called avram he's either named after his grandfather or uncle or something or named after abrahamavina comes from the out here even the the Yiddish dominatives you call somebody bubble up sometimes people just use them indiscriminate they don't even know what they mean but but you know quite literally Bubble Up Little grandmother they know the little grandfather little father mama what does that tell the child you're connected to those earlier Generations you don't come from nothing you come from goodness you come from kadusha you come from something to be proud of that's someone says well what what if I'm you know what if I'm a Garrett what if I'm a non-jew I'm converted I don't come from Judy well the answer is number one even again can can rightfully take pride in the family they came from even the non-jewish origin gave them values gave them strength and second of all a person who becomes a girl is avram's family because you're a family I've been out from you and Sarah your Abram's family because you follow avram's teaching so the pride of being connected to that past belongs to everybody who Embraces that past not just biological descendants so not changing the names connects you to your history and then we have the final Point lack of Hope says that's addressed by continuing to speak the language Hebrew now you know that for for a number of centuries Latin was the most spoken language in the world Latin was the language of the Roman Empire that dominated virtually all of the known world at the time today Latin is more or less a dead language even within the Catholic Church which were the last holdouts the Catholic Church no longer requires that mass be given in life of course there are some ultra-orthodox Catholics some haredi Catholics that claim that the reforms of Vatican II were reforms and they consider the pope to be a reformed Pope and whatever it would be and they still conduct the the mass in Latin but I think they're communicated they're actually put in uh by the Catholic church for rejecting official Catholic teachings oh that survives a little bit in high school honors courses and people who want to read Classics you know may it may take Latin and of course even in law we have Latin Expressions here and there and the medicine as well some prescription abbreviations are technically Latin but Latin is a deadline which and there are many many dead languages much more dead than Latin you have a Syrian you have hittite and you can go yeah and go to University Library you can find dictionary of Assyrian but that didn't not too many people speak it because if a language no longer represents a living culture it more or less becomes extinct so think about this I'm living in Egypt if I truly believe there is no hope that we're ever going to be redeemed why would I bother to speak in my child in Hebrew so what's the message I'm giving to my child when I speak to him in Hebrew it's the message of Hope We're not gonna be here forever there's gonna come a time I don't know if it's in my life or your life but there's gonna come a time that God is going to take us out of here and we're going to have our land and we will need our language so we are preserving this language now remember let me Point let me just make an obvious point remember that this is before most you're available okay meaning what you're rebellion was only there for one I mean he grew up in Detroit but then he went to so for most of these years there was no Moshe raveno there so when we talk about this hope that was preserved this is the Hope before the plagues before Moshe came when things looked hopeless do you see how keeping the language means we have hope we're not giving up it doesn't mean it'll be tomorrow but it will be and therefore we need to keep our language intact that's why you know uh the the so-called father of modern Hebrew uh interesting man Eliezer venue his name was Eliezer Pearlman but you know he okay and to this very day he's a very very controversial person at least in the religious world because he happens to be not only not religious but kind of anti-religious in many many ways uh but he was a Fanatic in one area he was truly truly Fanatic in Revival almost single-handedly Revival Reviving the modern language of Hebrew including inventing new words and dictionaries and everything alphabetics dictionary is very very fascinating uh it's a kind of out of print but he really went into etymologies and he created words like for camera not Salama I mean these are words he invented more or less uh computer my Chevy didn't invent because there were no more shelves then but but many many words but you see how he did it because the word Selen is a Biblical Hebrew word for image that which takes images and the light so he was really really fanatic for the Hebrew language and some people felt that the Hebrew language would only be used for Holy matters it shouldn't be used for daily speech and yet you see from this gazelle that one of the secrets about Israel was that they continued to speak so for that he deserves a lot of credit there is a story they tell and I will say I I was right from the start that some question the veracity of the stories I don't want I don't want emails about you know the story as far as I'm aware that some same story as false but I will tell you the story anyway because I have a weakness it's really whenever it's a good story I like to say it's even if it's not true so I'm gonna say it because I think it makes if I think it makes a point even if it's historically not accurate The Story Goes elieza venue they used to most of the rabbanimous did not speak them they did not want anything to do with them the one Rabbi who spoke to him as you would probably guess was and every Friday he would go to ravco and he would ask her if cook the meaning of certain terms in the talmud and the medrish so he could somehow modernize them and incorporate them into the Hebrew language so he was not learning the talmud for the for the religious uh meanings of the comment but for the linguistic meanings see we got around cook would explain to him what all these words mean and one time at the end of the session you have cook said to him in a writ Matthew elianism perhaps the time has come to do chuva and come back to the Torah until he hasn't been knew they responded perhaps the rav is correct he goes home that night or the night afterwards he died suddenly and the funeral and as the minute you should let me do it right away they did the funeral not say Shabbat middle of the night and The Story Goes this is the part that made maybe people would contest if Cook was the only rap who came to the funeral and if Cook gave a husband and Ruff cook said he is convinced that lizard venue that died and the ramp up says even if a person does true God one minute before his death all of his sins are forgiven and he goes to gun Aiden and therefore he said he would regard elieza renewed as he said okay a nice story and whether it's absolutely true or not I don't know but I think it exemplifies sort of cook this General attitude towards people who may who may not have been keeping all the Mitzvah but still contributed something to probably so again do you see the message correlation again the correlation is a little is a little bit complicated there are four of the show notes of kahula because there are four dangers that the Jewish people faced spiritual assimilation physical destruction boss of History loss of Hope the four dangers were countermantic by four merits on our part that address those dangers spiritual assimilation countered by the faithfulness of husbands and wives to each other physical Jeopardy countered by not speaking la shanara lack of History countered by names the Jewish names and lack of Hope countered by speaking which is an affirmation of hope so we merited the four redemptions from the four dangers because of the four behaviors on our part so now there's a final a fourth correlation right so we have four correlations of four and that is the placement of the four cosos in the context of the Seder the first cup is the cup of kiddish right the second cup is the cup of magit nugget is the narration of the Agata the third cup is the cup of birkata Amazon and the fourth cup is the cup of hollow so here's how the Messiah can you correlates them the cup of kiddish sanctification corresponds to God liberating us from spiritual assimilation through the relationship of husbands and wife that actually goes by the term sanctification so the first cup is a celebration of the sanctity of the Jewish Home which liberated us from spiritual Danger now the second cup is the cup of magnet now here we're changing the order a little bit now what is market is essentially the historical Narrative of that that corresponds to the sense of History the sense that we come from the of us we come from our music and yaakov and sorry referee and remembering the Glorious history that God has given us and done for us so that corresponds to what gives us a sense of history in other words not changing the names but history is building on that idea of knowing where you're coming from actually this is taking a little out of order the third cup corresponds to the unity of not speaking Russian heart now why is that so let's think about this above all is an exercise gratitude right that's what benching is I express my gratitude to God a very key component of gratitude foreign to appreciate what you have right what do as I'll say Isaiah was here who is a wealthy person a person who rejoices in whatever he has I still remember many many years ago when I was first came to shimaim on a trip I was not living here yet so I saw four kids walking on the streets in a poor neighborhood and they were sharing a popsicle one popsicle between four or fourth and they were having the greatest time they were laughing and yeah well look you know not the most hygienic thing perhaps but they were having the time of their lives one popsicle going back and forth with four kids then you think about you know kids that have all these luxuries they don't have the most recent iPhone or a Game Boy a game box I don't even know the names of all of these uh different types of games but they're not happy because it's not the most recent version so who is wealthier they say it was here we see this in our lives all the time it said this is like that is so evident from the experience of life itself you don't even have to prove it in any particular way is about gratitude is about you're not jealous when you're not jealous there's Unity when there's Unity you're not going to speak latinara you're not going to turn against each other so therefore corresponds to the Merit of not speaking ashinara which protected us physically to this is out of order a little bit in that way now the final one the final cup is on Hollow now here it's a very interesting thing about the Halal of the Seder that I'm sure you've noticed over the years the howl of the Seder is a very unusual Hollow it's unusual in a lot of ways we say it's sitting down which you normally don't do Etc but one of the most unusual features is it is split into unequal haves the first two chapters of Halal are recited at the end of Magid before the second cup before the meal the rest of halal is recited after the meal when you open the door to Elio Hanover Hollow is split why is hollow splits so the commentaries tell us because the first part of halal is thanking God for the past that he took us out of the Triumph that's why it concludes the market the market is the story of The Exodus we conclude with praising God for The Exodus but the post me allow them no longer focusing on you'd see us what's right looking to the Future Messianic Redemption there is something Messianic that's why it comes after opening the door for Elio and Avi in a way you know the hollow after the Seder is not always given it's proper due people are very tired in fact people who are not conversion with talaka even among the Orthodox they sometimes just leave they figure out your benching after I be coming I'll leave uh and you know there are there are problems because I wanted to hollow after the Seder you've already drunk three cups uh number two you're not allowed to talk so you can't even say different Torah you know Etc not allowed to be mop sick but the truth is there is something very elevating very holy because we kind of finished about the Exodus and our eyes are looking towards the future so what is that hope the idea that things are gonna get better things are gonna change so you see how all of these correlations come together in a very intricate way foreign because of four dangers but the four dangers are met by foreign in our part correspond to their placement in the Shader itself first cup the spiritual Circles of the sanctification of marriage second cup Connection to the Past third cup the unity of community because there's no jealousy and the fourth cup the expression of Hope draws together the meaning of the four cups on all of these different levels now it's interesting you know people say oh the Jews in which Ryan were so bad they were in the 49th level of two my fourth fifth of them actually died the one-fifth was on the 49th level of tumor but here's the thing they had these four merits let's ask ourselves about the Jewish World generally how many of those four merits are actually present they were faithful in their marriages they didn't intermarry well with sireno the intermarriage rate in the United States in some places is as high as seven in ten you know what that means that means seven out of ten marriages in which somebody is a Jew the other party will not be a judge seven out of 10. into marriage sometimes parents all up you know their child is engaged to a guy and how do you stop it well the truth is without a religious commitment it is almost impossible to make a secular argument against your marriage I mean why shouldn't your child into marry are you a racist I mean what are you going to say if you have total beliefs then you can come up with different arguments but the a secular argument not too into marry is a very very hard thing to do and the truth is I have to say though that what's even more painful is that even among the Orthodox community even though the Orthodox work I'm not going to call it an epidemic it's not seven out of ten obviously but there is a not insubstantial situation of even religious kids who are raised to be shoulder Shabbos in Germany so we're pretty weak on that one then the second uh Merit not speaking Russian heart once again with all of our Sinatra we keep on going back and forth against each other and then the Third sense of History how many people don't have a sense of where they're coming from I uh person I know in both rooms I love professor I think now he's retired he once told me that he had a student go over to him this this person is conspicuously uh although he teaches in a secular law school he has a long beard you know it looks obviously very very from so a student went over to him and said hey you know you look like a rabbi um I want you did you ever hear of this Rabbi Elijah villna and I'm I'm told he was a pretty famous rabbi the velvega and the kids said you know I'm a direct great great grandson I didn't even know who the villagon was talk about not being connected to the glories of your past and lack of Hope how much do we yearn from Russia how much do we I mean we may believe it intellectually but in a real existential sense it's not really part of our lives so it's a funny thing when we look down at the Jews in Egypt and we say oh they're all you know they're in the front end level of till now we might be 49.5 we might be 50. we might be 52. ah you'll ask me a question isn't it true that if you hit 50 or a redeemable so we got to be better than that not necessarily because your clientele listener has an interesting Cloud he says the rule that if you hit Level 50 you're irredeemable is only before Hashem gave the Torah to the Jewish people once he gave the Torah even if you hit 50 you're going to be okay well that's good news and that's bad news the good news is even if you hit 50 you're okay the bad news is we can no longer assume we didn't hit 50. all the time because otherwise we wouldn't be redeemable the answer is no we could hit 55 we could be at 60. so there are a lot of challenges here and as I indicated the other week forget forgive me for repeating a little bit these four merits of the Jewish people I'm not really religious parents they're not from kite merits they're active spirits being faithful to your spouse not turning against your fellow Jew holding on to your Jewish name holding on to your Jewish language we could call this pejoratively ethnic Judaism this was not out of spiritual values they were worshiping abidazara how spiritual could there be but you see that identifying as part of Colonius realms is not the end-all of Judaism but it's the beginning of it without that there can be no hope I think I mentioned more than once my encounter in Chicago many years ago Avenue uh they're pretty strappy still there there was a kosher style restaurant called The Bagel kosher style meaning Trey and I remember walking by and I windy Chicago winter a day and I saw a sign in the restaurant window on Saturday that we offer a free glass of wine with every order of chocolate so I was thinking to myself at the time this is everything that's wrong with American gastronomic Judaism a non-kosher wine with non-kosher chocolate made on Shabbos that you come in and you pay money and this is somehow supposed to be Shabbos right the person remembers that his grandmother made something called troubled and advantage of its wine so I'm going to go in and do the same thing and that way I'm going to have a Shabbos experience how trivial and how foolish then as I get older hopefully wiser I don't know if it's certainly older I think to myself that there is some value in this the person has a stirring the person has a Feeling I want to connect to the Jewish people I don't know how I don't know what I'm not ready to change my life I want to connect a little guy you know a guy's an ID I don't know if they have discontents today but they'll say my guy a guy goes her name rafi's and Jessica his shirt is open to his uh navel and he wears a Jewish mugaint of it so I'm supposed to say oh what a great guy he speaks Hebrew and he keeps a Hebrew name Etc but you know what is that the answer is it is something he is publicly proclaiming You Are My People and with you you're my group that counts for something people go with you in airplanes and they sometimes whisper conspiratorially I'm a member of the tribe whatever whatever it will be yeah it happens all the time if you're conspicuously religious Jew they know you're Jewish people will often come out of the woodwork now I say I have to admit sometimes it irritates me because I'm busy whatever it is I just don't sometimes hey I'm Jewish too okay but it's wrong that it irritates me because it shouldn't irritate me the person that says you're my people is connecting to our Israel and that connection is the showish is the roots of redemption now it's not the end you know you may remember from the 1970s when every synagogue conservative reform orthodox we're agitating for the liberation of the Soviet the Jews of the Soviet Union so they all had a big sign on the show parking lot during the grass let my people go now the problem is that is taken from the Parsha shalakami sends my people but they always leave out the last word send my people so they will serve me it's not just let my people go there's a purpose so yeah freedom is so we will serve Hashem for sure so it's not the end-all but the identification with the Jewish people is the beginning and without that beginning there can be no ending so as I said last week in these partios of yet with Triumph we should think about how we can achieve that type of State in our own lives [Music] help me [Music]