Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Re-Experience the Awesome Power of Redemption

my baby [Music] okay hi everybody thank you for for coming and um today's share is dedicated a reformed devorah if I could just insert a personal note as I mentioned last week my wife is undergoing some surgical procedures and I would also like to add her name as a person for who's who we should dive in her name is Sarah Khana bass Shayna and all of these should have your first Lima Beethoven Israel in additionomo memory of our Rick savinsky's mother her your site is on the 8th of schwatz he did have a special request did I say abraca charcoal in memory of his mother I just want to tell arik that I did do so but I did so before this year because I was thirsty so I did make a bracha with your mother in mind it should contribute to another Shama um So today we're still of course in the book of shmos and in Persia's bow which has the last of the three Marcos we actually have yetis mithrayum itself The Exodus does occur and in parsha's ball already we have many many halachos many many Mitzvahs the laws of Corbin pesach and the laws of hamets and the obligation of eating matzah and at this point the Torah becomes very halachadik oriented not just in terms of the narration and and the like and I want to focus on a certain passage that's in the Haggadah that is actually taken from the mishnah in the 10th paragraph and this is the very famous statement of Reverend gumlio Robin anybody who does not explain the significance I have two I have a backup just in case anyone that fails to explain three mitzvos of pesach are connected to the Seder loyatza he has not fulfilled his obligation and the three Commandments that have to be explained are pesach the eating of the Corbin pesach matzah the eating of matzah moral the eating of Moro now let's first just analyze the simple translation of the sentence anyone that does not explain these three Commandments does not or has not fulfilled his obligation by the way his or her obligation because men and women are equal here what obligation has not been fulfilled by the failure to explain it is not the obligations of pesachmatsu umara I fulfill the Mitzvah bringing the carbon pesach even if I don't explain it I fulfill the Mitzvah of eating matzah even if I don't explain it I fulfill the Mitzvah of marwar by eating it even if I don't explain it so low yatsa does not mean that the sipor hadvarim is a condition for the Mitzvah of but rather it is a condition for the Mitzvah of Haggadah there is a Mitzvah the night of pesach to recount The Exodus and essentially what Robin is telling me is that the explanation of pesachmatsu um is a condition to a fulfillment of the Mitzvah of the narration of The Exodus now this is not intuitively obvious one might have thought if I give you the history I talk about the plagues I talk about uh Pyro's heart being hardened and I talk about the Jews leaving metriam who says I have to talk about the passage um that's in a sense a consequence of the history rather than part of the historical account itself and yet indeed pesach the explanation of is a helic of the Mitzvah of Sheba yitzia Smith Ryan in fact it is arguable although I'm not sure I'm not sure I have a definite proof for this that because it's it is situated as a component of the Haggadah then even if a person didn't have matzah let's say in a concentration camp didn't have morar and of course today without a base of mikdush we don't have carbon pesach but we still have to recount this because it's not because of the Mitzvah of pesachmatsu um rather it is because of the Haggadah itself right this is very important now because of this let me just point out observation that people need to pay attention to the paragraphs that explain is towards the end of the maggot it is before the second cup people are hungry you've been going for a while depending how long you conduct your seder and whoever is bringing out the food usually the women but you know men can bring out the food as well people will often get up around the rub and gum Leo paragraphs and go into the kitchen but the truth of the matter is that is the single most important part of the Haggadah that is the one part of the Haggadah that cannot be skipped you can skip the four Sons which everybody loves but that actually is an option I mean to me like obviously whatever the minute we say but how logically you are yo say the midst of separesius Australia even if you didn't discuss the four Sons but you're not yotsay the Mitzvah the Arisa of sibrious meteorium if you don't explain the significance of so what that means is if anybody is going to get up and go into the kitchen while those paragraphs are being recited they must either recite them ahead of time or recite them when they come back before they drink the second cup before they drink the second cup because it is an indispensable of the Haggadah of the maged which must be recited over the second cup of wine albeit that's a rabbinic requirement as we talked about last week but you have to say it before you drink the second cup because that's to be said over the wine now I want to connect tonight's statements that anyone that doesn't explain his Mitzvah with another statement in the Haggadah foreign right this is again a passage every person must regard themselves as if they themselves were personally liberated from the Triumph and dhagata says it is not only our forefathers that Hashem redeemed but Hashem redeemed us now compare this to an earlier statement at the beginning of the which is slightly different in the beginning of the hagada we said if Hashem would not have taken our forefathers out of Egypt we and our children and our children's children might still have been enslaved or assimilated or disappeared whoever you interpret it now that's not the same thing as what the says at the end in the beginning we're not saying I was liberated what we're saying is I am grateful for what happened to my ancestors because had my ancestors not been liberated I might not be here but that's not saying I have to regard it as if I myself was taken out of metriam that simply says I mock your toe for what happened to my ancestors because that benefits me but by the end of the market we're making a much more radical claim it is not simply I'm grateful for the liberation of my ancestors because I benefit from that spiritually as well as physically but we make the claim that I myself was liberated from Israel how can that be so that's not true I was never in Egypt I certainly was not a slave in Egypt how can it be said I am high of to regard myself as if I myself was liberated from Egypt there are two explanations one explanation they actually talked about last week but I'm going to bring it in again but the simple explanation which the rambam himself gives is that is a form of method acting those of you who might remember from a prior existence you know Marlon Brando method acting and the like understand the notion of putting yourself in the role the power of imagination right so the method actor Will Lee Strasberg would go into hiding you know for a week to get themselves in the mood in fact I've even heard that some actors who are supposed to play evil people they got so into the road that they committed suicide that they contact with the powers of evil yeah in the context of preparing for the row like literally destroyed them that's how serious they took they took their own and the truth of the matter is the Corona liberal one of the great great ballet Musa of the 20th century once said a ball muster has to have a good imagination about muster should visualize should visualize matantara should visualize Korea so the rambam says obviously he doesn't use the term method acting that when it says I have to regard myself as if I was liberated from Egypt it's not that it actually happened it didn't happen to me but in order for me to appreciate what Hashem has done I have to imagine what it's like to be a slave I have to feel the pain of the whip I have to feel the humiliation I have to feel the suffering and then I imagine myself what type of Joy I would have when the great day comes that I'm finally free so according to the ram Banks is a form of harnessing the power of imagination to relive or to experience something that you actually never did experience because that way your heart is filled with joy and appreciation in other words I don't mean this pejoratively at all it is a make-believe exercise in order to generate right that is what the rambam says now alpi Kabbalah which I'm not going to get into there is this notion that all of the Future Souls of the Jewish people were in fact enslaved in vitrium and therefore even if I don't remember it and even if my body so to speak was not in mithram my nishama was there so in a quite literal sense there was a Liberation because there was an enslavement right that's the kabbalistic idea that the Irene talks about about the imprisonment of all of the nishamas the totality of Hami Israel past present and and future so that's a second but the third mahalash is the one that I actually shared a week or two ago maybe last week or two weeks ago and that is from the balotanya and you'll remember that the balotanya tells us that the word mitzrayim has a double meaning of course means Egypt but betrayam also means limitation boundary constriction blockage and every person has a mitzrayim in their life the matrium could be egotism could be gaiva could be Hedonism it could be self-loathing it could be laziness whatever it would be lack of enthusiasm or passion in life there are blockages that stop us from connecting to God and when God liberated the Jewish people from mitsarayim I.E Egypt he put into the Berea into the creation a power that enables us to be liberated from the mitzrayims that exist within our own lives so says the balatanya very beautifully each person must regard themselves as if they were taken out of mitzrayim does not mean each person has to regard themselves as if they were a slave under Paro in Egypt that God took out that didn't happen at least non-carbalistically but rather each person must identify their matrium and understand that the koak of Yetis mithrayam will give each and every one of us a Liberation and a freedom so if you had to pick I don't know if you remember in middle school with the like they used to call the junior high so when you would read a paragraph you'd have to pick the topic sentence of the paragraph like what is the Assad what is the foundational idea of the paragraphs not always the first sentence often it is but sometimes it's in the middle so if you have to pick the topic sentence of the Haggadah it would be Rose under any interpretation which means in other words the Haggadah is not about memory or commemoration it is about experiencing a process of liberation from whatever mitzrayim enslaves me every person has a material is a reality in our life called out in agony called out to Hashem from the mates are made from Israel from the narrow confining places should answer me with expansiveness openness free me liberate me so I can become what the potential of my nishama is intended to become right that's the Assad WTS with train so seen in this way as you go through The Narrative of uthia smithrayam both in terms of the haggade itself and in terms of the Hamish the story there is a double meaning there is a double dialogue that's going on there is of course the events that happens the plagues and everything else but then there's an ultra another and that's a double shovel the local network meaning that is the that is the collective story of the Jewish people meaning that is our story that is the shared experience but there's also an idiosyncratic unique meaning that applies to each individual person as they struggle with their own mithram and that is not necessarily a shared thing everybody has their own metronium everybody has their own struggle everybody has their own process right so I wouldn't necessarily call it lower meaning and higher meaning but there is what you might call General meaning which of course is very very important that is the shared history of the Jewish people how we became the nation of God but then there is the idiosyncratic private meaning that applies to me in my Triumph in my mitraim so seen in this way therefore the mitzvos of can be understood both in terms of a general commemoration of The Exodus but also in terms of the specific application to my own struggles and my own matrium so I'm going to take it in reverse order and I'll explain at the end why I'm going in reverse order instead of looking at pesach matsumara I'm going to start with tomorrow right there is a mitzvah that the night of pesach we have to eat some bitter herbs tomorrow we make a broccoli design more art in a way is a kind of simple it's to commemorate the slavery of Egypt to remember the bitterness remember the slavery how does that apply to my own matrium so perhaps the lesson is that the very first step towards achieving a liberation from your mitzrayim is to be honest in recognizing that you are a slave not to live in a state of denial far too often things in life are not going right my relationships with other human beings spouse children other people not good my relationship with Hashem is not what it should be there are issues that a person fails to acknowledge you sweep it under the carpet and if you sweep enough under the carpet the the pile gets so high it goes up to the ceiling so Maurer says the first step towards being liberated from my inner mitzrayim is to be honest and open I don't mean to other people to yourself honest and open to myself that I have the bitterness of slavery that I have to deal with because by openly acknowledging when I say openly I mean to yourself by honestly acknowledging I should say that I am a slave that there may be aspects of my life that are out of control there may be in unim that are not masudara that are not going in the right direction that is the very first step and I remember years ago and I used to live in the Silver Spring Maryland so I taught that the University of Maryland law school which was in Baltimore so if you go from Silver Spring to Baltimore you drive north 95 North I used to take a highway major highway 95 North so I was doing that but I remember that there were times I would be driving and one time I remember in particular and I wasn't paying attention and uh there's like a turn off to 95 south and also I'm driving and I notice the Washington monuments the Lincoln Memorial the Jefferson Memorial now if you know that area you don't really see that when you're going north on Baltimore you only see that when it's 95 south going to Virginia now I went through a mental process I can't even explain how this is even sensible I didn't want to admit to myself that somehow I got out of the wrong the wrong side because I really didn't know how to get back you know so I I was actually telling us you know maybe you never noticed this going to Baltimore you know maybe you do see it on the way to Baltimore uh you just never noticed so you're seeing something new I didn't want to admit I was lost because I didn't know how to get out of being lost so I figured I would just keep driving and what what what would happen well the truth is 95 south does go all the way to Key West Florida and at that point you make a U-turn U-turn and you're back to 95 north but I would have been late late for class it just uh it wouldn't have worked uh that well so and of course this happens all the time in life people investment I mean this is the famous idea of throwing uh bad money you know uh after good man now you invest money in some failure and you keep on putting more and more and more and more in because you hope that somehow you'll turn it around as opposed to cutting your losses and we have the famous statement of Albert Einstein that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and over again and expect a different result doesn't happen that much so the first step to getting back in the right direction 95 North is to admit that I'm on the wrong route until I admit until I admit it I was on the wrong route I had no chance of getting on the right route so that's margar is the courage to admit that there are things in our lives that need to be corrected and inertia can take you only so far but at some point we got to deal with things that's what Marlboro says now we then come to matzah now I want to digress a little bit and talk about matzah because through those matzah is actually very complicated idea in fact the very story of matzah why do we eat matzah so we say I mean let me just tell you what the problem is there's actually a major interpretive pleasure shot problem and how to understand the idea of matzo says that the morning of the Exodus the 15th of Nisan we were baking bread for the trip and what happened was the Egyptians were so anxious to get us out of there and according to Kabbalah Hashem was so anxious to get us out of there because we would have hit the 50th level of tumor right the homage doesn't say that directly says the Egyptians were pushing us out the arizal as the dimension that had we waited even a few minutes we would have hit Level 50 and that would have been it but whatever it is the idea was because we had to get out of there in a hurry either because of the Egyptians or because of Hashem we didn't have time to let our dough rise so we had to bake it in a state of matzah and therefore Hashem commanded that we eat matzah to commemorate the hurriedness through which we left mitzrayim but that's what that's what now there's a real real problem with this the implication is had pyro said ah take your time whenever you're ready to go or in Hashem said yeah take your time The Narrative implies we would have made comments we would have made comments we weren't able to make comments because we were kicked out either by God or by Miss Ryan right but here's the problem two weeks before the Exodus Nissan God gave us a bunch of Commandments and among those Commandments were before The Exodus you must eat matzah and you're not allowed to have hummus for seven days so by the time we're baking our bread the morning of the 15th we don't have a choice to make it cremates were already commanded it has to be Mata so how can you say right we're going in circles how can you say the reason I eat matzah is because I was kicked out so fast from Islamic again either by Hashem or metriam that's not relevant to this question right the reason I eat Masters because I was kicked out so quickly that I didn't have time to let my dough rise even if I had time I couldn't have let my dough rise because Hashem already told me you're not allowed to have hummus this was two weeks before you see this it's really fundamental difficult difficult question so here is what the Ron says the Ron offers a very interesting explanation based on the mishnah in soccer that says and again the the proofs are a bit intricate so I I won't be able to go into all of the proofs but I'll give you the conclusions that hierologically there was a difference between the pesach as it was celebrated in mitzrayim the very first and the pesach that would be celebrated in later years both in the desert and in Erich Israel and that is the isser of eating hamids was only the first day it did not apply to all seven days it's only the donuts that there's an isser of seven days and the second distinction is that even on that one day the issue is only eating there is no issue to possess the hamets our own in other words means all future pesos in two ways number one is seven days is only one day difference one difference number two pesos not only is there a Prohibition against eating Hermits but there's a Prohibition against owning comments right that's why we sell our climates or destroy our climates this is called you should not see hummus that belongs to you or it should not be found in your possession there was no history of owning Clements so says the Ron there for the following the morning of the 15th they were not allowed to eat bread that's true but since they were baking not just for immediate consumption they were baking for the trip they would have been permitted to bake to make bread come a stick of bread which they could carry with him on day one in order to eat it on day two so but what happened was to commemorate the idea that we were kicked out so quickly that we were not able to make it right Hashem then said starting from the next year you're not allowed to eat this or even own this comments for the seven days in other words this way everything gets fit the Commandment they were given only prohibited them from eating bread day one and they were allowed to own it and therefore the morning of the 15th they could make Hames to carry for future Journeys but since to commemorate the hurriedness by which we were expelled we weren't able to let the dough rise that's why it became a seven day memorial this is how the Ron reconciles it which means the following the first Seder which was the night before this event they did eat matzah what was the reason of the month I mean here's the problem I mean you're telling me we eat matzah to say there's a commemorate the haste in which we were forced to leave Egypt but that haste didn't occur until the next morning so what was the point of eating matzah the night before right a child would ask his father why am I eating matzah now and the father would say well God commanded us two weeks ago that we have to eat matzah tonight which is true but then the kid says but why Dad could not answer oh because of the haste with which we left with Ryan because we didn't leave mitzrayim yet so the answer is that the meaning of matzah at the first seder the very first Seder is not the same as the meaning of matzah from every other seder since then matzah in fact has a double symbolism matzah is a zaker is a commemoration of the hurriedness by which we had to leave Egypt otherwise we would have hit the 50th level and it shows how God Saves Us in the nick of time but matzah is also a slavery symbol because it is called the bread of affliction as the ebenezera writes pyro used to feed slaves matzah because matzah sticks in your belly and it's not takes a long time to digest so when I eat matzah I'm doing two things at once I'm commemorating the Redemption of God foreign but I'm also like Mara reenacting the slavery which would mean in other words the very first Seder matzah was just to remind us of the slavery now you may say why do you have to be reminded you're a slave but the short answer is God is kind of telling you just like eating Moro that even though I'm liberating you never forget where you're coming from in other words the point I'm making is matzah acquired a new symbolism from year two onwards that it did not actually have in year one it's an interesting idea that matzah is a complex symbol in that way right Maurer is a slavery symbol four cups of wine which is rabbinic is a freedom symbol matzah is a composite symbol of both the bread of affliction and the hurriedness of God's Redemption so matzah has a lot of different meanings uh but one meaning of Mata morale says well well first of all I mean many many swarms talk about the idea that hamets and matzah represent the polarities of arrogance versus humility hamites is puffed up filled with itself it represents gaiva matzah all the air is taken out represents humbleness humility submission that's one message of course that's why James represents the Yates or harad the eight Sahara is called the leavening agents in the dough because the eight Sahara operates primarily through gaiva and arrogance actually that's that's uh one idea there's another idea the morale points out that khanates is capable of spoilage hamit's rats my bread gets moldy matzah does not spoil and again that signifies the idea that when you connect to that evil the acerhara ultimately you're entering a state of rattedness as opposed to matzah you know you can have matzo from Masada right it's those going to be edible and the light but the morale gives a third idea of hummus and matzah and he says represents inertia because you don't have to do anything to make comments again this is very important you don't need yeast you don't need a starter no professional Baker would have all of these things but according to halacha if water hits flour and you do nothing for 18 minutes 18 or to 22 minutes mclokus whatever degree of fermentation takes place is you don't have to do anything is what happens by itself and matzah requires the affirmative action of arresting the process of Remus before the 18 minutes by baking it in which the heat destroys the enzymes that would cause the fermentation so since the marao mates represents inertia matzah represents taking action right that's why in fact because I'll commonly describe whenever you delay an opportunity it says do not make the opportunity don't wait too long when a Mitzvah comes to your hands don't let it become is inertia okay so we have three associations is arrogance is spoilage rat is inertia Mata is action like I believe the says you even see this in the letters share two common letters ma'am and Sonic has and matzah has hay so if you can visualize it a hey is simply a Hess that's truncated meaning imagine the left leg so if it's growing let's say it's growing towards the top so if you let it reach the top you have a guess if you cut it short you have a hay which means matzah is that which could have become and did not it represents taking decisive action in fact based on this it's a very interesting halaka that may sound a little paradoxical and that is the only we know that the only grains that can become hummus are the five grains that's wheat barley spelled oats and rye they can become Honeys if they're mixed with water rice millet buckwheat quinoa cannot become Hermits now the fact that ashkenazim don't eat rice called kidneyos or don't eat corn no that's those are I mean hug him that became binding at some point but they'll rise at the Double push it rice cannot become hummus right because in fact there are even scientific reasons the particular processes of fermentation is limited to those five species so that's a well-known idea that only the hamasis can become it but here is the thing that's a little counter-intuitive the only thing that you can use for matzah are the things that are capable of becoming comets so I can make matzah from wheat which of course is the most matzah I can make it from barley I can make it from oats people have Celiac or gluten intolerance can often have oat mats we can have Rye moths although I've never seen it spelled matzah but you can't have corn matzah even if you're sweaty you can't have rice matzah the only thing that can be kosher for matzah are things that potentially can become hamit you might have thought maybe we ought to go the opposite way if the whole point is I want to be really really sure I don't have Clements then maybe I would have said make my matcha from something that's not comets that cannot be Hermits the answer is no because you say if matzah is a lesson in combating inertia by taking initiative it has to be something that if you don't take the initiative it's going to turn into the bad thing if it's not going to turn into the bad thing no matter how much time you waste then matzah is no longer symbolic of seizing the moment that's why by the way among briskers for example they actually keep their consumption of matzah down to the minimum because if you think about it the most dangerous food to eat on PESA is matzah because matzah is the thing well of course if it's baked it's okay okay but you know potentially what is the most potential item you might have in your house it might be the Masa if it wasn't properly watched if it wasn't properly supervised in fact is if the matzah is inflated puffed up a little bit you got to discard it right before peso can you check your month says for any type if it's folded over there's a fear that part of it in the fold was not baked properly and that's why gabruck's right the men hug him the Sharia that they will not eat matzo that's dipped in liquid or soup uh is because of the fear that maybe part of the matzo is unbaked and if you expose it to liquid it might become hamit right I remember reading there's a fascinating book I'll give a little little plug for it it's called John Lennon and the Jews I don't know if you ever some of you might might have come across it it's a very hilariously funny book the author is a professor at barilan [Applause] um I I can't I'm not sure if he's totally Orthodox he seems very traditionally very knowledgeable I'm not sure if he's 100 from or not but it is a very very fascinating book in fact it's a very interesting book his whole thesis is really a a uh an argument with John Lennon's song Imagine right John Lennon has a song Imagine where he talks about how much the world would be better if we wouldn't have different religions in different nations and different ethnicities we would all just live in actors and unity and why have this religion and that religion imagine so this book is trying to show that unless you have particular connections to family to God you're not able to be universally kind to everybody Universal kindness comes from the strength of particular attachments quite a brilliant book but he tells the story admittedly those are stories that that he's invited to pesach to some very religious friends and he said every year he looks forward to a matzah balls at the Seder this is like his dream matzo ball and he's invited this is a gourmet cook and he's so excited and there's a long haggad they're going through this and that and that and that and finally the moment arrives where the soup is being brought to the table and he sees his soup is clear just clear soup so he coughs and he says you know they forgot to put in the matzo ball you know so they said well you know we don't we don't eat matzo balls on peso you know Sharia so then all right he figured he didn't know what that was so he just took his own piece of matzo he figured he would dump dunk it into the soup so then he says it was like those movies where the person is in slow motion ah you know he's shouting he says the woman like jumped over the table took his super threw it out of the it was like the Fifth Fifth Third threw it out of the house you know luckily nobody was walking by at the time and he didn't the guy didn't know what was going on uh but he said she said you know you can't do this truth we don't do this on Facebook we don't have matzo and peso we eat the matzo that we have to have we don't do whatever then he went to another place where they served mafza but the matzah was in a plastic garbage thing so it shouldn't give any crumbs on the table Etc and he said you know I thought pesach is about matzah you know so they told them you know you know you can eat matzo the rest of the year and paste like we don't eat matzo you know because of this idea that Mata is the closest thing to to Hamid okay so now let's apply this to the Paradigm right I had mentioned marwar that the first step of marwar is to be liberated from your own matrium you have to acknowledge your slavery if you don't acknowledge your slavery there's no way you can be free but acknowledgment of a problem is not enough matzah symbolizes the imperative of action it's not enough to be aware of my deficit I gotta take concrete action to address it you know there are people who go into therapy uh their entire life right Psychotherapy so they know every little problem they've had from the time they were born and maybe even pre-birth trauma maybe preconception trauma you know who knows what's going on up there in shamayam and they know everything but they never take constructive movements to address it to change it and if Mara is the cognitive awareness that I have issues matzah taking the opportunity in a concrete way to address it take decisive action you know there was a an American academic a Robert Hutchins not Jewish she was a very very brilliant person uh he this is going back to the 40s and 50s he was president of the University of Chicago at the age of 25 which is quite quite amazing a lot of The Graduate students were older than he when he was a college President he was a true prodigy and at one point somebody was concerned that he was not getting enough physical exercise and they said to him you know Dr Hutchins he says don't you ever feel the urge to exercise so he said I surely do but whenever I have the urge I lie down and I just know if I wait a few minutes it'll pass I I I wait till it passes I don't let it bother me uh that's undoubtedly true with exercise and it's also true with spiritual growth all of us have moments of inspiration there are times that we get up we really want to do something maybe it's after Yom Kippur uh maybe 30. it might be a family simcha you know you have a child getting married and you just feel you want to Express gratitude in some ways sometimes it might just be the awareness that we're so good to be in you shall I am a place where Moshe Urbana was not soaked to be changed in a positive way okay and I I actually don't mean change but to kind of access what's already there that's actually the meaning of chuba Cuba is not changing it's returning to what you are but the thing is with inspiration unless you concretize it intangible action inspiration just leaves after a while when you kind of concretize it then it gets stronger it's like a bridge the way you build a suspension bridge it starts off with like a cord a single cord going across the spell wire going across a span of water whatever it would be and that wire can hold you know another wire but and eventually uh you build on that so we can hold tons and tons and tons of weight that's the nature of a Mitzvah this is what gazal say when they say mitzvah guerreras Mitzvah a Mitzvah causes a mitzvah so you concretize your inspiration and tangible action even if it's very small and then it grows on you and it grows in you it grows within you to bring you to a higher and higher places so more is to be aware of my problem Matson is to have the courage to take a step to actually deal with it don't just stay in the psychoanalytic therapeutic mode for 50 years become a behaviorist so to speak in which you actually try to change things in Behavior now it's not actually a beautiful story taught in many many different modalities but one of his modalities one of his famous modalities were stories not the only one people think of that one as only a Storyteller that's obviously not the case because they may run is filled with very very deep kabbalistic Torah but he did he did teach by story and he once said a very practical thing he says there's a certain Myla when you teach by a story if I teach by Torah so if you get it you get it if you don't get it you got nothing that I teach my story so if you get the Deep message you get it and if you don't you got a good story so teaching by stories is is always good because either way somebody benefits from it so in one of his uh stories he talks about a prince who was convinced that he was a chicken he didn't think he was human anymore he took off all of his clothes he was crawling around under the table and he was eating table Scripts and people tried to talk him out of this and there was no way that they could convince him he just didn't listen to anybody so finally a wise man shows up and says I will cure this person and the thing he does is he takes off his clothes and he crawls under the table and he eats scraps along with the prince so the prince looks at him like for some reason the prince could still talk I'm not sure how that worked talking chicken and he says what are you doing so the man said I'm a chicken too just like you so they're clucking together and they're eating off the table then after a while the guy puts on a pair of pants and the princess what are you doing he says who says chickens can't wear pants okay so the prince puts on pants then he puts on a shirt says who says chicken skins wear shirts then he stands up and says who says chickens can't stand up sits at the table so the long and the short of it was that after six months the prince still thought he was a chicken he still thought he was a chicken but it made no difference because he internalized the idea that a chicken could do absolutely everything that a human being could do so the mind off Kamina now would we say that the prince was cured well I suppose in a literal way he wasn't cured he was still laboring under a delusion but what difference does it make he was acting like a human being now ravnakwan never tells you the point of his stories I mean these are stories and to this very day people discuss it they debate it there are commentaries on the stories and commentaries on the commentaries and people are makhadesh but I think that there's a relatively simple message here and that is don't let your mental self-image prevent you from becoming the person you're capable of becoming from we often have a certain image I'm a turkey so to speak to us to switch from chicken to Turkey meaning I'm not capable I can't be the one that you know learn stuff yummy or I can't be the one that goes to minion every day or I can't be the one that greets people who are strangers and show with a smiling face and a show of them that isn't me I have a certain image and my image does not allow me to behave that certain way so there are two ways of addressing it the harder way is to directly attack that image which you might have gotten from childhood and work on it and obliterate it and change it another way of saying okay I have that image but that's not going to stop me a chicken can do this too what happens is the longer you behave as a human being then the less likely you'll think you're a chicken meaning to say instead of saying I gotta change my mental attitude and that will change my actions let the actions change the attitude instead of the attitude changing the actions I think that's from ackerman's point to not allow yourself to be paralyzed by a negative self-image to kind of just jump in like just like over next week's parisha jumps into the into the office of jumps into the Raging scene so again morar is to be honestly aware of your slavery matzah is take action we then come to Corbin Patrick again I'll explain why I reverse the order when I finish Now Carmen pasta has many many many symbols there you know it's again many many ways of looking at the carbon passage but there's one interesting halacha of carbon pesach which is in this way and that is you cannot bring a carbon pesach as an isolated individual meaning even if you don't have any family you have to join up with another group even if you have a small little lamb that's only one month old and you have a voracious appetite and you can finish the whole thing yourself to join up with other people you cannot bring the carbon pesach as a jacket again it's a Mac Locus in the Gamora but this is how the rambam pasigans and the lesson here is that in trying to get out of my own mitzrayim I should not take the journey by myself I need to be connected to other people who share my values share my dreams share my hopes in which each each of us give and strength and inspiration to the other I you know ideally that could be a husband and wife situation but it also applies in other relationships it applies to the show I belong to my Yeshiva my colleague you have to seek out in life people who share your aspirations to grow in that direction the wisest of all people foreign for when you have two people and one Falls the other person can raise him up if you're all by yourself and you fall who's going to raise you now this is literally true in the case of ice right if you're walking on ice and you fall like it's very hard to get up on ice without somebody picking you up but it also refers to life in life all of us go through challenges times of despondency times where we don't have hope times where things just seem too hard but when you're connected again spouse might be the optimal but but again this can apply outside of marriage too when I have a Javier when I have a friend they will give me when life is hard for me but let me point out you have to be ready to give reason when life is hard for them that's actually an important point you know perkiavas talks about friendship which literally means by a friend what do you mean by a friend what I pay money for it so some say it's uh you know you pay for a 50 minute an hour so your therapist is your friend for 50 minutes at once the 50 minutes are up he's not your friend anymore but for 50 minutes you have a friend but the simple meaning is yeah you buy a friend by being a friend the purchase price of friendship is giving friendship say far too often people want someone to be there for them because they have problems but they're not willing to be there for the other person there has to be a reciprocity here you know I have my weakness I need you to help me but you'll have your weakness and I'll be there to try to help you right so that's the idea of pesach and everybody has their own betrayum everybody has their struggles everybody has their weaknesses everybody has their challenges but you try to deal with it in the context of community the rambam rights although he may have gotten this from Aristotle but but I'll say the name of the rambam the rambam writes there are three types of friendships that exist in the world the lowest type of friendship is a practical friendship meaning to say I need friends because there'll be times in my life that I need something so for example if I lose my car keys or I lose the keys to my house if I don't have a friend like who do I call so friends on that utilitarian basis is like an insurance policy a life insurance policy you know you hope you're not going to need it or whatever but it's good to have when you need it so that's we'll call utilitarian friendship I have people that I can call when I don't have my keys when there's a fire when I have to go to the hospital kind of life insurance policy friends then there's another type of friendship which might be called social you know man is a social animal we get lonely we want people that we can interact to for social benefit of one side or the other introverts may need it less extroverts may need it more but everybody needs some level of contact with other human beings well these are legitimate utilitarian friendships social friendships have a Malcolm but the rambam says the highest and deepest type of friendship is what we would call a spiritual friendship in which each one is trying to help the other become the best person they can become now that type of friendship may not always be an easy friendship you see if I'm a friend with somebody casually because you know we schmooze together sometimes or uh you know we help each other out I don't need to confront if I see that they're doing something that's not so great or they see that I'm doing something that's not so great you know I don't have to talk about it meaning okay we'll just not bother but when you have the deepest level of spiritual friendship then each one wants to help the other person become the better person they become that sometimes means you got to bring up uncomfortable issues and that sometimes means you have to be willing to hear something uncomfortable about you about us but that is the Friendship that's transformative that is through the friendship that Shalom is talking about I'm there to pick you up you're there to pick me up and together we can achieve things that we wouldn't have been able to achieve alone so what we've done is taken remini's statement in reverse order and I I will end with why I reverse the order there is a reason for that we started with morar matzah pesach more acknowledge your slavery matzah do something about it and find a community it doesn't have to be a large community it could be one other person but find other people with which you can move forward and give to each other so now the last question is the order first of all look at the Seder itself first we eat matzah and then we eat more Roar then we combine it okay now if Mara is awareness of my problem and matzah is doing something about it then why do you eat matzah before Mara I mean I can't do something about a problem till if I till have I tell I have identified my slavery so he ought to eat tomorrow before matzah why do we eat matzo before Margaret and the answer would be this it's true that you cannot address a slavery you cannot address a problem until you've identified the problem but you have to internalize within yourself that you have the power to address the problem before you confront your negativity because there's always a danger if I jump into identifying my deficits I will be depressed I will be despairing I will be hopeless so I can't start with tomorrow I have to start with my capacity for constructive change then I can move to looking at my negativities and then I combine them the co-work I combine awareness of my negativities with constructive change of Masa I eat them together and I'm able to do it is the first step you have to go through before you have a matzah strategy but you need to internalize the lesson of matzah first because that will give you the strength and the confidence and the amuna to be able to address the particular slavery that that you are in and once again the context of community is going to be very very important in this you know it is a truism really uh that um celebratic writes about this very eloquently that you can be in a crowded room of hundreds and hundreds of people and you can feel very very lonely and isolated alone not connected now you don't have to be connected to hundreds of people you actually don't need that but all of us it is a human need it's a religious need it's a Jewish need it's an a shamani we need to have some people even one other person to which we can we can connect because otherwise we're not able to go on our journey I hope all of us in one way or the other should find those connections and as I mentioned last week in the name of the shalah in these persius of shave of him we are getting Anita's we are getting a spark of the kawaka beauty although that comes out in its strongest pesach time but in these partially around him in microcosm we're experiencing the awesome that can liberate us from all of the things that enslave us so thank you and we have a short of and if I say foreign [Music]