One of the deepest questions when it comes to Pesach is why did the Jewish people have to put blood on their doorposts before they were redeemed? Doesn’t God know who is Jewish? My teacher, Rabbi David Aaron, explained that it wasn’t important for God to know where we were, it was for us to know where we were. Pesach night is a night of identifying with the story of Jewish history, the story of our birth and our freedom. When God introduces Himself to us when He gave us the Torah He doesn’t call Himself the creator of the world, He calls Himself, “the One who took you out of Egypt”. The Pesach story is the beginning of a story we still live in. It is the foundation for our relationship with God, with nature, and with each other. Sometimes its hard to connect to the Seder and the story so I wanted to help by giving a step by step guide to making it more simple and easier for you along with questions, stories, and quotes. Have a beautiful Pesach, we hope this helps! Kadesh What we do: We start the Seder off by making a bracha on wine/grape juice and stating the purpose of what we are doing tonight by praising God for the opportunity to be here and celebrate. One of the reasons why we do it: When say Kiddush, we literally take the moment and transform it into holiness. What is holiness? According to the secrets of Torah it means to be whole, to be complete. When we say Kadesh we are describing why tonight is a part of what makes Jewish history complete. Just like grapes get crushed to become refined and more valuable like wine, the Jewish people’s pain helped them become stronger. Point to Ponder: Why is leaving Egypt such an important part of Jewish history? How can we become more complete people by celebrating tonight. Urchatz What we do: We wash our hands without a bracha. One of the reasons why we do it: Even though there is a hygienic element to washing our hands before we eat, one of the secrets of Urchatz is in its name. It has a Vav as its first letter which is a letter that means “and”. Urchatz means “and we wash”. We try to connect what we say during Kadesh to what we do at the Seder, we connect our words and our actions. Point to Ponder: What is something in my life that I say I want to do but I haven’t done and want to accomplish? Karpas: What we do: We dip a vegetable into salt water. One of the reasons why we do it: A vegetable represents the spring, the idea of growth and renewal. During the Spring we see fruits and vegetables that were constantly growing underground in the winter when we couldn’t see them grow. Through the bitterness in Egypt of the salt water, we grew and sprung up. Points to Ponder: What is a challenge in my life that has helped me grow? Yachatz: What we do: We split the middle matzah and save it for the afikomen later. One of the reasons why we do it: Before we tell the story of our brokenness and redemption we recognize that our children are in this world to fix its brokenness so we symbolize that by breaking the matzah so the children can find it later. Point to Ponder: What is something in this world that I can fix? Maggid: What we do: We read the story of leaving Egypt as well as the Jewish history background, the commentaries on the story, and recognize the gift of freedom that God gave us through miracles. One of the reasons why we do it: Telling the story is essential to the experience of reliving the exodus. When we tell the story, we become part of the story and realize how real it is. It isn’t just a story that happened, it’s a story that is happening. We live with Egypts in our lives, we are slaves to different things, we do experience God’s miracles. The goal of telling the story is to also have a conversation with different generations about our history. Point to Ponder: What part of the story do I connect to the most? How am I part of the Jewish story? Rachtza What we do: We wash our hands and say a blessing. One of the reason why we do it: Very often we think that holiness is only about the Torah and praying. However, Judaism believes that every moment can become meaningful and holy. When we eat food, we wash our hands to show that the ability to feel and connect to holiness is not just in our book, its in our hands themselves! We don’t live to eat, we take a moment and realize that we eat to live for holy purposes. Point to Ponder: What is one holy activity the energy you get from eating can help you with? Motzi Matzah What we do: We make a bracha over Matzah and eat it. One of the reason why we do it: The Matzah represents the story of leaving Egypt, when we eat it we directly connect to the Jews from then. Matzah also is simple and isn’t blown up out of proportion like Chametz. Matzah represents a simple faith the Jews had in God which allowed them to be free. Point to Ponder: Why is simple faith necessary? Maror What we do: We eat the bitter herbs. Why we do it: We acknowledge that the Jews experienced bitterness as slaves, to experience it, we eat bitterness. When we eat bitterness we realize that the story isn’t just happy. It involved a lot of pain and difficulty as well which we have to realize is part of the story. Point to Ponder: What is something bitter that happened? Korech What we do: We make a sandwich with matzah, maror, and charoset. One of the reasons why we do it: In order to really understand the experience you have to combine the sweetness of the moment and the bitterness together. Point to Ponder: How is it possible to grow through pain and struggling? Shulchan Orech What we do: We eat dinner. One of the reasons why we do it: Part of the Jews’ experience during their first Seder was sitting around a fire, eating together and telling the story. Point to Ponder: What do you think the Jews were talking about during dinner of that first Seder? Tzafun: What we do: The children go and find the afikomen which is then eaten for dessert. One of the reasons why we do it: Tzafun means “hiddenness”. For the Jews to be able to have the dessert and sweetness of freedom and redemption they had to find God when He was hidden. Point to Ponder: What is one situation in your life when you found God even when He seemed to be hidden? Barech What we do: We say a grace after meals, making blessings to appreciate what we had to eat. One of the reasons why we do it: Food is a gift and it is essential to understand that we have to be appreciative for the gifts that we have in life. Our food has a source and is special. Point to Ponder: Where did my food come from? How many people helped get it from its source to my mouth? Hallel What we do: We sing songs in praise of Hashem. One of the reasons why we do it: Sometimes its so easy to get lost among the piles of food and drinks that we forget at this point that the entire story of leaving Egypt is about God building a relationship with the Jewish people and bringing us closer to Him. Point to Ponder: Why is singing so powerful? Nirtzah What we do: We read poems and sing songs that connect to the redemption of the Jewish people. One of the reasons why we do it: The root of the word Nirtzah is “Rotzeh” to want, we establish that all we really want deep inside is to be redeemed and have the Beit Hamikdash in Jerusalem once again. Point to Ponder: What is one thing we can do to bring the redemption closer? Next Year In Jerusalem!! Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi did not include the passage "The order of Pesach is concluded" in his Haggadah, for indeed, the Seder never concludes. Its message endures throughout the year. A Jew leaves Egypt every day by transcending his limitations, reaching ever-higher levels of holiness. One hundred and fifty years ago, there was a big rebbe named the Szanzer Rebbe. He had a physical limitation of only having one good foot. He could only limp. When someone told him that they were going to Israel, to Yerushalayim, as hard as it was for him, he would not only walk them to the door, he would walk behind them down the street and say, Give my regards to Yerushalayim, to every house, to every tree, to every leaf, every flower, every cloud, and every star. Give my regards to the holy wall tell Yerushalayim we’re coming. It’s true that we’re limping, we’re broken, we can’t walk so fast, but we’re coming. When you Come to Yerushalayim your so full yet so broken at the same time. We went through so many difficult times. The amount of people who have dreamed to get to Jerusalem who held onto that hope until their last breath and weren’t able to make it there. Yet, we get to live out their dreams. The most powerful message of the Seder is to know we could have been in Egypt, in the holocausr, in the Crusades, yet we’re still walking, and we’re walking to Yerushalayim. |
Top Ten Seder Topics with Rabbi Cohen
These are questions Rabbi Cohen asked the kids that hopefully will become discussion topics to connect over the Seder and have a conversation. Everyone is welcome to answer the questions in the space provided.
1. Why do we observe a seder (order) on a night of freedom?
2. What is the significance of the number 4?
3. Boil vs. Roast – Are you a Jewish American or American Jew?
4. Had God not taken us out of Egypt would we not have been redeemed?
5. Why is there no blessing recited for the mitzvah of retelling the story?
6. Would it really have been Dayenu, enough if we were stranded at the sea?
7. What is the connection between the broken Matzah, the Manna and Afikoman?
8. When have you experienced personal slavery and personal redemption?
9. Are you a thermometer or thermostat and what relevance is this to Pesach?
10. What is one of your most unforgettable seder memories and why?
One of Rabbi Cohen’s ideas that he shared with the teens was an answer to question nine. He explained that answering this question in the right way is the beginning of redemption. When Moshe Rabbeinu was still an Egyptian Prince, he watched as an Egyptian beat a Jewish man. The Torah explains, “He looked one way, he looked the other way, and saw that there was no man. He hit the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.” Many commentaries, including Rabbi Joseph B Soloveitchik, explain that Moshe looked both ways- at both his Egyptian identity and Jewish identity- and saw there was no man. A person without an identity is missing an aspect of their humanity. He went forward and killed the Egyptian, also the Egyptian part of who he was and he buried both the Egyptian taskmaster and the Egyptian within himself in the sand. A thermometer tells you what the temperature in the environment is, while a thermostat allows one to shift the temperature within the environment. For the redemption to come, Moshe had to decide to not let his outside environment dictate what his identity was. That is the essence of Pesach, making a real statement that this is my story, these are my people, this is who I am regardless of the environment around me.
Stories
We know that the mitzvah of the Seder, is Sippur Yitziat Mitzrayim, being impacted by stories and continuing the story of the past and their messages and power sticking with us and impacting us throughout history. Some of the stories in our lives are serious or funny, some are about our families or heroes. Stories weave together the family, I invite you to share stories and create stories with your family especially on Pesach.
Unity Brings Strength
During Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, a group of his highly trained soldiers got stuck in a snowstorm and had to spend the night in the home of a pious Jew. Although Napoleon’s cavalry was the best of their kind, the heavy winter snow would not allow them to journey on any further.
As they were getting accustomed to their new surroundings, one of the soldiers gazed out the window and saw an extraordinary sight. An old man was sitting in a carriage being led by two very old horses. They were trekking through the evening snowstorm with ease. Puzzled, a soldier turned to his new host and asked: “How is it possible that our highly trained horses could not make it through the snowstorm, while these two very old horses seem to be moving along without a problem?”
The host took a look outside and smiled as he recognized his neighbor enjoying his evening ride.
“You see,” said the man, “I know this man for many years. He has owned these horses since they were born. They both grew up on the same farm and have always been inseparable. What is unique about them is that they feel each other’s pain. When the man whips one horse, the other horse feels the pain of his friend and therefore pushes harder as well. It’s the effort of both horses working in tandem that allows them to weather any storm.”
The Torah tells us that it was during the difficult exile in Egypt that G‑d saw the unity that the Jewish people displayed. When one slave finished his daily backbreaking quota, he would help his neighbor complete his workload. The unity inspired G‑d to deliver them from the mighty Egyptian empire.
We Can Also Create Miracles
It was midday when an elderly traveler entered the Jewish quarter of Baghdad. The marketplace, where merchants from many lands sold their fabrics, spices and other wares, seemed strangely empty for such a day. He sighted the grandest building in the section, and determined that must be the great synagogue. He continued his trek towards it until he entered its courtyard and sat down to rest, opening his small sack to take out a few dried figs to refresh his strength. Yet no sooner had he started his lunch than he became aware of a commotion from within the sanctuary. He peeked inside, and beheld a moving spectacle—hundreds of Jews fervently chanting Psalms amidst tears and sobs.
“What has happened?” he asked of the first Jew whose attention he could grasp. Hurriedly, and in a voice of desperation, the man told him the story as best he could.
The Sultan had decreed that the Jewish people of Baghdad must produce a leader who could perform miracles as Moses had done. Since Moses was the leader of the Jewish people in Egypt, and he was able to do miracles, the Sultan expected the same from the leader of the Jews of Baghdad. If they would not produce such a miracle-maker, the Jews would be expelled from Baghdad. Therefore, all of the Jews were fasting and praying to G‑d for salvation.
In his calm and patient disposition, the wise traveler approached yet more Jews, until he had finally pieced together the entire story:
The Sultan’s chief advisor, Mustafa, was a vicious Jew-hater whose mission it was to destroy the Jews, or at least to have them banished from Baghdad. He had convinced the Sultan that the Jews were not only infidels for denying the prophet Mohammed, but that they were thieves and liars as well, deserving immediate expulsion. At first the Sultan was hesitant to believe Mustafa; however, the Sultan was told about what had happened when the Jews left Egypt and what Moses did to Pharaoh. He began to worry that perhaps one of the Jewish leaders of Baghdad would attack him with plagues, and decided he did not want to take any chances. Therefore, he issued a decree that the Jews had to produce a leader like Moses, or leave Baghdad immediately.
The wise, elderly traveler sat in contemplation for several moments, and then approached one of the rabbis at the front of the synagogue and whispered in his ear. Soon all the leaders of the community were talking quietly, and then suddenly there was a loud clap on the lectern, and one of them spoke. “This man who is visiting our town says that he has a plan. He will travel to the Sultan immediately to try and save us. If he is successful, we will rejoice. However, if he fails, he will tell the Sultan that he acted alone. Meanwhile, we will continue to pray for his success!”
The man headed for the palace, pounded on the entrance gate, and said, “I am a Jew who can do miracles, and I demand to see the Sultan immediately.” Before long, he found himself face to face with the ruler of Baghdad. “So,” said the Sultan, “You claim you can do miracles like Moses. What can you do?”
Dozens of people, from the baker and the court jester to the royal guards and advisors, stared at the old man with the white beard and piercing eyes. “If you would be so kind,” said he, “I will perform a miracle akin to those which Moses himself did. Before your very eyes, I will cut off a man’s head with a sword, and then put him back together and make him live!”
The Sultan smiled nervously and glanced around, not knowing what to think or make of the situation. Perhaps the fellow was completely crazy. Or perhaps he was telling the truth. After all, he seemed extremely confident, and spoke with such conviction. What if he was telling the truth? If he doubted him, then who knows what kind of wrath would be unleashed on the Sultan and his kingdom.
He continued, “There is but one condition. The man whose head I cut off must be truly wise. In fact, he must be the wisest man in the realm. If not, his head will not properly reattach.”
Intrigued, the Sultan decided he must see for himself if the Jew was telling the truth. He looked around the room until his eyes fell on Mustafa, his chief advisor and the wisest man in the kingdom. Before the Sultan said a word, Mustafa cried out, “No, he is lying! The Jew is an impostor! He can’t really cut someone’s head off and reattach it.” “That might be true,” said the Sultan, “but what if he is telling the truth and we don’t accommodate him? Surely you don’t want to put the whole kingdom at risk! After all, were you not the one who had advised me to expel the Jews, lest we be put in danger?”
“Bring the sword immediately,” cried the Sultan. “Mustafa has volunteered!” With that, Mustafa began to tremble and yelled out, “No, I admit it. I was both wrong and very foolish. The Jewish people do not have extraordinary powers!” Mustafa ran out of the palace, never to be seen again. The Sultan annulled the decree, thanked the Jew for coming, and said that the Jews were welcome to live in Baghdad as long as they desired.
The man returned to the synagogue to share the good news. Immediately, there was unbelievable rejoicing, and a banquet was held in honor of the miracle that G‑d had done for His people. Then quietly and quickly, the old man slipped out and left the town before anyone could even get his name. Some people say that he was Elijah the Prophet. Some say he was a great mystic. Yet others believe that he was just a Jew who simply cared about his fellow Jews as much as he did about himself.
This story helps elucidate a very interesting aspect of the Passover observance. Every holiday is marked by mitzvahs. Yet, many of these mitzvahs are not equally fulfilled by all. For example, most of us hear the shofar from someone else who blows it, and on Chanukah, many have the custom that the head of the household kindles the menorah as a representative of the entire family. Yet, on Passover, everyone must eat his or her own matzah. On Passover, we are all equally significant.
The Exodus was the time when our people came together as one. Leaving Egypt united as one people set the stage for the mitzvah that Hillel considered to be the core of the entire Torah: love for a fellow Jew. The hero of this story actualized that which we all know to be true, that each of us is complete only when we do all that we can to ensure that every single Jew is being taken care of as well.
This is why the Passover haggadah begins with an invitation, “All who are hungry, let them come and eat.” Our table is complete only when it is open to others!
Just Showing Up is Special
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740–1809) spent his life acting as the self-appointed character witness for the Jewish people, engaging in a constant dialogue with G‑d, pointing out the unique qualities of every Jew he met. The following is one of the best-known “Berditchever” stories:
It was the afternoon before Passover, and Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was wandering through the streets of the Jewish quarter seeking out local smugglers. From one he quietly asked for a quote on contraband tobacco, from another he inquired about the availability of smuggled brocades and embroideries. No matter the merchandise he sought, everything was available for the right price.
However, when he started asking his newfound acquaintances to supply him with some bread or whiskey, those very same businessmen who had previously proved so accommodating balked. “Rabbi,” said one, “are you trying to insult me? The Seder will be starting in just a few hours, and no Jew would have even a speck of chametz left in his home or business.”
No matter the price offered, not one merchant was willing or able to come up with even a crumb of bread or a dram of alcohol. The town had converted into a chametz-free zone.
Thrilled with the results of his failed quest, the rabbi looked up to heaven and declared: “G‑d Almighty, look down with pride at Your people! The czar has border guards and tax commissioners dedicated to his commands. The police and the courts are devoted to tracking down and punishing smugglers and black marketeers, and yet anything one could possibly want is available. Contrast this with the faith and fidelity of Your Jews. It has been over 3,000 years since you commanded us to observe Passover. No police, no guards, no courts and jails enforce this edict—and yet every Jew keeps Your laws to the utmost!
“Mi k’amcha Yisrael—Who is like Your nation, Israel?!”
We’re Almost There
There were once two beggars who used to go around begging together. One was Jewish and the other a gentile. As the night of Passover approached, the Jewish beggar offered to help his non-Jewish friend get invited to a seder (the festive Passover meal accompanied by many commandments and rituals) and get a good meal. "Just put on some Jewish clothes and come with me to the synagogue. Everyone brings home poor guests for the seder. It's easy, you'll see."
The non-Jewish beggar happily agreed. On the first night of Passover they went to the synagogue, and sure enough, both got invited to different homes for the festive ceremony.
Hours later they met in a predetermined place in the local park. But to the amazement of the Jewish beggar, his friend was blazing mad.
"What did you do to me?" He shouted. "You call that a meal? It was torture!! It was hell! I'll pay you back for this—you'll see..."
"What do you mean? What happened?" the Jew asked.
"What happened? As if you didn't know! You Jews are crazy—that's what happened! First we drank a glass of wine. I like wine, but on an empty stomach... My head started spinning a bit but I figured that any second we would begin the meal. The smell of the food from the kitchen was great. Then we ate a bit of parsley. Then they started talking, and talking, and talking. In Hebrew. All the time I'm smiling and nodding my head as if I understand what they're saying—like you told me to—but my head is really swimming and hurting from the wine and I'm dying of hunger.
"The smell of the food from the kitchen is making me insane, but they don't bring it out. For two hours they don't bring anything out! Just talking, and more talking. Then, just what I needed.... another cup of wine! Then we get up, wash hands, sit back down and eat this big wafer called matzah that tastes like newspaper, leaning to the left (don't ask me why...). I started choking, almost threw up. And then finally they give me this lettuce, I took a big bite and wham! My mouth was on fire. My throat! There was horseradish inside! Nothing to eat but horseradish! You guys are crazy....
"Well, I just got up and left. Enough is enough!"
"Ah, I should have told you." replied the Jew. "What a shame! After the bitter herbs is a glorious meal. You suffered so long; you should have just held out for a few more minutes...!"
Jewish history is a seder. We've had our appetite teased with small moments of triumph. But mostly we've had "bread of faith" that our palates can't really appreciate. And generous helpings of bitter herbs.
The lesson? Two thoughts come to mind. You need patience to be a Jew. And since we've swallowed the maror already, we might as well hold out one minute longer and get the feast...
We’re Getting Closer
"Rabbi Ber of Rodshitz once stayed at an inn. In the morning he asked the innkeeper, "where did you get your chime clock? Every time I heard it strike the hour I was overcome with elation. I felt that wonderful things are going to happen." The innkeeper responded, "that clock was given to me as a pledge by a guest who could not pay his bill." Rabbi Ber asked, "could that man have been related to the Seer of Lublin?" The innkeeper then remembered that he had indeed heard of the man mention the Seer of Lublin. "Then I understand" Rabbi Ber said, "usually the chime of a clock is depressing because it indicates that another hour of our lives has gone, never to return. But with the Seer of Lublin it was otherwise. He saw every passing hour as bringing us that much closer to our personal and national redemption."
The Desire of a Jew
As Pesach 1945 approached, the Klausenberger Rebbe began to prepare for the holiday, paying no attention to the chains of Nazi bondage. The Rebbe was firm in his faith in God and announced confidently before Pesach that Heaven would assist him in having an olive sized piece of matzah for the Seder, so he could make a bracha for every Jew in the world. When a downtrodden Jew cried out painfully, "From where in this concentration camp will we get a piece of matzah for the Seder?" The Rebbe smiled and said, "Brother, don't worry we will have matzah." Just three days before Pesach, there was no sign of matzah, the same Jew cried out, "How will we fulfill the mitzvah of eating matzah?" The Rebbe said "We will have have matzah!" Another Jew named Moshe bitterly asked, "Will the matzah just come down from heaven?" The Rebbe smiled and said, "You will see, we’ll have matzah." That very day, scores of allied war planes appeared suddenly in the skies and bombed strategic German positions, including the rail station next to the Waldager camp. When the bombing stopped, the Nazis assigned 12 Jews to clean up the ruins. To their pure joy and surprise, the Jews found a transport of wheat amidst the ruins! Quickly they shoveled the grain in their pockets, taking as much as they could, knowing that if they were caught they would be punished or killed. In the camp, all types of Jews ground the wheat by hand, crushing it with their fingers and rocks until it was fine enough to be flour. When it came to bake Matzahs, if the Germans saw a fire lit in the barracks every Jew would be killed, any stray spark the nazis would say was enemy fire. But later that night, the Rebbe and every type of Jew imaginable baked matzah together whispering songs and hallel together knowing they could be caught at any second. They baked kosher matzah for the Seder and the next night tens of Jews got together and ate matzah together in and out of a Seder in a concentration camp, risking their lives, yet feeling a true joy inside with every crumb. And that was how the Jewish people survived and celebrated. Just a little bit of faith that everything will work out friends, just a little bit of faith, it could do wonders.
Thank a Rabbi
Sweetest friends, one of the craziest aspects of being Jewish is that sometimes your religion requires you to do things you don't necessarily want or understand. There are so many mitzvot I literally sit there and struggle doing and can't feel. There are ups and downs and that's totally OK, we were created because we weren't perfect beings but because we make the world more perfect. In connection to this week’s parsha, parshat mishpatim, full of different mitzvot, there's an amazing story that hopefully helps us understand that our rabbis were looking out for us so we could look into ourselves.
In the time of the great Rebbe the Yeshuos Yaakov there was a Jew in Lemberg so hungry you couldn't even call it fasting. Fasting means that sometimes you eat and sometimes you don't. But he never ate. Once a year he got to eat, the Yeshuos Yaakov got the community together on Pesach to give food, so this man and his family would have something to eat for the Seder. One year, in the middle of the Seder, this poor Jew came running to the rebbe. They didn't have caterers back then, they would take one big pot throw everything in, and cook it. One of the poor man’s children just threw something into the pot, and they were sure it was chametz. Everyone knows that even if a thousandth of what your eating is chametz, there's no way out, the whole pot is chametz. However, there's one opinion, the holy Rav Achai Gaon, that although chanetz isn't allowed but if it's less than one hundredth of what's inside, you can still eat it. We don't hold this way, people don't follow the opinion, there's only opinion, Rav Achai that says it. Now the Yeshuos Yaakov is thinking, "It's Seder night, if the pot is chametz he'll have nothing to eat and he has eleven children. He thinking, "Rav Achai Gaon can carry this, he has broad shoulders". He says to the Jew, "Go home: it's one hundred percent kosher." That night Rav Achai came to the Yeshuos Yaakov in a dream and said, "Thank you so much, because, I want you to know, I only wrote that decision of mine for the sake of this one Jew." It's awesome, a thousand years beforehand, Rav Achai and so many rabbis were looking out for Jews who needed help and didn't know what to do. When the Torah is being left uncared for in a dark alley, it has to be clear to us that the Rabbis, they wrote down what they knew because they were thinking of us and wanted to make our lives better."- Chassidic Stories. If your feeling low just know that the ability and gift to connect to thousands of years worth of meaning and helping others out through knowledge is something we get to unwrap and connect to in our own way everyday.
The Order of the Seder
I remember it- when we were little, my brother and sister and I would sit down at the table on Seder night. My father would begin telling us, “Children, tonight we are all kings, we are all queens. We are eating at God’s table. I remember how our eyes were glowing. The beginning is when we call out, “Kadesh” Kadesh is a request: Make me holy. Master of the world, all year long I thought so little of myself. I didn’t know holy I could be. Tonight, I know I could be so holy..I’m begging you, kaddesh, make me so holy. Make my family and friends so holy. Make the world so holy.” Then we say Urchatz. All year long, when I see someone with a dirty face, or a little dust on their soul, sometimes I turn away. This night I say, “Master of the world, I would love to be a cleaning man tonight. I have a little soap- I have matzah, it’s the holiest soap in the world. Matzah is just flour and water; no air, nothing blown out of proportion. When we wash our hands we say , “tonight let me clean the way I look at the world.” Then we have Yachatz. The Koshnitzer Maggid says about Yachatz. “The world is so broken, but our children can make the world whole again. We break the matzah; the small piece we keep, and the big piece- the bigger brokenness- our children take away. Then they bring it back to us whole, to serve as the Afikoman at the end of the seder”. Our children, they are the ones that are taking brokenness away from us.
Giving a Little can Mean A Lot
This is an AMAZING story from the book "Rebbe" by Joseph Telushkin.
A journalist named Herbert Brin, once met with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He assumed he would be coming in to get a blessing and at most it would be a two minute meeting. He was feeling insecure and asked the rebbe, "do I have the right to act as an editor and write editorials for a Jewish newspaper when I know so little about the religion, when I can't even pray? What right do I have to serve as the editor of a Jewish newspaper? Maybe I'm in the wrong field. The rebbe tried to reassure Brin by telling him this story.. "A young shepherd boy had entered the synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov who was praying intensely. It was Yom Kippur and people were so into it but noticed that the boy, standing on the balcony, had his hands empty. They gave him a prayer book. But the boy couldn't read. He stood there silently, watching everyone pray, but was frustrated he couldn't participate that he engaged in the one activity he knew well to offer to God and started to imitate the sound of a chicken. The people turned around furiously, who Crows on Yom Kippur the holiest day of the year? A number of people started going to the balcony to throw the boy out but the Baal Shem stopped them. "Until now, our prayers have been blocked from reaching heaven. And then this young boy came in here and offered God a gift from his heart, the gift of imitating animal sounds and it broke through heaven and carried out prayers with it." Brin was moved, but not convinced, "I don't whistle in balconies, I've got to know that I'm doing the right thing.". The Rebbe reached into his pocket, "how much is a subscription to your newspaper?"
"Three dollars and fifty cents."
The Rebbe took out three dollars and two quarters and told Brin "I want a subscription". After giving Brin the money, the Rebbe looked him square in the eye and said, "Obviously you're a learned man, you've read a great deal. Do you have a right to withhold that which you know?". The holiday of Passover teaches us, no matter how much we know of something there is always something to share to give to people to help them grow.
Vehi SheAmda
In 1958 a special man moved to Kew Garden Hills New York. He stood out wearing a fur hat, and a long coat, nobody knew who he was or where he came from. The fifties were a time of suburbanization, for Jews America became an escape from the dark shadows of Europe. Jewish identity was starting to be lost. This man, not forgetting who he was in essence, decided to bring it back to America. He attempted to start a shtiebl, a synagogue known for its loving community and passion. A young man, who had given up on his Jewish communities' ideas and lifestyle decided to give Judaism one last chance and visited the shtiebl. He thought it was super strange, but before he could leave, the man, a rabbi, walked up to him. The rabbi told him that pesach was coming up and for the Seder he needed a young person to ask the four questions. The rabbi didn't have older children, only a baby a few months old. Would the young man be kind enough to join the rabbi and his wife for Seder and ask the questions? He went and was surprised that the rabbi read the Haggadah directly to the baby, trying to make her part of the Seder. The young man asked the questions and the Seder began to flow...until the baby cried. The rabbi took the baby in his arms and started dancing with her and repeating the same words again and again until the baby stopped crying and fell asleep. Intrigued by the rabbi the boy started asking about his life. The rabbi came from Warsaw and after studying had just gotten married when the war broke out. He and his wife found themselves prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto. Conditions were terrible and worsened by the week. There was starvation, disease, people lay dead and unburied in the streets. The rabbi was then transported to Treblinka and other concentration camps. He had his number tattooed on his arm. His wife too was taken to a camp, where Nazi doctors used her for medical experiments. Somehow they both survived. After the war, half alive, they were taken to DP to camps where they miraculously found each other. Because of what had been done to her, his wife was told by doctors that she was infertile. The couple wouldn't be able to have a child. But they refused to give up hope. They tried everything, going to every specialist and more than ten years later it happened. By miracle, they had a child, the same child the rebbe had taken in his arms that Seder night. The boy's life changed forever. What changed it, leading the young man to become religious and eventually a rabbi, was the slow song the rabbi had sang to his baby as he danced with her. What were they, the words sung over and over to the baby by the man who had lived through the Warsaw and Treblinka and passed through the gates of hell? "It's good to be a Jew, it's good to be a Jew." It is so good to be a Jew
You’re So Lucky to be Jewish
It was 1942. In a small village in Poland, life seemed to be functioning as normal. The people of the village knew what was going on around them but they thought that possibly, somehow, the Germans had overlooked their little shtetl. They all hope and prayed that maybe, just maybe, they bad escaped the torture and murder. Suddenly an announcement was made that all the Jews were to assemble on Shabbat, at noon in the center of town in the market place- and everyone had to be there. They all knew what that meant. Some tried running away. But the majority stayed, not knowing where to go. This announcement came on Monday. A meeting was called by the village elders to come to the shul to discuss what could be done. Could there be some plan that they could come up with to survive? No matter what anyone said, nothing seemed convincing. The quietest man in the village, Yohanon the tailor, who never opened his life, made his way to the front of the shul, stood up on the platform where the Torah was read, and said, "My beloved friends. We only have a few days to live. Tomorrow is Tuesday, let’s celebrate Passover. On Wednesday we should celebrate Shavuot. On Thursday we should celebrate Sukkot....because we may never have a chance to celebrate another Jewish festival in our lives. Let Friday be Rosh Hashanah and on shabbot morning we will gather in the synagogue before we go to the market place and together we will observe Yom Kippur." Then Yochanon the tailor went on, "Is there anyone here who would consider for even a moment trading places with the Germans? For nothing in the world right? I would rather die a thousand times as a Jew than be a Nazi. What a privilege it is to be a Jew! Let our children know that our last days and our last hours on this earth were spent celebrating what a joy and blessing it is to be a Jew".- Story told Seder night by Rav Shlomo Carlebach. Today and everyday, it's such a blessing to be Jewish.
Eliyahu Hanavi: Who is he? Where is he?
A man once came to the Baal Shem Tov and said, “My holy teacher, I have been learning so much about Judaism and yet I have no clue who and where Eliyahu Hanavi is, he is a total mystery to me. The Baal Shem Tov responded, “I can tell you where he is, but you must do everything I say to really see him. Go to a small house on the edge of the forest, it may look like a shack on a Friday afternoon and come with enough food for a feast. Stand in front of the door and right before Shabbos, knock, and you will see Eliyahu Hanavi”. The man left the meeting feeling extremely excited and nervous. To prepare himself he apologized for all those who he had hurt, gave special gifts to his family members, and packed a beautiful feast, one for the greatest holiday. On Friday he was so nervous, each second the moment was getting closer. Finally, he walked toward the edge of the forest, he found a depleted shack and waited near the front with his bag of food. He waited and waited and thought to himself, “There is no use for this, the sun has almost gone down, and Shabbos is starting soon, I can’t believe it!” Out of disgust, he dropped the box of food in front of the door. After Shabbos, he came back to the holy Baal Shem Tov and explained to him what happened. The man realized he hadn’t knocked and the Baal Shem Tov told him not to be discouraged and go back to the shack next week. The man again got very excited, he reiterated his apologies, purified himself, and bought present for his family. On Friday, after packing the feast, he walked toward the edge of the forest and back to the shack. As he was about to knock he heard a cry from the inside. “Mommy I’m starving, we haven’t eaten the whole week, I can’t do this anymore”. The mom reassuringly said, “My sweet child, remember last week Eliyahu Hanavi came with a big box of food and dropped it off in front of the house? Maybe he will help us out again!” The man then realized the truth, and gently put the box by the door returning to his home for shabbot. This story is here to teach that in any moment one can be a messenger of God and change the trajectory of their lives. Eliyahu Hanavi is an aspect of ourselves beyond just being an important figure, he is a part of our lives and a role we can have with any decision we make.
We never know who Eliyahu Hanavi is and in what form Hashem will reach His hand out to us.
Points to Ponder
Having a tough time getting in the zone to think about the spiritual power of what makes being a Jew so important, especially tonight? Here are some powerful quotes from Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook and others to think about and apply to your lives in your own way.
The Individual
“The more a person engages in self-transformation, the more the world itself is thereby transformed”- Rav Kook
“It is impossible for us to speak about a national revolution if we do not first speak about the revolution of each unique individual. In fact, the neglected revolution of the individual is what is holding us back from a National Redemption.”
Rav Kook’s words are so deep and relatable to Pesach. On a night that we are a part of because of the story of our people, when we take a seat at the table and get involved we accept that we have a part in that story. Just like a book is incomplete if it is missing one word, the story of the Jewish people is incomplete if its missing each person. The more we focus on improving ourselves to be the best we can be the more complete the story becomes for all of us.
Torah
“Just as there are laws in the writing of poetry, there is poetry in the writing of laws.”
“Torah learning for its own sake, the highest level of Torah learning is when one trains oneself intellectually and emotionally to understand how each and every details are connected to a greater detail, and how that great purpose is materialized through every detail”
One of the most incredible aspects of Pesach is that we do so many things and say so many ideas at the seder just to tell the a story and relive it and if we were missing one of these details we wouldn’t be able to tell the story in the same way, it would be missing something. In the same way, Rav Kook is explaining that the way to connect to Torah is view it as a poetic story recognizing that each idea presented, each halacha, each story told, and each letter written is here to paint a picture of what the most beautiful world can be.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein
"If you don't know what you're living for, you haven't yet lived.” – Rabbi Noah Weinberg
"Torah is not education, it's transformation." – Rebbitzen Dena Weinberg
“Freedom is within our grasp, and Pesach reminds us that we need to reach.” -Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson
"The Exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year, and in every day.” -Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
“The point of cleaning for Pesach is to remember that we are leaving Egypt, leaving the things that constrict us spiritually.” – Rabbi Shimon Raichik
“People often avoid making decisions out of fear of making a mistake. Actually, the failure to make decisions is one of life’s biggest mistakes.” – Rabbi Noah Weinberg
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Frankl
“In Jewish history there are no coincidences.” – Elie Wiesel
"If you don't know what you're living for, you haven't yet lived.” – Rabbi Noah Weinberg
"I do not want followers who are righteous, rather I want followers who are too busy doing good that they won’t have time to do bad." –Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
"I don't speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don't have the power to remain silent" – Rabbi A.Y. Kook
“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”
“The difference between a successful person and others is not lack of strength not a lack of knowledge but rather a lack of will.”
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
"We become what we think about"
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value." - Albert Einstein
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou
“The Way Get Started Is To Quit Talking And Begin Doing.” -Walt Disney
“We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated.”- Maya Angelou
“The Man Who Has Confidence In Himself Gains The Confidence Of Others.”- Hasidic Proverb
“Go where you are celebrated – not tolerated. If they can’t see the real value of you, it’s time for a new start.” – Unknown
“Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason that it will.” – Unknown
“Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop.” – Unknown
“We learn something from everyone who passes through our lives.. Some lessons are painful, some are painless.. but, all are priceless.” – Unknown
“When the past calls, let it go to voicemail, believe me, it has nothing new to say.” – Unknown
“Aspire to inspire before we expire.” – Unknown
“All limitations are self-imposed.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“No matter where you are in life, you’ll save a lot of time by not worrying too much about what other people think about you. The earlier in your life that you can learn that, the easier the rest of it will be.”
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” - Elie Wiesel
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” - George Eliot
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” - Helen Keller
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going” – Helen Keller
"There are two great days in a person's life—the day we are born and the day we discover why." - William Barclay
We hope everyone has a Chag Kasher VESAMEACH!- Yaakov and Yolly
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