Transcript
Good morning everyone. I want to thank our generous sponsors this morning, Deborah Shinebine in memory of her beloved father, אריה לייב בן שלום Aryeh Leib ben Shalom, in commemoration of his 60th יארצייט yahrzeit, the 2nd of שבט Shevat. His נשמה neshama should continue to have an עליה aliyah. The Shrier family for the יארצייט yahrzeits of their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, Maxine and Bernard Sullivan, in memory of Uncle Lester Friedman, and a רפואה שלמה refuah shlemah for אליעזר צבי רפאל בן יפה פריידל Eliezer Tzvi Refael ben Yaffa Freidel, who is having a procedure today. It should go well and he should have a complete and speedy and painless רפואה שלמה refuah shlemah.Okay, let's begin. We are going to try to actually get into פסוקים psukim today, in addition to our overview of the פרשה parsha. Very ambitious goal we have. But we'll see. We'll see if we can reach it or not. But let's start with our overview of the פרשה parsha and then we'll get into our specific פסוקים psukim.פרשת בא Parshas Bo picks up where the plagues left off. In last week's פרשה parsha, the Torah went through the first seven plagues. Why did Hashem choose to take the people out of מצרים Mitzrayim with such pomp and circumstance, such drama and flare? Why not simply go from exile to redemption, like that? And the Torah tells us several times, because this was actually a pedagogic experience. The plagues were a curriculum. This was an educational moment. For Pharaoh, yes, for the מצרים Mitzrim, but also for the Jewish people. Pharaoh began by saying, מי השם Mi Hashem? Who's God? How do I know he exists? And what is he in charge of, and what does he control? And Hashem says, You're asking who I am? Let me introduce myself. Ten different ways and ten different times. It's רבי יהודה's Rebbi Yehuda's great contribution we discussed on שבת Shabbos afternoon. When רבי יהודה Rebbi Yehuda gives us the acronym that we summarize the plagues, he's not just giving us an acronym or conveniently dividing the plagues in three. He's explaining to us some of the educational methodology. That by lumping in three, what do the three have in common? What are they communicating? How is Hashem answering Pharaoh's three questions with three answers? This is who I am. I control the world. I control you. It's not the Nile, certainly it's not you, Pharaoh. It's my world. I created it, and I run it. And that's what the plagues are all about. So we pick up with Hashem continuing to harden the heart of Pharaoh, כי אני הכבדתי את לבו ואת לב עבדיו ki ani ichbadeti es libo v'es lev avadav, a theme that runs through our פרשיות parshiyos that still begs for explanation, though we're not going to do it today. What happened to free will? Isn't free will the hallmark, the backbone, the foundation of life? How could God suspend free will? And if he does it for Pharaoh, how do we know he doesn't do it for us? Is that a good defense? Hashem, it's not my fault. You hardened my heart. You forced me to do it. So where do free will and predeterminism fit in with that age-old, that age-old question.Okay, so we have the eighth plague which is of locusts. And then Hashem tells Moshe, ארבה arbeh, וַיֵט vayet, it's מצרים Mitzrayim, exactly what happens. The ninth plague, page 344, we're going to try to move a little bit quickly because I want to get to our פסוקים psukim as I said. Actually, let's go back for a second. We're ever going to go backwards. I want to share with you an insight of Rabbi Soloveitchik towards the beginning of the פרשה parsha. It says, למען תספר באזני בנך ובן בנך l'maan tesaper b'oznei vincha uven bincha. Why is God doing these plagues? בא אל פרעה Bo el Paroh. What does Hashem say? Not לך אל פרעה lech el Paroh, but בא Bo. What's the difference between לך lech and בא bo? God doesn't say Moshe, go, I've got a mission, I've got an assignment, you're on your own. He says, נו Nu, come. בא Bo. Let's go together. It's a very powerful message. This is not from Rabbi Soloveitchik, many many people say this, that when we identify and seek to fulfill our mission in our lives, we're not doing it as emissaries on our own, but there's a sense that Hashem has said, Come with me. I'm with you. Whether it's עמו אנכי בצרה imo anochi b'tzara, when Hashem is with us when we're down and out, or Hashem is with us with our triumph and success, but Hashem doesn't send us out on our own. שליח של אדם כמותו shliach shel adam k'moso, if we're his agent, we are on his behalf. He is with us. בא Bo. Hashem says, נו Nu, come. But if you look at the second פסוק pasuk, פרק י פסוק ב' Perek Yud Pasuk Beis, page 340, let's go back for a moment. ולמען תספר באזני בנך ובן בנך את אשר התעללתי במצרים ואת אתתי אשר שמתי בם u'l'maan tesaper b'oznei vincha uven bincha, es asher his'alalti b'Mitzrayim v'es ososai asher samti bam, וידעתם כי אני השם vi'y'dasem ki ani Hashem. וידעתם כי אני השם V'y'dasem ki ani Hashem. Pharaoh says, איך אדע eich eida, how do I know? Avram said, במה אדע bameh eida. And this whole experience of the way Hashem takes us out of Mitzrayim is, everyone's wondering how they'll know, this is how you know. I am interfering and interrupting the laws of nature. I am providing a level of revelation that is unprecedented and unparalleled, and I'm doing it so that for all time and in perpetuity, you can look back and point and say, God did not create a world and move on. He remains intimately involved in our lives. And so today, on Tuesday, in 2018, when we say, how do we know that God's involved in our lives? How do we know there's providence, השגחה פרטית hashgacha pratis? How do we know he cares? The answer is, וידעת היום והשבת אל לבבך v'yadata hayom v'hasheivosa el levavecha. You can know. It's not just a leap of faith, you can have וידעת היום v'yadata hayom, you can have knowledge. Where does that knowledge emanate from? Because I heard from my parents, who heard from their parents, who heard from their parents, who heard from their parents who were in מצרים Mitzrayim, and they saw God suspend the rules of nature and interfere with the world. And וידעתם כי אני השם vi'y'dasem ki ani Hashem. So that forever we could point and say, it's part of my family narrative, that God did not create a world and move on. He remains intimately involved in it and with us.And that's why the famous כוזרי Kuzari, we've shared this before, in the עשרת הדברות Aseres Hadibros we'll read in a few weeks in פרשת יתרו Parshas Yisro, when God says אנכי השם אלקיך Anochi Hashem Elokecha, nice to meet you, אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים asher hotzeisicha me'eretz Mitzrayim. I took you out of Egypt. Why didn't he say the much more impressive thing? Which is, I am the Lord your God who did what? Who created the world. It's much more impressive. Ex nihilo. I told רב Rav Kahn, who was our guest this past שבת Shabbos, who has a degree in Latin and has written in Latin. I said, I also know Latin. Ex nihilo. Imitatio Dei. Those are my two Latin expressions everybody knows. So what does it mean? Ex nihilo, something from nothing. When we create, we go to Home Depot or Lowe's, we buy some ingredients or supplies, we mix them, we create and we think that we're creators. Even the greatest way that we emulate the Almighty, the greatest way that we can follow Hashem's example, the ultimate creation the human being experiences is conception, a child, a human being. But we need ingredients, and the ingredients have to be healthy and functional. And it's still even then relies on Hashem, we can't just mix them in a Petri dish and know with certainty that they will result in a healthy child. There's a number of couples דאווענען davening from the bottom of their hearts, having the ingredients, mixing them, and still waiting for Hashem. So the most impressive thing Hashem has ever done is to create something from nothing. בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ Bereishis bara Elokim es hashamayim v'es ha'aretz, there was תוהו ובוהו tohu vavohu, there was nothingness, barrenness. You know, when we picture nothingness, we're still picturing something. An empty room, a dark hole, the blackened galaxy. It's even beyond our comprehension to picture what nothing looks like. We don't know nothing. Our nothing is the absence of something, it's really not nothing. The nothing of Hashem is beyond our comprehension because it's beyond our experience. So we can't even be impressed enough with what it means that Hashem created something from nothing, because we can't even understand what nothing is. And yet Hashem did it. So why doesn't he introduce himself? Here in יתרו Yisro, or as רב חנן Rav Chanan... I'm the Lord your God, nice to meet you. I want to tell you the most impressive thing about me, the greatest thing on my resume: I created something from nothing. The whole world, everything in existence. Why does he say instead, Nice to meet you, I took you out of Egypt? And the כוזרי Kuzari of רב יהודה הלוי Rav Yehuda Halevi says, why? Because we might say, it's nice that you created. What does that have to do with me? Someone built this building, I don't know their name. Someone painted the painting, I've never met them. Someone sculpted the sculpture, I know nothing about them. Someone sewed this clothing, produced this garments, I haven't a relationship with them. So even if I believe that you're the creator and I'm blown away and impressed that it was something from nothing, that doesn't mean that you have a relationship with me. How do I know that you're involved in my life? That you're intimately aware of, involved in, and shaping my life? How do I know? יציאת מצרים Yetziyas Mitzrayim. וידעתם V'y'dasem. Hashem says, I'm going to show you in the biggest, most dramatic way possible. I'm going to do it once, and it's going to appear in all the books and it'll be part of your family narrative and our people's story so that we can forever point to it.Yesterday, MLK, Martin Luther King, also pointed to this story. And every movement of liberation, of emancipation, of freedom, of civil rights, every movement has pointed to this story of the Exodus, used its imagery, taken from its language. And daily we're supposed to as individuals and collectively, וידעתם כי אני השם vi'y'dasem ki ani Hashem. But how does that happen? Our children say, well where's God? You know, if he would do plagues, I would believe in him. If he was revealing himself to me, if he talked to me, how am I supposed to know? So it begins with the first part of the פסוק pasuk. למען תספר באזני בנך ובן בנך l'maan tesaper b'oznei vincha uven bincha. You've got to tell in the ears of your children and your children's children that I made a mockery of Egypt. I made a mockery of Egypt. That one day Egypt was the strongest empire on Earth, they were enslaving an entire nation, they controlled the world's economy, they had the mightiest army. And God says, I made a laughing stock of them overnight. I turned their water into blood and I spread out animals and I... I interfered with their lives. And you've got to tell your children, because the only way they'll know that I'm involved in their lives is if you tell them that you you heard from your great-grandparents who saw me be involved in theirs. So on this Rabbi Soloveitchik says, the word סיפור sipur, למען תספר l'maan tesaper as in סיפור יציאת מצרים sipur Yetzias Mitzrayim, the story of leaving Egypt is rooted in the verb ספר saper, to recount. The word is also related to the noun סופר sofer, a scribe. The common etymological root of these words suggests that a story can be transmitted orally as well as through the written word. מגילת אסתר Megillas Esther is referred to both as an אגרת igeres, a letter, and a ספר sefer, a book. The difference between an אגרת igeres and a ספר sefer is that an אגרת igeres is written to less exacting standards than a ספר sefer. A letter connotes something not crafted with care, to be routinely discarded after being read. But a ספר sefer, a book on the other hand must be written on parchment, it must be permanent, it contains no superfluous words or letters. A סופר sofer writes a ספר sefer for his generation as well as for the succeeding generations. The written word allows us to delve into man's thoughts and identify with them. When we study חומש Chumash, we are not merely learning of events that took place thousands of years ago. Through the skill of כתב והמכתב ksav v'hamichtav, we become contemporaries of the protagonists. As a child in חדר cheder, said the Rav, I studied the פרשה parsha לך לך Lech Lecha toward the beginning of the school year, during the raw Polish autumn. As I trudged through the muddy streets to school, I imagined how Avram traveled to Canaan under similar circumstance. As a young boy, I lived with the drama of the עקידה Akeida and the tragedy of Sarah's death. My heart would pound in fear that perhaps Esav would return early from the hunt before Yitzchak completed his blessing and Yaakov would be caught red-handed. Today we experience what is popularly referred to as a generation gap. Children can find no meaning in their parents' experiences. They have difficulty identifying with people and events that took place only 20 years earlier. Yet the ability to transport us in the past, to span generations is the sublime idea of כתב והמכתב ksav v'hamichtav. Through כתב והמכתב ksav v'hamichtav, one can relive events that happened even thousands of years ago. And this is evident no more than on סדר Seder night. A key directive in the הגדה Haggadah is the statement, in every generation one is obligated to see himself as if we left. How can we relive an event that happened 3,500 years ago? Through תורה שבעל פה Torah she'baal peh, a tradition that unites us with previous generations and enables us to experience events simultaneously with them.Recounting when you're leaving Egypt is not merely telling a story. The imperative of and you shall tell your son, למען תספר l'maan tesaper, סיפור יציאת מצרים sipur Yetzias Mitzrayim has a deeper meaning. It means that your children should be the ספר sefer upon which the father writes. The foremost task of a father is to be a סופר sofer, to transform his son into a book upon which he writes indelibly, a book that will survive him and be imparted to succeeding generations. The appellation the people of the book does not signify a nation that reads books, it is a nation whose very being is a book. The מצוה mitzva of סיפור יציאת מצרים sipur Yetzias Mitzrayim means inscribing one's entire religious consciousness upon the next generation, until that generation is ready to perform the same task of סיפור sipur at the סדר Seder table with their own children. It's a very beautiful imagery. פסח Pesach is soon upon us. But it's not just a פסח Pesach מצוה mitzva. למען תספר L'maan tesaper, סיפור sipur, become a סופר sofer, write the book of our national narrative, of our people's story on the hearts and minds and souls of your children and grandchildren. It's experiential, it's not intellectual. It's transmitted what's in the heart. And that's the mission. I have a relationship with Hashem. You've seen me talk to Hashem, you've seen me cry, you've seen me protest, you've seen me express gratitude and thank and be thankful. And that's what I'm writing onto your heart. That's the story I'm telling. I am a סופר sofer in transmitting all of that.The Torah says with this plague... We're going to move along. The eighth plague. ויאמרו עבדי פרעה אליו Vayomru avdei Paroh eilav. The servants of Pharaoh spoke to Moshe. Rabbi Soloveitchik notes, it says עבדי פרעה אליו avdei Paroh eilav. The term עבדי פרעה avdei Paroh suggests that these people were the slaves of Pharaoh. Their very identity was intertwined with their allegiance to Pharaoh. But in contrast, how are we described? Think to the beginning of the הגדה Haggadah, מתחילה בגינות ומסיים בשבח matchil b'gnus u'mesayem b'shvach, how do we start right after מה נשתנה Mah Nishtanah? The father begins to give the answer, the parents give the answer to the children, how do we begin it? Don't make me sing it. עבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים Avadim hayinu l'Paroh b'Mitzrayim. Rabbi Soloveitchik notes, contrast עבדי פרעה avdei Paroh with עבדים היינו לפרעה avadim hayinu l'Paroh. עבדי פרעה Avdei Paroh means their whole identity was allegiance, loyalty. We are slaves of Pharaoh. It is the sum total, it's the essence, it's the who we are. As opposed to עבדים היינו לפרעה avadim hayinu l'Paroh, that we were in servitude. We never identified with our taskmaster. That never became the sum total of who we are. The מדרש Midrash indicates that every שבת Shabbos the enslaved Israelites would read from the scrolls which foretold that they would be redeemed. Even during their servitude, they believed in their ultimate redemption. And I think to the incredible stories of the Holocaust, of spiritual resistance, where people were עבדים היינו avadim hayinu to the Nazis and to the SS, but they never stole our identity. They gave a number, they tried to dehumanize, but they never took away our identity. Yosef Mendelevitch is speaking here next week, I think, next שבת Shabbos. The great heroic refusenik. His story, Natan Sharansky, their story is that even in the former Soviet Union, they didn't become עבדי avdei communism. They were עבדים היינו avadim hayinu to communism. The story of our people is that even when we were oppressed, even when we were imprisoned, even when we were persecuted, we never lost our identity. We never assimilated our destiny into the condition that we were experiencing. We always understood that it's a moment, that right now we are עבדים היינו לפרעה avadim hayinu l'Paroh, but we're not עבדי פרעה avdei Paroh. We can never lose our actual identity or our essence. Another very, very beautiful insight.Okay, let's keep going. The ninth plague is darkness. We've spoken about it in the past. You can listen online. One year we gave many interpretations exactly what darkness was all about. Pharaoh's last act of intransigence, of refusal. The warning of the plague of the firstborn. You know, it's a great miracle, page 346, the פסוק pasuk right before רביעי Revi'i, פרק יא פסוק ג Perek Yud Alef Pasuk Gimmel, page 346. ויתן השם את חן העם בעיני מצרים גם האיש משה גדול מאד בארץ מצרים בעיני עבדי פרעה ובעיני העם Vayiten Hashem es chein ha'am b'einei Mitzrayim, gam ha'ish Moshe gadol me'od b'eretz Mitzrayim b'einei avdei Paroh u'v'einei ha'am. What happens? Hashem gives the people favor in the eyes of Egypt. Not only that, but Moshe was very great, גדול מאד בארץ מצרים gadol me'od b'eretz Mitzrayim, and furthermore, moreover, before whom? בעיני עבדי פרעה ובעיני העם b'einei avdei Paroh u'v'einei ha'am. Moshe was great not only in the land of Egypt but in the eyes of Pharaoh. And the Rav points out, this is one of the incredible miracles. I don't know that I appreciated it until I read this insight this morning. Did it ever occur to you that Moshe is going back to the palace ten times to tell Pharaoh, to rebuke him, and to condemn him, and to tell him, you know the suffering you just experienced, I initiated it. And guess what, I'm going to bring about another round of it. If you're Pharaoh, what would you do? Kill him. Throw him in the dungeon, solitary confinement, cut off his head, hang him in the courtyard. I mean, how many times? This is Pharaoh. How many times is Moshe going to walk and march into the Oval Office and tell Pharaoh off? And the Rav, right, it's remarkable how many times Moshe and Aharon were given an audience with Pharaoh, the supreme ruler of Egypt, despite they repeatedly reproached him. Pharaoh had the power to execute anyone at will, and they suffered no personal consequence. The tolerance of Pharaoh is perhaps one of the great miracles of the Exodus. Underappreciated, right? That part of the hardening Pharaoh's heart was not only not letting the people go, but the miracle that Moshe and Aharon marched in and out of that office. Moshe was a charismatic leader. It bears witness to Moshe's greatness that he made such an impression on Pharaoh that Pharaoh would do him no harm. The Torah refers to Moshe with the honorific האיש ha'ish, in two other places. When he's delayed in returning from הר סיני Har Sinai after 40 days, the people say, משה האיש Moshe ha'ish, we don't know what's become of him. And again we find in במדבר Bamidbar, והאיש משה ענו מאד v'ha'ish Moshe anav me'od. This man, Moshe, was exceedingly humble after his sister Miriam spoke against him and incurred God's wrath. The word האיש ha'ish suggests a charismatic personality. His personality was captivating. Pharaoh was so taken by it that even though it was in his best interest to eliminate Moshe, he was so taken by Moshe's charisma that he had admiration. חן העם בעיני מצרים גם האיש משה גדול מאד בארץ מצרים ובעיני עבדי פרעה ובעיני העם Chein ha'am b'einei Mitzrayim, gam ha'ish Moshe gadol me'od b'eretz Mitzrayim, v'einei avdei Paroh u'v'einei ha'am. Unique to Egypt was the fact that they respected Moshe as a human being, not a super being. The Egyptians being pagans could have deified him as they did Pharaoh. But instead they looked at Moshe not as a god, as איש ish. That's why it says איש ish. Even though they could have thought he was a god through what was happening to them, these plagues they were incurring, they continued to see him as an איש ish, a charismatic איש ish, and continued to be impressed, impressed by that.Okay, let's keep going. The warning of the firstborn. When is this plague going to strike the firstborn? This is an unbelievable insight. ויאמר משה Vayomer Moshe, רביעי Revi'i, פרק... פסוק ד Perek... Pasuk Daled. כה אמר השם כחצות הלילה אני יוצא בתוך מצרים Koh amar Hashem k'chatzos halayla ani yotzei b'soch Mitzrayim. When is this plague going to strike? כחצות הלילה K'chatzos halayla. And of course, of course רש\"י Rashi mentions, what should it have said? בחצות B'chatzos. God says to Moshe, tell Pharaoh, around midnight. What do you mean around midnight? What is he, the the washing machine repairman? I'm coming between one and 1:00 next month. You know, spend your entire day waiting. כחצות K'chatzos, I'll be there around, sometime this year. I mean כה ka, what happened to בחצות b'chatzos? Why not exactly at midnight? And חז\"ל Chazal say something amazing. What do חז\"ל Chazal say? Look at רש\"י Rashi. שמא יטו אצטגניני פרעה ויאמרו משה בדאי הוא Shema yitu itztagninei Paroh v'yomru Moshe bada'i hu. The astrologers, the advisors of Pharaoh will say, God said he was going to strike us at midnight. Came at 11:59 and 52 seconds. Clearly this is just a coincidence, it's a fluke, this wasn't the hand of God. Or he came at 12:01. Yeah, clearly this is just nature, fluke of nature. So the פניני תורה Pninei Torah asks, are you telling me that after nine plagues, after nine times seeing the rules of nature suspended, on this tenth time, being off a few seconds would cause them to reach that conclusion? Come on, is that even possible? And you know what he answers? He says, yeah. When we want to ignore reality, our psyche has the ability to even defy logic to justify our behavior. When we want to justify or excuse or rationalize our behavior, we have this incredible ability to even defy logic and become morons. Just to defend what we're doing. To offer the most irrational, the most absurd defense, which intellectually we can't begin to believe is true, but just to justify our behavior. We have that capacity. Not only the אצטגניני פרעה itztagninei Paroh, but really all of us. There's a story once רב חיים Rav Chaim Brisker went to another city and there was a famous, a famous heretic in the other city, and he came to רב חיים Rav Chaim and he riddled him with all these קשיות kashos, all these questions he had, theologically, philosophically, evidence for God's existence, how do I know, I don't really believe it, it's not true. And רב חיים Rav Chaim didn't entertain the questions, he wouldn't answer. Later the students asked him when they were apart, why didn't you answer these questions? You're the brilliant רב חיים Rav Chaim Brisker, רב חיים Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. Why didn't you respond? Why didn't you explain? Why didn't you put him in his place? And רב חיים Rav Chaim gave what became a famous response. He said, I only give תירוצים terutzim to קשיות kashos, I don't give תירוצים terutzim to תירוצים terutzim. I only give answers to questions, I don't give answers to answers. The משכיל maskil or the heretic or the עם הארץ am ha'aretz, the כופר kofer was, was purporting to put forward questions, but sometimes we're putting forward a response, an answer, in the form of a question. It's not really a question at all. It's an answer to excuse what we're doing. I see that all the time when you're dealing with outreach, or you're dealing with much more acutely people off the דרך derech, and they'll tell you this and that and the other is the reason why. This question, that question, and the third question. And you can entertain the question from Hentl to Morgan, you can offer them Rabbi Sacks's book and a meeting with Rabbi... Lord Sacks who's speaking on Thursday night, you can give them... that was just a plug. And you can give them everything in the world, but it really isn't about their questions. The questions are answers to defend the lifestyle that they've now gone to lead. And they've gone to lead that maybe not just hedonistically, they went to that lifestyle because their third grade רבי Rebbe hit them with a belt and they therefore are turned off to Judaism. But they can't say, I'm turned off because my רבי Rebbe hit me with a belt because that doesn't sound so sophisticated. So they say, you know, I have the following seven questions I found on the internet that prove for me there's no God. And even though you can offer 70 answers to the seven questions, they're תירוצים terutzim to תירוצים terutzim, they're not תירוצים terutzim to קשיות kashos. So we times sometimes have the capacity ourselves to act like the אצטגניני פרעה itztagninei Paroh, that כחצות k'chatzos, בחצות b'chatzos, that we can be irrational and borderline moronic just to be able to defend, just to be able to defend what we don't want to, what we don't want to accept. Okay.Good. Let's keep going. All of a sudden we, we break our regular scheduled story in order to have the מצוה mitzva of ראש חודש Rosh Chodesh. First we have the we have... The middle of the plague. Hashem says, I'm going to bring the whopper of all plagues, the tenth plague. This is going to really blow you away. By the way, we have the luxury because we've been keeping פסח Pesach since we're born and taking the wine out of the cup, we have the luxury of reading the story knowing that there are ten plagues. If you were Pharaoh or the מצרים Mitzrim, or for that matter Moshe or Aharon and the Jewish people, you had no idea how long this was going to go on. This could be the first ten of a hundred. This could be the first ten of a thousand. You would absolutely no idea how long this would go on. Here when Hashem says to Moshe, this is going to be the last one. This is the tenth. So now he knows, or it might have been with the ninth he says, this is the second to last one, the penultimate plague. So you have the luxury now of knowing the unit when it would end. But if you're Pharaoh, you have no idea how long this will go on. So Hashem says, the whopper of plagues, I'm going to give you מכת בכורות makas bechoros. But before, let me interrupt our regular schedule program to bring you a commercial of the first מצוה mitzva. The first מצוה mitzva is of course ראש חודש Rosh Chodesh, which really seems bizarre. I would think the first מצוה mitzva is אמונה emunah, בטחון bitachon. I would think the first מצוה mitzva is שבת Shabbos, כשרות kashrus, יום כיפור Yom Kippur, צניעות tznius, a million and one suggestions I would give before, get your calendar set. What's the big deal about a calendar? You can find your local Jewish funeral home and you go pick up a few calendars. Turn on your phone, you go to the app store and you download all the options of Hebrew calendars. What's ראש חודש Rosh Chodesh? So of course, we have a fixed calendar. After Hillel the Great established the fixed calendar, we can tell you right now in 500 years exactly when פסח Pesach will be. We have a fixed calendar. Not that you would ever ask that question. We have a fixed calendar. But in the time of ראש חודש Rosh Chodesh, two witnesses went, they observed the new moon, they came back, and and the בית דין beis din to whom they reported were given the license to actually manipulate the calendar. The משנה Mishna says, אתם אפילו מזיד אפילו שוגג אפילו מזידים atem afilu meizid, afilu shogeig, afilu meizidim. If you, you organized the calendar incorrectly, meaning you sanctified on the wrong day, by accident, or אפילו מזידים afilu meizidim, even on purpose. You said, you know, it's not going to really work out if יום כיפור Yom Kippur falls on the tenth of תשרי Tishrei, it's going to be that day next week. That's not really so convenient. Yankees are back in the World Series. Now Stanton's on the team, so I don't want to miss the game. The בית דין beis din would never use that reason. I'm just... So therefore we're going to manipulate the calendar, say יום כיפור Yom Kippur falls on Thursday instead of Wednesday. So when in fact is יום כיפור Yom Kippur, Wednesday or Thursday? It's Thursday. We were given the power of time. And why were we given it here? And I want to dwell on this. The ספורנו Sforno writes, we studied this as well in the past at length, the reason they were given this, the first מצוה mitzva a slave nation is given is the מצוה mitzva of controlling time. Because the definition of the difference between a slave and a free person is whether you control your time. If your time is owned by another or by others, you're enslaved. Whether it's owned by technology or by masse TV, or it's owned by a sense of obligations of having to be places professionally, with work. If you don't control your own time and your own life... There's a book I'm a big fan of, I quote often, \"Essentialism\" by Greg McKeown, has a great line in it: If you don't prioritize your life, other people will. Someone's going to prioritize your life. Someone's going to control your time. Either you can proactively, with intentionality control your time or it will be controlled by others. If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. And that's what the מצוה mitzva of ראש חודש Rosh Chodesh... קידוש החודש kiddush hachodesh is saying. If you don't control your time, other people will fill up that space and control your time. And then you'll be enslaved to them. You want to be a free people? You want to break out of slavery? Be in control of your own time.The פסח Pesach offering, we're told now about the פסח Pesach holiday, this is what we're going to come back and study together. We have the tenth plague, מכת בכורות makas bechoros, the Exodus, it's time to get out, break out, more מצוות mitzvos having to do with the קרבן פסח korban Pesach, leaving Egypt. We have a מצוה mitzva to remember our leaving Egypt, and one of the ways we commemorate is the מצוה mitzva here of the firstborn, כל פטר רחם kol peter rechem. And then finally, והיה לאות על ידך ולטוטפת בין עיניך v'haya l'os al yadecha u'l'totafos bein einecha, when we wear our תפילין tefillin, we are remembering כי בחזק יד הוציאנו השם ממצרים ki b'chozek yad hotzi'anu Hashem mi'Mitzrayim, that Hashem took us out with great strength. Okay. Let's study our section. Weren't you impressed? Okay, good. That's my whole life mission, to impress you. We are going to study exactly where we left off last year. I believe it or not, I went online this morning and I listened to last year's recording to the last two minutes because I wanted to figure out where we left off. And I asked you two questions, and I said, 2018, פרשת בא Parshas Bo, we're going to begin with this. So, mark your calendars for a day before to think about these two questions. Did anyone think about these two questions? Anyone remember these two questions? Okay. So we are on פרק יב פסוק יא Perek Yud Beis Pasuk Yud Aleph. Literally exactly where we left off last year. It appears in the Artscroll חומש Chumash on page 352. 352, 353. And what are we in the middle of? We're in the middle of right after ראש חודש Rosh Chodesh was given and Hashem continues and he says, and I want you to bring this פסח Pesach offering. You're going to set aside a lamb or a kid and you're going to tie it up and it's going to sit there for several days and then you're going to slaughter it and you're going to sprinkle the blood on the doorpost and you're going to roast it, and, and so on. And then I'm going to take you out of Egypt. And when I take you out of Egypt, you're going to have a whole holiday. And we ask two questions. You know what the questions were?פסוק י\"א Pasuk Yud Alef, it's exactly what we're up to. וכה תאכלו אתו מתניכם חגרים נעליכם ברגליכם ומקלכם בידכם ואכלתם אתו בחפזון פסח הוא להשם V'kachah sochlu oso matneichem chagurim na'aleichem b'ragleichem umakalkhem b'yedchem v'achaltem oso b'chipazon Pesach hu laShem. You're going to eat this קרבן korban, your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, you shall eat it in haste. בחפזון B'chipazon, it is a פסח Pesach offering to Hashem.So, tighten your belts, and tie your shoelaces, and get the engine on the car running, and have the suitcases packed, and sitting by the door. That's how you're going to eat. It's a pretty anxiety-ridden meal. It's a pretty stressful meal. But don't loosen the belt and don't take off your shoes and put on your slippers and don't kick back on the couch and eat the dinner. The way to eat this special meal, this קרבן korban, is shoes tied, belt tightened, suitcase packed, car running. Why? כי בחפזון Ki b'chipazon. I'm taking you out with alacrity, with zeal, with speed. And why am I doing that? Because פסח הוא להשם Pesach hu laShem, because it's פסח Pesach.And then, let's read this whole section. We're going to read, then we're going to go back and ask several questions and study it, okay? You see where we are? ועברתי בארץ מצרים בלילה הזה V'avarti b'eretz Mitzrayim ba'laylah hazeh. On that night I'm going to pass through throughout Egypt. והכיתי כל בכור בארץ מצרים מאדם ועד בהמה V'hikeisi kol b'chor b'eretz Mitzrayim mei'adam v'ad behemah. And all the firstborn are goners, from man to animal. ובכל אלהי מצרים אעשה שפטים אני השם U'v'chol elohei Mitzrayim e'eseh shfatim Ani Hashem. And I'm going to give out punishment to all these fake gods of Egypt. Why? Because again, the whole purpose of this entire exercise is for you and everyone to know אני השם Ani Hashem. והיה הדם לכם לאות על הבתים אשר אתם שם V'hayah hadam lachem l'os al habatim asher atem sham. And the blood will be a sign for you. I'll know the Jewish homes. וראיתי את הדם ופסחתי עליכם V'ra'isi es hadam u'fasachti aleichem. I'll see the blood and skip over them. ולא יהיה בכם נגף למשחית בהכתי בארץ מצרים V'lo yihyeh bachem negef l'mashchis b'hakosi b'eretz Mitzrayim. And there will not be a plague of destruction upon you. When I strike Egypt, you will be spared. והיה היום הזה לכם לזכרון וחגתם אתו חג להשם V'hayah hayom hazeh lachem l'zikaron v'chagosem oso chag laShem. This day, boy, it's going to be marked on your calendar. It is going to be festive, it's going to be a holiday forever. This incredible experience and event you will commemorate it annually, לדרתיכם l'doroseichem. It's going to be for generations to come. חקת עולם תחגוהו Chukas olam techaguhu. An eternal decree you will celebrate. How long will you commemorate each year? שבעת ימים מצות תאכלו Shiv'as yamim matzos tochailu. For seven days, you're going to eat this thing called matzah. אך ביום הראשון תשביתו שאר מבתיכם Ach bayom harishon tashbisu s'or mibateichem. But when you're commemorating what we're about to and have not yet experienced, when you will in the future commemorate it, you'll eat matzah for seven days, but from the first day, you're not going to go near חמץ chametz. כי כל אכל חמץ ונכרתה הנפש ההיא מישראל מיום הראשון עד יום השביעי Ki kol ochel chametz v'nichresa hanefesh hahi miYisrael miyom harishon ad yom hashvi'i. Because those seven days anyone who touches חמץ chametz, you're a goner. כרת Kares. You're cut off. No תחיית המתים tchiyas hameisim, no future world to come. וביום הראשון מקרא קדש וביום השביעי מקרא קדש יהיה לכם U'vayom harishon mikra kodesh u'vayom hashvi'i mikra kodesh yihyeh lachem. And when we commemorate this holiday, the first and seventh day will be a convocation, meaning the first days and last days of יום טוב Yom Tov. כל מלאכה לא יעשה בהם Kol melachah lo ye'aseh bahem. You're not going to do any of the 39 or 38 creative labors. אך אשר יאכל לכל נפש הוא לבדו יעשה לכם Ach asher ye'achel l'chol nefesh hu l'vado ye'aseh lachem. You can cook. You're just going to cook potatoes, but you can cook. ושמרתם את המצות U'shmartem es hamatzos. And I want you to safeguard the matzah. כי בעצם היום הזה הוצאתי את צבאותיכם מארץ מצרים Ki b'etzem hayom hazeh hotzeisi es tzivoseichem mei'eretz Mitzrayim. Because on this day, the thing that's about to happen, this incredible experience that I'm about to take you out, how are you going to mark that? Matzah. ושמרתם את היום הזה לדרתיכם חקת עולם U'shmartem es hayom hazeh l'doroseichem chukas olam. You will guard this day forever for generations to come. בראשון בארבעה עשר יום לחדש בערב תאכלו מצות Ba'rishon b'arba'ah asar yom la'chodesh ba'erev tochlu matzos. On the 14th in the first month in the evening, you're going to eat matzah until the 21st day of the month in the evening. שבעת ימים שאר לא ימצא בבתיכם Shiv'as yamim s'or lo yimatzei b'vateichem. For seven days, you're going to become OCD and neurotic, and there'll be no חמץ chametz in your home. כי כל אכל מחמצת ונכרתה הנפש ההיא מעדת ישראל בגר ובאזרח הארץ Ki kol ochel machmetzes v'nichresa hanefesh hahi mei'adas Yisrael ba'ger u'v'ezrach ha'aretz. Because if you were to touch it, you'd be wiped out. And it doesn't only apply to you who are about to experience this, to whom does it also apply? בגר ובאזרח הארץ Ba'ger u'v'ezrach ha'aretz. Even the convert who in 2018 will join the Jewish people and doesn't know what you're talking about. Their great-grandparents weren't in Egypt and they didn't sprinkle blood on a doorpost and they weren't liberated, but they too are going to observe this. כל מחמצת לא תאכלו Kol machmetzes lo sochailu. No חמץ chametz. In fact, in case I haven't made it clear, in case you want to know why we're neurotic, once again, כל מחמצת kol machmetzes. חמץ Chametz is arch-enemy number one. בכל מושבתיכם תאכלו מצות B'chol moshvoseichem tochlu matzos. In its place you will eat matzah in all of your dwelling places. My friends, tell me what is the obvious question? What is the disturbing question? What is the most compelling question when you're learning this פרשה Parsha, and frankly, should be the most disturbing question at your סדר Seder table? And most people have spent their entire life not thinking about it.That is an excellent question. We'll talk about that in a moment. But God, the omnipotent God, who says, \"I'm doing all this so you know that I can run the world, that I'm in charge and I'm beyond anything you can imagine,\" needs our help to mark the doorposts? He can't see through walls? He doesn't know everything? That is the question. It's a great question. It's not my question. Not not not the compelling question. We're going to come back to it. It's a great question.ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. אמן. Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha'olam shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro. Amen. I drink water to buy you time. Yes.Good. It sounds like I already took you out, but that's not such a question, because what he's saying is when you commemorate it in the future, you will say we're doing this because on this day, he took me out back then. But you're getting us there.Well, eight days because we have יום טוב שני Yom Tov Sheini in חוץ לארץ Chutz La'aretz. We're talking about in Israel.That has absolutely nothing to do with our פרשה Parsha class. You just wanted to get it in there.Rav Shechter was here a few weeks ago and we did a question and answer שבת Shabbos afternoon, and one of the questions I posted him was, how many days do you have to keep when you go to Israel? And so he went through the different opinions and talked about the trend today, which I also see, that most people, because it's more convenient, you talk about the *bachah tos* and *kachah tos*, they're not asking the שאלה shailah, they're just keeping one day. Rav Ovadia and Rebbe Netinek became the גדול הדור gadol hador, the פוסק posek for the entire world because everyone quotes, and he is an enormous תלמיד חכם talmid chacham and worthy of being a great פוסק posek. It's not a knock on him, but people who don't know what he looks like, have never been to a שול shul, couldn't pick him out of a lineup, he has become their פוסק posek because he says one day. So, this trend towards keeping one day. So someone who keeps one day and you say, \"Did you study the סוגיא sugya? Did you ask a שאלה shailah?\" They'll say, \"No, it just, it makes sense to me that wherever you go, you observe what the people there are keeping. It doesn't make sense that you're doing something.\" So Rebbetzin Shechter said after Rav Shechter's presentation that she always tells them, you know what he should answer? That when the person asks the question, you should say, \"Tell me, if in Israel they kept three days of יום טוב Yom Tov, would you still argue that you should do...?\" She's very sharp, Rebbetzin Shechter. So, that's a great question, certainly not for now. What is the most compelling question? Last shot and then I'll tell you because we'll run out of time. Yes.Excellent. Third time's a charm. Did everyone understand what he said? I'll explain it to you. Wake up a five-year-old child in the middle of the night anytime of the year and say, \"Why do we eat matzah at the סדר Seder table?\" And what will that child answer? I'm trying not to insult you to say what you would answer. What would the child answer? Because we didn't have time for the bread to rise. We left in haste. We were in such a rush, the bread couldn't rise, so we eat cardboard for seven days. Right? That's what the child will answer. What's the problem? We're better than that. We've been hearing פרשת בא Parshas Bo how many years? If we paid attention to the Torah reading, if we did שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום shnayim mikra v'echad targum, we wouldn't, it's unavoidable and inescapable to ask the following question. God tells Moshe before they ever didn't have time for the bread to rise, before they've ever left, that the centerpiece of this מצוה mitzvah, of this holiday, of the way we commemorate it in perpetuity will be eating matzah. Matzah, matzah, matzah. No חמץ chametz, no חמץ chametz, no חמץ chametz. Eat matzah, eat matzah, eat matzah. Wouldn't you think Moshe would look at him and say, \"What's matzah? What's חמץ chametz? I don't know what you're talking about. We haven't yet had the no time for the bread to rise thing. We've been eating risen bread. We've been eating bread. What's חמץ chametz? What's matzah? What's going on?\" Clearly the reason that we were all taught or led to believe is not the reason. Clearly. It has nothing to do with no time for bread to rise because this was already prescribed before there was no time for bread to rise. Or let me put it differently. There was no time for bread to rise because God wanted matzah to be the symbol of this holiday. It's not that we eat matzah because there was no time for the bread to rise. It's that there was no time for the bread to rise because God wanted us to eat matzah. And the question is why? Why? Certainly doesn't help the Ashkenazi gastrointestinal challenges. So why? Is it punitive? Why? Why did God want Pesach to be synonymous with matzah? What is it about matzah that's so central and so symbolic of what this holiday is about? And I'll give you a hint, we just read one word in the beginning of the passage we read, פסוק י\"א Pasuk Yud Alef. Let's go back now and study. In פסוק י\"א Pasuk Yud Alef, what was that word? בחפזון B'chipazon. Hashem says, \"Tighten the belt, start the car, pack the suitcase, tie up your shoelaces.\" Tie up your shoelaces. I love that. מתניכם חגורים Matneichem chagurim, which literally means tighten your belt. נעליכם ברגליכם Na'aleichem b'ragleichem, tighten your shoelaces. There's a great book called The Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood. It's an amazing, amazing book. But anyway, in it he has, he talks about, he's a researcher who studied in many different situations why certain people were predisposed to survive. The survivors of plane crashes, survivors of cancer, a whole chapter on survivors of the Holocaust. Survivors of all of these situations, what were the ingredients that made survivors more likely to survive? It's an amazing book. It has an incredible conclusion. I'm not going to spoil it and tell you what it is. I'll save it for another time. But anyway, in the chapter, he has fascinating tidbits along the way. For example, do you know that lefties have a shorter life expectancy than righties? I'm a lefty and my wife is a lefty. But here's the good news. It has nothing to do with biology or anatomy. It's because the world is designed for righties. So there are more accidents of lefties using equipment that was designed for righties. Do you know the safest place in the world to have a heart attack? You would say a hospital, right? Wrong. You know the safest place? It's in the book. A casino. Because in a casino there are cameras on every person, every moment, everybody's being watched. And the response time when someone drops in a casino is faster than any other place on earth. Anyway, it's a great book. It's a great book. But in the chapter he has, I'm not suggesting therefore you should spend more time there. If you're worried about your heart, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. In the chapter he has on airplane crashes, at the conclusion, after studying it and who survived, he talks about, we tend to wear our most comfortable footwear when we go on an airplane. So if you have Naot, if you have Crocs, if you have, he says wrong move. You need your sneakers with laces that tie up. God forbid circumstances should demand and you need to scramble, you shouldn't be wearing your Naot. So that's the image I have here. מתניכם חגורים Masneichem chagurim. He talks about where you should get a seat on the plane, which part of the plane in all these crashes was the most likely. Anyway. נעליכם ברגליכם Na'aleichem b'ragleichem. Tie up your shoes. What? It's called The Survivors Club. I should really get a cut of all these books. We should design it through an Amazon link that gives the shul. Oh, speaking of cuts, I hope everyone bought cards outside for the Grove. Many, dare I say most, of you are not members of Boca Raton Synagogue. If you enjoy this shiur and the many services that Boca Raton Synagogue provides you, there is a way for you to donate enormous money without it costing you one penny. And frankly, therefore there is no excuse, zero justification not to do it. We all shop at The Grove Kosher Market. We spend a lot of money. 10% of what you spend will come back to the shul if you just buy the gift card and use the card. You could be giving the shul, don't say it out loud, but consider what you spend a month there and calculate 10% of that you could be donating. So if you appreciate this shiur and the others, especially if you're not a member, you can buy the cards. I know that we had it beforehand and we'll continue to have it. Okay. How did I get on this? מתניכם חגורים Masneichem chagurim, your shoes. Oh, The Survivors Club. I don't get a cut from that one, but it's a great book. So, why? And the answer, בחפזון b'chipazon. Let's go back and take a look and study. Look at רש\"י Rashi. מתניכם חגורים מזומנים לדרך Masneichem chagurim mezumanim la'derech. Be ready to go. Be ready to hit the road. By the way, was יציאת מצרים Yetzias Mitzrayim? Now, I would understand all this. בחפזון B'chipazon, your your belt tightened, your shoes tied, if God says because you have no idea, I'm about to, I'm about to tell you to go. I would understand that, but they weren't about to go then. בחצות הלילה B'chatzos ha'laylah. It's not until later that they're going to get the call, the green light that it's time to leave. So if they're not getting the green light till later, why are they being told to do this now? How does that make sense? How does that make sense? So, look at the ספורנו Sforno. מתניכם חגורים מזומנים לדרך Masneichem chagurim mezumanim la'derech. Be ready to hit the road. להורות על בטחון בלתי מסופק בקל יתברך L'horos al bitachon bilti mesupak b'Keil yisborach. בהיותם מכינים עצמם לדרך בעודם בבית כלא B'heyosam mechinim atzmam la'derech b'odam b'beis keleh. Because when you are in prison and it defies logic to believe that you're about to go, it is the ultimate statement of faith to have your bag packed, to have your belt tightened. Even in the heart of imprisonment, of servitude, it is the greatest affirmation that they believed this message of hope and faith, to be ready to go even though it's not going to happen yet. We know the stories of great people, righteous people who had a suitcase packed for when משיח Moshiach will come. We won't have time to pack. It was the statement that I, אף על פי שיתמהמה, אני בכל יום, אני אחכה לו Af al pi sheyismameah, ani b'chol yom, ani achakeh lo, every moment. It is an incredible statement. I saw one commentary explain that ציפיתי לישועה tzipisi li'yeshua, one of the questions we're asked, according to the גמרא בשבת Gemara in Shabbos, when we get upstairs, we're asked a series of questions, and one of them is, did you long for the redemption? And that's exactly this question. מתניכם חגורים נעליכם ברגליכם Masneichem chagurim na'aleichem b'ragleichem. Were you fatalistic? Did you become passive? Did you assume that this life and the Jewish condition and exile was forever? Or were your bags packed? Did you really believe משיח Moshiach could come any minute, any moment? The redemption's about to happen. Get ready. Here it comes. So even when there might be a delay, being ready is the fulfillment of ציפיתי לישועה tzipisi li'yeshua. It's the fulfillment of actually longing, of actually affirming our faith and longing we're going to go. Says רש\"י Rashi, בחפזון לשון בהלה ומהירות b'chipazon lashon behalah u'mehiros. Alacrity, zeal. The parsha calls it a פסח הוא להשם Pesach hu laShem. You're going to observe this thing as a פסח Pesach for Hashem. הקרבן הוא קרוי פסח על שם הדילוג והפסיחה Ha'korban hu karui Pesach al shem ha'dilug v'ha'psichah. The korban that's brought to commemorate the experience is called the קרבן פסח Korban Pesach. Why? To commemorate the דילוג dilug. Hashem skipped over our houses. פסח Pasach. He skipped. שהקדוש ברוך הוא מדלג בבתי ישראל מבן בתי מצרים והוא קופץ ממצרי למצרי וישראל באמצע אינו ניזק Shehakadosh Baruch Hu medaleg al batei Yisrael mibein batei Mitzrayim v'hu kofeitz mi'Mitzri l'Mitzri v'Yisrael ba'emtza eino nizak. He skips from Egyptian to Egyptian and he goes over the Jewish home. ואתם עשו כל עבודותיו בשם שמים דרך דילוג וקפיצה V'atem asu kol avodosav b'shem shamayim derech dilug u'kfitza. So that's why the holiday, according to Rashi, is called Pesach. The korban is called Pesach, all to commemorate what? The fact that Hashem skipped over, was פסח pasach on our on our homes. Why did we have to do that? So let's keep reading. ועברתי בארץ מצרים בלילה הזה V'avarti b'eretz Mitzrayim ba'laylah hazeh. I'm going to go around Egypt at night, going to strike the firstborn from man to animal and the אלהי מצרים elohei Mitzrayim, I will do שפטים shfatim. Rashi: כל בכור מצרים Kol bechor Mitzrayim. אף בכורים אחרים שהם במצרים Af bechoros acherim shehem b'Mitzrayim. ומנין אף בכורי מצרים שבמקום אחר U'minayin af b'chorei Mitzrayim she'b'makom acher? It means that if there was a guest from New Jersey in מצרים Mitzrayim and he was a firstborn that night, he was a goner. And if there was an Egyptian who was in New Jersey that night, an Egyptian that in New Jersey that night and he's a firstborn, he's a goner. Hashem says this is not something that can be explained by geography. It's not going to be an epidemic or plague of some contaminant that you could explain, because the Egyptian firstborn who's vacationing elsewhere is also going to be struck. So clearly this is the hand of Hashem. And what's the purpose of ובכל אלהי מצרים uv'chol elohei Mitzrayim? של עץ נרקב Shel eitz nirkav. of of wood will rot. של מתכת נמס Shel metaches neimeses, and if it's made of metal, it will melt. אעשה שפטים אני השם E'eseh shfatim Ani Hashem. אני בעצמי ולא על ידי שליח Ani b'atzmi v'lo al yedei shliach. Hashem says, not through an ambassador, not through an emissary, I myself am going to disprove that there is ever such a thing as another deity, that there is such a thing as another god. Says the רשב\"ם Rashbam, Rashi's grandson, אעשה שפטים e'eseh shfatim, לפי שהיה בוטח באלהי מצרים ואמר מי השם l'fi shehayah bote'ach b'elohei Mitzrayim v'amar mi Hashem. This is my response. Pharaoh and the Egyptians said, מי השם Mi Hashem? We've got our pagan, we know our gods, our idols. מי השם Mi Hashem, who's this God? That's why Hashem says over, אני השם וידעתם Ani Hashem v'yedatem. You'll know. So now when he comes to the ultimate, the culmination of this educational experience, called the Ten Plagues, אעשה שפטים אני השם e'eseh shfatim Ani Hashem. I am going to hold your gods accountable. You will realize, I will have educated you that they are fake, they are a fraud, they are counterfeit. אני השם Ani Hashem. There's only one real God. There's only one real God. The אבן עזרא Ibn Ezra, by the way, notes of ומקלכם בידכם umakalkhem b'yadchem, your belts are tightened, your shoes are on, and you're holding your staff. Why do you need to hold a staff? Says the אבן עזרא Ibn Ezra, לנהוג החמורים linhog ha'chamorim, because you're going to need to lead the donkeys. And that's who's going to get you out. Okay. You're leaving בחפזון b'chipazon. We still haven't answered my question, we're going to come back to it in a moment. Why are you putting the blood? והיה הדם לכם לאות V'hayah hadam lachem l'os. פסוק י\"ג Pasuk Yud Gimmel. Rashi says, לכם לאות lachem l'os. Where was the blood placed? So here's something else which is a terrible misconception, that we put the blood on the outside and the Egyptians saw. It says, והיה הדם לכם לאות v'hayah hadam lachem l'os. And Rashi says, לכם ולא לאחרים שלא נתנו דם אלא מבפנים lachem v'lo la'acherim shelo nosnu dam elah mibifnim. The blood was put on the inside, not the outside. How did Hashem see it? So that only further supports the question. Right? If it was so that Hashem knew which homes to skip over, then it makes no sense to be putting it on the inside. You got to put it on the outside. So why were we told to put the blood there all together? How does that make any sense? ופסחתי U'fasachti, and then I will skip over. ולא יהיה בכם נגף V'lo yihyeh bachem negef. What happened if an Egyptian was in a Jewish home? Would the blood on the doorpost spare that Egyptian? Rashi says no. הרי שהיה מצרי בביתו של ישראל, יכול ימלט? תלמוד לומר ולא יהיה בכם נגף, אבל הווה במצרים שבבתיכם Harei she'hayah Mitzri b'veiso shel Yisrael, yachol yimalet? Talmud lomar, v'lo yihyeh bachem negef, aval hoveh ba'Mitzrim she'b'vateichem. The Egyptian couldn't even get sanctuary, couldn't hide in the home of the Jew. So why put the blood? The answer is very simple. By the way, the מכילתא Mechiltah, the Medrash says that the blood of the פסח Pesach came from which animal? The animal that was the god and the deity of the Egyptian. Do you understand the amount of courage it took the Jew who was still enslaved, who was not yet liberated, to take the god of their oppressor, tie it to a bedpost, have it sit there for many days, and then slaughter it with the Egyptian knowing. You understand the courage it took? And then take that blood and put it on the doorpost. That blood that was on the doorpost, the מכילתא Mechiltah says was mixed with what blood? Look at the בעל הטורים Bala Turim, פסוק י\"ג Pasuk Yud Gimmel, והיה הדם לכם v'hayah hadam lachem. לכם בגימטריא Lachem b'gematria is המילה ha'milah. שבאותה הלילה מלו She'b'osah ha'laylah malu. The Jewish people gave themselves a ברית bris that night. Made it kind of hard to travel the next day, but okay, let's leave that aside. They gave themselves a ברית bris that night, and the blood on the doorpost was a mixture of the blood of the sacrifice with the blood of the מילה milah. What do the two have in common? And the נביא יחזקאל Navi Yechezkel later references this when he says, בדמייך חיי בדמייך חיי b'damayich chayi, b'damayich chayi. The הדמייך ha'damayich, the multiple bloods, are the blood of the קרבן korban and the blood of the ברית bris. What do the two have in common? What both have in common is that we are not passive spectators to our destiny. We are not מגיע לי magia li. We do not believe that we are entitled and that we deserve. We recognize that if we want a better future, if we want redemption, we have to be the catalyst. We have to be the cause. We have to be a partner. We have to be a participant. So God says, you want me to bring you out of Egypt? No problem. I got your back. Ten plagues, splitting of a sea, I'm going to do it. What are you willing to do? What's your skin in the game? What are you willing to put on the line? What courage are you willing to show? What sacrifice, literally and figuratively, are you willing to make? Hashem says, \"I'll do it, but I want you to partner.\" Which is also why when it comes time for אליהו הנביא Eliyahu Hanavi to come to the Seder, and we sing, or we say שפוך חמתך על הגוים shfoch chamascha al hagoyim and then we sing אליהו הנביא Eliyahu Hanavi, what do we do? We open the door. Why are you opening the door? Eliyahu Hanavi can't come down the chimney? Can't walk through walls? If he can be in every Jewish home simultaneously on Seder night, he can also somehow get into your house without you opening the door. Why are we opening the door? Because if you want אליהו הנביא Eliyahu Hanavi to come, you can't sit back reclining on your couch and wait. What are you willing to do? Get up, get to the door, do something. And the ברית מילה bris milah is our partnering with Hashem in the completion of man. It's our participation in the perfection of man with the ברית bris. It's what the two have in common with דמייך חיי damayich chayi. I have a lot more to say on this, but I want to answer our question before we run out of time. So, so why were we doing the blood? It wasn't for Hashem. Hashem knew. Hashem didn't need us to put the blood there. He needed us to put something, some skin in the game. And we could put our skin in the game, literally and figuratively, on the inside of the doorpost because Hashem didn't need to see it marked on the outside. It was for us to go through the process of tying up the animal, slaughtering it in the face of our oppressors for them to see our belief and faith that really Hashem was the one who was going to take us out. Seven days we eat matzah. And then a שחי shchi. ושמרתם U'shmartem. Let's go to Pasuk Yud Zayin. There was much more I wanted to say here, but let's go to Pasuk Yud Zayin. ושמרתם את המצות U'shmartem es hamatzos. We have to safeguard the matzah. Safeguard the matzah. כי בעצם היום הזה Ki b'etzem hayom hazeh, because, so our question was, what matzah? We've still have time for dough to rise. We're not yet leaving. It's not the חפזון chipazon hasn't happened yet. What are you talking about? What matzah? So Rashi says, ושמרתם את המצות u'shmartem es ha'matzos. Don't read it matzos, read it, שמרו את המצוות shmuru es ha'mitzvos. כדרך שאין מחמיצים את המצות, כך אין מחמיצים את המצוות K'derech she'ein machmitzin es ha'matzos, kach ein machmitzin es ha'mitzvos. מצוה הבאה לידך אל תחמיצנה Mitzvah haba'ah l'yadcha al tachmitzenah. When you have an opportunity, don't procrastinate, don't be lazy, don't push it off. When a מצוה mitzvah presents itself, grab it, embrace it, run and do it right then. Just like if you leave flour and water alone, with the passage of time, it will rise, become leaven, become חמץ chametz, so too when you have an opportunity to do something good and something right, if you're lazy and you procrastinate, you turn it into חמץ chametz. Even if you get it done in the end, by the time you do it, it's חמץ chametz. Don't let it become חמץ chametz. ושמרתם U'shmartem. So what is this? Just a cute play on words? Don't read it, you שמרו את המצות shmuru es ha'matzos. This is the origin by the way of שמורה מצה shmurah matzah. You know how you pay a premium to get the שמורה מצה shmurah matzah. Question is, ושמרתם את המצות u'shmartem es ha'matzos. You got to guard the matzah from what point? From when you thresh the wheat? From when you grind the flour? From when you pick the wheat in the field? Everyone know the miracle of the story of the Lubavitchers who picked the wheat earlier than normal, and because of that they discovered the terror tunnel that they were going to use between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. You remember that miraculous story? It's a true story. I heard from someone who heard from a person who was there. It's a true story. ושמרתם את המצות U'shmartem es ha'matzos. Don't read it matzos, read it mitzvos. Is this just a cute play on words? What's really going on over here? There's an incredible מהר\"ל Maharal. The מהר\"ל Maharal in his גור אריה Gur Aryeh, in his commentary on Rashi, right here in our pasuk in our parsha answers all of our questions. And the מהר\"ל Maharal here says the following. You know why matzah is the symbol of יציאת מצרים Yetzias Mitzrayim? And you know why we have this cute play on words? And you know why Hashem told us there won't be time for the dough to rise because I want you to eat matzah, not that you eat matzah because there wasn't time for the dough to rise? The answer is very simple. We live in the physical world and we operate by physical restrictions and limitations. And when we talk about the physical world, we talk about creation, we usually just think about the physical universe, but we forget that time itself is part of creation. And as part of creation, it's part of what differentiates us as finite beings, unlike the רבונו של עולם Rebono shel Olam, the Almighty, who's infinite. The Sforno on the very beginning of the Torah says, בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ Bereishis bara Elokim es hashamayim v'es ha'aretz. If I wake any little child in the middle of the night and I say, \"What is the very first thing that was created in the six days of creation?\" What would they answer? השמים והארץ Hashamayim v'ha'aretz, the heaven and the earth. Wrong. What is the very first thing that was created? Time. בראשית Bereishis, ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ bara Elokim es hashamayim v'es ha'aretz. No, בראשית b'reishis ברא אלהים bara Elokim. The very first thing God created was the beginning. Time. ראשית Reishis. Time. There can only be six days if there's time. The whole notion, again, we don't know what it means to operate and live outside of time. We can't relate to that, we can't identify with that. But we live within time. Time too is a creation of Hashem. For us to be an immortal people, for us to be a holy, sacred people, for us to be a people of zeal and alacrity who can transcend and rise above the limitations of the universe, be it physical or be it time, we were taken out with speed, with חפזון chipazon, with alacrity. Now, it's not that it's Einstein's theory of relativity, which is true, right? That there's a relationship between time and speed. Right? If you put people on the moon and you track their age and anyone here educated? Einstein's theory of relativity. So there's a relationship between time and speed, that the faster you go, the more you can slow down time. There's a there's a relationship between the two. So הקדוש ברוך הוא Hakadosh Baruch Hu was prescribing for us that if you are going to be an immortal people, if you're going to be an eternal people, if you're going to be a covenantal people, if you're going to be a people whose whole mission is to achieve the spiritual, to transcend the physical, then you need to be born בחפזון b'chipazon. You need to be born the closest we can to transcending time. And what is the closest we can to be unaffected by time? By going as fast as possible. Speed. And that's why matzah became the symbol. Because matzah is the symbol of not laziness and procrastination, but זריזות zrizus, alacrity and zeal. The character, the hallmark of our people are to be defined... by a sense of זריזות zrizus. Don't be lazy and procrastinate. Israel's not so disproportionately represented on the Nasdaq and medical breakthroughs and technological breakthroughs. We are not the, what was the famous book? The Startup Nation, thank you, because we're lazy. We'll try to discover ways tomorrow. We'll invent the SMS tomorrow. We'll invent this cure to Alzheimer's tomorrow. We are the people who we are because we run. We run to achieve, to accomplish, with vision, with ambition, with aspiration. And that was born into our DNA when we became a nation. Because the whole way we were taken from Egypt was בחיפזון bechipazon. Don't be lazy, don't procrastinate. Don't turn your life into חמץ chametz. מצוה הבאה לידך אל תחמיצנה Mitzvah haba'ah l'yadcha al tachmitzena. So says the מהר״ל Maharal, designed into our very DNA is this, is this notion and is this experience. And in fact, it is what defines how we live our lives. I'll end with this, having left out so much that I wanted to talk about. I'll end with this. What is the very first הלכה halacha in all of שולחן ערוך Shulchan Aruch? שולחן ערוך אורח חיים סימן א׳ סעיף א׳ Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim, Siman Aleph, Se'if Aleph. What does it say? יתגבר כארי לעמוד בבוקר לעבודת בוראו Yisgaber ka'ari la'amod baboker l'avodas boro, שיהא הוא מעורר השחר she'yehei hu me'orer hashachar. What does it mean to be a Jew? Is to wake up like a lion, to greet the day, to serve השם Hashem, to usher in the dawn.That's what it means to be a Jew, is that you don't sleep late and you're not lazy. You sleep because we need to sleep to have the energy to pursue our mission here on earth. We don't value sleep because we love sleep. We value sleep because it's what energizes us in order to achieve, to do. So what it means to be a Jew is יתגבר כארי Yisgaber ka'ari. Wake up like a lion. אל תחמיצנה Al tachmitzena, don't turn your day into חמץ chametz by hitting snooze 50 times, waking up late, going to the late, late, late minyan, davening at the כותל Kotel, which is another word for your living room. That's not the way a Jew greets the day. יתגבר כארי Yisgaber ka'ari, we wake up with a roar like a lion, because built into our DNA when we were born as a nation was חפזון chipazon. We only ברוך השם Baruch Hashem eat מצה matzah one week a year, but the theme of מצה matzah should permeate our year. The theme of מצה matzah should inform our year, that throughout the year we don't allow any of these things to turn us into חמץ chametz.So that brings us to next year חמישי Chamishi. We'll pick up פסוק כ״א Pasuk Chaf Aleph. And I'll make some notes on the other things I hope to talk about. I wanted to offer another suggestion on a פסח Pesach. רש״י Rashi said the name פסח Pesach is פסח pasach, השם Hashem skipped over. But you know the אריז״ל Arizal introduced us to this idea which was quoted countless times since then, that פסח Pesach really stands for פה סח peh sach. It's the holiday of speaking, which is unusual because usually we say אמור מעט ועשה הרבה emor me'at v'asei harbei. Don't talk a lot. Let your actions speak louder than words. וכל המרבה דברים מביא חטא V'chol hamarbeh devarim meivi chet. The more you talk, the more trouble you'll get in. That nothing is better than listening. And yet this holiday is not about listening. This holiday is all about talking. Take us full circle to how we began. סיפור יציאת מצרים Sippur Yetzias Mitzrayim. It's called לחם עוני lechem oni because it's the bread that we talk a lot. כל המרבה לספר הרי זה משובח Kol hamarbeh l'saper harei zeh meshubach. The more you talk, the better you are. So normally we're told, be a good listener, don't talk a lot. פסח Pesach comes along and says don't stop talking. What is it about freedom that's connected with talking and how does that connect to the word פסח Pesach, פה סח peh sach? We'll talk about that בעזרת השם b'ezras Hashem beginning.
