Transcript
Good morning Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. As always, a big thank you to our Emuna series sponsors, Doctors Avi and Bella Morgan, who sponsored the series in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella’s mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer. A big thank you to the Morgans. Also, the shiur is sponsored Li-chvod Pesach in memory of Dr. Jacob M. Hiller, who exemplified and modeled how to live with Simchas HaChayim. We are still learning the Tiv HaEmuna as we are on the cusp of the Chag HaEmuna. This is the Yontiff of Emuna. It’s not the Yontiff of cleaning for Pesach or cooking for Pesach. We do all of those things in order to create an environment of Pesach, the Chag HaEmuna. It is the Yontiff of faith, the night of faith. It is a night not of information, it is a night of transformation. To be able to come to and sit at and leave our Seder table entirely different people than the ones who came, to review the stories of Emuna. And I think that’s an amazing exercise for all of us among the preparations that we’re making for Pesach, for the Chag HaEmuna, is not just a fancy Hagadda and not just to buy the little toys to put out for the Eser Makos, the ten plagues, and not just to work on your famous Pesach recipes or to chop up the Charoses, but to come to the table and say, how will we leave with greater faith? What stories will we share with one another about divine providence, about Hashem’s guiding hand in our lives? What story will we tell about our own journey from Golus to Geulah? Because חייב אדם לראות את עצמו. Pesach is all about seeing ourselves as going from a position of, Yocheved it’s okay if I use your Dvar Torah, every year from the Seder, Mitzrayim is Metzar, constraint, narrow, from a place of feeling confined, no way out. We’ve all had that feeling. Medically or with health, with illness, God forbid. Financially burdened, no idea how I’ll pay the bills or put the next meal on the table. Relationship felt like it’s going to crumble or implode, how will we salvage this relationship? Feel like the walls are caving in and closing in, the ceiling is falling, it’s getting more narrow. Mitzrayim is not just a geographic description. Mitzrayim is not just a place of coordinates that you put into Waze or Google Maps. Mitzrayim is a mindset. Metzar, Metzar means a strait, narrow, confined, restricted place. The walls are caving in. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu takes us out of Mitzrayim. B’chol dor vador, in every generation, we have to see ourselves חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים. You got out of it, you got out of it. I mentioned the other day that for many, many years, too few but many years, we had the privilege of hosting Martin Judovits at our Seder table, Alav HaShalom. Martin was an incredibly special man. And when we got to V’hi She-omda, we’d pause, we’d stop, we’d turn to him, as we did with Yocheved’s grandparents who were survivors for years before. And they would tell stories even if the rest of the year they had no voice, the rest of the year they had no interest, they had no capacity to tell the stories of the war years, of their suffering, of their Mitzrayim, of their survival of genocide and extermination, which was paralleled and surpassed the servitude of Egypt. But Pesach night they found their voice, which is also what Pesach is all about. Pesach, the Arizal says, comes from the words Peh Sach, the mouth that speaks. Because you see, when you are in servitude—I wasn’t planning on saying any of this, this is just good morning, welcome, it’s almost Pesach, Chag HaEmuna—but just a couple words about Pesach and then we’ll dive back into our topic, Tiv HaEmuna, the beautiful sefer of Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz. So Pesach, the Arizal says, the name Pesach, Pesach comes from Peh, the mouth, Sach, that speaks. Why is it a Yontiff of speaking? Happens to be so many of the Mitzvos of the night revolve around speaking. Sippur Yetzias Mitzrayim, we recite the Hagadda, tell stories, communicate, transmit. כל המרבה לספר הרי זה משובח. Speak as much as you can. Go on and on and on. Nu, tell me more. Let’s stay up even later. Kol HaMarbe Lesaper. And that’s what makes it מה נשתנה הלילה הזה. Most other nights you’re like, could you shut it down? Could you turn it off? Genuge shayn, let’s go to sleep. We’ve had enough. Where’s the off button? But Pesach night, Kol HaMarbe Lesaper. Nu, more. Tell me more. Talk to me more. More stories, more about your life, more insights, more of what you have to say. The whole night is about speaking and speaking and talking and talking and we don’t stop. We don’t let up. The more you do, the more praiseworthy it is. Why? What’s the association between Pesach, Peh Sach, the mouth that speaks? Why is it the holiday of speaking? Because a slave, a slave is silenced. A slave can't express their opinion. A slave can't put themselves forward, represent themselves, advocate for themselves. A slave is not entitled to an opinion. A slave can't disagree. A slave is silenced. Tragically. where there are people in relationships that their voice is silenced, they're not allowed to offer their opinion, they're not allowed to have a different perspective. It's never allowed to go their way. Nebach, that's a relationship that needs redemption, it needs a geula, it needs work. But in Mitzrayim, physical slaves literally have no opinion. They are subservient not only physically but spiritually, emotionally, mentally to their master. Don't have an opinion. Don't raise your voice. Don't say what you think. Nobody cares. It has no impact. So how do we celebrate freedom and liberty? Pesach. Start speaking. And now is not the time, but you can Google, you'll find the literature of after the Holocaust, how many people started to speak. They wanted to talk, they wanted to speak. Even more than they craved satisfying their physical appetite and hunger and starvation was the starvation of the capacity to speak and to speak freely and to speak proudly and to speak confidently and to be able to voice an opinion and to be able to voice a vision, to be able to forge a destiny. So that's freedom. That's the night of freedom. Freedom is the ability to speak. And what do we want to speak about? What do we want to tell the story of? כל המרבה לספר ביציאת מצרים. Heemanti ki adaber. The more we speak about seeing Hashem, feeling Hashem, identifying Hashem, connecting to Hashem, then heemanti, the more emuna we feel. So davka that night of emuna, what are we supposed to sit around and talk about? I'm on a big kick. I haven't been successful yet, not any year, we'll see if this year. But my big kick, my bold suggestion is embrace the incredible Haggadahs our children come home with. Our teachers are amazing. They're creative, they work tirelessly, they're amazing. And we should thank them and we should give them a little gift for Pesach and we should tell them how incredible the Haggadah is and we should look at it, this Shabbos Hagadol or Erev Pesach or the lunches of the three-day Yom Tov of Pesach, but we should not bring it to the Seder table. Why? Because these Haggadahs are filled with vortlach and gematrias and highfalutin fancy divrei Torah and kids compete, it's not mine, it's not fair, you got to say seventeen, I only said sixteen of my divrei Torah, I didn't read this paragraph yet, I didn't say over that thing yet. Do they even understand what they're necessarily saying? And the mitzvah of the night is vehigadta levincha. The mitzvah of the night is for us to tell them the story and to engage them in conversation and to engage them in the themes of freedom and liberty and what it means to be free. And if you're addicted to technology or to keeping up or to having the most friends or followers, then are you really free? What is freedom and do we have it in our time? And what is generosity and Dayenu? When is dai? When is it enough and when do we always crave more? And when is it Dayenu? When are we grateful and what's the connection between freedom and gratitude? And there's so many themes that we have to talk about that the Haggadah's amazing, but who has time for it at the Seder? There's too many more important things you've got to talk about at the Seder. Too many more important things to talk about. We've got to tell stories. We've got to tell you an entire year, an entire lifetime, we have to tell you our entire family tree worth of stories of yetzias mitzrayim. I have to tell you about the great-great-great-great-grandparents, how they survived, what they got out of the pogrom they lived in Kishinev. My great-great-grandfather arrived at Kishinev the day after the great Kishinev pogrom. He got off the train, he didn't know where all the Jews were, he couldn't find anyone, he thought he was in the wrong city. He came to attend what was then the famed Yeshiva of Kishinev, but he didn't know it was the day after the pogrom that wiped out so many in Kishinev. And it's all stories. How do I know that story? I never met him, it happens to be I went to Kishinev, but I never met him. How do I know that story? Because that's our job is to tell these stories. Going as far back as we can and in order to ensure as far forward as we can, these stories will be told. So Pesach lunch is a great time to go through these Haggadahs. Shabbos Hagadol, Erev Pesach, arts and crafts, see the gematrias, see the pretty pictures, hear the incredible insights, they're great. But don't let them detract or distract from what the Seder night... there's too many important things that we've got to talk about. So anyway, that's a way of saying good morning. Good morning. It's the Chag HaEmuna, that's why we have Living with Emuna, even though we all have a lot we've got to do. Ladies, I'm with you for Pesach. I'm on the women's team. I got a lot to do. I got to cook up drashas, I got to cook up Shabbos Hagadol drasha. I got a lot of questions I have to answer. I got a lot to do too. I'm on your team, I'm on your side. So, but still we have to... how could you not have Living with Emuna right before the Chag HaEmuna? It's the Yom Tov of Emuna. So, whatever you do, don't, don't just take out the great china, don't just chop the charoses, don't just make your family's famous recipe. Make sure that you stop and think what are the stories I'm going to tell from this year, from this week, from this month, from this lifetime. On this Yom Tov of Emuna, what's my story? בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות. The Rambam's girsa is chayav adam leharot. It's not enough lirot, you don't just have to see yourself, you have to leharot. That's why Sefardim, you ever been to a Sefardi Seder, had Sefardim over at yours? They take a little pekel, they put it on a stick, they hold it over their shoulder, they walk around, they have a whole niggun. Bibhilu yatzanu mimitzrayim. They have a whole song they sing while they walk around because the Rambam's girsa says not that you just sit there looking like some Ashkenazi shlub lying sideways. You get up and you walk around and you demonstrate, you're putting on a play. You're putting on a play. It's not just: it's like I left Egypt. Not just a little Ashkenazi: it's like I left Egypt. I'm demonstrating. I'm leaving Egypt. Come. Who's in? Who's with me? We're getting out. We're going. Let's go. That's what this Yom Tov is. Chevra, let's get out of our Egypt. Let's get out of our Mitzrayim, our meitzar. What's holding you back? What are you enslaved, what are you oppressed, what are you persecuted by? What is it? What are you addicted to? And I don't use that word lightly. ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו אמן. What are the things that we feel oppressed and persecuted by? Bitterness and resentment and negativity and anger and envy we're holding onto. Are we prisoners to it? What are we prisoners to? What are we addicted to? And how this Pesach are we going to go free? How are we going to take a journey deep into ourselves? Liros es atzmo to finally see ourselves, and leharos es atzmo and to let others see who we are. And we're going to break free of our Mitzrayim. And how are we going to do it? How are we going to do it best? Only if we see Him. Only if we welcome Him. Only if we surrender to Him. We're stuck and we can't move. There's a reason that the recovery world with its success is predicated on submitting to the higher power. The only way that you can set yourself free is trading. Don't be a slave to a person or a substance or a behavior. Be a slave to Him. Be a slave to Him. That's what it is all about. Tonight on the bimah, we have in honor of opening week of baseball, we have Darryl Strawberry, the great Yankee, who apparently played for the Mets before he was on the Yankees, something in '86. I'm just joking. He was a big Met champion. But as much as he was a baseball champion, he struggled with substance abuse, which really derailed his life. And we'll talk tonight about recovery and faith in God and his discovery of God and with it his love of the Jewish people and his love of Israel that often goes with it, his loyalty to the Jewish people and to Israel. Whatever's holding us back, whatever's that meitzar, whatever's making you feel the walls are caving in, it's only when you realize He's in charge, He's in control. I do my initiative, I do my best, but only when I welcome Him, only when I walk with Him, only when I talk to Him, and only when I hear Him talking to me, then I'll be able to overcome and I'll be over I'll be able to be able to walk and get through whatever it is that I'm that I'm going through. Okay, all of that was a way of saying good morning. I got an Emuna email to read to you and then we'll get back into our text. I've been listening to your shiur the last couple of years, Living with Emuna has helped me build a stronger connection to Hashem, a greater perspective on the ups and downs of daily life. Not many days go by where I don't think something I've learned from the shiur and mention a lesson to my husband or children. I know most of the emails you read to the shiur are very powerful experiences and make everyone cry. By everyone, this person means me. I want to share a more everyday moment, but one that also shows how Emuna has truly become an active practice for me. And I share it with you because I do think it's a great example. Right? The Emuna's not just in these huge critical moments where there was a crisis, there was a catastrophe, we dug deep, we found Hashem and it got me through it. This is her story. I grew up in South Florida, I won't say where, I raised my four children with my husband in wherever it is. My two older my two older daughters are recent high school graduates and now live in Yerushalayim. One of my daughters is coming back to the US for a visit, we made plans to visit our family in South Florida. Months before the trip, as we were planning our activities, I let my mother know I would like to borrow her car early Wednesday to drive to Boca to attend Living with Emuna in person. I heard they have great coffee. Doesn't say that. I promised I'd be back by lunch, we planned other activities around my absence Wednesday morning. I was so excited. See the shul, drink in the coffee from a caffeinate with kavana cup. Let me a little a little product a little product placement over here for those who are watching. And feel the energy of the live shiur. My whole family was so excited for me. Finally, I'd get to really be part of the shiur that means so much to me. We arrived in South Florida on the Sunday and on Monday morning I got an email from the shul, Living with Emuna was rescheduled that week from Wednesday to Thursday. Remember a few weeks ago I had a wedding, I was away, we rescheduled. I immediately sent an email to the family WhatsApp group letting everyone know. My husband and kids were so disappointed for me, they sent the sweetest message. My daughter's flight back to Israel was from Miami on Thursday morning and said, "Mom, just go on Thursday." Of course, not seeing sending her off was out of the question. At a different time pre-Living with Emuna, I would have been really crushed, I would have been disappointed. After all my planning and waiting, why didn't things work out the way I wanted? Why did things have to change? Why me? I would have felt frustration. But this time I didn't. I was calm. I said to my family, "The whole point of the shiur is to teach us to..." except moments like this. Hakol bidei shamayim. It wasn't meant for me to attend the shiur. I'll do something else that morning and I did. I took my ten-year-old son to the pool and we had the best time together. So thanks for the opportunity to build my muscle for withstanding disappointment. It's much easier to put into perspective missing an event I was looking forward to than something with much more significant consequences. But when the time comes and it always does, I'll have good practice with the small things in life and that's because I'm learning how to practice emunah daily by participating in the shiur. So it's a great email, it's a great example. It's not always the major crises and catastrophes, and God forbid they should never come, but if they do, we'll be better positioned to withstand them when we work out that emunah muscle in the more daily disappointments. There are small little disappointments in life. The disappointments that we go through in life. So like when you come home and you were expecting certain Shabbos leftovers to be there, and you were so excited all day that you were going to eat them, and then you open the fridge and it turns out someone got to them before you, and there was nothing left. The leftover jerky from Shabbos. And there was nothing left. So either your world can implode, you could throw a fit, you could off someone's head, or you could say, this should be my biggest disappointment. Hashem, it was not meant to be for me to eat that, so... That is a purely hypothetical example. Back in Tuv Ha'emunah, page ayin-ches, page 78, עיקר הישועה והגאולה רק בכוח האמונה. We've been talking about the connection, the relationship between anger and a lack of emunah, which by the way is a Pesach theme too because who is somebody who has anger management problems and they stem from not seeing Hashem is Paro? Paro and the Egyptians. The less you see and feel and welcome Hashem into your life, the more that you'll swell with anger, the more rage will overcome you, the more you'll lash out and you will sabotage relationships and business opportunities in your life. The famous Steipler, everybody knows this but I'll repeat the vort so you can say it at your Seder table as a reminder. The second makkah of tzfardaya, of frogs, the midrash tells us these were very unusual frogs. Why? Because the frog, if you would strike, if you'd hit the frog, what happened? It multiplied, one became two. If you hit the frogs, two became four, four became eight. Little Gremlin frogs. If you hit them, if you fed them after midnight, they became... they multiplied. So the Steipler Gaon, Rav Chaim Kanievsky's father, the Steipler asks in his Birchas Peretz. He said, I understand the first time an Egyptian tried to catch a frog and he hit the frog, and the frog... he didn't know it would multiply. So he saw, lo and behold, it multiplied. So maybe he thought it was a fluke. So he did it again and it multiplied again. By the second, by the third time, long before it became a plague and frogs were in his bed, on his head, on his nose, in his toes, long before it got to that point of a song, shouldn't the Egyptians have stopped hitting the frogs? Shouldn't they have seen the correlation between, hmm, every time we hit they multiply, we're bringing this plague upon ourselves, shouldn't they have stopped much sooner, much earlier on? Asks the Steipler. And he has an incredible insight into the human psyche. He says, that's the power and the danger of anger. Anger is so pernicious, anger is so destructive, anger sabotages because it clouds our judgment and it compromises our thinking, and when a person is filled with rage and anger... and by the way, anatomically this is true. Again, I never understood. They put the person in the MRI machine then they anger them so they can take the brain scan to see what happens? Or do they find someone angry and say, quick, come with us and put them in the machine? I don't know how they do these things. But the way the blood flows in your brain, the animal parts of the brain light up and the human thinking parts of the brain shut down because we become fight or flight, we become animals. Rage, we stop thinking, we have no judgment. And what happens? We sabotage our own success, we bring a plague upon ourselves. I told you a couple weeks ago this interview I heard with this incredible successful person. Successful? Successful, he has all the money in the world and notoriety, and he's a coach to Fortune 500 CEOs. And he mentions at the end of the podcast, by the way, I got divorced recently after my 18-year marriage and three children because my wife had warned me, if I don't conquer my anger, she simply can't do it even though she loves me. And she left me. And this coach, this manager, this person who seemed to have it all together, his anger sabotaged his life. All that money and all that fame and all that success and all that honor, but what's it worth? He doesn't have his family intact and all together. Because Paro didn't see Hashem. He says, Lo yadati, mi Hashem. Moshe and Aaron come and they say, hi, here's our card, we represent the Lord Almighty, we're here to represent Him and He has a message for you. He says, I'm sorry, who do you represent? He says, you know, the God, the Lord Almighty, whatever you want to call Him. And Paro says, לא ידעתי את השם. I never heard of Him. I don't know Him, I've never met Him, I've never seen Him, I don't know who you're talking about. And in fact, the Netziv and others say the whole curriculum of the plagues... divided into three parts is a curriculum, "Hi, I'm God, it's nice to meet you. I control nature." It's a whole curriculum, "I'm God, it's nice to meet you." And by the end Paroh acknowledges and invokes Hashem's name. Says, "I guess there's a Hashem." So the same Paroh who goes to the Nile to relieve himself because he pretends he's a deity and he worships the Nile and he thinks he himself is a god. And therefore because he denies God in his life and he thinks he's in charge and in control and he thinks he could micromanage everything, flies off the handle and gets angry and refuses to hear or see God in his life and he brings about ten plagues. Had he just listened and heard and don't ask right now that Hashem hardened his heart, it's a great question for another time, but had he simply listened to the message the universe and the Almighty were sending him, he wouldn't have brought plagues upon his home. And how many of us in anger and rage and ego bring plagues upon our home and our family and our relationships and our lives because we can't control our anger? Says Rav Gamliel Rabinovich, there is a direct correlation and connection. When ego, edge God out, when you edge God out of your life, you fill with anger, when you fill with anger you undermine, you sabotage your own life, you bring plagues onto your home and onto your family. And be'emes we're on the second paragraph of page ayin ches. ובאמת באופן כזה הנה ישועת השם באמת רחוקה ממנו כי עיקר הישועה בא מכוח האמונה בישועת השם כהרף עין. Where does salvation come from? How can you transform yourself and be a different person? How can you save that relationship? How can you save that business? How can you save that partnership? How can you save that blood pressure? How can you save that life? How can you save your health? ישועת השם כהרף עין. Let him in. Let him in. See him, feel him, talk to him, hear him talking to you, surrender, submit to him and then his salvation comes keref ayin. It comes like the blink of an eye. Kedisa b'medrash, the medrash in Shir HaShirim which we'll read on Pesach. אשים לבנון כעצבוי מראש אמנה גדולה אמונה לפני מי שאמר והיה העולם אתה מוצא שלא נגאלו ישראל ממצרים רק בזכות האמונה. We were only redeemed from Egypt in the merit of a little bit of emuna we had. We were on the lowest level of tumah. We were promiscuous and licentious. We were acting immorally, unethically, but you know what? Under all that inappropriateness and breach of boundaries, there was a little emuna. We cried out to Hashem. At least from our lowliness, at least in our distance, at least we called out. Hakadosh Baruch Hu heard our calls. We called out to him. We hit what in that world we call rock bottom. And from rock bottom, from rock bottom which is not our best selves, from rock bottom we called out, Hashem, I need you, I surrender. I can't do this without you. You're in charge, you're in control, I'm letting go, I'm along for the ride, now I'm ready. Now I'm ready. And that was the zchus, בזכות האמונה שלא נגאלו ישראל ממצרים רק בזכות האמונה שנאמר ויאמן בה' ויחשבה לו צדקה. הוי לנו הרי לנו כי עיקר הגאולה בא מכוח האמונה. By the way, I didn't plan this. I'm embarrassed to tell you I didn't even look at this until just now that the text that we're reading happens to be about Pesach and Yitzias Mitzrayim, what a coincidence right? There are no coincidences. Everything is from above, everything is from Hashem. עיקר הגאולה בא מכוח האמונה. Redemption in your life comes when you start to have faith. It was true then and it's true now. That's why Rav Wolbe says, what's the bracha that we say right before the Amida? I take three steps forward and I say Hashem, I surrender, you're in charge. Give me da'as, give me forgiveness, give me healing, give me parnassa, all the thirteen requests we're up to in Sidur snippets. See what I just did there? All the thirteen requests that we're up to in the Sidur snippets that are the core of the Amida. What's the bracha we make right before we take those three steps forward? Like Rabbi Penner said a few weeks ago, Hashem is only three steps away. What is the bracha we say right before those three steps? Baruch Atah Hashem, Ga'al Yisrael. Hashem, you redeemed the Jewish people. Okay, what does that have to do with anything? Why are we saying that now? Isn't it enough? Okay, we got it. You're the redeemer, you're the redeemer, good. Haven't we given enough credit enough times? Three times a day, seven days a week. Yeah, we got it, you redeemed us. Thank you, shkoiach, haven't we said thank you enough? Why do we have to remind—does he need to hear it so many times? He needs his ego stroked so many times? We got it, you're the—thank you. Yes, it was your idea. Yes, you did. Yes, thank you. We got it. Ga'al Yisrael. Why do we have to keep making that bracha? Says Rav Wolbe, you know why? Because you're about to take three steps forward and say, I'm in a crunch. I'm in a bind. The world's like caving in. I need your help. Refaeinu, Barech Aleinu, Shma Koleinu. Why should we believe he's going to be there? Where's the evidence he's the one who can help take us out? The answer is Ga'al Yisrael once and Ga'al Yisrael again. So right before I take those three steps forward and I ask you for help, I remember. Don't we do that in human life? We go to someone... And when we say, you remember once I was in a bind and you helped me out? I'll never forget. And I'm telling you how several years ago I needed a connection with a doctor, several years ago I needed a loan to just help pay some bills to get me through Pesach, several years ago I needed a shoulder to cry on and I've never forgotten you were there for me and thank you. And you know why I'm telling you that right now? Cause I need it again. And by reminding myself and you that you did it, I'm hoping you'll do it again. So we say Ga'al Yisrael right before the Amidah, not because he needs to hear it. We say it because we need to hear it. We need to remember that the reason that he's the one that we are surrendering to, unburdening ourselves to, is because he did it before and he'll do it again. So anytime you're in a bind, anytime you feel those walls caving in, anytime you're in your own Mitzrayim, not only on Pesach, we have a mitzvah to remember leaving Egypt every day, we say it in Shema, we have a mitzvah to remember leaving Egypt every week, that's one of the themes of Shabbos, Zecher Litzias Mitzrayim. We are obsessed, as my children, one of them, obsessed with, we are obsessed with the theme of leaving Egypt. We got it, we left Egypt. It's enough, it's thousands of years ago, enough. Let's talk about today. No, we're not done, because that is forever the archetype, that is forever the model, that is forever the precedent that we go back to. Mitzrayim is not just a geographic place, it is a state of mind, it is a experience. Whenever you are in a Mitzrayim, a meitzar, he took us out. And when we need to be taken out again, what was the merit that he took us out then? The merit of emunah, bizchus ha'emunah. And what is the merit he'll take us out now? Bizchus ha'emunah. Whatever bind you're in, lean on him, surrender to him, recognize him. כי עיקר הגאולה בא מכח האמונה ועל ידה בא השמחה והשירה. And with it, when we're redeemed, when we're released, what a joy, what a song. What are we going to sing at the end of Pesach, seventh day, eighth day in Chutz La'aretz? Shirat Hayam, the song when it all comes together and it all makes sense, and we're able to work it all out. אם כן המפסיד צדקתו והסתיר פניו מהביט אל מראות קונו ויפנה אל אלילים ויהיה כאילו עובד עבודה זרה בכעסו והקפדתו ונמצא מונע עצמו מכל טובה. So who would want to get angrier or worship idols or try to micromanage this world? Just learn from our history so we're not doomed to repeat it and realize that the sooner we make space for him, the sooner our life will have a personal redemption in life. And the more we edge God out because we think it's about our ego, the more we will burden and be imprisoned and be enslaved to masters and slavery of our own making. כי בכעסו הוא מעיד כאלף עדים שרחק לבו מן האמונה בישועת השם. Listen to that sentence. Be'ka'aso, through anger, when you demonstrate anger, when you fail to conquer anger, you are demonstrating, you are testifying, me'id ke'elef edim. Your anger is the testimony of a thousand witnesses that you are far from believing in Hashem. If you get angry, if you rage, if you speak harshly to others, all you're doing is telling the world you don't believe in him. That's what you're doing. You're simply demonstrating for the world to see or whoever is the recipient or subject of your anger to know that you are rachok, you are far from emunah in Hashem. ומי שאינו מאמין גם רחוק ממנו הגאולה והישועה. And because you're so far from him, you're also so far right now from redemption and salvation. So when you are the recipient or the target of anger, instead of, we spoke about this a few moments ago in the 10 minutes of meaning, Mesillas Yesharim, instead of matching that and now you escalate it, the decibel levels and the fight and the yelling and the text messages, don't. Pity the person. Feel pity for the person, because if that person could feel that way and act that way and lash out that way and rage that way, how unhappy are they with themselves? How big is the hole in their heart? How far from Hashem are they? So feel bad for them. I'm not saying you should tolerate it or accept being treated that way, it's a separate conversation how to respond and how to react and what to do to navigate that relationship, but try to pivot to a place of pity that a person who could act or behave that way, how big is the hole in their heart? How unhappy are they with their life? How far are they from Hashem and how far are they from redemption, for the redemption that they need? No matter how much else they have, they're so far from happiness and from redemption because of how far they are from Hashem. So daven for them. When somebody has lashed out with you with anger, they wrote that text or that email, they told you off in front of a group of people, when somebody yelled with anger and rage, daven for them, daven for their redemption that they be redeemed. ודי בזה לעורר לב נלבב. And in the holy books they talk at length שעיקר הגאולה באה רק בזכות האמונה. The Geula redemption only comes in the merit of faith in him ולא עוד אלא שעל ידי אמונה יכול אדם לבוא לכל מדרגות היותר גדולות שאפשר לאדם לבוא. You want to be your best self, you want to live your best life, you want to bring about your best reality, the secret, the answer, the formula is Emunah. It's many other things too; it's not just Emunah. You're not going to earn more income by sitting on the couch and having Emunah. You might. You might. You never know where it's going to come from or how it's going to happen. We need to take initiative too. You're not going to heal your illness by not going to the doctor or doing the therapy or taking the medicine, but by just having Emunah. It might. But we believe you have to take initiative too. But the secret, the secret sauce, the secret ingredient to any success in life is more Emunah. Redemption. We want redemption. Whatever we are enslaved to, whatever we're suffering from, whatever meitzar we're living under, the redemption comes through Emunah. Kedis'isa b'Pri Tzaddik, the הייליגע רב צדוק הכהן, וזה לשונו על ידי התחזקות באמונה זוכה להיות השם אור לו. Through strengthening Emunah, we merit that Hashem is a light for us, ועל ידי כן יכול לבוא לכל מדרגות היותר גדולות שאפשר לאדם לבוא. You want to be your best self, your most productive self, your most efficient self, you want to be your best self, to have your best relationships, to live your best life, it's only when Hashem is by your side. If you think you can do it sans Hashem, you think you can do it all alone, you think you can do it pridefully and independently, you can't and you won't. Your best life and your best self is only with him by your side. So I give us all a bracha, yehi ratzon that we should—this should be our holiday of redemption. We don't have to wait till next Wednesday night. You could redeem yourself today. That's the theme of Pesach, Chag Ha'Emunah, and that's our mission and our mandate Seder night. Teachers, I love you. The greatest. Thank you for all the work on the Haggadahs. I'm not trying to put them out of work. I'm just saying we got to take back the Seder. We got to take back the Seder night. It's not a matter of how many turns they took and how much they read and how far they got through the Haggadah and how late we finished. It's not a competition who finished the latest. When I was a kid and still now, you get to shul the next morning: "Nu, what time did you finish?" "It's nothing. 3 a.m." You know, it's not a competition. Not a competition. It should be: "Nu, how much were you transformed? How different are you? How much did you break free? How much did you break free and liberate yourself from the prison of your life?" You never hear anyone in shul the next morning talk about that. Yeah, questions and answers and everything is about the curiosity of the children. Curiosity of the children was: "I'm curious, do you have another dvar Torah in that thick Haggadah?" It's not the curiosity of the parents. You're trying to invoke the curiosity of the children. So the thought, you have a week. That's your homework for the next week. How are we going to invoke the curiosity of the children? How are we going to stimulate the conversations we're meant to have? How are we going to have a Seder which is transformational, transformative, not just informative with lots of fancy divrei Torah? What stories are we going to tell? What stories do we want to hear? What will we assign others to come and share their story? Everyone's got a story. I may speak about this. We had a couple weeks ago on Behind the Bima Rabbi Kalish. Rabbi Kalish, he was fantastic. It was like a tease. We only had him for 15 minutes. We got to have him for the 15 hours of Behind the Bima. But he spoke about how every human being is a story. He spoke about—again, I may come back to this on Pesach—he had heard a big rabbi recently say that he spoke over that year, I forget what the number was, to 3,000 teenagers. So Rabbi Kalish said: "I would have been much more impressed if you told me that you listened last year to 3,000 teenagers." That's Rabbi Kalish in a nutshell. That story, that insight: "I would have been much more impressed if you told me not that you spoke to 3,000 teenagers, but that you listened to 3,000 teenagers." He said there are eight billion people on the planet and there are eight billion stories they have to tell. Everyone is a story. Are we curious? Where is Hashem in each of our stories? That's the Seder night. That's this—I can't wait. I'm so excited. Nebach on the people going away to hotels and they can't hear each other and they're in big spaces. If you have to do that, I'm so sorry for you. Nebach, I feel for you. Mirtzeh Hashem you should break through and have a good Pesach nonetheless. If you're lucky enough to stay home at your table with your people at your pace and your environment and your conversation and your timeline of bringing the food, oh, you're among the lucky. Together let's offer a tefillah for the people who have to go away. Anyway, wishing you everyone a Chag Kasher V'Sameach. Until next time, until after Yom Tov, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy. Anyway, wishing everyone a chag kasher v'sameach, until next time, till after yom tov, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
