Pesach and Cheirus Olam: Finding Freedom Through Emunah in Every Galus

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Shalom. Pesach is coming, and it's such a beautiful Yom Tov, such an uplifting Yom Tov. What is Pesach? What is the avodah of Pesach? What is the lesson that needs to be taken from Pesach? Every Yom Tov has its message. Every Yom Tov has its avodah, where a Yid who goes through the Yom Tov becomes a bigger and better Yid. What is Pesach, and what is the avodah of Pesach? Yadua, it's known that Pesach is about emunah, emunah in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, belief in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Emunah has two parts. There's one part of emunah: to believe that the Ribono Shel Olam created the world, Borei, He is the Creator of the world. And then there's another part of emunah, hanhig, that the Ribono Shel Olam runs the world to the last detail. Shabbos represents that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is Borei ha'olam. Sheishes yamim asah es ha'olam. In six days He created the world. Vayom ha'shvii shavas, and He rested on the seventh day. Then came Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim was to teach us that the Ribono Shel Olam is manhig. He runs the world. He's manhig es ha'olam. Shabbos, Borei. Pesach, manhig. What does it mean to believe that the Ribono Shel Olam is manhig ha'olam? It's the fundamental of our emunah. It's the fundamental of our yesodei ha-das, to believe the Ribono Shel Olam is borei and manhig. What does it mean that the Ribono Shel Olam is manhig? And how do we work on getting this emunah of manhig, that the Ribono Shel Olam is the manhig? Pesach is designated to help us to achieve this emunah in manhig, that the Ribono Shel Olam is the manhig. Let's talk a little bit about Pesach. We know that Pesach, one of the yesodos of Pesach is cheirus, freedom. Freedom. When you read the pesukim... And you sit by the Seder, you think it's about cheirus, that we left Mitzrayim and we were avadim and now we're free. Cheirus means a lot more than just physical freedom. If you look in the lashon that we say in Ma Nishtanah, Vayotzi es amo Yisrael mitocham l'cheirus olam. It doesn't say l'cheirus, it says l'cheirus olam. What does it mean, cheirus olam? An everlasting, an olam, forever? What does that mean? There's a lot of discussion in the mefarshim to explain what cheirus olam means. But there's a pshat which I think is so relevant, and it speaks volumes of hashkafah and mussar, what it means to have emunah and what it means to be a Yid. Cheirus, let's translate cheirus, and then we'll better understand what cheirus olam means. You know, there's a dichotomy in the Pesach Seder. We talk about the—

Galus, and we talk about the geulah. Parts of it remind us the galus, and parts remind us the geulah. Maror is the galus. Then there's parts which is cheirus, for example, the daled kosos. It's wine, it's cheirus. But it's interesting that the matzah is both. Ha lachma anya, d'achalu avhasana b'ar'a d'Mitzrayim. It's the bread of affliction. It's the bread of shibud, and at the same time, it's the lechem, the bread of geulah, of redemption. And we eat it b'haseibah, reclining. Which one is it? Which one? Which of the two is it? Is it the galus or is it the geulah? And the answer is, it's both. It's both. How could it be both? How could galus and geulah be entailed in one matzah? How could it be in the cheftza of a matzah? Rabosai, let's understand cheirus. What is cheirus? What is freedom? There's a peledike halacha. The Mishnah tells us, afilu ani sheb'Yisrael lo yochal ad sheyaseiv. The poorest, the poorest. The Gemara explains, so poor that he has nothing. Lo yochal, he may not eat, ad sheyaseiv, till he does haseibah. Till he reclines properly, haseivah. Haseivah is derech cheirus. It's supposed to bring out that the person is free and he's royal, k'derech melachim. Cheirus is k'derech melachim. He's an ani. He's a poor person. What is this? Is a show? What is this? A mock, a mock. It's a mockery. He's sitting, ani, and yet he has to feel like he's free, freedom of kingdom. What kind of a king? He's an ani sheb'Yisrael. And the Mishnah says, afilu, even ani sheb'Yisrael. And because I would think that an ani can't even do a seivah. How can he do a seivah? With what is he doing a seivah? Still, he has a halacha that he needs to do a seivah. Rabosai, obviously we don't really and fully grasp what it means, cheirus. Yes, the ani on the night of Pesach is able to have a feeling of cheirus, experience cheirus. How? You know, rabosai, I want to tell you something. I listen for many hours a week to the problems, the tzaros of Klal Yisrael. Very difficult to hear how much suffering. How much fear, how much worry, parnassah, shidduchim, children. Everyone has in his heart something that afflicts him. Pesach is a lesson in cheirus and emunah. What does that mean? You know, we were avadim in Mitzrayim, yes, and it was physical labor. But there's more to the avdus. There's more to the avdus than a physical avdus. What was the avdus in Mitzrayim? We start the Haggadah, Avadim hayinu l'Pharaoh b'Mitzrayim. We were avadim in Mitzrayim. Chazal say that this format that we begin with Avadim hayinu is because you have to be maschil b'gnus u'mesayem b'shvach. We start with something which is not pretty. It's a gnus. It's something which is not flattering for Klal Yisrael.

Now, the question is, why is that not flattering? Avodim hayinu. We were avodim. It's not our fault we were avodim. How does that portray a default in Klal Yisrael that should be called a genus? So maybe we could say that we earned the avdus. We deserved it. It's somewhat of a punishment, and therefore it's a genus. I saw a mayridike pshat in the drashos of Reb Yosef Nechemia Kornitzer, Krokover Rav. He said a mayridike pshat. He says a person could be in Mitzrayim and yet still be free. A person could be afflicted. A person could be mishubad, yet still be free, because he's with the Ribono Shel Olam, and there's nothing in his surrounding, and there's nothing around him that captures and takes hold of him. A person could have cheirus in the depth of Mitzrayim. We think cheirus means free, that we could do what we want, and avdus means we're forced to do what we don't want. Cheirus is something very deep. It's something very, very essential from within, and that is— A person has emunah in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and he knows that there is nothing around him that could take hold of him. He lives with the Ribono Shel Olam. He is not meshubed to the difficulties, to the daily things that drag him down. So avadim hayinu, we actually fell into the avdus. If we would have been avadim, yet be free in Mitzrayim, to learn, to daven, to be a perfect Yid in Mitzrayim, then this wouldn't be called avdus. And therefore it's maschil b'gnus that the avdus took hold of us. It is us who let avdus take hold of us. We are able to be free, not to be chained to avdus. It's a miryadiker deher, rabosai, it's miryadik. Yes, I see everyone smiling, Baruch Hashem. It's a beautiful pshat. Unbelievable. Yes, we are chained by all the difficulties around us, but we are capable of freeing it ourselves by not letting it affect us. That's called cheirus. Now let us go back to the matzah. The matzah is a symbol of galus. And it's also a symbol of cheirus, and it's not a stira, it's not a contradiction. Because matzah represents the emunah, and emunah makes cheirus in galus. Matzah takes galus, makes a person free, even in the galus. Cheirus doesn't mean actual free to do what you want. You're freed from the shibud. You're freed from the galus around you. That's called freedom. Vayotzi es am Yisrael mitoicham l'cheirus olam. It's not l'cheirus; it's a cheirus forever, in every situation, and in every problem, and in every generation. Klal Yisrael is able to be free in the toughest and most difficult and the most darkest of galus and situation, because they have emunah in the Ribono Shel Olam, emunah in the Ribono Shel Olam. This emunah gives a person cheirus from within to withstand and not be chained down by all the difficulties.

Called the yissurim of a galus. Yes, the Ribono Shel Olam created the world. That has nothing to do with us, because that the Ribono Shel Olam did. Manhig. Ribono Shel Olam is manhig the world. But we need to accept that, and we need to make us, as His peoples, that He is leading. Avada the Ribono Shel Olam is manhig the world. They used to say over in Lita, a meiredike pshat. What is the idea of shofar? K'dei shetamlichuni aleichem. The Gemara says that you should make Me a king over you. It's not to make Me a king. Why? The Ribono Shel Olam is the King without you. The Ribono Shel Olam is the Melech ha'olam whether or not you blow a shofar or you say so. The question is, is He the King over you? We need to make the Ribono Shel Olam that He's the manhig. He is the manhig, but it has to be that we follow the manhig and understand that He's the manhig. You know, rabosai, I was thinking, could you imagine waiting two hundred-something years for a yeshuah? I mean, at some point, despair sets in. The Ribono Shel Olam took a nation. And asked of it, for hundreds of years, to have a, to survive and to not fall and not to be misya'esh. We live in a galus now, when we talk about geulah, so many years of suffering. How? How could you ask that of a people? And the answer is the Eibishter gave us a matanah. He gave us emunah. Probably a goy can never understand this, but we as Jewish people, this is part of who we are, that we are able to have true emunah, and that emunah is our survival throughout all the galusim and all the torture and oppression. The emunah, Klal Yisroel in Mitzrayim, emunah, emunah, emunah, that is our survival mechanism. And this emunah needs to be cultivated and needs to be worked on, and this is what Pesach is for. Pesach is to teach us the matzah is galus. No, the matzah is geulah. It's not separate. It's not a separate thing. In the galus, a person could have geulah, the matzah, emunah. Emunah is the matanah, the present on how to make from galus. Geulah. You know, every morning we say, Shelo asani eved. We make a bracha. Tell me, we know avadim today. What kind of an eved? It's pasul. It's a bracha. It's not relevant today. And the answer is, it is relevant, because we could be avadim. We could be avadim to all the difficulties and all the packages that we carry in golus. Yet we also have the ability through emunah to have cheirus olam, everlasting, that it doesn't take hold of us. It doesn't have a shlita over us. I'd like to share with the olam a beautiful Chasam Sofer, beautiful. Moshe Rabbeinu asked the Ribono Shel Olam, before he begins his shlichus to redeem Klal Yisroel as the goel, as the leader, he asked the Ribono Shel Olam in Parshas Shemos, when Klal Yisroel will ask me, Mah shmo? What is your name? Who are you? I come and say Hashem. Who? What? When? Where?

What do I tell them? So the Rabbeinu Shleim says, tell them, Ehyeh asher ehyeh. I will be asher that I will be. Cryptic. What does it mean? Says the Chasam Sofer, Heru li b'chalom. He had a dream. What do you think, Chasam Sofer? Chasam Sofer says, what does it mean, ehyeh? I had a dream. Heru li b'chalom. Sefer echad shechiber Ramban, a sefer from the Ramban, and it's written there, the pshat of Ehyeh asher ehyeh, the message that he was supposed to tell Klal Yisrael, that the Rabbeinu Shleim is telling him, Ehyeh im mi sheehyeh. I'll be with the one HaKadosh Baruch Hu, oymer, Ehyeh im mi sheehyeh, that I'm with him. If you take me, I'll be there with you. Ritzonoi, mi shemyached kol ma'asav l'shmi levad, imo eseh ehyeh. Al daas, says the Chasam Sofer, ani l'dodi v'dodi li. Pesach by night, we say Shir HaShirim. Pesach by night, after the Seder, there's a minhag to say Shir HaShirim. What is the theme of Shir HaShirim? Ani l'dodi v'dodi li. It's joint, that if you take the Eibishter, the Eibishter will take you, and that's how you'll survive the galus, says the Chasam Sofer. The lesson of emunah is, I'm going to be with the person that is going to be with me. You do have the Nefesh HaChaim writes, Shaar Gimel, Perek Yud-Beis, segulah niflaah, a segulah, to be mevatel, to stop all the bad, all the difficulties around the person, that they shouldn't take hold of him and it should go away. K'she'adam kovea belibo, to say, Haloi Hashem Hu HaElokim Hu HaAmiti, v'ein od milvado, yisbarach koach b'olam, v'chol ha'olam is klal. And if a person thinks this, yisbatel me'alav kol hakochos v'retzonos sheba'olam, shelo yuchal lifol shum davar klal. And that's eyasher eya that the Chasam Sofer is saying, Hera li bechalom. This is the emunah that Mitzrayim was supposed to bring out. The Ribono Shel Olam is with me, and because I believe fully, and I take that with me in my heart, there was geulas Mitzrayim. That brought about the geulah. There's a beautiful Beis Halevi. You know, we have four cups of wine. After we pour the fourth cup, we go to the door and we open the door, and we say, Shefoch chamascha al hagoyim. Says the Ramah, why are we opening the door? To show we're not afraid of anything. Leil shimurim, a night that's completely protected. Now understand, there was many a year that Klal Yisrael had to be locked up when they did Pesach seders. It was dangerous. It was something that they had to do in hiding, yet they always opened the door. To symbolize, says the Rama, emunah, that it's a leil shimurim. And this leil shimurim is going to bring Mashiach. This is going to be the emunah that's going to take us out. Don't forget, the fourth cup is supposed to be a remembrance of Yemos HaMashiach, the last galus, the fourth galus. We're going to get out of the galus. Emunah, says the Beis Halevi. So why the fourth cup? Let's do it in the first cup. Let's open the door for the entire seder. The answer is because the Gemara says that zugos, zugos, if you have twos, cause mazikin. We're pouring the fourth cup. The fourth cup, the Gemara asks, how can you do it? It's dangerous. Says the Beis Halevi, that's why we open the door. Dangerous? We're not afraid of nothing, because ein od milvado. The Pesach seder.

At the end of it, at the culmination of the seder, a Yid has to feel, I'm not afraid. Lo ira ra ki atah imadi. So when we pour the fourth cup, which is a guarantee for Mazikim—today we don't have this concept so much, Mazikim—but the Gemara addresses the Mazikim, the four, the zugos, and the answer is, we're not afraid, because tonight, the Jew is ein od milvado with the Ribono Shel Olam, and nothing. Like the Nefesh HaChaim says, shum koach ba'olam—there is no power in the world that could have any effect on the person. You know, there's a beautiful Sfas Emes. What is Shabbos HaGadol? So it's the day that the nes, that they took the sheep. So through the day—why Shabbos? It happened to be in that year in Mitzrayim, it happened on Shabbos, but it was Yud on the calendar, it was Yud. So every Yom Tov is not on the day of the week that it happened; it's always on what? It's always on the day of the calendar. So if it's Yud, do it Yud; it doesn't have to be Shabbos. Many terutzim have been said. The yeshivah—we are marech, of course, to give different terutzim to this kasha. Sfas Emes, Taf-Reish Lamed-Beis: Shabbos in galus brings out what Pesach is all about. No matter how much galus we went through, we always turn to Shabbos. It's Shabbos the Ribono Shel Olam created the world. No matter how much difficulty and how much nisyonos we... We keep the Shabbos because we know Hashem created, and that, as He says, is Pesach. In galus, to keep the Shabbos. That Shabbos hagalus becomes part of Pesach. What we have emunah in galus, which is our redemption, is through the keeping of the Shabbos as well. So we begin the Pesach with the Shabbos, the emunah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. I want to tell you something interesting, rabosai, how it's so interesting how, maror, there's no heseibah. You don't, you know, hagam it's a machlokes if you did do heseibah by maror, if it's a problem, if you're not yotzei. That's for halachos year one day, okay? Matzah definitely needs a heseibah, correct? Matzah needs a heseibah. So when you take the korech and you eat the maror and the matzah, so should you do a heseibah? Something's wrong here, right? It's a maror and a heseibah. And the answer is, the maror with the matzah is cheirus. The maror with the emunah is cheirus. That's the point of the night of the Seder. Ani, we have our difficulties, but we have something very special. Nothing could drag us down because we live with the Eibishter, and the Eibishter protects us. He's manhig, and we know this, and we live with this. This is the freedom that nothing could get to us. And the goyim can't swallow this. The goyim can't take, they can't knock us down, because we live a day b'shtet. It doesn't work. No matter what they try, it just doesn't work. I remember many years ago, I had a conversation with my bubby, alah ha-shalom, Rebbetzin Walkin. I said, Bubby, how did you survive the Holocaust? I don't understand it. I don't understand. She said something, she said to me something which I think about all the time. She said, Arale, mir zind a Yidden, we're Jews. We are ma'aminim bnei ma'aminim. Nothing, nothing could shatter emunah. Emunah, all the difficulties. Mein tattet mir oysgelernt. That's what she told me. My father used to tell us and teach us, we're in the hands of the Ribono Shel Olam. Morgen vet zayn beser. Tomorrow will be a better day. Simple, yet speaks volumes. So much depth in the simplicity. That's the neshama of every Yid. Trust in the Ribono Shel Olam. Emunah and bitachon in the Ribono Shel Olam. Emunah and bitachon. There's a story from the Kapish...

The Rebbe, with this I'll end, because this speaks so much about how a Jew, in a world of chaos, in a world of worry and fear and difficulty, and everybody goes to sleep at night and he has the things in his heart that really, really are weighing down on him. Yet with emunah and bitachon, you're able to free yourself and live cheirus, an inner cheirus. This story speaks volumes. I heard it many years ago, and I always think about it. Heilige Kapishnitzer Rebbe, zecher tzaddik livracha, in Vienna, the Nazis, they rounded up the Rebbes and the Yidden, and to belittle and degrade the Rebbe, they forced him to mop the streets, the pavements, and this was a way of degrading a Rebbe. He should sit there to mop the sidewalks of Austria. The Rebbe took the mop, and he's mopping the floor, and he's singing and humming beautiful Chassidic nigunim as he's doing this. Chassidim around him said, Rebbe, how could you do it? How are you able to muster such, for lack of a better term after such freedom, that they shouldn't get to you, that it shouldn't weigh you down and break you. Look what they're doing, the great Rebbe's. A chassidishe Rebbe is sitting and mamish mopping the floor. He responded, They think that I'm mopping the floors of Vienna. Little do they know, and I'm going to say it first in Yiddish and then repeat it in English, little do they know, az ich putz der Ribono Shel Olam's sheine velt. I'm making beautiful the Ribono Shel Olam's beautiful world. The frame of mind to not be affected by the shibud around him, and to be able to live with HaKadosh Baruch Hu and say, Ribono Shel Olam, this is your world, and I'm a Yid, and I'm your son. They think that it's shibud, but it's cheirus, because I'm not afflicted. I'm not meshubad. I'm free, because within they can't steal and take my neshama. They can't take my feelings and my love that they can never vanquish, that they can never steal from me. I'm truly a free person. I might be physically meshubad, but inside, pnimiyus, the inner, my soul, my soul is free because it doesn't affect me everything. Meir v'rabosai, I give you this bracha, Pesach, internalize the Ribono Shel Olam's hanhagah. Every step we take and every thought we have. Rabbeinu Shloylam is directing it from above. And as long as you live with the Rabbeinu Shloylam, and with this yesod that He is the manhig, all evil and all difficulty will vanish by itself. It's a segulah, Reb Chaim Volozhin. And that was the havtachah of Eya asher Eya, with the matzah. Oni sheb'Yisrael. You have parnassah problems? Oni sheb'Yisrael has parnassah problems. Whatever problem you can have, you're eating the matzah, which is a problem. It's, lachma anya di achalu avhasana b'ar'a. No, it's also lechem cheirus. It's lechem that emunah that a person is free. I wish you all a beautiful, beautiful Chag kasher v'sameach, happiness, happiness, sameach, happiness, for you and your entire family. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.