Tag Archives: Passover

May 14, 2024 · 12:12 am

Ki ba moed – the time has come

parshat emor – leviticus 23

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for an afternoon tea and Torah at 2:30 Eastern on Wednesday May 15th on Clubhouse. We usually think of Tishrei and the Fall as a marathon of Jewish holidays, but if you count Rabbinic and Israeli holidays, the seven weeks of Spring win the holiday race with ease. Pesach, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmut, Pesach Sheni, Lag ba’Omer, Yom Yerushalyim and Shavuot. We use Leviticus 23 which has the most complete summary of Biblical holidays to explore the dynamic of adding new holidays and adding meaning to existing holidays.

Sefaria Source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/564540

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every week and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Emor and it has the most complete summary of Biblical holidays. If you count Rabbinic and Israeli holidays, the current seven week period wins the Jewish holiday marathon with ease. Pesach, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmut, Pesach Sheni, Lag ba’Omer, Yom Yerushalyim and Shavuot. Today we explore the dynamic of adding new holidays and adding meaning to existing holidays. Join us for Ki ba Moed – The time has come.

Well, Rabbi, I sent out the notice of the podcast this week, and my son said you’re missing Yom Yerushalayim. So you can see I put in Yom Yerushalayim. How could I miss a holiday like that?

Adam Mintz: It’s not coming up for a few weeks, so we’re okay.

GS: Okay. But, you know, really, I think the reason why we complain or we notice so much the high density of holidays between Rosh Hashanah and the end of Sukkot is because they’re biblical, on many we can’t – we have prohibitions.

1:32 – GS:

We can’t ride, we can’t turn on lights, but if you just look at the number of it and if you look at it from the point of view of missing days of school or missing days of work, boy, this time of year is chock full of these holidays. As I was reading the portion, I noticed for the first time in Leviticus 23, you really have the best synopsis of all of the holidays. I had never noticed that before.

2:02 – AM:

Yes, that’s this week’s parasha. Basically, the Torah does this twice. It does it here, and it does it in the Book of Devarim, in the Parsha of Re’ei. And you know, that’s what often happens, is that the Torah repeats itself. The Ten Commandments repeat themselves in Devarim as well. So these are two places the Torah lists all of the holidays.

2:24 – GS:

So I was trying to look this up, but I know because once in a while I get called into Layn, read the Torah in the synagogue, and for some reason I thought that on certain Chagim you read a parsha

2:39 – AM:

that lists all of the Chagim.

AM: So I’ll tell you, on each of the Chagin, I’m sorry, on Pesach and on Sukkot, you read this Torah reading from this week’s parasha. So on the second day of Sukkot, just a few weeks ago, we read these holidays. Sorry, on the second day of Pesach, just a few weeks ago. On Sukkot, on the first days of the holiday, you read this Torah reading. So this is a very familiar Torah reading.

3:09 – GS:

Okay, so I was correct, but it is really complete and we’ll see in a second that I had always thought that really there were kind of two calendars that had to be merged together because there were the agricultural holidays and then there are holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur which aren’t really agricultural and as we’ll see in a second, This is one place where, in a masterly way, it kind of combines and has the whole calendar, which might explain why, as you say, we read it on Pesach, so forth and so on.

3:47 – GS:

So let’s go to Leviticus 23.

4:05 – GS:

These are the fixed times which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions. So here comes the first surprise. On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work. So Rabbi, how many sermons have you given where you describe the difference between Shabbat, which comes whether we invite it or not, it comes by the calendar every seven days, and a Moed, which is like an Ohel Moed, it’s a meeting place.

4:38 – GS:

We have to look up at the moon, we’ve got to decide when the new moon is, so forth and so on. And this just puts a puncture in that whole thing. It includes Shabbat in the list of Moedim, and that struck me is strange.

4:51 – AM:

Yes, but Shabbos is the grandfather, is the foundation of all the holidays. Now, you’re right, there’s a difference. Mekadesh ha-Shabbat. God makes Shabbos, because Shabbos happens every seven days. But holidays are Mekadesh Yisrael ha-Hazmanim. Jewish people make the holidays because it’s dependent on the seeing of the new moon. But you’re 100% right.

5:20 – AM:

You could have not included Shabbos, but Shabbos is considered to be part of it. And each of the holidays is called Shabbat Shabbatot, right? So each, and that means a day of rest. Now we’ll talk as you go through these about what the difference is between Shabbos and, you know, and the holidays. Let’s get there. Let’s take one step at a time.

5:40 – GS:

But I’m going to make the case that what you and I just said in terms of the difference between Shabbat and a holiday is true at one level, but from the perspective of this chapter, and it’s a complete chapter in Leviticus where it’s just mapping out the calendar, so to speak, maybe as a rudimentary or trivial perspective of these are days that you’re off from work. These are days that you don’t do certain things.

6:15 – GS:

They are similar, and I think what we have to do maybe is step back a little bit and understand that a day off, a holiday, in and of itself, they do have a similarity, and they are part of the pattern of Jewish life. So, we’re not going to read the whole thing, but it starts by talking about in the first month on the 14th day of the month, it talks about the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days.

6:45 – GS:

And then it goes on and speaks to the Israelite people in verse 10. And say to them, when you enter the land that I’m giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest. He shall elevate the sheaf before God for acceptance in your behalf. The priest shall elevate it on the day after the Sabbath.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but this is really the Omer, this is the beginning of the counting of the Omer.

7:17 – GS:

It says, until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God, you shall eat no bread or parts grain or fresh ears. [Which would be an agricultural reason for not eating bread .. hamaskil yavin). This is the new crop. It is a law for all time through the ages. And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering the day after the Shabbat, you shall count off seven weeks. So here I forgot to mention that we are counting the Omer, which you could also say is kind of quasi-calendrical holidaying, if you will, but the point is that it ties Pesach to Shavuot, which we always knew there was a connection, but it ties it from the perspective of the first…

7:56 – AM:

The second day of Pesach, Mimacharat HaShabbat, that’s the first day of the counting of the Omer. At the second Seder, you start counting the Omer, because that’s when they gave this sacrifice. In Israel, there’s only one day of festival, so on the day after the first day of festival, they used to bring this special sacrifice.

8:18 – GS:

And of course, the fact that it says Memacharat HaShabbat speaks to the point you made seconds ago, which is that Shabbat festivals are called Shabbat as well. And so that’s how it could say Memacharat HaShabbat, the day after the first day of Pesach, you begin this counting. But again, it does connect Pesach to the agricultural calendar as well. And then it goes on in verse 21, you shall hold a celebration.

8:50 – GS:

It shall be a sacred occasion for you. No work. It is a time for throwing your settlements throughout the ages. And when you reap the harvest, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field. Field. So again, it mixes in agricultural rules to this kind of description of the agricultural holidays.

9:13 – AM:

Now you do know, I mean, you’ll get there, but Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are included, even though they’re not agricultural.

9:21 – GS:

Absolutely. And where did I miss Shavuot here? It says that you shall count those seven weeks and then you shall bring an offering of new grain. You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread. So again, we’ve gone through Pesach, we’ve gone through the counting from the first day of Pesach till Shavuot, and then we get to, as you say, Speak in verse 24, speak to the Israelite people thus, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month you shall celebrate complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts, so that’s the shofar, you shall not work in your occupations, so that is Rosh Hashanah, which as you say, is really not an agricultural holiday.

10:09 – GS:

Then it says mark the 10th day of this month as the day of atonement, we are all aware of that. And then it says in verse 33, Hashem spoke to Moses saying, say to the Israelite people, on the 15th day of the seventh month, there shall be the feast of booths to Hashem to last seven days. The first day shall be a sacred occasion. You shall not work at your occupations. Seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to God.

10:39 – GS:

And the eighth day you shall observe a sacred occasion, bring an offering to fire to God. It is a solemn gathering. We talked about atzeret in a previous podcast. And then it concludes, these are the set times of God that you shall celebrate as sacred occasions, bringing offering by fire, and you would think that we’re finished. But, in verse 39, it kind of starts again, and it says, Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land and you shall observe the festival of God seven days, a complete rest on the first day.

11:21 – GS:

We’ve done this already. On the first day you shall take the product of Hadar. So this is the palm banches, the bows of leafy. This is the arba minim, the etrog and the lulav, and you shall observe it as a festival of God for seven days, and in verse 42 it says you shall live in booths seven days, all citizens in Israel shall live in booths. In order, and here’s the key, in order that future generations may hold that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I, your God, so Moses declared to the Israelites the set times of Hashem.

12:05 – GS:

So, it does seem, and of course if you go to theTorah.com, you will see that in the textual critical higher criticism academics will look at this last paragraph beginning in 39 and say, why does it repeat over what it has already said about the ending of Sukkot, and their argument is that the editor is trying to make this wonderful not only catalog and travelogue through the calendar of the annual calendar, but he or she is also trying to take agricultural holidays and integrate them into the Rosh Hashanah and the Yom Kippur, and take Sukkot, which is putting these booths out in the field during the time of harvest, and connect it to Yetziat Mitzrayim, to leaving Egypt.

13:06 – GS:

And I, as I always will say, is you don’t have to be a higher biblical critic to notice, number one, what is happening here, and to ask yourself, what is the Torah doing? And so that’s kind of the first question I want to have is what do you think is happening here when it repeats it over and all of a sudden it gives a reason for this sitting in booths that gives new meaning to it.

13:37 – AM:

So, I think that there are two aspects of each of these holidays. One is the agricultural aspect and one is that we should remember that God, that the Jews were in booths when they left Egypt. One is the historical and one is the agricultural. And you see it in Sukkot because the Torah repeats the holiday twice. Once the agricultural and once the historical.

14:01 – GS:

And I think, in a sense, you’re agreeing with me to say that you don’t have to be a higher biblical critic to see that the text is trying to take us somewhere. Whoever wrote the text, whatever the tradition of the Mesora, it’s clear that when we repeat something over in Leviticus that maybe is going to be also put in Devarim, there’s a goal, there’s a motivation. And I think from that perspective, as you said a second ago, what they’re trying to do is take agricultural holidays that might have even been preexistent.

14:39 – GS:

It’s clear that when you harvest, you have to be in the fields day in and day out. You want to make sure that you harvest before the first rain. You don’t want to leave any time for travel. And it’s also pretty clear that every culture has a Thanksgiving type of celebration when the harvest is over. It’s so natural, hazorim bedima b’rina yiktzaru, you sow in tears and hard labor and you reap in joy.

15:10 – GS:

So, that is obvious, but I think what our text does for us is now bring it into the historical context. And the biblical critics can say, what do you mean they dwelt in sukkot, in booths, when Bilaam cursed the Jewish people, he said, Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov, we only have tents, we don’t have booths. But the point is, that’s exactly the point. It’s trying to make a connection. It’s trying to give new meaning to an existing holiday, for a new generation, for history going forward.

15:45 – GS:

And I think that is important to recognize, because ultimately, at the end of the day, when we talk about holidays, we have to admit that holidays have different, multiple meanings. They are complex. And they also have meanings that change over time and are different to different generations and different times in history. And I think that is clear from this text.

16:12 – AM:

You know this clear from this text what about in the Hagaddah when we say in every generation we have to see ourselves is that we left Egypt right is it not the same thing that we need to take the historical and we need to make it modern or contemporary for every generation I think that makes exactly your point

16:59 – GS:

absolutely but here it’s a pasuk! When I was preparing for last week’s discussion on Yom Hazikaron. I did a search, I started looking, I knew from my yeshiva days that there was controversy regarding making new holidays, making Yom Hatzma’ut, Independence Day, into a new holiday. And you know, there are halachic implications. On certain days, you say tachanun, you request God to accept your teshuvah. On happy occasions, you don’t say tachanun. On some days, you say half hallel. On some days, you say full hallel.

17:32 – GS:

So when I grew up, that was the big question about Yom Ha’atzmuth. Do you say tachanun today? Do you say hallel today? So, these have halachic implications. I did a search and I came across this Peninei Halacha. Peninei Halacha is in Sefaria. It’s written by Eliezer Melamed. Who’s a rabbi..

17:58 – AM:

A rabbi who’s living now. He lives in a community on the West Bank called Har Bacha, but he’s contemporary. He’s modern. He’s 60 years old. He’s part of this generation.

18:09 – GS:

He is at 16 volumes and literally it is used to bring understanding, he quotes Sephardic customs, Ashkenazi customs. So, I looked him up and we’re gonna read a little bit, I don’t know if you would put this in the category of a teshuva, responsa literature, but we’re going to read a little bit from him apropos of how do you make a new holiday? And are you allowed to make a new holiday? And it is appropriate.

18:40 – GS:

So he writes, there is a mitzvah to establish a holiday of rejoicing and praising God on a day when the Jewish people were saved. It was on this basis that the sages established Purim and Hanukkah as permanent holidays. Even though one may not add mitzvot to the Torah, so here there’s this This straw dummy out there, someone would argue that you can’t make new holidays, and he is coming to create an argument explaining how we are, in fact, not only allowed, but sometimes commanded to make a new holiday.

19:18 – GS:

And he uses a Talmudic law of exegesis called a Kal Vachomer to prove that yes, you can make a new holiday and since the law of exegesis is biblical, he argues, you can almost say it is biblical. So, what he says is that Purim is a biblical holiday since the rabbis created it. The exact things that you do on it might not be biblical, but that you have to have a holiday celebrating the redemption of the Jews of Persia, that you can definitely have.

20:00 – GS:

And the same thing goes for Hanukkah. He says, many Jewish communities throughout the ages kept this mitzvah, instituting days of joy in commemoration of miracles that they experienced. Many of them, including the word Purim, were naming these days, like Purim Frankfurt and Purim Tiberius. I had never known that. I had always done around Thanksgiving research to see. I knew there was a concept of Sudat Hoda’ah, and here I finally found it, and it’s according to this rabbi, it’s based in law.

20:37 – AM:

That is fascinating. Wow. And I just want to tell you that this Pnei Halacha is studied in all the daati leumi, the religious liberal high schools in Israel that are part of the state. They study this book, Pnei Halacha.

20:54 – GS:

So this is the rule. And that’s what makes it so fascinating. And I suggest that all of you look at the source notes and read it in full. Because again, you always hear me say the expression, when we see halacha being made in front of our eyes, this is one of those examples. And you can only just imagine in your mind that he is making an argument against a really large population, the Haredim for sure, who would argue, no, no, we have enough holidays, you can’t just go about making new holidays whenever you want.

21:32 – GS:

So, he makes that argument, but where I really became fascinated was when he moved to Yom Hazikaron, the day that we talked about last week with Menachem Bombach in terms of the Haredim, but here he starts by saying, from a halachic standpoint, there is no need to institute a general memorial day for the holy soldiers who were killed in battle. And typically, after you read an argument like this, you’d expect the “but” to follow, but we do it anyway.

22:07 – GS:

He takes a while to get to that “but” So now he’s on the other side of the debating table, if you will. And he’s now going to make an argument for not creating a holiday or commemoration for our fallen soldiers. He says, rather, one should do what the Jewish people have always done for any Jew who dies. On the Yortzeit, a memorial prayer is recited. The deceased son or relatives recite Kaddish, they study Torah, give charity.

22:40 – GS:

Those who go beyond this hold a full memorial service with Torah lectures to elevate the deceit soul, like we do for my dad once a year. We have fought many wars throughout our long history, often losing more soldiers in one war than the IDF has lost in all of its battles combined. Nevertheless, the Sages never instituted a Memorial Day for those killed in battle. When we were victorious, we celebrated, and when we lost, we mourned individually.

23:14 – GS:

There is something bothering him here about Yom Hazikaron, about changing the way we mourn, and it almost reminded me at the beginning of the parasha where it talks about not ripping out your hair and not doing tattoos. Don’t mourn the way the non-Jews mourn. But he goes on, the only tragedy for which the sages institute public mourning, and then he goes on to talk about a Tisha B’Av, and then he says, oh, and you may raise the question about the fast of Gedalia, it too was instituted because of the destruction of the temple, and he argues that the destruction of the temple is totally different because it was a National catastrophe , universal, it was so intimately involved with the Jewish people.

24:05 – GS:

But he’s having a problem with Yom HaZikaron, and that too is fascinating.

24:10 – AM:

Yeah, that is fascinating. Like, like, like, what’s the basis? Like, where does it come from You know, that’s always that’s always interesting when you read these things. The halachic, you know, when you want it, when you want to source everything in halacha, sometimes it just doesn’t work so well, right? Being sometimes there just is no source in halacha. And what do you do then?

24:36 – GS:

Well, it’s a little bit like a litmus test, a little bit like a Rorschach Ink Blot. We all see our own ideology, our own feelings, and we come to our own conclusions. But thank the Lord he actually explains what’s on his mind, what’s bothering him. He says, sadly, people who lack faith, who do not understand the Jewish people’s past or its mission, have seized control of Israel’s media and cultural life. In the beginning, the secularists still possessed an inkling of Judaism, based on what they heard in their parents’ home.

25:14 – GS:

But over time, alienation from Torah values took its toll, and they turned Yom Hazikaron into a day of weakness and defeatist. V’hem hafchu et Yom Hazikaron liyom shel chalusha v’tvoshtanut. It’s like, and “What do you really think?”

25:37 – GS:

Now he’s coming across very strong, and this is a, I was thinking if we had time to bring it up last week, but this is another, you know, this is a holiday that has stratified the population in Israel. Of course. This is not an argument that the Haredim are bringing up. They would argue something else, but what he’s saying, and as you say he represents religious Zionism in Israel, he brings up this thing of weakness and defeatism.

26:06 – GS:

Instead of honoring the memories of the fallen, trying to understand the essence of the nation of Israel and investing meaning into the soldiers’ self-sacrifice, they emphasize pain, despair, and destruction, portraying the deaths of these soldiers as meaningless. He’s really projecting a lot onto the secularists. They appear to be honoring the fallen, but in reality, there is no greater affront to the honor of these martyrs than the inappropriate character that these people have attached to Yom HaZikaron.

26:41 – GS:

The fundamental flaw in their approach is their disregard for the Jewish national destiny for whose sake the soldiers sacrificed their life. So, you can read the rest of this when going to the notes, but I think it’s safe to say that what the philosophical approach that he’s coming from is that he does see these soldiers as being part of an age-old tradition of being moser nefesh, of giving their lives for a higher meaning.

27:18 – GS:

He talks a little bit less that how can you mourn them when they have eternal life. They have given up a temporal life for eternal life. We’ve spoken about this in the most recent episodes that we’ve had.

27:55 – AM:

That is a remarkable thing that you found. I want to just say something. That’s remarkable. You know, last week, we had Menachem Bumbach, who really talked about how the Haredim embrace Yom Hazikarot, or how they need to embrace Yom Hazikarot. And now you have someone from the religious Zionist community who is suspicious of the secular way of remembering.

28:21 – GS:

Isn’t that remarkable? It is, and they both come down, and this is what really got me thinking. He ultimately comes down and says, look, everybody is commemorating this. We’re going to have to commemorate it too. Ein Poresh min Hatzibor is the word that he uses from the Seder night. You can’t separate yourself from the community. But when you do it, at least think in terms of you’re not mourning a dead soldier, you’re mourning, dare I say, almost celebrating someone who was Moser Nefesh for a higher good.

28:55 – GS:

But it is absolutely fascinating, and again, it ties into the parasha in the sense that we’re giving meaning to our existing holiday, and where does it go from there? And, you know, I was thinking to myself a little bit after last week, you know, the adage, be careful what you wish for. When we want the charedim to start celebrating Yom Hazikaron, and the next step on the slippery slope might be celebrating Chas V’sholem Yom Ha’atzmut, that’s going to impact, they are going to tweak Yom Hazikaron and tweak Yom Ha’atzmut.

29:35 – GS:

To fit their very religious worldview. And I hope that we’re all aware of that. But we’re going to have to do this together. If we’re going to embrace our holidays together, we’re going to have to reinterpret them together as well. I want to end. I have a friend. I believe he’s brilliant. He just started a substack. He made Aliyah during COVID. His name is Joe Schwartz, and he wrote Zionist Reflection on Yom HaShoah, and he argues as follows.

30:13 – GS:

He says, Jewish death is either justified or possesses some universal redemptive significance. For the Christians, we suffer as an enduring witness to our murder of Christ. For the Muslims, we suffer because we reject Muhammad’s prophecy. For traditional Jews, we suffer for our sins and for the sake of sanctifying God’s name. Only one group of people denies that the suffering of the Jews has a redemptive meaning at all, the Zionists.

30:42 – GS:

For us, the Jews suffer only because people mean us harm and because we are unable to defend ourselves, and therefore we must learn to defend ourselves. This seemingly modest, rational demural of the Jews, our bowing out of the economy of suffering into which we have been conscripted, turns out to be one of the most radical revolutions in Western thought. We see all around us this unfathomable to the rest of the world, to Jew and Gentile alike, that we are no longer willing to accept our suffering as the verdict of heaven and humanity, but intend instead to defend ourselves.

31:22 – GS:

B-b-b-but, they sputter, can’t you see that you are guilty, that you are deicides, kafirs, thieves, settler colonists, guilty of apartheid and genocide and countless other inhumane crimes, that you deserve this, all of this and more? To which we Zionists reply, no more guilty than any human being.

No, we will defend ourselves. I just thought it’s fascinating, because again, what he’s arguing for, and he has smicha (Rabbinic Ordination), by the way, what he’s arguing for is that there’s another interpretation.

31:57 – GS:

And the other interpretation is that the Zionists didn’t unintentionally take away some of the theological baggage or underpinnings that we read about in the Teshuvah. But they’re saying a Jew can just commemorate a fallen soldier because we need to defend ourselves. And I thought that was just added another aspect to this conversation, which we wouldn’t be having if it wasn’t for this amazing teshuva.

32:30 – AM:

Amazing. Thank you so much, Geoffrey I’ve been taking these ideas with me to Israel. We’ll talk next week about what we’re going to do next week, Parshat Behar. Shabbat Shalom, everybody. Enjoy this amazing discussion of this period during the year.

32:45 – GS:

Shabbat shalom. Nasia tova to Israel. Can’t wait to hear your impressions.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/564540

Listen to last years episode: Rounding the Corner

Madlik Model Seder 2024

Join us on Clubhouse on Wednesday April 17th at 8:00pm Eastern. This year our Seder will be different from other seders. For the first time in many of our lives it will be a Leil Shemorim, a night of concern, uncertainty, fatigue and confusion. Let us follow the advice of the Rabbis to see ourselves as though we too are leaving our Egypt…. We’ll discuss and suggest some texts and subjects for your seder this year.

Sefaria Source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/559081

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This year our Seder will be different from other seders. For the first time in many of our lives it will be a Leil Shemorim, a night of concern; a night of uncertainty, fatigue and confusion. So, let’s follow the advice of the Rabbis to see ourselves as though we too are leaving our Egypt. Join us as we recast the ancient texts of the Haggadah for our generation and our challenging times.

Well, welcome, Rabbi. We have not been together for ages. We were together in person at the Jerome L. Stern lecture, pre-Passover lecture (at Hadar Institute).

Adam Mintz: Which was very good.

GS: And it talked about the fact that this Seder was different from other Seders. This L’El Shim’urim, you know, the night of the original Seder, there were probably screams and shouts outside. The people inside the doors were hoping that the marks that they put on their doorpost were actually going to perform as advertised.

1:37 – GS:

They were slaves. They didn’t know where they were going. There was uncertainty. Truly, it’s a different Seder. You and I, you know, we’ve lived what my father would call charmed lives, privileged lives. At our Seders, we rejoice at the freedom that we have. And if we think of those who are in need, it’s probably thinking of the other. And here we are, we’re going to be celebrating a Seder where when we think of those in need, we’re thinking of ourselves, of our own people. It’s really, truly, it’s going to be a different kind of Seder this year.

2:18 – Adam Mintz:

Really, I mean and you know the challenge of how to deal with it and what to what and how to feel and what to say is really a challenge so I’m happy we’re doing this and we’re thinking about it a few days early.

2:31 – GS:

Okay, so what I want to start talking about is hostages. When you drive through Israel today, you see these signs everywhere, and it says, Pidyon Shvuyim Mitzvah G’dolah. Redeeming the hostage is a big mitzvah. And, you know, I have to say that when I talk politics with my Israeli friends and I say, well, you know, the hostages is one thing, but this is global politics. This is, you know, what about the people on the border? You can’t just say we’ll do anything for the hostages. And the number of times that Israelis have said to me, you don’t understand that in Israel Leaving a soldier behind would mean that we’ve lost our soul.

3:32 – GS:

Leaving a hostage unredeemed, we’re losing our soul. And I say to myself, here is an example where the people of Israel, Am Yisrael, and this is coming from across the spectrum of Israelis, they have internalized this concept of Pidyon Shvuyim, of bringing back hostages, as a core, absolute core belief of Judaism in ways that I’m ashamed to say that I think that I’ve forgotten. I think of it as one of a number of variables.

Have you had the same experience?

4:13 – AM:

Very much so. And you know, you were in Israel just now. So, you really experienced that… you felt it. I actually heard a podcast today of Yossi Klein Halevi. And what he said was that following the missile attack from Iran last Saturday night, that actually, you know, all the discussion of Rafa and Gaza… no one’s talking about that anymore. The only thing they want to know is they want to fight Iran and they want to get back the hostages.

That’s all they’re talking about is the importance of getting back the hostages.

4:48 – GS:

So, I want to recast the whole Seder, the whole of Zecher Yetzirat Mitzrayim, based on this concept. In the Shabbat prayers, we say every Shabbat after we say the Shema, we said, emet mitzrayim g’altanu Hashem elokeinu, umibet avodim piditanu. Truly, you redeemed us from Egypt, God. From the house of bondage, you liberated us.” And the word used for liberation is piditanu. And I think that you could make a case that the whole Seder, that the whole holiday of Pesach, basically is commemorating this core belief of us Jews that when God took us out of Egypt, he was redeeming us as hostages.

5:51 – GS:

The language is used later on in that same prayer, it goes, He frees the captives and redeems the humble, and then it ends with the, redemption at its core is redeeming hostages. And I think, and again, I’ll say it again, I’m almost ashamed to admit, that I didn’t understand how core and intrinsic that is to the Jewish experience. I mean, we always talk about Yetziat Mizrayim at every turn, all we Jews say is Zecher l’tziayat mitzrayim, But there must be something about This concept of redeeming somebody who is in captivity, who has lost control of their future, at whatever cost, and I’m just in awe and I’m just humbled, but that certainly is going to impact how I, I don’t use the word celebrate, how I commemorate, how I relive Yetziat Mitzrayim this year.

6:56 – AM:

So that point about Ezrat Abateinu from the Davening is really a good point because, you know, it’s so much is in the language, right? So much is in the way we present it. And Motzi assirim or Ozer Dalim, the next thing, which you didn’t read, right? But Ozer Dalim, that’s connected to helping out the poor people. It’s all the same thing. It’s helping out the vulnerable, the people who are in trouble. And that’s what we celebrate on Pesach.

7:29 – GS:

Absolutely, but to me this year it takes on a new absolute nuance. So, I think we always talk about the Seder as asking questions. It has the Ma Nashtana in it. I think there is no question that as people are looking towards their Seder this year, some people might be afraid of the questions that are going to be asked. Some people are afraid to ask the questions inside of them. I think that at this Seder, we should really take a kind of a cue, and you know I love the kibbutzim haggadot. We should take a cue from the traditions, not only limited to the kibbutz haggadot, where they made up their own questions.

8:23 – GS:

Questions have to be very important this year. So in the source sheet, I was at, as you know from last week’s podcast, I was in Beit Hashitim, and I saw some kibbutz haggadot. And I want to just read from one kibbutz haggadah in terms of the description of the four children. It says, the wise, what does he ask? He asks, what is this war to us? Chacham, ma ha-milchama hazot lanu? What is this war to us that we are obliged to do? And surely you should respond with the laws of liberation and freedom, of herut, that is never finished, and it is incumbent upon everyone to fight for it with all of his soul and all of his might.

9:23 – GS:

The Wicked, what does he ask? What is this war to you? So these were written during the War of Independence. They were written when the people on the kibbutz were defending themselves, and that was their question. And certainly we can ask today, what does this war mean to us? So the wicked says, what does this war mean to you, to you and not to me? And since he excluded himself from the collective, and then it follows the traditional Haggadah….. So again, for the kibbutznikim who were surrounded, they understood that force was necessary.

10:24 – GS:

But those are the kinds of questions that we’re going to have and the discussions that we have to have. And finally, the one who doesn’t know how to ask, you initiate a discussion and recount the chapters of our slavery and wars from Egypt until the present time. You have to believe that as we sit down for the Seder and we know we are using a text that comes, parts of it from the times of the Mishnah, in the year 100-200, Jews have been studying these texts. I started by saying L’el Shmurim, it’s a night of watching.

11:04 – GS:

There were Jews who had seders, were afraid of pogroms, they were afraid of the new land that they had just recently come to. We are, in a sense, I wouldn’t say privileged, but yes, we are privileged. We’re privileged this year to experience a Seder like I would argue most Jews have experienced a Seder for 2,000 years and not as we have experienced it in America for the last 60 years where everything seemed so hunky-dory.

11:40 – AM:

I couldn’t agree more. I’ll just tell you that I spoke about the Seder on another podcast, and I talked about exactly this. I looked at some commentaries. You like looking at the kibbutz commentaries. I was interested in looking at the commentaries from Poland from the 1800s. People who saw themselves as if they were in bondage again, because they live with such uncertainty and pogroms and all of these things, and they write about their experience and what they’re looking for in Poland as if they need another exodus from Egypt.

12:18 – AM:

So it’s exactly what you said, that this year, but the Jews for hundreds of years wrote like this. I was reading a commentary on Ha lach Ma’anya and they said, you know, the Jews in Egypt were in prison and we’re in prison also. But we look to that model to say they got out of prison. We’re going to be freed from prison also.

That’s amazing.

12:40 – GS:

Yeah, it really is. I think as hard of a message as it is, we really have the opportunity to connect with our brethren, our brothers and sisters in Israel in a way this year that we have never been before and with our history. I’ll just continue a little bit in terms of one Haggadah that I saw at this Beit Hashitim, which has this archive of kibbutz Haggadah, in terms of the Ma Nishtana, the four questions. And it says, what is different about this night from all other nights? Because on this night, the night of Pesach, we are gathered here in a meal all together.

13:20 – GS:

Parents and children sitting as one, and like us, all the people of Israel, whether in the land or in the diaspora, from time immemorial on today. I would argue that this moment in time, we have never been closer with our brethren in Israel, with Jews around the world. And we have to savor that just because it’s a fact. And these kibbutznikim understood that. It says, because on all other nights we celebrated the seder of the holiday of freedom under foreign rule in the struggle on the rebuilding and immigration.

14:00 – GS:

And now we are free in the state of Israel. The gates are open for the return of the dispersed from the corners of the world, and it is in our hands to settle them here. Well, you know, one of the things that happened on October 7th is two myths, two Zionist myths may have been shattered. One was that Israel can defend itself by itself without the need of relying on anyone else. And whether it was on October 7th or last Saturday night (when 300+ missiles were fired from Iran and were 99% intercepted with the help of the US, UK, France and even Jordan), we now know that we are part of a larger community. That we need the world.

14:36 – GS:

The world needs us, but we need the world. And the other myth that was shattered is that now that we have a state, a Jew will never be killed for being a Jew in the state of Israel. And in fact, Israelis who thought they had developed a new persona realized that the kids at the Nova (rave), the grown-ups in the kibbutz, they were killed because they were Jews. And Jews have been united in a way like never before. So, this Ma Nistana that it just said that now things are different, we have to question how different they are and what that means for us.

15:15 – GS:

And these are examples of questions and discussions that we are all going to have at the Seder that is going to make this Seder like no other Seder. It goes on. I would love if you would look at the notes that are listed with this podcast and see what else they talk about. They were dreaming of making the world a better place, too.

I think there was a tradition started by the Chabad Rebbe, that he would always talk about the fifth child. And when he talked about the fifth child, he talked about potentially the assimilated Jew who wasn’t at the Seder.

16:06 – GS:

And we, of course, have been at the Hatufim Square outside of the Tel Aviv Museum, We’ve been at our synagogues where we have tables set up with chairs that are empty. In my town, which is a beach town, everybody was encouraged to bring a beach chair and put a chair on the beach with a picture of those who are missing, we should have an empty chair at the Seder. And there is a fifth child at the Seder, and he’s our grandfather, he’s our wife, he’s our husband, he’s our child who’s not there, and that has amazing impact, I think, on who is at the Seder…. The question is who’s not at the Seder as well.

16:52 – AM:

That’s interesting. I know I in my class today, my model Seder today, I referenced that too. And it’s funny because I gave credit to Rabbi Riskin for introducing it, but probably it was the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

17:06 – GS:

I don’t want to dwell on the L’el Shmurim, but truly, and we heard a wonderful lecture about this, the truth is that there was a very strong tradition, and L’el Shmurim was translated in many ways. Some was that we were watching for trouble, for tsarot, some that we simply stayed up all night like the rabbis in Bnei Brak. And talked about it all night. But it wasn’t a night of a simple sitting back and being proud of the fact that we were redeemed. So the next thing that I would like to talk about is Hametz.

17:54 – GS:

You know, and I know, that in the past, I’ve always said that at the Seder, we don’t talk enough about the fact of what’s not there in terms of the Chometz. Most traditional Hagadot will have the blessings and the formulas that we say the night before the Seder in terms of B’dikkat, hachametz, of taking out the chametz. And you can make an argument that it’s just practical to have them at the beginning of the Hagada. But I will argue that actually they’re an intrinsic part of the Seder.

18:39 – GS:

And the Mishnah, the famous Mishnah in Psachim that says, le’or la’ar ba’asa, it says, on the light, the night of the 14th And the rabbis struggle to say, no, no, you can’t clear out the hametz on the night of the 14th (the actual night of the seder). It’s too late by then. But I truly believe that there is a part of the beginning of the Seder where we have to get rid of all the decay and all of the loss that is associated with hummets. And what I will say tonight is that Lechem, and we’ve talked about this before, Rabbi, Lechem (bread) and Milchama (war) are related.

19:25 – GS:

Lechem and war are related. They come from the same shoresh (root). And I think that even in Genesis, when Adam is punished for the sin that he had done, it says, by the sweat of your brow shall you draw lechem (bread) from the earth. (similarly, the blessing on bread is: Motzi Lechem min ha’aretz) So the idea of Lechem is that struggle, is that struggle of possessions and territory. And I think that what happens at the beginning of the Seder is we try to leave behind all that storm and drum. We try to move away from the decay. It’s only for a day. We’ll get back to it, or maybe it’s only for a week.

20:20 – GS:

But I think that’s something that can be discussed this year as well, what Lechem and Milchama and war represents and the respite that we get when we sit down to the Seder.

20:35 – AM:

Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s the simplicity of matzah. That’s the opposite of lechem, right? It has no additives. It doesn’t take a long time. We’re in favor of simplicity. Isn’t that what it’s all about? And if there’s simplicity, then there’s no war and there’s no argument. It’s people get along when there’s simplicity. I think that somehow that’s the point. I mean, that comment may be overly simplistic, because maybe things are more complicated than that. But I think in terms of, you know, kind of images, I’m sure that that’s what the image is.

21:14 – AM:

That’s what the lechem-milchama and matzah being different is. You know, mitzrayim is also an interesting word. Because in the Hallel, we have a phrase, we say, min ha-meitzar karatiyah, means from the straits, from the narrow places (I call out to God). And the Hasidim say that Mitzrayim, Egypt, can also be pronounced Mitzarim, the narrow places. They limit you. Egypt limited us. They enslaved us, right? Sometimes we limit ourselves. We need to be exposed. We need to, you know, to seek opportunity and potential for ourselves.

21:56 – AM:

So that’s also an interesting twist.

21:59 – GS:

You know, there are many Haggadot that have kavanot, where before you drink a cup of wine, you talk about the intention that you have. And when you get rid of and you burn the chametz, it talks about, may all the sitra achir (evil inclination), all the klipot (shells, obstructions) and all wickedness be consumed in smoke. And remove the dominion of evil from the earth, remove a spirit of destruction and a spirit of judgment, all that distresses the Shekhinah. So, I think, and I’ve kind of said this before, that just at Yom Kippur, we start with Kol Nidre to get rid of all of the kind of previous commitments (habits) that we’ve made, so we start with a new slate.

22:45 – GS:

I think that when we start the Seder, It won’t hurt so bad to turn back a page or two and remind ourselves and remind everyone who’s out there, Seder, that part of what we’re leaving behind and we’re trying to leave behind is this struggle and stress. And imagine what a world is, as you say, simple and pure as that matzah.

So, I have to say that I was recently contacted to be on a guest on a podcast and the person who found me found me because of the Sefaria notes that we have for each of our podcasts.

23:26 – GS:

And so I looked at the Sefaria notes, and I saw that there is one note that I gave, and it’s called Ha lachma, Begin with a Breath, and it has close to 5,000 views. It’s probably the most looked at of all of our notes. And it’s based on a very simple concept that just, I don’t know where I got it from, it came into my head. But it seemed to me that we begin the seder with ha-lachma-anya, and the word ha is just a breath. And I thought that after all of us have been finished cleaning the house, scraping the house, preparing for the seder, In this day, looking at our casualties and the struggles that we’ve been, we sit down for this Seder, would it be so bad if we breathed out with just the ha sound?

24:27 – GS:

And what I quoted in this little Sefaria note is the midrash that says that in Genesis 2.4, it says, eyleh toldot ha’shamayim v’aretz behebaram. This is the story of heaven and earth when they were created. And the word created has an extra hey in it. And from that in Bereshit Rabba, Rabbi Yabua learns that the world was created by God with a breath, with a ha sound. So if anyone listens to this podcast and has any experience in meditation and breathing, I would love to hear from you, and I would love to record a meditation that we could all share.

25:14 – GS:

But I think as we sit down to the Seder, to just breathe out would not be the worst thing that we do. And obviously, from the amount of people that have looked at that source sheet, something there resonates, so there’s something there there.

25:31 – AM:

Yeah, I mean, that’s a great thought. That idea of ha is such an interesting thought. And you know, that’s one of those commentaries that you’re not going to find written in the book. But it’s so true, because that’s the way everybody feels now. We can’t just sit down for the Seder. We need to exhale a little bit or take a step back, however you understand that ha. But it needs a ha before you can get going.

I love it.

26:02 – AM: Love it. I do love it, yeah.

26:04 – GS:

The first thing that we do is we hold up the matzah and we break it. And this is a kind of a bookmark: a beginning and an end of the Seder. It kind of encompasses the whole Seder. Because if you recall, when you answer in the traditional Haggadah, the wise son who asks, well, what are we doing here tonight? You say you teach him all the laws of Pesach including and including “we may not eat an afikomen after we finish.” And what that means is, and of course we create a whole wonderful thing for the children in terms of hiding the matzah (and the necessity of finding the 2nd half which must be eaten to finish the seder).

26:47 – GS:

The idea is that we break the matzah at the beginning and we start with the first half. But by the time we’re finished, we have to eat the second half, and we can’t leave until it’s eaten. And there’s a new book that came out for my Rebbe, Shai Held, (Judaism is about Love) and he talks about this concept of the sacrifices, the Thanksgiving sacrifice, where it can’t be left over, and it has to be totally eaten.

And he writes, “the Torah implicitly requires a person who brings a Thanksgiving offering to invite others to dine with him. Why? The laws around the consumption of the Thanksgiving offering are intended to inculcate and express a core religious value. When we have been the beneficiaries of God’s kindness, we are expected to bestow kindness ourselves. The gifts of God are meant to be shared, not hoarded. Authentic gratitude is antithetical to possessiveness and acquisitiveness. The impulse of a grateful person is to give rather than grasp. Leftovers unshared are thus a sign of ingratitude.” And I couldn’t think of a better explanation (for breaking the afikomen).

28:05 – GS:

I used to think that, you know, a poor person always puts a little bit aside for tomorrow. But looking at it from the perspective of Shai Held, what we’re saying is that this Seder more than any other, we have to share our bounty and we have to share it now. And that is the concept of getting a group together, getting a community together, maybe even a world together. And making sure that you distribute everything at the same time and everybody finishes it. And I think that’s an amazing concept for this year for sure where the importance of helping people immediately, helping them now, helping them without delay has never been stronger.

28:57 – AM:

I think that’s so interesting, because you know that the Seder commemorates the eating of the Paschal sacrifice, the Karbon Pesach. And the Karban Pesach, the Torah tells us, had to be eaten in groups of people. Yes, shared it with other people, because they had to consume the whole thing. And the idea of sharing it, of taking care of others, was a very important part of the Karban Pesach. You refer to ha lach ma’anya. In ha lach ma’anya we say, kol dichvin yeitei v’yeichol (anyone who is hungry let them come and eat). He says, everybody come and join us in the Seder.

29:40 – AM:

That idea, that’s exactly what you quote from Shai Held, of inviting everybody, of taking care of everybody, of sharing, is very much there in the traditional Haggadah.

29:51 – GS:

You know, one of the things that we forget, we lose track of, is that the Seder and Pesach is one of three pilgrimage festivals. And what was a pilgrimage festival? It meant that people all over the country, maybe all over the world, but certainly all over the country, came to Jerusalem. There is a saying in Avot do Rabi Natan that ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in the Jerusalem. And we might have heard a few of them, but I want to focus on the following: “No one in Jerusalem ever said, I cannot find an oven to cook the Passover offering.

30:35 – GS:

No one in Jerusalem ever said, I cannot find an affordable bed to sleep in. No one in Jerusalem ever said, this place is too cramped for me to stay.” We have just gone through six months in Israel where people in the North, people in the South have had to leave their homes, go on pilgrimage, and come to Tel Aviv and come to Be’er Sheva and come to Jerusalem. There has been a massive pilgrimage. And how that has affected Israel, I don’t think we’ll know for years, because there has been such a dichotomy.

31:15 – GS:

Between the periphery and the central of Israel. And here God, in His own wisdom, has brought the periphery into the center. And how that has impacted the center and how it has impacted the periphery, I don’t know. But what I do know is that we are celebrating when we say Halakh Ma’anya and we are basically saying what an innkeeper or a householder in Jerusalem would say to the pilgrims who had come from the Galilee and come from the Negev to stay with him. We are reliving that moment and I think that too has to be spoken about at our Seder this year. (The amazing volunteerism and hospitality provided by Israelis for their dislocated brothers and sisters)

31:56 – AM:

Yeah, that’s super interesting. Also, that’s correct I mean, these are all around the same topic and it’s about the fact that division Somehow division is chumetz and chumetz and lechem is milhkama And it’s all related to that point and we need to fight that and we need to go in the opposite direction….

32:16 – GS:

So let’s move on a little bit. We have parts of the Haggadah that have always been kind of strange to me, for one, where we talk about the plagues, how many plagues were there. Yossi HaGalilee says, when can we derive that because God said in the plagues in Egypt, he did it b’etzba with his finger, that there were maybe 10, but at the splitting of the Red Sea, he said it in his arm, it was hand, it was (times 5) 50, and maybe there were 250 plagues, all of these kind of numerical acrobatics, what do they all mean?

33:04 – GS:

And what it dawned on me today was that the plagues were offensive. They hurt the Egyptians. But what happened at the Red Sea was defensive. What happened at the Red Sea is it split and enabled the Jews to escape unscathed. And in a sense, it is a celebration. Of the Jewish, the Israeli approach to our defense, which was on display on Saturday night. We have invested millions, maybe billions of dollars in defending our population. This war would not have occurred had we been able to defend the border on October 7th.

33:58 – GS:

It’s an amazing approach. It failed (on Oct 7th), but on the other hand, it succeeded the other night, and it teaches us a lesson. I thought about the splitting of the Red Sea differently as a result of that experience, that we are ultimately celebrating the fact that we were saved as opposed to the fact that our enemies… or that somehow we were able to harness God to hurt our enemies.

That was something that just came to me this year.

34:30 – AM:

I’ll tell you that in the Dayenu, there’s a very interesting line. You know, everything in Dayenu is, if he would have had this, but not this, it would have been enough. One of those lines says, ilu kara lanu etayam, had God split the sea, v’lo shikat tzareinu b’tocho, but our enemy would not have been drowned in the sea, it would have been Dayenu. That’s very interesting, that what we’re interested in is our salvation. We don’t need to necessarily punish the enemy. Sometimes it happens, but that’s not what we’re interested in.

And that’s explicit in Dayenu.

35:13 – GS:

You know, we have a custom in my house, but I was happy to see that it’s actually in the traditional Haggadah as brought in Sefaria, that we dip our finger and spill a drop of wine for each plague that was inflicted on our enemies. And my sense is that what we’re saying is that their suffering gives us no satisfaction, but only sadness that their hatred for us exceeds their love of their own. And I think that’s a paraphrase of something that Golda Meir once said. I think she said, there will be peace when you (our enemies) love your children more than you hate us.

35:51 – GS:

But in all of the kibbutz Haggadot, but I would reckon in all of our seders, we quote that famous midrash, which is that when the Egyptians were sinking into the sea, the angels started to sing. And God says, why are you singing when “my children”, and by that he meant, the Egyptians, are dying? And the fact that it’s in the Kibbutz Haggadot, that also have Shefoch Hamatcha which talks about that we should punish our enemies. There was always this sense that, again, is at the core of the people of Israel, and that I think we ultimately celebrate at the Seder.

36:35 – GS:

That we wish no one bad. We just wish that we can get on with our life and that everyone could love their children as much as we do. But I think it’s an amazing part of the Haggadah. That we have to focus on this year. Again, the thing that really came to my eyes is that so much of the miracle of Yetziat Mitzrayim is focused on Kriyat Yom Suf, on the splitting of the Red Sea. We actually say it (Shirat HaYam) every day, Az Yosher Moshe, and the reason is because of all the stories in the Exodus It is one of just saving our people, saving us so that we can live.

37:30 – GS:

This miraculous, call it an Iron Dome, calling a splitting of the Reed Sea. But I think at our Seder we have to recognize that as well.

37:40 – AM:

I think that if we’re going to end on a note, that’s an amazing note to end on. And I want to thank you, Geoffrey. I hope that people listen to this model Seder, because it doesn’t give you necessarily the details of what to speak about next, next Monday night, but it gives you a framework of some of the issues that need to be addressed. And I guess we all wish the same thing.

38:06 – AM:

And we wish that even before we sit down for the Seder, that the hostages are returned and that peace and security are restored. In Israel and in the region, and we pray for, we pray, I think what we Jews always pray, L’shanah haba b’Yerushalayim hab’nuyah (Next Year In a Rebuilt Jerusalem), but b’nuyah (Rebuilt) means one that’s united and safe and filled with all its people.

38:33 – GS:

Well, thank you so much. You will be in Italy. I will be in L.A. The Jews will be united. We’ll be participating the longest running book club in the history of the world. We’ll be reading the same Haggadah and hopefully getting strength from it. So, what I’m going to do now is I am going to play a song, and anyone in the audience who wants to come up onto the bima, onto the seder, we are going to ask a question, and that is, what is it that makes the Jewish people survive? V’hi she’amda. So, I’m going to play this song.

39:14 – GS:

It became a big hit in Israel. It was sung in Washington, D.C. At the solidarity march, but I’m going to play it, and please come on up to the Beamer, and we’re going to discuss what makes the Jewish people unique.

41:24 – GS:

You know, v’hi she’amda is we raise a cup and we say, and this, This is what saved us and it’s such an amazing litmus test or Rauschau ink blot because no one says what it is that saves us. So I’m curious, what does Vahishayamda mean to you?

41:50 – AM:

I’ll tell you, Geoffrey, that at that wedding I went to today, so I saw the rabbi of the shul where the wedding was, and I asked him what he’s speaking about this Shabbos, and he told me he’s speaking about V’hisha Amdan. He told me a whole d’var Torah, and I told him my d’var Torah. I said, what is V’hi? I heard from Rabbi Riskin many years ago that V’hi, you look at the Seder. And you say, v’hisham do lavoteinu velanu. This is what’s kept us together. You know, the Seder is without question the most observed Jewish ritual, both in America and in Israel.

42:23 – AM:

There’s some ridiculously high number, like 85% American Jews participate in some kind of Seder, and over 90% of Israeli Jews participate in the Seder. That the Seder is unifying is that we all somehow participate in this ritual, and that’s what VeHi means.

42:44 – GS:

So some of the explanations that I’ve gathered, and I’ll just go through them as some of you think about what it means for you, is there are some who talk about the Shekhinah, Some of them talk about our patriarchs and matriarchs, so I’ll call that Emunim ben Emunim. We are believers, children of believers. It’s this kind of chord that goes back into history. We do raise the cup, as I said a second ago, so maybe it’s the l’chaim. Maybe it’s the wine. That is our secret juice. Rabbi Leo Dee, who lost his wife and lost his daughters to a terrorist attack, says, Vehi is the women.

43:34 – GS:

They are the ones who saved us, and in the article that I referenced, he talks about those wonderful midrashim, where the women, whether it’s the birth mothers or whether it was the women who went to their husbands who had given up all hope. Maybe that’s what it is. There was a post from Daniel Gordis this week about what was happening when the missiles were flying, and he said maybe it was, what do they call it, (gallows) humor of when you’re about to be hung, he says all of a sudden he was getting Instagram posts: First direct flights from Iran to Israel since 1979”.

44:30 – GS:

There was humor there. Every week it is published when the candle lighting is in Tel Aviv, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, and so somebody posted a sign very similar to what is normally posted every Friday about when the missiles were going to land. This was Jewish humor, and maybe that is what leads us to survive.

I think the answer might be open to discussion, but the question has never been formulated better than by Mark Twain. So, I’m going to read a little bit from Mark Twain. He wrote it in the 1800s.

45:20 – GS:

It’s Concerning the Jews. It’s pretty famous, but I have it in the source sheet. And he’s talking about how the Jew survived. He says:

He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages, and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream stuff and passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone.

45:59 – GS:

Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burnt out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

And I think that’s the question of Vihi Sheyamda.

46:43 – GS:

And it’s a question, but it’s also something that we—what is happening in the world today. You know, we have to look back to what happened in Europe when Jews were accused of being greedy capitalists. And socialists at the same time. And here we are hated by the left and parts of the right. It is an enigma. There is no question about it. And it’s not something that we should necessarily take pride in, but we have to recognize, and I think that’s what the Seder is partially about. Yes, it has an absolutely universal message, Yes, liberation theology was based on the exodus from Egypt, and I’ve talked about that, but there is a unique story here.

47:34 – GS:

The enigma of the Jew, v’hi she’amda, what is it? What is it? And I think that’s a subject also worthy of discussion. And let’s really pray for the hostages to be free, because ultimately it’s our soul that’s in captivity.

And Loren, you are now at the Seder. Un-mic yourself, and I’d love to hear from you, my friend.

48:04 – Loren

Hi Geoffrey. It’s interesting, the Passover Seder each year, we repeat it year after year. Having lived in Israel for time. I think this holiday is all about possibility, and it’s about the ability to look past where we are, and to believe that we’re going to succeed in a more open and constructive manner. And that’s what I celebrate this holiday for. It gives us strength to move forward. And I think this possibility issue, the optimism that we get from our past and how we apply it is how we become better Jews.

48:53 – GS:

Well, I love the fact that you’re so optimistic. I must say a week or two ago I was in Israel and I was interviewing a veteran of the Yom

kippur War who had been protesting before October 7th and then after October 7th pivoted and was supporting soldiers and I introduced him and the first words that came out of his mouth was, “I am an optimist”. And maybe that, Loren, is what your Vihishayamda is, that we are an optimist. I think that Ben-Gurion said, “for us to be realists, we have to be optimists”.

49:40 – GS:

Something along those lines. But I’m with you. I’m with you. We have no choice. It’s just like Golda Meir said in the famous story to Biden, where she said, what is the secret source? What is the secret weapon of the Jewish people? And she said, “we have nowhere else to go”. I think a variation on that is about optimism. We have no other choice than to be optimistic. Okay, everybody, Chag Sameach, let’s all pray for a liberated world, and we’ll see you all, I think, probably next week with Chol HaMoed. We have off spring break for Madlik, but we’ll see you a week after that, and Chag Kosher v’Sameach to all of you. Look forward to seeing you then. Bye-bye.

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Check out the Madlik Sefaria Passover Collection

spring awakening

shabbat hagadol

1 Observe the Spring month and keep the Passover unto the LORD thy God; for in the Spring month the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night….

3 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread (חָמֵץ) on it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened (מַצּוֹת) bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for in haste didst thou come forth out of the land of Egypt; that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
4 And there shall be no leaven (שְׂאֹר) seen with thee in all they borders seven days; … (Deuteronomy 16: 1 – 4)

To me… especially during this historic Arab Spring, I am struck by how closely tied Spring (Aviv) and Revolution (Exodus) are in the Bible. The ancient symbol that most profoundly ties these two ideas together is not so much Matzo.. a uniquely Jewish foodstuff, as it is hametz and the annual purge and abstinence from all things leavened (חָמֵץ andשְׂאֹר).

It turns out that leavened (unlike matzo) is a symbol which was part of the vernacular of the ancient world and whose significance was readily understood not only within Judaism, but also Christianity and Arab – indo-Iranian groups in the ancient near east.

We first find Leavened in the Bible in Leviticus 2: 11:

11 No meal-offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven; for ye shall make no leaven, nor any honey, smoke as an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

In his scholarly commentary on Leviticus, Jacob Milgrom writes regarding leavened . . . leaven. hames . . . se’or.:

The difference between the two is that se’or leavens the dough and the leavened dough is called hiimes” (Yahel ‘Or). … Similarly, Akk. emesu ‘be sour’ and emsu ‘sour’ (adi.) are used in connection with wine, vinegar, beer, fruit, or leavened bread, in other words, with foods that have fermented and, in the case of bread, to which leaven has been added. Fermentation is equivalent to decay and corruption and for this reason is prohibited on the altar.

“Leaven in the dough” is a common rabbinic metaphor for man’s evil propensities (e.g., Babylonian Talmud Berachot
17a).

“Sovereign of the Universe, it is well known to You that it is our will to do Your will. Who prevents us from doing so? The leavening agent in the dough (the evil inclination within us) and our subservience to the nations. May it be Your will to save us from these so that we can return to fulfilling Your commandments wholeheartedly.” Prayer of Rabbi Alexandrai

The New Testament mentions “the leaven of malice and wickedness”

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth. [Corinthians 5:8]

and “the leaven of the Pharisees,” which is “hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1; d. Mark 8:15).

This view is shared by the ancients:

“Leaven itself comes from corruption, and corrupts the dough with which it is mixed . . . and in general, fermentation seems to be a kind of putrefaction” (Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 109). Plutarch records that the Roman high priest (Flamen Dialis) was forbidden even to touch leaven (ibid.). To be sure, all of the above-cited references stem from late antiquity (Christian, rabbinic, and Hellenistic sources), but they undoubtedly reflect an older and universal regard of leaven as the arch-symbol of fermentation:’ deterioration, and death and, hence, taboo on the altar of blessing and life. [pp 188-9 Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary Anchor Bible, Vol. 3, Jacob Milgrom]

Listen to what Philo of Alexandria (representing the Jewish Hellenistics) wrote:

Leaven is forbidden because of the rising which it produces. Here again we have a symbol of the truth, that none as he approaches the altar should be uplifted or puffed up by arrogance; rather gazing on the greatness of God, let him gain a perception of the weakness which belongs to the creature, even though he may be superior to others in prosperity; and having been thus led to the reasonable conclusion, let him reduce the overweening exaltation of his pride by laying low that pestilent enemy, conceit. …. For naked you came into the world, worthy sir, and naked will you again depart, and the span of time between your birth and death is a loan to you from God. During this span what can be meet for you to do but to study fellow-feeling and goodwill and equity and humanity and what else belongs to virtue, and to cast away the inequitable, unrighteous and unforgiving viciousness which turns man, naturally the most civilized of creatures, into a wild and ferocious animal! (Philo,The Special Laws, Book I, 293-295 quoted in The Passover Anthology, Philip Goodman).

My guess is that if someone in 1^st – 3^rd Century CE had asked a Jew, a Hellenist, an early Christian or even a local pagan whether he had gotten rid of his leaven… the respondent may have hesitated and wondered whether the subject of conversation was old pita in his kitchen cabinet or the worker conditions in his sweat shop.

It is surprising that the symbolism of the purging of leaven as a metaphor for introspection and repentance seems not to appear in the Haggada directly itself and is relegated to the commentaries as meta-interpretation. In fact, the removal, nullification and prohibition to own leaven is not mentioned during the Seder service all… surprising since at least half of the effort in preparing a seder goes into making the home hametz-free! (“On all other nights we eat Hametz and matzo .. on this night we eat only matzoh” does not count.. since the emphasis is on eating matzoh, not clearing and nullifying hametz.)

To be sure, for the Hasidic or more mystically inclined who recite a meditation (kavanah) before or after the Bedikat and Biur Hametz (search and nullification of the leaven) ritual, there is mention of leaven as a metaphor for impurity:

May it be Your will, Lord, our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that just as I remove the chametz from my house and from my possession, so shall You remove all the extraneous forces. Remove the spirit of impurity from the earth, remove our evil inclination from us, and grant us a heart of flesh to serve You in truth. Make all the sitra achara, all the kelipot, and all wickedness be consumed in smoke, and remove the dominion of evil from the earth. Remove with a spirit of destruction and a spirit of judgment all that distress the Shechina, just as You destroyed Egypt and its idols in those days, at this time. Amen, Selah.

But the sense of leaven as representing decay, corruption and arrogance is lost.

It occurred to me that while we Jews do our cleaning during our first month Nissan, Persians at the outset of the Iranian Norouz, (the Persian new year, which falls on the first day of spring) continue the practice of “khooneh tekouni” which literally means “shaking the house”? Everything in the house is thoroughly cleaned, from the drapes to the furniture.

Similarly Lent comes from the word length.. as in the longer days of spring. Instead of Ash Wednesday, the Eastern Church celebrates Clean Monday, otherwise known as Ash Monday. According to Wikipidia:

The common term for this day, “Clean Monday”, refers to the leaving behind of sinful attitudes and non-fasting foods. It is sometimes called “Ash Monday,” by analogy with Ash Wednesday (the day when the Western Churches begin Lent). …. Liturgically, Clean Monday—and thus Lent itself—begins on the preceding (Sunday) night, at a special service called Forgiveness Vespers, which culminates with the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, at which all present will bow down before one another and ask forgiveness. In this way, the faithful begin Lent with a clean conscience, with forgiveness, and with renewed Christian love. The entire first week of Great Lent is often referred to as “Clean Week,” and it is customary to go to Confession during this week, and to clean the house thoroughly.

The fact that so many other competing religions, especially Christianity, retained the spring-purification rites may explain why it’s symbolism became muted in Judaism. (The: “the leaven of the Pharisees,” snipe does not help.) But for whatever the reason, it seems to me that a reintegration of this critical element of the Passover message is overdue, especially because the Jewish version of spring-purification message is uniquely political… it combines the Exodus-Revolution.. with spring purification…

The unique Spring message of Passover is that in every spring and in every generation, each person and every people needs to look witrhin and at the ruling powers. We have to root out the corruption, pride, arrogance, decay and death that is the “leaven in the dough”, both in our souls and in our public squares… we need to weed out arrogance in our souls but also in our Pharaohs… This political element to the nullification of leaven, is uniquely Jewish.

If I had a Passover message for modern day Egyptians and the Arab square, it is that we Jews support you in your Spring Awakening. We Jews invite you to join us in the celebration of Pesach. We wish that in addition to bringing down your Pharaohs, you also clean away the mold and toxins of anti semitism and victimization with which your rulers have infected and distracted you. We wish you to recognize that we Jews and our local territorial conflict are not the source of much anything that is wrong in the Middle East, certainly not on your street. Know that we Jews (this Passover and every Passover) re-dedicate ourselves to resolving our local issues.. in our house, and we invite you to do the same in your own homes and in your square.

As for me and my fellow Jews, let us reintegrate the political and spiritual, social and ethical message of the awakening of spring and purging/abstinence from decay and corruption into our Passover celebration.

Let us make note that most haggadot, especially older illuminated ones, don’t start with kiddush, but rather with the search for leaven…. even though the search and nullification of leaven takes place before the onset of the holiday and holiday service.

The message is clear: The nullification of the leaven/decay is critical for the freedom that is to follow. Just as the Kol Nidre nullification of vows prior to the onset of Yom Kippur is forever connected to the service to follow, so too, the Kol Hamirah is critical to the seder to follow.

Both nullification (Bitul) formulas are legal in form and in the Aramaic vernacular. Both are combined with an invitation for others to participate, and both are intrinsic to the holiness of the coming day. The difference is that nullification of Hametz is of biblical origin (and requires a blessing) while Kol Nidre is of unknown origin. Most importantly, Kol Nidre has a soulful tune and Kol Hamira has none….

All leaven and leavened products in my possession, whether I have seen them or not, whether I removed them or not, shall be deemed of no value and ownerless like the dust (ash?) of the earth.

Followed by the invitation to join the meal and the service:

All who are hungry, come and eat,
All who are in need, come celebrate the Passover.

Compare with:

“In the tribunal of heaven and the tribunal of earth, by the permission of God—blessed be He—and by the permission of this holy congregation, we hold it lawful to pray with the transgressors.”
“All vows, prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, vows, vows, or equivalent terms that we may vow, swear, consecrate, or prohibit upon ourselves — from the last Yom Kippur until this Yom Kippur, and from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur, may it come upon us for good – regarding them all, we regret them henceforth. They all will be permitted, abandoned, cancelled, null and void, without power and without standing. Our vows shall not be valid vows; our prohibitions shall not be valid prohibitions; and our oaths shall not be valid oaths.”

I suggest that when on the morning before the seder, we recite Kol Hamira we follow the direction given by Rav Saadyah Gaon in reference to Kol Nidre and that we: “begin the chant with bated breath, like a servant who approaches his sovereign in fear, then gathers strength in speech, and finally lifts up his suppliant voice, as a son at home in his father’s house.”

I also beseach anyone out there with musical talent to record a soulful tune for Kol Hamira….

For God’s sake… if there’s a tune for the table of contents of the Haggadah (Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas Yachatz….) can’t there be a tune for the spring awakening?