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A collection of shiurim by Rav Shlomo Katz on the topic of the month of Nisan and the holiday of Pesach.
Shavua tov. Shavua tov everyone. I sense we're doing this differently this year. I never got to, as far as I remember, actually in corona we did this one time, to play a niggun for Shabbos HaGadol Drasha.
So, sing with me wherever you are.
השיבנו השם אליך ונשובה, ונשובה, השיבנו השם.
השיבנו השם אליך ונשובה, ונשובה, השיבנו השם.
חדש, חדש ימינו, חדש ימינו כקדם.
חדש, חדש ימינו, חדש ימינו כקדם.
ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, ונשובה, השיבנו השם. Chaveirim vechaverot, dearest friends, I want to thank everyone for the love, the support, the togetherness that we've all been feeling in this time and the amazing, amazing spirit of the youth of the kehilla for leading the way, for being so incredible, more incredible than any of us could have ever imagined, which is what really tonight is, what tonight's learning is all about, more incredible than we could have ever imagined. I also want to thank the sponsors for this Shabbos HaGadol Drasha, to the Merkin family commemorating the yartzeit of Linda's parents, Estelle and Daniel Eckhaus, לעילוי נשמת אסתר בת יעקב אליעזר זכרונה לברכה and דניאל בן משה חיים זכרונו לברכה.
I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not in a space to try to come up with a fancy new halachic hashkafic way of approaching the seder this year. This whole week, last two weeks really, thinking about what would you want to share for Shabbos HaGadol this year, it's been a very deep question, a very serious question and one that I've davened over very much. And for the next few minutes, it won't be too long, but for the next few minutes, I want to go into the heart of what the mitzvah of seder night is all about, obviously aside from eating the matzah, but that epic phrase V'higad'ta l'vincha, that there is the opportunity on seder night. To give over to your children and to yourself more than any other night of the year in the Halacha.
We have the question what happens if there are no children at the Seder? Then what is one supposed to do? Do you have to do Maggid? Is there any V'higadeta L'vincha going on over there? And Chazal have deeply ingrained in us the notion that when no one is there there's still a chiyuv of lesaper betzias mitzrayim because you really have to do it to yourself as well. You have to tell over the story to yourself. And I always understood that to mean that it doesn't mean that you have to tell a story to yourself only when other kids aren't there when there are no children there, but even when there are children there, it seems based on the Halacha that you must make sure that you are telling yourself something that your neshama's crying out for, which is what the gates that are opened on Seder night. Now a few days ago I went back to, I was looking at a Shabbos HaGadol drasha message that I sent to the shul two years ago, תשפ"ד, and it wasn't a drasha it was just a message before Shabbat HaGadol where I was sharing with the Kehila that based on last Motzei Shabbos's miracles, the Nissim that took place last Motzei Shabbos of then which are beyond us that none of us could really comprehend we still can't comprehend them a few years later now but we still can't we definitely then couldn't comprehend it, what can we do this coming Shabbos to make an inyan out of it to say thank you to Hashem? What were we referring to? We were referring to that very interesting Melave Malka night we had where Iran Yimach Shemam V'zichram sent out a bunch of drones and missiles and a whole gesheft of things towards us and they let us know in the next few hours you're going to be it's going to land on you and we were told this I think at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. I don't remember exactly and we're all in this situation of oh my god it's really happening.
Oh my gosh. Wow. That which we never dared to think of as a real possibility is actually really happening. And we know the aftermath of that event and so many more events since then.
And I had said that this Shabbos in shul we open up the Aron Kodesh we're going to all communally say together Mizmor L'todah. And at that stage in this war that's where we were at looking at the unfathomable and communally saying together Mizmor L'todah and we've basically been saying Mizmor L'todah every single day after Davening, after every every Tefilla Shacharis, Mincha and Maariv and we're living in a state of Mizmor L'todah but we're also in a place that's another Seder's coming and we know that this year it can't be like last year and it can't be like the year before and it's always true but the period that we're living in right now is demanding of us something that we probably don't think we're capable of but if you look back in the last few years and I had told you before the last few years this is where you'd be and you'd be capable of not just getting through it but growing and even finding newfound strength and newfound love and newfound appreciation and connection, we would also probably say no there's mufla mimcha it's it's that's already a reality that's too much. I was at a levaya this week and we should all live long where someone had said that the Nifteres I think she said success begins outside of your comfort zone, mashu kaze something like that. So are we successful right now? Will we be successful this coming Leil Seder? I wanted to stick really to the question that we have for us tonight is what is it? What story are we going to be telling our children this year? What's the V'higadeta L'vincha this year? This is just my own shfichas halev, pouring out of the heart.
So hold on for a few minutes and we'll hopefully be able to together come to a new place of readiness for this year's Seder table. What are we? to tell our children this year. In the halacha, there are a lot of questions regarding understanding the nature of Maggid, understanding the nature of telling over the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim, which we all know we have to, but is there room, or is it even, are you allowed to add on to the Maggid? Should you add on to the Maggid? For instance, the Chernobyl Maggid, the Chernobyl Rebbe, when it came to Maggid, he, we say this every year, he actually stopped and he pulled out this, he had every year he had like some kind of a machberes, a notebook, and the notebook got bigger and fatter every single year. And it's because he throughout the year whenever he experienced a nes, and for a nes by the Tzadikim is every moment, and taking into account every moment, so he would share all the miracles that also happened to him during that previous year, that year leading up to that Seder.
If we were holding by minhag Chernobyl, can you imagine how big our machbaros would be this year? We wouldn't know where to start, we wouldn't know where to end. And what's crazy is that we're all still very much in this. We're all still very much in this. What story are we supposed to tell our children this year at the Seder? And as we said before, what we can give over to our children Seder night and also we can't ignore the fact what we can give over to ourselves Seder night, you can't give over any other night of the year.
It's interesting Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch said something that I saw with my own eyes last week. In the beginning it kind of irritated me and it made me feel bad but then I saw this Rashar here. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says that Pesach, he basically says that Pesach is the opportunity to become lechatchila Jews. What is a lechatchila Jew? Well, a lechatchila Jew is not someone who relies and depends on the chinuch that children get from the schools that we send them to, but rather that we are the ones that are mechanech our children.
We are the ones that are giving over the word of Hashem to our children and not relying on the chinuch that we hope they're receiving in the school that we send them to. I say that I was irritated by something that happened a few weeks ago, one of the chevra here, a beautiful neighbor here in the shul. I said to him, nu, how are you guys doing, how are you holding up? You know, the kids are home all day, we don't even know when there's you know, how long they're going to be home, will they ever go back to school? And he said, ah, זה כל כך חזק, it's so strong right now. I said why? He's like because this is probably what it was like a long long long time ago where it was the parents that were teaching the children and not necessarily teachers that were the only ones responsible to teach the children.
And I looked at him and I was like what war are you going through? You know? That you have these types of neshamos, the ones the more, these big mochin de-gadlus Yidden, expansive mindset that look at the situation we're in and they say, wow, this is amazing that we get to mechanech our children. It's an amazing thing that they're at home now. This is what it must have been like. They're at home, we're giving it over to them.
But Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says that on Pesach night, on Seder night, we're going back to being lechatchila Yidden. This is what it was, this is what it was in the beginning. So we've definitely become lechatchila parents again. I don't want to take away chalila parnassa from educators and teachers that are relying on their parnassa for people to go back to schools, but you get the whiff of it.
On Seder night we go back to what Hashem probably, most probably, if we could understand these things, had in mind when He thought of creating parents and children and trust, trusted the parents to know how to talk and give over to their children what they really want to tell them over, not just the story of what happened, but a much bigger story. And it could be the whole briah was all waiting, all creation has been waiting for ליל סדר תש"פ for parents to give over to their children and to themselves what they really, really want to give over to a child. We want to give over to our child much more than information. We want to give over to our child much more than know where you come from, know your ancestry, know your roots.
We know that we want to give them much much more than that. The question is what is that? So you'll probably say, we want to give over v'higad'ta l'vincha. The point of the whole evening of Seder is to give over to our children emuna, to believe in Hashem. Just like it was so black, it was so bad, it was so dark, darker than I don't know, we used to say darker than we could have ever imagined.
I don't know, we've seen a lot of darkness. Our generation has seen a lot of darkness. We've seen a lot of pain, a lot of struggles. But we essentially always go to the, to the motif of just like when our parents and our grandparents were stuck in Mitzrayim and it was so bad, it was so dark, it was so scary, there were so much, so many unknowns.
But ויוציאנו השם משם ביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה, Hashem pulled us out of there as well. It's a very sweet thing and a beautiful thing to want to tell your children, to give over to them to believe in Hashem, that's very, very big. The night of Seder is even more than that. The night of Seder of v'higadta l'vincha of days like we have today right now, it's even more than that.
The etzem of what I want to give over in this short shmuz slash shiur slash Shabbos HaGadol shiur is based on a teaching from the Beis Yaakov of Izhbitza. The Beis Yaakov and I'll be sending this, this out as well. The Beis Yaakov was the son of the Mei Hashiloach, רב מרדכי יוסף ליינר. The Beis Yaakov of Izhbitza lived in the second half of the 19th century and in his, he has a beautiful haggada, a beautiful, beautiful haggada.
You know, it reminds me of something, little tangent but we'll get back right back to it. They asked one time Rav Naftali Ropshitzer, or maybe he asked, he says why do you think there's so many haggados every year? Like there's so many new, like that's one sefer you know there's going to be new books on the haggada every year, new haggados. You don't have this necessarily every year a new machzor per se. Or this year there, I mean there probably will be new machzorim because there's so much we're Am HaSefer and there'll probably be new perushim on Megillas Esther.
But when it comes to haggada, there are new haggados all year long, every year, every year. So the Ropshitzer said, he says because it's very simple. Last year when you were talking about the rasha, that rasha has evolved so much since then. There's a new person sitting at the table, you gotta know how to talk to that person.
Someone else may have taken his place and become a rasha. But to relate to that rasha of last year, the world's evolving, the world's getting at the pace that we're seeing today, einu be'emes k'chomrim. So the Ropshitzer says you have to have a new way of speaking every single year to the new evolved person that's now showing up at the Seder table. Which got me thinking that we always say there are new haggados, which in literal translation means there's new way of speaking about what's going on, new haggada le'hagid.
There are new haggados, there're, there are new ways of understanding how to talk to our children. There's a new way coming down and there's a new way coming down this year. A new haggada. And this is what the Beis Yaakov of Izhbitza in the Beis Yaakov Hakollel on Parshas Vayigash os chaf is speaking about.
The, the Beis Yaakov has, his perush on, his perush on the Torah is very much so based on his father, the, the Heilige Mei Hashiloach's commentary of course. But the Beis Yaakov himself, he would be so humble, he would never say, you know he would never say oh you know I have my own chidushim, he would say everything's my father. Sorry, it's os chaf alef in Parshas Vayigash. But here you see he may have heard the concept by his father but he takes this to an amazing place and I'm going to read for you a few, a few words inside.
All of this is based on a pasuk in Yeshayahu HaNavi. And if there's one pasuk I want you to remember and I want you to take with you to your Seder and to the rest of your life, it's the following pasuk from Yeshayahu.
ישעיהו פרק סד פסוק ב. Yeshayahu HaNavi says: בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה.
בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה. The wonders that you will do or have done asher lo nekaveh, we, we don't hope for. Let's try to understand let's unpack this pasuk. Ba'asosecha nora'os, God does big things, nora can sometimes mean you know, nora, nora v'ayom, horrible.
Like ba'asosecha nora'os you, to you, you're capable God of doing things that we would never, ever hope for. We've seen things we wished we never saw before. You've done things to us that There are homes of just this week alone, there are many more yetomim in Am Yisrael. There's a lot of pain.
There are a lot of more almanot. Widows and orphans.
בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה. We'd never ever hope to live in such a metziut.
Of course, the light of the Baal Shem Tov comes into the world and tells us look at that pasuk again. Basotcha noraot. Nora means awesome. Awesome.
בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה. Ribono shel Olam, the wonders that you're capable of doing, the big big awesome things, asher lo nekaveh, we don't even dare to dream of because we don't know how to dream of such things. We don't even know how to hope for such things. This pasuk from Yeshayahu HaNavi is going to open up a petach for us.
Now listen very closely, and I'm talking to myself too. In Parshat Vayigash, the epic meeting between Yosef and Yehuda, the removal of such a thick layer of concealment takes place when Yosef mitvadeh l'echav, when Yosef comes to his brothers and says removes the masks.
אני יוסף העוד אבי חי. And for every year we've been in the shul, Baruch Hashem, Parshat Vayigash, the Parsha of revelation, in Izhbitzer Torah, this is a headquarters of Moshiach because when Moshiach's going to come there'll be a complete removal of all hastara and that which was in front of us which may have seemed like so foreign to us and awful and evil, there'll be a mask, some kind of mask being removed and we'll realize it was the Ribono shel Olam the whole time.
The whole time. He just wanted our hearts to break fully, fully open. I know what you're thinking, what, how much more could they break open? I'm talking about breaking open in a holy way. So when Yosef HaTzaddik says Ani Yosef achichem, the Izhbitzer in the Beis Yaakov, the Izhbitzer says like this: כי אחי יוסף לא היה להם שום ציפוי וקיווי לזה הישועה שיוסף יתוודע להם.
The brothers of Yosef had no way of thinking that what just happened could have ever happened. It wasn't even on the radar. For them it would have been enough if they just saved their brother Binyamin. That would have been a yeshua for them.
The brothers could have, it's not that they didn't even dare to dream that this could be their brother and he'll show them. It wasn't on the radar. It didn't come before them at all. They knew that it's all from Hashem.
Yehuda, he knows he's got to do teshuva. You know all these things. Vayigash elav Yehuda. Zohar Hakadosh saying he went up to Hashem and started confessing and doing teshuva and davening.
But the brothers themselves as a group they never כי אחי יוסף לא היה להם שום ציפוי וקיווי לזה הישועה שיוסף יתוודע להם. That's not at all what they were thinking. And the Izhbitzer in the Beis Yaakov says: ומצידם היה להם די ישועת השם אם היה מחזיר להם את בנימין. It would have been enough if they just gave Binyamin back and then the whole thing would have been over.
I think you know in our terminology I would put it as, you know, we can't imagine what can come out of this whole story. We can't imagine. And every time Hashem shows us more and more of removal of evil from the world is like, I can't believe that that could have happened. But we still can't really imagine even bigger things that Hashem is waiting to pour down onto His people.
It'd be us for us, it'd be enough for us to have the equivalent of just Binyamin coming back out of captivity. Meaning it would have been enough for things that are very dear to us for certain worlds of pain to stop. Like I know people are talking about this less and less but like עוד יהיו ימים שקטים. There'll be quiet days again.
And we all understand that quiet, real quiet days means the removal of evil from the world. It doesn't mean the stopping of fighting based on some kind of an agreement between these reshaim and us. That's not what it is. But sometimes we say, you know what, I just want these sirens to stop.
Of course we want these sirens to stop. I'm shocked the siren hasn't even happened the last twenty-five minutes we're together. or a hatra'ah, a warning. But the Imrei Bais Yaakov says, but you know what it is, Hashem operates differently.
אכן כן הוא דרכי השם יתברך. The ways of Hashem are as follows: כאשר ירצה להצמיח ישועה לאדם, when God wants to sprout forth salvation within a person, אזי מכניס בו מיחושים אף על מה שהוא בידו. You start to, Hashem starts putting certain feelings, certain sensations into you, things that you're not certain exactly what they are, but it gives you a sense, okay, I gotta, I gotta think stronger, I gotta, I gotta daven more for the, I gotta daven more for geulah, I gotta daven more for salvation. Right? So ma shehu beyado, I gotta, I can daven more, I can daven stronger, I can learn more, I can give more tzedakah, all things I can do more chesed, all things that our nation has been doing in the last few years in such a beautiful, beautiful way.
Bifrat, I just want to say, so many people in our kehillah and in the greater kehillah here in the Zayit and in Efrat, what we've seen people going out of their way, so beautiful, so heartwarming. But basically we say, okay, so Hashem puts something in me and then I realize I gotta do teshuvah, I gotta do better, I daven better, I daven stronger like we said, I learn better. But the Ishbitzer says after that happens that Hashem puts something in you that knows you gotta go deeper.
אחר כך יושיעהו השם יתברך בתוספת מרובה על העיקר.
But then Hashem brings you a yeshuah which is much greater than what you thought a good result would be, מה שלא עלה על לבו אף ציפוי לזו הישועה. Real salvation we should witness this, feel this, and see this with our own eyes, with our children real, real salvation ends up being that after I try to do my part, Hashem comes and gives us a much, much better gift than what we thought we were hoping for, we were davening for. What does this mean? And I'm going to send this out because I think it's important to see these words inside. The Ishbitzer, it's not just in Vayigash that he says this, he also says this that this is what this is what Seder night is all about.
Let's try to unpack this Bais Yaakov for a few minutes. You and I, we have certain dreams and and aspirations and we all hope that they'll become true. I can daven over it and and it's very good, but I think it's becoming clear that what we're really at a place and what we're ready to start davening for is for something much greater than I could have ever imagined or than I can understand that I could fathom. I'll put it like this, like do I really know what Hashem wants to do from the aftermath of this whole story? Do I do I really understand it? Am I really on the level of comprehending what a yeshuah mitzad shamaya looks like from this story? And I'm thinking to myself, the Jews in Mitzrayim, did they really understand? Did they really know what would look like on the other side while they were still in it? While the nissim were taking place? What do we know about their psyche? What were they thinking? What were their parents telling the children while they were going through all these miracles? What were they telling them? How were they describing to them what it looks like, what the whole story of Am Yisrael is all about? How were they giving that over to them? So there's two ways of approaching the world of davening over emunah.
There's two main ways. Let's say like this, let's say a person's in chutz la'aretz, they want to come to Eretz Yisrael.
אמן כן יהי רצון. They don't have the money.
So one way of davening over this is by saying, oh someone should come and help me like that and I should get a ticket. Another way of davening is not necessarily about the bakashah, it's not necessarily about asking for it to happen in a certain way. It's davening with the bitachon that I know it'll happen and I know I'll get to Yerushalayim, I know I'll get there. I don't know how, but I know I'll get there.
You see, while it it's an incredible thing, while we daven for certain things, we kind of in our minds say this seems like a good way for this to happen even if it seems like some miracles will need. need to take place in order for it to happen.
זה לא בדיוק זה. We want even more.
We want to go to a deeper place where we say Ribono Shel Olam, I have no idea how this is going to happen. I just know for sure that it will happen. Something bigger than I could ever imagine will take place. The Ishbitzer says once you shift from davening over something to davening that it will happen and I'm just flowing with the bitachon ride, then you're ready for something much bigger in the world of emuna.
The Ishbitzer says that on Pesach night, what the Beis Yaakov is giving over to us, the whole Torah Ishbitze, is that on Pesach night, something amazing happens to me. It's that not only did I become free but listen very closely, my relationship to Hashem becomes free. What does that mean, my relationship to Hashem becomes free? Go back to the example of the person who wants to get to Eretz Yisrael. If I have plans for Hashem and I believe that Hashem can do it, it's beautiful, but it's still a shtikel making Hashem into a slave to your dreams.
What we're talking about right now is something so much bigger than any plan we can come up with as to how things can unfold for the best way. I don't think any of us at this stage in this war would have drawn up the situation that Rav Rimon has been speaking about quite extensively lately, the unfolding and the demise of so many of the sonei Yisroel from the biggest reshaim in the world. I don't think anyone could have come up with such a tefilla to say Hashem, please do that in order for that to happen, in order for that to happen with Russia and Ukraine and China and all these different pieces to this puzzle. None of us could have ever come up with any of that.
So the last two and a half years have been pushing us to go to a place of בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה, wow what you could do. I have to admit Hashem, asher lo nekave, I could never come up with such a thing. But that's what I'm not only davening for on Seder night, it's what I'm giving over to my child. I say to my child as well, you're a son of Avram, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Rochel, and Leah.
Throughout all of history, maybe when we look back we know the end stories of things, but while they were taking place, we could have never imagined that what ended up happening ended up happening. And it's the same exact situation we're in today. Nothing's changed on that level. Nothing's changed.
We're still in a place of needing to have cheirus from our relationship with Hashem, and I want to just re-emphasize this doesn't mean God forbid I'm off God duty and now I don't have to worry about God, I'm free. No. I'm free of Hashem fitting into my plans. I free myself, this is mammash the cheirus of Leil Seder.
I free myself from the notion of what seems for me to be the best scenario. How does this manifest between parents and children? Every parent dreams big things for their children, good things for their children, they should all be matzliach, successful. But the greatest way of approaching tachlis, looking chinuch and looking into your child's eye and say, listen, this is what I think you could become. I see this in you.
I see that in you. And I have a mitzva of chinuch, vehigadeta levincha. I have to tell you what you're made out of. But I have to be very real with you, my child.
What I believe you're destined for is greater than anything I could put into words. And whatever I tell my children during this war, the children are demanding of us to be so real. And real in the world of emuna is saying to them there's going to be a shira chadasha that we'll be capable of singing on the other side of this. This is a long time already.
This is two and a half years. There's going to be something very big, בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה, awesome things, wondrous. Things happening we could have never imagined. But the way that I feel that and the way that I daven over that and the way that I give over to my child who they could be is not only based on what seems to me to be the best based on their best talents or whatever.
That's good and it's important and you need to see these in your child. But our dreams are always that our children should surpass us. What does it mean surpass us? Not just surpass us in our successes, but surpass our mind of what they're capable of doing. It starts with surpassing in our minds what Hashem Yisbarach can do.
What God can do. Leil Seder is freedom from all the limitations, all the holy limitations I put on God without realizing they were limitations. So we ask ourselves going into the seder this year, what seems for us to be the best scenario, the best outcome of the situation that we're in right now? What seems to be the best situation right now? Well, בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה. I don't know, but I'm not putting a limit on anything.
Hashem Yisbarach will I be... it's hard to say this, but will I be disappointed if we're able to take out more a few more reshaim and there'll be some quiet here for a little bit? Will I be disappointed that I, so to speak, will be able to rest a little bit now? I think at this shlav the am understands that some temporary peace, tmurat peace, quiet for quiet, those things, those things aren't calming anyone down.
בעשותך נוראות אשר לא נקוה. We're still a little bit like the brothers before Yosef revealed himself, that for us it would be just good if Binyamin came home.
But we're also already halfway, our foot's already halfway into the door of revelation. There's something bigger going on. So Hashem, I'm davening leading up to seder to remove my shackles that I put on You, zot omeret, that the way that I daven has to stop being about if only this would happen, if only that rasha would be taken out. There's something so much greater that You want to give me.
And on seder night, I want my child to see me be a true free servant of God. A true free servant of God has no idea how, but he knows it will. And then we'll all be zocheh, please God, like we sing in the seder, to sing a new song.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה. My wife and children and I are wishing all of you, all the whole kehila kedosha, and all of Beis Yisrael and ourselves, cheirus olam, real, real freedom, which means so much more than just no oppressors on the outside externally, but internally no more oppressors. Nothing should stand in the way of me and the notion of Hashem really can do absolutely anything in ways that are much greater than my limited perception could perceive. And then there'll be a new song, the new song that's more beautiful than what any of us could ever imagine to be sung.
It's happening already, chevre, on the shoulders of the chayalim and the chayalot, on the shoulders of all those mesirus nefesh Yidden. There's a lot here, it's big times but we're up for it because if we weren't, Hashem wouldn't have created us now to be alive for this period of time.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה.
ונאמר לפניו ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה. Chag Sameach, Shavua Tov, Cherut Olam.