Transcript
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Most people roll into the Seder, and
they know this part. So,
then what's the point? We have to delve
deeper
to understand
what's really going on. Every moment has
a theme,
and every nuance matters.
And when you go through [music] it, you
come out a different person.
So, that's what we're going to explore
together.
The themes, the lessons, the reasons,
the purpose,
because that's what this is really all
about.
The next part of the Seder is Yachatz.
Yachatz is when you take the three
matzahs, you take out the middle one,
you split it in half, the bigger piece
is now becomes the Afikoman, the smaller
piece goes back into the three. You take
the Afikoman, and you hide it to the end
of the meal. Now, if you're Sephardi,
you may have other customs, or you may
be Ashkenazi. You may have other
customs, Misharo Tam, you walk around
the table, whatever.
But, what's the point? Why do we do this
for? And this whole idea of Afikoman
seems very interesting. Like, why do we
have this thing where
we take it, and we hide it, and you
don't know where it is, and all the kids
have to find it. Now, a piece of it is,
for sure, to keep the kids up, and to
find, you give presents. Awesome.
But, deeper, from a deeper perspective,
what is the source of this idea that
we're hiding things, and you're finding
things, and
you get to the end, and you can't find
to the end, and after I was looking for
it, and it's What's the point?
So, the Maharal has an approach, which I
think is brilliant.
And here's what he says.
L'chen shover et ha matzah, you break
the matzah, shehu lechem oni. This is
considered lechem oni.
Right? This is the bread of affliction.
She- the eino shalem, and now it's not
whole. Right? You start your Seder, you
get three whole matzahs, and you didn't
even start talking yet. We just We just
sat down a minute ago.
And now, you've now taken one of your
matzahs, and now it's not whole anymore.
It's broken.
V'zeh moreh al hagolus. This
is golus.
She'ein kan shleimus. El hichsaron
v'eider.
Because it reminds us that we're in
golus. As much as we want this golus to
be sweet and easy and everything to be
right and everything to make sense and
everything to be perfect,
it's still golus. Remember, Hashem's
shchinah is not revealed. We're not
done. This is not the goal of our lives
is just to be able to like get by and
make golus nice and easy. The goal is
for Hashem's shchinah to be revealed in
the world.
And we have to remind ourselves that
we're in golus and it's broken and it's
hidden and Hashem's absence is felt.
Now, when we break the matzah, that
breaking,
that lack of unity is what it reminds us
of. And what we do
is we take the bigger piece, v'zeh moreh
al hagolah. Golah, the bigger piece
represents the geulah,
the completion, the putting it back
together. If you can imagine that
smaller piece of that middle matzah gets
put back into our seder to remind us
that it's golus here.
Hashem's light is hidden.
There is stuff that happens that we
don't understand. There is challenge and
difficulty in this world in golus.
But that big piece that represents the
fullness of it, the completion, that's
hidden away.
Shacharah eider yeshleimus. And we know
that it's coming back.
And we know that while the piece is
hidden, it's coming back. Right? And he
says, "Shviras hamatzah m'same,
m'samelelis es hametzios hachasarah
b'golus." This breaking of the matzah
reminds us, symbolizes the brokenness,
the lacking, the chsaron in golus,
oni,
poverty, choser shleimus, the lack of of
wholeness, hester, hidden.
Ba khazarah shel
avod, and the return of that piece, be
sof ha seder, during afikoman,
he remez le geulah, it's going to be
over one day. We're going to get it.
There's going to be geulah. Shebo
yishalem ha hester v'ha yoifi shel or
haganuz. Now, in the beginning of time,
Hashem created this or haganuz, this
light, this incredible clarity in
reality, and this wonderful
spirituality. That's what this
symbolizes, it's going to return. And
we're going to live in a time that is so
much clearer. That's going to be so much
more filled with Hashem's presence. In
fact, that you you see this from both
the Zohar and the Arizal, who says that
the afikoman represents the concealed or
haganuz, the spiritual illumination.
But, what are we really doing here? So,
I I want to delve in a little bit with
you to understand this together.
Because there's a very big difference
between something being lost
and something being hidden.
Right? Lost is something that happens
out of our control, for the most part.
You have something you like, and you
lose it. It's between you and the thing,
and you lose the thing.
Hidden means there's somebody else
involved.
If you have something and it's being
hidden from you,
that means that somebody else is doing
it for a purpose.
It's not about the object,
right? It's about something that the
object represents.
Something that's hidden means that it is
meant to be found. Someone is actively
taking the thing away from you in order
for you to seek it, to search for it,
and to find it.
And it's very, very different.
Right? Hiding the afikoman is a very
specific move, in which we show
everybody this thing that represents
geulah isn't lost.
It's
It's an active sense of somebody hiding
it because that's Hashem wants you to
find it. When the the leader hides the
afikoman cuz he wants the kids to find
it, that is representative of Hashem
hiding that araganous, hiding his light
cuz he wants us to search for it. And
that's the famous story of the Maggid of
Mezritch, which I saw on chabad.org.
Right? [snorts] The Maggid of Mezritch
has the famous story where his son was
playing uh hide and seek with recorded
on chabad.org. It was
his son was was was playing hide and
seek
and he came home crying. And he says,
"What are you crying for?" He says,
"Nobody found me." He goes, "Isn't that
the point of the game?" And he goes,
"Yeah, but no, they they stopped
looking."
And and as the story goes, the
he heard this and he started to cry
himself. And he said, "Hashem says, I
hide myself from you, but the purpose of
my hiding is that you should come find
me.
But instead of searching for me, you go
away and busy yourself with other
things.
Right? The great mistake that we make is
that the reason why it's not light is
not because Hashem has left us.
It's because he's hiding from us. And he
wants us to seek him, to search him, to
find him. Right? Remember the famous in
Sifrei Shalom that says that the acharei
chevlei Mashiach eiloo where right now
after chevlei Mashiach, he says.
Kvar ro'i kol Yisrael yeshua. We're
ready for yeshua. Verak shehakadosh
baruch hu kviyachol mamtim lehoshi'a
klal Yisrael yechi'am tzipisa yeshua.
We have to mekuyem one more thing called
tzipisa. We have to want it. We have to
search it. We have to yearn for it. We
have to look for it. It's hidden. It's
not lost. But if you're playing hide and
seek and no one is looking for you, the
game is over.
Uh
ki hamshachas hayeshu'a hi al yedei
emuna vetzipisa yeshua.
That's how you get it. You have to want
it.
The famous cuz he says in Sifrei Shalom.
The famous Kabbalah yetzer hara biyoser
>> You know what the does? He makes us want
smaller things. I want a nice house. I
want everything to be healthy. I want to
be healthy. I want everyone to get
Everything's great. He
Are you If you If you ask yourself like
what's in your Kol Anu, it's great. It's
probably not good.
Why?
Cuz he knows that if we would
really just stop asking for little
things and only ask for one big thing we
get everything else.
This process
of
in order for us to get we have to want
starts with the understanding that it's
being hidden and it's not being lost.
That's the idea. Hashem is here. He's
with us, right? And that's what the told
us
says that when the
quotes
the double means he's hidden and he
hides that he's hidden.
Like Hashem's hidden, but he hides it
from us that he's hidden. And we stop
even looking. And it tells us
says once you realize that Hashem's
hidden, but he's there,
it goes away, so to speak. That's my
understanding of it.
So, here we are
we're about to start the Seder.
And we are at that last place where
before we begin the Seder,
we say the we do the following. We We
express
that in order for us to even have a shot
at Allah,
we have to want it. Like we're reliving
not from
reliving to set the the path for
tomorrow.
But whatever we're going to say, if it's
like whatever, when do I get to the
food? Like it's gone.
If it's whatever, like I got to just get
to my life. I got stuff to do.
It's gone. The whole purpose is to crack
it. To realize that we're right now in
the broken place and we're moving
towards the whole place and we want it.
And we're searching for it. And we're
thinking about it.
That desire, that tzipisa, that's what
yachatz is supposed to bring.
So, we're about to start magid and we
did four things.
Kadesh, we decided in our minds that
we're going to elevate the physical.
Urchatz, we washed our hands, our
actions and purified them.
Karpas, we reckon dipped and recognized
that we need to reaffirm our achdus to
have a shot at geulah. And now yachatz,
we have to want it. We have to desire
it. We have to miss it. We have to know
that it's that Hashem's light is hidden
and he hid it on purpose and us seeking
it is where the biggest prize is. Like
we think it's like a joke. The kids are
looking for the afikoman. That's life.
The so to speak the baal habos hides it,
Hashem so to speak hides it and we the
kids have to find it and if we find it,
we get the prize. That's
Jewish history.
And before we even start talking now,
these four themes,
>> [snorts]
>> the ability for us to have our minds and
our actions right, the ability for us to
have our focus on wanting yeshua and
having achdus, if you just think about
what Tisha B'Av, Yom Kippur, Rosh Think
about all the yom tovs and all the
themes and we didn't even say any words
really yet. We just started and now
we're ready to begin magid.
Thank you so much for tuning in and
joining us for this series. I hope that
you enjoyed it and I hope that it
enhances your seder and brings you
closer to Hashem.
We have some cliff notes for you in case
you want a seder companion. You can
download it.
>> [music]
>> Check out the series and the
downloadable stuff at pesach.us.
p e [music] s a c h dot u s and uh hope
you have a great holiday
and uh [music] may we see the full
redemption soon.
