Redemption, Revelation & Riding a Bike: Passover With a Twist - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

take a young child five or six years old let's say with my son I wanted to ride a bike but he's not ready to ride a bike yet so if I sit and wait until he's ready to ride a bike wall on his own waiting forever so what do I do I take a bike and I put him on the bike and I'm doing everything for him and he's like all excited you know and smiling now who's riding that bike my son isn't I'm the one doing it forward but you know what once he gets used to being on the bike and he gets comfortable moving on the bike so at some point he also gets involved in riding the back so at some point I'm pushing him along with the bike and he's pedaling and he's excited and I let go for a few seconds he's riding and as soon as he realizes riding he looks back and gets nervous and falls but you know he gets back up and we do it again and before you know it he's able to ride but he can't pick up the bike and ride on his own that's what God did for us in Egypt there are two tracks to divine service one where we are empowered from above and the other where we initiate from below he took us out of Egypt because we would never been able to get out on our own we could not start this on our own it was too hard once we are rolling then we can continue and that's the idea of God empowering us from above and that's we have to understand now that God hides himself from us in a time of exile and it's like he's not there and we have to pick up the bike ourself and we have to get on and climbing and it's hard and we have to push ourselves but even that pushing of ourselves its borrowing off of the original help we got in the beginning so we're always dependent on our sham for what we do but God specifically wants to see what we're made of we have to get up on our own we have to fight forward and the accomplishments that we ultimately make in this time of exile when God is not here not reveal we don't see miracles that is the true accomplishment that becomes our own accomplishment and that's what ultimately will bring the machine it's the darkest right before the dawn because in this period of time in America is there's so many bright lights but so much negativity it's so easy to give up it's funny with the freedom we have in America that's the ultimate test because everyone has the freedom to give up on religion on spirituality and it's specifically now with all that freedom that people are not willing to let go every person must see himself as if he went out of Egypt because that's what we're here to do we're here to wake up from this false reality in front of us and turn to the truth [Music] you [Applause]