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Spirituality Starts With Kindness
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a Torah Anytime original series.
Then we begin Maggot. And it's worth
pointing out something that should
immediately jump out at you. We don't
begin the way you'd expect Maggot to
begin. We don't just jump into the
story. We don't start with Egypt. We
don't start with slavery. We start by
inviting people in. We start by
declaring that anyone who wants to come
join us should. And what's strange is
that we don't do this by any other yant
not by not by sukis not by rashana but
by the seder night the most structured
detailed carefully organized night of
the year we suddenly make the first act
make sure nobody is alone. Why do that?
The answer is because the hag is
teaching you something before it even
begins. We tend to think that
spirituality is what makes a person
behave better. First you become
religious and then you become kind.
First you become elevated and then you
can become decent. Hagala is flipping
that completely on its head. It's
telling you good midos are the doorway
to spirituality. You don't become
spiritual and then become kind. You
become kind and that's what opens the
gates of spirituality. A guy with a gar
in his hand going into a shaw to learn,
but doesn't hold the door open for the
guy behind them and lets the door slam
in his face probably has his priorities
out of whack. A Jewish person who
finishes shopping and then just leaves
the grocery cart sitting in the middle
of a parking spot because it's not my
problem might need to hear this lesson
loud and clear. A guy I once saw sitting
and learning before Shab is deep in all
kinds of tis and tikunim and he gets up
to tie his shoe. He puts his m muddy
foot on the seat next to him, ties his
shoe, and then walks away without
without brushing off the seat, leaving a
dirty seat for the next person like it
doesn't exist. That is not what Hashem
wants because Hashem is making something
very clear at the very beginning of our
night of freedom. You can have the
greatest spiritual moment in history,
but if it's disconnected from basic
human decency, then you miss the point
entirely.
And that is why we immediately call out
when all who are hungry come and eat.
Before the wine, before the story,
before the questions, before anything
else becomes meaningful, we set the
priority in stone. People first always
because a seder where Jews are sitting
at table of redemption. While other Jews
are sitting alone, hungry or forgotten
and lonely outside, it's not just
incomplete, it's a contradiction to
everything the night is meant to be.
Judaism is not a religion where the
holier you get, the further you move
from people. It's the exact opposite. In
other religions, the holy person, he
retreats, he goes to monasteries, he
goes to mountaintops, away from the
world, away from the messy, broken,
needy reality of other people. But
that's not how it works in our religion.
Argaden don't run away from people. They
run toward them. Their tables were full.
Their homes were open. Their lives were
interruptions on behalf of someone
else's pain. Because in Judaism, the
more spiritual you become, the more
responsible you become. When we say at
the beginning of the seder, all who are
hungry come and eat. It's not just a
nice introduction. It's a declaration
before we tell the story of freedom, we
prove the un that we understand what
freedom is. And if we're being honest,
really honest, there isn't a person
listening who doesn't know someone
lonely, someone struggling, someone who
could not just enjoy a seat at your
table, but would actually be saved by
it. So, we don't begin the seder by
escaping the world. We begin by opening
it. Because only a Judaism that opens
its doors to others deserves to speak
about freedom.