The Jewish Story: LIVE PASSOVER SPECIAL! The Haggadah as Narrative Therapy

hello to all you listeners out there I am Rob Mike but this is not the Jewish story or at least not its regularly scheduled program what you're about to hear is a live class that I gave just last night and don't worry the Jewish story will continue as usual but for now enjoy a little bit of my thought around how you can use the Passover Hagaddah not just to tell the story of Egypt of the going out from meets ryeom but also how you can use it as a tool to tell the story of your own personal escape from your mate sorry of your narrow places so put on your thinking cap open up your hearts and tune in to something a little bit different [Music] no the teacher I work as a spiritual counselor and as well as any number of capacities plus I've got five kids or just behind the door of that room so if you hear anything funny there just ignore it we're all in a in a tight space here but I say this not just to let you know who I am but because when I wanted you tonight is a little bit of an intersection between the type of teaching I like to do and the type of interpersonal work I like to do the title of the class was on the PASOK Seder as a narrative therapy for a nation I have a podcast that some of you I'm sure are familiar with it's called the Jewish story and I like to call it narrative therapy for a nation because what narrative therapy is is learning how to tell a redemptive story and many of us in our personal lives and perhaps in our natural lives feel like our story is already set in stone I know what my life's about and often when I work with people interpersonally they'll come to me they'll tell me oh I'm a failure or I you know have a problem or etc whatever fill in the blank and they'll piece together the events of their life in a way in which essentially reinforces the narrative that they've already decided on and the work that I always aim to do into personally and what I want to explore a little bit tonight in Hagaddah is how the events of life don't make a narrative on their own the event of life in fact are strung together consciously or not by the people who participate in those events and therefore they can tell multiple stories and you're gonna see in fact that the gada is structured in just a way to do that I do want to say one more thing if you're not familiar with zoom there's a function you can raise your hand right if you look if you click on participants at the bottom of your screen you'll see you'll be able to raise your hand so if people have a question you can you can raise your hand and let me know I'll try to keep the participants open here and you can also send me chats as questions and that way you can feel like you know you're you're getting a word into the flow so in order to understand the Haggadah as a tool for for reworking our narrative and and if you want to appreciate the degree to which this is possible you know today we as a people struggle with the question of how do we incorporate the Holocaust into our historical narrative or you know for some people right now what's happening with the coronavirus is posing enormous questions how do I understand this in the scope of Jewish history in my personal life my relationship with God you know but just think about it once upon a time slavery in Egypt was the biggest disaster that ever occurred to the Jewish people I mean according to the Midrash four-fifths of ami sterile didn't make it out of Egypt it was a tremendous trauma 210 years of oppressive slavery followed by a cataclysmic escape into the wilderness and yet despite the sort of scarring tragic fill in the superlative blank that you might want to characterize this event with nevertheless this coming Seder night my kids and maybe some of yours will be dancing around the stater table singing that favorite Israeli song PowerBait pajama bit and if you don't know if I mean if it means Pharaoh's out in his pj's in the middle of the night looking for motion Aaron how is it possible that a national tragedy became you know a source of children's songs and not only that it's a national tragedy that we recall when we say SH MA twice a day when we say key dushaan Friday night and we can come up with any of number of other places where we incorporate slavery in Egypt into our not just our daily practice but into our daily consciousness this is a process that I call historical mastication I call it that because it's a fun word and it sounds slightly off-color so if you say to people they'll look at you funny right um what is they it's how you chew and swallow the things that life gives you on a historical scale that's how we chew and swallow the thing that life gives us on a national level but it works personally as well when when difficulty comes into my life god forbid tragedy strikes or you know fill in the blank of what it is that you struggle with the real question in life is not what happened to me the real question in life is what do I do with it how do I digest it and use that very difficulty as a source of positive identity because today the exodus from Egypt is at the core of our identity as the Jewish people as a positive event even though he was preceded by tremendous tragedy and we tell that story in the Hagana in ways in which that can really teach us about how we can do that on a national scale as a people and also on a personal scale as individuals and that's what I want to explore a little bit today is that that process of of historical mastication and our primary tool always the primary tool for how one reworks a narrative in order to transform it from a tragic event into a source of positive identity the primary tool is memory right if you look at the commandment that we're all going to fulfill please God on this coming wait Wednesday night right Seder Wednesday night Thursday yes um if you look at the way the Rambam formulates it I happen to have it here I'll just read it to you I will put some sources up eventually on the screen share but for now I wanted to just keep the natural flow they that the Rambam says mitzvah I say she'll Torah it's a doctoral level commandment loose apparel beneath even if law should not so of attainder be trying to tell all the wonders and the miracles that were done to our ancestors in Egypt on the fifteenth day of Nisan as it says Shanaya mar so this is his proof text the court hey yo mozzie i show you a saw two minutes ryan remember the day this day that you went out from egypt that's a strange thing one might think that if it's a mitzvah to tell the story it audit the he ought to be reaching for a commandment that says but he got it to Levine tell it to your children or maybe there should be another can you know a verse that says we sub para to see poor why is it when the Rambam says it the positive commandments to retell the story of going out in egypt on the fifteenth on the very night every year that it happened why is it that he's reaching from memory as the source of the commandment and the answer really opens up for us what exactly the Haggadah is attempting to do because of course memory as many of you I'm sure have heard me say before he's not a passive recall of what happened once upon a time in the past first of all it couldn't be the case here of course because none of us were in Egypt so how could we possibly fulfill the commandment if it were simply a memory like oh I remember when I was fifteen years old and I went to the you know that can't be that but not only from that sort of technical reason it can't be that because that's not how memory works memory is never a passive recall we're not compute our memory functions and I'll just say it briefly because it's not sort of the mean meat of what I want to discuss tonight but our memory functions as a remeber it's a reattachment a reaiiy denta fication with events in my own life or on the historical scale with events in the national life i summon up an event which from a temporal stand points in the past but memory exists in the present right we all when we remember things remembering them in the present so we're summoning up pieces of our past in order to incorporate them into our present identity but the reality is the present is fleeting we don't actually live in the president I'm sure there are people out there that practice meditation or mindfulness you know how difficult it is to be present to the present this is far from a simple thing right and therefore what we're really doing is we're living in a tension between our summoning up of the past and our aspirations for the future we're taking the peace of the past incorporating them into our present identity and hopefully if it's telling a healthy positive story orienting ourselves toward the future which we desire to live and lo and behold when you sit around the stater table what are you doing you're telling a story of the past in the present and of course being Godzilla vinca you should tell it to your children you're telling the story of the past to the future this is what the ideal fulfillment of the Hagaddah is meant to be and yet the stages point out that what are you supposed to do when you're alone anybody know you can somebody can call out if they want to unmute themselves what are you supposed to do when you're alone do you just read the story anybody know help me out here since I can't see you all yes you could tell us yourself and you should tell it through asking questions and answering meaning you have a future self as well you have a future self as well that you need to tell stories to that will get you where you want to go and that's one of the tremendous powers of memory it's one of the tremendous powers of the agency that can be gained in learning how to tell your life story in a redemptive fashion and it's one of the tremendous powers offered to us by the structure of the Haggadah so that's just sort of by way of introduction and now what I want to do is take a look at a couple of the fundamental structures and a few stops along the way in the and again I want to remind you that if you send me a chat or you raise your hand I will see it if people want to add in otherwise you can hold your questions to the end and we'll will see them when we get there so when you look at the Mishnah remembering that the Haggadah as we have it today is structured largely on the Mishnah in the tenth Parekh the tenth chapter of the mission Hakeem not surprisingly right and when you look at the Mishnah there are a number of sort of critical structures and sort of points along the way that it gives to us but the fundamental flow of the Haggadah is McNutt the schwa from a state of shame and disgrace to a state of praise or a praiseworthy state we'll see maybe at the end the two phases thereof a state of praise or a praiseworthy state you're moving out of a sense of despair and disgrace into a sense of praise now before we get into the implications of that fully it's worth it to me to just mention that you know it seems a strange thing that we would start with the negative why not it's the night we came out of Egypt let's skip all that messy slavery stuff etc all the bad let's just talk about the exodus why not start there well I've got news for you that one of the fundamental requisites for growth and change in a narrative sense is the ability to look the reality in the face so many of us when we want to change things in our life are shying away from the problem we don't want to see how we ended up in slavery we don't want to see our role as idolaters we don't want to see what we've done to our friends family etc we just want to be better and change and the reality is if you shut your eyes to the difficulties that are causing your problems that means the last thing you ever see is exactly what you don't want you all change starts with looking the situation in the face and therefore the Haggadah starts from Canute's from this state of degrees and it moves toward praise worthiness now the first question you always have to ask me I do this a lot in my practice it's a very simple question where does this story begin right where does the story begin now you might think that that's obvious Mike if the story of the exodus from Egypt it begins with slavery but the reality is even cursory glance at the gutta tells you that this is just not the case either in the chat or calling out who can tell me more than one place where this story begins okay one is going down into slavery where else does this story begin I'm holding my I've got it here that's I got my problem always go for all gutter with less commentary more pictures that's my vote that's real question anybody have an answer where's this story begin with Avram with Tara Tara from father Robin great great that's execs illan excellent and by the way the two classic structures of moving from disgrace to a state of praise worthiness oh I see a chat that's very exciting to me are moving from this from pair of the father Abraham meaning idolatry to divine worship and the other one is from slavery to freedom excellent I see someone here whose label is Limu hood FSU so I don't know your name there talk between God and Abraham the promise what's called the Covenant between the pieces excellent excellent we've got maybe it starts with Tara we move from idolatry to divine worship maybe it starts with slavery going down into Egypt we went from slavery to freedom maybe and we'll come back to oh hi Leah um the maybe we'll come back to this this promise to have ROM it was actually without Romney wasn't even Avraham that his children will be strangers in the land of Egypt right I could think of others how about a classic Joseph and his brothers right in many ways our narrative struggles in life start with family problems I mean you could say this is a family problem Joseph if Yoko hadn't favoured Joseph his brothers wouldn't have hated him they wouldn't have beat him up and thrown her in the pit and sold into slavery wouldn't have been in Egypt in the first place you know if you if you what else fills blame your family that's that's my personal opinion no I'm just kidding family its game but no but it's worth it to examine so wait we have Tara we have the wandering era man going down into Egypt we have Joseph in the and the brothers what about creation I mean on some level every story starts there right right in the beginning so before we get to that I just want you to recognize we were able to come up with with four or five get stuck in a sub I saw someone typing there excellent I mean four or five six this is very important for the work which is offered to us and the the gada itself will start if you look you know everybody's probably familiar with right after Manisha Tana in the muggy we start a Vadim hyena right a Vadim hyena or whatever tune you know but it's often missed that by if the other starts with saying of an email you know and then we'll speak about what lays in between and then suddenly it shifts it almost like makes attack meaning like on a sailboat and like an attack like a combat thing and says well me tequila day voters are how you know in the beginning we were idolaters like wait a minute I thought this was the story of slavery how did we get to idolatry and another time perhaps in another context we can talk about the deep intersection between slavery and idolatry but here I'm simply pointing out that a story always has multiple beginnings and I can learn a tremendous amount from my said Maggie it's true fair enough Alex that the Haggadah actually starts with kiddush but muggy this telling of the story starts with multiple beginnings and I had always astounded what you can learn about yourself or another person when you ask them they come in do you want to talk about a story something they're struggling with where does this story begin where does your story begin and that's the first question I encourage you to take into Seder right you know what many of us are gonna be doing Seder on our own this year perhaps you're not used to running your own Seder maybe you're gonna be alone you know if you are god bless you you should be healthy and well and stand strong right if you are it's always worth it to ask the question before you start where does my story begin I end up here at this Seder where did it start and here we just saw that God gave us in multiple beginnings and I want to touch for a second on one of those beginnings which is often missed and it's the one that Yulia pointed out there but I'm gonna take a step further back imagine every story starts at creation right it's a strange thing by the way when you look at the Bible the time you get to Egypt you get the sense that we are inside the inside the inside of a failure let's look at right God creates the world on day seven or sorry even day six boom Adam fails don't eat that treat no you know like okay well let's try again says God and then you know they go with Cain and Abel oh no that doesn't really work you know then they start again with with with shape with Seth and the descendants of SAP basically go right downhill into idolatry and all kinds of terrible stuff the flood you know then there's ten generations from from Noah to autumn to the flood I mean a its Dome it and we get this sense that we're failing and failing and failing and you might think that in fact it's only divine mercy that holds the world up right God's looking the world taking nebat what am I supposed to do they're my creations I'll hold them up you hit this sense that either humanity is a failure or God is incompetent in creating a world which can actually succeed the strange thing and by the way keep going structure the first temple destruction of the second temple you you know you go all the way forward in history you might have a sense that this is not going well either God can't do it or were simply a failed creation but the reality is that's all premise on one flawed thought that that failure is an accident see the key to unlocking Jewish history and in my humble opinion the key to unlocking a successful narrative of your own life is understanding that failure isn't Licata pilla not a beauty of it failure is an opera or a part of life not an adhoc not every failure not all the time but the fact that we fail means that we take risks that we step beyond the known that we put ourselves in situations where there's a potential for growth and unknown benefits and so therefore sometimes we fail and the thing that holds us up in failure is this beautiful idea of robbing in a rock a meme literally means mercy or compassion right but but when God makes that space rock a meme is from the three-letter druten Hebrew of recomm race cat which means whoom right when you have mercy or compassion on another person you're holding space for them to come to be right mercy is when you hold space for a person who has not yet what they will be but in your belief in them and your desire that they should become that which they can be you hold the space for growth and process which means failure but it's failing forward the art form of amis Rael is that we have mastered the ability to fail forward in time because if you never fail that means you've never risked if you never risk you never grow right and if you want to survive anything which is alive must grow and so therefore this whole idea of God creating a world where failure is a laqad heal it's an opera or a part of the fabric the creation is what allows for a creation that's not just a a marionette that's like doing God's will and in that sorry whoever's whoever that is can you please can you please mute your mic oh there we go I took control hey sorry about that so so you guys with me that the this idea that if you look at the the story of creation or you look at how do we get down into Egypt in the beginning we were idolaters we were you know we're just like a family fight that drew us into slavery you know or simply creation humanity just can't get it do you look at those things as failure without understanding that that is actually what paves the space for independent action and therefore a depth of success and divine relationship then you can end up in despair whereas when you understand that the great reality of raqqa meme is reckon that the divine compassion is a womb which holds the space for us to come to be well then you'll realize that slavery itself is an act of rock you know it's a hard thing to say but right now the world is suffering a global pandemic I'm sure this is not news to any of you since we're all probably locked in whatever house that we're in right now right in in the midst of this whole pandemic in the suffering there's a tremendous raka meme which is available in the world not in the sense we're used to thinking about rock I mean I'm not saying God is being nice and compassionate by sending suffering don't misunderstand me what I'm saying is is that the space of potential which is opening for growth and change in the world he's enormous what what depends on us transforming it is our ability to embrace it as such and I'll give you an example from that starting point that yulia mentioned when i asked you guys where does the where does the story of slavery start so we have the two classics in the gutta which is it starts with the descent into egypt or it starts with idolatry right I also said every story starts at creation which is how we got to this whole rocky meme thing and I don't know if he was sent to everyone note was sent to me privately Julia said actually started with a conversation between God and Avraham what I'm going to do is I'll share my screen now so you can see see a bit of the the text I'm gonna be referring to let me just make sure I have the right one there it is so you may be familiar in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis with a conversation between God and Abraham or sorry I've rum right this is early on in his story we're all from says he listen life is great you've given me everything but I've got no kids and I don't know what the future is gonna be and right and God says him amia Shem I show it CTTT Kamikaze I'm God they brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans right which is a familiar phrase for those of us learning Allah God oh right now Oct there it's me trying oh moriss cousin that's a that's a a birthing if you think about it's a very important image that that the and a certain level the whole story of the Haggadah of Egypt is that Egypt is the womb of Israel it's the richest material culture of its day in which we go from being a family and grow into a nation were birthed out with tremendous blood and suffering and all the craziness for anyone who's ever been present as a birth knows it it's a dramatic event burst out literally through the red sea by the way if you think about what the birth canal looks like into the wilderness and we'll speak about what our destination was before we're finished tonight so so here Avram gets tipped off as it were to what lies ahead for his children right says God says I pick him out to give you the land dispossession and what it's Avram say well wash em Elohim been Maya he says how should I know I'm gonna possess it it's a natural question wow it's a big promise God I'm just one guy you brought me out of orcas diamond now you're telling me this old land will be mine how do I know that I'll possess it God's answer which if you look in the sort of you'll notice that I skipped a bit of their conversation you know but the God's answer can seem somewhat troubling he says video on your door tada oh you're gonna know God says what are you gonna know your children will be strangers in the land not theirs they'll be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years but then I'll do great judgments on the nation that they serve and they're gonna go out with great wealth now this seems to be a very strange answer I mean and many people read it as a punishment when you go back let's end the chair there many people will read it as a punishment meaning Abraham's got the klutz but God made him a promise they're gonna give you the land and then God says oh now you're in for it but it's a I've never despite the fact that there are many traditional commentators that indeed understand it the way I've never been able to relate to this in that fashion Avram wants to know how is it possible that my children will inherit the land and God's answer is Egypt is what will make you fit to inherit the land slavery was a transformative process that made us into a people who were fit to inherit the land but of course only if we managed to tell the story of that slavery in a redemptive fashion right this by the way is true of our current situation as well I don't know how much we want to get into it now watching the time but just a small drop since I said that there's some great divine mercy that's coming into the world today I'm sure that you've heard all kinds of people explaining why you know rabbis unfortunately have a tendency and religiously to try to tell you why this is happening don't worry I'm not going to do that now that I'm not gonna do that I'm finding deeply troubling that people do that but I will tell you this of course the question of why is above my pay grade let's just say the question however of what we're going to do with this is the real question right the whole world or at least half of it has been sent to their room you're all in timeout right anybody who has parents out there I could probably appreciate that or anybody who is close enough to having been a child remembers their parents I mean go to your room and think about what you need to do this is where we're at right now and there forth it's incumbent upon us to figure out what are we gonna do with this what kind of world do we want when we all step back out into our full social being which and that horizons there don't lose sight we will indeed come back together right and in the same way the story we tell about how we got in this situation what it means to us and what actions it demands us that is exactly what was done to the the world the slavery in Egypt in the ultimate Exodus we managed to transform that whole experience into what makes us worthy as God told our drama would happen made us worthy to inherit the land right sorry someone privately told me it's because that's your name I'll get I'll get back to you on that one V so so what I want to do now with all these frames he's just touch a little bit on what's this story about in the huh got off just a few things because because we're all gonna all gonna go through the Haggadah again and then not only what it's about but I will end with an idea of where is it headed before I do questions or comments I you can either try to unmute yourself or raise your hand or or you know type a chat in there I just wanna make sure that people get a chance at this point if they don't understand or they want clarification or response to something that I said I'm speaking too fast that's tough luck I don't actually have a slower speed than this I'll try no going once going twice okay so either you're entirely mystified or you're with me but at this point we're in it together okay so so when you go through the Hagaddah every page is worthy of commentary as I'm sure you know since it all gets a lot of ink spilled I just wanted to touch a couple of places first of all the classic right at the beginning of Maajid and now I'm really unfocused in muhib in the in the telling of the story because that's what we're here really to engage right um and the moment of Maneesh Donna why is this night different than every other night raise your hand if you're gonna be the youngest person at the Seder this year for a first time in a long time I have five kids I'm not but I saw a beautiful comment by someone who said that that that their parents are making sayed or just the two of them this year and since her father is just a couple of months you know younger than his than her mother and they're in their 70s that he's gonna be able to say mommy stand off for the first time in decades so there's a fun opportunity but have you ever noticed that we never answer the questions we don't actually answer the questions why is this night different than any other night why do we eat on this night right matzah and all the other nights bread why do we we don't answer the questions we only posed them and this itself opens us up to a critical piece which I'm sure you're familiar with but it's always worth noting that that the ultimate source of knowledge from the perspective of Torah is always a good question answers are important because you got to live your life and sometimes you have to make decisions and practical guidance but what really causes growth is a good question and I would say in the context of the Hagaddah and in context of the sort of narrative therapy work that I so much love to do and I see malvada as I've said is as a real frame that's because questions are fundamentally hopeful posture it's a fundamentally hopeful posture because hope the definition of hope is the deep belief that what is does not define what will be right see when you believe that what is defines what will be you don't have to ask questions because he already know and in the end there's no hope because you already know the opening of the muggy with questions that we don't answers serves the same type of frame for the deep personal work which is available in leaving one's own myths rhyme their own mates are in their own narrow places which is asking open questions how did I end up here where do I want to go what do I need that's going to get me from point A to point B in an inner space or an outer space and not assuming that you're going to be able to answer them but just feel the freedom the space which opens up with a question because the truth is questions all about the possibility and so it's not surprising that our seder begins there then if you notice is a really strange shift which which I find so we have a yeah it's a question there comment somebody speaking go for it no that's okay but if you're not asking question that I would ask you to remove okay great but don't be shy I'm looking straight at the chat so if you have something that's easier it's also easy to write in there so we're not going to do everything as I say it but the the next piece I just wanted to put your put my finger on is this telling the story of the story we'll just keep doing this right they telling the story of this story have you noticed in the Haggadah okay first what we say we're gonna tell the story then we start to tell the story and then we tell the story about a bunch of people rabbis in Bnei Brak who are telling the story so we're telling the story about people telling the story of the story well we're inside the inside the inside here and it's a beautiful image that that you know revenez their interview Ashu everybody else I've been Azaria and these all these rabbits are together and they're telling the story until dawn until the students come and say rabbis the time for Chakri's right and and on a simple level the message here I think is is let you have to let your story absorb you there's there's there's a way in which the depth of engagement and commitment with your own life as a story needs to give you energy you in but the only way to do that is to field of course that you are a subject and not an object of your story right that you're an active character and ultimately if you really can get it as a co-author that's the work that I'm really always aiming to do when people ask me like what do you do as an arrow notice I say I'm trying to move people from being an object in their story to a subject in their story and and ultimately to being a co-author with God that allows them to write the script now that takes a lot of work but but more than anything else it comes to a height of awareness you know one of the biggest self-awareness like that I'm in a story it may be that this story of um of all these ten ìiím these masters of the Mishnah he's taking place anybody ever heard historically especially the fact that rebbi akiva there what period in history is this anybody know yes the Romans ruled and it's likely that what we're looking at is a veiled reference to the Bar Kokhba revolt right the great revolt the third Roman Jewish war right you can look it up on the Jewish story if you don't know the story I mean send me an email I'm happy to share the the show with you but but the third war between the Romans and the Jews Reb Aquila was the spiritual leader of that war and it was a messianic revolt he believed that Bar Kokhba was going to be the Redeemer of on Israel before the Messiah became sort of a a mystic almost magical figure this point was a political figure who was going to come and restore sovereignty upon the territory of Judea and the return the service of the temple so here's rebbi akiva and all his friends telling the story of the exodus which was once upon a time but using it as fuel for understanding that they themselves are now participants in the process of redemption and it's so absorbing that they tell the story through the night and then that's so important you have to see yourself not as an object which is acted upon as a victim of your story but as a subject who has a full agency and that demands an awareness of where you are in the story like rebbi akiva understood exactly where he was he gambled and lost the truth the truth is that that failure put more energy into the future of Ami's trail than perhaps many successes now there's there's a lot more in that that little event there I'm tempted to go into it but but I'm not so cuz I want to I want to go forward to to a couple more pieces so what one more piece just in the structure that I gotta I gotta flows on and I'm hoping you guys are familiar we go again we encounter the four sons and and once again the classic sort of mob be case levana or emil a saudi arabia Armijo theta v my father was a wandering air man or my man tried to destroy my father notice by the way their effect that you can tell that phrase my father was a wandering air man or an air man tried to destroy my father that's a classic example of narrative reconstruction which story are you in are you a victim of the air man or your wandering lost air may in yourself right same phrase two different stories so but but the next piece I want to pick up on is after the plagues all right look at that so yeah that's all right that's no well that's the one of the classic interpretations but if you look at the source text uh from from parsha he Tavo of our amel vada avi the air admits Rama you will see in the classic commentators two readings that either the aramean sought to destroy my father which is the LaVon reference in the Haggadah or my father was a wandering air man who went down into Egypt right it's literally two ways it can be read so but the the piece I want to hit because I'm quite conscious at the time and and others just so much they've got a it's like you do it every year and it always surprises me if this really strange just yeah well I think my wife wouldn't be so pleased with that well it happened this also feel like we're always just working twice as hard to stand still at this point in history it's like it's unbelievable the amount energies coming out but there's after the plagues in Egypt we're all familiar with the ten plagues you may be familiar with this very strange argument that breaks out and I'll gotta between Rubio Sebelius Rav Akiva again about how many plagues happened at the splitting of the Red Sea it's like a strange thing a lot of people just cruise through in that gutter just like what am I supposed to do it they're like gambling well you know it there were actually 50 plagues cuz it says the finger of God and there are five fingers in the hand and each plague would stand in it no it's actually two hundred plagues it's actually two hundred and fifty plagues I hope you guys are familiar it's a strange thing by the way for fun if you want just for your theatrics I once prepared stacks of 10 euro coins tape them all together so they weren't MOOCs on on on Yom Tov it started to just throw them out on the table like I was in a gambling frenzy my kids went nuts like just to the theater of it and the theater is such an important thing of that gotta but here I want to touch on why it might be that they're how god it's trying to tell you oh ten plagues in Egypt bad that wasn't so impressive two hundred and fifty at the Red Sea that's what's impressive why the emphasis of the Red Sea why is the Red Sea in this moment of the telling of the story becomes such a critical time that the rabbi's are playing a game of one-upsmanship about its importance so here I think it opens up for us yet yeah yeah hi yes it's definitely doubling down on like the the narrative arc like really everything has been preparing for this moment hey there's a revelatory moment right like I so say just say that that the lowliest maidservant saw more in the splitting of the red sea then then the property is Castillo so I think you're correct there's a part of this is just you know showing what what the climactic moment is but I think for the use of the Haggadah as a framework for her personal work for my own Exodus as it were in getting out of my narrow places there's there's another piece which is critical to understand you know every morning in the traditional liturgy we save the song of the sea right and we preface it with the verses that precede it in the Torah well yeah obviously oh yeah go to a la Hache um the meets right let me still solve a great hand which have been done meets rhyme right the you all right yesterday I go just out seven times the Euro of Shambala most of them and they feared God and Moses servant so strange thing what now they saw the hand of God I mean what about the death of the firstborn we're not darkness for three days look please now why is it now at the seed that they actually saw God and what did it have to do with the fact that they saw Egypt dead at the sea notice it says they see Egypt dead and then they realize then they see the hand of God it wasn't even the splitting of the sea that showed them God's hand it was the fact that they saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore they're splitting of the sea on some level is is part of the same theatrics that the ten plagues but seeing Egypt dead on the seashore was something fundamentally different and in this it opens up for us a very important aspect of what goula of what Redemption is that we're headed for because the reality is slavery has two phases right there's many of you that we've learned together before I've told you this but it's always worth hearing again that if you want to understand slavery and you want to understand the human condition you must read a book called the pedagogy of the oppressed by a Brazilian educator from the 70s called Paulo Freire a people want I can I'll write it in the chat in a minute but paulo ferreira is interesting character himself as a Marxist the first two chapters of the book though the second two are like Marxists like constructs and not so simple or really even necessary worth Wow first you are an exploration of what it is that happens to be human consciousness when it's developed in a convent in a context of oppression and this is omnis trails problem at this point you could physically leave Egypt but how do you become free you can liberate yourself from the external pressure but how do you actually become a free human being because faerie notes that every slave lives a dual existence every oppressed person lives a dual existence there's your experience of oppression and there's a dream of freedom but the problem is because oppression is so no I think you spelled its name correctly Jeff the League spirits of oppression is so consuming and narrowing usually the oppressed have only one image of freedom if their oppressor which is why historically so many peoples have gained liberation and recreated a system of oppression which looked just like the one that kept them down but they're now on top or why and even in my eyes more painful situation and I've worked with many abuse children and it's a sad fact that that children who are raised in abusive situation are statistically far more likely to become abusers themselves because they've internalized abuse as a model of relationship in the same way that the slave internalizes slavery as a model of relationship therefore liberation from the external pressures of slavery is not enough the ten plagues getting out of Egypt was not enough even going through the Red Sea was not enough what you need to do is see Egypt dead on the seashore you need to spit out that model of freedom which is really just an internalization of one's oppression in order to be prepared for the true freedom that lies on the other side of the sea this is critical as you're going through your own process with the Haggadah and in life you have to not only free yourself you have to imagine how that freedom could look other than simply gaining power in the way in which someone else once had it over you I see a question says how are the people who didn't survive Matt Corbin right we need slavery to be free of it how are those who didn't get to taste the freedom not sacrifices that's a very hard question we can apply that question to many places in Jewish history and listen here we are some of us sitting in the in the Land of Israel some of us in America but all of us healthy and well and free what about all our brothers and sisters that didn't make it out of the Holocaust right the the the the reality is is I'm not qualified to answer that question we could say that they were sacrificed and I would say that that what they do is they create an obligation to us to live freedom to its fullest the obligation we are living the dreams of every generation which preceded us and that doesn't put an obligation that or even have to live for someone else it means I have to really value and use my freedom in the way in which I can that's the brief answer to your question share so just to round this out and and and take us to the next step that they this this Red Sea in many ways represents the staff not just liberation from Egypt but an expulsion of the Egyptian model from within us and in preparation for true Redemption because of course where are they headed when they leave the Red Sea that's a real question somebody can just shout it out where they headed well not yet though there's a very important stop right where they're headed is Sinai they're headed to the Sinai and in order to get the yes absolutely because God tells Moshe to go to power and say the famous phrase which was corrupted by Charlton Heston in the Cecil B DeMille film right he doesn't say let my people go and stop there he says let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness and he promises Moshe in the third chapter of smote you will know that I'm telling the truth because my people will serve me on this mountain see what happens is were freed or sorry liberated from the externals of slavery and then in this moment of splitting the Red Sea we expel the Egyptians from our midst and we'll I'd open to be able to receive a real model of redemption and freedom which is the Torah that is exactly the way this structure works right and in in that sense the going through the Red Sea is a very important model for what it is to to not just be liberated but to be free it's one of the reasons by the way when you look at the the Halawa you know the legal comments on the morning prayer I mentioned that we say this every morning in the traditional energy so the Mishnah Brugha turn of the 20th century you know sort of very legalistic and somewhat dry mine actually quotes the Zohar and when the mr. Brue of course is Zohar you should sit up and pay attention right he quotes the Zohar and he says anybody who says the song of the sea' and feels the joy of what it was to go through the Red Sea all their sins are forgiven what's that mean alright and now I think you can get a little sense which is if you can actually feel the joy of not just liberation but freedom of having left all those pursuers those other models of who you're really not that you've internalized leave them behind see Egypt dead now at this point in the morning the day is wide open and hopeful you could be anyone that what can be more joyful than that and that's what I understand is your sins would be forgiven not sins is like you know the chalk marks against you on the and the you know the the scoreboard in the sky which I'm not such a big fan of that conception of sin but sin in the literal sense of missing the mark that's what hate means you're missing the mark when you've internalized someone else's notions of who you ought to be and when you can expel those notions from within yourself and become the person that you really meant to be what could be a greater source of joy than that that's why in my humble opinion the the Hagaddah pauses at the Red Sea and has this one-upsmanship because what could be bigger than that that's bigger than liberation that's freedom and it's paving the way ultimately for that destination which is redemption I got five minutes left until I want to open up for questions so um I maybe I'll take it maybe ten minutes and so what I want to do because I said I'm only stopping a few places along the way here in the Haggadah what I want to do is just ask the question if what I'm working with in personal work or I'm looking at that gutta the opening question is where does this story start then what's the natural closing question is well where's it headed and in there someone already mentioned yeah we might be headed to Eretz Israel right V the beauty though one of the things I really love is getting to air the trails not enough all right as the joking comment that got there from climate it's yawning right you know Zionism in many ways is the re-entry vehicle of the Jewish people into the land it's a political construct which is very powerful I'm very grateful for it personally but if unless one wilfully closes their eyes to it it's got many many problems right which is fine nothing's perfect but that means that it's not the end unto itself it's a vehicle for a vision and what's beautiful is that that vision in the Haggadah comes right on the wake of crossing through the Red Sea which is the the Puetz the liturgical poem Diana right Diana Diana we go through all the steps it's you know it's always a beautiful thing by the way it's basically a gratitude poem and it's worthwhile to do that work in the lead-up to the Seder to write your own Diana one of the things you're grateful for there would be enough you know if I'm sitting in my apartment I haven't left this apartment for any significant purpose in almost three weeks got five kids got three jobs pressures on as I'm sure you guys are all feeling as well but pausing to say I'm grateful grateful that I'm working I'm grateful that I have food I'm grateful that my children are relatively happy you fill in the blank there's so much to be grateful for which is what the Diana was about but notice where it ends right you hear me Sahn oh the Eretz Israel the lobe on Ilana it bethe bashira Diana right that the culmination in many ways of the vision is not just the entry into the land of Israel but is actually the building of the temple now rather than sort of get all messianic on you guys I want to take this building of the temple as a model for what EULA might look like and how you can imagine what Redemption looks like in your own life and well I'll close out sort of the frontal portion of what we're doing with that and then I'm happy to open up for questions and comments because you know I'll share this screen with you again and so you can look at the sources I'm going to quote we're gonna go over that one good let's go to destination shall we just a few weeks ago when we spent all that time in the Torah portion on you know gathering the stuff for the temple and then laying up the blueprint not temple sorry the tabernacle the Mishkan laying out the blueprint for the miss continent actually making the Muskaan and all the the vestments of the Kohen Gadol there's a tremendous wealth that can be learned from all the details but what always moves me is that the the Torah tips us off to the fact that there are two fundamental motions of the heart which are necessary for building am each gun if you want a vessel that can connect heaven and earth want that vessel in a physical sense in the Mishkan you want that vessel in a Oh somebody's drawn on my screen how's that possible one that's been me the VA you you want that vessel in a physical sense of Michigan you want it in a interpersonal sense you know between you know between spouses you want it in your own life that your heart should become a vessel that connects heaven and earth there are two fundamental motions of heart which are tipped off to us by this pursue this verse I've brought you here it's in its row 30 521 leave okole sharing these nice sorry he's only boat right and everyone who whose heart lifted them up came the cost-share need Varco bow and everyone who's whose spirit caused them to be generous now and they brought the true master shem right and they brought all the sort of the freewill offerings for the work that was going to be done but notice is very interesting nice oddly bow the knee devar roof oh right let's say he feel their heart lifted them up and their spirit move them to generosity right and this and I want to really focus on is the first one they're both the babbu code deserves its own treatment but for now i wanna just ask the question what does this mean miss sally bone that is heart lifting them up and i want you to just picture if you probably look at the commentary at some other time just picture here's moshe it's it's hard enough that these people been slaves and and and now he's asking them to give the gold the silver the the fine cloth which likely they got from their egyptian neighbors or they gathered from the spoils there of the dead egyptians I'm the red T right now they this is the first wealth their family seen in 210 years now motions ask him to give him up and what was cold were there was not simple but then just imagine this now Moshe says and now we're gonna make vestments for the high priest and we're going to create no draperies and and I envision says Moshe of golden Ark with the crew VIN and you Shimon you're gonna make that you know what Shimon says to him wait kidding he's like I make mud bricks my father made mud bricks my father's father gathered straw to make mud bricks you want me to make fine work and silver and gold see it's natural for us to be trapped by our low expectations of what we are capable of based on what we've done up from them and that will never allow us to tell a redemptive story so when the Haggadah says that what we're headed for is building the beta mink - building the temple it's not just some sort of national historical model it's a personal model which is founded on the sense that your spirit can lift you up that you can pick yourself up out of a history of mud and bricks and straw and imagine the work you could do with fine silver and gold right then an ability to imagine what your redeem life might look like he's a critical tool in telling a redemptive story because just as much as you have to know where your story begins and recognize your story begins in multiple places and where you choose to begin it when you tell it will have a lot to do with where it ends and you have to understand the power of questions that open up a horizon which we were what is is not defined by what will be and you have to deeply engage in your story as a thing of not just the past but the present relevance and of course you got to look out for the difference between liberation and freedom ultimately to tell a redemptive story you have to imagine the fact that you are capable of building a better world than you've even ever seen and that to me is one of the reasons that they have gotta puts that beautiful image at the end of Diana and it's a turning point really if you look in the way in which the structure goes from there on out right we then get the fundamentals of passive Massimo it's like the pace picks up we get the beautiful mission that says in every generation a person's obligated to see themself as if they themselves went out of Egypt and then song because what could be more indicative of a redeemed state than bursting into songs of praise and then at that point you have moved truly from that state of disgrace that Canute to state not only of praise worthiness because you've imagined the redemption that your life could be but an at you are in the act of giving praise that's just a little taste in my experience of how the Hakata can serve as a model for our own leaving of our narrow places and an entry into a redeemed State and I'm gonna stop there because I've been talking for quite some time and and I'm gonna open up the floor for questions or comments a happy to hear what people have to say you can put them in the yeah go yeah go for it hey Charlie I can't see everybody right now so yes mm-hmm hope you fade it out there Charlie I lost maybe write the question into into a chat because I can't hear you somebody else yep hi I can't see who it is who is it how you feel mm-hm what do you mean oh I understand well yeah but that's why each one is it's a it's a a multi-tiered special meaning eros this rail is a necessary precursor to the beta meet - and what's interesting is that we don't understa any comment on what would come once we have the beta meet - what I offer it is debate to meet us always represent that place where heaven and earth connect where the potential and the actual flow into one another and I agree with you it can never be static there is no end Diana who can keep going and going and going I mean practically speaking if you try to do it everybody the Seder is gonna stop you but here I'm saying that they they I think that it culminates with the image of the temple with the bait of akhira because then once you have a place where you have an earth connect anything is possible and and you're correct without air to tell there's no bait to me touch the earth stir without the bait to mean that she's lacking that connection and will always remain a small and somewhat sort of con tested you know piece of territory as we've seen throughout our history great so thank you for like that clarification ah but that's at each stage along the way if God had brought us out of Egypt and he hadn't brought us through the Red Sea like what do you mean then we devolve died the desert I think part of that is this recognizing that gratitude is not contingent upon full success we're not grateful certainly not to God enough to other people you don't think about your interpersonal relationship you know if you have a long-term committed emotional relationship which I hope you either have an hour or I have had before you know then you know that that no one can do everything we need for us it's just not possible and if if I make my gratitude and love for another person contingent upon getting exactly what I want really what I've done is is i I've cut myself off from intimacy of relationship we need to be grateful everything for everything that a person does for us even if it's not exactly what I wanted or it doesn't go all the way that gratitude is a posture which is not contingent it's just a recognition of the good which has been done which is the power I find in Diana here and I'm saying you're absolutely correct from sort of a historical narrative arc if God had left us out there in the middle of the desert like what good would that have been but from a human posture of gratitude we need to recognize each piece was something we should be grateful for because we it's not like we deserved it it was it was it was a megillah' it was coming to us and therefore well I I don't you be grateful no each piece is an act of grace that's what I would say and yeah the whole poem itself is problematic in that sense and it's worth it that's a way a great question to bring up in the seder like what are we saying how could possibly grateful if we had not actually made it all the way out gotten the tour into the inter Land of Israel example great I have a question here in the chat to said that I that you said that slavery is what made the nation worthy to inherit the land but only if they could interpret it in a positive light kind expand on that right at one point what what point in the Jewish people's journey to the Land of Israel did that interpretation occur or is it upon us a continuous thing I think it's the ladder it's a continuous act now you can see in the Torah in many times we see the phrase remember that you were slaves in land of Egypt treat the stranger this way because you were slaves in the reign of Egypt or you know the the the saying of crema is bound up with the fact that God brought us out from Egypt it's so I think it's a continuous attachment to our our status both once upon a time as slaves and and trying to overcome that the problem of frere identified that having internalized our oppressors do you think we would be more sensitive to others but the reality is and we face this challenge here in Israel today it's it's quite hard the world looks this insane you were refugees you were oppressed how could you not care more than anybody else about the oppressed of the world so the obvious answer that is yeah and you know what life has been really hard and I'm rarely interested in in undermining my safety on behalf of others at the same time the moral call there is very real and that's why the Torah says yeah the the result of slavery needs to be empathy but it doesn't happen naturally empathy only emerges from suffering if one revisits their suffering with a determination that it become a source of positive identity it's a conscious choice to cultivate empty otherwise one's own suffering generally narrows them and makes them callous to others you'll never do that to me again right so that that I would say it's a definitely a continuous act great that's a great question other questions comments things people on to throw out there yeah fine we got yes and I would like to donate to the following a phone number in order to make it happen no um via no it's not the way I understand the process I see the the temple is always a culmination of a process never it's beginning we built the temple tomorrow we'd fight each other sadly before the nations ever closed in on us right but what I would say is that when we can bring ourselves to the point where we understand what it means stab the responsibility to connect heaven and earth then the physical little construct of the temple will be will be sufficient to get the result that we're after there can somebody remembers talking there please mute your mic Thanks that's okay the your and I'm saying they it's it's not you build the temple and then the whole world will recognize ah right the Jews actually belong there no no we need to fulfill our mission and through that recognition the temple will be built it's the end of the process of my eyes not not the beginning other questions comments things people wanna throw out there yes sure [Music] yes yeah I mean there are a number of questions if I understood you correctly there number of questions you can frame the the most important in my Isis as you approach pass up you need to figure out what are the narrow places where I'm stuck and what's the comment in my life that's preventing me from being free right the those two pieces can open out the structure that I got in the story of the exodus as a personal journey and I think you're entirely correct I'm now is not the place I think I could point out to you that throughout the Jewish calendar that path sucks is the place where the story dominates but the route the Jewish calendar throughout the the cycle of the holidays there are many places in which we're called that Hesburgh method to that self analysis and the constant process of building ourselves into that sort of best possible self the last thing I would say at the risk of sort of the shameless plug is that it's true that no one else can tell you how to run your life but there is definitely a skill set out there which can help you understand your own story and I encourage people to reach out right I think we were gonna draw this to close maybe one more question but I encourage people reach out to me you can find me on Facebook my emails are off mic boy at gmail if you want to start that exploration it's something I do as a professional but it's also a life mission and now is a great time you know that we're all sitting sent to our rooms we're in whoa but we're in timeout we don't just have time we've been sent to our rooms to decide what we're gonna do when we come out so so I want to thank everybody I think sure in particular for putting things together I want to encourage people to send me feedback I'm more than happy if you had a question they if you had a question that I didn't get to or you have thoughts you want to share you can you can you really can reach out I'm happy to hear I see some more questions coming in here let me see if I can please take a the wow they're coming in really quickly uh enhancing second Seder III I'm sorry I can't know that I'll just be honest with you one of the number one reasons I came here was to get back on to what I see to be the natural rhythm but I'll think about it anything comes to me you