The Passover Sacrifice: Bringing Out Our Inner Aristocrat

[Music] [Applause] The safer uh when discussing the mitzvah of the corban pesak safer uses an expression that nepos a is affected based on his actions. Joseph says this in the context of the corb and the entire procedure all what the mitzvah that we go through on pes here we are with matzah and mor and karosus and cleaning the house and all the various mitzvah and in connection to this the points out the idea that a person is affected by the actions that he takes. Now the truth of the matter is there are a lot of mitzvah when it comes to pesak. Uh one of the mitzvah by the way is not to get impatient and upset at home when your kids track crackers all over the place. But there are other mitzvah but a corban pes uh among which are uh uh the way we eat the corban pesak and the various which we'll speak about in a little while. But this is not only limited to pesak. This goes on in the course of the entire Jewish year. the course of the Jewish year, we got a lot of mitzvah that we're involved with. There are all sorts of mitzvah that we're doing on a regular basis. Whether it's a woman lighting candles and whether it's a man putting on fillin, uh there are many many different mitzvah that we're doing in the course of the year. And the underlying idea, one of the underlying ideas is again this idea of ali that by doing and actively participating in the mitzvah, it has some sort of effect on us that we ourselves are affected by the fact that we participate in making in doing the mitzvah. Uh probably a classic example is uh the idea of going to schul. Men go to shul where men after David dominion three times a day women davin also but men after davin and schul you know we go to shul we think of shul in terms of yeah I got to go d I got to catch a catch a and I got to that's all true and obviously we're speaking and asking for what we need and so on but a person also has to realize that that man is affected by his actions from man who goes to sh three times a day and sometimes even makes it on time. Uh you have to understand that that itself becomes a discipline for a person. In other words, because I'm conscious of my obligation to go to shul and because I get up in the morning thinking where am I going to catch a shock and I've got to be there at a certain time and I got to say creation at a certain time that has an effect on me as a person. me personally, I hope, but certainly the me of every Jew in Cly Israel. And beside the actual dominating at Schul, there's the effect of I'm now a more disciplined person. It's a certain discipline to get to Schul. There's a certain discipline in having to wash our hands before we eat because on the one hand, we have to wash our hands before we eat bread. But it's also a discipline that when a person is hungry, they can't just open the fridge with their leg and grab a hunk of salami or hunk of bread and start biting. We have to do it in a more controlled manner. So that means that we are being affected what I call spiritual practice. There was a famous golfer who once said, "The more I practice, the luckier I get." And that's a profound line because uh the more one practices so then those things which could go either way because he's practiced so much so he gets the drop where others think it's luck but it's really a result of the practice. The more he practice the closer he got to the hole so they think it's luck but he knows that it's the result of all the what he invested in it. This is what what I refer to as spiritual practice. mitzvah we have to do because they're mitzvah but it becomes a training for us by doing the mitzvah it has an effect on us that's the underlying idea that's what's happening when it comes to the cor when it comes to the corban pesak let's pascal lamb the sac p sacrifice and when it comes to the the other mitzvah that that that that involve that pesak involved now one of the stranger mitzvah I I I don't know if the word strange is correct but I'd say it's certainly something that we find a bit puzzling is when we're sitting at the bes we have a mitzah called kor. Now uh for those who are ashkanazi and use hard matzas especially if you're using hand matas but even if you're using machine matas. So you take a piece of romaine lettuce and you put it between two pieces of hard matzah. This is after we've already eaten matzah and mr. And then you try to negotiate this thing into your mouth and half of it ends up in your pants. And you're wondering what kind of combination of a sandwich is this? Who thought of putting lettuce on matzah which is really not a very efficient combination when it comes to when it comes to a sandwich and uh the answer is that we have to understand what matzah originally looked like. Now this koret we say in the hagura that this was a min instituted by hill. Hillel was a bavi hilahabi. He came from Babylonia. And the matzah in many of the eastern communities is a soft pliable matzah. We the ashkinazim make sure that it's hard because of certain haki concerns, but there are still to this day those who eat soft pliable matzah. Now if you take the soft pliable matzah and you put some lettuce in there and you then put some roast lamb in there and you wrap it up, that's kor. It's a rick. Kor means to wrap. It kor does not mean kor does not mean to make a sandwich. It means to wrap. And that's exactly what they did. They wrapped roast lamb with lettuce. Uh listen, you know, I could I could get used to that. That's that's a little better. That's certainly a little better than than than hard matzah with just one piece of lettuce, especially if you have to eaten matzah already. So the Kore is really a commemoration of what the Corbin Pesak originally was. That the Corbin Pesak which was roast lamb and they ate it on the night of Pesak that was that was Korak. Now I want to go into this a little bit because I think it's something that people forget that Pes people talk about the seder and people about the cleaning and people talk about the selling the KTS and I always recommend for parents by the way if you can't sell your KT just sell your children for seven days that's more efficient but uh so far that has not been ratified rabbitically but if a person understands that this whole thing called Pesak there was a corban pes there was a pesak sacrifice which took place in Egypt in Mitra Now, what was the idea of the Corbin Pes? I want to present two ideas over here. The Jewish people, the night that they're sitting around their tables and they are going to eat the Corbin Pesak, that was the night that the Egyptian firstborns died. Now, there are two very interesting halas according to this approach. Number one, they're told that they have to eat the Corvan Pesak. They have to roast the sheep the se and they have to roast it whole. Now what is the idea behind that for the Jews who were in Egypt and the Mapor explain the Egyptians worshiped the sheep was the Egyptian god. According to some, it corresponds to the constellation to the zodiac uh sign of Aries, which is the uh the ram. And so they worship the sheep. Now imagine two Egyptians are walking on the street and all of a sudden they hear screaming and yelling because from every house a bias m every Egyptian house somebody was dying. So these guys go running to go see what's happening in their own house. And on the way they all of a sudden they smell a mysterious roasting meat smell. Now they nervous because this smells like their deity is being roasted. Hey, that sounds like roast lamb. So they go over to the nearest Jewish house and one of them he says, you know, Anoir uh you know, give me a boost over here. And Anoir bends down and Ahmed stands on his shoulders and he looks into the house and there very unmistakably sees ironically the hal is that it has to be roasted whole. Had it been chopped up in pieces, maybe they would have thought it's a turkey. But they see there is their deity being roasted whole, which is something that will then discourage the Egyptians while their firstborns are dying. And it is also serves as a reminder to the Jewish people who were involved in the Egyptian various forms of Egyptian idol worship that there is absolutely nothing to the Egyptian deity at all. And therefore idea number one is that the roasted lamb which at the time of the bamedes day was put in the korak wrap the kor wrap that roasted lamb which is the corban pesak represents the devastation felt by the Egyptians when they understand that their deity is slaughtered and on a spit and it's spinning softly in a fire which the Jews are then going to consume. That's idea number one. Idea number two is that there are certain halocas involving the corban pesak and these halas are that it has to be roasted as we mentioned it also the Jews were not the bene are not allowed to break any bones in the carbon pes when they ate it number three there has to be predesated you have to be designated as a member of the kabura the group that's going to consume the carbon pes if you're not pre-desated you're to participate in the consumption of the Corbin Pesak. Number four, anything left over during that night where they were eating the Corbin Pesak, anything left over has to be burnt the next day. And number five, no part of the Corbin Pesh may be taken out of the dwelling area where they were eating it. Those are the five surrounding the Corbin Pes. And what is the significance of these? So we have to go always go back to a principle. If the Torah says don't do something, we always have to ask ourel why we would do it. You'll notice the Torah never says don't take a chair and slam it against the wall 27 times because very few people are tempted to take a chair and slam it against the wall 27 times. But the Torah says don't eat pork because people are tempted to eat pork. Here the Torah says number one it has to be roasted. Now why are we have to be roast meat? The answer is that the night of Pesak when we're at the seder, we are meant to be certainly acting as aristocrats. We are free people. We've been freed from bondage and therefore we are aristocrats. Well, if you have meat and you want the meat to taste good, do you cook it or do you roast it? You know, when you walk past the backyard where somebody's having a barbecue, you smell it down the block and your first thought is, "How come I'm not invited?" So, roast meat tastes better than cooked meat. Number one, and aristocrats eat roast meat. Number one. Number two, if you're on a budget and you want to the meat to go long, you cook it because then it expands. When you roast it, the meat shrivels up. Aristocrats are not on a budget. And therefore, the roast meat is a reminder to us when we eat the pesak. A that we are aristocrats. B we are not to break any bones. Now, why? If the Torah says don't break bones, we have to ask ourselves why we would break bones. And the answer is one breaks bones when one is in a hurry. If you're in a hurry, you kind of quickly chop through and eat as fast as you can. The definition of freedom is that your time is your own. That's the definition of freedom. As soon as your time does not belong to yourself, for example, as soon as you walk away from the when you're married, your time is no longer your own. You cannot make any independent plans. As one young man told me when I asked him what he's learned after 3 weeks of marriage, he said, 'D don't make any independent plans. So your time is your own. If you're breaking bones and you've got all the time in the world, then I'm not in a hurry. I'm not going to break any bones. And that is symbolic of being a free man and an aristocrat. Therefore, we're not allowed to break bones in the carbon pess. Number three is that you have to be pre-desated. Pre-desated means invitation only. That's how aristocrats go to weddings. Some people, if you live in Israel, you know, some get a wedding invitation. There are three halls in one building and you you may end up going to to to all three of them and just dropping in. Why not? Well, here it's pre-desated because aristocrats have to be a fancy invitation, gold embossed, and they walk in. You know, they got a little card that says, "What table you sit at?" That's the symbol of aristocracy. Number four is that the leftovers have to be burnt. Quite simply, aristocrats don't eat leftovers. Neither do many husbands. By the way, I told my wife that when we got married, "I don't do leftovers." And she said to me, "Well, what do we do with them?" I said, "Give it." You know, a lot of people used to hear from your mother, "It tastes just like fresh." Well, we all know it doesn't. So I told my wife, if it tastes like fresh, give it to the kids and I'll eat the real fresh stuff cuz that certainly tastes fresh. So aristocrats don't eat leftovers. I don't eat leftovers. I'm not an aristocrat, but at least that much I have in common with them. And number five is that you are not allowed to take the meat out of the area that you're eating it. Now again, if the Torah says don't take the meat out, why would you want to take it out? When's the last time you ran out of your house with your with your chicken on a Friday night and ran out of the house with a pokey? So why does the Torah have to tell you don't take it out? The answer is that you know you ever see people go to a a Chinese restaurant. So whenever you're sitting in a Chinese restaurant, you get four people sitting around the table and everybody's got their hand in somebody else's plate. Oh, could I taste that? What is that? Well, I've got you some yellow wantton MSG laden type of thing. And what have you got? I've got some green wonton LS MSG laden thing and every it's a very big no novelty and every when it's a novelty people are excited so people are constantly looking what everybody else has got if you ever walk into a standard Jewish restaurant there no novelties there's some roast chicken ch and some kougal there's nobody gets excited when you're in doing something that's off the beaten path then everybody gets excited could you imagine a Jew we were a slave all of a sudden They were eating fish in Mitim or whatever the the lousy food that they had to eat all those years. All a sudden roast lamb. Could you imagine one of the Jews taking it running out? Hey Moish, we got some roast lamb in our house. The Torah says that's not aristocra aristocratic behavior. We are aristocrats. Do not take any of the food out of that location. The bottom line is that eating the carbon pes is a reminder to us that we are aristocrats. the night of Pesak who were aristocrats. So we have two approaches here. There's the approach of what it does to the Egyptians, the reminder of the devastation of their deity and there's the reminder of what it does to us as cla to remind us that on the night of Pesak we are aristocrats. But it doesn't stop with Pesak. Pesak extends through the rest of the year. And it's a reminder to us that our actions all year should reflect the aristocracy of Torah, the aristocracy of Torah Jews. Wish everybody. I can't tell you to enjoy the roast lamb this year, but you never know. Maybe maybe by then we will all be sitting and having a kor which wraps the lettuce along with the labro lamb and a soft matzah. Hi, this is Paris Barikler, a proud alumnest of Orsame. Now, what you just watched is one of the many programs that Orsome provides, leaving its impact on hundreds of thousands with so many more waiting to be reached. Orsame central campus in Jerusalem has over 300 students presently learning there. 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