I've been asking people, what do you think the main message of Pesach is?
I've gotten 10 answers so far and although there is a little overlap, what I love about this is the variety of answers, all valid.
So you can think about it, and post an answer if you like, and eventually I will post the answers that I got.
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 30, 2017
The Fish Story that Sparked a Tikkun
14 years ago, people were buzzing about the talking fish in New Square. Some believed the story, others scoffed. It became the source for many a joke. You can read about it here
I had no reason not to believe it and I looked askance at those who automatically dismissed the story.
Last year, before Pesach, Family First magazine had a remarkable story. In it, a woman shopping in a very busy hardware store before Pesach saw a woman who looked out of place in New Square, who looked like she needed help. She offered her assistance and the woman said she was making her first Pesach and was not sure what to get and what to do.
The woman, who looked like she was in her early 30's explained that she drove all the way from West Haven, Connecticut to New Square because of the fish story. Her family was traditional - they went to synagogue for Yom Kippur, and each year there was a big family seder. But then it petered out and her father died, and she did not attend a seder since she was 17.
She said her father loved to fish in a brook near her home. When she heard the story about the fish that said "tikkun," she felt her father was talking to her through the fish, telling her to correct what she had abandoned, to make a Pesach seder again. And she thought "there was no better place to start than here (New Square), the place that was witness to the fish with a message."
The New Square lady helped the woman choose what to buy for Pesach and a few days later she went to West Haven to help her kasher her kitchen and get it ready for Pesach.
I had no reason not to believe it and I looked askance at those who automatically dismissed the story.
Last year, before Pesach, Family First magazine had a remarkable story. In it, a woman shopping in a very busy hardware store before Pesach saw a woman who looked out of place in New Square, who looked like she needed help. She offered her assistance and the woman said she was making her first Pesach and was not sure what to get and what to do.
The woman, who looked like she was in her early 30's explained that she drove all the way from West Haven, Connecticut to New Square because of the fish story. Her family was traditional - they went to synagogue for Yom Kippur, and each year there was a big family seder. But then it petered out and her father died, and she did not attend a seder since she was 17.
She said her father loved to fish in a brook near her home. When she heard the story about the fish that said "tikkun," she felt her father was talking to her through the fish, telling her to correct what she had abandoned, to make a Pesach seder again. And she thought "there was no better place to start than here (New Square), the place that was witness to the fish with a message."
The New Square lady helped the woman choose what to buy for Pesach and a few days later she went to West Haven to help her kasher her kitchen and get it ready for Pesach.
Mar 28, 2017
We Do Have Choices
In a talk, Rivka Malka Perlman told about a young man whom her brother (Benzion Klatzko) is trying to be mekarev.
The person is tough and bitter and her brother asked him what's your story?
He said, when I was younger I was okay, but then my mother got sick and passed away. I was very lonely and having a very hard time in school, and I ended up connecting with not the greatest kids.
One day, the boys threw a rock at someone's car and the alarm went off. The owner came out screaming but the other boys ran off and I was blamed for it. The man said I'm calling your father and the police. The police came and took a report. My father came and took me home and was very disappointed with me.
I was punished and I didn't know what to think. I had gone from being an average person to a horrible person. I left school and did horrible things.
***
One day he was at a pizza shop and a nice man came over and spoke to him. He began casually meeting him, and he gradually spent more time with the man and began to trust him. The man recommended a summer camp for him. He was excited to go and the man said he would take care of the money and speak to the boy's father.
He hadn't been in a Jewish environment for so long but this seemed like a chance to start over.
His father gave permission and camp was a fresh start and he was reminded that he's actually a nice guy, and he started to have fun again and to heal from his mother's passing.
He came back from camp a new person.
The guys back home saw that he was different. They invited him to a barbecue and he was nervous about attending because he hadn't had friends back home in a long time. He decided to give it a try. He wanted to be the kid he was in camp, but it was hard to do that at home.
The barbecue was wonderful and he felt so grateful that the good times could last. He went inside to the kitchen for more drinks and saw, to his dismay, that the host was the owner of the car that had been hit by a rock. The man yelled, I remember you, I don't forget kids like you, you think you can come to my house and be part of a barbecue here, what are you doing on my property? Get out of here, you don't belong here!
"That was the end for me. I joined a gang and that's me today."
***
I heard this story and thought, it is so important to teach children about free choice, that Hashem makes things happen to us, but we get to choose how to respond. We are not compelled to react one way or another.
Losing his mother and feeling lonely, made him friendly with fringe kids. Being yelled at, apparently wrongly, made him decide he's bad. Going to camp and having a good experience, made him feel he's good. Being yelled at again, made him feel turned off from everything and everyone. He behaved like a marionette - when his "strings were pulled," he moved in that direction.
One can imagine someone else in similar circumstances responding differently. It's not like this young man had to respond as he did, though he may have felt that there was no other way. It is this that I think we must convey, that we do have choices in our responses, that the way we respond is not a given.
As I read in a book about happiness long ago about a former prisoner of the Soviet gulag who spent 12 yrs. in concentration camps, starved, beaten, humiliated, who lost two fingers to frostbite who said, "Victim! I am not a victim! I survived!"
Other
people can hurt you but only you can victimize yourself.
The person is tough and bitter and her brother asked him what's your story?
He said, when I was younger I was okay, but then my mother got sick and passed away. I was very lonely and having a very hard time in school, and I ended up connecting with not the greatest kids.
One day, the boys threw a rock at someone's car and the alarm went off. The owner came out screaming but the other boys ran off and I was blamed for it. The man said I'm calling your father and the police. The police came and took a report. My father came and took me home and was very disappointed with me.
I was punished and I didn't know what to think. I had gone from being an average person to a horrible person. I left school and did horrible things.
***
One day he was at a pizza shop and a nice man came over and spoke to him. He began casually meeting him, and he gradually spent more time with the man and began to trust him. The man recommended a summer camp for him. He was excited to go and the man said he would take care of the money and speak to the boy's father.
He hadn't been in a Jewish environment for so long but this seemed like a chance to start over.
His father gave permission and camp was a fresh start and he was reminded that he's actually a nice guy, and he started to have fun again and to heal from his mother's passing.
He came back from camp a new person.
The guys back home saw that he was different. They invited him to a barbecue and he was nervous about attending because he hadn't had friends back home in a long time. He decided to give it a try. He wanted to be the kid he was in camp, but it was hard to do that at home.
The barbecue was wonderful and he felt so grateful that the good times could last. He went inside to the kitchen for more drinks and saw, to his dismay, that the host was the owner of the car that had been hit by a rock. The man yelled, I remember you, I don't forget kids like you, you think you can come to my house and be part of a barbecue here, what are you doing on my property? Get out of here, you don't belong here!
"That was the end for me. I joined a gang and that's me today."
***
I heard this story and thought, it is so important to teach children about free choice, that Hashem makes things happen to us, but we get to choose how to respond. We are not compelled to react one way or another.
Losing his mother and feeling lonely, made him friendly with fringe kids. Being yelled at, apparently wrongly, made him decide he's bad. Going to camp and having a good experience, made him feel he's good. Being yelled at again, made him feel turned off from everything and everyone. He behaved like a marionette - when his "strings were pulled," he moved in that direction.
One can imagine someone else in similar circumstances responding differently. It's not like this young man had to respond as he did, though he may have felt that there was no other way. It is this that I think we must convey, that we do have choices in our responses, that the way we respond is not a given.
As I read in a book about happiness long ago about a former prisoner of the Soviet gulag who spent 12 yrs. in concentration camps, starved, beaten, humiliated, who lost two fingers to frostbite who said, "Victim! I am not a victim! I survived!"
Many
people can’t do this. They carry their hurt forever. They begin
to define themselves as their pain.
Life
hurts but you can’t allow yourself to get wrapped up in this hurt,
constantly reliving it, fearing the future and grieving the past.
That’s victimization.
Mar 20, 2017
Then and Now
Mrs. Grama, whose sensible view I've quoted before here, wrote another sensible piece in Inyan magazine that began with her relating three incidents.
In the first incident, a father takes his three year old to the Steipler Gaon and says, "He still doesn't talk."
The Steipler asked him, "Can he say at least one word?"
The father said yes, he says Abba.
The Steipler said, then don't worry, with Hashem's help he will talk.
In the second incident, a young father asked Rabbi Nissim Karelitz what to do about his four and six year olds who constantly fought.
R' Karelitz said, Tell them stories [that emphasize good middos]."
Third incident - an 11 year old boy's principal asked the mother to come down to the school where he told her that her son was brazenly breaking the rules and was having trouble concentrating in class.
The mother consulted with an experienced and successful mother of a large family who knew her and her son well and was told she must do a better job protecting her son from being bullied by his older brother, a child needs to feel safe in his own home, and told her how.
Mrs. Grama says the three stories ended well. She points out that nowadays, with these situations, most people would have consulted with a speech pathologist, a behavioral psychologist and a psychiatrist who would likely have:
asked the parents why they hadn't started intervention earlier and advised immediate speech therapy
discussed sibling rivalry and appropriate parental intervention followed by behavioral therapy
prescribed medication to calm the child followed by therapy.
She asks, are we made differently nowadays? Or is it our way of thinking that has become corrupted?
In the first incident, a father takes his three year old to the Steipler Gaon and says, "He still doesn't talk."
The Steipler asked him, "Can he say at least one word?"
The father said yes, he says Abba.
The Steipler said, then don't worry, with Hashem's help he will talk.
In the second incident, a young father asked Rabbi Nissim Karelitz what to do about his four and six year olds who constantly fought.
R' Karelitz said, Tell them stories [that emphasize good middos]."
Third incident - an 11 year old boy's principal asked the mother to come down to the school where he told her that her son was brazenly breaking the rules and was having trouble concentrating in class.
The mother consulted with an experienced and successful mother of a large family who knew her and her son well and was told she must do a better job protecting her son from being bullied by his older brother, a child needs to feel safe in his own home, and told her how.
Mrs. Grama says the three stories ended well. She points out that nowadays, with these situations, most people would have consulted with a speech pathologist, a behavioral psychologist and a psychiatrist who would likely have:
asked the parents why they hadn't started intervention earlier and advised immediate speech therapy
discussed sibling rivalry and appropriate parental intervention followed by behavioral therapy
prescribed medication to calm the child followed by therapy.
She asks, are we made differently nowadays? Or is it our way of thinking that has become corrupted?
Mar 10, 2017
We Can Daven for Anything
Rabbi Dovid Kaplan, in an Inyan magazine article, wrote that he heard that Rabbi Tzvi Meir Zilberberg said in a shiur that over Chanuka he slept a total of 17 hours. This is because he wanted to absorb as much of the spiritual energy of Chanuka as he could.
Someone went over to him after the shiur and asked how it was possible to go for eight days on a little more than two hours of sleep a night.
R' Zilberberg responded, "Do you know how many years I've been davening to need less sleep?"
R' Kaplan said his embarrassed reaction to that was, "Oh, I didn't realize you can daven to need less sleep." He had thought that davening was just for parnassa and health and things like that.
***
I had a teacher who, if I'm not mistaken, said not to ask Hashem for the petty things. This is wrong. We can and should daven to make the bus or train, to find parking quickly, to get a seat or a good seat, to find what we're looking for, for the dish to come out good, to get a quick response, and everything else! Not that R' Zilberberg's tefilla was for something petty. The point is, Hashem is the address for everything, and we shouldn't limit our requests to the standard ones.
Mar 4, 2017
Women Are Absent
I find it interesting how we never hear a story about the beis din shel maala (Heavenly Court) that has a woman involved. If you know of any, please tell us ...
All those stories, about arriving in the next world and having one's deeds scrutinized, and piles of mitzvos and sins, and angels or tzaddikim getting involved in the judgment, and what it is like in the place of reward or punishment, never have a female as the protagonist! Why is this so? For that matter, I don't think I've read any stories about Jewish women who are nearly dead or apparently died, who come back to life to tell what they've seen in the next world.
I'm not talking about women who are no longer living coming to someone alive in a dream; there are stories like that.
For that matter, some of the questions that the Gemara (Shabbos 31a) says a soul will be asked do not apply to women. The questions are:
אמר רבא בשעה שמכניסין אדם לדין אומרים לו נשאת ונתת באמונה קבעת עתים לתורה עסקת בפו"ר צפית לישועה פלפלת בחכמה הבנת דבר מתוך דבר ואפ"ה אי יראת ה' היא אוצרו אין אי לא לא. Rava said: After departing from this world, when a person is brought to judgment for the life he lived in this world, they say to him ... Did you conduct business faithfully? Did you designate times for Torah study? Did you engage in procreation? Did you await salvation? Did you engage in the dialectics of wisdom or understand one matter from another? And, nevertheless, beyond all these, if the fear of the Lord is his treasure, yes, he is worthy, and if not, no, none of these accomplishments have any value.
Did you conduct business honestly? (some women are in business; many aren't).
Did you set fixed times to study Torah? (not for women)
Were you involved in being fruitful and multiplying? (a man's mitzva)
Did you look forward expectantly for the redemption?
Did you engage in the pursuit of wisdom?
Above all else, does the person have fear of heaven?
All those stories, about arriving in the next world and having one's deeds scrutinized, and piles of mitzvos and sins, and angels or tzaddikim getting involved in the judgment, and what it is like in the place of reward or punishment, never have a female as the protagonist! Why is this so? For that matter, I don't think I've read any stories about Jewish women who are nearly dead or apparently died, who come back to life to tell what they've seen in the next world.
I'm not talking about women who are no longer living coming to someone alive in a dream; there are stories like that.
For that matter, some of the questions that the Gemara (Shabbos 31a) says a soul will be asked do not apply to women. The questions are:
אמר רבא בשעה שמכניסין אדם לדין אומרים לו נשאת ונתת באמונה קבעת עתים לתורה עסקת בפו"ר צפית לישועה פלפלת בחכמה הבנת דבר מתוך דבר ואפ"ה אי יראת ה' היא אוצרו אין אי לא לא. Rava said: After departing from this world, when a person is brought to judgment for the life he lived in this world, they say to him ... Did you conduct business faithfully? Did you designate times for Torah study? Did you engage in procreation? Did you await salvation? Did you engage in the dialectics of wisdom or understand one matter from another? And, nevertheless, beyond all these, if the fear of the Lord is his treasure, yes, he is worthy, and if not, no, none of these accomplishments have any value.
Did you conduct business honestly? (some women are in business; many aren't).
Did you set fixed times to study Torah? (not for women)
Were you involved in being fruitful and multiplying? (a man's mitzva)
Did you look forward expectantly for the redemption?
Did you engage in the pursuit of wisdom?
Above all else, does the person have fear of heaven?
Mar 3, 2017
The Pious Ones
I read The Pious Ones and thought it was quite good. The author, a writer for The New York Times, describes himself as "a fairly assimilated Jew who nevertheless attends synagogue and observes many biblical traditions," and yet he looks very favorably upon Chassidim. He puts a positive spin even on things that don't seem so positive.
His first chapter, about Yitta Schwartz, refers to a NY Times article he wrote about her: here . He said that the less than prominently placed article ended up at the top of that day's list of most emailed stories and stayed on the list for many more days.