PESACH PNIMIUS FOR 2020
LET’S FLIP THE SCRIPT
ON THIS SEDER OF ISOLATION & UNITE IN MIND & HEART DURING 1 SPECIAL SEDER MOMENT THIS YEAR
Rav Doniel Katz
What do you do with the wine in Eliyahu HaNavi’s cup after opening & closing the door for him? While many pour it back into the bottle at the end of the Seder, some have a deeper & more beautiful custom sourced in Kabbalistic tradition - to pour a little of it into everyone else’s fourth cup - so we all get a little taste of the wine of the ultimate redemption - awakening a little light of Eliyahu Hanavi and Moshiach WITHIN OURSELVES.
In Kabbalah, this represents accessing the hidden fifth cup, the daas elyon, the higher self. It represents yishuv ha’aretz - the ability to finally manifest & reveal the highest dimension of Divinity within us - into our bodies and into the world. As Rebbe Nachman calls it - activating the Moshiach within us all.
Pouring from Eliyahu’s cup into our own in order to spark the final personal redemptive impulse, is the custom in our home, and G-d knows this year we need it now more than ever. Perhaps you’ll drink a little wine of geulah with us tonight too?
Who’s in?
6 MACHSHAVA MAPS FOR THE SEDER
By Rav Doniel Katz
(Choose your favorite 5 of each section - and round and round you go.)
THE SEDER
1. V'higadata l’bin’cha – tell it over to your children.
2. Yetzias Mizrayim - physically leaving Egypt
3. Moment of deep personal cheirus/redemption
4. Avdus in Mizrayim - the suffering of the physical work during the enslavement
5. Your favorite part of the seder (text or experience)
6. Moshiach arriving - images of redemption and the messiah
7. Over coming the biggest challenge you are currently having in your life
HARD WORK/AVDUS IN MIZRAYIM
1. Worked past exhaustion in the desert and hot son.
2. Burying the children in the cement bricks.
3. Prishus derech eretz.
4. Couples agreeing to get divorced as they couldn’t handle pain of bringing children into world to be killed.
5. Children thrown in Nile, and killed for their blood in Pharaoh’s bath.
6. How the Israelites were originally tricked to coming to work.
7. Pharoah and the Egyptions all came out to help, and then slowly disappeared. Incredible feeling of rejection/betrayal.
“IN EVERY GENERATION A PERSON IS OBLIGATED TO SEE THEMSELVES AS HAVING GONE OUT OF MIZRAYIM”
1. A particular time/situation of personal enslavement/exile
2. The darkest point of my own personal enslavement/exile
3. The feelings of the Shechinah - the Divine Feminine Presence - watching me in that situation
4. The time of turnaround – when things began to change
5. A moment that most represents that I was free from there.
6. The feelings of the Shechina towards me now that I am free
MATZAH
1. “The food of emunah.”
2. Yidden left Mizrayim so fast, they didn’t have time to let the matzah rise.
3. No more chometz/klippahs/yetzer hara.
4. “The food of healing.”
5. “Matzah is bechinas Chochma”
6. We are eating a mitzvah.
7. Tikkun for eating for a whole year
HALLEL
1. Some of the greatest blessings of your life
2. Krias Yam Sof - the splitting of the sea
3. Some of the greatest moments of your life
4. The highest moment/image you can imagine of the yidden being freed from mizrayim.
5. The moment of biggest relief in your life
6. The highest spiritual moment of your life
7. Matan Torah
NIRZAH
1. A moment in your life that most represents personal redemption for you.
2. The most powerful moment of the seder for you.
3. The shirah that klal Yisroel sang be the sea.
4. A personal image after having worked hard, of someone loving/embracing and accepting you.
5. A personal image of a time your worked incredibly hard in your life and felt happy and satisfied with yourself.
6. A powerful image of moshiach coming.
PASSOVER: SPRINGTIME, REDEMPTION AND RENEWAL by Chana Zelig
May we experience the deepest of renewal, meaning and a Divine cosmic shift out of Egypt this Peasch
Oh... and grab those tambourines and do get ready to dance ladies!! See you at the Beit Hamikdash bH!!!! 💕
-Chana Rus Cohen
Exploring the inner mystical depth and meaning behind the Seder’s 15 steps.
-Rebbetzin Tamar Taback
The traditional 15-step structure of the Seder is pregnant with inner meaning and significance. The rhythm and progression behind the Seder are an eternal template for the deepest transformation of the Jewish soul. On Seder night we are able to receive a spiritual influx from above which jump-starts a whole new cycle of growth for the coming year.
Every process of spiritual awakening contains three stages: “Hachna’ah” – submission, “Havdala” – separation, and “Hamtaka” – sweetening[1]. This triple-beat shows up here too and turns the Seder into a powerful process that brings deep healing to your own beautiful soul.
First, submission – this takes place BEFORE Passover
In Judaism, the journey is an essential part of the destination. This is a paradigm shift for our western minds that fixate on the achievement of our goals. It is how we travel our course that allows God to palpably enter our lives.
In this vein, the transformational power of the Seder actually begins before Passover arrives. In the weeks of cleaning and scrubbing, shopping and cooking, we are getting ready to live life without chametz, leavened products. Not only are we eradicating the actual substance that represents the puffed-up ego, but the act of adhering to the will of God itself dissolves our egos [2]. Whatever false self we clutched onto now slowly melts away as we eagerly wipe and scrub our homes to remove all its chametz. Submission is the first step of the path of transformation, as we rise above our limited identities and find ourselves comfortably part of God’s world and in His value system. This submission enables us to tap into something greater than ourselves. The stage is set for redemption.
Second, Havdalah, separation – and the Seder Begins.
1. KADESH – SANTIFICATION
With the recital of Kiddush as the first of the 15-step journey, we sanctify everything to follow. In Jewish etymology, the concept of holiness suggests separating ourselves from all that is profane [3]. Therefore, with Kiddush, we set out on a journey with our intent to transform ourselves.
2. URCHATZ – WASHING THE HANDS
The first thing that needs to happen is the removal of alien forces that hover around us during the regular course of life, that impede our growth. These dark forces represent the aspects of evil that have managed to masquerade themselves as good to our own eyes and have actually taken on some of our affections. With the simple act of washing our hands, we are able to see these negative forces for what they are, (be they thoughts, emotions, behaviors or affiliations) and make the separation between what is truly good and what is not, what is holy and what is impure. [4]
It is a powerful movement up the ladder of Jewish transformation, when we are prepared to take this honest look at ourselves and allow what is non-essential to be washed away. [5]
3. KARPAS – VEGETABLE DIPPED IN SALT WATER
There is no authentic spiritual path without tears, dubbed the sweat of the soul. There is no joy of transformation without some degree of pain. Living a brave and authentic life takes courage and grit! While in the previous step we isolated our essence from all the non-essential layers of our beings and washed those away, in Karpas, we sow the seed of that new-found essence into soil and water it with the salt-water of our tears. As the psalmist says, “Those who plant with tears will harvest in great joy” [6]. These are the best tears we will ever cry as we are expanding our taste-buds/capacity for spirituality and are headed for nothing less than our greatness.
4. YACHATZ- BREAKING THE MATZA
The next step is the dissolving of that seed in the earth, the part of the process that appears the most devastating. Yachatz means brokenness, hinting that things might seem worse before they get better. We are finally letting go of whatever last vestige of ego remains as we confront the very vulnerable truth of what it means to be human. Staring directly at our vulnerability expands the little seed of perfect spiritual essence inside us, as we come into the coherent field of the simple truth that God is One and all that really is, and His love for us knows no bounds. Therefore, we can endure this breaking of the matza, since we know that the broken piece will become the crowning jewel at the end of the Seder, when it will reappear as the coveted Afikoman at the stage of Tzafun.
Third: Hamtaka, sweetening.
5. MAGGID – TELLING THE STORY
With Maggid, the real healing starts to happen. We tap into the characteristic energy of the month of Nissan, which according to the earliest mystical work Sefer Hayetzira is the energy of “holy speech”.
The gift of speech is the crowning feature of our humanity. With words, we are able to transcend even the most difficult of circumstances by expressing our desire for something different. The first stirrings of redemption came in Egypt when the Jewish people, persecuted, allowed themselves to groan. God heard their primal cries and knew they were ready for the first sprouting of their redemption [7] .
When we start to add words to that guttural expression, we are able to delineate the details of our story in the sequence in which they occurred. Maggid is a form of narrative therapy by which we begin to stitch all the details into one continuum within our hearts. This is the essence of the Kabbalistic idea called “sweetening”, as we suddenly realize that there was no piece of the story that can be excluded, and that somehow, amid twinges of pain and joy through its millions of nuances, there was always a higher order, an infinitely Great and Close Being, bringing all the parts together into one gestalt.
Through telling our story, we weave the bitter and the sweet into a tale of tension and pathos, of struggle and heroism, and most profoundly, of love. When we have the courage to view our lives in the way of a story, exploring our histories from their inglorious beginnings and everything we went through, unedited, we expose our deepest humanity and it is there that we find G-d. We realize that there was nothing extraneous and that, to our surprise, He was there all along. Perhaps the best part is realizing the emergence of our own resources, for as much as we have come to admit our imperfection, now we are able to admit to our greatness. Thus, our experience becomes integrated into our deepest identities and the good and the evil are no longer seen as two separate entities. This is the heart of the Seder and when the real transformation starts to take place, though it would not have been possible without any of the earlier steps.
6. RACHTZA – WASHING FOR THE MATZA
Now, we are ready to wash away whatever hasn’t been redeemable in our story, as well as the layers of our erroneous belief structures that only obscure our deepest truth. What is left is a re-kindled attachment to God, and we are now clear on our mission to move as His people in the world. The fragmentation and pull between good and evil that we may have felt at earlier stages is gone and replaced with the galvanization of all our inner resources.
7. MOTZI
8. MATZA – TWO BLESSING AND EATING THE MATZA
With this step in the journey, we are ready to imbibe the bread of humility into our very selves through the act of eating, for there is no ego left, only connection to God. Food has become sublime and the act of eating matza is the fulfillment of a positive commandment. We are ready to live with our commitment to our relationship with God as a natural part of our lives and to receive all that He wants to give us.
9. MAROR – THE BITTER HERBS
Maror is the “real-life” factor.
Ask yourself a question: what is more delectable, sugar straight from the bag or well-made chocolate? Sugar water or lemonade? Hot sweetened milk or coffee? In all of these pleasures, an intrinsically bitter component is added to the sweetness, and yields a far more pleasurable result than consuming the sweetness directly.
In a similar way, light is brighter when it is on a backdrop of darkness, and it is at this point in the Seder that we are able to relate to our suffering from a different place and extend our compassion to ourselves as well as to all those who suffer. For reasons we cannot fully understand, God in His infinite love adds painful challenge to the mix of life, and through it we are made great and our souls expand. A Seder without Maror lacks depth and beauty, and a heart without some pain lacks empathy. This is an advanced step and accrues the tremendous eternal reward of accepting our suffering with love. Ultimately, our pain brings us to an even more refined level of spirituality where we eliminate any vestige of impurity from ourselves and appear completely cleansed before God.
10. KORECH – THE SANDWICH
Here we are able to bear paradox and thereby go above the limitations of our minds. We lean like free men and make sandwiches as did Hillel in the time of the Temple. The sandwich is the ultimate mixture: the bread of freedom (matza) together with the bitter herbs (chazeres), dipped in the sweet mixture of the charoset symbolizing the mortar from the bricks of slavery. This is a real concoction, a sort of coda of the awareness we have been cultivating thus far, where we relate to our lives in a far deeper way than how they appeared to us at first. The bottom line: true freedom is derived from our relationship to God and gives our spirits the huge dimensions through which we can bear even the most intense paradox.
11. SHULCHAN ORECH – THE MEAL
At this moment, we have reached the level of sanctification where the act of eating our prepared feast is now the pinnacle of our Divine service. To prove that this is so, just before the main course begins, we actually say the first two paragraphs of Hallel, the praises King David composed to be said at our highest and most joyous moments. It couldn’t be clearer that the act of eating is not an interruption of the holy Hallel, but a continuation of our praises in the form of the partaking of our delicious meal. We praise God, fusing the physical and spiritual into one.
12. TZAFUN – REVEALING THE HIDDEN
Now, with a new relationship to our suffering, we are on the other side of any ordeal we have been through, and hold up our battle scars with hearts brimming with joy and eyes brimming with tears. In this advanced stage, we have a deeper understanding and see why it all had to be that way. Our souls are wide open. The hidden is revealed and we…
13. BARECH – GRACE AFTER THE MEAL
…move straight into the grace after meals, capitalizing on our joy which knows no bounds, as we identify God as the source of all the miracles that were unique to our journey. We are fully clear that both the difficult and the easy times originate from that very source.
14. HALLEL – PSALMS OF PRAISE
Now we utilize the power of our speech, which we have developed from the primitive groan of oppression to the brilliant articulation of our gratitude, into the realm of song. We master the art of turning our own lives into a song and we open our mouths to unashamedly sing that song that is uniquely our own. For this was the reason we came to the world in the first place.
15. NIRTZA – LONGING FOR REDEMPTION
We now come full circle, where all that is left to be heard is the scintillating silence after the song has ended its final notes and words are no longer necessary. The impression of our voices lingers in the still air while we bring our attention to our longing for the ultimate redemption. We pray that God receives all of our sincere offerings and grants us the ability to bring into reality all that we were able to touch within ourselves during the Seder. Next Year in Jerusalem!
[1] Triple beat as applied to the seder as heard in the name of R’ Dov Ber Pinsun
[2] Berachos 17a
[3] Rashi, Vayikra 19:2
[4] Rashi, Bereishis 18:4
[5] This year perhaps we have started this step through focusing on the essential by our being secured in our own homes
[6] Tehillim 126:5
[7] Shmos 2:23-25
Coronavirus Seder: 15 Meditations
Why Is This Year Different from All Other Years?
By: Rabbi YY Jacobson
Mah Nishtana? Why is this year different from all other years?
That in all other years, families and communities unite at the Passover table. This year, so many of us are alone.
That in all other years, our synagogues are bustling with people during the holiday. This year, our houses of worship are silent.
That in all other years, the days before Passover are filled with excitement, in addition to the stress. This year, we are reeling in the face of devastating tragedies. This seder is conducted in the shadow of solitariness and pain.
That in all other years, we begin our seder with the declaration, “whoever is in need, let him come and eat.” This year, our doors are locked.
How do we conduct a seder in the presence of a Covid-19? Here are the 15-steps of the Passover Seder for 2020.
Kadesh - Recite the Kiddush, invite sanctity into your life:
Designate a space in your psyche that is always wholesome, sacred, pure, innocent, and child-like. Go back to your core—to that place in your soul which even the coronavirus can’t destroy. When all external layers are shed, who are you in your essence?
Urchatz - Wash your hands:
Wash your hands again and again, physically and emotionally. Being quarantined gives me an opportunity to clean my hands from all forms of un-cleanliness. Cleanse your life from lying, cheating, betraying, immoral relationships, destructive addictions, etc.
Karpas - Eat a vegetable dipped in salt water:
The vegetable growing low from the ground symbolizes the body, created from earth (adamah). Dip your body into the waters of authentic wisdom, inspiration and Torah. See your body as a conduit for your soul; a channel for you to fulfill your mission in this world.
Yachatz - Break the matzah:
Humility and vulnerability is the message of this fourth step. Strip yourself from pompousness and haughtiness. Get real. During this period, allow yourself to be vulnerable.
Magid - Recite the Haggadah:
Tell the story of our people. We have been around for 4000 years, enduring every conceivable plague in history—and we are still here. We were sustained by the power of love, hope and faith.
Rochtzah - Wash your hands:
Wash your hands, yet again. You see, 2000 years ago the Rabbis wanted us to wash our hands at least twice during he seder!
Motzei - recite the blessing HaMotzi, “He extracted bread from the earth:”
Do not take your life for granted. You have bread on the table, it came from grain, which grew in the fields. You will eat it, your digestive system will break it apart, and your 30 trillion red blood cells will carry its nutrients to trillions of cells. Be mindful of the miracle of life, and say thank you.
Matzah - recite the blessing on the matzah and eat it:
The Talmud describes matzah as "bread of poverty," pristine flower and water without yeast. This is what we consume on the night of our liberation, because freedom happens when I can discover who I am at my core, without all the accessories.
Maror - eat the bitter herbs:
Feel the pain and the bitterness, and the jumble of emotions that come with this pandemic. Cry for the people suffering, reeling from loss or illness. During the coming days and weeks, phone each day five lonely people and offer them love and empathy. Tell them you are thinking of them and praying for them.
Korach - eat a sandwich of matzah and maror (in ancient times together with the Passover lamb):
Life is a roller-coaster of beautiful and rich moments (Passover lamb), bland moments (unleavened matzah), and painful moments (bitter herbs). As a virus rages, we must learn how to sandwich all of life into a single mosaic. We cry for the pain and the loss, but we also celebrate the silver linings, and are grateful for all the blessings.
Shulchan Orach – set the table and eat the festive meal with your loved ones:
Coronavirus sent us all home—for a long period of time. Apparently, G-d wants us to do some work in this quarantined region we call home. Do I need to work on my marriage? Do I need to enhance my relationships with my children? Do I need to learn to relax? Do I need to let go? Can we just sit around the table and bond?
Tzafun - eat the hidden afikoman:
At this point in the Seder, we eat the hidden Afikoman. During this crisis of Covid-19, we are each given an opportunity work on our inner skeletons and change ourselves from within. There are emotional and spiritual viruses in me which I must tackle and extricate.
Beirach -- recite grace:
Show gratitude. Meditate and say thank you for all the blessings in your life, from your lungs inhaling, to having a bed to sleep on.
Halel - recite psalms of praise:
Every breath you take and every move you make is an opportunity for praise and thanksgiving. One invisible virus changed the entire world. How many things must go right every day, every second, for our planet to function normally?
Nitrtzah – Our service is pleasing to our Divine Creator:
Our lives are not random. Even a mad virus is not arbitrary. Every moment has purpose; every one of our lives is part of the cosmic symphony. Ask yourself, I’m I fulfilling the purpose of my creation?
G-d's desire in creating the world was that we build a personal, intimate relationship with Him and that we transform our animal soul and our world into a Divine abode, into a world of goodness, kindness and love.
Next year in Jerusalem!
👑Ladies, don't forget your crown!
On this eve of Pesach we are finally back to basics. A Jew is never alone and never lonely.
-Leah Aharoni
Hashem is always with him. It's just a matter of connecting to that experience. For the past 7 years, I have found myself involved in a long conversation with Jewish feminism. The feminism that says that unless women do exactly what men do we can never be worthy or equal. Unless women pasken halacha, lead tefilot from the amud, read from the Torah, lay tefilin, wear talit, we are not equal. My main counter argument has been that Judaism is not a religion of the synagogue. We are a religion of the home. The three most central mitzvot, the ones that most define Jewish observance, shabbat, kashrut and taharat hamishpacha, are all practiced in the home.
And the Jewish woman, is the ikar - the main part, "the high priest" of the home, the one who is responsible for infusing this primary institution of Jewish life with holiness. And since Judaism is a religion of responsibilities, not right (there is no word for "right" in Torah literature), this responsibility takes precedence to other, synagogue, responsibilities. Well, in the month leading to this holiday of redemption, we have been forced to internalize this message. Hashem has closed all the yeshivot, all the schools, all the synagogues and has channeled us to turn the home into the central educational, spiritual and religious institution.
And as strange as that is, we are all still practicing full-bodied vibrant Jewish lifestyle. For many of us this full-time, home-focused life is a challenge. But this is the real redemption. The holy books call redemption as a state in which the woman regains her crown (corona?) and is the source of inspiration for the rest of the family. And now on Pesach, the holiest night of the year, we are reminded yet again, that the source of spirituality, of freedom, of emotional empowerment is inside your door. That if you wonder outside the family, you'll miss it. So yes, being home all the time, with kids all the time is a challenge but if we reframe it as an opportunity to bring the Torah gravity back home, it can also inspire us.
And for all of my friends, who are spending this seder alone, my heart goes out to you. I have been there so many times, becoming frum alone and then coming to Israel alone. I have had so many shabbos dinners of canned gefilte and salami sandwiches. Alone. Of singing zmirot alone. But the most transformative sentence of my life was something I saw the Lubavitcher rebbe write
A Jew is never alone and never lonely. Hashem is always with him. It's just a matter of connecting to that experience.
Just because you are alone right now, does not mean you are not a family. You are a family, a family of one. And you deserve to have the experience of the seder, of singing and dancing and rejoicing. And if you can, give it to yourself.
This Pesach may we all regain our inner freedom, may we remember where the priorities lie. May we return back to basics - to the family. Ladies, don't forget your crown!
How do I get my mind out of Egypt?
Everyone wants to be free, but how do I start believing that I could become free?
R’ Shlomo Carlebach a’h
How do I get my mind out of Egypt? The Zohar Hakadosh says that a baby does not know whom their father or mother are until it eats bread. That means that bread gives strength to my mind to be connected to those who love me. Only after I eat bread do I know what life is all about, do I know whom my father and mother are. Now listen to something even deeper. Matza gives my mind strength too, but it’s working from another side. Eating matza gives me strength to be connected to myself and to all who are important to me – but this connection is done without thinking about it. How so?
Reb Nachman says there are two kinds of minds. There is a slave mind and a free mind. A slave mind always has ten thousand excuses to not get out of something. Everybody is drowning in something, Egypt is all about getting out of what you drowned in. Everyone is tied to something, chained to something. We need to have serious compassion on our souls to just get out of it. We all go through plagues, witnessing tremendous miracles, but so many of us are still in Egypt. To really leave the things you are tied to, to leave all the things you had excuses for is the greatest test in the world. Everyone talks about how beautiful it would be if they could set themselves free from whatever is holding them back, but unfortunately most people can’t let go.
How do you get out of Egypt? “Bechipazon” (Shmos 12:11). You have to get out fast. How do you run out of Egypt? Reb Nachman says something unbelievably deep. How fast can I walk while I am thinking? Very slow. When you are talking to someone and are engrossed in conversation, you walk very slowly. But if you want to run, you have to stop thinking. I must remember that I am not my mind, I am stronger than that. I have to stop my mind. So therefore Reb Nachman says that matza is called the bread of poverty.
We are not necessarily talking about poor people can’t afford bread, we are talking about poverty of the mind.This means that in a good way - I have no mind . The Gemara says Ein Ani Ela Beda’as (Tractate Nedarim 21:1). A poor man is someone who doesn't think. But on Pesach I flip this concept over.