The Seder MUST Be Engaging - For the Most Important Reasons of All

Pesach 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

One of the bigger challenges we face on Pesach evening is keeping everyone around the table engaged throughout the Seder.

Whether we read the Haggadah straight (boring to some), have many Torah thoughts (too much for some), try to do it in both English and Hebrew (trying to the impatient!), or really discuss the Exodus (we’re pulling teeth here!), it is a Herculean task to be able to appeal to everyone all at the same time. Kids are bouncing off the walls, some young parents are as well, people who are used to a little more quiet might get shaky at the noise, and every other combination of factors can give us a sense that the challenges are insurmountable.

But I think that the Seder is actually called Seder (order), because with a little preparation, order can be maintained almost to the end of the Seder.

I recall a friend of mine, a rebbe in a yeshiva, telling me some years ago that he and his colleagues can be wonderful at what they do, but the real litmus test of their teaching is at the Seder. If the kids are prepared, the rebbe or morah is great. If the kids don’t know what’s flying, the teachers are terrible, and why are we paying so much for tuition?!

While I certainly hear that view and feel his pain, I partially disagree with him for two reasons. The first is because the Seder is supposed to be a dialogue between parents and children. If the kids know everything (or certainly if they know more than the parents) before they get to the table, then the Mah Nishtana becomes a joke, a recitation that is meaningless – not only because they know the answers, but because they don’t really need their parents’ information. The whole point of the Mah Nishtana is for the child to ask a question hoping for the parent to shine a little light on the situation!

The second reason is that if each child is going to grandstand on his or her divrei Torah, others around the table might also lose patience with the proceedings.

And so I believe our challenge is two-fold. First is to find a meaningful balance between sharing planned and panned divrei Torah and being spontaneous. This means finding a way to keep those around the table engaged without their having to leave the table. Or, perhaps, with their leaving the table through some dramatic reenactment.

The second challenge we have is how to transmit a legacy in the precious few hours of the Seder. The Passover Seder is one of the few times throughout the year that full families or near-entire families gather together. Of course our Seder consists of all the mitzvoth of the evening, the telling of the story of the Exodus and the eating of matzah, marror and the 4 cups of wine. But wouldn’t it be fascinating if we could open a slightly different conversation about why we continue to do this?

There are incredible stories of sacrifice and dedication demonstrated by people, in recent history, who did what they could even under the most trying of circumstances, to observe Pesach properly. During the Holocaust some people went to great lengths to make matzahs when possible. A few years ago a document was released to the public, written in Bergen Belsen 1944, by Rabbi Yissachar-Bernard Davids, stating that before eating Chametz, which was absolutely necessary for survival, people should say

“Our father in heaven: It is known to you that our desire is to fulfill Your will and to celebrate the holiday of Pesach through the eating of matzah and the observance of the prohibition of Chametz. However this is what is causing our hearts distress for the slavery is preventing us and our souls are in peril. We are ready and willing to fulfill your commandment to ‘live with them, and not die with them’ and to be punctilious of your warning to ‘be very careful and guard your life very much.’ Therefore we pay that you should keep us alive and redeem us soon so we may observe your laws (properly) yet again, and fulfill Your will, and serve You with a complete heart.” 

As the tale goes, after making this declaration, he made the appropriate blessings (including Shehechiyanu) and passed bread around to those who were at the “seder” in that hell.

Who does this?

Would we have the strength to even issue such a prayer? Or would we just eat the bread, because we know we need to in order to survive?

If we can prompt questions from children, and if we can get them to listen to our tales, of what brought us to this table, of why we value Pesach, the Seder, Judaism, being part of this People, perhaps our Seder will become the most valuable conversation of the year.

And hopefully, one which no one will want to walk away from for any reason.

How to Talk About the Exodus Into the Night

Shabbat HaGadol 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

Pesach begins this Friday night, and with it comes the longest mitzvah we can fulfill, the telling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. In Maimonides’ count it is positive Mitzvah 157. In Sefer Hachinukh it is mitzvah 21, and it is fulfilled through reading the Haggadah or through a dialogue with another person, whether a child or anyone else.

Maimonides notes the verse of “When your child will ask,” which would indicate that the telling of the story might have to be triggered by a question. More likely, the verse of “and you shell tell your child on that day” is the source for the need to actually relate the story.

Baal Halakhot Gedolot (Baha”g) does not include the telling of the story in the list of mitzvoth, suggesting that the telling is included in the general mitzvah to remember the Exodus, which is daily throughout the year.

The story in the Haggadah of the five rabbis in Bnei Brak has their students coming to stop their discussion because it is time to say Shema. Were the principle of “One who is involved in a mitzvah is exempt from a different mitzvah” put into play, they wouldn’t have to say Shema! The Haggadah leaves open what they did, but the implication of the story is that they stopped in order to fulfill the mitzvah of Shema, which would indicates they were not in the middle of a mitzvah!

Rav Zylberstein was asked why there is no blessing recited on the fulfillment of telling over the story of the Exodus (the question opens the door to the obligation not being an actual mitzvah!).

He argues that a blessing is only recited on a very specific action, such as blowing shofar, sitting in the sukkah, shaking the lulav, lighting candles, eating a matzah, etc. But fulfilling telling the story is dependent on how the story-telling moves a person! At what point in the telling of the story do we get the feeling we’re supposed to have? We can’t. And so there isn’t a good time to make the blessing. The Beha’gists will argue, there isn’t an actual specific mitzvah anyway!

In his Mishneh Halachot (13:68) Rabbi Menashe Klein gives four reasons for why there is no blessing, all while maintaining that the telling of the story is actually a mitzvah.

It’s one of the only areas in a Jewish life when we say “V’khol hamarbeh, harei zeh meshubach” – the more you do, the more you are praised.

So which is it? A mitzvah, not a mitzvah, something we must spend much time doing out of a sense of responsibility, but not obligation? And in either case, how does one do that? How can we tell a story, in such detail, that we could even get to a point of doing it all night?

Aside from the exhaustion coming from the lateness of the hour, the 4 cups of wine make a serious contribution to the need to fall asleep! And even if I’m not exhausted, and even if someone else does stay up with me, I highly doubt that we could tell the story of the Exodus for several hours. We would most certainly put ourselves or each other to sleep!

This is why I think we are going about telling the story wrong. We tend to think that we must focus on the role God plays in the Exodus. But the promise to Abraham was that “Your children will be strangers in a strange land… where they will be enslaved and made to suffer (a period of) 400 years. And the nation which they serve will be judged by Me…”

How much can we talk about slavery? Slavery, day in and day out, is the same. The slave goes to work, works hard, is perhaps beaten, and drops down exhausted at the end of the day, only to repeat the following day. There's only so much you can repeat about the day in and day out without getting bored fast.

But suffering is something we can spend a lot of time discussing. We can get into the mind of the tormentor. We can get into the mind of the slave. We can discuss the depths of cruelty, the lengths to which evil can extend, the legitimacy that Egypt gave to its depraved methods of torture, both physical and emotional, and how they reveled in crushing the Israelite spirit on a regular basis.

This will also help us relate and identify with two significant portions of the Haggadah. First is the requirement to feel and identify with the concept of our own redemption, to feel as if we too are leaving Egypt. The second is the reminder that in every generation there are evil people or nations who would like to destroy us. In the 30s-40s, it was the Nazis. In the 50s-80s, under Communists in the Soviet Union, the aim was to destroy the Jewish heart and soul. Nowadays, fascistic Islamic regimes and terrorists made from the same ilk would like to see Israel and the Jewish people wiped off the face of the globe.

When we can identify with being the victims of evil we can appreciate so much better what freedom is. When we can feel the Exodus and the role God played in it, we will have done our part in telling over the story. We will have ingrained in the hearts and minds of the next generation who we are, and why we continue to tell this story.

It’s not about a mitzvah as much as it is about a sense of obligation that we owe to ourselves to remember our history. Our history determined who we are. And if we are to remain a distinct people, we must never forget.

Glory of God Can Humble Us All

Parshat Vayikra

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Rabbenu Bachya ben Asher begins his commentary on the book of Vayikra with an introduction, in which he includes a verse from Mishlei 22:4 “In the wake of humility comes fear of the Lord, riches, honor, and life.”

He explains how King Solomon, in writing this, was teaching us that through Anavah – humility – a number of wonderful qualities emerge. These are the reward and purpose that come to an individual Fear, wealth, honor and life. A humble person, he explains, is a shy and patient person who honors other people and speaks kindly of others. Such persons take insults that come their way, and they are silent. And through this, each person develops personal characteristic to learn to fear God, which is a combination of intellectual and emotional wisdom; and the person also achieves wealth. And no – it’s not a recipe for riches and fame. But Rabbenu Bachaye says the wealth is being happy with one’s portion, the very definition of relative wealth.

Skipping a few paragraphs, Rabbenu Bachaye gives us this gem – explaining the small alef that gets so much attention in the opening word of Vayikra – as noted, in many Midrashim, to be a reflection of the humility with which Moshe undertook his task of being the teacher for the Jewish people.

We know the Torah begins this book saying “Vayikra El Moshe” – and He called to Moshe. Shouldn’t the formulation follow how the Torah begins every introduction to God’s speech? Just like “Vaydaber Hashem el…” or “Vayomer Hashem el…,” shouldn’t it say “Vayikra Hashem el...?"

The answer is “No.”

The Book of Vayikra, of course, is its own book. But it is strongly connected to what immediately preceded it, namely the end of the book of Shmos.

The word “Vayikra” contains a small letter “Alef” at the end of it, to teach us something profound. It’s not God who is speaking to Moshe. It is the “Glory of God” that we saw at the end of the book of Shmos, filling the Mishkan, talking to Moshe. That Glory of God (“K’vod Hashem”) refers to something we saw a long time ago. A different small letter which is involved in creation – the letter “heh” in the word “B’hibaram” (Bereshit 2:4) – These are the annals of the heaven and earth ‘when they were created.’

Rabbenu Bachaye argues that the Glory of God that is calling Moshe at the beginning of our parsha in “Vayikra el Moshe” is the “heh” of “B’hibaram.” He goes on to say this is why the Alef is smaller in the opening word of Vayikra - to help us connect the dots through two messages we can take from Rabbenu Bachaye.

The first is to realize and recognize that fulfillment and meaning in life stems from being humble. Honor and Kavod come to those who earn it, not those who seek it. Being humble or practicing humility does not mean a person must hide or live under a rock. It does mean that a person goes about doing what one does because it’s right, and doesn’t seek the honors, or tell anyone of what they’ve done, to get external honor. This is not to suggest that a name can’t go on a building! It is to suggest that going around and telling everyone how special you are is not a humble practice.

The second lesson is about God’s role in the world – as Creator in the “B’hibaram” sense, and as the One who communicates His will to Moshe Rabbenu: Vayikra with a small Alef, connected to the small Heh reminds us that even the sacrificial order is part of God’s plan for His world. We don’t always understand His plan. But He is there. Sometimes we need a small Alef to remind us of a small Heh that is at the heart of the Creation story. That small heh comes immediately after Shabbos, which immediately follows the creation of mankind.

The overall concept of humility, as taught by Shlomo Hamelech in Mishlei and brought to our attention by Rabbenu Bachaye, reminds us that humility leads to Yiras Hashem (Fear of Heaven), wealth (in the sense of being content with one’s lot), Kavod and Chaim. Shabbos, tapping into what should unite us and give us the ultimate respect for one another, and simply adjusting how we present ourselves toward others should be informed by good practices so we all get more out of the human experience.

Giving For All the Right Reasons

Parshat Vayakhel-Eileh Fekudei

by Rabbi Avi Billet

At the very beginning of his instructions to the people about the construction of the Mishkan, Moshe says to the people regarding their Terumah (donations), “Take from yourselves Terumah to God, all those who are giving of heart should bring the Terumah of God, gold, silver and copper.” (35:5)

Two questions come to mind. First, why are they first told to “take” Terumah, and then told to “bring” Terumah? Second, what is the difference between “Terumah to Hashem” and “Terumah of Hashem?”

Kli Yakar (35:5) explains that how Terumah is collected and subsequently processed and utilized is very much informed by the thought process of the giver.

The one who does not give from his own will is clearly not thinking the way one should be thinking which is “I’m not giving what is mine, but I am giving what already belongs to God, for all the silver and gold is His (but is merely on loan to me).” Rather, he is mistaken in his thinking, thinking that he is solely responsible for his success.

This is why it says “Take from yourselves Terumah to God.” From those who think it’s actually theirs, you have to “take it for Hashem,” thus forcibly returning it to its rightful owner.

But those who give from the heart, those who know that everything they have is a gift from the Holy One Blessed is He, those donations of precious metals fit into the phraseology of “should bring the Terumah of God.” It is essentially brought by itself because it is returning on its own to where it belongs. This is why it is called the Terumah of God, because it already belongs to God.

In 36:3, when after the people actually begin to bring their donations, the verse says “And they brought to him more pledges in the morning in the morning.” Two more questions are raised. What is the need for the word “more” (od)? And why is the word ‘baboker’ (in the morning) repeated?

“Od” (more) is the additional sign seen in the people who brought and gave their donations with joy. As the Kli Yakar explains

1. They gave of their own initiative, before the Gabbai of Collections came to collect what they had already pledged to give. 
2. When they came in the morning, they came with a bright countenance.The morning is a time when people give with a smile. 

The phrase “in the morning” is repeated, therefore, because one time represents their smiling when giving, a proverbial sunshine that accompanies a smiling countenance, and the second “baboker” was a nod to those who were punctilious to be the first to come to give in the morning.

Each of us must answer the question. Am I the type of person from whom the contribution needs to be taken from me such as through a building fund assessment, or repeated billing?

Or am I the type of person who is the true giver from the heart, the one who gives or redeems my pledge before the Gabbai of Collections comes calling. The one who gives with a smiling countenance? Who says “My money is not really mine anyway.” The one who follows the path of “bringing” – because it belongs here. It is “The Terumah of God” because it already belongs to God. Anything I use for myself is His gift to me. But I am by nature a giver, returning these funds to a place that helps service my needs visavis my Creator – to my shul?

And how does one do this? Sometimes it’s hard to write out a check for a few hundred dollars. For $1000 or more. We all have our budgets, our operating expenses, etc.

Around 2010 I created a separate checking account for giving, and I siphon off 10% of all “money in” to that account. Then it’s not mine anymore. I can give it to the indigent, to the needy, to the organizations I wish to support, without batting an eye.

It’s not my money! I am merely its distributor. It is the Terumah of God.

This kind of siphoning and giving should be done “in the morning in the morning,” in other words, as soon as possible after the money comes in.

Whatever cause you support, a shul, a school, and organization, be the first to give, and give with a smile. We all only benefit from giving when we can, what we can afford, and giving often.