Pesach - The various names of this Yom Tov - Rabbi Asher Perkash

00:03 The Frierdiker Rebbe relates, in a sicha from Acharon Shel Pesach—or from Pesach—published in “Otzros Dalad,” a beautiful story he heard from his father about his grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that in the year [unclear], a large gathering of rabbis took place, led by the Rebbe Rashab, Rabbi Sholom Dovber. The gathering dealt with several matters concerning Jewish life and the strengthening of Judaism in Russia and the surrounding countries. The Rebbe Rashab had spent several months away from home, far from Lubavitch, in various places and other countries, and returned home shortly before Pesach. He relates that his father, the Rebbe Rashab, traveled together with him, his son, the Frierdiker Rebbe. On their way home they passed through towns, and when they reached Jewish towns, they noticed the preparations for Pesach. It was 10 Nissan. As they passed through the towns, they saw everything being brought outside: washed tables and benches stood outdoors, and the women of the households were busy cleaning and making everything fit for Pesach. The Rebbe Rashab was deeply moved and uplifted by all that was happening. And so, along the way, the Rebbe Rashab told his son, the Frierdiker Rebbe, a story he recalled about his own father.

01:46 He had heard this story from his father, and it took place around 5637. The Rebbe Maharash was out of the country at the time. He had traveled to Germany to attend to several matters, including decrees against Jews and medical concerns. On his way back, he traveled through several cities. He did not want to take the direct route, on the train that went straight to Russia. For reasons of his own, the Rebbe Maharash wanted the journey to be longer and to pass through a number of places. He traveled through Warsaw and Ukraine, stopping in several places. He related that one of the places he passed through was Berditchev. It was a few days before Pesach. When he arrived in Berditchev, he went to pray at the resting place of the holy tzaddik of Berditchev. As he passed by, he saw a great commotion: people were coming and going, and something was happening. He wanted to know what it was and asked, “What’s going on here?” They told him that this was the shtiebel of the Tolna chassidim, and that the Rebbe of Tolna was due to visit, perhaps for a week or perhaps for a day.

04:38 The visitor was to be Reb Dovid’l of Tolna, the Rebbe at that time; we are talking about around 5637. They said that the Rebbe of Tolna was coming and that they were preparing for his arrival. They were getting the shtiebel and the shul ready, and there was a great commotion. The Rebbe Maharash went inside and saw people sweeping and cleaning, working, washing and wiping, and lighting candles. The whole place was filled with excitement. When he went out into the street, he saw a group of older chassidim with white beards carrying a large barrel of water, followed by younger chassidim. The younger ones asked to help carry the water, but the older ones said, “No, we’re rushing to seize this opportunity ourselves.” He asked what this was about, and they told him that there was actually a well right outside the shul from which they could draw water. But one of the local householders, a chossid, had asked them to use water from his well. In exchange for that privilege, he had promised to provide the first meal held in honor of the holy tzaddik and pay for the entire meal, the whole event. That was why they were carrying the barrel of water. The Rebbe Maharash asked one of the older chassidim walking there, because he did not understand: Why

06:04 was the older chossid carrying it himself? Why not bring the younger chassidim in? Would it not be fitting for an older chossid to help educate and guide the younger chassidim too, so they could enter into this work more readily? The older chossid, a Tolna chossid, replied to the Rebbe Maharash: “I know the well-known story about the holy tzaddik of Berditchev, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. The story goes that once, during the sounding of the shofar, the holy tzaddik of Berditchev sounded the shofar. As you know, after the shofar blasts we say a special prayer, asking Hakadosh Boruch Hu that all the sounds of the blasts—represented by the acronym kashrak, the initials of tekiah, shevarim, teruah, tekiah, which according to Kabbalah form a Divine Name, among other things—ascend before His Throne of Glory to atone for all our sins. There is a set text for this prayer.” The Tolna chossid told the Rebbe Maharash that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once stood during the shofar blowing, sounded the shofar, and afterward said: “Master of the Universe, Levi Yitzchak son of Sarah Sasha sounded the shofar, and the sounds come from kashrak. Whether those blasts were good blasts or not, I do not know. But there is another acronym,

07:37 kashrak, referring to kashern, scrubbing, scouring, and scraping. That is what Jewish women do before Pesach: they prepare, work hard, and sweat to get their homes ready for Pesach. And that is certainly good. May their hard work in honor of Pesach, all these things—this kashrak, the initials of kashern, shoybn, raybn, and kratzen—ascend before His Throne of Glory and bring them a good year, inscription and sealing for good, and everything Jews need; may Jews have the very best.” The Rebbe Maharash said: “We want healthy angels. We want the angels born from the kashrak—from bringing things into the room, washing and wiping them down, making all the preparations, and carrying the water for the Rebbe—to be healthy too. Angels are born from all these things, including the kashrak done for the Rebbe. We want healthy angels here, so let the older chassidim attend to these things, while the younger ones watch and learn.” The Rebbe Maharash was deeply moved by everything he had seen. Later, when they returned to Lubavitch from that long journey, he told the story to his son, the Rebbe Rashab. He spoke with great emotion about the faith, the simple sincerity,

09:08 the faith in tzaddikim and the faith in sages that he had seen. He said that what he saw in Berditchev—the warmth, the self-sacrifice, and the faith in tzaddikim among the older chassidim there—was the holy innovation of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov planted faith in Jews and made it a living faith, so that Jews would have faith in tzaddikim and faith in sages: “The righteous person shall live by his faith.” As the expression quoted here puts it: “Do not read it ‘shall live,’ but ‘shall give life.’” Through connecting and devoting oneself to the tzaddik, the tzaddik gives life. What he saw there—how they worked and sweated to prepare for Pesach with such self-sacrifice, and how that chossid wanted to take the water from him—was all infused with a simple faith in tzaddikim that reminded him of the Baal Shem Tov’s innovation. But the Rebbe Maharash was left with the question he had asked: Why did the older chossid not devote himself to the younger one? To that, I received no answer. Here the Alter Rebbe introduced something new and imparted a teaching to the chassidim, one of the things Chassidus, the Alter Rebbe, and afterward the Tzemach Tzedek, awakened and emphasized. This is what our Rebbeim taught and trained us to do: faith in the Rebbe and faith in tzaddikim are not enough. There must also be

10:38 the giving of oneself, the devotion and self-sacrifice of an older chossid to educating a younger chossid. Sometimes an older chossid must even put himself aside to educate a younger chossid and give him a path in life. And this must be done with real self-sacrifice. That is the point of the story the Frierdiker Rebbe tells. When Pesach comes, the effort and work Jews put in are something great and wonderful. The Rebbe once returned to this point in a sicha and added that it teaches us something about Pesach. As explained in Chassidus, there is a difference between Pesach and Rosh Hashanah: the avodah of Rosh Hashanah is the work Jews do, in the mode of “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine,” from below upward. A Jew must do teshuvah; he refines himself, works on himself again and again through the teshuvah of the month of Elul. Then Tishrei and Rosh Hashanah arrive, and through his work of teshuvah he brings about a good and blessed year for himself. Pesach, by contrast, has aspects that are gifts from above. As it says in Shir Hashirim: “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” There is “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine”: first the Jew draws close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and then Hakadosh Boruch Hu draws close to the Jew. And there is “My Beloved is mine, and I am His,” from above downward. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, my Beloved, the essential Father,

12:10 He loves the Jews, and that is why He took us out of Egypt, even though we had not yet been redeemed. “These were idol worshippers, and those were idol worshippers,” and the Rebbe took us out of there as a gift. That is the theme of Pesach: “Draw me after You”; “the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, revealed Himself to them.” [unclear] to leave, and there were many other things as well, done by hand. But that is the theme of Pesach as it is. Both of them. And here we have the new insight in the teaching of the holy Baal Shem Tov: the koshering, the toil and the sweat, the scraping, scouring, scrubbing and koshering—all the work and sweat of Erev Pesach, removing the chametz and preparing for Pesach—are a form of toil connected with the holiday. That means Pesach has these qualities too. Pesach has the “revelation,” the gifts the Rebbe speaks about, Hashem’s kindness that we receive as a gift on Pesach, even though we had not yet been redeemed. But at the same time, we see the virtue of our own effort as well. Not only gifts; there is also the virtue of work and of toil. And all this comes through our own effort. This is also explained by the following question: Why, when Pesach arrives, do we have matzah, the mitzvah of eating matzah? Yet here the question is—

13:41 People ask another question about this, the question already raised in that first section [unclear]. The Haggadah says: “Why do we eat this matzah?” And what is the answer? “Because our ancestors’ dough did not have time to rise before the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, revealed Himself to them.” In other words, that is the reason given for matzah: they did not have enough time to prepare the dough. We remember the Exodus from Egypt: they left in haste, were driven out of Egypt, and their dough became matzos. That is the explanation for matzah. And everyone asks: What does the question “Why do we eat matzah?” mean? There is an explicit verse in the Chumash: “In the evening you shall eat matzos.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded this even before the Exodus. Even after eating the Pesach offering, before midnight, the Jewish people were still in Egypt, as we say: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.” If they were still in Egypt, before they left, and had already been told to prepare matzah to eat, how can the Haggadah explain matzah this way? The Haggadah says: No, “this matzah that we eat” is because they did not have enough time when they left. That happened in the morning, after midnight, only later, as they were leaving and “their dough did not have time to rise.” This is a well-known question that everyone asks, and there are a number of explanations for it. I was certainly—

15:10 I was with the Rebbe in 5749, on Erev Pesach. It was the night of bedikas chametz. There was a small crowd in the shul. We did not know when the Rebbe would daven Maariv, and there was no large crowd there. We went into the shul, and the Rebbe also came for Maariv. After Maariv, the Rebbe turned toward the crowd and asked for the lectern. When the Rebbe stood by the lectern, he might deliver a sicha, perhaps say a few words to the crowd. But it was the night of bedikas chametz, and no one imagined there would be anything else. People were in a hurry to search for chametz; whoever could, of course, stayed to hear the Rebbe speak. Word spread outside, and as you know, a few more people arrived. The Rebbe turned and stood by the bimah, and at that moment asked them to sing the niggun. When the Rebbe says to sing the niggun, what does that mean? That a maamar Chassidus is about to be delivered. There was tremendous excitement, because for about four years people had no longer been accustomed to hearing a maamar Chassidus. With our Rebbeim, and especially with the Rebbe,

16:38 there were sichos, farbrengens and holy talks. But a maamar is something special. When the Rebbe delivers a maamar, it is a special moment. A maamar is something awe-inspiring and wondrous, a revelation of G-dliness. The Rebbe would close his eyes—that was what people were accustomed to seeing—and the atmosphere was very solemn. Especially when the niggun was sung, the crowd would rise; even those who had been sitting would stand. It was a time when you could feel yourself uplifted. You felt that this was something higher, a loftier revelation. The niggun itself—we are not talking about a niggun before a sicha, when the Rebbe speaks to the crowd—was a loftier niggun, a special one. That was the atmosphere of a maamar. For three or four years, people had no longer been accustomed to it; they hardly knew it anymore, because the Rebbe was no longer delivering maamarim, only sichos. And suddenly there was a revelation, a great revelation, something new. Suddenly the Rebbe said to sing the niggun. There was great excitement in the crowd. Then came the maamar. Before it, they sang the customary niggun that chassidim would sing, the niggun from Rostov, the Rebbe Rashab’s niggun, which they would sing before a maamar. And—

17:57 The Rebbe began the maamar: “Why do we eat this matzah?” It was a short maamar, about ten minutes long. Its content drew on the central points of maamarim by the earlier Rebbeim, from the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbeim after him. The maamar explained what we mean when we say, “Why do we eat this matzah? Because our ancestors’ dough did not have time to rise,” through to “the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, revealed Himself to them.” The central explanation was that there are two levels of matzah: matzah from before midnight and matzah from after midnight. The matzah from before midnight preceded the revelation described as “He revealed Himself to them.” Although it says, “For they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay,” that was before the revelation of the Shechinah, before the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, revealed Himself in His own glory. Chassidus describes a number of levels in the sefiros and the higher worlds that were revealed that night. But what came before that revelation—the matzah of before midnight—is a lower level of matzah. In other words, it is a level of service that had not yet reached the great revelation from Above. After midnight, however, something new was added: the revelation of “the King of kings revealed Himself to them,” and that matzah is a much higher level.

19:15 Now is not the time to go into the details, but what is the difference between this matzah and that one, and how is it explained in our service of Hashem? Chassidus discusses at length how these are two levels of service. The matzah from before midnight has to be guarded. “You shall guard the matzos”—matzah that must be kept from becoming chametz. This is the matzah with which one must be careful. So too in our service: the service of iskafya is one in which the yetzer hara is present, and one must be careful and “turn away from evil.” There must be a full struggle against evil, because a person is still at war with the yetzer hara and must constantly take care that the dough does not rise. Chametz represents pride and self-importance. But when there is the revelation of “the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, revealed Himself to them,” which belongs to after midnight, that is a greater revelation, like what came later at Matan Torah. And this matzah does not need to be guarded: “They could not delay.” It was never chametz to begin with; “it could not rise,” because there was a revelation of G-dliness. The revelation itself ensured that no sense of self-importance, pride or chametz would develop from it. This is the service Chassidus calls ishapcha, in which evil is transformed entirely into good.

20:27 And the Rebbe says that before Matan Torah there were two levels. The matzah before Matan Torah was just that—before Matan Torah; the Jews were not yet ready, and there had to be an order to things. But after Matan Torah, with its revelation—when Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Torah to the Jews and said, “I am Hashem your G-d,” when “Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai,” when there was a revelation of Hashem’s Essence, a revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu here below, and He gave the Jews Torah and mitzvos—these are no longer two separate things. Our own effort is joined with the revelation from Above of “He revealed Himself to them.” After all, we also eat matzos before midnight, the matzos we eat to fulfill the mitzvah, specifically before midnight. But because this is after Matan Torah, the revelation of “I am Hashem your G-d” at Matan Torah is drawn into the mitzvah. So that one matzah has every virtue: the virtues of the matzah before midnight and of the matzah after midnight, the virtue of our own effort and the virtue of a revelation given as a gift from Above. All these things come together in that one matzah. And that is exactly the point: even as the night of Pesach is a time when there is an actual revelation of the Shechinah. And it is brought in the name of the Arizal,

21:54 that the Haggadah is recited with great joy, because then the primary union, the primary oneness, takes place here below. This is the point: the night of Pesach is a time when there is an actual revelation of G-dliness, and that is why we recite the Haggadah with joy. As he says in the name of the Arizal, there is no greater joy than the joy of Pesach night, because this is joy that comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu down here, into the deepest darkness. This is “He revealed Himself to them.” But alongside this is the work the Jewish people do: they toil and prepare for Pesach, with all the work involved, sweeping and scouring and scrubbing and scraping. The effort, toil and sweat of the Jewish people are brought into it. That is the connection: both the work done through one’s own efforts and the gifts from above. This is the true completeness of Pesach. In this light, we can understand what is cited in the name of the holy Rebbe of Berditchev specifically regarding Pesach. The question is well known: Why do we call the holiday “Pesach”? In the Torah it is called “the Festival of Matzos,” yet we call it “the Festival of Pesach.” What is the reason? The Berditchever asks: Why does the Torah call it “the Festival of Matzos,” while Jewish people call it “the Festival of Pesach”? He says the very...

23:24 The Gemara says, “What is written in the tefillin of the Master of the world?” The Gemara says that just as we put on tefillin here below, so too Hakadosh Boruch Hu puts on tefillin. “You have declared Hashem to be yours today, and Hashem has declared you to be His today”—“You have made Me one distinct entity in the world, and I will make you one distinct entity in the world.” Jewish people proclaim Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s oneness, praising Him with “Hashem is one”: “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is one.” And Hakadosh Boruch Hu praises the Jewish people. That is what the Gemara means when it says that just as we put on tefillin, so too Hakadosh Boruch Hu puts on tefillin. Our tefillin praise the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; they say, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is one”—that is written in our tefillin. In the tefillin of Hakadosh Boruch Hu it says, “And who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth?” Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes pride in the virtues of the Jewish people. “What is written in the tefillin of the Master of the world?”—“And who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth?” In the tefillin of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Jewish people are called “one nation.” For even when a Jew is “on earth”—as the Alter Rebbe explains, what does “one nation on earth” mean? He is on earth, in the physical world, in this world, and nevertheless he is “one nation.” He brings oneness into the world and unites with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He lives with “Hashem is one”; he unites with Hakadosh Boruch Hu even on earth. This is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s pride in Israel—“His pride rests upon Israel”—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes pride in the Jewish people. And as the Gemara says, the Berditchever explains, this is also the point of

25:02 Pesach. Pesach is the festival of kindness, of love. It is the festival when Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s love for the Jewish people and the Jewish people’s love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu are awakened. That is why Shir Hashirim is recited on Pesach, because then love is awakened, the [unclear]. This is the point of the name the Jewish people give it. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes to name Pesach, He calls it “the Festival of Matzos.” This is the festival when the Jewish people fulfilled the mitzvos out of love. But the Jewish people praise Hakadosh Boruch Hu: when Pesach comes, they call it “the Festival of Pesach.” What happened on Pesach? Hakadosh Boruch Hu skipped ahead of the appointed time, passed over the homes of the Children of Israel, and performed all the miracles and wonders through which He showed His love for the Jewish people. So this is the point: we name the festival for the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, for His miracles, for His passing over. Hakadosh Boruch Hu names it for the Jewish people, for the work they do in fulfilling the mitzvos. And in both names there is [unclear] of these two aspects. When Pesach comes, it has [unclear] both from what a Jew fulfills and does through his own work, and in the merit of this, Hakadosh Boruch Hu draws down and gives us gifts from above. The prayers of Pesach draw down all the many blessings and abundant gifts for the entire year. When we delve into the meaning of the festival’s name, which is the Berditchever’s explanation, there is also

27:05 another explanation from the Rebbe, who interprets the names in a different way. It is a wonderful explanation that relates to the service of Hashem of every one of us. When we look at the details, there are three names. There is “the Festival of Matzos,” as written in the Chumash. But in the siddur, in the prayers for every Yom Tov, we say “the Season of Our Freedom.” And there is also “the Festival of Pesach.” This is the order in which the names appeared: in the Written Torah—“the Festival of Matzos”; among the Men of the Great Assembly, who established the text of the prayers—“the Season of Our Freedom”; and among the rabbis, the sages who came afterward, in the Oral Torah, who called the tractate “Pesachim” and the Gemara “Pesachim”—they called the festival “Pesach.” So in the order of the generations and the names, “the Festival of Matzos” is the first name, “the Season of Our Freedom” is the second, and the third name is “the Festival of Pesach.” These are the three names. These three names have [unclear] in the service of Hashem. The Rebbe also says [unclear]; our Sages [unclear] the points [unclear]. Pesach, the Yom Tov of Pesach, is a festival on which the Jewish people are born anew. And every single year, Pesach is a time of birth. This is what is written in Yechezkel, in chapter 16, an entire chapter in which the prophet Yechezkel describes Pesach as a birth. The Jewish people were born; some of the verses speak

28:44 about the Geulah, yes: “I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood.” This was a birth; the Jewish people were born as a new nation. “A nation from within a nation”—there was gestation and there was birth. A new reality was created, a new nation of Torah. The Jewish people became a nation of Torah. The Jewish people became a nation that possesses the Torah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This was an immense, immense elevation for the Jewish people—to become a nation of Torah. And to become a new reality, a reality of Torah, work is required. How so? A person who was previously in a certain state and wants to change it, to become a new reality—the process has three stages. The first stage is matzah, the second is “our freedom,” and the third is Pesach. Let us see what this means. You can see it in a child’s education, in the way a teacher educates a student. In education, when you want to teach a student and the teacher helps him stand on his own feet, what is the order? It follows the familiar expression: “The left hand pushes away, and the right hand draws close.” Yes, that is the order of teaching. A child likes to play, a child likes to give instructions and do things like that, but he does not like to study. How do you bring him to study? There are many lessons about this, all kinds of approaches, as the Rambam writes,

30:31 and as the sefarim say, about studying for ulterior motives—yes, little treats and sweet things. That is what surrounds the learning. But when it comes to the learning itself, and the teacher is there with the student, the Rebbe with the students, the melamed with the student, and he wants the student to become a new person, to begin understanding something, to begin learning—especially when it comes to learning Torah, which is the loftiest study, holy study, the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—there are three stages here too. The first stage must be bittul, kabbolas ol. If you want to learn, the first thing is that you have to set yourself aside before the teacher. If you come with your own ideas and your own cleverness, and instead of listening to what the melamed tells you, you start asking challenging questions and saying things of your own, you will not be able to learn. [unclear], there has to be bittul. Through bittul, you can receive. This is the first attitude a student needs to have. Yes, and this is the idea of “the left hand pushes away.” “The left hand pushes away” does not mean that you have to shout at him. It means a state of [unclear]—there needs to be guidance; the student needs to have this kind of attitude, to stand in reverence and awe and want to receive the teacher’s words. The second stage: you cannot remain in a state of bittul; after all, you also have to understand. So he is told: You need to use your head. Think, ask questions, ask questions,

31:56 He wants to understand, yes, to study it in depth. And that is actually the opposite movement. He has to start using his mind and understanding. But when he comes to understand it, he becomes a free person. The first movement is kabbolas ol, self-nullification. And self-nullification means: I step outside myself. [unclear] But when it comes to understanding, it is the opposite: this is something I have to bring inside myself. It has to settle within me and make sense to me. I can understand the Gemara, understand the maamar, understand Tosafos, understand what I am learning. It has to become something connected to my own intellect. Then comes the third stage. After all, we do not want everything to remain at the student’s level. We want the student to rise to higher levels—to reach the true depth of Torah, the depth of its wisdom, which is beyond his understanding. So the third stage comes, and that is the leap. He has to be ready to make a jump, not to remain within his immature understanding, but to become truly capable of grasping loftier ideas, deeper ideas. These are the three stages. In serving Hashem, there are these three aspects of Pesach. When the Jewish people became Hashem’s people, the first thing they needed, immediately after leaving Egypt, was kabbolas ol, accepting the yoke of Heaven. Self-nullification. The Jewish people gave themselves over to Hashem—a servant, a simple servant, giving himself over to his master. What expresses this? Matzah. One of the reasons we eat matzah on Pesach is that—

33:26 Matzah signifies self-nullification. [unclear] Self-nullification: the Jewish people nullified themselves, gave themselves over, and offered themselves as a servant to his master. That was the matzah. That is why the first name of the Yom Tov is the Festival of Matzos, the Yom Tov of self-nullification. But then comes the second stage: freedom. Freedom is when I feel that this is mine. I understand it; it settles within me. It is something alive, something that fits with my own sense of things and with my intellect. That is freedom. When it comes to Torah, this is the second stage needed in serving Hashem. And that is Pesach, the Season of Our Freedom. We serve Hashem not only as servants, out of kabbolas ol. We also serve Hashem because a person finds it satisfying, because he understands. With soul and soul, [unclear], that is true freedom. But afterward, one cannot remain in that state. There has to be “and He passed over”—He leaped. We have to become one with the Torah, which is, after all, in the category of fragrance, the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, a hidden treasure found at the loftiest levels. And to be able to receive those levels of Torah, we truly have to be able to leap beyond our own limits and constraints. That is the leap, and then we receive the Torah. These are the three names of the Yom Tov, and this is indeed the work—

34:50 that the Jewish people must do when Pesach comes and they are born anew. Every year is a new birth, a new reality, a new beginning. Every Jew must work within himself during these days so that we have the Festival of Matzos, the Season of Our Freedom, and Pesach. And by serving Hashem in this way, we surely become fitting vessels to receive all the blessings and all the bounty that Hashem gives us on this Yom Tov. In the familiar words of the Gemara in tractate Rosh Hashanah: “In Nissan they were redeemed, and in Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.” May it be Hashem’s will that this Pesach bring the complete Geulah. May everyone have a kosher and joyous Pesach, and may what is written in the Haggadah truly come to pass: “And there we will eat of the sacrifices and the Pesach offerings. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who redeemed Israel.” May it indeed be so, amen, may it be His will, this year.