How to Maintain Sanity, Marital Harmony and Children's Education While Preparing for Pesach - Rabbi Shraga Noson Dahan shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Good evening. Today we’re going to talk about something very, very fundamental. Pesach is a festival of freedom, and as we approach Pesach in these crazy days, freedom is the last thing we feel. Where has our freedom gone? If you ask someone what freedom means to them, they’ll say, “Feeling good, fulfilling myself, doing what I want.” And suddenly, as we approach the festival of freedom, we have to work so hard. And it’s not just the work. The Pesach offering was brought “according to their families, according to their fathers’ houses.” The Pesach offering was slaughtered in family groups. It’s a family festival. What kind of family festival? The children are climbing all over each other; one is pulling another’s hair, someone else is taking his things, and everyone is shouting at everyone else. Pesach is a festival that brings households together—families together, “according to their families, according to their fathers’ houses.” The family is at the center. So much so that there is a directive from the Rebbe—the Rebbe of Lubavitch—not to leave home for Pesach, unless it’s a yeshiva student in New York. They would hold Seders there, and even then they would create a family atmosphere. But Pesach is a family festival, a festival when we come together and unite as much as possible. And we look at the family we have—and that family is going crazy in the run-up to Pesach. There’s no calm. There isn’t even time for a husband and wife to settle a few things between themselves before Seder night. There’s no time, no capacity, no attention to spare. Maybe Pesach will help; maybe Pesach itself will give us a little calm. But then, on Seder night, there’s so much, so much work: cooking and serving

02:07 Speaker 2 and clearing things away and coming back, while one child pulls at something and another knocks over the bottle of wine. There’s so much to organize and arrange. And in the end, on that night of watching, sometimes the wife reaches a point where she simply falls apart. We’re just looking for an island of sanity on this special night. We’ve worked so hard for it. How can we take this powerful night and find the strength within it? How do we avoid getting lost amid all the preparations, all the organizing, all that work? How do we avoid reaching the point where we say, “What is this service to you?”—like the one who excluded himself from the community and said, “What kind of service is this? It’s terribly hard work. Where is Pesach in all this?” So today we’ll talk about Pesach as a true festival of freedom for the family. The ideal Pesach. How do we take Pesach and turn it into a powerful festival for the family and for the couple? There’s Chol Hamoed, there’s Shabbos. How can we give them a special energy and strength? That’s the subject of the class. A long title, but let’s begin. First of all, the essence of Pesach is to speak. To speak. Sometimes we make all our preparations for Pesach, reach Seder night, and the only thing we want is for the children not to disturb us. “Shh, be quiet, don’t interrupt.” But the child wants to speak. Pesach is peh sach—the mouth speaks. That’s the whole essence of the festival. If we miss that essence, the children sitting around the table will feel they’re not part of it. But we invited the uncles and aunts! Aunt Clara is here! Yes, but the children are at the center. That’s Seder night. Everything we do is not so we can tell the children, “Don’t interrupt,” but so we can tell them, “We’ve prepared an event for you that will never be forgotten, that will not

04:15 Speaker 2 be forgotten for generations. ‘When your child asks you tomorrow, saying…’ You have to make sure you tell the story. To whom? To your child and your grandchild. You have to tell this story for generations. And what we’re doing now, in these hectic days, is producing the biggest event there is for our children, for their sake. We’re doing it all so they grow up with a sweet taste of Pesach, with good memories of Pesach. Some people buy them gifts, and halacha says to buy them nuts. And what about the wife? She, too, should come away with a sweet taste of Pesach. She, too, should feel, “Wow, Pesach is almost here. How exciting!” So Chazal, in the laws of Yom Tov—which apply to Pesach, of course—gave a few tips as well. Very practical tips. Maybe they’re enough, maybe not; we’ll talk about them. One, for example, is buying jewelry for one’s wife to make her happy.

05:26 Speaker 3 Jewelry specifically?

05:27 Speaker 2 It says to buy jewelry or clothes. What? Is a woman so easily bought off that one piece of jewelry will repay her for all the hard work she’s done until now, for all her patience? Will one piece of jewelry and one item of clothing bring her happily into the festival? Is that all she cares about? No. The jewelry, the clothing, and the gifts for the children are an investment that shows how we see Seder night. Seder night should be, as we said, a grand production built around a story we tell every year—but it has to be interesting. It’s the same thing every year. Yet the more we tell it with enthusiasm, at an unhurried pace, and with devotion, and the more genuine we are, the more the story will pass from generation to generation. Imagine coming to tell the story on Seder night and just going, “Nu, nu, nu, nu, nu.” Where’s the inner meaning? For twenty years.

06:35 Speaker 3 First of all, there seems to be a problem connecting.

06:37 Speaker 2 There’s a problem connecting. Look, right now I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I already have nine on… I have nine already. Just a second. Sorry, sorry. So this whole occasion is about seeing how we shape Seder night, how we pass it on from generation to generation. For twenty years we didn’t hold a Seder at home. We held Seders on army bases. You might say, “Aha, there’s the trick! No hard work, no difficult cooking.”

07:16 Speaker 3 The hardest.

07:17 Speaker 2 We have this particular quirk: since we’re Chabad chassidim, we prepared all the food ourselves. But my quirk goes even further. Not only did my wife have to prepare and clean the house for Pesach, I also had to prepare kitchens and clean army bases for Pesach. Not a home with six children, eight children, eleven, seventeen, twenty—but bases with a thousand, two thousand, three thousand soldiers. Let’s see you prepare a kitchen for 3,500 diners. How do you organize a Seder for three hundred to six hundred people? How do you arrive at Seder night? With your tongue hanging out. How much effort it takes! My wife truly deserves so much credit. Over the years we found a balance: she was on the front lines and I was in the rear. I was in the army’s rear of the front line, and my wife was on the front line at home. And it was terribly hard, because we had to coordinate everything: when I’d come with the car to pick up the groceries and bring them home, when—everything was scheduled, and there was almost no—It was work, terribly hard work. But never, never did we feel that Pesach was a burden. Pesach was always a special experience, a special experience. Seder night is a night you have to invest in. I remember that in the early years I was at a very, very distant unit, and that year there were 450 soldiers at the Seder. I led the Seder on my own that year, and I didn’t know what to do to make it interesting. In our home, everyone would read a passage from the Haggadah. There were no skits. Some communities have skits at the Seder to act out the story. In our home we didn’t act it out. In our home we read: each person read a passage and shared an explanation he had read, an explanation he had heard in yeshiva, that he had learned in Talmud

09:26 Speaker 2 Torah that he learned at school. And the Seder night was very, very long. We would always eat the afikoman at exactly midnight, down to the second, and the Seder night was always meaningful. The songs were very, very meaningful to us at the Seder, and the atmosphere was wonderful. But I said to myself: What do I do with soldiers who don’t all connect with the Torah insights we heard somewhere? I didn’t know any other kind of Seder. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do at a Seder for 450 soldiers from different communities, sometimes even different religions, and certainly different genders and different parts of the country. How do we make the Seder meaningful? We had finished our training courses two days earlier. The next day, the whole base went home; only the soldiers on duty stayed. I was left alone. The soldiers were in training, and I had two days to think about what I would do at the Seder the next night. So I suddenly started putting in the work: gathering things, cutting things out, writing, preparing, reading. And I said—I brought things—but I said, “These are soldiers, not children.” Still, I thought, “I don’t know; usually this works.” I bought candies and sweets, and then I discovered the method. There are a few key things about the Seder. First of all, don’t be embarrassed to treat it as a real production. Prepare your home for the Seder as you would for a production. I, for example, would stand on a stage, even if I had only twenty or thirty soldiers. Suddenly people paid attention. Suddenly you could speak to them. But the most important thing is peh sach—the mouth that speaks. And why do we need a mouth that speaks? I’ll tell you something from Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau about “And you shall tell your son.” The special point here is speaking. It says in the Mechilta, and we say it in the Haggadah: “The Torah spoke concerning four sons.” “Against” four sons? Is the Torah against them? Why against? What’s wrong

11:40 Speaker 2 with them? Can you control it? Can you decide who your children will be and how they’ll grow up? In raising them, we try very hard to give them what we can. Afterward, the children take everything they acquired at home with them. A child doesn’t throw away what he received at home. He takes it all, the good and the less good, and with it he creates an environment for himself. The child takes those things with him and builds a reality of his own. So if a child has, in some way, chosen to behave differently from how I raised him or wanted to raise him, why would the Torah be against him? He didn’t do anything deliberately. His circumstances brought him to it. His understanding brought him to it. So what does it mean that “the Torah spoke concerning four sons”? Perhaps the Torah should speak in favor of something? Show us the way. The answer is yes: the Torah shows us the way. It isn’t against the sons; it addresses this phenomenon of four sons. Let me tell you about it. The first generation was the generation of old, that elderly man who got up very, very early in the morning to milk his cow. There was no electricity; they drew water from the well. There was one cow outside. He would go out and milk it—of course, after saying the morning blessings with enthusiasm and feeling, because that was what he had. As he milked the cow, he would sing songs of supplication and thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu for the great privilege he had been given: a small plot of land and a cow that gave him milk every day. And he was happy. He didn’t know how to study all that much, but he certainly had simple faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That was the grandfather, and he passed that faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu on to his children. Simple faith, but

13:48 Speaker 2 he wanted his children to be learned, unlike him. He wanted them to study. So he brought them a teacher, a melamed, a rebbe, and had them taught Torah. Their learning was serious and substantial, and their father, from that earlier generation, told the melamed: “Don’t let up on them. Let them study and learn. Don’t let them lift their heads from their studies. They have two options: come work in the cowshed and the fields, or study Torah. I’m paying for their studies, so let them study.” And the teacher, the rebbe, the melamed, was there, watching over them. They wouldn’t let a single minute of Torah learning go to waste. The child studies Torah, studies Torah because that’s what he’s supposed to do, and grows up. When he grows up, he knows so much. He knows it all. He’s an enormous Torah scholar, but he decides to raise his own children with an understanding of, and openness to, the wider world. Then he marries someone like himself, a good match, and together they send their child to a good Talmud Torah, with a great deal of love. But they also want to teach him worldly knowledge. So they send him to a non-Jewish school, because that was what was available abroad at the time, so he could study those great fields of knowledge too. And that child grows up. He has a love of Hashem, knowledge of Hashem, and secular knowledge as well. He becomes a wise man, exceptionally wise. And because he’s wise, he can’t marry some poor thing who knows only Torah and spends all day at home cooking, doing laundry, and hanging it out to dry. He wants to marry a serious woman with an open mind, at least as open as his. Someone who understands the world, someone who uses her head. He marries her, and together they build a wonderful family. They decide to build that family in a very particular way. Torah can be studied at home; there are books. His father can

15:55 Speaker 2 teach him Torah, because his father is a Torah scholar. His father also knows secular subjects and can help him with those. But his father knows that secular studies are very difficult, because there are habits you have to acquire. There’s no choice: he’ll send him to a school that teaches secular subjects and Torah. He’ll go to Sunday school, a Sunday Talmud Torah, where they’ll teach him the basics of Torah. When the child grows up, he’ll choose whether he wants only secular education or Torah as well. And so the child grows and grows, but not in the right places. He loses his bearings, and when he gets to university, he meets a young woman like himself, whose father and grandfather are Jewish, but it’s all a bit too much for them. They establish a different kind of home. In that home, they don’t keep all the Torah and mitzvos; they keep only what they can, what works for them. Of course they have a Seder, but after the Seder they go on vacation and continue that special experience of self-expression. Their children marry people like themselves. A Seder—something to do with matzah, no more than that. They come to the Seder because they don’t remember what to do. They go to the grandfather, to their father—but their child is really coming to his grandfather. They arrive, and the little boy, who has grown up in a home without any of this, opens Grandpa’s door and sees: “Wow, what a beautiful table setting! What beautiful dishes!” Not disposable ones. The halachah says to bring out the finest, most splendid dishes for the Seder. We are free people, not people living in holes. We aren’t looking for all sorts of ways to make ourselves look free. We need to conduct ourselves royally. The most beautiful things go on the table, with the most pleasant, wonderful aromas. The child walks in. “Wow, what a beautiful table!” And then the father—sorry, the grandfather

18:15 Speaker 2 He goes out to Maariv and says to his son, “Do you want to come?” “No, thanks. I’m reading the paper. I’ll see you when you get back. We only came for the Seder.” The little boy, the grandson, says to his grandfather, “Grandpa, can I come?” “Of course. Come with me.” So he goes with Grandpa. He arrives at the shul, and when he comes back, there’s such a special atmosphere. But he doesn’t know why. So as he opens the door, he asks one question. He says, “Grandpa, what’s this? What is it? I don’t know what it is.” The Rebbe says: There is another generation. The next generation doesn’t even know that it needs to ask anything. It doesn’t even know it needs to ask. We’re not talking about the son who doesn’t know how to ask, but about a generation that doesn’t know it needs to ask. That’s the fifth son, and that fifth son is represented by the empty chair—people who don’t even know that tonight is the Seder, because the Torah speaks of four sons. Do you know how to keep from reaching that point? “The Torah speaks of four sons.” We are fighting this process, this evolution of disconnection from Torah and mitzvos, from tradition, from our heritage. Do you know how to keep from getting there? “The Torah speaks of four sons.” They’re found in every family: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who doesn’t know how to ask. It’s not that because one of them behaves a certain way, that’s what will happen to everyone. The Torah speaks to all of them. You want there to be continuity? Pesach, Pesach: “And you shall tell your son on that day, saying.” Pesach. Open your mouth; help him open his mouth. Get him talking. Let the children talk, ask questions, get on your nerves, interrupt. It’s for them. If we listen to the children, the children will pass the message on to the generations to come. And about this the Torah says: Don’t

20:26 Speaker 2 give up on anyone. So what if you have a wise child at home? One who doesn’t need to be taught anything because he knows it all. That’s a mistake. Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t fall into that trap. Sit with him and teach him. Sit and answer him. Sit and—and debate with him. And if you have one who simply takes things as they are, challenge him. Get him to ask questions. That’s your job. That’s your job. That’s our job as parents, as educators. That’s our job: to challenge them. Not to leave anyone where they are. You’re wise? Let’s see you understand the Rashba’s question. You’re simple? Well, let’s get you asking questions. You can do it. The one who doesn’t know how to ask—well, he simply doesn’t know. So what? Come, talk to him, get him to ask questions. Make him wonder. Let him have so many questions that eventually he’ll have no choice but to ask. And if, G-d forbid, you think you have a wicked son, you have a problem. You’re blind. You see only what he has done with his qualities, but you don’t see what his qualities are. Do you understand the difference between seeing what he has done with his qualities and seeing the qualities themselves? He has qualities; he could do so much with them. We’ve told the story before of Reish Lakish, who was a great robber. When Rabbi Yochanan looks at him, he doesn’t see—Rabbi Yochanan looks at him and doesn’t see a robber before him. He sees a person with abilities who, because he hadn’t had proper guidance, used them to become a robber. So he looks at him and says, “Wow, your strength belongs to Torah.” If you direct your strengths toward Torah, our world will be transformed.

22:29 Speaker 2 Do you understand? Do you see the point? How should we look at people? Not at what a person has done, but at their abilities. People who see abilities are people who succeed. They’re leaders; they’re the ones who change the world, who change the world. When Rabbi Akiva’s wife looks at Rabbi Akiva, she wants a Torah scholar. She doesn’t assess him by what he knows. She looks at his qualities, at what he has within him, at what he could become. And Rabbi Akiva goes away and returns after twenty-four years with twenty-four thousand students. Rabbi Akiva. Once he understood that someone believed in his ability to direct his strengths, he was willing to study Torah—even a six-year-old child would go and study—because now he had to realize that potential. I have a student I gave a task to. I told him, “I know you’ll be—you’re the right person for this task.” Suddenly he becomes a leader, because someone told him, “You can do this.” Wow, how did he notice I have these abilities? I’ll show him how I can use them for what he needs. Suddenly I see a leader. Where was he until now? It happens quietly like that. Yes, because that’s leadership. That’s leadership. That’s our job. And on Seder night we want leadership. We want to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, out of our limitations. Egypt is an island of limitations. It’s a place where we’re all very, very restricted. Do this, move here, move there, come at three, leave at eight. Egypt. Limitations. Boundaries everywhere, and you’re not expressing your abilities at all. We want to leave Egypt. What does it mean to leave Egypt? It means to leave our limitations. And as we talk now about leaving Egypt within the family, I want to take a moment to pinpoint

24:41 Speaker 2 a few things about leaving Egypt. First, I have children here, and they’re on top of me all day. How do I manage? How do I handle them? Empower them. The more you empower them, the easier it will be for you. The more you restrict them and put them under a strict regimen, the harder it will be. “Moshe, I’m counting on you. What do you—you know how to do this? What do you like doing? Then you do this and this and this.” Wow. He has responsibility. “How long do you think it will take you?” He has tasks to complete. He’s been given an important job, even if he doesn’t do it and we have to finish it ourselves. But right now he has a job. He knows what he’s supposed to do, so he’s occupied. He knows something is expected of him. Just knowing that something is expected of you is empowering. You have no idea how much. Maybe you do. Just being counted on—even if we sometimes disappoint people and don’t do what they expect of us. But the very fact that they expected something—wow. It puts us in a very special place. Tremendous strength, very, very great strength, because we want to fulfill our potential. Seder night is a night when we fulfill our potential, and I’ll ask you a question: If Seder night is a night of fulfilling our potential, of leaving our limitations, of leaving Egypt, then why is this night called Seder night? Why? A seder—an order—restricts you. Everything is very, very prescribed: the amount of matzah, the amount of wine, how you eat and drink. Ah, the order. If you drink the four cups all at once, you haven’t fulfilled your obligation. The order matters; when you do each thing matters. What you say matters. “Whoever has not said ‘Pesach, matzah, and maror’ has not fulfilled his obligation.” The time matters. Eat at the proper time, not afterward. The amount matters. Right? One kezayis, two kezaysim, three kezaysim.

27:02 Speaker 2 To eat within four and a half minutes. The time it takes to eat a pras. What?

27:08 Speaker 4 I’m saying, the surroundings too.

27:09 Speaker 2 Reclining. Someone who did not eat while reclining has not fulfilled his obligation, and it’s a Torah commandment. So many restrictions. Eat the afikoman before midnight; don’t eat anything afterward. We’re restricted from the beginning of the whole procedure to the end. And with all that, I want to tell you: we left Egypt. What kind of Egypt is that? Here we have more restrictions than at any other time of year. Maybe I don’t know what it means to leave Egypt. Maybe, to my mind, leaving Egypt means not taking anyone else into account. It means making no room for anyone else. It means disregarding everyone around me and reaching my goal. Maybe that’s what leaving Egypt looks like to me, and then I’m disappointed. Because suddenly, when they say to me, “Come, let’s show you what it means to leave Egypt”—when Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells you to leave Egypt—it doesn’t look like that. It doesn’t look like a total throwing off of restraints. It looks like something completely different. If I can understand what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants from me, and what true freedom from Hakadosh Boruch Hu means, maybe I can bring that freedom into my home. Maybe I can bring that freedom into my marriage, into my intimate life, into my family life and the way I raise my children. So, to delve into it and understand what freedom looks like in Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s eyes: A man was walking on a high mountain in the Alps and found a stunning flower there, with beautiful petals. That flower grows only there. A champion of flower rights looks at it and says, “Why is this flower restricted to this place? This flower should belong to the whole world. Until now, it’s been in Egypt. It’s been confined, held captive. No more. I’ll set it free.” He takes a pair of scissors and sets it free: he cuts it off, brings it down to the villagers and tells them, “Here’s your flower. Now it’s free and happy.” But the flower wilts.

29:27 Speaker 2 The flower wilts because its true freedom was to be in the Alps, at an altitude of exactly 2,582 meters. To be right on the eastern side of the mountain, in that precise spot. Because that’s where the flower gets its energy, the water it needs, the sunshine, the cold, the wind—everything. That’s its place. It won’t survive anywhere else. Not only won’t it survive; it won’t be itself. It will wither and wilt. That’s not who it is. When someone suddenly comes along and says, “I’ve done teshuvah,” you look at him and say, “Wow, this person was living life, and now he’s started keeping some Torah and mitzvos. Nice.” And then you see that he’s happy. There’s a light in his eyes. What’s that great light? And you ask him, someone who’s already in the process, “Why are you so happy? Maybe you have cognitive dissonance? Maybe you’re struggling with your identity, with your choice?” It’s an internal process that happens to everyone after they buy something, after they make a decision: they experience cognitive dissonance. They try to convince themselves it was the best choice because they have a lot of doubts about whether they chose correctly. And to prove their choice was right, they project happiness and confidence outwardly. If the process of teshuvah is genuine and pure, the happiness they radiate isn’t outward happiness; it’s inner happiness, real happiness. Sometimes there are people who... don’t have the capacity to absorb all those great lights. So, so many—so—but they know that’s what they’re supposed to do, to look happy now. So they look happy, but they aren’t really, because they haven’t actually built a structured, inner process. And then sometimes there’s a

31:38 Speaker 2 breakdown. But people who really are deeply engaged in the process are genuinely happy. And then you ask yourself, “Why are you happy now? When you were lying on your back, taking it easy, you should have been happier. Nobody told you when to get up, nobody told you when to go to sleep, nobody told you anything. What makes you more content now?” Psychological research has been done on this around the world, and they found that people like having direction. People seek meaning. We’ve already spoken about Viktor Frankl’s words: man’s search for meaning. A person without meaning is a broken vessel. You want to destroy a person? Tell him, “You’re fired. I’ll give you money, your pension from work. Don’t work. Stay at home, just don’t bother me.” The person withers away, and withers away, and withers away. Studies have shown that the life expectancy of people who don’t work—not because they’re unable to work, but because they’ve been told not to—drops dramatically. Their cognitive abilities decline; their motor skills decline. You see people in their thirties and forties who’ve been left at home, and they wither away. Of course their self-confidence drops, but their intellectual, cognitive abilities are also affected. They can no longer do things. Everything, everything grinds to a halt. Why? I’ve given you the life you dreamed of. You won the lottery. Don’t do anything. Sit at home. It doesn’t work. A woman who wants to crush her husband can tell him, “Don’t do anything; I’ll do everything. Sit like a king, and I’ll do it all.” He’ll wither away. He’ll wither away. And to keep from withering away, he’ll start making comments. “Don’t do it like that; do it like this.” And the woman doesn’t understand. “I told you to sit; I’m doing everything for you. Don’t interfere. The kitchen is my area. Tidying the room is—don’t interfere.” But that’s not how you do it.

33:49 Speaker 2 Why? No. He wants to use a little of what he still has left. And then the big mess begins, and then the big arguments begin. And then they go to a rabbi, a mediator, a counselor, and say, “I don’t understand. I didn’t ask him to do anything. I told him, ‘Sit in the room, just don’t bother me,’ and he keeps interfering.” Because he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to wither away. He wants meaning. A woman wants meaning. A woman whose husband keeps telling her, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Don’t do anything; I’ll do it”—what about her? She needs meaning. And not just the meaning of “whatever I feel like doing.” She wants to feel that there’s something she’s committed to. Under the—uh... yes, under the—I’ve forgotten the verse, but Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells us to come to the mountain, to Mount Sinai, and there we will serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We have a commitment. We’re heading now toward a commitment, and that commitment connects us to our faith, to our path. When we reach Mount Sinai, suddenly we become free people. The Tablets, right? “They were the work of G-d.” And they were engraved, right? What does it say? “Don’t read it as freedom, but as engraved.” Why? Because these things are engraved; they’re etched into us. We have a commitment. So how do we manage to bring substance into our home? Commitment. “But Rabbi, it doesn’t work. I give them commitments, and they don’t follow through on their responsibilities at all.” I didn’t say following through on responsibilities. Following through on responsibilities is a process. A process of maturity, a process of developing abilities, a process of perseverance. But commitment—commitment. Someone who doesn’t arrive at davening on time isn’t necessarily a heretic. It doesn’t mean he has no commitment. It means he isn’t responsible enough yet to live up to the commitment he took on, to the commitment

36:11 Speaker 2 that he believes in. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t... committed. We really, really love giving people grades: he’s this, he’s that, and so on. The outcome has nothing to do with commitment. First of all, give everyone a sense of commitment, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us a sense of commitment. When He says to us on Seder night, “You want to be free? What should you do? Take responsibility and make a commitment.” This is a very serious night. You have to eat matzah. You have to drink four cups. This event has lasted thousands of years. And look at the wonder of it: it connects the Jewish people. It connects one generation to the next, no matter how many mitzvos you do or don’t do. The most dangerous disconnect comes when you don’t do anything. When you don’t do anything. When you do nothing, you don’t feel committed, you don’t feel connected. So your sense that you have some kind of commitment to the Jewish people comes from having served in the army, done reserve duty and paid income tax: “I’m Israeli.” But because you have no other commitment, when there’s no commitment, there’s no connection either. So when they speak to you about being free, they mean being free as members of the Jewish people who left Egypt. And being free means that, as a Jew, you can live out the spiritual, religious meaning of that event. Civic identity also has its occasions for expressing itself, but this isn’t one of them. Right now we’re talking about Pesach, about the point at which we became a people, the point that bound us to a commitment. That is our freedom. That is our freedom. What’s the happiest day in a marriage? What’s the happiest day in a marriage? Every year.

38:26 Speaker 5 The wedding.

38:27 Speaker 2 The wedding anniversary. Your wedding anniversary? Why? Why? After all, that’s why you argue with your wife every Friday. If you hadn’t gotten married, you wouldn’t argue with her every Friday. G-d forbid, you don’t argue; I was just giving an example.

38:42 Speaker 5 Of course.

38:45 Speaker 2 That’s why you have disagreements about where the children will go to school. That’s why people argue with their mother-in-law and... So, yes, of course there are also moments of love, moments of joy. That’s true. But why is your wedding anniversary your most—your best day?

39:05 Speaker 5 That’s where it all began.

39:07 Speaker 2 Commitment. Because on that day we show and strengthen our commitment. On Rosh Hashanah, when we accept Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kingship over us, it’s a special day, not a sad day. It’s a day when we accept Hashem’s kingship over us; we renew our commitment. Hakadosh Boruch Hu renews His kingship over us. That’s commitment. And when there’s commitment, there’s caring, there’s connection. If Hakadosh Boruch Hu did this on Seder night, let’s think about it and understand that the same is true in our homes. If we want a home with depth, we need a home with commitment. But commitment isn’t measured every single minute by whether the other person has met the conditions I set, the conditions I thought I deserved. The question is whether there’s commitment. Let’s renew that commitment. Let’s remind ourselves of it. Commitment can show itself in the space we make for ourselves: where do we close the door so that now it’s just me and her, her and me? Where can we talk for a moment without someone coming into the conversation, because this is our private space? We need to create spaces of commitment for ourselves, spaces that belong only to us—especially at times like these, when everyone is home all the time, from morning till night. If we want to keep our sanity, we need to create that space, create those ten minutes. We don’t need eight hours; ten minutes. “I’m having a drink with Mom for a moment.” The children know there’s a commitment here, and they see it too. You have no idea what an educational impact, what an impact on the family, that has. We should try to keep the parents’ bedroom door closed, because we have a commitment. That’s our area, our private area. It’s a space we have—even though the house is shared and we can be anywhere—but there is a private space.

41:26 Speaker 2 We respect the children’s private space, and we explain what a private space is. There are two things here. Sometimes a child says, “But we want to lock the door too.” There are two things here. There’s a space for modesty, and yes, when you’re getting dressed, you have that private space. But there’s also a space that’s yours, yours as siblings. Go and talk among yourselves. Try talking for a moment—not shouting, talking. Pick a game the family can play. See how you can connect that family commitment to Seder night. Suddenly, that family commitment takes on a different strength. We’re not only connecting to Hakadosh Boruch Hu; we’re also connecting to our commitment to the family, because we’ve come together and don’t experience it as a burden or a chore. Not, “Oh, these siblings again. These cousins again.” Instead, wow, now we’re all coming together in our family space through our people’s commitment, as Dad did, as Grandpa did, as Grandpa’s grandfather did, as Moshe Rabbeinu did, throughout the generations. That’s the great secret. So when we seek out that special space, that holy space, that pure space, that space of commitment, suddenly we have room to breathe. Not only won’t we feel burdened; we’ll feel much more peace and calm. When spouses are committed to each other, then when one goes on vacation, or goes to work or somewhere else without the other, we aren’t anxious that our spouse might not behave the way we’d want them to. On the contrary: because there’s commitment, we’re at ease. We feel free, because the path is clear. The path... we know the direction. We know where we’re going. There’s no fear; we feel secure. That’s something of great value. When there’s no direction, we’re constantly worried about where it will lead, what will happen, what now,

43:41 Speaker 2 where is this going? We need to establish an island of stability, an island of quiet and safety. The more commitment there is, the more freedom there is. That is our freedom. So... we’ve spoken about Seder night, we’ve spoken about Pesach, we’ve spoken about these points. Seder night ends with the afikoman. When the Beis Hamikdash stood, the afikoman was the Korban Pesach. Do you know what the Korban Pesach is? When it’s time to speak, I want to speak too and make my opinion heard. I want to be part of the process, and I want us to finish the conversation with everyone remembering that I had the last word. But on Pesach it doesn’t work that way. On Pesach I have to make sure the other person gets to express themselves. When I come before Hakadosh Boruch Hu and want to connect, I have to offer up something of myself—my ego. That act of drawing close is what the Korban Pesach is about. And then you eat the offering with your family, not alone. You’re no longer an individualist. The family is together. Let’s see you manage life in a family. It’s easy to live alone in a one-room apartment. You have no arguments, no problems. Let’s see you live in a family. It’s a mission for our people, a spiritual mission, a holy mission. To succeed, you have to make a sacrifice. “When a person from among you brings an offering to Hashem.” That’s how we draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Pesach. And when the Beis Hamikdash stood, they would eat the Korban Pesach while singing Hallel. Do you think I’m suffering when I make a sacrifice and give up something of myself? I sing, because when I give, when I yield, I grow stronger. I gain so, so much. Go and see the shluchim all over the world, Chabad shluchim in every place. A new shliach has just arrived in Antalya. He was in Russia, he’s moving to Antalya, and he’s going with eight children to a country he doesn’t know. He’s organizing a Seder there.

46:05 Speaker 2 He already has dozens of people signed up. You would think he’d be suffering. It’s hard to arrange things for his family in New York, his family in Russia, and a Seder remotely in Antalya. It’s terribly hard, and it isn’t always easy. Sometimes there are challenges too. But he gets tremendous satisfaction from it. The sense of commitment is enormous, but above all, giving up something for someone else gives you a sense that you can do it—a sense of fullness, of success, of victory. A korban, a sacrifice: give, contribute, and you’ll see how good it makes you feel. Don’t insist on having the last word. It hurts the ego, but once you understand that the ego is unnecessary, you’ll suddenly see how wonderful it is to stay quiet, to be among “those who are insulted but do not insult, who hear themselves shamed but do not answer back.” What a pleasure it is to be in that place. Is it hard? Maybe. But over time you see that it’s a strength, not a weakness. Sometimes the other person is even offended that you don’t answer back. He says, “Hello, I got you angry—say something back!” Restraint is real strength. That’s the Korban Pesach, and they would eat the Korban Pesach while reciting Hallel. They would say Hallel. That’s why, by the way, on Seder night we say Hallel during Maariv, but then at the Seder we say Hallel in two parts. We say the first part right at the end of Maggid, just before Shulchan Orech. And where do we say the second part of Hallel? After eating the afikoman, at Hallel Nirtzah. Why? Because that’s how they ate the Korban Pesach: while reciting Hallel. You think this is a sacrifice and I’m suffering? No, no, no, no, no. I’m offering something up; I’m drawing closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I give up something of myself for the sake of everyone, for the sake of G-dliness, for the sake of spirituality, for the sake of the people around me. But I’m so happy. I sing Hallel—a full Hallel. I’m entirely filled with praise

48:10 Speaker 2 and gratitude. And when I finish eating that korban, I leave its sweet taste in my mouth. I don’t let something else come along and distract me—some orange juice, some delicious cake. Friends, those are all just distractions. This is the truth. This is the truth. I don’t put anything else in my mouth after the afikoman, after the Korban Pesach. Today, unfortunately, we have no korban. But we have Pesach. We have the matzah, that taste of the Pesach festival, the taste of the korban, of sacrifice. “When a person brings an offering from among you”—that taste of the Jewish people as a whole. You know, regarding the Korban Pesach, it says, “And the whole congregation of the community of Israel shall slaughter it.” The Gemara asks in Kiddushin, page 42, in its discussion of agency: How can the entire Jewish people slaughter it? It’s one lamb. How can they all slaughter one lamb? Are they all slaughtering it together? The answer is, “A person’s agent is like the person himself.” When you do something on someone else’s behalf, it’s as if you are that person. And if you do something for someone else, and then for another person, you’re two people. And if you do it for yet another person... The more we give, the more we feel each person’s soul, and the more we strengthen each person’s soul. And when someone goes out on shlichus because the Rebbe of Lubavitch sent him on shlichus, for example—since we’re speaking here about shlichus—he may feel that he has set himself aside, that he hasn’t fulfilled his own potential. But he has fulfilled it by carrying out his shlichus and through the tremendous satisfaction of giving. Giving is a tremendous strength. In our homes too, as I told you, take your cue from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He knows what He’s doing. The Sages knew what they instituted. After the Korban Pesach, we don’t eat anything else; we don’t eat anything after the afikoman. Plain water—fine, if you need something, have a drink. But go to sleep with that sweet taste.

50:13 Speaker 2 Even when, at home, we give each other that... or give ourselves our own special space, our private, personal, secret space, that’s where it ends. We go to sleep with that, not with something else. Another phone call, “I need to leave the house to do...” No, no, no, no. Stay home. That’s our place. That’s it. Keep the taste of the afikoman—the taste of sacrificing for one another, of being close to one another, of having space, of being committed to one another. On Friday night we sit down with the family for the Shabbos meal. So let’s stay at the table; let’s not run off afterward to other things. It’s so important. That’s the great secret, the great secret that we might borrow from Seder night. We take the afikoman from Seder night and bring it into our everyday lives. If we give meaning to our lives, meaning to our space, meaning to our children’s education—and give our children the closeness they deserve, time when I’m talking only to you; if we give our marriage its own space, a space for us—we’ll have great success. We won’t find ourselves on a downward path, from one low point to another, like the four sons, perhaps starting high and ending very, very low. If we want to preserve and nurture the family, we need to give it commitment, depth, that... its special holiness, and above all, above all, pass the message from generation to generation. Talk and talk and talk, because Seder night is a special night when we make room for the people around us. Wishing you all a kosher and happy Pesach.