Weekly Dvar Torah: Passover Before During and After
Before Passover we were busy getting ready.
We went out there looking for Jews, for our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.
It did not matter were they the wise, the wicked, the oblivious or the uninitiated, as long as they were on the list we looked out for them.
But, as the Rebbe taught us we looked out for the fifth son, the one that never came to the table, the one that had no clue that anything was even going on.
121 Mitzvah Tanks fully loaded with Matzah, Shabbos and Holiday candles, Tefillin and more, attacked the streets of New York City to celebrate the Rebbe’s 120th birthday, as did dozens of Mitzvah Tanks in Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Melbourne, and dozens of cities all over the world.
Just to make sure that every Jew has Matzah and a place to celebrate the Seder.
This was our preparation.
Finally, at the Seder G-d kicked in and took us out from Egypt = Mitzrayim, the root of all restraints and inhibitions so we can be free people to exercise our power.
This was G-d’s work.
Now we are ready split the sea.
The sea of reeds split when Nachshon the prince jumped into the water neck-deep, only then did G-d open a path on dryland to cross the sea.
The first move was ours, the second step was G-ds.
Now we near the culmination of it all, we suffered as slaves and G-d made us free, we took responsibility for our destiny by jumping into the waters, G-d showed miracles and we showed courage.
This is the grand finale to a long journey which started over 3300 years ago, a mix n match between G-d’s work and ours.
We could’ve said, enough, we can take care of ourselves, stock up on Matzah, Maror, wine, brisket and all other goodies to enjoy a Passover and celebrate an old story of the past, but instead we went out of our way to look for the fifth son who never showed up, because we knew that not one Jew can be left out.
This is the preparation to “no Jew will be left behind” that we were promised will happen when Moshiach comes, and this goes hand in hand with the celebration of the splitting of the sea.
The idea of splitting the sea is to reveal what is hidden beyond the surface, all our work of thousands of years accumulated a wealth of goods and precious stock of diamonds, but it’s all under lock and key, and it’s time to cash in and open the treasure chest.
That’s why the last day of Pesach is celebrated not just as the last day of Passover and the exodus, but it’s a day when we celebrate the future redemption, the final redemption, the final station since exodus, which culminates with Moshiach.
It manifests itself on the one hand by not saying the Shecheyanu because this step is still in anticipation, while on the other hand we eat Matzah and drink four cups of wine as the feast of Moshiach.
This brings down to earth our faith in Moshiach, in a physical expression of eating and drinking, not just as an abstract idea of the unknown, but rather as the splitting of the sea which reveals the unknown and makes it known and tangible.
Prepare the wine and the Matzah, just like the Jews were ready, loins girded, shoes on feet, and staff in hand; and they ate in haste, so too we should eat and drink as if this is the appetizer to the feast of Moshiach who will crash our Moshiach meal to take us out of Golus, Now, Now, Now!
Crunch those Matzah’s and drink the wine,
Gut Yomtov, Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
