Shaaalooooom sweetest friends,
A huuuuge mazel tov to my beloved friends HaRav HeChossid R' Moshe Tzvi and Rebbetzin Weinberg on the birth of their son. May he grow up to be a tzadik like his father and may his parents dance at his great grandchildren's weddings in good health and happiness.
A huuuuuge mazel tov to my beloved friends R' and Mrs. Shaul Lubetski on the birth of their son. May he grow up to know shas like his genius father and also spread Torah following in R' Shaul's illustrious footsteps. And always in good health and prosperity.
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to be so free that your very existence is an act of rebellion"
Albert Camus
The theme of Pesach is freedom which has great contemporary significance.
We live in a world where we are ALL slaves, even if we don't have dark skin and aren't living in Africa 200 years ago [sadly, real actual slavery is alive and well today as well].
Many of us are slaves to our money. We can't relax because we are constantly worried about money. Others are slaves to food and drink, be it their morning cup of coffee, their inability to stop eating even after they are full and they know that repurcussions will be felt, or many other weaknesses regarding food [which hotels play on quite well, with their 24 hour "(get fat and fatter) tea room"].
Yet others are slaves to their weaknesses of character such as anger, impatience, or laziness. There are many, many types of enslavement and the Jew must FIGHT his whole life to overcome and achieve freedom.
The Pesach Seder leads us on the path to true freedon. The last "simman" [by then I am QUITE tipsy] is "Nirtza". Nirtza means not that we have to fight and battle to be good and holy but that it has become our second nature. Nirtza means passively, involuntarily, automatically desiring what is good.
Freedom means that after a bloody battle with evil we have vanquished him and our most natural recourse, our "default mode", is goodness. The poor man need not seek us - we seek him. Our gemaros become our constant companion, never leaving our sides [like our "smartphones"
]. We smile to all and have only love in our hearts. No more jealousy or anger, enmity or sadness. Just natural, good pure joy of life.
That is what we are to achieve at our Pesach seder if done properly [if only until next morning when we must get up for shul but come late because we are slaves to our beds:-)].
[Based on Maran HaRav Kook ztz"l]
May we all reach the nirvanna of "Nirtza" together with our families in good health and happiness!!!
Bi-ahava rabba and a sweet holy Pesach,
Me
From an email circulating...:-)
