ב''ה

SERMON RESOURCE FOR SHLUCHIM

DISTRIBUTION DATE: APRIL 21ST 2016 – 13TH NISSAN 5776

PARSHA: 1st Day of Pesach

SERMON TITLE: AN OPEN DOOR POLICY

A PROJECT OF

The author is solely responsible for the contents of this document.

1st Day of Pesach

An Open Door Policy

Good Yom Tov!

Let’s talk about a custom that many Jews have for the Seder night: After conducting the Seder, drinking the Four Cups, and eating the matzah and maror, when everyone else would go to sleep, they stay up to recite Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs.

So Rebbetzin Chana, the ’s mother, related that her husband, the Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok , had the custom of secluding himself in his study after the Seder and reciting Shir HaShirim. But as he would read it, he would sob heavily, so much so that people standing outside the door would cry together with him (Rebbetzin Chana’s Memoirs, Vol. 29, pg. 5).

So now we can ask the question, “Why did Rabbi Schneersohn cry so much when he read the Song of Songs? What caused him such an emotional reaction?”

So let’s first take a look at what Shir HaShirim really is.

The Song of Songs is a love story of a “lover” and his “lady friend”—the story of two lovers which is really a metaphor for the love between G-d and the Jewish Nation. In this metaphor, G- d is the lover and the leading lady is us, the Jewish People. The entire book describes how the two lovers seek one another.

Chapter 5, Verse 2 says, “I sleep, but my heart is awake.” Now, what does that mean?

The Rebbe explains that it symbolizes the era of exile, during which the Jewish Nation is spiritually “asleep.” When a person is asleep, what is primarily absent is the senses of sight and hearing—and when a person is spiritually asleep, he doesn’t see G-d’s Hand and constantly asks, “Where is G-d?”, and he doesn’t hear G-d’s Voice in his personal life; he’s missing the “Shma Yisrael” (Hear O Israel).

As a general rule, our exile is compared to nighttime. That’s because at night, everything is dark—you can’t see the road, you don’t know where the doors and windows are. It’s the same thing with the Jew “groping in the dark”—he’s spiritually lost and doesn’t know what is and isn’t the right way. He’s in exile.

But in the same verse, Shlomo HaMelech continues: “Hark! My beloved is knocking: Open for me…” Here, the “beloved,” G-d, is knocking on the Jew’s door, asking and begging, “Open for me!” Open the door at least a bit! Any movement! Show any Jewish movement whatsoever!

But then, the “lover,” the Jew, answers (verse 3), “I have taken off my tunic; how can I put it on? I have bathed my feet; how can I soil them?”

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This is yet another metaphor. Torah and mitzvos are compared to food and clothing, with the Torah being the food (bread, specifically). Just like the food a person eats gets digested and becomes part of his body, so too when a person learns Torah, it becomes a part of him, like our muscle and blood. He identifies with the teachings of the Torah.

Mitzvos, on the other hand, are compared to clothes. When a person puts on a piece of clothing, it not only becomes a part of him but reveals who he is as a person. It marks his identity. (That’s actually why Chasidim wear dark, because it draws the eye up to the face and away from the clothing, functioning as “anti-clothing”; Chasidic philosophy emphasizes connecting to the inner person, not the outer clothing.)

For example, a doctor wears the white coat and a judge wears the black robe. But the moment the doctor or judge removes the uniform, he or she looks just like everyone else, and the coat or robe no longer has any influence on him or her.

And so it is with mitzvos: when a Jewish adult male puts on tefilin, he is united in those moments with G-d, and anyone seeing him knows that G-d’s Name is invoked upon him. But the moment he takes the tefilin off, he is again like everyone else. And that’s why mitzvos are compared to clothing.

So back to Shir HaShirim here!

The “Lover,” G-d, knocks on the Jewish Nation’s door, and the Jew comes along and claims, “I have taken off my tunic; how can I put it on?”—or, in modern terms, “I can’t come to the door! I’m not dressed!”

In other words, “You want me to put on tefilin? I haven’t used them in so many years, to the point that I have even forgotten how to put them on! Not only that, but they never taught me how to put on tefilin—or how to wrap myself in a tallis…” There are even Jews who grew up in countries where they didn’t even see Passover Seders in their parents’ homes—and such Jews are virtually cut off from all Jewish tradition.

So how likely is it to expect such Jews to open the door when the “Lover” knocks? He doesn’t even know how to open the door—and he certainly doesn’t know how to begin acting like a Jew.

But G-d, even when He gets such a response, does not give up. The verse goes on, saying: “My beloved stretched forth his hand from the hole, and my insides stirred because of him.”

What that means is that G-d, in His great love for each and every Jew, drills a hole in the door, in the “Iron Curtain” that divides between the Jewish Nation and our Father and Heaven. G-d makes a hole, meaning that G-d reveals to the Jews such a love that their “insides stirred because of him”—that there is awakened in the Jewish person longing for that Jewishness that he previously knew nothing about. But there is one thing that he does know—that he is a Jew and that that fact awakens in him longing for Judaism and G-d.

G-d makes a small “hole”—inside every Jew, no matter how far he or she may be, there is a small hole in his or her heart “like the eye of a needle.” And it is into that “hole” that G-d shines His great light upon the Jew, arousing in him or her such longing that even that Jewish person who is far away from it all also seeks out a Seder and wants to join it. (Maamar, divrei hamaschil Balaila Hahu, Purim 5720; Toras Menachem Vol. 27, pg. 410 et al.) 3

But in another sicha, the Rebbe adds to that, saying that G-d doesn’t just knock on the door of the Jew who’s lost all connection to Judaism or who never had any connection in the first place. We, too, says the Rebbe, we who indeed celebrate the holidays and know how to “put on the clothes” and do the mitzvos, get the “knock on the door.”

As good Jews like to do, we love celebrating Pesach surrounded by family, praying at a synagogue at which we feel comfortable, and connecting to people like us. In short, the life we have is good for us.

Says the Rebbe, “My beloved is knocking”—G-d comes along and knocks on the door, reminding us that we, too, cannot sit comfortably in our armchairs and sit at the Seder table relaxed. G-d says: You should know that beyond your door there’s a Jewish child who knows nothing, whose parents don’t make a Seder; maybe because they themselves don’t know about it, or because they don’t want to. It makes no difference—but it’s not the child’s fault! You have an obligation to stop all your important jobs, even if you’re busy saving the world from global warming or all sorts of other important things.

At Passover, G-d asks each of us, “Open for me!” Open the door. Go outside. Find that Jewish boy or girl who doesn’t even know that he or she is Jewish. And bring them into your house and invite them to your Seder table. (Sichas Shabbos Parshas Bereishis 5714, Toras Menachem Vol. 2, pg. 116.)

On Pesach, we have the custom of opening the front door at the end of the Seder. The simple reason for this custom is to welcome Elijah the Prophet, whose soul visits every Seder table at Passover.

But perhaps we can also say that we open the front door to remind us that Judaism has an open- door policy, that a Jewish door must always remain open. And then, in doing so, G-d in his great kindness will respond to us when we knock on His door with an open-door policy of His own.

Good Yom Tov!

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ב''ה

SERMON RESOURCE FOR SHLUCHIM

DISTRIBUTION DATE: APRIL 21ST 2016 – 13TH NISSAN 5776

PARSHA: 2nd Day of Pesach

SERMON TITLE: RAISING GOOD KIDS

A PROJECT OF THE SHLUCHIM OFFICE

The author is solely responsible for the contents of this document.

2nd Day of Pesach

Raising Good Kids Good Yom Tov!

On March 30, 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan stepped out of the Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C. when three shots were suddenly fired at him. To his great fortune, the shooter did not succeed in his assassination attempt but “only” shot Reagan in the chest.

The entire world was shocked at the news, especially American citizens, for whom the incident brought them back to the difficult days of the Kennedy assassination.

A few days later, at a in honor of the 11th of Nissan, his birthday, the Rebbe addressed the shooting incident. First, he expressed wishes for a speedy recovery to President Reagan. The Rebbe then took note of the identity of the shooter: John Hinckley, Jr., son of one of America’s wealthiest men, businessman John Warnock Hinckley.

The Rebbe said that it’s become acceptable to claim that the root cause of such actions among the young up-and-coming generation is that they are poor, and the fact that they are poor causes them to be bitter, stoking in them a feeling of revenge—resulting in them carrying out criminal acts.

The convention wisdom, the Rebbe pointed out, is that kids from rich families are the ones who go to college, and from whose ranks come the best and the leaders of society—while the criminals come from beleaguered neighborhoods and destroy society.

But what happened with Reagan, the Rebbe noted, is that a “spoiled” child, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, was precisely the one who tried to assassinate the leader of the world’s leading superpower.

And it wasn’t the only time in history in which troubles came specifically from the ranks of the affluent.

On September 11, all the suicide terrorists who hijacked the planes and flew them into those buildings to kill thousands were not of poor Muslim families who acted out of despair. Rather, they were sophisticated young men who spoke English, had graduated from expensive colleges and lived in Western countries. These were the 9/11 terrorists.

But it happens today, too. Muslims now joining ISIS, are for the most part not people growing up in poor villages in Yemen or Iraq. Rather, they are for the most part young people who grew up in Western Europe, got a Western education and lived the good life. It is specifically these people who’ve become the lowliest murderers of all. Case in point? “Jihadi John,” the Daesh terrorist who was born and raised in London into a respected family and who completed a degree in computing—and who ended up cutting hostages’ heads off on videos broadcast to the whole world.

In that same talk, the Rebbe went on to say that Judaism has an entirely different view.

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Judaism holds that poverty does not produce crime—on the contrary, the Talmud says, “Watch out for children of the poor, for from them comes forth Torah” (Tractate Nedarim 81a). In other words, the Talmud tells us that it is specifically those who come from a background of poverty who try harder to attain impressive achievements.

We see this in American Jewish history, where the children of the immigrant generation, who had grown up in homes stricken by poverty and saw how their parents worked hard to support their families—it was specifically they who had the motivation to make the effort and become the most diligent college students.

The third generation, which began with us (or perhaps our parents), are those who were born to successful parents and raised with silver spoons in our mouths.

And as a general rule, we don’t have the same motivation as our first-generation American-born parents. In our generation, the list of top students in our schools didn’t necessarily show a lot of Jewish names—but 40-50 years ago, especially in New York, the majority of those lists had names like Goldberg, Friedman and Weiss. (Today, those lists primarily feature names of immigrants from India and Asia. Why? Because our kids generally are not hungry for success, and so they don’t try.)

But we find this concept in the Tanach.

At the end of King David’s life, when he was already old and not well, his son Adoniya decided to rebel against him and declare himself king.

So while King David was lying in his bed of woes, Adoniya decided that now was the time to seize the kingdom. He forged a relationship with the major players in the king’s court, recruiting the general of the army, Yoav ben Tzeruya, and one of the leaders of the Kohanim, Evyasar the Kohein and “all his brothers the sons of the king” and the people of Judah.

In short, Adoniya got all the movers and shakers of the Kingdom of Judah to join him, and he held a coronation ceremony.

Now Batsheva, the mother of Solomon (the future King Solomon) who had gotten a promise from David that Solomon would be the one who would rule after him, went to King David and told him what was happening in the court of the kingdom. She reminded him of the promise he had given here regarding Solomon; David indeed stood by his word and within the same day, crowned Solomon as king.

Solomon at the time was but a lad of 12, but he was anointed as king and seated on his father’s throne.

When Adoniya heard the news, he fled and begged for mercy from Solomon to not be executed.

But here the Tanach comes along and reveals to us what had caused Adoniya to display the chutzpa to crown himself as king during the lifetime of his father, and without permission.

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In the first Book of Melachim (Kings), Chapter 1, Verse 6, we are told: “And his father had not angered him all his days saying, ‘Why have you done so?’ And he too was of very handsome appearance, and she bore him after Absalom.”

In plain English, Adoniya’s father David had never caused him to feel down. He ever educated him. He grew up like a spoiled prince who got everything he wanted. He never heard the word “no.” And so he thought that he had everything coming to him—so it’s no wonder that he did what he did. (See at length Sichos Kodesh 5741, Vol. 3 pg. 7, et al.)

The Midrash (Tanchuma, start of Sefer Shmos) adds to that, saying that this is also the reason why Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, grew up to be a “wild donkey of a man”—because Abraham had spoiled him and never told him, “no.” For the same reason, he set out for a bad lifestyle when he became a young adult—because his father had loved him so much that he gave him everything he wanted.

And that brings us to the holiday of Passover.

When we study the story of the Exodus from Egypt that we read yesterday, we discover something strange. Seemingly, Moshe Rabbeinu should have prepped the people about the desert before they left Egypt into the desert—so that they would know that it was “the great and fearsome desert: snakes, vipers and scorpions, and thirst in which there is no water” (Deuteronomy 8:15).

Moshe himself had been in the desert already. He had met with G-d at the Burning Bush in the desert, and had pastured the sheep of Jethro “after the desert” (Exodus 3:1). He knew exactly what was waiting for them in the desert—and if he had specifically wanted to give them good news, he could have told them that they were going “to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8).

But what Moses chose to say to the Jewish Nation at the moment of the Exodus from Egypt was, “And it shall be when you come into the Land… and it shall be when your sons say unto you, ‘What is this service unto you?’, and you shall say, ‘It is the Passover offering unto the L-rd.’ ” And after that, Moses again says, “And you shall tell to your son,” and again, “And it shall be when your son shall ask you, ‘What is this?’ ”

Thus we have no less than three times in the Torah portion of Bo that Moses exhorts the Jewish Nation about educating their children.

So now we can ask the question: Why was Moses so worried about children’s education? What was he concerned about? And perhaps, with all of the above, it can be understood: As long as the Jewish Nation was in Egypt, poor and in slavery, Moses did not worry about Jewish kids going off on the wrong path—because it is specifically “from children of the poor comes forth Torah.”

Poor kids don’t have the privileges of being spoiled—if they get caught up with breaking the law, no one’s going to come save them. Their parents have no connections and no money to hire them good lawyers.

But “when you come into the Land,” where you will be in “a land flowing with milk and honey” where life is good and the kids can grow up in the “Goldene Medina,” Moses was worried that 4

the spoiled kids who’d grow up in the Land of Israel would eventually start rebelling against their parents and start asking questions like, “What is this service unto you?” They would be the ones who would have the chutzpa to laugh at their parents.

And so Moses got up and exhorted the Jewish Nation. You should know, he told them, the great challenge of the generation that will enter the Land will not be the economy or national security. Instead, the greatest challenge will be education. And so Moses found it proper to exhort them about that, even before they had even left Egypt.

We also see the importance of education in the central mitzvah of the Passover holiday as it existed during the Temple Eras. During those times, the primary mitzvah of the holiday was the “Korban Pesach,” the Passover Sacrifice: Every family would make the pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, and there they would join with other families and offer up the Paschal Lamb together. And then, for the Seder night, they would all gather together and eat the meat of the sacrificed lamb together.

But the Torah lays down a very clear condition about the Korban Pesach: “No estranged one may partake of it” (Exodus 12:43). Anyone who wanted to join a family, or group of families, sacrificing and then eating the Passover lamb had to first be circumcised: “And should a proselyte reside with you, he shall make a Passover sacrifice to the L-rd. All his males shall be circumcised, and then he may approach to make it, and he will be like the native of the land, but no uncircumcised male may partake of it” (Exodus 13:48). Otherwise, the convert is forbidden to eat of the Passover sacrifice meat.

And here the Rebbe notes something, illuminating something very interesting.

The halachah (Jewish law) states that if there is a male member of the family who is not circumcised, his father cannot offer up the Passover sacrifice. Even though the father himself and the rest of his sons are circumcised under Jewish law, if one member of the family is not, it disqualifies the entire family from celebrating the Passover holiday by the letter of the law.

This teaches us that we have a responsibility not just to our Judaism but also our children’s Judaism (michtav klali, 11 Nissan, 5730; Hagaddah Shel Pesach Im Likutei Ta’amim, Vol. 2, pg. 626).

And so, my friends, the Passover sacrifice teaches us a very important lesson: Let it be that we rise to the task that the holiday of Passover places upon us, and raise an upright generation that is able to continue the chain of generations of the Jewish Nation.

Good Yom Tov!

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