According to our holy rabbis it is the time when babies wake up and want to be nursed, the time when husband and wife wake up and want to be so close to each other. It is the time when the light of the Messiah is shining. It is a time when everyone dreams that today is the day of their redemption. Anybody who has ever been up all night has tasted the awesome depth and sweetness of davening at dawn. Have you ever prayed by the Holy Wall at dawn?

So Purim in the beginning of our redemption. We’re waking up and being drunk with the joy of being Jewish. Dawn is still too dark; we don’t really see each other. We only see with the eyes of our soul and my soul sees only G-d. On Purim I send out gifts but not face to face, This is how I let you know I see you with the eyes of my soul. That is why I love you so much.

Then, for thirty days we prepare ourselves. The way I prepare myself is by realizing that I don’t have vessels for redemption, What I must do is get rid of the old dirty vessels.

We are living in a crazy world, Everything is out of proportion, everything is inflated. The matzoh is just water and flour, the way it really is. Chometz is being blown up beyond proportion. On Pesach we change our dishes, everything is new. New light for new vessels. We realize we were only slaves because we did not receive G-d’s light with the right vessels. This is also true between other people and ourselves. On Pesach we have new vessels for each other’s love. The awakening is on Purim. But Purim is just one day, one minute. Light beyond vessels. Drunk. On Pesach I have new vessels.

Is there anything greater than the love of children for their parents or parents for their children? Is there anything sweeter than the questions of children? Seder night begins with children asking us the deepest questions. And we don’t really answer them, we just make the questions deeper; we are just telling children that we have the same questions all our lives.

The most terrible thing is that we keep pretending to our children that we do know the answers. On Seder night we admit we don’t know. But when Elijah the Prophet comes he will answer all the questions, no, he will not answer all the questions, but suddenly, in his presence, the questions will disappear.

We have no vessels to feel the pain of homeless people. That is why we are afraid to let them into our house. There is no peace in the world because we don’t have vessels for it. Yet on Pesach, the night of redemption, I have vessels for the homeless and I invite them to my house. On Seder night, hopefully, I have vessels to be one with my children. Let it be this year that we will have vessels to be one with the world.

There, is a matzoh of this world and there is a matzoh from heaven. The matzoh we eat at the beginning of the seder is matzoh from this world, matzoh of the earth. But at the end of the seder, when our children bring us a piece of matzoh, this is the matzoh from heaven. The matzoh which reaches so deep in us and makes us all into vessels to receive the light of Elijah, the light of redemption.

Some of us don’t even have vessels for our own souls. Do you know why we eat blown up bread? Why our lives are so blown up? It is because we cannot the sadness of the poverty of the bread in our lives. So we need to blow it up.

Our children steal the matzoh from us and bring it back to us later on. They am telling us, gevalt, are you holy. Parents, do you know what you could be to your children? Each time we console our children, when we take care of them, we become their Elijah the Prophet. Each time we kiss our children we are bringing the world closer to the Messiah. Seder night we are giving over our Yiddishkeit to our children. Please be so careful to give over the best to our children. We so often don’t teach our children because our Yiddishkeit has become blown up. So many people don’t believe in Israel anymore because they found the blown up Israel. On Seder night we give over Yiddishkeit the way it really is. On Seder night we fix our poor children who are turned off by blown up Yiddishkeit. What a night, what a night of all nights!

I wish you, brothers and sisters, the most glorious, divine seder.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News New York, 5752

Baruch Hashem, I’ve had the privilege of seeing so many Yidden, and sometimes I wish I could take some of you home with me. Gevalt, are Yidden holy. Gevalt, are Yidden real. Gevalt, is the lowest Yiddele, gevalt, is the lowest, most estranged Yiddele- gevalt, gevalt, are they on fire, are they reaching Heaven.

Okay, this is the story. I’m coming to a city, and I’m singing, and I watch the people a little bit. And in the first row I see a couple, a young man and a young woman, and mamash I can see that they are so special. The whole time they are sitting with closed eyes, and mamash they are singing with all their heart. After the concert, I had a little get- together, and I walked up to them and said, I’d love so much to know who you are. Maybe, drive me back to my hotel- okay, they are driving me back, we arrive at the hotel- I said again, what’s your story? I see both of you are so special. Tell me your story. So he says to her, you tell him the story. She says, you tell him. (He says,) you have to tell him, it’s your story. And I wish I could tell you the story, the way she told it to me. She says, I want you to know, I am coming from an assimilated family, and- not that we didn’t believe in G-d- we mamash believed that there is no G-d. You could have done aything in the world to me, I never would have prayed, because I just knew there is no G-d. Can you imagine, five generations have not set foot in a synagogue. Gevalt, for five generations they are holding out, they have nothing to do with G-d. She says, I want you to know, the same goes for my husband. He comes from an assimilated family- no G-d, no Yiddishkeit, they just know their nationality, they are Jewish. When I met my husband, it was just by accident that we both are Jewish. We got married, my husband was twenty and I was eighteen, we loved each other very much. 

And here you have to open your hearts, it’s a little bit sad.

She says, I want you to know, gevalt, I had seven miscarriages. I was mamash at the end, I was so broken. Finally, Baruch Hashem, I got pregnant again, and the doctor really took care of me, I was lying in bed all the time, I was very careful. In the ninth month, about two weeks before, one morning I woke up, I just don’t feel too good, I decided to go for a checkup to the doctor. You know, friends, some doctors might be good doctors, but the way they treat people… The doctor says to me, I told you the whole time that you won’t make it. You didn’t listen to me. I told you, you just don’t have the make for children. The doctor says, you are losing the baby tomorrow. She says, one thing was clear to me, that I am committing suicide today, I just don’t have the strength anymore. The only thing I couldn’t decide, because next to the doctor was a bridge- should I jump off the bridge, or should I go home first and write a letter to my husband, and then turn on the gas. I decided, the least I can do is send a letter to my husband. You know, friends, anything which doesn’t interest you doesn’t impress you. She said, there was a synagogue next door, but I was so disinterested in it that I didn’t even notice it. Here I’m taking a cab and coming home, and it is clear to me that in a few minutes I’ll commit suicide, I’m looking at the street for the last time. I just can’t believe it- there is a synagogue next door. 

Suddenly I thought to myself- maybe there is One G-d? 

Maybe there is somebody, gevalt, maybe there is somebody…

I walked into the synagogue, a great miracle, the synagogue was open…

I walked straight up to the holy Ark. I opened the holy Ark. She says to me, you see, I have something which you will never have. I know what it means to talk to G-d for the first time. She said, I have a little bit of a feeling how our holy father Avraham, and Sarah felt, when they discovered G-d for the first time. She said, I want you to know, I opened the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark, and suddenly, gevalt…

I’m standing before the One, before the Only One, before the One Who made the heaven and the earth. I was crying so much, I was saying, Ribono Shel Olam, Master of the World, I’m begging You, I’m crying of You, crying and begging with all my heart, please let me have this baby. Suddenly I got the urge, I wanted to do something for G-d also. But I didn’t know anything about Yiddishkeit. The only thing I knew, that Jewish women kindle lights Friday night. So I said, Ribono Shel Olam, Master of the World, I swear to You, I will kindle lights every Friday night. She says, I want you to know, I absolutely knew that G-d heard my prayer. I walked out of the synagogue, I was full of joy, with no question in my mind. I came home, I was serious, I wanted to bensch licht but I didn’t know what to do. I remembered that we had a distant relative, a woman who was very religious- I had nothing in common with her so far, I never spoke to her- I found her telephone number. I called her up, I said- I’m begging you, I was never so friendly with you, but right now it’s an emergency. Please, I’m begging you, for G-d’s sake come over right now. The woman comes over, and I tell her the story, that I just swore to G-d that I’ll bensch licht Friday night, and I know G-d heard me. So this woman says to me, it’s very beautiful, but if you kindle lights Friday night you cannot serve shrimp cocktail. I said, I want you to know, we are very wealthy, we threw everything in the kitchen out, everything was new, we had a kosher kitchen. The woman connected me to a Jewish bakery, a kosher butcher. But then came the hardest thing in the world. She said, I have to tell you one more thing. If you kindle lights, and your husband has the store open- he had a big department store- it just doesn’t go like that. I’ll tell you one thing. For G-d, Who gives me back my baby- anything is possible. I went to the phone, I called my husband and said, I want you to know one thing. Tomorrow night, Shabbos begins twenty minutes after five. If you, G-d forbid, don’t close the store twenty after five, I’m divorcing you next week. My husband thought I was completely crazy. He said, baby, is it really you… I told him, don’t baby me, this is for real. To make it very short- she says to me- I want you to know we are expecting our first baby. Obviously, she never went back to the same doctor, because what do doctors know?

My friends, this is not the end of the story.

A few months later, I had to change planes in the same city… In this city there is such a holy couple who are living witnesses that Shabbos is mamash v’chai bahem, Shabbos gives life, Shabbosdike candles keep your children alive. I called them up. She says, while I am talking to you, my husband is already coming by car to pick you up. They live in a huge palace, all the rich people of the city live around that neighborhood. I am there in about an hour, about twenty or thirty friends of mine are already sitting there singing my nigunim. I am walking in through the door, and she says to her husband, I need him for a few minutes. Open your hearts. There is a dining room, another library, another bedroom, another dining room… finally she takes me to another wing, then she turns the light on. It was Tuesday night, and there I see a table is set, with a Shabbosdike menorah. She says to me, one second after Havdalah I’m already setting the table for next Shabbos. I’m already putting in the candles for next Shabbos.

This is still not the end.

I want you to know, a few years later I was invited to a really super- Reform temple in Miami Beach. I wanted to tell them a little bit about Shabbos, but I also didn’t want to hurt their feelings. So I decided to tell them this story. A few weeks later, I got a letter. It says, mazel tov, it’s a girl, and a woman writes the letter. She says, I was there when you told the story. And nobody could see how much I was crying, because it was exactly my story. I had six miscarriages, and when you told the story I was in my ninth month, and it was just two weeks before I was supposed to give birth. A few days after you told the story, I woke up one morning, I didn’t feel so good. I go to the doctor, he says to me, I told you you can’t have a baby. He said, you are losing the baby. My husband was with me when you told the story. We both went to the shul, and we mamash fell down before G-d, before the holy Ark, and we swore that we would keep Shabbos. She said- mazel tov, it’s a little girl.

Good Shabbos, good Shabbos, good Shabbos.

Told at a concert at the Beth Israel Shul in Boro Park, Nov. 20, 1988.

Transcribed by Miriam Rubinoff

Our children don’t talk to us sometimes because they think we really don’t see them. Pesach has so much to do with seeing. “Lo yeiraeh lecha chametz”. “You shall not see chametz” – don’t see chametz. People who look at chametz all the time, don’t see their own neshama (soul), don’t see their own children, don’t see G-d. Seder night, when there is no chametz in the house, when the house is clean, then suddenly G-d gives me the vision of seeing my children again, of seeing how they really are and how fast they can reach the highest level.

The saddest day in the life of children is when they are disappointed in their parents. When babies are born, it is clear to them that their parents are the best people in the world. They cannot imagine anybody being better than their father and their mother. Sadly, they grow up and they realize that their parents aren’t the best. The don’t want to talk to us anymore. Seder night the Ribbono Shal Olam gives my children back the vision to see, even though at this moment I am not the best I can be, what I really am, and how fast it will take me to get there. And, then my children are so happy, they love me so much again because it is restoring their vision, the way they remember me.

Why do children love their parents so much? The way children know their parents is in a very deep way. They don’t know biology, they never read a sex book, but they know this is my father, this is my mother. Imagine if, when children are born, we would have to take them aside and explain to them the facts of life and why this is their father and this is their mother. How close would they be to us? And, sadly, when they find out how a baby is born, they love us less, because it takes away all the holiness.

An exile Jew is one who has read a book on G-d, on theology, he is a Kabbalist. It’s like an adult, looking at his parents. Pesach is when we are looking at G-d again, like a baby on the day it’s born. It’s not less, it’s not stupid. It is the highest.

Seder night, G-d gives us back the vision. “Ani Hashem, Ani velo acher”. “I am the Lord, I and no other.” How beautiful everything is. Howlittle it takes to reach the highest place.

Why do our children steal the afikomon and then give it back to us? There is a lot of talk about it. First of all, what are we giving over to our children? Do you think our children remember everything we say? Do you think my daughter remembers that last year she wanted to turn on the television on shabbos and I told her not to? No. She remembers those moments when I didn’t say anything. She remembers those holy moments, those secret moments.

Do you think children don’t know how much we pray for them before they were born? They know everything.

Seder night is when I am giving over Yiddishkeit to my children, I am giving over to them G-d knowledge. The Torah was given later, on Shavuot. G-d knowledge is when it is clear to me, there is nothing to think about – that is Seder night, So, you know what the children do? They take the afikomon and hide it. And, they tell me, I want you to know what I am taking from you. I am taking from you all the secrets. All the things which nobody knows, I know about them. Sometimes secrets, unholy secrets, the more you tell them, they become unholy, they become profane. Holy secrets, when you tell them to somebody you love very much, become even deeper secrets. My children tell me, you are giving over to me tonight all the hidden things, the deepest depths. Then, I say to my children, please, can you give back a taste of that bread? Can you give me back a little taste of all those holy moments, those deep prayers?

At my Seder, I had the privilege of doing something special. A lot of people eat the afikomon with the teeth of a rasha. They sit there and tell jokes; they talk about the food. I had the privilege to make, at my Seder, a rule that from afikomon on, no one is permitted to talk. They are barely permitted to breathe. it is so holy, because when my children give me back the afikomon, it is not only my afikomon, it is the afikomon of my father, and my mother, and my bubba, and my zaide. It is the afikomon that goes back to Avraham Aveinu.

Everybody knows that when the angels came to visit Avraham Aveinu, it was Seder night. Who stole the afikomon at Avraham’s Seder? It was the holy mother Sarah who stole the afikomon. Who knows more secrets than our mother Sarah, the secret of secrets? So, the angels said to Avraham, “Ayeh Sarah ishtecha”, “Where is Sarah your wife?” “Where is she keeping the afikomon?” Avraham answered, “hinei baohel”, “Lo, she is in the tent.” It is all hidden, all hidden away.

Brooklyn, 5745

Edited from Connections Magazine Vol 1 No 2

Seder night, our children feel so close to us, they are asking us all the questions. Why don’t our kids talk to us during the year? Because, sadly enough, we look at them with exile eyes. First, you go to cheder, then you go to yeshiva, then you go to college, then you get one PhD, and another one, and you marry a rich girl, and she pays for your third PhD – you go slowly, slowly. This is all exile behavior. The truth is, every child has it in him to reach right away, from the first, for the highest, for the deepest. Anyone who is around children knows that there are times when children understand more than adults. Children are on the highest level. So, Seder night, after we call out Kadeish, our kids say, “Okay, if this is the way you look at life, we can talk to you again.”

I want you to know a very important thing. You always think that everything takes a lot of time. But, it doesn’t have to take time. First, you meet a girl, you’re not sure if you really like her. You shlep around with her for a year, then five years, then you get married and you like her a little bit more, and then finally, after 150 years, you love her. Really, though, if you love somebody very much, you just love them from the first moment on.

People who think it takes so long to get rich, when they see a poor man, they are not inviting him, they think, until this poor fellow will get rich, it will take so long, why should I invite him to eat in my home? on Pesach, it takes just one second. I say, this poor man, maybe he will become rich in just one second, so I say “Kal dichfin yetai veyaichal” – let every poor person come into my house and eat.

I say to the poor man, don’t despair, maybe you’ll be rich tonight, maybe in just five minutes.

A human being has to work himself up very slowly. It is a gift from heaven that sometimes, in just one second, I can reach the highest level.

To be in exile means I believe in G-d, but it depends on me and I have to work hard to get anywhere. Seder night, everybody knows, Seder night is a different thing. Since it’s a gift from heaven, why not ask right away for the highest thing? Begin with the highest, begin with Kadesh.

What is the difference between asking a human being for a favor and asking G-d for a favor? When I ask a human being for a favor, I cannot have the chutzpah to ask them for everything. If I don’t have a single penny, I can’t go to Baron Rothschild and ask for two billion dollars. But, with the Ribbono Shel Olam, it’s the other way around. When I have nothing, that’s the time to ask for everything.

When we were slaves in Egypt, and G-d took us out, at that moment, we reached the highest level. “I, and not an angel, I am the Lord.” That was the highest, the most glorious revelation in the world.

We treat our children in such a way that it takes so long for them to mature until we can talk to them. On Seder night, I know that everything can take just one split second.
Everybody knows, the way we came out of Egypt was not slowly, slowly but, it was actually in one minute from “avdut leherut”, from slavery to the highest level of freedom.
Brooklyn, 5745 Edited from Connections Magazine Vol 1 No 2

Shlomo Carlebach

But I want you to know something. Do you know what that means? When I tell you my Neshamale is the most beautiful girl in the world, for me, you know what that means? That means G-d has revealed something to me about my child which nobody knows. And if I say I love my child like I love every other child in the world, I’m cutting myself off from G-d’s prophecy, right? And, uh, you know, I’m sure you feel the same way. You know, sometimes, when I ask someone about their children, they say, “Yeah, they’re okay, they’re sweet, yeah.” What’s going on there?

Did I tell you? — I think I told Yitzchak [Muller] or one of you — one of my first experiences in the world. At that time I was crazy. I loved this one girl very much. So, it didn’t work out. At that time I was in yeshiva. It’s crazy, you know? At that time I was a little big shot in yeshiva, and some of you who know a little bit about what’s going on in yeshivas, so if you’re a good student, then a great rabbi wants you for a son-in-law, right?

So a super-great rabbi comes to Lakewood to talk to me about marrying his daughter. I tell you something — he told me all about his daughter: she’s this, she’s this, you know, like I tell you about Bermuda is beautiful — they have beaches and things. There was not tears in his eyes — he wasn’t crying — it was like it was a business thing. He told me since I want to be a great rabbi, and she was fitting to be a good rebbetsin, you know? He gave me the whole thing. Left me cold like ice cream.
I want you to know, the next night I decided to visit the father of the girl I love so much. He was a little yiddele, a Polish yiddele, and he had a grocery store in Bensonhurst. What are you selling in a grocery store? You know, a little herring, a little corn flakes, a little leftover challah from last Shabbos, you know?

Okay, I walk in there; it was already maybe 10:30 because I was coming from Lakewood, and it was very late. All right, I took a chance. I know he’s in the store till eleven o’clock. I walk in there; there were some customers. I’m standing there, so after all the customers left, he said to me, “Okay, what do you want?” So I tell him, “I’m a friend of your daughter.” Obviously, she must have told him about me.

Do you know what happened? This little grocery store yiddele — suddenly he had tears in his eyes. And he says, “My Tovele, my Tovele — ” gevalt, right? So forgetting about the whole thing, I said to myself, if I would look for a father-in-law, I’d take him, right?

But now I want you to know something deeper. Not only that G-d reveals to parents something about their children, but it’s going back also. It’s a two-way street. G-d reveals to children something about their parents which no one else knows, right? Do you know children — until they’re disappointed — until their parents, chas v’shalom, disappoint them — think their parents are the most special people in the world, right? Do you know what’s the most heartbreaking day in the world for children? When they find out that it wasn’t true.

And you know, I’m one of those special blessed people that I had the privilege to believe until this very second how special my father was, you know? So special. Why? Because it was a two-way street. Because my father, you know? My relationship to my father was so special. So special. Unbelievable.
From the series, Reb Shlomo at Congregation Beth Ami, 4676 Mayette Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 . Sunday, November 30, 1980 (22 Kislev, 5741), Parashat Miketz. (Two days before Chanukah, the week of Parashat Miketz.)
Recorded and transcribed by Reuven Goldfarb.
Transcription dedicated to the complete refuah of Yitzchak ben Leah — Jerry Strauss, Shlomo’s great friend and supporter — who organized the concert and learning at which these teachings were given over.
Copyright held by the estate of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.