Passover: Kadesh – Beginning with the highest
Seder night, we begin with Kadesh (Kiddush). Everybody knows that holiness is the highest level a person can strive for. It takes a whole lifetime to really become holy. Seder night, we begin right on top. This is what our holy Rabbis teach us that even in exile, we can work our way up. Not to be in exile, to be free, means that I’m not afraid to jump on top, on the top of the top.
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
