Passover: Trusting man again
Reb Nachman talks about some thing called Noam Elyon, a kind of holy sweetness which flows down from Heaven. This sweetness is so whole, that if your mind isn’t whole and if your emotions aren’t whole then you can’t taste it. You don’t have the plate in which G-d can give you the taste of holy sweetness. Matza is the simplest bread in the world, just flour and water. No salt, no pepper. Reb Nachman says that on Yom Tov the Noam Elyon flows from Heaven in simplicity. If you are not whole you cannot receive it. The Matza we eat gives over to us its simplicity, wholeness. Matza tastes so good because it is a piece of the sweetness of Noam Elyon.
What makes us so perverted? We put so much work into our little piece of bread. What do people do for the few rubles they make? They put their whole heart and soul into it, and each time they do, they become more and more slaves. The Matza we eat on Pesach doesn’t take much time to make. We put the least amount of time into our food, and the rest of the time we have is for doing great things, to be free.
When you eat the Matza you really have to be with it, you can’t talk or joke. The piece has to be really big, and you sit and mamash eat Matza. Once a year there is a mitzvah to eat, we are commanded to eat Matza. Okay. It is also a mitzvah to eat on Shabbos, but it is not on the same level. On Shabbos we have to be happy, oneg Shabbos, so we make ourselves happy by eating. On Seder night we fulfill the biggest mitzvah in the world when we are eating Matza. The holy Sanzer would sit after the Seder, and put his hands on his stomach, and say “Ay! Tonight my stomach did so many mitzvos!”
The Afikomen, the last piece of Matza is realty not from this world. We put it away, we hide it, and then we eat it. It is coming from a completely hidden world. When we eat the Afikomen all our prayers are answered in that moment.
On Pesach we celebrate freedom, which means that G-d in Heaven opens the gates of freedom. This world is just a vessel for higher worlds, so something is happening in Heaven on Pesach night, and actually the whole month of Nisan, the month of freedom. We see all of nature becoming free. All the little seeds who were sitting under the earth and crying are now coming out, becoming free. Everything begins to grow.
There is a voice in the universe which says, “Let there be man”, and there is another voice which says, “Let there not be man”. These two voices struggle inside every person. The voice which says, “Let there not be man” wants to destroy man, says that he is worthless, he’s no good. What we don’t know is that we don’t really hate man – we try to hold back life itself when we say “He’s no good”. It is the voice inside us which doesn’t want man to be.
The Ishbitzer says this is why winter comes to the world. The voice which wants to stop life becomes too strong for a time. Then the voice which says “Let there be man” becomes strong again, and we have springtime, Pesach.
Why do we have to eat every day, over and over again? Nature doesn’t really trust, because she knows that we have something inside ourselves which wants to destroy life. So nature gives its life – an apple, or some grain we can make into bread, but only enough for a few hours or a few days, because the earth doesn’t completely trust man to listen to the voice which does say “Let there be man”.
On Pesach we celebrate the power of giving life. The Zohar calls Matza “nahama dmehemenusa”, bread of faith. It is the fruit of the Tree of Life, before Adam sinned. One fruit is enough to give you life completely so you don’t have to eat over and over again. If man would only really have faith, one piece of Matzah would be enough to last him for his whole life.
This is also why the last meal on the last day of Pesach is called Mashiach’s seuda, the feast of the Mashiach. When the Mossiach comes one piece of Matza will again be enough to give life to a person, because the earth will be able to trust man again.
House of Love and Prayer San Francisco, 5733
