Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
It's also true.

00:00 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
That's true. We're sitting in the Torch Center in Houston, texas, and we have a special surprise. Not only do we have the great Rabbi Danny Masry, a Torch alumnus, and the rabbi of the Beth, rambam Shul, here in Houston, but also Rabbi Bostor, the average rabbi he was tearing, he's coming late to the podcast. And then, a contingency, a cohort from Cincinnati, some of the great rabbis of Ohio, just walked into the Torch Center. So we said to them why don't you join the podcast, the recording? And they graciously agreed. So we have Rabbi David Spettner, who runs the Kolel, who's head of the Kolel, founder of the Kolel in Cincinnati, and he's here in the Torch Center. He was not expecting this. He walks in and sees all the microphones.

00:45
I'm glad to be here, and it's so. You're on a visit to Houston, correct?

00:50 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
First time in my life I've ever made it to Houston.

00:52 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
A lot of people come and they don't want to leave.

00:55 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
Really yeah, it's getting too hot though.

00:57 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Okay, well, it's already end of March, what do you know? And it was great to have you here and hope your trip is successful. We have Rabbi Spettner and Rabbi Heinemann and Rabbi Soroka. They all walked in to the Torch Center and you share some ideas on Pesach to help us learn and prepare for this great festival that's upcoming.

01:19 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
Sure, sure, sure, I'll tell you it's interesting. I'll tell you it's interesting. We, you know, one of the favorite parts people have of the Haggadah is singing together Dayenu. And one of the really strange parts of Dayenu is one line that everybody wonders and scratches their heads about, and that is that we say in Dayenu, everybody wonders and scratches their heads about, and that is that we say in Dayenu, had you brought us to the foot of Mount Sinai, and that, given us the Torah, it would have been enough. What is that supposed to mean? I, I mean tourists do go to see mount sinai today and stand at the foot of mount sinai, but I mean, I don't know that it would rate to as a line in diano, that that would have been enough, just to stand at the foot of mount sinai and diano, that would be enough.

02:20 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
You see, you're saying because the the whole song, the stanzas, each stanza, like we got this and if this got this, that would be sufficient for us. Yeah, but the whole purpose of going to.

02:29 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
We say you know, if you had taken care of us in the wilderness and provided our sustenance and not given us manna to eat, that would have been enough. Okay, you're right, eating is a very important thing and that would have been a really good thing. Manna was even better than just regular food. That makes a lot of sense, but it's hard for us to really figure out what was so special about standing at the foot of Mount Sinai without getting the Torah, if the whole purpose of going to the mountain was to get the Torah.

02:57 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
That's a great question.

02:59 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
It's been bugging people for centuries and you have the answer. There are a lot of answers, but in order to really appreciate it we have to, and this is really this answer to the question. Really, I heard this from my late Rosh Yeshiva, the founder of Neri Srell Yeshiva in Baltimore. I heard him say it. I know that the Hasidic masters, such as the Sfas Emes, says the same idea. This is almost a universal idea. We don't fully appreciate that the Torah is not something that is just information that we receive, but rather it really is the building blocks of our universe. The very first Midrash in the Torah says that God looked into the Torah and created the world. That's the blueprint for the world. It's not that the Torah is there to address the issues that rise up in our daily lives. It's true, it has that function too, but it's much more fundamental than that. You know, there's something that many, many Jews utilize on a weekly basis, and there is a gem in this that they don't know, and that is there's probably the most popular chumash.

04:22
The most popular version contemporary of the five books of Moses is the Stone Chumash published by Art School. It's blue. It's in synagogues around the world. Very few people have taken the time to look at the overview. Have you ever seen the overview?

04:42 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
That's fantastic. Yes, Of the echo.

04:43 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
By.

04:44 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Sherman.

04:44 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
Rabbi Sherman's overview of that work is an incredible piece of understanding of the fundamentals of what the Torah is, and one of the things he does so beautifully in there is explain the function of the Torah as the building blocks of creation. And when you understand that, you can understand that the Torah doesn't necessarily. It existed even before God gave it at Sinai. That's why we have a tradition that Avraham, yitzhak and Yaakov, that Abraham Isaac and Jacob, that they and their families kept the Torah even before the Torah was given at Har Sinai. Why? Because it did exist. It had it's part of the spiritual underpinnings of the universe and it's possible, with God's help, for a human being to achieve an understanding he really understood the world, since if the blueprint for the world is the Torah, if he truly understood the world at its deepest level, you would understand the basic underpinnings of the Torah.

05:48 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
You could reverse engineer, basically the Torah from Exactly, very well.

05:51 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
That's a very, very apt way of explaining it. Thank you.

05:55 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
From the byproduct, so to speak, of the Torah, because Hashem created the world through the lens of the Torah. The Torah is a blueprint. If you look at the blueprint, you could reverse engineer and see the original source material.

06:07 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
You and I can't do that just by the seat of our pants, but the Jews coming out of Egypt had that spiritual help from God that by the time they reached Sinai they understood the basic underpinnings of Torah. It wasn't theirs yet. God hadn't given them the Torah as their actual possession. It wasn't theirs, and that's a whole other discussion of exactly what it means to be the owner of the Torah that they received when they received the Torah at Sinai. But even reaching that point, reaching the point to stand at the foot of Mount Sinai, gave them an understanding of the underpinnings of Torah in the same way that their ancestors, their forefathers Abraham, isaac and Jacob, had Well.

06:54 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
I absolutely love what I just heard. I love it Because this is a question that I think Rabbi Ari suits about every year, this question, and you always give a different answer, and I heard from my grandfather also a different answer than what you say, even though it's a little bit of a similar answer I never heard this answer.

07:12
What you're saying is that the experience of going to Sinai is a simulation of learning Torah, not in getting it from heaven on high, but the same way Abraham Isaac and Jacob did it, meaning somehow, when they were at the mountain, they experienced and they learned and they absorbed and they digested the Torah in this other way, without prophecy, without receiving it, just the experience of being at the mountain Exactly. Wow, it's worth it. I can leave now. That was awesome, okay.

07:40 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
That sounds like we're allowed to go.

07:42 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Now tell us more.

07:45 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
I have to give some room for Rabbi Heinemann here, rabbi.

07:48 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Heinemann, you want to go in the hot seat? Well, thank you so much, rabbi Spentner. This was unexpected. I'm delighted we came in here like what are we going to talk about in the podcast? And then the Almighty sends our way these special scholars parachuted from Cincinnati, ohio, to come enliven the discussion and deepen the session. That was wonderful, hard act to follow, rabbi Heinemann.

08:12 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
Definitely. Let me just share a short little thought, piggybacking off Rabbi Spettner attempting to answer the same question as to why what would have been the value of coming to Mount Sinai if we wouldn't receive the Torah there? So an answer that I once heard from a Rosh Hashiva of mine, Rabbi Tzvi Kushalevsky, in Yerushalayim, he suggested as follows it could be, this is well known. It could be, this is the one that you share every year, but I'll jump into it anyways.

08:38 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
He's very famous, Rabbi Kushalevsky.

08:40 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
And even more famous in the last year or two.

08:42 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Rabbi Krishlevsky is a great rabbi who had his first child at the age of 88. Unbelievable what a story. I was thinking we should really be telling over the story, because it's a miracle of biblical proportions and we should appreciate it Anyhow. So what does Rabbi Krishlevsky say about this?

08:59 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
So I heard in a shmooze one of his classes discourses as follows that the passage, the verse, tells us Vayichan shamisol negad oher. And Rashi points out one of the primary commentators that in truth it should have said V'achanu, which is the plural, they. There were at least 600,000 people, probably close to 2 million people there. What's the Vayichan the singular? So Rashi tells us that it was Ki Yishach Ad B'Lev Achad. The Jewish people achieved a very high level of unity. They were like one person, one heart, and that was the Achdus, the unity, I guess, which could be as a prerequisite to actually receiving the Torah. You'll have to come together and it has to be shalom and, if you want to, shosashkuna, if you want the Divine Presence to rest.

09:52 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
That being the case, perhaps, that's I remember hearing sorry for interrupting that there's 600,000 letters in the Torah and there's 600,000 souls, root souls of our nation, and every soul has its corresponding letter in the Torah. So for us we can't get a partial Torah. It doesn't work like that, it's all or nothing. And every soul had to be primed and ready and positioned to receive the Torah and to be united and ready to get it all as one. Because if there's even one dissenting Jew, that letter is not present in, they're not ready to receive their letter, the whole collective Torah is not present in, they're not ready to receive their letter, even the whole collective Torah is not able to be transmitted.

10:28 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
Beautiful, beautiful, but that's the point that, had we come to Har Sinai, even if the Torah would not have been given, but the Jewish people would have reached and achieved that high level of unity, something which I don't want to say is lacking today, but something that we have room to grow in that itself would have been worthwhile, Wow.

10:48
Someone shared with me a story it could be, it's well known, it could be, it's not, but it blew me away about the late Meshkiach of the Lakewood, yeshiva Bismarish, kivah, rev Matisio Solomon Zatzal. So he had these neighbors, the Epsteins, and the Solomons and Epsteins were very, very close, they were almost one family and the Solomon daughter, kemakala, the bride, got engaged and of course the Epsteins joined in the happiness and the celebration. They were all looking very much forward to the wedding. Then, tragically, mr Epstein passed away and suddenly he was young and the family was thrown into mourning and the neighborhood, the town, everybody was distraught, but slowly they started pulling themselves together and the family moved on with their damana, the widow, the little children. As the wedding of the Solomon daughter was approaching, the Epsteins realized that hey, we're in our year and we can't attend, we can't participate in the Solomon wedding.

12:09 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Okay, listen, that's just something else that we'll have to deal with, because the laws of mourning prohibit someone from going to celebrations during that year of mourning. Correct, correct.

12:19 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
Okay, the day of the chasna, the day of the wedding. They call the Solomon's wish miles, that we wish we could be there and we wish you all the best, and so on and so forth. They come home from school, the Solomon children, and they find a note on their front door of the house. Have you heard this story before? They find a note on the front door of the house. It says like this Dear Epstein, family supper is going to be taken care of you On your behalf. We're taking care of you tonight. Just a couple of minutes. They walk into the house and they see that the table is fully set. Strange, a few minutes later a catering truck pulls up and each person gets a bowl of soup and then they get their main dish, and then they get the dessert and a note is attached saying we know you really want to be at the wedding. You certainly missed, but we're trying our best that you can take part of the wedding despite being in your year of mourning. And okay, a few minutes later the photographer stops by and goes here are pictures that we just took at the wedding. We were given specific instructions to go print some out and bring them to you. So while you're eating the food that we're eating at the wedding you're missing out on, you can look at the pictures and enjoy it as well. And I was blown away by this and that we're dealing with the mashkiach the deen, if you will, of the biggest yeshiva in America, and he's making a wedding and he's got a million things on his head, but it's still important for him, right, despite his status, despite this, despite that, to think about his neighbors that wish they could have been at the wedding, and he spent extra money and resources, whatever it was, to have the caterer make an additional stop and have the photographer make an additional stop, just that people can feel like they're part of it and at least know that someone's thinking about them.

14:09
You have kisha chad b'levechad. When it's your own body, we all get it right. If you goof up with your right hand, the left hand doesn't hit it right, because we understand we're one people and it's obviously hard because we're naturally biologically different people. But when a child's born, they're very small and they think just about themselves and their dirty diaper and their burping and their food and their sleep. As you get older, you start realizing I have friends and I have parents, I have siblings. Then at some point people typically stop growing and this is who I am.

14:40
A gadol, a Torah giant, is someone, despite his Torah knowledge, is someone that can feel or carry the Jewish people on their shoulder right. And you think I'm up here, you're down there, so you know I'll ignore you, maybe condescending or whatever it might be, but here when you have the more you look at our Torah scholars, look at our tamil hachamim, our leaders. You see how thoughtful and how selfless they are and how much they're carrying the load and the burden of being no Sibol, feeling the pain and suffering of others. And I was, like I said, blown away when I heard the story and I think it comes back to this Vayichan Shom Yisrael. The Jewish people reached and achieved and worked on themselves and they were like a single person with one heart. And for that reason alone, even had we not received the Torah, that would have all been worth it.

15:29 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Thank you so much, rabbi Heinemann. That was amazing and I think that, according to what you said and what Rabbi Spatner said, that means that if we're recounting this on the Seder night, we probably should be trying to do it ourselves right, trying to learn these lessons ourselves, meaning to learn about Hashem and about the Torah from the world, to try to see in our world whatever the nation saw that made them kind of receive Torah in that unusual version, the way you kind of discover from within, and also this idea of trying to find commonality and love and empathy and care and unity with our fellow brethren. Would you say that that's maybe a theme of the Pesach Seder that we should try to absorb?

16:14 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
Definitely.

16:15 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
You summarized it beautifully. Oh, thank you. You want to tell us a little bit about Cincinnati before you continue along your way? About the Torah community in Cincinnati, rabbi Sroka.

16:28 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
Cincinnati is a thriving community. It's been around for a long time. There are Shilas that we found that were sent to the Netziv Rabbi Berlin in Europe 150 years ago From Cincinnati From Cincinnati, really, some of the local synagogues, but lots of Jews and Orthodoxy has had its resurgence. Maybe 30 years ago Kolol started and since then people have been moving back and people have alumni have been staying on and there's lots of chesed kindness, torah study, one of the best kosher bagel shops in the world and there's lots of chesed kindness.

17:03 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Torah study One of the best kosher bagel shops in the world Mark's Bagels One of the best. You're a fan, Very much so, and I understand that they're building a new high school for the Yeshiva High School there.

17:17 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
New high school, nicole's in the process of putting up a new building, god willing. So there's a lot going on, a thriving community.

17:25 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
It's happening. If you don't want to move to Houston because it's too hot, cincinnati is a good option. Come by and visit. We'll take good care of you. Well, thank you so much for having me, pleasure For stopping by and good luck with the rest of your trip here in Houston. It's great to have you in town, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing those beautiful ideas, pleasure and enhancing the podcast.

17:44 - Rabbi Heineman (Guest)
And thank you. You Rabbi is a torch. Be mamshich in your avidest akedish and continue helping people grow, inspiring the world.

17:55 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
Thank you, all right, rabbi Basko's here. Rabbi Basko's here.

18:01 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Welcome back. Sorry, rabbi Bosco, your seat was usurped for a little bit by some visitors from Ohio. I'm so happy, I'm so happy for all the listeners.

18:08 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
I got to enjoy my absence and hear something so great.

18:11 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
It's amazing. They ask the question that we speak about every year and they get two different answers. Two different answers to the question of why we say Ilukir von of Ne'er Sin v'lo nasan lanu esatorah. Do you have an answer to that question also?

18:24 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Rabbi Mastri. I think both answers were given were awesome. Actually, I want to share a similar idea, kind of express the theme of the Haggadah, I think follows, because you know we're sitting at the table and you know we all ask the question of you know telling the story of how we left Egypt and left slavery and bondage and became this great nation. But we don't ask the question how did we get there in the first place? Why were we in Egypt? Why were we slaves? And I think the Haggadah itself tells you that story. There's a custom that we take karpas, karpas. You know, sephardic Jews take celery, ashkenazic Jews take potatoes because they probably didn't have celery in Europe Couldn't afford it.

19:09
Couldn't afford celery, bring it in, ship it in from the Middle East Mediterranean. We take this karpas and we dip it in salt water. And Rabbeinu Manoach has a great commentary on Maimonides I'm sure many of you have seen it and he says why Karpas? He says Karpas is actually made up of a word, ketonet, pasim, which Karpas is a makeup of these two words. And look at the great commentator Rashi in the Torah, when he describes this garment that Jacob gave to Joseph, this unique garment, the striped tunic, the striped tunic as we call it, right. He describes it as pas, right? What Rabbi?

19:56 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Manoach is saying is…. Just to clarify Rashi, in his commentary, when he defines ketonet pasim, which is this tunic, he says the word karpas, which is part of the seder Part of the seder right.

20:08 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
And what he's saying, rabbi Lamanach, is fascinating. He says we're dipping that celery in salt water to remind ourselves how we got here in the first place Because of this unity, what we gained at Sinai. But we didn't have it and because of that Joseph was sold and there was strife amongst the brothers. So before we begin our Seder, we have to recognize what brought us into that state. We were in the first place and we take that karpas and we dip it in salt water and tears, recognizing that that really was the root cause of our bondage and when we can, through the process of Zeseder, begin this process of liberation and moving from slavery, bondage into freedom. Part of that freedom is recognizing who we are as a people, and we have to be one to really be free.

21:00 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Well, we said that the dipping of the celery-slash-potatoes into the salt water it resembles, it's symbolic of the dipping of the tunic in blood that the brothers did to deceive.

21:11 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Jacob, correct, correct. That's exactly what Rabbi Lubmanuach says and fascinating. My mother is of the opinion that you don't dip it in salt water. You actually dip it in haroset, and haroset is red and it really expresses that idea of dipping that tunic into blood, even though our custom is salt water. But Maimonides was the opinion that it should be dipped into haroset, not salt water, to personify that idea.

21:33 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Well, this sin. If I'm not mistaken, the Kabbalists tell us that the two alpha sins, the two biggest sins of all time, that we're trying to cleanse ourselves, the two sins that are almost emblematic of Adam and Eve's sin in the garden is the sin of the sale of Joseph and the golden calf. These are the two ones that we're trying to like. Once we cleanse ourselves from these, then you know, the path is open for us to achieve our destiny. So that's really where we're all started from, and if that's where it started from, that means that the rectification must be with love and unity and understanding and fellowship and camaraderie between us and our fellow Jew.

22:12 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Incredible. Actually, we also see this. There's another fascinating place where we see this. It's in Tractate and Talmud and Pesachim dealing with the laws of Passover. So as a tractate and Talmud and Psachim dealing with the laws of Passover, so it's a tractate that very few people learn because it deals with laws of offerings and all that stuff which most of us see with our eyes glossing over. It's called Tamid Nishchat, dealing with daily offerings in the temple. At the end it describes how the Jews would go on an Erev Pesach the eve of Pesach and they would bring the Pesach offering. They would all, from all over the land of Israel, travel to Jerusalem for that offering and the Talmud asks how do they bring the Passover offering home? It's an interesting question. I mean you would think it's a minor detail, like why are you asking that question?

22:58 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
But it asks how do you bring it home? Because they do the slaughtering in the temple, but they have to eat it, not in the temple, correct, most sacrifices you would eat in the temple, temple grounds, but this you would eat anywhere in Jerusalem, right, right?

23:14 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
You eat it right, and you have to transfer this lamb that you am I getting it home. So Talmud describes they would actually the skin of the sheep, they would put the meat inside it and they would carry Like a satchel. Like a satchel, and the Talmud and one of the Amorite sages there, I don't remember, I don't know, the Talmud in front of me says like Etaiah, etaiah is like an Arab merchant who carried over the shoulder and the question is like why all the details on how you carry the offering home?

23:45
Why is that important? And tell me, like an Arab merchant, but think about it. Who actually? Who did the brothers sell Joseph to there?

23:57 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
were.

23:57 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Arab merchants who transferred him down to Egypt. And maybe what the Talmud is telling us is, as we're leaving the temple, remember we're bringing this Pesach offering home over our shoulders, like an Arab merchant Also personify this idea that how do we get to Passover in the first place? How do we get to the bondage? It's because Joseph was sold as a slave. So even before we begin the Seder, already there's a hint to this idea that you know, joseph was sold into slavery and that was what brought us down to Egypt and, like Arab merchants, joseph was sold and we kind of expressed this idea even before we got home.

24:41 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Wow, I love it. I love it. That was fantastic. Never heard that before. Never heard that either. It's new to me here. That's why we have the podcast to get together and hear new ideas. I was thinking that the story of Joseph is so important for us and the Torah spent so much time on it. Maybe this is another idea to pair with your idea, and that is that Joseph was sold. First of all, his brothers were like should we kill him? Should we throw him in a pit? Should we sell him? The options were that there was no good options and he was hated by his brothers. They couldn't find anything positive about him, they loathed him and they sold him as a slave. He was a threat in their eyes.

25:21
But the verse says they hated him and that's a praise to them because they didn't try to pretend. There was no pretending. You have these ten very impressive men, the ten sons of Jacob not with the exception of Joseph and Benjamin that hate you. You're in big trouble and then they sell you as a slave and you get sold repeatedly and then you're a slave and then you get framed for a crime you didn't commit, and then you overcome a terrible challenge and you get thrown in a pit and you're forgotten. But every stage of that is a stage that led to the ultimate goal of this story and that's that Joseph became king.

25:57
So I think that this story is really emblematic of maybe how we have to think about all the terrible things that happened, because, as we know, a lot of Jewish history is stories of Joseph-like suffering, where we seemingly were not deserving of all these terrible things that happened to us and where we're innocent of the crimes that we're accused of and we suffer and we don't see exactly why the Almighty allows that to happen for us. Why does he not protect us? But sort of Joseph shows us just when we zoom out you see the whole story. He's realized that this is the process of coronation. It's an unusual process of coronation, but it took 13 years, right, but Joseph was coronated in this very unusual, this very circuitous way. So I think that's a nice lesson for us to remember as well.

26:49 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
Yeah, it's easy to develop a sense of entitlement. You know especially a lot of people that maybe are podcast listeners, who are in the process of changing their lives or have changed their lives and have undergone a tremendous amount of sacrifice. And then things are still hard, like what does God expect from me? All right, like if I had not done enough. Why am I still continuously being punished and abandoned? And you look at Joseph like is it worse than him? Maybe you're just being set up to be coronated?

27:18 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Yeah, you know, the Rashi tells us, or the Torah tells us, the cargo, that the caravan taking Joseph down to Egypt it was carrying, like these pleasant spices and perfumes. And Rashi's like, well, why is it so important? Well, he should have to smell the terrible things that the otherwise would carry. They would carry, like, all these chemicals or neft. They would carry crude oil, whatever it is. They wouldn't carry pleasant smelling things, even though I know some people that really like that smell. They go to the gas station and try to inhale. But maybe you wouldn't like it if it was a three-day journey down to Egypt. But when you zoom out of Joseph's story, you realize that he was being coronated. He didn't know about it, no one knew about it. The brothers didn't know about it, joseph didn't know about it, certainly the people that were holding him as a slave. They didn't know about it, but the Almighty did. I'll prove this to you. I'll prove this to you. You ready. Joseph says a rule to you. You ready.

28:17
Joseph says a rule to Pharaoh. Pharaoh has a dream, two dreams, right, the seven fat cows, seven standing cows, seven ears, seven ears, you know that story being a precious meat case. And he says why is the dream repeated? Every time a dream is repeated it means that it's happening right now, it's starting right away, it's imminent. Joseph had two dreams that he's a king, the bundle's bowing down to him, the sun, the moon, the 11 stars bowing down to him.

28:39
Joseph himself tells us a rule of prophetic dreams that they happen when it's doubled, they happen immediately. That means that Joseph was coronated immediately with those dreams and it's just a very painful, long, laborious coronation. But it started then and if it started then, his cavalcade down to Egypt it's a coronation ceremony. It's got to smell properly Now. No one realized it until later, but maybe that's what the Torah is telling us about that. That's a very powerful lesson, I think. Certainly when we do a retrospective, a lot of the Haggadah is a retrospective. So we go back to a Terach Avi Avram Vavi Nach, we go back to the real beginning, the early beginning of our people, even before Abraham, and we look at Tarak was an idolater. I think that if Tarak was like a nice guy, he still wouldn't be Abraham. It had to come in this circuit this way, in the way resembling. You. Agree with that?

29:32 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
You give me that look, rabbi Bosto, I do agree. In fact, I was in Atlanta this last weekend and I was speaking, I was giving an invocation at a certain event and I mentioned that my father is Irish Catholic. You probably don't often see an Orthodox rabbi who's the son of an Irish Catholic person and I said it's not his fault, he tried, he brought me to church and I went to mass much more often than I went to synagogue. And then I realized if I had been schlepped to synagogue more as a kid, I'd probably be a priest by now.

30:04 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Yeah, it's interesting, like the story of Abraham the Midrash says. It quotes a verse in Scripture who will extract holiness and purity from impurity? Mi yitentar mitame, only God can do that. Only G-d can extract Abraham out of Tarek. That was the process. It had to be, that Tarek was the forefather of the forefather, because otherwise Abraham couldn't have emerged. And I wonder if that's a helpful thing to keep in mind over Pesach especially. You know, our people have gone through a lot in our history that's the understatement of the year and even in recent times, and we don't know what the plan is and we don't know what Hashem is doing. But this is the night of Amun and we realize that Hashem is always planning for us to ascend and Hashem is always positioning us for redemption. And we were redeemed in Pesach, we were redeemed in Nisan and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully this year, hopefully.

31:00 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Amen, amen. And it really reminds me back to, I think, joseph is like a very running theme throughout Haggadah and personifying all these ideas. You know we have a tradition we drink four cups of wine and you know the more famous tradition is why we drink four cups of wine is there are four stages or languages of redemption. So each cup preceding a greater redemption. But the Midrash and, I believe, the Talmud, jerusalem, talmud also brings a different idea why we drink four cups of wine. Because it's Joseph's story when he was in jail, in prison, languishing in prison. He interprets a dream and in the dream a cup of wine is mentioned three times and in Joseph's interpretation it's mentioned a fourth time. So because there's a cup of wine in Joseph's retelling of the dreams. We drink four cups of wine and you sit there scratching your head what in the world does that have to do with anything? Like? Joseph dreamed four cups of wine, so we have to drink four cups of wine in the seder.

32:03
But if you think about it, jewish history, throughout history, you know people are heaven forbidden, you know, in auschwitz and difficult times, and you, you also have a seder and and you're going through challenges in history where maybe I don't feel so free and I don't experience this freedom, and the Haggadah is telling you. The Joseph story is redemption and freedom is not a straight line. There are always periods of up and down and if you look at Joseph's life, as you Rabbi Yaakov explained, he started at the top. He was the leader of his father, put him on a pedestal, he was sort of the leader of the family, the mantle. He was given that unique coat of leadership and then his brothers sell him into slavery and he's in the lowest place in Egypt. And then he rises to the top and he's the head of Potiphar's household, he's in charge of the Ohalha household and then again he's languishing in prison the worst place in human history, a prison in Egypt.

33:05 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
This was not like a Finnish or Swedish prison where you have a television internet access, full cable TV, massage therapy. It wasn't that you're saying.

33:16 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
It was in the tunnels of Gaza. That's where you were. This is Joseph. And then, from one moment to the next, after 12 years languishing in the worst place, nobody ever left that prison. Who leaves prison in Egypt? And Joseph rises to the top, becomes king, the second most powerful person in the universe, in the world. And you look at Joseph's story and you realize the redemption is not a straight line. We have periods of great highs and tremendous lows, and highs again. But ultimately we know that that's what we say. We say this beautiful passage in Haggadah he stood for our forefathers. God will always stand for us. And even with the darkest periods, we know there's a light at the end of the tunnel and no matter what we're going through in history, we will find the true redemption.

34:05 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
We will see great heights again. I was just learning with my study partner, right before we went live here. We were talking about the Seder plate, the Ka'ara, and one of the unique features on the Seder plate is the egg, and the egg is representing the Chagigah and it's like it's a whole. Like what are you talking about? And then they say because we don't have a temple, we have specifically an egg because it's round and that's food that mourners eat, so we put that on the plate because we don't have a temple. Come on, give me a break. It's like we have other times that we can commemorate the destruction of the temple and that we don't have offerings.

34:44
But I think it connects very nicely to what you say, rabbi Mastri, about this idea that everything comes and goes. It's a reminder of this cyclical nature of the world where, yeah, there are times that you're going to be on top, there are times that you're going to be on top, there are times that you're going to be on bottom. But we have to realize that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Almighty, created everything he created and His world is round. Everything is round To constantly remind us that we're temporary residents.

35:12
We come one day, we leave one day we're on top, one day we're on bottom, another day we're on top, one day we're on bottom, another day we're down. We'll be back up another time, and I think that that's part of the reminder. It's sitting on the Seder plate, in the middle of our Seder Tables, reminding us you know what? Yeah, you're right. In Auschwitz they also had some form of Seder and it was probably the most depressing Seder ever. Like this is what we're celebrating that freedom. But it's that reminder that freedom is about to come as well and there's an opening that hopefully soon we'll see that light.

35:49 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
And it's also interesting. The story of Joseph is really the first redemption that we have. So if you look at that story, that's going to be emblematic. I think one of the Rishad, maybe the Rebbein of B'chaya, says that there's a certain element of speed in his story Vayiritzuhu merabar. They hustled him out of the pit and in one verse he goes from being in the pit you can imagine what he looked like didn't shave for 10 years, didn't switch his clothing for 10 years, didn't shower, didn't shower. They bring him out, gets a haircut, gets a shower, gets dressed properly and is in front of a flower with the same verse, one verse. It goes from one verse, from him being in the absolute pits to the top of the world, and I think what Rabbeinu Mechai says is that that is emblematic as it follows a certain format. It can happen to Harifain and we see this also by Purim with Mordechai.

36:40 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
Mordechai was also in sackcloth and ashes long hair. He has to get the haircut and jump on the royal horse. You know to be crowned as the replacement for him.

36:52 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
It should be noted, however, that, although that is true, that's only the beginning of Geula the Ramchal. In his Mamar Geula, he has a short book that he wrote on the concept of redemption and how it all plays out. There are two stages One is called Pekida, one is called Zahira. And the Pekida, the initial stage, which is embodied by Pesach and also Purim, this is the Kaayal Asashachar, like the gazelle that leaps from rock to rock. It happens fast and it's jumping, and as soon as it comes and lights things up and creates that energy and releases that holiness, as soon as it's there, the forces of darkness are still around, and if it would remain, if that energy that's releasing everything would remain, then the forces of darkness would clamp onto it and shut everything down, and so it has to jump fast, fast, fast. He says that's only the initial stage of redemption, but the final redemption is calm and slow and perfect.

37:51 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
So this is what we're waiting for Well, that Pesach, is that first right, it's the first stage.

37:55
My grandfather used to give an analogy Arsini, by the way, is the fire, that's right. My grandfather used to say, based on the Maharal, that the revelation of God at the Exodus is the same revelation of God at Sinai, but the difference is it was just like a flash and it was unearned. The analogy that he brings is of someone in a forest right and it's night and you don't know where you're going. And you're in a forest right and it's night and you don't know where you're going and you're in a thunderstorm and suddenly there's this brilliant streak of lightning that illuminates everything for a second and then it goes off, but it shows you where you need to go. And they had that experience of revelation of God at Sinai and then it went off. And they start 49 days, 49 stages, to re-earn it, to acquire that sort of speech, step by step. And they earned it, so to speak, at Sinai and they relived it. They re-experienced it, this time for good.

38:48 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
And this is what we continuously do. By the way, the Tzitka Tzadik which Tzadik Cohen writes in the beginning of his book, the beginning of all of service of Hashem, starts off like that first Pesach everything is fast and chaotic. But if you notice the Jewish people, when we celebrated Pesach, our first Pesach was crazy. There was no preparation. All of a sudden Hashem said get out. And we ran and we baked matzahs in two seconds and ran out and brought these sacrifices and everything was wild. But then every subsequent year after that, how much time do we spend preparing for Pesach? So the beginning is chaotic, but then, once we jump into our Avodah Hashem, into our service of God, then we have to prepare and take it slow.

39:32 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Well, I will just note that the first Paschal offering it had the law of Bikur to watch it. Paschal offering it had the law of Bikor to watch it, that to take it on the 10th day, tie it, affix it to their bed and guard it and prepare it. So there was an element of preparation. Moreover, there were the two bloods the blood of the paschal offering that they smeared on the doorpost and lintel, and the blood of the circumcision that they did that same night. So I think that we always need to be prepared, but the actual redemption itself is just a flash, a brilliant flash. I will tell you. I was talking to Rabbi Masri here before we started. I told him about my new favorite book, emunasitecha, from Rabbi Moshe Wolfson. So he has a piece. We know the Gemara says it. They were redeemed in Wolfson. So he has a peace. We know the Gemara says it. They were redeemed in Nisan and they will be redeemed in Nisan Period. So what does that mean? If it's Cheshvan or Kislev or Tevis or Shvat or Adar, like we're in right now, there's no opportunity to have redemption. Well, we know that Messiah could come any day. So how come? How does that not contradict what the Talmud. Is that a good question? Incredible question? Yeah, you know what he says.

40:47
He was a series of teachings in the Talmud about Mordechai that Mordechai fasted on Pesach. The Talmud says he fasted on Pesach. What was this idea? That he fasted on Pesach? So what he explains is that Mordechai did. He took the day of Pesach, really the three days of Pesach, and he changed when it's going to manifest itself in the calendar. He said I'm fasting because it's not Pesach. I'm moving Pesach this year to Adar, to Adar, and the days of the Purim miracle were actually Pesach that year and that's why the redemption, the salvation and the deliverance that happened. It was a Passoverian I'm going to say this word properly Passover, passover-ian. What's Passover like? Passover-ian Doesn't sound good. Pesachian, pesachian. It was a Pesachian experience on Purim, because he took the day and relocated it, and it's a whole piece, a whole essay, unbelievable, fascinating, to talk about how we can manipulate time.

41:49
So he took the energy of Passover and kind of transferred it to the month of Adon for the redemption, and it's maybe not a coincidence that the first mitzvah that we have, that we're told about as a nation, is to we get to set the month might be in Pesach came in. What do they say? Pesach, June, exactly, it's like Amazon Prime right Prime in July right.

42:12 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
We have a precedent in history where Hezekiah HaMelech moved Passover to the month of Heshvan.

42:17 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
That's right. That's just one thing. It's like a whole essay, like a mind-blowing essay I persuade. Rabbi Masri to get the book.

42:23 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Yeah, but you know it's fascinating because it just reminded me. There are four special readings we do in a month of Adar and seemingly they're all connected to Nisan. Why in the world are we reading them? In Adar, we read about the half-shekel coin which had to be given right in order for the offerings in Nisan, which started a new cycle, and we read about the destruction of Amalek. And we read about purification of the red heifer to get ready for Passover and we read about the Parashat HaKhodesh Rosh Chodesh Nisan.

42:53
But all four are really Adar readings and really most of them belong in the month of Nisan. But maybe the answer is that really that's Adar the energy of Passover really also exists in the month of Adar.

43:05 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Yeah well, it's like Gamara says exists in the month of Adar. Yeah well, it's like Gamara says that when Adar starts, you get more joyous. Yeah, why so? Rashi says because that's when the festivals are.

43:13 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Well, it's not when we start drinking.

43:16 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
It says the festivals are the redemption of Purim and Pesach, meaning like there's a certain continuity between Adar and the redemptions that we have there and the redemptions of Nisan. So and the redemptions of Nisan. So how do we get ready for Messiah? Are we ready? Are we ready this year? Are we ready? What do we need to do? What would be something?

43:36 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
that we could do to prepare ourselves? Is that a good question? It's fascinating. I saw a line. I had a Rosh Hashiva Rabbi Hezkel Weinfeld many years back. I'm still in touch with him. I tried Rabbi he touch with him. I sat by him for many, many years.

43:51 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
He also has a podcast that we'll note Very good.

43:55 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Every Thursday I get a notification on his Zoom. They sent an email yesterday and a quote that he said about Pesach. I guess in Tysheng it opened up his notes and his teachings on Passover. He said the future Mashiach is not a change in I don't want to kill it because I just saw briefly yesterday but he said it's not a change in circumstance, it's more of a change of perspective. The circumstances may not change, but your perspective will change. I think to really receive the Messiah we need to change our perspective. We have to view the world with different eyes and the moment we can do that, I think that's the greatest preparation we can have.

44:39 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Ein ben olam, hazeh l'mas mashiach, the Talmud, says there's no difference between today and Messiah, besides for subjugation to foreign kings. Are you subjugated to foreign kings, to the Yetzirah, to all the other kings?

44:49 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
We all are.

44:51 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
We all are Okay. Well, it's time to get rid of that. 100%.

44:54 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
You know, the Rambam says that in the times of Moshiach people will live extraordinarily long lives. But he says but it's not supernatural, it's because of this paradigm shift. People won't be stressed out and with no stress you'll live years and years and years.

45:08 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
It's fascinating I went to see many years ago. There's a great rabbi in Israel, rabbi Yaakov Meir Schechter. Then he was probably in the mid-70s. I went to see him for a blessing and some guidance. I was still single man. I don't think he had one white hair man in his 70s Perfect black hair, black beard and I didn't ask him. Somebody asked him. He's like how do you stay so young looking?

45:37 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
It's not just from a hair color, it was not CBS.

45:45 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
And he said I never had any stress in my life. And you analyze his life. He had many difficulties and people passed away, close family members and a lot of challenges throughout his life. But you ask him no stress in my life. My life is simple. He doesn't age. It's perspective and how you relate to what happens to you in life. And I think, if you know, I saw a fascinating idea that you know.

46:08
Somebody asked a question. You know you talk about fear of God. Fear of God, fear of God. And the Saccolites just went over to the rabbi and said to him I don't understand fear of God. You know it's not a good, positive quality to be afraid. Why do we want people to be afraid, walk around fearful. So he answered him. I think it was Rav Soloveitchik who answered A powerful answer. He says you don't understand. If you have awe and fear of God, there's nothing else in the world to fear. You have no worries, you have nothing to be afraid of. You know it's in God's hands and everything is great. And it's nothing to be afraid of. You know it's in God's hands and everything is great and it's going to be fine, because the one who loves you and guides you and brought you to this world, is taking care of you, so there's nothing to be stressed out about. So it's the opposite it dispels all fear. All you need is that perspective that everything's in God's hands, and that's Yerushalayim.

47:08 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
So I think what we have from what the Cincinnatians said earlier, we have some ideas of how to prepare. We have the idea of trying to see our fellow Jew as a brother, as part of ourselves, maybe the idea of trying to see Hashem in the world, even to try to prepare for Sinai, prepare for Revelation, by trying to see Hashem's fingerprints in everything around us, and we have the idea of being fearful of Hashem, which is actually the magic way to not be fearful of anything else but Rabbi Wobbe, I want to hear what you have to say about preparing for Pesach and preparing for redemption. Maybe it will be this year. You do the math right. How many more years do we have left possible? 200-something years, at least a 0.5% chance this year.

47:56 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
If you go with those, we're missing 167 years in the calendar. We have a lot less.

48:05 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
This year I've been a little bit fascinated by the process of getting ready for Pesach which is, by the way, the whole mitzvah of cleaning for Pesach I found in Halacha is so that the bedikas chametz, the searching for chametz, should be easier. It's not so that Pesach should be like all, spotless clean our spring cleaning has been done. It's so that the search should be easy, because it's a mitzvah to search your house for chametz. But then what do we do after searching the house? We do something which is called bitol chametz. We're mevatel the chametz. We nullify the chametz that's in our possession, whether we know about it, whether we don't know, if it's hiding, if it's behind a cabinet or whatever. I didn't realize it was there. We're nullifying it.

48:49
And this is something that recently I've been learning with one of my chavrusas and now found it in one of my grandfather's writings as well the virtue of a person having bitil letting go of yourself in front of the Almighty. Like I'm in Hashem's world and I realize that everything that happens is the hand of Hashem and I'm not in control. He's got it all in control and I'm levato, I'm letting go. What's a good word for it? Self-abnegation? That's exactly what I meant that's what you were going to say. Yeah, you took the word out of my mouth. So that's self-abnegation, Abnegation, Abnegation, my self-abnegation to the Almighty. This is Hashem's world. I am a little resident, a part-time Self-abnegation.

49:40 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Sorry, I was just going to say there you go, the denial or abasement of oneself, for Hashem, for Hashem, for Hashem For.

49:46 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
Hashem, yes, which is?

49:47 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
similar, I think similar to what Rabbi Meshua was saying that if you just Hashlecha al Hashem, you have Ha right, you rely on Hashem.

49:53 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
You're nothing.

49:54 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
He'll take good care of you.

49:56 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
No need to have any white hairs or stress.

49:58 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
That's right. I believe in this as a life mission. No stress, have no fear at all, right? How do we say from Rav Nachman? But the greatest thing to recall is to have no fear at all. Right, have no fear at all. The only thing left to fear is fear itself. Well, that's okay. Someone else Someone else said that, not Rav Nachman but the idea of getting into Pesach as a frame of mind of we're in Hashem's hands.

50:28
Think of the Jewish people. They're getting into Pesach as a frame of mind of we're in Hashem's hands. Think of the Jewish people when they're leaving Egypt. They were basically saying they're at the 49th level of impurity. They're basically saying we're done, all right, let's just become Egyptians, let's just give it up. And they didn't. And they said you know what Hashem is going to carry us out. And some had a difficult time with that. Some stayed behind, some stayed behind and some died and were buried during the plague of darkness. So it shouldn't be a humiliation to the Jewish people. But the Jewish people go out and they witness what it means to be in the hand of Hashem, and they're living 40 years in the desert to witness what it means to be living in the hand of Hashem and they have the manna that descends from heaven so that they can witness what it means to live in the hand of Hashem. And they have the attack from the Amalekites to witness and they're victorious. What did they have? They were living in the hand of Hashem and I think that this is something that, if we can really bring it into our consciousness, this era of Pesach, preparing for Pesach, that the whole goal of Pesach is to commit ourselves with Emunah.

51:37
Saba was talking about this, my grandfather of blessed memory. He said that he went to Rabbi Hatzkel Levinstein, who was known as a pillar in Emunah. His whole life was Amunah and they were talking about Pesach and how it builds your Amunah. And he questioned my grandfather whether or not he believes in Yitzhak Mitzrayim. He says of course.

52:00
Of course I believe in the exodus from Egypt. Of course that's like one of our fundamental principles. He says, yeah, you believe in it. He says you believe that every single person, as the Midrash says, every single person who left Egypt left with 90 donkeys filled with riches. He says you know how many? Hundreds of millions of donkeys. That was 90 donkeys for every person. He says you believe in that. To just put it into a frame of mind at one time. In that, to just put it into a frame of mind, one time I had many students who told me to watch the Ten Commandments. I couldn't even find it, so one of them bought me a VHS video of. I have it still. If anybody wants, you can find the VHS player.

52:41 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
You're still looking for a VCR. I'm still looking for a VCR. If you want like a nice snooze, you put it on four hours later. If you want like a nice snooze, you put it on four hours later it's still going.

52:50 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
You have the crackle in the screen. You know it's shaking Either way. So I watched it because I was being implored by my students please watch this Ten Commandments. And I felt that there was one benefit of watching. It is that it helps you visualize what it could have been like and for us to be able to visualize the miracle of the splitting of the sea. There's so many inaccuracies in the movie, which is too long to list you have to read the book, not watch the movie.

53:17
Right, that's correct yeah, exodus, chapter 20, you got it covered. But to really well, that's the Ten Commandments. But, yeah, the actual Ten Commandments, not the right, but to really visualize what it meant for the Jewish people to walk into the sea on dry land, right Beto chayom baya boshah, on dry land, which is that's contrary to every scientific. They can come up with all of the ideas of how it could have happened without the hand of God. There are winds that can blow Tsunami. Tsunami can clear up a path.

53:56
It was a tsunami, but it was a well-timed, a divinely orchestrated tsunami and to drive that the land on the seabed is going to be dry. That is not explainable. Either way there's that. That is not explainable, either way. There's a lot that's not but to feel that closeness to Hashem that we can rely on Hashem through thick and thin, through everything that we experience. There's nothing that isn't already prescribed by the Almighty for us to experience a closeness and to attain a new level of relationship with Hashem.

54:29 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
I love it. I'm going to add just one more thing here and then we'll let everyone go. This was awesome, Rabbi Masri. Thank you for coming. It's a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. I think Rabbi Masri doesn't want to come back.

54:40 - Rabbi David Spetner (Guest)
I was thinking.

54:40 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
I once read the Chavetz. Chaim has a book called Tzipi Sili Yeshua, which means did you anticipate? It's one of the six questions that they ask everyone after you die. You come before a tribunal in heaven. Six questions. One of them is did you anticipate, did you yearn for redemption?

54:54
So there's a book, Tzipi Sili Yeshua, about your need for redemption and that's about preparing for Messiah. Right, no-transcript. You better know what you're going to do, because Elijah, the prophet, will not help you in things that you could have figured out on your own, Only the questions that are unanswerable, that we don't know. That we have to say Tish, be a tyrant. He'll come and he'll resolve the unresolved dilemmas, but he's not going to resolve your ignorance that you have to fix yourself. So the whole last section is very persuasive. You've got to learn the laws of sacrifices, but I think the concept is that you have to actually prepare. So we talked about trying to visualize the Exodus, Visualize the Messiah. What happens when the Messiah comes? You've got to plan the Messiah. What happens when the Messiah comes? You've got to plan how are you going to get into Israel? Oh, I'm going to fly on the wings of an eagle. No, you won't. You're going to fly on United. Okay, if you can afford a ticket.

55:52 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
And that is not flying.

55:54 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
You're going to have to wait for a while. That's what you're going to do. It's Lufthansa, whatever it is, and I think that's helpful to think about. You know, joseph, he was in the pit in the dungeon and then he went to sleep one day, like he did for ten years, woke up in the dungeon and that night he slept in the palace. And that's going to happen, and we don't know when it's going to happen, but it's going to happen and part of what we need to do is to be ready for that is to be ready, be prepared for that, and hopefully it will happen really soon and we will be ready. Rebbe Rocham has a whole piece where he says that Messiah is like a train, not a taxi. A taxi, you wait for the taxi or your Uber. You can still stay inside and the Uber comes, taxi comes, you put your jacket on and you walk downstairs.

56:40
Train, you got to be there, you got to be ready, Because the train will not wait for nobody, so you got to be ready to jump on. So I think part of what we need to do as we prepare for the festival of redemption and the whole concept of redemption, is to be ready to jump on that train, the Chafetz Chaim. The aforementioned Chafetz Chaim had a bag ready to go like a bug-out bag. A bug-out bag not for when the society breaks down, but for when Messiah comes Go back.

57:07 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
The famous mashkiach of Lakewood also walked around with a bag More recent history. You don't have to go back to the Chavetz Chaim.

57:14 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
The Chavetz Chaim is a Kohen also. He was a lefty. Do you know this? He was a lefty and it's brought down in Halacha that that's called a blemish. So sorry to all you lefties out there, but the Chavetz Chaim, since he was a Kohen, he wanted to be able to bring sacrifices into the temple, so he trained himself to become a righty, to write with his right hand, so that he could he could force himself into becoming a righty.

57:36 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
what I understand is that a Kohen could do service as long as they used their right hand. Meaning, if you were left handed, as long as you can do the service in your right hand, you're qualified, because he was supposed to be the Kohen Gadol, right? Everyone knew that he was called the Kohen Gadol. Anyhow, I hope it's a wonderful Pesach. It's great to have the Torch Insider Podcast back again.

57:57 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
It's going to be the Torch, the Pesach Insiders. This is the roundtable, roundtable, pesach roundtable part two Part Roundtable. Pesach roundtable. Pesach, I got a roundtable Part two Because we did a roundtable a couple years ago.

58:09 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Oh, okay, yeah, so Okay. Well, I want you to have a wonderful festival and we still have some time to prepare, but we talked about halacha instructions or not Next time.

58:17 - Rabbi Chaim Bucsko (Co-host)
So everyone should reach out. Reach out to us if you're looking for specific instructions, or reach out to your rabbi.

58:23 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Co-host)
We have some different things happening because Shabbos, oh, this year yes, we actually have a whole episode of the Everyday Judaism podcast. There you go, which goes through the laws of Pesach. And is that live?

58:35 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
already today. It should be live by the time this podcast is released. It's got. And Rabbi Masri. Thank you so much for joining. Rabbi Masri is again the chief rabbi of Beth Arambam, a Sephardic synagogue in Houston. Alumnus of Torch Not exclusively Sephardic though.

58:51 - Rabbi Danny Masri (Guest)
Yeah, we welcome Ashkenazim. Even Rabbi both Rabbi Wolbe's come visit us from time to time and enjoy our beautiful field, One of the most beautiful synagogues in America.

59:01 - Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe (Co-host)
Oh, thank you and Rabbi Masri, we appreciate you came here and we welcome you back, please, god. We appreciate you came here and we welcome you back. Please, god, for another episode. Rabbi Bucsko, thank you so much. The Torchwood is going to have a robust Pesach program, of course. Reach out to Rabbi Bucsko, Rabbi Aryeh - awolbe@torchweb.org, chaim@torchweb.org, Rabbi Masri, rdm@BethRambam.org, and RabbiWolbe@gmail.com for me, or ywolbe@torchweb.org. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day and a fantastic preparation for Pesach and, please, god, a wonderful Pesach of redemption for all of us, including our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land, but all of us. We should have an uplifting, meaningful and kosher Passover, amen.