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Pasuk in this week's parsha says V'ha'elachem le'mishmeres arabas ar yom lachodes hazeh v'shachtu oso kol khal adas Yisrael b'nei Arabaim. The carbon Pesach The carbon Pesach was actually slaughtered on the fourteenth of the month. But they kept it for a couple of days. But if you look carefully, the pasuk says, "V'shachtu es kol kahala das Yisrael." Every single Jew was called upon to shecht the carbon Passover. There's an obvious problem with this. How many millions of Jews are there? Every single Jew is going to shecht the carbon Pesach on the 14th. Obviously, that's physically impossible. And not only that, does every Jew know how to shecht? The Gemara learns from your halacha, probably a halacha you're familiar with. The halacha is that there's such a thing called shlichus. What does shlichus mean? Means that you can appoint someone to be your messenger to do something on your behalf.
And the halacha is shluchos shel adam kamosa. Girls have heard of that phrase before. Shluchos shel adam kamosa. It means that when the shliach does it It's like you did it. You can appoint someone to shecht the carbon Pesach on your behalf. And it's like you did it. The question is: of all of the places in the entire Torah that we could learn out the concept of shlichus from Why specifically do we learn it from carbon pesach? There's another question we have to ask in order to answer this one. Hashem appoints Moshe to be his shliach to go and take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. This is going back a couple of parshios. And Moshe Rabbeinu responds. We know that Moshe Rabbeinu and Hakadosh Baruch Hu have a back and forth. Moshe Rabbeinu says, "You can't send me. You have to send my older brother. I'm an Aral Svasayim. I'm not a good speaker." Moshe Rabbeinu gives a lot of different arguments.
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There's one argument that Moshe Rabbeinu makes. It's the first argument that Moshe Rabbeinu makes that makes very little sense. Listen to the pasuk. Va'yomer Moshe El Ha Elokim Mi Anochi Ke'elecha Al Paro? Who am I that I should be the one to go to Paro? V'chiotsi Es Bnei Yisrael Mi Mitzrayim? That I should take the children of Israel out of the land of Mitzrayim? Mi Anochi? Who am I? Akedush Baruch Hu responds, "Vayomer ki yemach, I'll be with you." Vezelcha os, and he gives him a sign, 'Ki anochi shalach ticha vhotziyacha es ami Mitzrayim.' I'm going to give you a sign that I'm the one that sent you to take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. You know If somebody tells you can do something, maybe you can, and maybe you can't. If somebody says to you Do me a taiva. I want you to dunk a basketball.
You might look at that person and go I can't dunk. I'm a five foot three Jewish girl. I could play machanayim with the best of them. I never played machanayim, but I heard about this game from my wife. And every time I give this year, the girls go, "I love machanayim," and every guy goes, "I still don't know what it is." " It's like some sort of like Jewish female version of like dodgeball. Don't don't. Let's not. We don't need. So you say I can't dunk. I know you want me to, but I can't. If a kaddush baruchu comes to you and tells you can, what's the correct answer? I guess I can. So what does Moshe Rabbeinu say? Mi anochi? Who am I? That I should be able to take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. You're the one that Hakadosh Baruch Hu just told, you can take the children of Israel out of the land of Mitzrayim.
And not only that, but if you look at Hashem's response, what does Hashem say? Vayomer ki e'ye imoch I'll be with you. What's Hashem's answer? Really, you can't do it. You can only do it because I'll be there with you. So did Moshe Rabbeinu take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim or not? It's not so obvious now when you look at the pesukim. So I saw a beautiful verb. In order to understand this, you really need to go back to Parshas Vayigash. Yaakov Avinu is afraid to go down to Mitzrayim. And what does Hashem say to him? Anochi ereid imcha Mitzrayim, I will go down to Mitzrayim with you. Va'anochi elcha gamalo, and I'm going to be the one to take you out. Anochi—that's the key word. I go down with you. I'm the one that's going to take you out. When Moshe Rabbeinu says to Hashem, "Me anochi" He's not saying what we thought he was saying.
Who am I? What do you mean, who am I? Hashem just told you who you are. He's saying something else. I know that you promised Yaakov Avinu that you were going to take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. How did I get involved in this? In other words, if Hashem is saying I'm going to take you out of Mitzrayim, and now Hashem comes to Moshe and says you're going to be the one to take them out of Mitzrayim, what's Moshe Avinu's question? How could I be the one to take them out of Mitzrayim when you promised our great grandfather Yaakov Avinu that you were going to be the one to take them out of Mitzrayim? And here, Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes and He says something phenomenal. I will be with you. What does that mean? What's the greatest shavach that a servant of the king can give to the king?
The greatest shavach that a servant of the king can give to the king. Is that when you see the servant of the king, you don't see the servant at all; you see the king. Explain what I mean. Let's say you have an ambassador. And the ambassador is a very impressive person. And she's the ambassador to the king. So the ambassador comes along. She's well spoken, thoughtful, intelligent and inquisitive. All of the things that when you look at the ambassador, what do you think to yourself? She's really impressive, and it's possible that the ambassador will be so impressive that you won't see the king anymore. In fact, it's almost like don't talk to me about the king Talk to me about the ambassador, because that's the person who really wields the power. In other words, the ego of the ambassador could be so present that the king actually gets lost in translation.
And you could begin to mistake the power of one for the power of the other. Like for example The Rambam says The Rambam says, how did our Kadosh Baruch Hu start idolatry? Originally, they were serving Hashem And then they looked at the sun and they said, we can grasp the sun, we can't grasp Hashem. The sun is something that's very impressive. So you could lose a person could lose. Hashem for the sun, because the sun is very impressive. It's like right there in front of you, and it's shining and it's bright. I'd rather serve the sun than serve Hashem. I'd rather be connected to the ambassador than be connected to the king. Of course, there's another type of ambassador. And this is the egoless ambassador. This is the ambassador that's truly worked on themselves. That whenever you're speaking to the ambassador, what's the first words out of their mouth?
The king says this. When you see the intelligence of the ambassador, what do you see? You see not the ambassador's intelligence, but the king's intelligence. When the ambassador is charismatic, you don't see the charisma of the ambassador. What do you see? The charisma of the king. In other words, it's possible for a person to pull back their ego. It's possible for a person to say, "I know I'm taking up this space, but don't pay attention to me. Pay attention to what's behind me." I'll give you an example of this. Many years ago When I was in seventh grade I had a rebbe whose name was Rav Mordechai Finkelman Shlita. Rav Mordechai Finkelman was a seventh grade rebbe, and everybody in the school knew that it was ridiculous that he was a seventh grade rebbe, because he was an exceptional tzaddik. And a couple of years later, he was hired to be the mashgiach of a yeshiva called Ora Chaim in Queens. He left Darchei and became a mashgiach of the yeshiva. He became a person who today is of world repute.
And when he got hired to be the mashgiach of Ora Chaim, everybody kind of went like this. Everyone kind of went like, "That makes sense, right?" It was kind of ridiculous that he was a seventh grade rabbi. And I was in his shir. I want to tell you, he was such a tzaddik. He never raised his voice one time the entire year. He raised his voice. And we knew it because he never raised his voice. And the entire year we ran rafshad all over him. The boys, baruch Hashem, were out of control the entire year. Rabbi Finkelman never lost his cool because he was like a really worked-on person. And he would tell stories of tzaddikim, and we learned makos that year. He made sure that every boy knew every word. He was a real mechanech. He really got to us. But the thing I remember most about the year I had under Rabbi Finkelman was the way he davened.
Most of us daven like we take a sitter, we daven up the words. Daven up the words means we just don't daven the words. I'm talking about where you just fly through the sitter and at some point you're like where am I? To say there. With Rabbi Finkelman, you saw a man who was talking to Hashem. Most people shackle like this. Not Rabbi Finkelman. Rabbi Finkelman was like a reed swaying in the wind, and he had a very beautiful rhythm to it. So this was the rhythm. He would bounce on his toes three times. And then he would like shackle sideways like this And it was very sweet, gentle. I would watch him daven. I wasn't davening much myself back then. I think a lot of people are probably watching him daven. But the amazing thing, as I think back on it, was It wasn't Rabbi Finkelman that we were watching.
It was like Hashem's presence was clear. Not that you could see Hashem, but you saw something that was about Hashem. It wasn't about Rabbi Finkelman. He wasn't trying to get anybody's attention. There was zero gaiva there. It was all about serving something larger than myself. This is Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu's posture towards Hashem is: I do not want to be seen. All I want is total presence of Hashem So that nothing else comes in the way of our relationship. When you meet people like this, it's deeply attractive. When you meet someone whose ego is so pulled back that really all you're looking at is something greater than yourself, greater than themselves, it's almost like you want to be in their presence. It's comfortable to be in their presence. You know what I'm talking about? If you meet someone who's so kind, who's so gentle, who has no ego, what's the feeling? What's the posture that we have?
What's the posture that we have? It's like that's a place where somebody else could be. Moshe Rabbeinu comes and he says to Klal Yisrael I don't want to be the one to take you out. Hashem commanded me to take you out. I'm here not because I'm taking you out. But because Hashem is taking you out, and I just happen to be the vehicle. And in today's world, that's not very common. In today's world, what's it about? It's about attention. Everything is about attention. It's how many likes you can get on Instagram. It's how many retweets you can get on Twitter. Even now in this room, there's people that I'm trying to reach that are b'chol. I'm not paying attention to me. I'm just letting them know this is my secret way of trying to not embarrass them, but letting them know that I see them. If you know what I'm saying, just to bring you back with me.
There's a certain gaiva. There's a certain like, but I need to do this right now, and it doesn't matter what else is happening. It's not anybody's fault. I don't blame anybody. But there's a certain. We live in a world that's very arrogant. It's a world of I show up to what I want to show up to. I'll give you an example of this. It's always bothered me. Let's say you have a teacher who comes in specifically for this class. Not this—I don't mean this class specifically for a class here in Talmud Torah. And a girl goes, "Yeah, I'm not down to go." What is that really? What are you really saying? I know that there's something greater than me. I know that there's something that I'm supposed to do. But ma'isa, what do I want to do right now? There's a yeshus to it. There's a gaiva to it. There's an arrogance to it. Somebody prepared a class. Somebody got in a car. They traveled to go somewhere. This person is an actual human being.
But we treat them almost like they're not human. They're just like this thing. I remember my father said this to me years ago. My father, when he found out that guys in my high school sleep through class He's like, "I don't understand what you're talking about. You go to sleep in class." So I said, 'Yeah, like you have those big. This is for the boys. You have like those big down jackets.' And the mask. I'm talking. You ever see the boys with like the huge down jackets? The sleeves are pillows. If you really think about it, that's what the sleeves are. You put the two sleeves together, you've got a double pillow. And boys would just pass out. And my father said to me, 'He goes, a person is speaking to you' And you go to sleep. So I said to my father He's not speaking to me. He's speaking to the class. And my father, I remember, my father was like, 'Wow, you're a genius. You just made up this new thing called the class.'
There's no such thing as the class. There's a group of people in a room. A person came to teach you. He's not teaching me. He's teaching the class. So I want to sleep. I want to be on my phone. What's that? There's a human being that's talking to you right now. A person who traveled to get here. A person who took time away from their family. A person who's underpaid, but cares specifically about you. I want to do this right now. It's the way we show up to life. Maturity. What does maturity really mean? It's the capacity to put somebody else's needs in front of yours. What makes somebody a good parent? It's not that they can provide a lot of money for their family. Because of all the kids throughout all the years that have come to me and said, 'Yeah, my parents make a lot of money, but it's not what I want. What do you want?'
My parents' attention. What does attention mean? Your parents had something. I know this might sound like mussar. It is. There's a like your parents are human beings. Did you know that? Like your parents, if you think about what your parents do I want your time. I want your attention. I want your money. I want your stuff, right? I want you to drive me somewhere, right? That's what parents do. What are they really doing? If you unpack it, if you think about it, do you think I know your mothers all love you very deeply? But did your mother sign up to be a chauffeur? You know what the answer is? Sure she did. That's absolutely what she did. When you were born, she said you're somebody whose needs come before my own. And a great mother A great father is somebody who says I have children. I have a responsibility. I'm putting that responsibility ahead, so that when you see a great mother, you know what you see?
You see that she's totally been mevatel her own yeshus. It doesn't mean that she doesn't have needs. She has. It doesn't mean that she doesn't take care of her needs. She does. But why does she take care of her needs so that she can take care of another? It's all about somebody else. This is what Moshe Rabbeinu's posture is. Moshe Rabbeinu's posture is to pay no attention to this. I want you, when you look at me, only to see how Kadosh Baruch Hu. That's what I want. Why? Because it has to be Hashem that takes you out of Mitzrayim. It can't be me. I'm only a man of flesh and blood. How big am I? I'm a tiny man. I'm just a couple of feet by a couple of feet But Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite. When we do a mitzvah because of how much the mitzvah means to us How big is your mitzvah? Lots of people say this all the time. They say, "I want it to mean something to me."
Let's think about that for a second. Let's unpack that. You want the mitzvah to mean something to you? Why? Because otherwise I'm not going to do it. Why? Because what do you mean? I don't want to, but it's not about you. It's not about you. Imagine, just take the same circumstance and make it about a husband and a wife. Imagine my wife came to me and she said, "Mordchai, I'd like you to take out the garbage." And I turn to my wife and I go, 'But, I need to know why you want me to. What is the benefit to me to take out the garbage? What's the reward punishment system here? If I do or don't take out the garbage' What would my wife's response to that be? Your face said a tremendous amount right now. I imagine that if I said that to my wife, she would look at me and go What? What? You hit your head? What happened to you? People do that all the time. But I want to make it meaningful to me. I tell my wife, "I'll take out the garbage for you, but I need it to be meaningful to me." What would my wife say?
But it's not about you. I asked you to do something. If I asked, "What should your natural response be?" If someone you love tells you, "This is what I need from you," what's our immediate answer to that? Sure. And then afterwards, we might want to know why, not because of our own gaiva, not because we want it to be meaningful to us But because in order for me to connect better to you I'd like to know why. Do you hear the difference? I can tell you the strangest things about my wife. Things that nobody else in this room is interested in. Why can I tell you those things? Because I've been paying attention. I can have a doctoral degree in my wife. I know things about her because I've been paying attention for 20 plus years. I know that she likes underbaked kakhish cake. That's of no interest here. None of you care about that.
Don't take my moves. I know why she likes it. She likes it because it reminds her of Sternberg. Because Shabbos morning they would serve for those of you I see the underbaked kakhish cake, right? It's a blast of the past. It brings her back. So imagine if my wife said to me Actually, if you're going If you're going to buy something for Shabbos anyway, like underbaked karkush cake, that would be a special thing for me. Imagine if my response to her was But like I want it to be meaningful to me. What would you look for? What could her response possibly be? Speechless because it's the dumbest thing in the world to say. What do you mean? It's not about you. I asked you to do something for me. Hashem comes and he says, "I'm asking you to do something for me." But it's our own ego that says, 'Yeah, but it's got to be meaningful to me.' Why? Calm down.
It's actually paradoxical because if you stop making it about you, then it could actually become meaningful. Because if it's about you, you know how big it'll be. It'll be a couple of feet by a couple of feet. It's going to be a five three Jewish girl. It's not going to be very important. But if you do something because an infinite God says to you, 'This is important,' how big is your mitzvah? Your mitzvah is infinitely big. Hakadosh Baruch Hu promised Yaakov Avinu, "I will take your children out of Mitzrayim." Moshe Rabbeinu is the shliach. Shluchos haladim kamosah. You know what that means? That when you see Moshe Rabbeinu, you see Hashem. So the promise that Yaakov Avinu made was true. Moshe Rabbeinu comes and he says, 'Me, Anochi, who am I?' What does Hashem say? 'I'll be right there.' You're not doing this. Your job is to be mevatel yourself.
That's why. What's the very first thing that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says in the Asaras Adibros? Anochi, I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt. Who do you mean? You? Moshe Rabbeinu did it. Hashem was the one going to Pharaoh. Moshe and Aaron were the ones going to Pharaoh. Who was the one that split the sea? It was Moshe Rabbeinu. It was Nachshon Ben Aminadav. What does Hashem say? It was Anochi. It was me. It wasn't you. There's a level of bittul that a Jew has to have to Hashem. There's a level of self nullification that says it's not about me. There's something greater than me. In the Hagada, it says that Hashem is the one that took us out of Mitzrayim. Anivlo Malach, Anivlo Saraf. Remember those words? It was me. It wasn't an angel. I took you out of Mitzrayim. Asks the Gra.
Fein Miskasha of the Vilna Gaon. What do you mean? It was Moshe Rabbeinu. And who's the only name that's not mentioned in the Hagada? Everyone knows. It's every second grade Rebbe. Every third grade teacher that you had says, 'What's the Dvar Torah that you get on Pesach?' Moshe Rabbeinu's name is not mentioned in the Hagada. Says the Gra. Sure it is. Sure it is. Of course it's mentioned in the Hagada. It's every time you say Hashem. It's be'aminu ba'Hashem u'b'Moshe avdo. Hashem and Moshe are the same exact thing. If you see Moshe Rabbeinu, you see Hashem. The Hagada is telling you the story as it happened in the light. It's telling you the real thing. That's why the Gemara and Sota says that Moshe Rabbeinu never died. What does it mean, Moshe Rabbeinu lomays? We say Moshe Rabbeinu never died. We read it about in the Torah. What does death mean?
Death means that there's a part of you that can die Moshe Rabbeinu was so battle, he was so nullified to Hashem. Which part of him died? No part of him could die Because it was kulo Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Today we're in Mitzrayim. Today we're in Mitzrayim. Every one of us. Mitzrayim is not just the land of Egypt. Mitzrayim means a state of constriction and restriction. And every one of us is trying to go free from Mitzrayim. Everybody in this room, we're all trying to go free from Mitzrayim. Everybody's got their Mitzrayim. There's Mitzrayim's of loneliness. There's Mitzrayim's of depression. There's Mitzrayim's of anxiety. There's Mitzrayim's of meaninglessness. There's Mitzrayim's of I'm not worthy enough. I'm not good enough. There's Mitzrayim's of hopelessness. Everybody in this room, on some level, is in a state of Mitzrayim. How do you get out? The halacha of how you leave Mitzrayim is Shluchos Shal Adam Kamosa.
You want to get out of Mitzrayim; you can't do it on your own. There's a maimer Chazal that says el maleh Hakadosh Baruch Hu ezer lo eni yachala. If God does not help you, it's not possible to do anything. A person in jail cannot remove themselves from jail. How do you bust out of jail? Imagine you're in jail in the old times. You're sitting in jail, and it's your birthday, and all of a sudden the guard walks in and he says, "Hey, here's your birthday" "Right?" And then in the cake there's a note And the note says, "At 5:45 exactly, stand as close as you can to the bars of your cell." So you stand at 5:45. You're standing there by the bars of your cell, and then somebody comes with TNT and he blows out the back wall. That's how you escape. Because a person cannot take themselves out of jail, and a person cannot take themselves out of Mitzrayim.
For that, you need Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The only way to give up our addictions in life is to turn towards a higher power. It's steps one, two, and three of Alcoholics Anonymous. We have to say, "I can't get rid of this. I can't do this on my own." But if I turn towards you, I know you are infinite. I know you can help me with anything. And then your shaluchos haladam kamosa. If you accept upon yourself the shaluchos of Hakadosh Baruch Hu Then all of a sudden it's not you anymore. It's not your willpower. It's His will. And now all of a sudden you're capable of doing tremendous things, things that you never in a million years thought you were capable of doing. Why? Because you have an infinite amount of power behind you. You see, the problem is that we're being crushed under the burden of our own ego.
Because if we lead a life of "I need to control everything, I'm in charge of everything" Then you're also stuck. Because what happens if you're in charge of everything? You fix it. And very often in life, we look around and go, "But I can't fix it." You can't fix your sister. I know you want to. Not you, you know what I mean. Not just your biological sister, though hers too. But your friends. We're not in charge of the way that people show up. Husbands are not in charge of wives, and wives are not in charge of husbands. You can't control the way that people show up to life. What are you in control of? Asking a Kadosh Baruch Hu for help. I can't handle this on my own. I need your help. I'm not good at creating strong boundaries. I need Hashem to help me create strong boundaries.
It's not about controlling somebody else, but if you're a person who's constantly needing to control this All of a sudden you find yourself helpless when it comes to getting out of your own mitzrayim. How come I can't do this on my own? Of course you can't do this on your own. Why would klal yisrael be able to leave mitzrayim? It doesn't make any sense. How could an enslaved nation for 210 years? How could an enslaved nation leave the most powerful nation in the world? On a microcosmic level, that's every one of us. Every one of us has been doing these habits for years. Just today in yeshiva I was talking to a boy. And I said, "This part of you" This is struggling with a certain thing. This part of you, how old is it? How long have you been struggling with this? So he thinks to himself and he goes.
Six. I said, "Wow." How old are you now? He goes, "Just turned 19." That's a long time. He goes, "Yeah, no, but I've been in yeshiva for like five months already. Why isn't it going away?" I'm like, "Well Not very good at math, but 13 years on this side Four and a half months on this side. Why would you think you'd be able to just snap your fingers and all of a sudden change? So many of us come to seminary with unrealistic expectations. Once I leave seminary, it's going to be great. I'm going to have it all figured out. You're not. Why would you? It takes time. It takes a lifetime of working on yourself to be able to achieve something. So you're sitting there going, "I promised myself this was going to be the last time that I do this," and I and then Rebbe, you don't understand. That very night that I promised myself that I wasn't going to do it, I did it again.
Thank you for betraying yourself. Just a couple of you, right? I once had a girl at Tzomra Devorah who told me I can't come to your She'er anymore. I said, "Why?" She said, "Because in the She'er I always commit myself to doing something, and then later that night I always do it. I always do the thing that I committed myself I wouldn't do anymore. I'm just tired of feeling bad about myself, so I'm not coming anymore." I said, "I hear you. Makes sense. I probably wouldn't want to go to that She'er either." The only way. That we can actually stop is if we ask a higher power to help us. It's about becoming godly. Nullifying yourself to something larger than yourself. The funny part in today's world is they think that this is the least inspiring thing you could tell somebody. We have to figure out how to make it relevant to these kids in order to get them to buy in.
Wrong. You'll never make it relevant enough to them. I don't care how many you have these rabbayim. They come and they say, "I know how I'm going to make Gemara relevant to the boys. I'm going to teach it to them and I'm going to show them the halachas that come out of it." It's not going to work because at the end of the day, you know what the kid's going to say? But I don't have an ox, and nobody I know has an ox. And I don't often find myself in a situation where my non-ox or is another person's non-ox. And the Rebbe goes, 'You may not have an ox, but you do have a car.' And he goes, 'Yeah, and I have insurance, right?' I'm like, 'Come on, what are we talking about here?' It's exactly the opposite. We need to be teaching kids today: you're a shliach of Hashem. You have a godly part in you.
Live for something larger than yourself. If you want to leave Mitzrayim, stop being trapped in a Mitzrayim of your own design. Turn your life over to God. Ask a higher power for help. Become a person that, when people look at you, what they see is godliness. They see nullification. They see humility. And Beis Hashem will be zaychah to leave Mitzrayim together.
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