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Here, you could put your oil. Yeah, Right. Kind of like. Okay. So one of the interesting things that we see in this week's parsha is makas bchoros. Makas bchoros. Is unique amongst all the makos in that it's very time oriented. So there's a great stress on the fact that it happened at midnight. Happened at midnight. So the first question that we have to ask ourselves is what is the significance of the timing?
Of Makas Pechoros, why is it so important? The Torah stresses over and over again that it's going to happen at midnight. That's question number one. Question number two: It seems like it was so important that Moshe Rabbeinu had to tell Paro it's going to happen at midnight. We don't find in any of the other Makos that Moshe Rabbeinu informs Paro of the timing. I can understand that Moshe Rabbeinu is telling Paro, 'This is the Maka that's coming.' But why is it important to tell him when it's going to come? Not only that, but he makes sure to say it's going to be around midnight. Why? So that in case they're off in their timing, they won't say, 'Oh, you were wrong. You said it was going to be at twelve, and it was really at twelve o' five.' Try to imagine Mitzrayim, just for a moment. Imagine Mitzrayim.
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They just lost all of the firstborn Egyptian sons. The entire nation is mourning, we can't possibly fathom. Is it possible that Mitzrayim would then come to Moshe Rabbeinu and go, 'It's true, every one of our firstborns is now dead.' But you were off on the timing by at least two minutes. What would be their taina? This unbelievable makkah just happened, wiping out the Egyptian nation. But you were off by a minute. You're off by a minute. Who cares if you're off by a minute? Moshe Rabbeinu is so careful about the timing here. It's happening at midnight. He's letting Paro know that it's happening at midnight. And he's saying it in such a way that if he's two minutes off, it won't be made like this huge deal. If he's two minutes off, he's two minutes off. Twelve o'clock on the dot. What's the pshat? When we look at Makas B'choros, there are two fundamental differences between this plague and every other plague. What are the two differences?
So the first is that this is the first plague where we have to mark our doors with the blood of the carbon pencil. We have to mark our doors so that we won't be hurt, and that the Malach Hamavos will pass over us. We didn't have to do that by any other plague. The Mashal when it came to frogs, when it came to Tzvardeya. So the Tzvardeya did not attack Jewish homes. We didn't have any reason to put blood on our doorposts to make sure that the frogs don't attack our homes. That's one fundamental difference. By makas b'choros, we had to put a mark on our home. The second fundamental difference is that when it comes to makas b'choros, we're told that we have to remain indoors. Again, this was not the case. Let's say when it came to the wild beasts that were destroying the entire country. A Jew was able to walk freely in the streets, knowing that no harm was going to come to them. But when it comes to Makas B'choros, not only do we have to put a sign on our doors, but we're not even allowed outside.
What's going on over here? Chazal in the Gemara and Baba Kama explain that the Malachamavos was given free reign to kill anyone that was outside. And that meant that it didn't matter if you were a tzaddik or a roshah. If you were outside, the malacham avos was going to kill you. But there's two problems with this. What's the first problem? What's the obvious problem? What does that mean? What exactly? The malacham avos gets to kill whoever's ever outside. Malacham avos is a malach. Girls, can a malach do something that's kineged the rotsan Hashem? So what does it mean that a malach is going to kill whosoever righteous or wicked if they're outside their homes? Malcham avos can't just kill anyone. There has to be some policy. And yet we see that no, if you're outside, the malcham avos is going to kill you no matter what.
That's the first problem. But there's a second problem. Girls, what does the Hagada say? Who did makas b'choros? Who b'chvaydu v'atzmo? Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself did it. So what does the Gemara in Baba Kamma mean when it says that the Malchamavos had free reign to kill anyone who was outside wasn't Malchamavos; it was Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Does that mean to say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was outside doing the killing that he would have killed even a Jew who didn't deserve to be killed? How could we say such a thing about the Rebbeinu Shem? So we have a lot of questions over here. Miss Yussa said, "Shall I chazar over all the questions? You got them all?" There's a fundamental difference between makas b'choros and every other makah. Now we'll start to get into an answer. May take us one more question. We'll start to get into an answer here.
Most plagues were not designed to kill anyone. Dam did not kill anyone. Tzvarideya did not kill anyone. There was massive financial loss. There was a massive interruption of daily life. But the nature of the plague is that it wouldn't kill anyone. Why? Because this is the first thing. The plagues were not a punishment. What do the pesukim tell us? You girls did this? What was the purpose of the plagues? What does the pasuk say, girls? Exactly. The purpose was to show the might of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to Mitzrayim. So if the purpose was to show the might of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to Mitzrayim, then what would the last thing we would want to do be? We don't want to kill anyone. We want to wake you up to the fact that the life you're living is not normal, to the fact that you're an idolatrous place. But the last thing in the world we would want to do is kill you.
So therefore, even in the plague where wild beasts were roaming around the countryside, most people were not killed. Every plague had a natural constraint to it. It was limited by frogs. It was limited to blood. It was limited to lice. But when it came to makas b'choros, it was different in two ways. First of all, there was no limitation. You just died. There was no limitation. And not only that, it was fundamentally different. It seems like now there's been a shift. No longer are we trying to get Mitzrayim to recognize the greatness of Hashem. What are we trying to do now? Now we're trying to punish them. Unbelievable shift. What happened over here? So I want to explain to you something very fundamental. Imagine you're an Egyptian. Imagine you're an Egyptian. And makas b'choros is occurring. Now you recognize this is a punishment. What's the question that you should have in that moment?
Why me? After all, the Jew who was living next door to me for the last 210 years was doing the same exact thing that I've been doing when I went. To serve my idol, the Jew next door also went to serve his idol. So why am I being punished? If Kolod said there were amazing things happening, you were trying to get me to recognize the greatness of our Kadosh Baruch Hu. I'm with you. That a Mitzri could understand. But when the Jew next door isn't being punished, the Jew recognizes God. Great, maybe he's a bad Jew, but he recognizes God. I can understand that distinction. But when you say to me, 'Now I'm being punished. Now I'm dying,' there's got to be a meaningful distinction between me and the Jew, and there is no meaningful distinction between me and the Jew. He's worshiping idols, and so am I. And girls, who said this? The Malachim said this. The Malachim said this at Kriyas Yamsuf when all the Mitzrim were being drowned.
What was their Taina? Halalu of the Avodah Zarah, The Halalu of the Avodah Zarah. These people were serving idols. Why do the Egyptians deserve to die? That's the fundamental question. Why should I be punished and not the Jew? And the truth of the matter is, It's a good taina. Growing up, what's the number one thing that children complain about? Bedtime. Bedtime's a good answer, but that's not the number one thing. Candy. It's not fair. I know as a parent that once I set a precedent in motion, I've lost all control. Because now one of my younger daughters comes and says, 'You did it for her, you have to do it for me.' I had a parent who came to visit Mivaser very recently, and he says to me, 'My wife does not want my son.' If he comes to your yeshiva, he doesn't want. She doesn't want my son to come shanabet. Rabbi, between you and me, he'll come shunabet. So I'm trying to understand this. You're undermining the mother right in front of the kid. So I said, 'Why do you say that?' He says, 'Well, all of his older brothers went shunabet. So you know, what's she gonna do? What's she gonna do? Why? Because when kids come and they say it's not fair, what's our response as parents? It's not fair.
It's not fair. The truth of the matter is that this taina comes from nowhere. This taina comes from nowhere. It's not fair. It's not a reasonable taina. Because just because I did something for the older children doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake. Number one, and maybe they needed something different. But we as parents, when we hear it's not fair, it drives us crazy because now I have to do something that I didn't want to do before. It's classic. So I knew, for example, I got my daughter a phone in ninth grade. I got her a phone in ninth grade, a flip phone, not a smartphone, tiny little junky phone. You can barely hear over it. Tiny little phone. Why? Because she was taking the bus to school. So I said, I'm gonna get her a phone. My ninth, she's in tenth grade. I have another daughter in ninth grade. What's my ninth grade daughter want? A phone. She wants a phone. After all, you got my sister a phone last year. I said the difference is that she went on a bus, and now you're walking to school. Your school is walking distance. So she says back to me, "That's true, but she switched schools and now she's in the same school as I am, and she's not walking."
She's not on a bus anymore. So why does she get a phone and I don't get a phone? And what's the answer? I didn't want to give the first one a phone. But why did I have to give it to her? Because apparently, if you're on buses, you have to have a phone. That's the rule. So now I don't know why, but that's the rule. That's the rule. So since that's the rule, now I'm sitting there struggling internally. It's not fair. We as parents take 'it's not fair' very seriously because it's meaningful tanya. Why should it be one over the other? So when the mitzrim said, 'It's not fair.' Halalo of David Azar. We both did this. Why am I being punished? This was a tremendous kasha. In order to understand this, we need to go back to something very basic. I'm going to ask you girls to try to pay close attention because we're going to handle some very serious philosophical issues tonight. If you miss this part right here, you might miss a lot more than you realize. So try to zero in.
I'm going to ask two questions. The first question is, What is a Jew? And the second question is, What are we doing here? What is a Jew? And what is the mission of Judaism? After tonight's share, I want you to have clarity in those two questions. And the answer is as follows. Did you ever hear the mussel when you were growing up about the car and the engine, the body of the car and the engine, and the teachers? At least when I was growing up, the rebbeim used to say to me, "What's more important, the body of a car or the engine of the car? Which one makes it a car?" And their point was, the engine makes the car into a car. You ever hear that muscle growing up? Do you realize how stupid that muscle is? It has to be the dumbest muscle in the world. Because an engine without a body is what?
Is an engine, and it's not moving anywhere. And a body without an engine is just what? It's just a body. To say that the engine is what makes it a car is not true because an engine without a body is not meaningful. So really, the answer is like this. We are not our bodies, and we are not our souls. Now I know that makes people get very nervous when they hear that. What do you mean I'm not my soul? You're not your soul, and I'll prove it to you. Every day in davening, you say the following words: Elokei neshama shen asata bi tahorehi. Let's say that one more time. Elokei. What does Elokei mean? My God. Neshama shen asata bi the soul that you placed in me, Tahorehi is pure. Are you your soul? If you're saying God, the soul that you gave me, that you put in me, so then me is me without the soul.
You understand? On the other hand, what was that? I could try. If you are saying, God, thank you for my soul, who is the me? That would be my right. If you say thank you for my soul, then you're not saying thank you. The soul is not saying thank you. You're saying thank you. You understand the soul? We're going to talk about what role it plays in a second. But you are not your soul. I'll bring you another proof. Your soul has desires. Do we follow the desires of our soul? Sometimes. If you were your soul, how often would you follow the desires of your soul? Always. The fact that you don't follow the desires of your soul tells you what: you are not only your soul. Some people say, "No, you're your soul, but your body has an influence." It's hard to say. If I was really my soul, then I would ignore the influence of the body. We are not our souls. On the other hand, we're not our bodies either. And I'll prove it to you.
One of, if not my closest friend in the entire world. Lost his leg to cancer when he was a child. He's an amputee. He has a prosthetic leg. Is there anybody in the room that would argue that he's less of a person because he's missing his leg? He weighs less. Is he less of a person? What would be the implication if you said he was? The implication was what the Nazis used to do. When you say that somebody is less of a person because of a physical defect, what you're really saying is this person is worth less than me. That's why the Nazis used to kill people that were disabled. So in Yiddishkeit, we've always said you are not your body, because no matter how strong you are, no matter how weak you are, that does not get to the core of human dignity. You understand? It just doesn't get to the core of human dignity.
Which is why we should never treat someone who's mentally handicapped in a way that's debilitating. There's a great line from Dr. Stephen Glicksman. He works in Camp Ask and he said, "My friend Plony has Down syndrome. His disability is that people treat him differently." What's the pshat? When we define people by their mental acuity, when we define them by the physical, then you're saying that if there's a disability, they're less of a person. Chas v'shalom. We may have to treat someone uniquely, but we should never diminish somebody because of their body. Which means you are not your body and you are not your soul. So what are you? You have a question. The answer is as follows. You are something called ruach. Ruach means spirit. And ruach, as Jews, what it means is as follows: We are the unique combination of what occurs when body and soul join together. I'll say it again, just to make sure everyone gets this, even those people that were not listening just now. One more time for you. And by the way, just so you know, these eyes actually see. It's the most incredible miracle. They actually see. They look forward. Just so you know. Anyway
You are the unique combination of what occurs when body meets soul. When your body no longer borrows life from your soul, you do not exist. The part of you that is soul returns to Olam Anishamos. The part of you that is body returns to the earth, and you will once again occur in something called Chiyas Amesim. But because you've been separated, you can't actually say it's you. Here's the proof for this. Anybody know where Olam HaBa is? We keep talking about Olam HaBa. Where is Olam HaBa? It's physically. The Olam HaBa is this world, girls. It's absolutely a place. It's this world. Olam Azeh, the Rambam says, is the world as it currently is. Olam HaBa is the world as it will one day be. But it's this world. When do we get our ultimate reward? All the schar that we've been accruing, the relationship with God that we've been building, why do we only get that after Tchiasa Mesir? How many people believed in their life before this year? I know a lot of you may have believed this. When do you get your schar? When your soul returns to Hakadosh Baruch Hu? It's not true.
There is a tainod. There is a pleasure that the soul gets from being back with God because that's the natural place for the soul. But that is absolutely not the ultimate reward. When is the ultimate reward? The ultimate reward is in Olam Habah, and that's after Tchiyas Amesim, when the body and the soul are once again joined together. Why is it that way? Why doesn't the soul get the reward when it goes up to Shamayim? What's the answer, girls? Because your soul is not you. Your soul is not you. If you are going to get the ultimate reward, what is required for body and soul to once again come together? That's called chiyas hamesim. Chiyas hamesim is when the body rises up and the soul is restored. Just a simple thing: your body. And your soul, when they occur, that's you. When the part of you that's your soul returns to Shamayim, that's not you.
It's a part of you. You understand the difference? You are ruach. What does that mean? That means we are living in between two things, with this incredible tension pulling us on both sides. On the one hand, we have a godly soul, and because we're Jews, we have a unique type of godly soul. That godly soul has very strong desires. On the other hand, we have this physical body. We're going to call that our animal soul. And that animal soul has exceptionally strong desires. Which one are you? Why is it that sometimes we make choices for our soul, for our godly soul, and sometimes we make choices for our animalistic body? What's the reason? Because we are caught in between, and so people come and they go. I want to get off this roller coaster. I just want to do the right thing. Sorry, that's not the way it works. Why not? Because you have an animal soul, and that animal soul has desires. How many people here? And don't raise your hand because the answer is everybody. How many people here have ever done variations of the following muscle?
Today I'm going on a diet. I know I shouldn't speak about this. I've been very sensitive all year long. We're in Sharpmans. No jokes. Not saying anything. I'm just saying. I would say this in any seminary. How many people here have ever decided I'm going on a diet that morning, and by that night they had already broken the diet? You don't have to raise your hand because everybody in this room, including myself, has done that. Because you could make the greatest New Year's resolution, and it may not last a couple of hours. It may not last a couple of hours. What's the pshat? In the morning, you woke up and you said, "That's it. I got to be good." I had surgery on my appendix and was told by the doctors, "You really need to lose weight." And I took it really seriously for about a week. Had surgery. You understand how dumb you have to be to not listen to a doctor after surgery? What's the pshat? And how many of us have done that? How many people have gone to a doctor to hear the doctor say you have to lower your cholesterol?
What do you find them eating the next day? Hot dogs and steak on eggs together in a sandwich. It's the way it's meant to be eaten. What's the shot? Here's another one. How many people here are doing this? Not here, in their lives. How many people have you seen do this? Pull out a pack of cigarettes. That has a skull and crossbones on it. There's a skull and crossbones on it. The surgeon general says this is going to give you cancer, and you go, man, I really got to stop. What is wrong with you? You're literally filling yourself up with toxins, and you know you got to stop. It's crazy. The guy can't walk more than a block without having like a mini wheezing attack because his lungs are so blackened with soot. You bring the person in. You show them what blackened soot lungs look like. What do they say? Oh man, that's terrible. I can't believe somebody would be so stupid to spend their life filling it up. What are you doing? Here's another way. Remember Driver Z? Remember that video they all showed you about texting and driving and put on makeup when you're driving, right? What do y'all do? Nobody's gonna notice if I'm just.
I'm glad you don't. But the world is doing it. What's the pshat? The pshat is because we are not just our godly soul. What is your godly soul? Your godly soul is your internal will. This is really important. There's the thing you know that you really want, and then there's this other thing that you also want, but it's not nearly as important to you. Health is what you really want, but the burger tastes so good. If we were all being honest, we would just have salad. It's true, and we wouldn't have to take pictures of it. We wouldn't have to put it on Instagram, and we wouldn't have to swipe left or swipe right. We would just eat a salad like a normal human being. Why would we do that? Because that's the internal will. But now you come, and pizza is not meant to be eaten by the pie. And you know this. No matter how bad the food was that night, you can have a slice and then put it down. You could have two slices and then put it down. But how many people have told me? I'm not sure it's girls here, but I know guys in yeshiva tell me pizza is meant to be eaten by the box.
The box is the plate. And I am a member of the clean plate club, Rebbe. I make sure there's no crumbs left at the bottom. You do not need to eat a pie of pizza, Rebbe. It's not good after it went in the fridge. You are not a garbage can. You are not a human waste disposal. So there's the thing we know. There's also this external will that often dictates what we do. The internal will is the godly soul. The external will is the animal soul. Why do we listen to the animal soul? Because the animal soul is closer to my reality. Does that make sense? Think about it like this: Where's my internal will? It's really deep inside of me. Where's my external will? My external will is right now. Here. The internal will thinks long term. The external will always think short term. I'll give you an example.
The godly soul wants a relationship. The external will, the animal soul, just wants to feel good right now. So the godly soul would take measures, take steps to preserve the dignity of a relationship that it will participate in. And because intimacy means exclusivity, what will the godly soul do? The godly soul will say, 'Say no to things that are going to diminish the integrity of current and future relationships.' You understand? But what does the external will say? 'I just want to feel good right now. I just want to be seen right now.' You understand? So what happens is that we'll trade the external for the internal, and in so doing, we're going to turn around and say, "How did I get here?" For example, the girl that comes to me and says the following: "Why won't guys take me seriously?" Why don't you take yourself seriously? Tell me how you're taking relationships seriously. What would that even look like? Relationships mean intimacy means exclusivity. Are you behaving in a way that protects the dignity of a relationship? Not just the way you dress—that's a small part of it. Are you behaving in a way that communicates to yourself and to the world around you that you're a person that believes in real love?
As opposed to just a hookup, as opposed to just a fling? Are you serious about marriage or are you just looking to hang out? Is a great line from Rvmanis Friedman. His girls complain all the time. Guys do also, but girls complain all the time. I'm dating this guy, but he doesn't want to get married. So he has a great line. He goes, "Okay, well, when do you want to get married?" So the girls say, "Then what do you mean, when do I want to get married?" He's like, "No, really, like what date do you want to get married?" "What do you mean, what date do I want to get married?" "I'm telling you that I'm having trouble dating." He's like, "This is the problem."
If you have a date that you want to get married, let's say the date is June 1st, I'm getting married on June 1st, and then a guy says to you, "Well, I'm not getting married on June 1st. I don't know when I'm getting married." Say that. Then there's not much of a relationship because I'm getting married on June 1st. So if you're not going to be marrying me on June 1st, I'm going to find someone who's going to marry me on June 1st. But if you allow someone to tell you, "Yeah, we're dating, but you know, like at some point we'll get married." Some point there's no point. You're not committed really to the notion of marriage because you're dating someone who's not committed to the notion of marriage. You understand? So if you want to get married, what's the first thing you need? A date. I don't mean a date with a person. I mean a date in the calendar. You have to say, I'm a person. My internal will is telling me that what I'm looking for is intimacy, not just connectivity, but intimacy. If I'm looking for connectivity, then I can have that with a lot of people. If I'm looking for intimacy, that's one person on this date. Are you that person or not? Otherwise, our relationship doesn't even get off the ground. But the external will says, Yeah. You'll figure that out.
Don't worry about it. But lemaisa, does this person make you feel good to be with them? Then the rest will have to work itself out. That's how you end up in a relationship for three or four years, wondering if he's ever going to pop the question. When I was dating my wife So I made a big mistake. At some point in a relationship, basically it goes as follows: you figure out, okay, this is the person I want to marry. Fine. And then you spend some time getting comfortable with that, and then you say, "Okay, I'm ready to get married." So we had both reached that stage where we had said we were going to marry each other. We said, "Okay, we feel comfortable with the fact that we said we were going to get married." So now my wife's saying, "So, pop the question." But I'm a good guy, right? I want to be a good guy. So I called her mother and I asked permission to marry her daughter. And my mother-in-law said, "Of course, I'm so happy. This is great."
When are you going to ask her to marry you? So I said I'm thinking about Matzah Shabbos. She said this Matzah Shabbos is not good for me. I can't do this Matzah Shabbos. She lived in Philadelphia. I lived in the Five Towns. So she said I won't be able to come to the Five Towns this Matzah Shabbos. I have a thing. So I said, well what about the Matzah Shabbos after that? She said, yeah, it's not going to work. I have a thing. So I said, well what about the week after that? She said, that'll work. So I said, okay, I guess I'm getting engaged in three weeks. And you have to understand, put yourself in my wife's shoes. As far as she's things. We're ready to get married. What's going on? We're going out on dates, and she's expecting at some point I'm going to say, "Will you marry me?" And I just keep not saying it. So she's starting to get frustrated, but she's not telling me that she's getting frustrated because what's she going to say? Why aren't you asking me to marry you already? It's like an awkward thing to say to somebody. So we kept going out on dates, and I kept not asking her to marry me.
And I don't necessarily pick up on—I don't know how to say this nicely—on feminine social cues of like what you're trying to say without saying anything. With men, we say things out loud, so it's easier to understand because we actually say the thing we're thinking. I wasn't picking up on all the body language and the frustrations. I didn't even know what was going on. It happens to be that an old friend of mine and an old friend of my wife's got married, and we were both invited to the wedding. Not as a couple, we were both individually invited to the wedding. This is just parenthetically. This is not an important part of the story. But my wife walked in and she saw this guy. He had a fro out to here, like a massive fro. And her first reaction was, "Oh my God, he's wearing a fro." It wasn't me, and it was an actual fro on this person. But she walked into the wedding, and her first reaction was, "Oh my God, he's an idiot. He's wearing a fro wig to the wedding." Baruch Hashem, it wasn't me. I showed up at the wedding. She showed up at the wedding. And my wife has a friend who I won't say her name.
But I describe her as this tiny little ball of energy. She's the queen of righteous indignation. She's been one of my wife's closest friends forever. She's four foot nothing, but she comes over to me like a tornado at the wedding and says, 'What's wrong with you?' I say, 'It's nice to see you, also.' 'What are you talking about?' She says she's gonna break up with you. I ask why. She says because you're not proposing to her. So I'm like, I am. It's coming this month day Shabbos. She's like, why have you waited so long? I said, well, I called her mother, and she couldn't come in last month Shabbos, and she couldn't come in the month day Shabbos before. She's like, nobody listens to her mother. You tell her when you want to get engaged, and you just go ahead and do it. And she was like screaming at me in the middle of this wedding, and I'm like, okay, calm down before I punt you.
Like in football, you kick her through the uprights. Why? Because nobody wants to feel like their internal will of deep connectivity is being just bandied about. We want what we really want, and we know it to be true. That's why when people give us advice that we know in our heart is wrong, we can't take their advice because we know it's wrong. That's why so often we go to our rebbeim and our mechanchot with questions that we already know the answers to. You know in your heart what's there. You have to learn to listen to your internal will. Your internal will is that thing that always wants the right thing. It wants love, light, and hope. That's what it wants in life. Why are we put into this world? It's very simple. God desired to have a dwelling place. We're going to call that for a second a home, a dira, right? A home in the world down below. What does that mean practically? It means God doesn't just want your godly soul. He already has your godly soul. What does He want?
He wants your animal soul. He wants to be present in this world. So to sum up, what is a Jew? We are a unique combination called ruach. When body and animal soul meets godly soul, that's what we are. What does God want? God wants to be, for us to build a home for Him in this world. Meaning, don't just be godly, but take that godliness and bring it into your humanity. Now let's go back to some of our original questions. I want to give you a pretty fascinating insight. What's midnight? In time, think about midnight for a second. What is midnight? Midnight is the point right in between all the darkness and all the light that's to come. It's the unique combination of darkness, that motion towards the darkest part of the night, and then that motion towards the light. What's another way of saying that? Midnight is the time. Remember that everything in the world exists in time, person, and place. Midnight is the time that most represents a Jew.
Because it's got a lot of darkness to it, but it's also got that light. Midnight is that time. So now, when we think about the significance of midnight What was Moshe Rabbeinu communicating here? He was communicating as follows: In Mitzrayim, if you looked at us, how did we behave? Where was our godly soul in Mitzrayim when we were sitting and doing avodah zarah? So you would say halalo of the avodah zarah. I don't see the difference between a Jew and an Egyptian. It's not fair. I don't see them as being balanced between godliness and animal. They're all serving idols just like we are. There is no balance here. So Moshe Rabbeinu has to come along and answer that question. He has to come along to the Mitzrayim and he has to say: Let me explain to you why you do get makas b'choros and we don't get makas b'choros. And the answer is as follows: because we stand in between, we're different. What does that mean? Because we stand in between, we're different. Aren't we judged based on our actions? What does that mean? You can drown in good intentions. We know you have a godly soul, but who cares if you're not listening to it?
The answer is like this. From an external perspective, you're a hundred percent right. If you look at the behavior of a Jew versus the behavior of an Egyptian, they look like the same exact thing. The only difference is direction. Because, and this is very important, if you fall into Mitzrayim in your life and you behave in a way that is unbecoming of who you truly are, that doesn't mean it's over. It means it's just begun. An Egyptian living in Mitzrayim is just an Egyptian living in Mitzrayim. An Egyptian serving idols is just an Egyptian serving idols. But when a Jew falls into Mitzrayim, when a Jew goes down into Mitzrayim and he's behaving like an Egyptian and she's doing things that she's not proud of. That is an opportunity to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu into the lowest aspects of your life, and that is what builds a home for God. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying to Klal Yisrael: By making this plague at midnight, we stand in between. I externally, you look just like the Egyptian. Go into your homes.
Why go into your homes? Because externally, if you're outside of your home at that moment, then what am I going to judge you based on? I'm going to judge you based on your externals. Are your externals any better than a Mitzri? The answer is no. But if you go into your home, then what are you saying? You're saying I'm bringing godliness with me, even in the lowest places in Mitzrayim. I'm bringing godliness with me. You want to know who you are? I'll tell you who you are. In a moment of crisis, you'll always find out who you are. It's called Mesiras Nefesh. If your child hurts themselves. You drop everything to help your child. Why? Because that's your child. So I don't understand. Let's say you're in the middle of cooking dinner, and then your child falls. Why do you stop cooking dinner? Your child's bleeding. They lost a tooth. Why isn't your response okay? After I'm done with dinner, I'll take you to the doctor.
What's the answer to that question, girls? It's not just priorities. Why is that the priority over this one? Because it's you. You are not a cook. Cooking is something you do, but you are a mother. So it doesn't matter if I'm in the middle of my job. It doesn't matter if you're in the middle of your job and you get a phone call. Your daughter is being rushed to the hospital. You stop. If I got a call right now that my daughter is being rushed to the hospital, I'm sorry. I enjoy giving the shirt here, girls. I'm out of here. It's not even a question. And you'll all just have to live with never knowing the answers to these questions. Why? Because as much as I'm a teacher, it's not who I am; it's something I do. It's closer to me to be a parent than it is to be a rebbe. It's just the truth. It's closer to a mother who's in the middle of cooking dinner to be a mother, not a cook. You understand the difference? It's not just because the cooking can wait; it's because that's who you are. You want to know who you are? See what your mesiras nefesh is. See what you're willing to sacrifice for. That's who you are.
If that's the case We can understand something exceptional. You're a Jew living in Mitzrayim. You've been worshiping Avodah Zarah. And what Avodah Zarah were you worshiping if you were living in Egypt at the time? The Lamb. The Lamb was a god in Egypt. So you were worshiping that god. And now, Al Kadosh Baruch Hu tells you, if you're going to lead your external life, you're going to be judged with the mitzvah, because on the outside, you girls are all the same. We're acting; they're acting like Bala Yavu Dizara, and so are we. So if we go outside of our homes, we're going to be judged externally. But we go inside of our homes. And we say, no, that's not who I really am. I'm not my external. I'm choosing my internal. What's? You can't just go inside your home because otherwise, the Malachim Avos is going to come into your home. Why? Because from the external, we're all the same. You have to do something that shows who you are. What do you have to do? The ultimate act of Maseres Nefesh. You have to kill that god. What's the Mitzri next door going to say when you kill his god and you're spreading his blood on your home? What's the Mitzri going to say? How could you kill a god? I'm going to kill you for killing my god.
It was a tremendous act of Maseres Nefesh. God doesn't just say go into your home. He says if you really want to go into your home, it's got to be more than just you close the door. Your home has to mean something. You have to be willing to say that I'm going to shecht that avodah zarah because that is what builds a home for God. The fact that I did the avodah zarah is what gives me the opportunity to shecht that avodah zarah. Do we want to do avodas? Not internally, but externally, we do. But now that I've done the avera, we have an awesome opportunity to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu down into this world to build for Him a dwelling place. So shech that carbon pesach Shech that carbon pesach, and put it out for your Egyptian neighbor to see. Because we need to see mitsir es nefesh if you want to see who you are. Girls, we make a terrible mistake when we package Judaism. And we come to you and we say Yiddishkeit is amazing; it's going to give you the best life. You know what the problem is? That's true on an internal level. But externally, I still want the things I want. Somebody could give you a schmooze about davening better. But at the end of the day, the external will says my bed is so comfortable and the tiles are so cold.
Every morning you wake up in the frigid, beautiful air of Yerushalayim. And I'm sure that there's a large part of you that says, 'Thou shall not get up in the morning because this cover is a gift from God. And the blanket and the pillow combination on a wonderful mattress is just such. Isn't it perfect?' That's your external will. If you get up and you daven, then you're saying something about who you are because you're sacrificing. We're living in a generation now that's prioritized a word that I think is hurting us very much. The word is convenience. Even silly things, like when I was a kid, you had to buy a CD, and even if there was only three good songs on the CD, you had to buy the CD. The rest of the songs were just songs, but you had to buy the CD. Today, you can download a single off an iPod for ninety-nine cents. Of your iPhone, I'm sorry, iPod. I'm even dating myself now.
We're willing to pay for convenience. We could pirate the song for free, but people are willing to pay 99 cents to Apple to get the song because it's more convenient. We're living in a world of convenience. Yesterday and today in yeshiva, in mevasseret. We took the boys on a no-technology trip. Leave your phones back in yeshiva. We're going to the Negev. You weren't able to get a hold of your brother for the last. Today you could, because he was back. But Wednesday and Tuesday he was on a tuiul. No phones. You should have seen three different types of reactions in yeshiva. Some guys said, 'This is awesome. I want to see what it was like to live in the 80s. I really like it.' I'm like, this is going to be awesome. Some guys were like, 'Okay, whatever. It's stupid. It's fine. Who cares? It's 36 hours without my phone.' And then there were a small group of guys that were freaking out.
And all of the excuses in the world you could imagine. We're going on a bus. What shiurim will I listen to? All of a sudden, you're so frum. I said, "You can't open up a seder. I get dizzy." I said, "I'll tell you what." In Shamayim, after 120, when they ask you why you were mavato those hours of Torah, you can tell them it's on Berg. I'll be mekap lechrayas for that. I can't not listen to my music on a bus. I was listening to music on a bus. What would be when I was a kid? We ran to the back of the bus. The coolest kid sat on the back of the bus. And what did we do on the bus? We just sat and talked. And that's what you did. You take a long bus trip, your senior trip, wherever you're going. You're going to Virginia. What'd you do? You sat and talked. But because of convenience, we lost something. And now people don't talk anymore. There's a famous sign. It's like a meme that's going around. I was sitting in a Starbucks the other day. I was just watching this person sitting and drinking their Starbucks coffee.
Without a phone, without a computer, without anything in front of them. Like an insane person, because only an insane person would go to have a cup of coffee and not be sitting there like this the entire time. Sacrifice, convenience, for who you truly are, and if you do that enough times in a row, you'll see who you really are. People come to me all the time. I don't know who I am. You, I can tell you exactly who you are. What are the things you sacrifice for? If you sacrifice to binge watch a show, because that's the only way of watching a show today. If I can't watch The Office all eight seasons of The Office in a week, that's also a sacrifice. I'm going to sit here and dedicate myself. If they're 20 minute shows, I can do three in an hour. I figure I can do 10 hours a day. I should be able to cover at least a couple seasons every single day. We'll go from Michael Scott from the beginning to Dwight Schrute at the end, and let's see where we end up. I can tell you who you are. It's what you sacrifice for.
And when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning to feed your child because he's a tiny little baby, you'll know you're a mom. And when you get into a fight with your husband and you're willing to be mevatir because the relationship is more important to you than winning the fight, that's also mitsirus nefesh. Then you're a good wife. And if you want to know if you're a Jew or not Look at what Judaism demands of us and ask yourself: Am I willing to sacrifice for those things? Because I stand at midnight, right in between. But am I willing to go into the house and shech a carbon Pesach and say, 'I'm building a home for Hakadosh Baruch Hu through Maseiros Nefesh.'
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