REB SHLOMO ON SEDER NIGHT

At Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley, California, Sunday, March 20, 1994/8 Nisan, 5754; co-sponsored by the Aquarian Minyan

Reb Shlomo: Okay, thank you so much for coming. And--let's learn a little bit. I don't know where to begin and where to end, so I'll start right in the middle. [Tzvi starts making sounds, "me, me, me."]

You know, there are two ways of talking to children. [Tzvi: "me"] Sometimes we talk to children baby talk, right? And we talk to them, like, on their level. But I'll tell you something--imagine, G-d forbid, there's a fire in the house, right? And I'm telling my children, "You better get out of here fast!" I don't talk baby talk. I talk to them straight, right?

I want you to know, G-d also sometimes, He talks to us baby talk, on our level, so we can understand what He's saying. And sometimes, G-d is talking to us on HIS level. But the truth is, we are just ordinary human beings; we are limited human beings. We don't have vessels for that kind of talk. We don't have vessels for this great, great, great light.

There's one night--one night--mamesh, when G-d opens all the gates. But you know, Seder night--Pesach--we need new vessels, right? It's not only because it's chumatz. The deepest depth[s] is that G-d gives us new vessels. G-d gives us--heavenly vessels. It's the light of Pesach--ssss-- [Netzach calls: "Abba!"]--unbelievable light--unbelievable light shining into us.

You see, the world thinks free means I can do what I want to--this is kid stuff, right? Imagine you'll ask a baby--what's freedom? Freedom means, for me, is that I don't have to put on my diapers, right? This is what we are all into it --I can do what I want to, right?

Freedom is that I am free to receive the deepest depths, right? The deepest depths. I want you to know--we don't have the faintest idea how much G-d wants to give us, right? And Reb Nachman says--even deeper--we have no idea how much is coming down from Heaven every second, right? G-d is not stingy, right?

But--I want to tell you something very, very deep. Sometimes you talk to somebody, and you want to pour out your heart, right? And you want to tell them something so deep; and while you're talking to them, suddenly you realize they don't know what you're talking about, right? Do you know how much that hurts? Gevalt, does it hurt.

And you know what it is, all year long, G-d wants to talk to us, and we pick up a little bit. Seder night--and you know, in the Zohar, Seder night is called "mochin d'gadlus"--completely different brains. You know what a slave is? A slave is somebody who has very petty brains. I'll tell you something, as a far-out example--little bit--you know, in Pirke Avos--Sayings of the Fathers--it says the difference between the students of Abraham and the students of Bilaam, but in the Medresh, there's a different definition. The definition is that the students of Bilaam, let's say, buy something for a gold coin, and he [the shopkeeper] has to give them back change, a few pennies. So they stand there, and they count the pennies, and maybe one penny is missing. They're wasting their time and talk about the penny. The students of Avram don't count cash. The penny is not worth it to waste words on it or time.

You know, the Gemora says, a pagan, a pagan--and take it as it is--[Aramaic phrase] it means he could be killed over less than a penny. You know what that means? There are people who are ready to be killed over less than a penny, right? They'll start the biggest fight--and I don't want to say anything bad--sometimes when you go into a store and the cashier--she doesn't mean anything bad, and she doesn't get the money anyway--so she made the mistake of a nickel, right? Okay, so she made a mistake, so what? Then some people start up and say, "I'll call the manager" and "I'll have you fired"--they're ready to kill this girl for the one nickel, right? What's their problem? Their brains. [Titters] Yeah, their brains are defective. You know, and hopefully here you'll understand--a nickel is not a dollar, a dollar is not ten dollars, but if your brain is not really functioning properly, a nickel looks like a million dollars.

Seder night--mochin d'gadlus [expanded consciousness]. Look at the whole world--look at the whole world. And here I want to add something so deep, so deep. You know, the way we understand G-d all year long is so petty. Yeah, there is--I really don't know exactly what it is, but there is some being there, and he created the world, and he's spelled Gee Oh Dee--and if you're frum, it's Gee dash Dee [laughter]--I mean, I know it because I have my Ph.D. in Theology. Have you ever spoken to those people who teach Theology? I'm telling you, I know more about Chiang Kai-Shek's mother than they know about G-d. They know nothing--nothing.

Let me tell you something, and this is really the deepest. You know something? Imagine if a baby would be born, and the baby doesn't know who the parents are, right? So, he's taken by a nurse, grows up in a home for babies, and then, when the baby is eighteen years old, ready to understand the facts of life, then someone comes and teaches them how babies are created, and the door opens, and says, "Hah--meet your creator. Meet your father and your mother." What[would the relationship be? I'm looking at my father and my mother--I would say, "Who cares?" Right? And here I know this is my father and my mother, right? Scientifically.

Why do babies love their parents so much? You know, every baby, every child, really believes that "My parents are the best people in the world." And blessing everyone we should never disappoint our children. You know what kind of knowledge the baby has about "These are my parents"? This is not petty knowledge you picked up in a book, "Facts of Life." This is mochin d'gadlus. Something else. The deepest.

So the Zohar kodesh says, all year long we know G-d the way I know my parents because I took a course in Biology. Seder night G-d gives me back my G-d knowledge like the way when the baby is born. Oh, is that deep. Gevalt, is that deep. Mamash, I can't even bear it. My G-d.

You know, I want you to know something. Sadly enough, do you know how much we parents sometimes destroy this G-d knowledge and parent knowledge of our children? So they stop talking to us. Seder night, something happens, and suddenly between me and my children, it's back, just like they were born that moment. It's awesome, you know. Awesome is not the word. It's heartbreaking--I mean, not heartbreakingly sad, heartbreakingly beautiful.

I have to share something with you awesome. [Child: "No!"] I know someone in Eretz Yisrael, in the Holy Land, and, you know, I'm blessing everyone never to go bankrupt, none of us, because when we came out of Egypt, we came out very rich. Why is he crying? He's okay? He's okay?

David: He can't decide where he wants to be.

Shlomo: None of us, none of us can decide.

Reuven: There's child-care outside.

David: Yeah, I know, he doesn't want to go.

Shlomo: Oy vey, oy vey, gevalt. He needs Vera!

Shlomo: Okay, I didn't want to drop it. I just wanted to know why he's crying. Okay, give me your attention again. I met this Yiddele in Tel Aviv who was mamash a multi-millionaire, and then, it should never happen to anyone, suddenly he
went--mamash--bankrupt. Then he disappeared, and I didn't see him any more. Then just some time ago, I walked down 57th St., and I see, nebich, somebody's pushing a little wagala with hot coffee and middle east cake--middle eastern cake--I look at it--ah! my Yiddele. My--nebich--bankrupt Yiddele. Nebich, nebich--mamash a shlepper now.

So I didn't know if he wants to talk to me. So I stood there, by a window, looking in, like I'm looking at the window of the store, but giving him a chance, and if he wants to talk to me, he can see me. He came up to me, he hugged me, he said, "Ah, Shloime, gevalt!" I said, "What's going on with you?" So he says to me, "Let me tell you something. You know, economically, I'm a little bit bankrupt. But let me show you a letter of my daughter.

It is actually the most beautiful letter I have ever seen of a child writing to her father. She wrote her father the letter on her eighteenth birthday, when she entered the holy army of Israel, and she writes to her father: "'Dear father, I want you to know, today I am eighteen years old. But I still love you as much as I loved you on the day when I was born.'" So you see what kind of a millionaire I am?" He says to me, "Do you know how much would Rothschild give to get such a letter from his children?" Gevalt, right?

So Seder night--Seder night is the night when G-d restores our relationship to our children. And this is mochin d'gadlus, right? You know why most children are so sad? 'Cause their parents look at them, you know, "Listen, I'm a grown-up; I know how children are produced; I produced you--this man and this woman produced you--and also we paid for your diapers, we paid for your college--" This is not where it's at. This is all outside stuff. It's lower than outside.

So Seder night--unbelievable--know one more very important thing. I want you to know, we give the way we receive. You know, the Maharal says--what's the problem of a stingy person? The world says, "A stingy person is somebody who doesn't want to give." The Maharal says, "No. The problem is he has never received anything." He has never received anything. He has no vessels to receive. He has it in his pockets, maybe, but inside he never received anything. So he can't give.

You know why, when I see a poor man, I pull out a nickel, and I tell him, "Listen, please stay out on the street--don't come to my house"--because even the house I'm living in I never received. Maybe I received the outside--I have my address, and I pay taxes, I pay the mortgage. Seder night--and I want you to know the deepest depths--we were learning it a thousand times--Pesach is one holiday where I need a house. You know, Chanukah I have to kindle the lights at the door of my house, but I can walk up to brother Dov and to his house and say, "Listen, here's a quarter. I want to be part and give you rent for the house for two minutes when I'm bentching Chanukah licht," and it's 100% ba'al peh halacha. For the moment it's my house.

But if I would walk up to Dov and say, "Here's a quarter. Can I walk around looking for chumatz?" He would say, "This is not your house," right? To look for chumatz, it has to be my house. And I just want to repeat--which most of you I'm sure learned--this is a classic Torah from Rav Kook. Sammy and I were learning it every year, and it's the deepest. The English--whatever it's called--when the English were still in Israel, they invited Rav Kook for Pesach, he should give a talk, about what's Pesach for us Jews? So he says, Every country wants to look for the chumatz in another country. He says, England is looking for chumatz in America; America is looking for chumatz in Russia. Russia is looking for chumatz in the whole world, right? Pesach is--look for chumatz in your house! Gevalt, right?

A slave looks always for chumatz somewhere else. You know how much freedom you need to look for your own chumatz? But you must have a house. And you know what it is? I want you to know the deepest depths. The night before the Seder--and I'm blessing you to have a taste in it--you know, a lot of people begin Pesach by the Seder. The Mishna begins Pesachim, Or l'arbah osah--the night of the 14th day. And the Ishbitzer says, on the fourteenth day, the night before Pesach, a great light is shining into me. Because unless a great light is shining, you'll never find your chumatz, right? Then you'll find, maybe, a little bagel you bought last year. But the real chumatz--the inside--and you know what the great light is? The great light is that suddenly it's shining into you what your real place in the world is, what your house really is. Then I look at myself--gevalt, am I far. Gevalt, am I, or am I destroying my own house, or I'm not even living in my house. In my house, in my four walls, my infinite space in the world--which iss just four inches, but it's infinite, right?

So Seder night, when suddenly G-d gives me my house, my place in the world, I have no problem Seder night to invite the whole world to my house. You know why I didn't invite you yesterday? I didn't have a house. I can't invite you; I'm not in my house, right? Seder night--and now listen--open your heart, so deeply. Everybody knows that the angels came to Avram the first morning of Pesach, right? Avraham Avinu enters the covenant with G-d, and it says the next morning, the third day, "and he sat at the door of his house." And Reb Nachman says, if you want to know who is the master of the house, if someone's sitting by the table and eating, it could be the guest, right? How do you know who is the owner? The one who opens the door.

Let's say I'm visiting my friend Marvin--I mean, he knows I'm bringing shleppers with me--but officially, offcially, I shouldn't, right? But I have no right to open the door and say, "Hey, chevre, come in!" It's not my house, right? The owner, right?

So Seder night, [it] becomes my house. And I want to tell you something so deep. Do you think my children are only my children because physically I brought them into the world? Oh, the connection is so much deeper. You know, you ask any holy sister who has the privilege of bringing children into the world--do they see the baby for the first time when they hold the baby in their hands? It's clear to them, I know this baby for thousands of years, right? I'll ask Yehudit, right? From before creation, right? Mochin d'gadlus, right?

You'll ask a scientist--that's crazy talk. I mean, you know, you got pregnant, you have a baby, and that's it, right? Without getting involved in the depths, you know what the Russians wanted, the communists? They wanted to take babies away from their parents the moment they're born. This was their idea. But there should be just a home for children, and just once a week they should see their parents, and maybe not see their parents until they are 16, 17 years old. Destroy this mochin d'gadlus.

You know what communism is all about? Do you think communism is to share everything you have with somebody else? No. That's they way they thought. I've been in Russia a few times, before. Communism is that you have nothing to do with another person. Parents don't talk to their children; children don't talk to their parents. You definitely don't talk to another person. Your friend? I'm afraid to open my heart, right?

So Seder night--and again I want you to know something. What is the deepest relationship? Not that I can talk to you--that I can shine my whole neshama into you, right? My whole heart is shining into you. And your whole heart is shining into me. Infinite. So Seder night, when, humanly speaking, G-d--mamash G-d--is shining into me--we say, "Ani, v'lo malach, ani v'lo seraph"--G-d says, "not me, not an angel, not a seraph--" mamash "ehla hakodesh boruch hu." I want you to know, the Alter Rebbe--Lubavitch--when [he] would say Seder night "ehla hakodesh boruch hu--" mamash G-d Himself--he would always faint away--took a long time to revive him. You know, mamesh--G-d is shining into me.

You know, something you cannot reach in 2000 lifetimes, on Seder night, G-d is shining into me. And the moment G-d is shining into me, then--you know--all the slavery--I'm afraid of this one, I'm afraid of this one, and I think this one is my master, this one is my master--it's clear to me, nobody is my master--nobody is my master.

And here I want to share something with you, which maybe--maybe some of you don't know it, which is really so special. What do you think the Egyptians felt that night when we left Egypt? Do you know, they also had the highest G-d revelation in the world. Awesome. Just awesome. That night it was clear to Pharaoh that he is not the master. What do you think? Pharaoh let us go; he had a meeting with his congress, and they decided, okay, let the Jews go. It was clear--do you know, do you know how we walked out of Egypt?--like, in today language? All of the rock bands of Egypt got together--the medresh says--Pharaoh invited all the musicians of Egypt, and they walked us to the border! They walked us to the border. Unbelievable, right? Psss.

I want you to know something which is not to be believed!--not to be believed. G-d says to Moshe, "Tell the Yidden to borrow gold and silver from their neighbors." And it says,V'yishalu ish ma-es ray-ayhu [Shemot 11:2]. You know, again, if you just learned the Torah from King James--and I always say, if you read the Bible, just King James' version, you better read Peyton Place; it's more interesting. At least it's a little bit exciting! Now listen to me, friends.

By the Torah, ray'ayhu means your equal--doesn't mean just your neighbor. It means like, crazy. Seder night, when you have the highest G-d revelation, I should walk in to the lowest Egyptian, who are hitting me and whipping me all his life? He is my equal? He is the lowest creep in the world. That night--that night--it was mamesh like after Mashiach had come. I want you to know we came out of Egypt--not only the Jews--I hope it's clear to you--not only the Jews walked out. All of the slaves of Egypt walked out with us. That's why Pharaoh got wise, after a few days. He saw the whole economy is falling apart 'cause there's no more slaves.

So you hear, friends, Seder night--Seder night--what is shining into me--what is shining into me? Something so deep, so lofty, so gevalt. You know what hurts you and me sometimes--you are invited to somebody's Seder, and their mind is so petty that G-d forbid--and G-d forbid--the wine is shuckling a little bit, and you make a stain on the tablecloth, then the hostess--I rememeber once I was--never again--I was by mistake by somebody's seder, and nebich, one of the guests--one of the guests, nebich, nebich--G-d should forgive him the eternal sin--a stain on the tablecloth Seder night. I want you to know, this hostess was mad for four days. I thought she's divorcing her husband the same night for inviting this person.

What's her problem? Gevalt--gevalt--was she far from the light of Seder night shining into her. You know, Rabbi Akiva Eger, one of the greatest in the world--he had this tremendous custom; it's really beautiful to tell you. Obviously, he was the Chief Rabbi of Posen--he was the Rebbe of the world, about 200 years ago. He was mamesh the greatest. He was so afraid if one of the guests makes a stain, then his wife--hopefully not, but you never know. So you know what he did when he walked in to the Seder? The first thing he did, he took the wine and poured it all over the tablecloth--forget it! Forget about the tablecloth. Don't be a slave to the tablecloth. Don't be a slave to anything. Mochin d'gadlus, you know? Do you think the table is only beautiful because the tablecloth is white? When your heart is dark, what good is it? Right? Gevalt. Mochin d'gadlus. So you hear, friends, Seder night, what is shining into me, like with Avraham Avinu, the moment, the moment you enter the covenant with G-d--you know what it means, "the covenant"? When I make a covenant with somebody--this is a Torah from the Izbica also--I cannot make a covenant with a dog. I might love my doggela, but I can't make a covenant with him--'cause a dogggela is a doggela, and I'm not, hopefully, right? You can only make a covenant with an equal.

When Avram Avinu entered the covenant with G-d, that means all of G-d was shining into him. And suddenly Avraham Avinu has the vessel for all of it, right? And those three pagans who came? Outside, they looked like three lonely pagans, but what he saw there were strangers, and mamash they need me to lift up their souls. And he was ready to do everything, right? Everything. Everything. So you see, friends, freedom for them is not holding back--receiving everything and giving everything --because the moment I receive everything, really, I can also give everything, right?

You know what Yosef HaTzaddik said to his brothers when they came to Egypt? He says, Anochi achalkayl es-chem [Breisheet, 50:21]. And if you know Hebrew, Achalkayl means to sustain you, support you, but I'm sure most of you speak Hebrew--achalkayl comes from the word kol, kol, right, to kol. It means the all of me to the all of you. You know, friends, most of us have friends to a little detail of us. How many of us have friends [to] whom you can relate on the level of awe? Mamash, awe. How many husbands and wives can relate on the level of awe? One married woman told me the most her husband had spoken to her in the last 20 years was, "What are we having for dinner?" "What are our plans for Sunday?" This is already a good marriage. Where the awe? Where's the inside, right? Want to sing a little song. [The remainder of Side One is blank.]

[Side Two] Reb Shlomo: What a gift! the deepest, deepest, deepest gift there is. And you see, Pesach has to be before Shavuos. Because unless all of G-d is shining into me, how can I receive G-d's word? I'm sure it's clear to you--I can only talk to a person I'm really connected to. If I'm not a connected to you, yeah, I can ask you, "How's the weather?" But I cannot talk to you inside talk, right?

So Pesach is this deepest connection. Just remember what the Rebbes say: On Shavuos we receive the Torah; on Pesach, mamash, we receive G-d. "Ayleh haKodesh boruch Hu beekh-vodo."

David: Amen.

Shlomo [drinks]: Coming from Leah, it's straight from paradise. Another thing. You're the best.

Listen to me, my beautiful friends. Let it be clear to you that every year--you know, the Gemora says, G-d gives it, but he never takes it back. That light stays with us, and even if you don't have vessels on the outside of us to integrate it into our daily lives. But we have it.

You know, the heilege Stepanefsha says--you know, sometimes you have a gevalt Shabbos, right, but then, right after Havdalah, you go right back to your old tricks. So you think you lost that Shabbos. You didn't. Shabbos is still there. And he says, the Stepanefsha says that every Yid, every person, has a little bank in their heart. And the Rabeino Shel Olam puts it into your bank, into your account. And whenever you need it, you'll take it out, right?

The problem is, we never know how much we have, right? Gevalt, we have so much! Not only I have my own Shabboses--what happened to all the Shabboses of my Bubbes and Zeydes? They're in my account. They're gone, but they're in my account, right?

But anyway, you see, Seder night, what G-d gives me is awesome. And every year, I take a little bit--something. This is mamesh beautiful. The Ishbitzer says that every year, different flowers--new flowers which have never been before--come out. And he says those flowers are from that great light which is shining Seder night. It's filling the whole world. You think it's not much, in actuality, that maybe a tree can grow from it, but you know, flowers, something very soft, it just comes out.

I have to tell you something. When we were in Poland and Russia--you know how much sometimes we don't realize, you know, Poland, how much they are into flowers? You know, in America, someone gives a concert. At the end of the concert, if you like that person, you give them flowers. In Poland--after every song. I don't know how many people came--10, 20, 30--were full of flowers. And the most beautiful people. So I said to them, you know, it's crazy, when you want to show someone how much you love them, you should give them something which lasts longer than a flower, right? So one of the Torahs they said was that when I love somebody very much, I tell them, even one minute with you is worth more than 2,000 eternities without you.

Well, the Ishbitzer says that every Seder night, somewhere in the world, new flowers are getting born. It's not getting lost. And every year--you know, the Ishbitzer says, you also have to believe that you became better
--you mamash have to know you really became better. [Clears throat] And, uh, you know, I can change my relationship to my children, but the next morning I think, oh, I'm back where we were before--then it doesn't happen. It has to be clear to me that it really did happen. Gevalt, did it happen. Gevalt, did it happen.

So here we come to the Four Sons. And we learned it so often. And also Dovidl: you have to remind me--don't forget something- last year at Yakar we had--the whole week we were learning--so it was gevalt. And I don't have all the seforim with me.

You know, sadly enough, sadly enough, the world is so eager to minimize everything holy. I always tell my friends, do people ever say bad things about bad people? No, only about good people, right? If someone is bad, he is okay. If someone is good, we have to cut him short, cut her short, right? We're living, basically, in a world of tailors. Everybody cuts you short a little bit.

The way they translate--it's really crazy. One is a Chocham. One is wise. Okay, I say, thank you G-d. My child is wise. Then I say, thank you, G-d. My son is wicked. You've gotta be an idiot to say that, right? Thank you, G-d--my son is a criminal. Barukh haShem, he's in prison. [Laughter] Anyway--I have to tell you something funny. A few years ago I really was a little bit sick. There was a hospital. Like, it was really a bad scene. I had a little bit of trouble with my heart. And, you know, in the emergency ward, so everybody's there together. But next to me was a patient, but he was actually in prison in Beersheva, but he was a little bit in the hospital. He was very cute. The whole night he was yelling, "In prison the bed is better than here in the hospital! [Laughter] And the food is better in prison than here. I demand better food!" And then, you know, little bit. Then he told me, he's so proud of his son, that his son, Barukh HaShem, is also a criminal [more laughter] and, Barukh HaShem, and both are sentenced to five years in prison. "Ani--ani u-b'ni" [I, I and my son) "Ani u-b'ni bishvili." Do you understand what this means for me?--me and my son together in prison? Gevalt, right? [Laughter continues.] He was mamesh cute. I would have wanted to record this, you know, just, for eternity, the way a Jewish father is proud of his son. {Laughter. Shlomo coughs twice.]

And then we come to the Tam, right? Tam is, like, an idiot. [Greets another person] Hey, what's going on? Hey. But then, in addition, he's such an idiot, he can't even open his mouth. I'll say, thank you, G-d, Barukh HaShem, you know, I have a son who's completely underdeveloped. He's already 35 years old, and he can't read or write. The only thing he can do is eat. Thank you so much, G-d. It doesn't make sense, right? And one more question, which is the deepest: do you know that Ma'alei b'Kodesh--Everything holy is always deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. And here we go down the drain! We start off with a wise person and end up with a complete idiot.

I want you to know, the first one--I don't know what happened before Levi Yitzchak--but the first one who like, khh!--who shot the arrow in the air--Reb Levi Yitzchak. So here it is. You know, G-d has many names. Sometimes G-d is called, called Makom Ha-shel Olam. G-d is the place of the world. You know what it means? It means that G-d makes a place for everyone. You know, the earth? Have you ever seen the earth saying, "Take your shoes off? Chutzpah, you're stepping on me?" The earth has space for everyone. G-d is called the earth of everyone. G-d says, you can always put your shoes on me, right? You can always stand on me. So we say, Barukh HaMakom, Barukh Hu--who blesses G-d, who makes space for every one. Blessed is G-d who makes space for the Chocham--for the wise
--for the wicked--and for the Tam--ands hehno yodaya lishol [for the one who doesn't know how to ask]--we'll make it fast--I'm going b-r'shoot [with permission].

What was it? Remember, we learned it. We learned that every year, it's just so good. What's the problem of the wise person? And you know that Seder night is a night of fixing. I say, "Thank you, G-d, tonight"--and also, you know, all of us--it's not only the outside. Inside sometimes I'm a Chocham, sometimes I'm a Rasha--so we go through all those phases ourselves. What's the problem with the wise person? The wise person is someone who knows everything but inside is dead 'cause he doesn't taste anything.

You know, friends, I can be married [and] have the most beautiful children. I can have the most beautiful house. But it doesn't mean that I really tasted--that I really feel inside what I have. So the Chocham is asking, "What's the Torah all about? I have a Ph.D. in Judaism"--so what? You know, it's like someone says, like asking the singing nun, "What is marriage all about?" You know--without saying anything bad about my friends, the singing nuns, right? They don't know what it is, right? But if you know what it is, if you know the words--do you know the inside?

So you know that so many moments in our lives we know everything, but gevalt, we don't taste it. I want you to know something. You and I, obviously, so many parents--just recently I was in somebody's house. They have the cutest kids in the world, and the little boy says to his father --he wanted to play with his father a little bit--so he says, "Daddy, I want to play with you a little bit." I'm telling you, the lowest person in the world would melt--the way he answered him so rough. "I have no time! I have some business to attend!" What kind of business did he have?

I was once in the office of a very big millionaire. His little girl called up. Then he says, "I told you not to disturb me in my office!" Bang. This girl is so cute. I wish I could have adopted her at that moment. Well, so he is wise. I'm sure he can write a book on marriage. But he doesn't know anything. So you know why we are not permitted to eat matzah after we eat the afikomen? So the taste of the matzah should stay with us.

Obviously, we are asking him, "Have you ever tasted anything in your life? Did you ever do anything and the taste stayed with you for a long time?" You know, friends, imagine I meet somebody like. I meet them till six. Ten after six, I meet somebody else. When I meet someone I love very much, after the date, I cannot meet somebody else. Because I love them so much--the taste--I don't want to destroy the taste. Ah, it's so good. You know, when you come from the holy wall--you don't turn around and you go to a movie. Takes a long time to leave the holy wall. Taste.

Then we come to the Rasha. You see, the wise person is addicted--he is a slave to his mind. He says, this is all there is to life, right? I know my wife, I know everything about her. I know when she was born, and I know how she looks like, and I know how she cooks--what else is there to know? Nothing. So the fixing of the Chocham is--Seder night, G-d opens gates, that this Chocham suddenly realizes, "Gevalt, am I off! Gevalt am I off. Gevalt I need fixing."

Then comes the Rasha. You know, the Rasha is addicted to being bad. The Rasha is somebody who wants to be good sometimes, but he can't bring himself to be good, because he's supposed to be bad, right. You know, I know a lot of people--You gotta go brother? Mamash, thank you. Give him the biggest hand--he's mamash the best [large applause]. Thank you a million times. Listen, beautiful friends, I'll make it fast. I want you to know something. What are the most heartbreaking moments in my life? I think I shared it with you already. I play sometimes in prison. Sometime ago I played in this really maximum security prison. And, you know, you don't go there for a weekend. When you're sittin' there, you're there for a long time, you know? Anyway--and it has 2000 inmates. And, like, the director was afraid, if I played all of them together, it would be too wild, so he divided, four times 500, with guards, everything. Okay, Barukh HaShem, it was beautiful, and at the end, I managed to kiss everyone and hug everyone, bless them to come out. There was, nebich, a little black brother, who was eighteen years old, he's in for life. Heartbreaking, right? In for life. But really a cute guy, you know? So I give him a big hug, and I say, "I bless you with miracles, you should come out of here." He walks up to the door, comes back to me, says, "Could you please give me another hug? I don't know if I'll ever get another hug again." Nebich, gevalt. You know what that means? And here let me tell you the two Torahs--three Torahs.

First of all, we tell the Rasha, "You think you're bad, right? So every time you meet people you think you have to bite them. You don't have to bite people." I'm knocking out his teeth. I'm saying, "Could you talk to me sweet? Can't you talk to me sweet?" And here comes the deepest depths of Torah. This is really a must. Rasha has three letters: Resh, Ayin, is the outside--is "bad," right? And Shin is the inside, and Shin, the three lines of Shin are our relationship [to] Avraham, Yitzchak, Ya'akov--what we inherited from our forefathers--something so holy--something indestructible. Indestructible. So you know what the Hagadah says? You have to do something for him. Cut out the Shin, that suddenly the inside should begin to shine. And I tell him, "You know, you don't need teeth. You don't have to bite people." Have you ever seen those people, when you want to hug them, they put on that frown, "Not me!" Why not? I'm your brother. I love you. You know, there are some people are so rough on the outside, and they are so addicted--slaves! "I have to be bad!" I tell them, "You don't have to be." All you have to do is let your insides shine. And it'll be too long, but I want you to know the Hagadah. The truth is, by the Rasha, telling his father--not to the Rasha, to the father. What kind of father are you? You mean to say you never told your children how holy they are? You never gave them a connection to the inside? Sssss.

You know I think I shared with you. You know, I travel all the time; I come late at night to hotels. Once late at night, I'm checking into a hotel, and the woman at the desk is mamash beautiful, sitting there crying. I ask her, "Why are you crying? Forgive me for asking, but you're so beautiful. Why are you crying?" She says, "You know, I'm only 27 years old, and tomorrow I have my ninth divorce." Nebich, gevalt. Can you imagine the brokenness of this woman? Listen to me. I said to her, "Did your mother ever tell you how beautiful you are?" She says, "My mother would tell me constantly that I am so ugly that no man would ever want me. And whenever I did something wrong, she would take soap water, put it in my mouth, and lock me in a closet for three hours."

I'm telling the father of this Rasha, what did you teach him? Li v'lo lo? [For me but not for him?] question mark. Just you and not him? You're a good man? [Inaudible] Then it says, Eelu hayah sham [had he been there] I say to the father, "If you would have been in Egypt, you wouldn't have got out either. 'Cause G-d took us out of Egypt for our children's sake." But that is already far-reaching.

Then comes the Tam. The Tam is--everybody knows, the Tam is the same letters like MaiS [death]--Mem Tov, right? This is so deep, friends. You know what a dead person is? Everything is broken. Whatever I see, wherever I look, looks bad. In my father's shul was a Yid--he would come in Shabbos morning, and by the first five minutes, he already started a fight with seven people. And gevalt, a genius. This one is wrong, this one is wrong, this one hurt his feelings, this one could hurt his feelings--you know what a Tam is? Not broken, but you know, the Tam asks Ma zos?--he asks what gives you the strength--what gives you the strength to be so whole? You know what Egypt is? The slave is a broken person. I'm afraid of this one, I'm afraid of this one--and the Tam is the first one who tastes a little bit redemption. But he says, Ma zos?--Gevalt! Where is the headquarters for redemption? I need more, right? I need more all the time.

Ah, I'm telling him. Can you imagine? G-d created the world with his hands, right? But to get out of Egypt, even G-d had to stretch out his hand. That means, humanly speaking, ah, this was even hard for G-d! This comes from a very high place in Heaven. You can see the whole world as being beautiful, but what you need is something deeper than Heaven and Earth. Ah, from the highest--from the highest headquarters [Hebrew phrase--b'chodeg yor?]. And then comes [shayni ha-deresh?] sh'ayno yodaya leesho [the one who doesn't know how to ask]. I want you to know something so deep. This is mamesh deep. Do you think we are praying for everything? There are certain things in life we are even ashamed to ask G-d. We are even ashamed to ask G-d. I want you to know something--the deepest depths. That our holy mother Sarah was praying all her life for children, right? [Tsvi: Daddy!] What do you think our holy mother Sarah felt when she was 80? Do you think inside she thought, "I can't even ask G-d anymore"?

[End of recording from Side B. I think there's a few minutes more, but I don't have it with me. Maybe Dovid, in Berkeley, can finish it off. Any help with the difficult-for-me-to-decipher Hebrew phrases would be much appreciated, as well as the identity of the other musicians (besides Aryeh Trupin, who I know was there), and other individuals with whom Shlomo interacted during the teaching.]

Chag Samayach!

Completed Erev Pesach, 14 Nisan, 5760/April 19, 2000, in Arad, Israel

(57 years since the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto--the first sustained civilian revolt in Nazi-occupied Europe--and the first intentional ingestion of LSD-25 by Dr. Albert Hoffman, in Basel, Switzerland).