=scb18*. Input of R. Shlomo Carlebach Typescript B18 Dated 3/16/72 Place not noted Transcriber not noted Working docname: =scb13# , where # is sequential version number. Final title to be: sc_b13 Notes to be Deep_6'd to =scsab13 ------------------------------------------------------------------ I am greatful to Miriam Gal-Or for having responsibly mailed me this and the other RSC manuscripts and typescripts in my Moshav Mevo Modi'in Collection in Doberdane Estates House #101, which is a copy a BZ Collection, which is a copy of a Collection held by HH, who maybe originated it from HLP days, and which I copied from the Witt Collection, as any fool can plainly see and if you don't you ain't no fool, Mule. This is a typescript, not a manuscript. It seems to have been typed on a manual typewriter, not an electric typewriter. It was typed PICA -- 10-pitch, But about 75 characters per line. That gives you a 7.25 inch Line Lenght, on 8.5 x 11 inch paper, but whose counting. Leaves you half-inch margins on each sides. In my EinsteinWriter input I will try to preserve Line_Length and Line-endings. That facilitates proof-reading. ----------------------------------------------------------------- SO OK, HERE'S AN EXCERPT FROM =inv0494a This lists the Full B Series. ** YOU CAN SEE THAT B16B IS LISTED AS 14 PAGES, BUT I ONLY HAVE PAGES 1--13, WITH PAGE 14 MISSING. 6/90: All but B22 returned from ZF to HS, both Meor Modi'in DUPLICATE COLLECTION J. WITT BOX #5 4/94 With the following exceptions: B7!, B14, B15, B18, B21, B25, B27 B1 4 6/22/69 Concert at Adath Israel B2 8 6/22/69 B3 6 6/23/69 B4a 4 3/25/70 Teach-In B4b 7 3/25/70 Teach-In *B5 5 7/8/70 "Cassette of Maxim Bernice" B6 2 + 1 7/8/70 "Giving existence" Includes HH33f B7 61! 7/8-9/70 with Topical Table of Contents B8 11 12/19/71 last night of Channukah B9 12 12/20/71 "Rav Houtner" Dec. 20, 1971 B10 3 12/21/71 tr. by Donna, House of L&P Yeshiva, 21 Dec. 1971; on Reb Shmuel Shlonamer B11 5 1/4/72 R. Nachman on Dreams B12a 12 1/13/72 From R. Nachman B12b 1 1/13/72 On Purim @INPUT as D:\BOOK3:pur12b; editted excerpts input as eeb20pur B13 9 1/17/72 morning = JW18 = HH21 B14 4 1/19/72 = JW15 B15 7 1/27/72 PM = JW18 = HH21 Excerpts in sh_topic B16a 2 1/27/72 "Good Purmim!" story From Connections I(1) @INPUT C:\BOOK:gutpurim B16b 14 1/27/72 Purim B16c 10 1/27/72 B17 24 1972 Pesach 1972 *B18 11 3/16/72 AM (Incomplete) = JW21 B19 7 6/22/73 AM xt, page 1 faint B20 4 2/27/74 Brandeis 2/27/74 @Editted Excerpts on Purim input as D:\BOOK3:eeb20pur UNDATED XEROX TYPED TRANSCRIPTS B21 10 On Pesach = JW19 B22 18 "in Grunwald" B23 3 Secret of Dying = HH37f B24 11 B25 26 "Side 1 of Cassette" = JW17 B26 10 B27 14 "From Emes V'Tzedek" = JW14 = HH5 INPUT = sh_jw14.ein B28 pp2 Dinna B29 8 xm Haskala Tues June 30 [1974?] "...my soul, my soul, please remember..." @INPUT C:\BOOK:b29.ew8 ================================================================= Note that in =inv0494a I list Typescript B18 as 11 pages and note that it is "Incomplete". What I have here is 9 pages, and page 9 is only a half-pagae that seems to end in mid-sentence. The original page numbering is 1-7, with no 8-9, and then 10-11 At some stage, most likely when I xeroxed it from BZ's Collection, I numbered the pages B18--1 -- B18--9 There seems to be a continuity in text between page B18-7 and B18- 8 So in short, I think there was an error in the original numbering, and so I thik there is not missing text. But maybe that's wrong. At some point also most likely when I inventoried it from the Witt Collection, I started to Head it 'Purim', then crossed that out and headed it 'Pesach' ---------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================ START PAGE 1 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 The BEIS YOSEF [ REFERENCE: Beit Yoef. The dude who wrote Beit Yoef. I have no idea who he was nor when he did his thing, much less what his shtick is, so someone tell me. ] says that according to some, women have to fast also [ on the day of the day before Pesach, customarily but misleadingly termed 'erev Pesach'] . The first_borns have to fast on [ erev ] Peaach because the first_born [ of the Egyptians, but not the Jews ] were knocked off. On erev Pesach, after ten o'clock [ in the morning ] you are not permitted to have a feastele anymore. (b18-1a) (b18-1a) [ But I had heard only, you are not permitted to eat hametz after approximately 10 AM, or about 9:30 AM, on the day before the night of the Seder. ] You really have to eat matza when you are hungry. (b18-1b) (b18-1b) [ The phrasing is misleading. It means -- you must have a darned good appetite to eat that flat unsalted bread. It does not mean, as I first mistook it: If you get the munchies after 10 AM the day before Seder evening, rip open a box of matza and crrrrucnch. I understood the minhag to be -- at least on the day before the night of the Seder do not eat matza until the Seder.] Doesn't mean you have to be starved, during the day you can eat some cake or something (b18-1c) (b18-1c) [ Yeah, you and Marie Antoinette -- I mean, matza is the bread of affliction, the poor man's bread, so save the cake for kiddish. ] but you are not permitted to sit down for a feastele. According to the Gmora, real eating is only when you are hungry. (b18-1d) Or when the Torah says you have to eat matza, you really have to eat matza, I have to be hungry: but before ten o'cock in the morning you are still allowed to have a feastele. A lot of people erev Pesach morining, really eat a lot, so you will be strong, because as much as you have to do during the day you should have strength. Anything which you eat that night you should not eat duirng the day, even horse radish. [ That minhag was invented by a horse. They do like their radishes, you know. Adds a bit of spice to the hay. ] The things which you eat at night should be special, especially for the children to see that they are not eaten at other times. Egg matza, or something like that is not considered real matza, so you can eat that. (b18-1e) [ That is, matza with anything added -- egg, or wine -- may be eaten during Pesach, since it is not leavened, but may not be used at the Seder table to fulfill the mitzva of eating matza.] (b18-1e) Anything you will not fulfill a mitzva with at night you can eat during the day. If a person has a custom to eat late this is not good for seder night, becausee the children have to be up for the Seder. (b18-1f) (b18-1f) [That works ok in eretz Israel, where the spring equinox sun sets at a sensible time, but things got a bit more difficult when you head north. One summer Friday afternoon in Lugano I wandered over to the Dan Hotel as the sun was getting closee to the mountan ridge, and said, what time is mincha. They said, we've davened it. I said, ok, what time is Ma'ariv. They said, we've davened it. Last year I think it was abouot 22:15 when they davened Ma'ariv for Pesach. OK, these are glattniks, so they added a half-hour or more, but still -- ] Therefore it says not only you should right from shul go home for the seder, also you have to make sure that the table is set and thst everything is ready. The table has to be set before nightfall. (b18-1f) This is an old custom, that anything beautiful you have in the house you put on the seder table. Any gold or silver, anything which looks beautiful, because at the seder table we are free like kings, so it has to show tho the world that we are rich. j Even if you are a poor beggar, the seder has to be strong. Everyobedy knows that the night of the seder you have to sit leaning like a rich man. Everybody should really have a cushion. In Bobov he is mamash lying on a sofa, completely lying. Lean on the left side. Again we come back to women's lib. The question is whether a woman ------------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 2 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 also has to sit leaning on the side. Some say that a woman doesn't, because the whole thing is that I am supposed to look like a king, but they say even a queen doesn't lean. Usually a woman doesn't lean back it doesn't look dignified. So some say that a woman should always sit straight. For awoman it is more queenly to sit straight. Others say no, that even a pincess sometimes, if she really feels free she leans. If you sit with your Rebbe, then you don't lean, because it is not respectfu8l. Unless the teacher gives them special permission. If you come to an outstanding holy man, even if he is not your Rebbe, you are not permitted to lean. Matza you have to eat leaning back. (b18-2a) [ Sorry, but my understanding has been, the wine you drink leaning, but it says nothing in my Maxwell House Hagadah about leaning to eat matza -- ] (b18-2a) That means if I ate matza without leaning, that means I have to eat it again. I have to drink the four cups of wine leaning back. If I drank the four cups without leaning I have to drink four more cups of wine. (b18-2b) If I finish the whole seder, and then I realize I at matza or I drank wine without leaning back, I have to go back, wash my hands again, drink four cups of wine, and eat matza. (b18-2c) The RAMO [ REFERENCE: The RAMO . Don't have the foggiest.] says if in an emergency you forgot to lean bak you don't have to eat matza again. (b18-2d) And also he says only the first two cups of wine if you drank without leaning back you have to redrink them. But the last two cups if you drank them without leaning back it is OK. What about the feastele. The soup. The truth is, if you can, you eat everything leaning back. It has to be the feastele of a king. (b18-2e) Do you know beween the first and second [ cups of wine ] (b18-2f) (b18-2f) [-- the first to make kiddish, the second to salute the conclusion of reading the Hagadah -- the Hagadah is recited over the 2nd cup of wine ] you are not permitted to drink. Between the second and the third you can drink all the time during the meal. But again between the third [ cup of wine, over which the Hallel is recited ] and the fourth [ over which birkat hamazon is recited ] you are not permitted to drink, and after the fourth you are not permitted to drink anything until the next morning. The taste of the matza and the fourth cup have to stay with you until the next morning. The thing is like this. If you sit by the seder and you are too hungry then you rattle off the seder because you are hungry. ----------------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 3 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 So eat something so you shouldn't be too hungry. But you have to be half hungry. If a person never drinks wine, for one reason or another, nevertheless, seder night you have to drink wine. (b18-3a) (b18-3a) [ So some say, but this is now considered a recommendation, not an obligation; and prevailing custom, as I saw it at the Witts, is that one is free to drink either wine or grape juice.] And you should drink red wine. (b18-3b) (b18-3b) [ I have heard this as a recommendation for Shabat, but never as an obligation, and I have not heard it mentioned as a particular obligation nor even recommendation for the Seder.] If you cannot drink wine then you should cook the wine, then it is not strong anymore. If a person makes a vow that he won't drink wine all year then he has trouble seder night. But if a person makes a vow I will not drink wine seder night, the vow is not even valid. (b18-3b1) (b18-3b1) [ More precisely, a vow to never drink wine is not valid, because on seder night one is obligated to drink wine, and an halachic obligation (if this is one) takes precedence over a vow. ] A vow that I will not drink all year except seder night is OK. !When someone makes kiddush you dom't have to drink wine, you just have to listen to it.! (b18-3c) (b18-3c) [ And, I think, answer 'Amen'.] But if someone reads the Hagada, and I say 'Amen' (b18-3d) (b18-3d) [ I don't recall an 'Amen' to the Hagada, neither before or after reading it. ] but I don't drink wine, it doesn't do. Do you know that the [ obligation on Pesach to drink the ] four cups are so strong that you literally have to sell your furniture or your house [ in order to be able to afford wine for Pesach ] [No, you literally have to sell your novel, and may be floored to realize you have to sell your furniture, or moved to sell your house.] I really have to sell everything in order to have the four cups of wine. A person even has to sell himself as a worker. (b18-3e) (b18-3e) [ Excuse me, but that's bullshit. To celebrate our freedom from slavery you should turn yourself into a slave?!? And also it is said, a man should make his Shabat like any other day rather than spend more than he can afford, and everyone knows, Shabat takes precedence over any holiday upon which it falls. So therefore we can infer 'from Major to minor' that if one has no money for wine on Pesach, one does not sell oneself into slavery to obtain it. And also, everyone knows, if kosher wine is not available, you can do with water in which raisins have been soaked. I heard that from Ziv Hosid in Belarus, and also others have confirmed it. ] Women also have to drink four cups of wine. [b18-3f] (b18-3f) [ Oh well. And to which marketplace do THEY go if they can't afford a jug of it. No. Preganant women are surely excempt, for preganant women should not drink alcohol. And of course anyone witha damaged liver is exempt. And maybe nursing women too. And all this I can derive from 'ki hen chai_eynu, for they are your life, and from , 'the torah (or is it 'the Shabat'= was made for man, not man for for the torah' ] Anything which is a mitzva that night they have to do. Children when they can already understand what is going on also have to drink four cups of wine. (b18-3g) (b18-3g) [ That's nonsense. Children don't have to do anything. They're not bar mitzva. When they're bar mitzva, they have to do everything. And also, derekh eretz says: you don't force alcohol on children. There is nothing inherently sacred about wine, which would somehow take it out of the category of mere alcohol. We make kiddish etc. over wine because it is a treat for us, and we wish thereby to show additional honor to the Sabath, or to the Hagadah, or to the Hallel, or to birkat haMozon, or to the wedding couple. So there is no point passing around the cup after you have made kiddish, what is santified is the Shabat, not the wine. And also -- children are smaller than adults, even if they were to drink a cup of wine, it could not be an adult cup. And anyhow, most kiddish wine ain't worth drinking in the first place. Gal_or stopped by, I gave him some, he said, that's cough syrup. Next time he stopped by I gave him some real wine. He said, is that regular wine. I said yeah, but I added sugar to it. That was almost the first time Gal_or refused a glass of wine. ] Also, you are not permitted to drink wine from a straw. [ But if you first pour the wine into a strawberry ice cream soda, it is permitted. Of course this only applies to Snapple.] If you drink from a cup you can really drink. From a straw it is always only drops, so you can't really drink. The first cup is two things. First it is kiddush, and it is the first cup of the Seder. And you make She'hechianu. Why are there four cups. Because G_d said to Moses the four words of redemption: Vehatzaitze. I will take you out. Veyitzalyi, I will save you. Vegoalti, I'll redeem you. Velakachti, and I will take you. There are four exiles. The fourth cup is already drinking like when the Meshiach is coming. Do you know that according to the MAHARAL , and other mekubalim, you drink a fifth cup. This has nothing to do with the Hagada, which is really way out. They say that the first four cuprs are for the redemption of [ our enslavement in ] Egypt, and the fifth cup you drink on the redemption which is to come. But ---------------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 4 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 most people, simple folks like us, only drink four cups. Real great kabalists are drinking five. The four exiles are Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Edom (Rome). (b18-4a) (b18-4a) [ I'm not clear how you get Persia. When Assyria conqureed Babylonia, Xerox permitted the exiled Jews to return to the land of Israel. ] Nobody is pouring wine for himself, do you know that. Because a king doesn't pour himself the wine. Always someone else. So everybody had to pour for the other. Between the first cup and second cup you don't drink anything else. Between the first cup and the second cup you have to say the hagada. The first cup you make kidush. Over the second cup you read the Hagada. You tell the story. Oer the third is the meal,,so you can drink as much as you want. Over the fourth you cannot drink because you are saying hallel. It should be the wine which you can digest the strongest without getting drunk or sick or having a headache. It depends on your stomach. Then goes a whole thing abour moror, because there is a big question about what is moror. So what we are doing, we are eating a lot of salad and horseradish also. Between the two of them. Don't be stingy. You must have a kezayis, it mut be pretty big. (b18-4a1) (b18-4a1) [ Must a kezayis "be pretty big". There's a lot jive about a kezayis. It means, k_zayit, like an olive. That ain't big. But someohow a kezayis of wine comes out a huge amount. ] In the salad you can eat only the leaves, not the roots, because this is not called moror, it has to be the leaves. And also they cannot be cooked, they have to be raw. The best thing is to take horseradish and cut it. (b18-4b) (b18-4b) [ The custom, whcich I have seen everywhere, is to use the leaves of Romaine lettuce. I suppose because Romaine lettuce is slightly albeit minimally bitter. ] Do you know how to make charoset. You have to take a lot of apples, figs and nuts, and you put in a little bit wine, and cinamon. This should remind you of what we were putting between the bricks. Mortar. [ Yes of course; I had assumed it was peanut butter. And anyhow, 'moror & mortar'? Give me a break. ] You take the moror and you dip it into the haroset because haroset is sweet. Even in your greatest pain, G_d makes the pain wide enough that you can go through. Meaning to say, even when G_d gave us all the moror in the world, all the bitterness, there was always just one little sweet spot. (b18-4b1) (b18-4b1) [ Similarly, the Christians say, G_d give you no test too difficult to pass through. And I suppose this is the parting of the Reed Sea.] You dip the moor in the haroset, but don't overdip it. You ?can? eat a lot of haroset after the moror. Everyone knows that on the seder plate there are three matzas, like --------------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 5 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 Cohanim, Leviim, and Yisraelim. You break the middle one, and the bigger part you put away and you eat it for the afikomen. When you break it you say Yachatz, which means to divide. It says [REFERENCE: It is the bit which the Rabbi is sugar_coating so lure all the hippies into line to be frumies. But which book it is, I don't so, so someone tell me now please thank you. ] that everything which you do at the seder has to be explained so that everyone, even the children, will understand what you are doing. Then you hold up the seder plate, and all the three matzas and you say Halachma Anya ("This is the bread of affliction ...") . After Halachma Anya you pour the second cup but you don't drink it, and you read the Hagada. By the Sephardim you don't make boray pri hagofen over the second cup, and by the Ashkenazim you do. According to the Ashkenazim it is a hefsek when you read the Hagada. [ GLOSSARY: Hefek . Don't know. Best Guess: A small young cow with one pink foot with two peppermint stripes. ] It is a big machlokes in the Gmora. According to some, since I am sitting by the seder and I know I have to drink another cup, it means I never forget about the wine. Even while I am telling the story. And the others say no, right now while I am telling the story I concentrate on the story and I forget about the wine. (b16b-5a) (b16b-5a) [ That ain't a machlochet, there's nothing to do a dialektic on, it don't go up in helicycle (as Sartre said of his play, Les Sequestrs d'Altoona) -- it's just a dithering of perspectdives. ] So now the thing is like this: When you make Hamotzie you take the top matza and the bottom matza out of the seder plate and you say Hamotzie lechem min haaretz. And you don't dip the matza in salt. When you make hamotzie you make it over all three matzas. Then you drop the lower one. Then you say al achilas matza, since because matza is the bread of afflication you have to eat from a broken one. Then you eat a little piece of this one, and a little piece of the whole one. It has to be a kezayis. (b18-5b) (b18-5b) [But I have heard some say, a kazayis of matza is darned near the whole matza. I guess they are going by weight, and found some darned big olives somewhere. ] Then after that you eat moror, and you dip it in Haroset, But he says: [ REFERENCE: Who he? He whom Reb Shlomo is Commentating upon, that who he. Nu so who he? I don't know, so someone tell me who he now. ] also don't overdip it because it has to be bitter. Moror you don't eat learning back, because when you eat bitterness you don't do it lying back. (b18-5c) (b18-5c) [ Not to mention the heartburn. I mean gvalt, somewhere near t he North Pole there are frumies who eat horseradish standing on their head, and on horesback to boot. ] Then comes the third matza. The third matza you need for korach. You take a little bit of matza and moror together. First we eat matza alone and moror alone, and after t hat we eat both together. (b18-5d) (b18-5d) [ Sounds so ruddy Aristotelian logical they must have learned it from the Thomists. ] So you take a piece from the third matza and you braek it and put moror betweem amd eat it together. Korach means together. --------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 6 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 If you swallow down matza and don't feel the taste that is all right. But moror if you don't feel the taste you have to eat it again. You have to feel the taste. If anyone becomes crazy for half an hour and he eats matza and then he becomss normal again he has to eat matza again. (b18-6a) (b18-6a) [ OK, at first glance this is abstract pilpul -- it does not teach us any halacha we would ever need to know -- except for ouer seder gueset George, who turns into a werewolf when but only when he sees the full moon, so we hope for some clouds in the sky - it merely illustrates the logic behind the halachot. At second glance, it implies that matza must be eaten with full attention, and kavanah. But then that contradicts RSC's remark that one can chug the ruddy stuff down without tasting it -- though I can't imagine how. I suppose this is those compressed matza pills -- a whole sheet in the size of a large vitamin pill -- but I believe there was some question about the kashrut of the gelatin caps. ] Then, we con't eat anything roasted. Most people don't because the pascal lamb was roasted, in order to know that we are not eating the Korban Pesach, If you eat meat you eat only cooked meat [ ie, boiled (sa)] you don't eat anything roasted. You eat what you have to eat, and then you pull out the matza afikomen, the broken matza, and you eat from that a kezayis. If you want to make it really strong you have to eat two kezaysim to make it a really big piece. (b18-6b) (b18-6b) [ But again, the custom I have seen is that for the afikomen each person eats nearly a whole matza, since a prevailing opinion is that it takes nearly a whole matza to make a kezyis of matza. ] When you eat the matza you got to be really with it, you can't talk or joke. The piece has to be really big, and you sit there and you mamash eat matza. Once a year is mamash the biggest mitzva when you eat. Shabos is also a mitzva when you are eating, but it is not on that level. On shabos the esting is you have to be happy on Shabos. So one of the ways of being happy is if I am eating, so I am fulfilling the mitzva of being happy on Shabos with eating. But eating itself is not so much the mitzva. The mitzva is oneg Shabos. But seder night is mamash eating. That means I am fulfilling mamash the biggete mitzva in the world. You know the holy SANZER was sitting after the seder and putting his hands on his stomach and he was saying Oy, tonight my stomach did so many mitzvas. (b18-6c) (b18-6c) [ I don't really like that. R. Solevetchik presents that position clearly in Halakic Man -- a mitzva is done for its own sake. But it seems to me, a mitzva is not done for its own sake -- although there are some chukat, where we do mitzvas on faith, without knowing what good they do (and also this is Pirke Avot, 'Be as careful with a [ supposedly ] 'light' mitzva as with a [supposedly] 'heavy' one, for you know not the reward reserved for each. So why do we do mitzvot, if they are not for their own sake -- and also this is, 'the Shabat was made for man, not man for the Shabat' -- here I want to bring in PVK's phrase, 'to build a beautiful world of beautiful people' (and in later years he would add, 'amidst an ugly world of ugly people' -- only my brother could say that phrase with the proper touch of enduring humoour -- like someting out of a TV show, The Simpsons maybe -- This is more than 'derekh eretz', it comes closer to what folks must mean by civilization. I really must buy a new pair of pants, one without a rip in it.] Afikomen is because we don't eat the Pascal lamb. At the end of the feastele they would eat a little piece of the Korban Pesach. Since we don't have a Korban Pesach we eat a little piece of matza for the Korban Pesach. Afikomen really comes from another world. The taste of this matza is really supposed to keep you going for the rest of the year before Meshiach is coming. OK. then you pour in the third cup and yout tentsch. Again you ---------------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 7 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 drink it and you lean back. And also very important, the real mitzva is to drink the whole ucp. It is really very important. When you drink the cup you drink the whole cup. It is very strong. It keeps you going. OK, then you open the door. You have to realize one thing. After the third cup we are not in this world. Then you open the door. Do you know what that means. When G_d took us out of Egypt the doors were closed that night and we were not permitted to go out into the street. Meaning to say that the street wasnl't ready yet for the holiness of G_d. Maybe the house but not the street yet. But when it comes to the fourth cup we celebrate that Messhiach is coming, then all the doors are open. It will be not only the house, it will be in the street, all over. So we open the doors and Eliahu HaNavi is coming in. This is a very holy custom. After you open the door and your really believe that Elijah drank from the cup, so then you take Elija's cup and everybody gets one drop of Elijah's cup in his cop for the four cup. In BOBOV it is the beiggest thing. The Rebbe himself is giving everybody from Elijah's cup. The custom is when it comes time you take two candles, or a lot of people with a lot of candles, and you go to the door, open the door and greet Elijah. (b18-7a) (b18-7a) [ Everyone knows, RSC used to teach: the kavanah is not 'pour out YOUR wrath upon the the nations that have not known YOU', but rather, 'pour out YOUR warmth'. The Hebrew text will support that alternate reading. ] Becasue we really believe he is coming in. so you stand by the door with candles. Once a year you know that Elijah the Prophet is really seeing you. He is coming into our house and you can stand there and greet him, it is the greatest thing. After you finish the whole thing, and after you drank the fourth cup, you are not permitted to drink anything, except water which has no taste. Some pepple drink even a fifth cup. After the seder you should sit together and learn the laws of Pesach, or talk to each otehr about the exodus from Egypt, or tell holy stories until you fall asleep. On the first night you have to eat the first piece of matza before midnight. According to some you have to eat the afikomen before midnight also, but only the first night. (b18-7b) (b18-7b) [ But this -- that one the 2nd night you do not have to eat the afikomen before midnight -- contradicts a story, with RSC told, of the hosid who falls alseep on Pesach afternoon, and wakes up so late he has to rush though the second Seder, and is crestfallen, but then his Rebbe says, it was his second Seder that was the great one. ] In SANZ , actually by a lot of Rebbes, it was the custom to say Shir HaShirim the second night. I heard ----------------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 8 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 [ There is s discontinuity in the original numbering of the pages here -- this is marked 10, and the preceeding page was marked 7. So it is possible that 2 pages of the transcription are missing. But there seems to be a continuity of text. I marked this page B18-8 when I prepared to photocopy it from BZ's Collection, so his collection will now have that numbering. So one should check the more prior Witt and HH collections. As for the original tape, and copies thereof, I have no idea where, if anywhere, they exist on this planet. ] I do hower find a marking // at the start of this line. That is a mark I use, and I don't know if anyone else does. I most likely put it there when I inventoried this typescript in the Witt Collection -- and then made a photocopy for at least one of the HH's, if I recall -- which means that I assumed there was a discontinuityx of text. -------------------------------------------------------------- [I heard] -------------------------------------------------------- START PAGE 8 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 in Bobov that after the seder it was the minhag in ROPSHITZ that after the fourth cup of wine someone would come in, in every city there is a crazy person, the fool of the city, they would bring in this fool and the Ropshitzer would talk to him. And the Ropbhistuer would laugh, really laugh. He would ask him the craziest things in the world, and he would answer him in the craziest way in the world because he was crazy. (b18--8a) (b18--8a) [ sounds like a dervish -- he looks crazy, and he acts crazy, be he ain't the one who's crazy, you are . But maybe it ain't a dervish, just a meshugana. The difference is between Heaven and hell, from here they both look about the same. But not when you get there. ] There were two reasons. First of all, which is the most important reason, in SANZ also because after the seder the Chasidim were mamash afraid that he would take off, so they needed just anything to make him come back to this world, so they brought in this fool and he would talk to him. I heard in Bobov all the kinds of questions he would ask the fool and the fool would ask him. All kinds of crazy things, but they needed it to come back to this world. And the second reason was that after the fourth cup, Meshiach is coiming, you are on the level of laughter. Because it says when Meshiach is coming, 'az yimale tschok pinu' [ "and our mouths were full of song, from Psalm 126 , whch is Shir haMalot, the Psalm sung before bentching on shabat and festivals. ] Now we are on the level of joy. When Meshiach is coming we will be on the level of laughter. So right after you drink the fourth cup, and Meshiach is coming, you have to luagh. It is very important at least for the first matza and for afikomen that you have shmura matza. There is a big machlokes. Some say Meshiach is going to come on Rosh HaShana, and some say on Pesach. But the end is, whenever he comes is ok with us. But the meaning is, Pesach something is in the air. The Gmora says there is a certain time, G_d knows, when Meshiach is comming, if we want to or not. But there are times before then when we can bring him. Like he is standing at the airport just jumping on the jet. Seder night we can bring him. Rosh HaShana after the shofar. Motzi Shabos it is also easier to bring him. Ther eis a a question if you can use apple juice instead of wine if you can't drink wine, or if you absolutely won't drink wine. The only time we say Hallel at night is Pesach night. Because Peasach night is really [ last two words of t his line did not xerox] ------------------------------------------------------------------ START PAGE 9 OF RSC TYPESCRIPT B18 -- LAST PAGE Leyl shmura means the night when G_d is watching. (b18-9a) (b18-9a) [ But the the usual translation is, 'a night of watching'. Meaning, a night when one watches, as the children of Israel were on the watch for the moment when they should leave. So it seems to me, this, no less than Shavuot, is a night when it is appropriate to say awake all night -- and the Hagada passage about the 3 rabbi's seems to be strongly hinting that. ] All year long you had very high moments, right. And then we lsot them. we fell down again. What happened to those high moments. The truth is, G_d gives them back to us seder night. The Seder is s combination of everything I was high on all year long. (b18-9b) (b18-9b) [ I thought that matza tasted rather like peyote.] All the shaboses, all the YomTovs, everything which happened ot me since last seder night. G_d gives everything back to me. What happens to the seed in the earth. The seed really was lost. We thought it was lost. Sudddenly a tree is growing out of it. And the time os [ typescript sic, os, but I assume, 'is'] real, beginning is around Pesach time. And our holy soul growing time is Pesach. So suddenly we realize that all the things which we thought got lost weren't really lost. They were just in the earth and were just beginning to grow. Eery split second I was ever [ typescript sic, 'ever', but maybe 'very'] holy or high. [ END TYPESCRIPT, THOUGH WITH NO NOTE INDICATING THAT THIS IS THE END OF THE TRANSCRIPTION.. Not even a period after 'high' ----------------------------------------------------------------- sa, Campra, 14 Sept '05 -- 10 Elul -- I am greatful to the Vanzettis for having giving me a place in which to input this typescript. =============================================================== =================================================================ù DEEP_6 OF COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY -- APPENED, AND ALSO FILED OFF TO =scsa_b18 (as_it_is_said, (USA 1940's), "No Comments from the Peanut Gallery") THAT IS, FOOTNOTES (sa) TO SC_B13 -- FOLLOW ----------------------------------------------------------------- On erev Pesach, after ten o'clock [ in the morning ] you are not permitted to have a feastele anymore. (b18-1a) (b18-1a) [ But I had heard only, you are not permitted to eat hametz after approximately 10 AM, or about 9:30 AM, on the day before the night of the Seder. ] You really have to eat matza when you are hungry. (b18-1b) (b18-1b) [ The phrasing is misleading. It means -- you must have a darned good appetite to eat that flat unsalted bread. It does not mean, as I first mistook it: If you get the munchies after 10 AM the day before Seder evening, rip open a box of matza and crucnch. understood the minhag to be -- at least on the day before the night of the Seder do not eat matza until the Seder.] Doesn't mean you have to be starved, during the day you can eat some cake or something (b18-1c) (b18-1c) [ Yeah, you and Marie Antoinette -- I mean, matza is the bread of affliction, the poor man's bread, so save the cake for kiddish. ] According to the Gmora, real easting is only when you are hungry. (b18-1d) (b18-1d) [ How hideously old_fashioned. Didn't those rubes in Babylon hear of Power Eating. Me, I put on a yellow shirt and take the Clients out to Dago's in Greenwich Village, and order spaghetti with pomadoro con Dago. He puts the red pepper pot in it for everyone else. For me he pre_cuts it. Talk of Power Eating. And I make sure the Gents is Out of Order, except I have a key to the Execs. They'll sign anything before the Friday Night Ladies Mud Wrestling is on. Have to live on brown rice for the next week, but it pays my bill at the Sushi Bar. But perhaps you did not want to read my Commentary on the Gemora.ù [ That is, matza with anything added -- egg, or wine -- may be eaten during Pesach, since it is not leavened, but may not be used at the Seder table to fulfill the mitzva of eating matza. (b18-1e) (b18-1e) Ok, if you can eat matza with anything added, how can you eat it with anything subtracted. I mean white flour matza, which is made from ground flour with all the husks and bram -- whatever bran is, maybe its the husks hground up -- taken away. I mean, those pyramids did not hold flour mills. White flour matza should be used only when you are out of bubblepack and styrofoam (styrofoam, incidentally, is made from pigs' knuckles, which is why pigs can't sew worth a darn. Ok ok, I lied about the pigs knuckles, its really kosher, just also really weird. The USA used it as a base for napalming Vietnamese children. Kosher like a pig. On Rosh HaShana I go to the Glatt Kosher Dan Hotel by the lake in Lugano, and steal a glass cup or two rather than drink from styrofoam. They make tea from tea concentrate rather than risk squeezing a teabag on Shabat. ] If a person has a custom to eat late this is not good for seder night, becaused the children have to be up for the Seder. (b18-1f) That works ok in eretz Israel, where the spring equinox sun sets at a sensible time, but things got a bit more difficult when you head north. One summer Friday afternoon in Lugano I wandered over to the Dan Hotel as the sun was getting closee to the mountan ridge, and said, what time is mincha. They said, we've davened it. I said, ok, what time is Ma'ariv. They said, we've davened it. Last year I think it was abouot 22:15 when they davened Ma'ariv for Pesach. OK, these are glattniks, so they added a half-hour or more, but still -- ] Matza you have to eat leaning back. [ Sorry, but my understanding has been, the wine you drink leaning, but it says nothing in my Maxwell House Hagadah about leaning to eat matza -- I mean Sassafrass, matza is the bread of affliction, eaten in great haste I mean seriously folks, the Hagadah is tohu_v_bohu -- it makes no sense, and whenever it starts to make sense, it quickly runs off into nonsense -- like that how many plagues bit -- I mean, I go to the Seder looking for that Episcipal High Mass taht T.S. Eliot said was the only thing that turned him on -- no wonder there were no little Eliots -- and what do I get -- burlesque. We lean back like Romans at an orgy, and they feed us dried bread and bitter herbs. And it ain't kings who lean back, just Romans. A free man doesn't lean back, he has better things to do. I mean, from a literary standpoint, the Hagadah is the pposite of Megilat Esther, or of Megilat Ruth. Those two Megilot are nbeautifully written, cohesive stories. The Hagadah is a hodge_podge. I mean, it gives us this elaborate ritual of 14 steps, and your're supposed to complete every one of them in the correctd way -- and there's details that can drive you crazy -- and in the correct order -- all the while getting as drunk as a Roman nobleman -- I mean, a glass of wine with supper is very nice, but four glasses -- and all this ritual to a text that has no coherence, it's just a hodge-podge. Maxwell House was the coffee you got in supermarkets in the USA 1940's, for even the poorest customer they sold it to you in beans and ground it for you at the checkout, and ground it to fit your coffee_maker -- drip, or percolator, which is the way they make espresso nowadays But I digress.] If I drank the four cups without leaning Ø have to drink four more cups of wine. (b18-2b) [ I think this frumie bit has possibilities. Sorry Fred, this all comes under, 'thou shalt not make yourself loathsome.' You can't eat nor drink past satiety. Unless of course this is a USA Pie_Eating Contest. And if that ain't strictly for goyim, what is. I say, never eat it until you know where you're going to poop it.ù I once heard a dude say, maybe outside Diaspora Yeshiva, when you travel, travel light. Ie, don't eat much before you hit the road.] If I finish the whole seder, and then I realize I at matza or I drank wine without leaning back, I have to go back, wash my hands again, drink four cups of wine, and eat matza. (b18-2c) (b18-2c) [ Well, if this is what R. Shlomo was teaching the kids at the dawn of the ba'al tchuva momvement, its amazing that we can still make a minyan. ] The RAMO [ REFERENCE: The RAMO . Don't have the foggiest.] says if in an emergency you forgot to lean bak you don't have to eat matza again. (b18-2d) [ Yeah sure man, if the Cossaks were at the door and I got flustered. I mean gvalt, who needs Reform. ] What about the feastele. The soup. The truth is, if you can, you eat everything leaning back. It has to be the featele of a king. (b18-2e) [ Or better yet, snort the soup through your nose. I mean, let us be reasonable. First of all, I don't think the feast even belongs in the Seder. Like the whole point is, we are remembering the Exodus, so we are eating the bread of affliction, with bitter herbs. OK, so you say, we must also remember the Redemption, that's the feast. Nu, wait 49 days to Shavuot, then you can eat. Blintzes even. So ok, like I say, this leaning back bit is strictly burlesque. I mean, who wants to eat leaning back. Leave it to the Romans. Leaning back to eat is something you should only do when you have a slave girl to peel you a grape. I mean, if leaning back was such a luxury, they would have divans at every restaurant with a white tablecloth. I mean, this is what's good for the digesteion? And if it ain't, you done said the brachot over food in vain. Like, pour me my bitters. ] Do you know beween the first and second [ cups of wine ] (b18-2f) (b18-2f) -- the first to make kiddish, the second to salute the conclusion of reading the Hagadah -- the Hagadah is recited over the 2nd cup of wine ] If a person never drinks wine, for one reason or another, nevertheless, seder night you have to drink wine. (b18-3a) (b18-3a) [ So some say, but this is now considered a recommendation, not an obligation; and prevailing custom, as I saw it at the Witts, is that one is free to drink either wine or grape juice.] And you should drink red wine. (b18-3b) (b18-3b) [ I have heard this as a recommendation for Shabat, but never as an obligation, and I have not heard it mentioned as a particular obligation nor even recommendation for the Seder.] !When someone makes kiddush you dom't have to drink wine, you just have to listen to it.! (b18-3c) (b18-3c) [ And, I think, answer 'Amen'.] But if some reads the Hagada, and I say 'Amen' (b18-3d) (b18-3d) [ I don't recall an 'Amen' to the Hagada, neither before or after reading it. ] I really have to sell everything in order to have the four cups of wine. A person even has to sell himself as a worker. (b18-3e) (b18-3e) [ Bullshit. To celebrate our freedom from slavery you should turn yourself into a temporary slave. And also it is said, a man should make his Shabat like any other day rather than spend more than he can afford. ] Women also have to drink four cups of wine. [b18-3f] (b18-3f) [ Oh well. And to which marketplace do THEY go if they can't afford a jug of it. No. Preganant women are surely excempt, for preganant women should not drink alcohol. And of course anyone witha damaged liver is exempt. And maybe nursing women too. And all this I can derive from 'ki hen chai_eynu, for they are your life, and from , 'the torah (or is it 'the Shabat'= was made for man, not man for for the torah' ] Children when they can already understand what is going on also have to drink four cups of wine. (b18-3g) (b18-3g) [ That's nonsense. Children don't have to do anything. They're not bar mitzva. When they're bar mitzva, they have to do anything. And also, derekh eretz says: you don't force alcohol on children. There is nothing inherently sacred about wine, which would somehow take it out of the category of mere alcohol. We make kiddish etc. over wine because it is a treat for us, and we wish thereby to show additional honor to the Sabath, or to the Hagadah, or to the Hallel, or to birkat haMozon, or to the wedding couple. So there is no point passing around the cup after you have made kiddish, what is santified is the Shabat, not the wine. And also -- children are smaller than adults, even if they were to drink a cup of wine, it could not be an adult cup. And anyhow, most kiddish wine ain't worth drinking in the first place. Gal_or stopped by, I gave him some, he said, that's cough syrup. Next time he stopped by I gave him some real wine. He said, is that regular wine. I said yeah, but I added sugar to it. That was almost the first time Gal_or refused a glass of wine. ] If a person makes a vow that he won't drink wine all year then he has trouble seder night. But if a person makes a vow I will not drink wine seder night, the vow is not even valid. (b18-3b1) (b18-3b1) [ More precisely, a vow to never drink wine is not valid, because on seder night one is obligated to drink wine, and an halachic obligation (if this is one) takes precedence over a vow. ] The four exiles are Egypt, Baby.lon, Persia, and Edom (Rome). (b18-4a) (b18-4a) [ I'm not clear how you get Persia. When Assyria conqureed Babylonia, Xerex permitted the exiled Jews to return to the land of Israel. ] (b18-4b) [ The custom, whcich I have seen everywhere, is to use the leaves of Romaine lettuce. I suppose because Romaine lettuce is slightly albeit minimally bitter. ] (b18-4a1) [ Must a kezayis "be pretty big". There's a lot jive about a kezayis. It means, k_zayit, like an olive. That ain't big. But someohow a kezayis of wine comes out a huge amount. ] (b18-4b1) [ Similarly, the Christians say, G_d give you no test too difficult to pass through. And I suppose this is the parting of the Reed Sea.] (b16b-5a) [ That ain't a machlochet, there's nothing to do a dialektic on, it don't go up in helicycle (as Sartre said of his play, Les Sequestrs d'Altoona) -- it's just a dithering of perspectdives. ] (b18-5b) [But I have heard some say, a kazayis of matza is darned near the whole matza. I guess they are going by weight, and found some darned big olives somewhere. ] Moror you don't eat learning back, because when you eat bitterness you don't do it lying back. (b18-5c) (b18-5c) [ Not to mention the heartburn. I mean gvalt, somewhere near t he North Pole there are frumies who eat horseradish standing on their head, and on horesback to boot. ] First we eat matza alone and moror alone, and after t hat we eat both together. (b18-5d) (b18-5d) [ Sounds so ruddy Aristotelian logical they must have learned it from the Thomists. ] If anyone becomes crazy for half an hour and he eats matza and then he becomss normal again he has to eat matza again. (b18-6a) (b18-6a) [ OK, at first glance this is abstract pilpul -- it does not teach us any halacha we would ever need to know -- except for ouer seder gueset George, who turns into a werewolf when but only when he sees the full moon, so we hope for some clouds in the sky - it merely illustrates the logic behind the halachot. At second glance, it implies that matza must be eaten with full attention, and kavanah. But then that contradicts RSC's remark that one can chug the ruddy stuff down without tasting it -- though I can't imagine how. I suppose this is those compressed matza pills -- a whole sheet in the size of a large vitamin pill -- but I believe there was some question about the kashrut of the gelatin caps. ] the matza afikomen, the broken matza, and you eat from that a kezayis. If you want to make it really strong you have to eat two kezaysim to make it a really big piece. (b18-6b) (b18-6b) [ But again, the custom I have seen is that for the afikomen each person eats nearly a whole matza, since a prevailing opinion is that it takes nearly a whole matza to make a kezyis of matza. ] You now the holy SANZER was sitting after the seder and putting his hands on his stomach and he was saying Oy, tongight my stomach did so many mitzvas. (b18-6c) (b18-6c) [ I don't really like that. R. Solevetchik presents that position clearly in Halakic Man -- a mitzva is done for its own sake. But it seems to me, a mitzva is not done for its own sake -- although there are some chukat, where we do mitzvas on faith, without knowing what good they do (and also this is Pirke Avot, 'Be as careful with a [ supposedly ] 'light' mitzva as with a [ supposedly ] 'heavy' one, for you know not the reward reserved for each. So why do we do mitzvot, if they are not for their own sake -- and also this is, 'the Shabat was made for man, not man for the Shabat' -- here I want to bring in PVK's phrase, 'to build a beautiful world of beautiful people' (and in later years he would add, 'amidst an ugly world of ugly people' -- only my brother could say that phrase with the proper touch of enduring humoour -- like someting out of a TV show, The Simpsons maybe -- This is more than 'derekh eretz', it comes closer to what folks must mean by civilization. I really must buy a new pair of pants, one without a rip in it. (b18-7a) [ Everyone knows, RSC used to teach: the kavanah is not 'pour out YOUR wrath upon the the nations that have not known YOU', but rather, 'pour out YOUR warmth'. The Hebrew text will support that alternate reading. ] According to some you have to eat the afikomen before midnight also, but only the first night. (b18-7b) (b18-7b) [ But this -- that on the 2nd night you do not have to eat the afikomen before midnight -- contradicts a story, with RSC told, of the hosid who falls alseep on Pesach afternoon, and wakes up so late he has to rush though the second Seder, and is crestfallen, but then his Rebbe says, it was his second Seder that was the great one. ] He would ask him the craziest things in the world, and he would answer him in the craziest way in the world because he was crazy. (b18--8a) (b18--8a) [ sounds like a dervish -- he looks crazy, and he acts crazy, be he ain't the one who's crazy, you are . But maybe it ain't a dervish, just a meshugana. The difference is between Heaven and hell, from here they both look about the same. But not when you get there. ] Leyl shmura means the night when G_d is watching. (b18-9a) (b18-9a) [ But the the usual translation is, 'a night of watching'. Meaning, a night when one watches, as the children of Israel were on the watch for the moment when they should leave. So it seems to me, this, no less than Shavuot, is a night when it is appropriate to say awake all night -- and the Hagada passage about the 3 rabbi's seems to be strong hinting that. ] The Seder is s combination of everything I was high on all year long. (b18-9b) (b18-9b) [ I thought that matza tasted rather like peyote.]