Pesach: Planning For Our Future

There is a story of the Riziner Rebbe, where a Jew fell asleep in the shul and as the Rizener was performing bedikat chometz he got up to Kol Chamira, and the Jew woke and said “oy, they are up to Kol Nidrei and I slept through the seudah hamafseket.” Everyone laughed. The Rizener Rebbe did not laugh, and encouraged his congregants not to laugh as well, as he explained that whatever a Jew can accomplish in the month of Tishrei can be accomplished on Pesach, as the pasuk says ועבדת את העבודה הזאת בחודש הזה. In this chodesh, called “hachodesh haze lachem,” one can accomplish the same growth he can accomplish on  Yom Kippur.

On the outset, we can see a connection between Pesach and Yom Kippur, for on both days we wear a  kittel. Both chagim probe us to aim for growth and teshuva. On Pesach we search for chometz in all cracks and crevices, which is a similar message to how we search ourselves on Yom Kippur. At the same time, the outer avoda is different. On Yom Kippur, the main avoda is by day -- all of the sacrifices are brought during daytime. Whereas on Pesach the main event is at night, at the seder.

Why is this? The avoda of Pesach is to start anew.  החודש הזה לכם – the root of this holiday is chidush, meaning new.  Pesach is about our ability to start over -- a fresh start, if you will.  The sefer Yesod Vaavoda explains 99% of sin is silliness, while only 1% is the yetzer hara, and 99% of teshuva is קבלה לעתיד, acceptance to do better in the future, while only 1% is חרטה, regret. Meaning, the sin is only 1% yetzer hara, so when we exchange life in this world for life in the next world; we trade our eternal life for physical pleasures in this world. The silliness is that a person thinks he is gaining olam hazeh, life in this world,  when in reality he isn’t even getting that. That is the 99% silliness; we get convinced we will obtain the olam haze, but we don’t even get that. What we end up getting is a life devoid of meaning.

Despite living in a world that is so advanced and developed, we sadly find depression rates at an alarmingly high rate. We find TV stars and sports celebrities who seemingly have it alll, but often appear to be living a life of emptiness. Perhaps this is similar to שיבוד, שיעבוד מצרים – shackled or enslaved. This person cannot be a ben chorin, a free man. Just as some people smoke despite knowing it is destroying their body,  we also do things that destroy our soul.  On the Yom Kippur confessional we say,  ולא שוא לנו  “the sin wasn’t even worth it.” This is the 99% silliness. The 1% of the yetzer hara can be helped with the 1% of regret, but the key is the  99% of the silliness. To fix that we need the 99% of קבלה לעתיד, working hard to change ourselves going forward. We need to develop a real thought out plan; one that the Chacham would devise. The plan of someone who is thinking about his future.איזהו חכם הרואה את הנולד. “The wise person is one who foresees the future.”

Perhaps this is the difference between Yom Kippur and Pesach. Yom Kippur is חרטה, regret – uproot the damage of the yezter hara by confessing our sins, and uprooting the damage the yezter did to us by causing us to sin. But on Pesach the avoda is cheirut, the freedom of kabala al ha’atid, chudish, hachodesh hazeh lachem, starting anew. This is the fight against our silliness to sin. This is why Yom Kippur is a daytime chag – a person has to work at night to do teshuvah to merit to do service the next day,  כי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם... But Pesach is not about now;  it is about what is going to change in my life, about the future, and it can even be at night. A most important concept at the seder מתחיל בגנות ומסיים בשבח , “we begin with the harder part of our history and work towards the good, end goal of redemption." Yes, we start with the bad, because we realize we have sins, but we start there and make a plan for what will be. We aren’t afraid of the night, of the genut, or the difficult beginning we had.

In one of his popular Shabbat HaGadol Drashot, Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman says that this avoda of newness that Pesach represents, contains three parts:

1. The belief that I can actually do it. Many commentators explain that the evil Rasha that our Haggadah describes is not the complete evil person, but rather one who is despaired that he can ever be better. He thinks he is so lost and there is no point in trying to change. He is called a כופר בעיקר, a denier, because he removes himself from the Jewish people. We have to answer בעבור זה עשה ה' עשה לי,  Hashem took ME out despite that I was on 49th level of impurty. We must believe no matter how far we fell, we can always rise up again.
2. The mindset that we need to do it - we have to recognize that if we do not start anew, our lives might turn to emptiness, devoid of real spiritual fulfillment.
3. How should we do this? We want to start fresh, like on a GPS, we need to recalculate. This is not easy when we are so busy with work. We get so busy with life that we don’t allow ourselves the time to introspect and plan for meaningful change. We need to change our mindset. We only live once and it goes fast. We have to have wisdom to make life meaningful.