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Breaking Free on Leil Haseder

Shabbos Hagadol

Harav Hagaon Yaakov Moshe Katz Shlita

This week is Shabbos Hagadol, and it’s a time of preparation for Leil Haseder, so let’s speak about Leil Haseder and try to put ourselves into the right frame of mind.

On Shabbos of Pesach itself, we read about techiyas hameisim in the haftarah, and the Tur explains that the reason is that techiyas hameisim is destined to occur on Pesach. The sefarim hakedoshim add that this refers not only to the techiyas hameisim of the future, when Moshiach comes, but also to the avodah of Pesach itself. Pesach is Zman Cheiruseinu, a time for us to go free from the galus that we’re in, and each person on his individual level can experience spiritual elevation and become closer to Hashem, as we say in the Haggadah, וְעַכְשָׁיו קֵרְבָנוּ הַמָּקוֹם לַעֲבוֹדָתוֹ — Hashem draws us near to Him. This idea is also expressed in the last of the leshonos of geulah: וְלָקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם לִי לְעָם.

Every Pesach has the power to bring us closer to Hashem and experience his’chadshus in our avodas Hashem — even if spiritually we’re “dead.” Life is so busy and demanding, with so many responsibilities and so little time to attend to all our obligations, but when Pesach comes, we can experience techiyas hameisim. It’s a new beginning that brings a new, enhanced connection to Hashem, not just on Pesach itself, but for the whole year.

That’s why we lein the haftarah of techiyas hameisim on Pesach.

This idea of his’chadshus is also reflected in the reading of Parashas Hachodesh before Pesach, as R’ Tzadok notes that this teaches us that we can rejuvenate ourselves at this time of year.

Now, it’s very nice in theory that Pesach is a time of his’chadshus, but how do we do that? We come to Leil Haseder and we just tell the same story that we’ve been relating year after year! You would think we should do new mitzvos, and introduce things we haven’t done until now, but instead we say over the same Haggadah yet again. How are we expected to have his’chadshus from doing that?

The avodah of achieving his’chadshus on Leil Haseder is to understand what it takes to be mis’chadesh. As we’ll see, it’s much easier than we imagine. Of course, it’s an avodah, but we are all capable of experiencing his’chadshus in our connection to Hashem and making our Leil Haseder more meaningful.

How do we do this? יש קונה עולמו בשעה אחת — It takes a moment of real thought, real feeling, and real understanding of the purpose of Leil Haseder, and with that contemplation a person can experience a change that can transform his life. That’s why, the Alshich teaches, we begin Leil Haseder with “Kadesh,” indicating that this is a holy night on which a person can be zocheh to kedushah and dveikus to Hashem on a much higher level. The way we do this is by opening our hearts and minds and trying to really feel the theme and meaning of Leil Haseder.

There are many ideas that relate to the avodah of Leil Haseder, but I would like to focus on one major theme. Pesach is Zman Cheiruseinu — the time when we go free, and Rav Brevda asked the following question: We associate freedom with the pursuit of happiness, so if we are really going free, then we should relax and go on vacation! Pesach should be an easy chag, yet, as the Vilna Gaon notes, Leil Haseder involves 54 mitzvos! That’s cheirus? And that’s besides preparing for Pesach and ridding the house of chametz, which is a very hard job.

If we’re celebrating cheirus, we should go to a hotel where all the hard work is taken care of, all the food is prepared for us, and even the Chol Hamoed activities are arranged on our behalf. That’s a vacation! So why are we working so hard, both before Pesach and on Pesach itself?

This question reflects a lack of understanding of what cheirus is. To understand the nature of true freedom, which will be very helpful to us in life, let’s consider what happened when we went from being slaves to Pharaoh to being servants of Hashem. In Hallel we say, הַלְלוּ עַבְדֵי ה’, and the Midrash explains that we are expressing our joy that we are servants of Hashem and not slaves to Pharaoh. But why are we so happy about this? We’re in servitude either way, so what difference does it make whether we are laboring for Pharaoh or Hashem? How did we achieve cheirus if we just switched masters?

Working for Whom?

The answer involves a fundamental idea: When we were slaves to Pharaoh, we worked because Pharaoh wanted cities. He needed laborers, and he worked us very hard and paid us nothing. Even today, there are employees whose boss works them hard and pays them hardly anything, so they feel like slaves who are used and abused. They don’t feel that they’re working for themselves, because most of their hard work is purely for someone else’s benefit. That’s an eved.

Then you have another person who’s working very hard, but is earning for himself, and everything he does is for his own sake. That’s what it means to be an eved of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When He commands us to do mitzvos, it’s not because He needs our mitzvos: אִם צָדַקְתָּ מַה תִּתֶּן לוֹ (Iyov 35:7).

What does Hashem want from us? He wants us to be zocheh to the ultimate good, in Olam Haba. All the obligations He places upon us come from His love for us, and His desiring the best for us. He tells us to do mitzvos so that we can put them away for ourselves, for eternity. That’s why we declare, in Hallel, that we are fortunate to be His servants and not Pharaoh’s slaves.

When we were slaves to Pharaoh, he used us to construct buildings and make money and get other things out of us. But now that we are avdei Hashem, the essence of what we are doing is for ourselves. Of course, we do the mitzvos l’sheim Shomayim, but deep down we know that we’re doing this because it will bring us the greatest pleasure possible. Indeed, the Mesillas Yesharim teaches that the יסוד החסידות ושורש העבודה is to know that Torah and mitzvos are what bring us the greatest good.

On Leil Haseder, we establish what is the יסוד החסידות ושורש העבודה, the basis for the spiritual growth we want to experience, which is the knowledge that true cheirus is avodas Hashem. We’ve been given numerous mitzvos, but we’re excited to do them, because we understand their importance.

I’m not just a robot, doing what everyone else is doing; I’m putting away for myself.

The Real You

The nisayon here is that many people feel, if I work and make money, then I’m working for myself. That’s me, and that’s what I need: to have good food, a nice house, a nice car, vacations … They don’t see Torah and mitzvos as working for themselves, and they don’t realize that when you work for the needs of the guf, you’re serving the yetzer hara and being enslaved by the taavos of Olam Hazeh. The guf is not you! The guf comes and goes; after 120 years, the guf goes into the grave, and gone are the physical pleasures it pursued. Our neshamah, on the other hand, is forever, and that’s what’s left when we come to Olam Haba.

The guf is not the person, but is merely a garment for the person: עוֹר וּבָשָׂר תַּלְבִּישֵׁנִי (ibid. 10:11). The real person is the neshamah, which eventually leaves the guf. So if you really want to work for yourself, the way to do it is not through making money and pursuing the pleasures of Olam Hazeh. You’re earning parnassah to be able to engage in ruchniyus and to put away for yourself for netzach netzachim, for the real good.

The cheirus we’re celebrating on Leil Haseder is the opportunity to work for ourselves and put away the best for ourselves.

This is alluded to in the mitzvah of Yachatz, in which we break the matzah in half and put the larger part away. As the Sfas Emes explains, Yetzias Mitzrayim was a preview of what will happen at the time of the geulah sheleimah: All the people who keep Torah and mitzvos now and have middos tovos are putting away for themselves the bigger part of the matzah, and they are going to be zocheh to beautiful goodness le’asid lavo.

On Leil Haseder, we not only celebrate the cheirus of the past, but we also reconnect to cheirus within our current galus, to help us make the final step that will enable us to soar to great heights and go out of this galus, so that we can be zocheh to the ultimate good. Then there will be no more pain and no more tears: וּמָחָה אֲדֹ-נָי ה’ דִּמְעָה מֵעַל כָּל פָּנִים (Yeshayahu 25:8). We will keep climbing to greater and greater heights, and there will be more and more Torah, on levels that we can’t fathom, and our simchah will grow and grow. That is represented by the four kosos, which bring us higher and higher, hinting that in Olam Haba we will be zocheh to go higher and higher in our joy and goodness.

Our tefillah together is that this Leil Haseder should be a step in the right direction, helping us achieve cheirus from Olam Hazeh and its taavos and pleasures, and understand that we are really working for ourselves. Through that, all of Klal Yisrael should be zocheh to experience geulah — בניסן נגאלו ובניסן עתידין להיגאל. Even if Moshiach doesn’t come, the footsteps of geulah are put down on Leil Haseder, and we can forge our connection to the geulah.

We should all be zocheh together to geulos and yeshuos.

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