The Four Sons

Let’s apply the famous Four Sons of the Pesach Seder to the mitzvah of living in the Land of Israel. Here’s what is written in the Haggadah:

“The Torah speaks of four children: One is wise, one is wicked, one is simple, and one does not know how to ask.

The wise child, what does he say? ‘What are the symbols, rules, and laws that the L-rd our G-d commanded you?’ Then you shall tell him the laws of Pesach up to: we do not taste anything after the Afikoman.”

When the wise Jew looks at modern history and sees that G-d has brought about World Wars and international treaties to bring His scattered children back to the Land of Israel after an exile of nearly 2000 years, and sees the incredible rebirth of the previously barren Land, and the miracle of rebuilding, technological development, military might, and sees how Israel has become once again the center of Torah learning for the Jewish People, he seeks to understand what is taking place and how he can place his life in line with G-d’s will for the Nation. Faced with the clear realizations of ancient prophecies promising the ingathering of the outcasts and the resettlement of the Land, and the tangible rebuilding that everyone who visits the country can see, he understands that it is G-d’s unfolding game-plan that Jews abandon the Diaspora and come on aliyah.

So he seeks to learn how he can best perform the mitzvah.  He does this by asking the Sages in Israel who can explain these matters to him, by reading the writings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, by studying books like “The Kuzari,” “Am HaBanim Semicha,” the writings of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, and by listening to Torah lectures on websites like Yeshivat Beit El and Machon Meir. Part of his wisdom is his humility. In realizing that he does not have all the answers, he seeks explanations from people who do. He longs to be a part of the great national Jewish undertaking that he sees unfolding before his eyes in Israel, and he longs to join with those who are working with G-d to bring about the promised Redemption by coming to live in the Land.

Passover Seder

The Haggadah continues:

“The wicked child, what does he say? ‘What is this service to YOU?’ To YOU, but not to me! Because he removes himself from the community, he denies everything. Thus, you should also give him a blunt answer [literally: smash him in the teeth] and say, ‘Because of this, G-d did things for me – but not for YOU! If you had been there, you would not have been saved.’”

These wicked children are the scorners, the talkbackers who always find things wrong with Israel. This wicked child removes himself from the wondrous ingathering that G-d is bringing about because it is not to his liking. It doesn’t match his way of doing things. He doesn’t agree with G-d. He would do things better. In the meantime, he’s staying put in Vienna, England, Cyberspace, and Japan. Once again, we are not talking about Jews who can't come on aliyah because of pressing financial, health, or psychiatric problems, but about those who could but don't and discourage others from coming as well.

Regarding this child, the “Me’am Lo’ez” commentary on the Haggadah writes: “By excluding himself from the observance, this child is considered to have denied the essence of Judaism. You must therefore give him a blunt answer as to set his teeth on edge. He is not allowed to taste the Pascal lamb. Let him watch you eat the fragrant, tasty lamb, and sit there grinding his teeth. G-d did this for me – for me and not for YOU. If you had been in Egypt, you would not have been delivered. A wicked person like you, who does not believe in the commandment of the holy Torah, would certainly have died during the three days of darkness. During those days, many people like you died. G-d does not perform miracles for people like you.”    

The Haggadah continues:

“The simple child, what does he say? ‘What is this?’ You shall say to him, ‘With a strong hand, G-d took us out of Egypt, from the house of slaves.’”

The simple child has good intentions. He sees that G-d is indeed bringing the Jewish People back to the Land of Israel from the four corners of the globe. He is interested to know more about it. He hasn’t learned these things in the past, and he isn’t accustomed to Torah learning, so you answer him by telling him the full historical story, from our beginnings as a People, how G-d gave us the Land of Israel, and how we lost it due to our sins, how we suffered in the exile at the hands of the gentiles, and how G-d is bringing us back now, through the developments of modern history and the establishment of the State of Israel.

The Haggadah goes on:

“And as for the one who does not know how to ask, you must begin for him, as it is written, ‘You shall tell your child on that day, Because of this, G-d did things for me when I left Egypt.’”

This child is so out of things that he knows absolutely nothing. He never learned. No one ever taught him. To him, Israel is no different from New Zealand or Thailand. To stimulate his imagination, you have to tell him about the miracles of the Exodus, how G-d overturned all of the laws of nature to bring the Jewish people out of Egypt to the Land of Israel. Once he is interested, you can encourage this child to learn more about his Jewish identity and his G-d given destiny.

And then, as the holy Rebbe of Chabad explained, there is the fifth child, who doesn’t show up at the Seder at all. He’s either stoned out of his mind in some disco in Bangkok, or busy hiding Easter eggs for his gentile children to find after the parade.

Easter Bunny

May Hashem have mercy on us and redeem us from all of our screwed up notions, both here in Israel and abroad.  

Lust on the Slaughter Block

Ancient Egypt was the spiritual and cultural cesspool of the world. Promiscuity, adultery, sexual perversion, witchcraft, and idol worship were the norm. The clutches of temptation and sin were so powerful that no one, in the natural course of events, could shake off the shackles of lust that marked Egyptian life.

The Jews were no exception. After 200 years dwelling in such a polluted, immoral environment, we plummeted to the 49th degree of impurity and would have been immediately destroyed if G-d had not miraculously interfered and rescued us with the utmost haste, speeding our exodus from grip of the evil inclination which infested the land.

Our Sages tell us that we were redeemed from Egypt due to the merit of the two mitzvot (commandments) which G-d commanded us to perform on the eve of our departure - the Paschal sacrifice and the brit milah. Both of these commandments were designed to free us from our spiritual slavery to the lusts of the body, and liberate us to true freedom as servants of G-d. They were the rectification and “tikun” that paved the way to Redemption.

Tikun in Mitzrayim

Among a cornucopia of bestial pervesions, the Egyptians worshipped the lamb. Among the domestic beasts, sheep are known for their fecundity.  In a similar manner, licentiousness and sexual debauchery were an integral part of this idol worship.

In commanding every Jewish household in Egypt to take a lamb, the Egyptians' god, and slaughter it for the Pesach offering, G-d was commanding us to slaughter the physical lusts in ourselves that lead to the perversion of the holy marital union, and to the pollution of the holy, life force of our nation. Interestingly, we were commanded to tie the lambs to our bedposts, not to the door, or the window, or kitchen table, but to our beds, precisely to drive this point into our individual and national psyche, that we are to be a holy people, separated by the purity of our sexual lives from all of the other nations in the world.

The Passover sacrifice - "You shall tie it to the bedpost of your bed."

This is the very same lesson of the brit milah. Only a man who was circumcised was allowed to partake in eating the Passover lamb. The removal of the foreskin both symbolizes, and physically effects, the removal of the impure physical lusts that accompany the marital union.

Tzvi with baby at brit

On the eve of our departure from the bondage of Egypt and from our servitude to its debauched and immoral culture, we were called to renew the Brit of our Forefathers, the founding Covenant between G-d and the Jewish People, whereby we safeguard the purity of our sexual lives, symbolized by the brit milah, and G-d, for His part, promises us the Land of Israel as our eternal inheritance. Thus the Zohar teaches that in the merit of the blood of the slaughtered Paschal lamb (the korban Pesach) and the blood of the brit milah, we were redeemed from the spiritual dungeon of Egypt (Zohar, Shemot, 41A).

We see that the commitment to abandon sexual transgression was the key to our redemption from Egypt. This separation from sexual immorality is the essence of the Jewish People, "a nation of priests and a holy nation." Only when we rose above the sordidness and pollution of Egyptian culture could we escape from the chains of its bondage.

So if you want to reach Pesach night with the purity that will allow you to receive the exalted spiritual high of the holiday, now is the time for tikun. Reciting the “Tikun HaKlali” will help you to break free from the bondage of physical lusts and cleanse the blemishes of the past.

May if be the will of the Almighty, that this Pesach begin a year of personal Redemption from the lusts which enslave us and estrange us from our calling as Jews, and a Redemption for all of the Nation of Israel, freeing our remnants from the Egypts of today, by returning all of our scattered outcasts to our Land.

Ancient Egypt was the spiritual and cultural cesspool of the world. Promiscuity, adultery, sexual perversion, witchcraft, and idol worship were the norm. The clutches of temptation and sin were so powerful that no one, in the natural course of events, could shake off the shackles of lust that marked Egyptian life.

The Jews were no exception. After 200 years dwelling in such a polluted, immoral environment, we plummeted to the 49th degree of impurity and would have been immediately destroyed if G-d had not miraculously interfered and rescued us with the utmost haste, speeding our exodus from grip of the evil inclination which infested the land.

Our Sages tell us that we were redeemed from Egypt due to the merit of the two mitzvot (commandments) which G-d commanded us to perform on the eve of our departure - the Paschal sacrifice and the brit milah. Both of these commandments were designed to free us from our spiritual slavery to the lusts of the body, and liberate us to true freedom as servants of G-d. They were the rectification and “tikun” that paved the way to Redemption.

Among a cornucopia of bestial doings, the Egyptians worshipped the lamb. Among the domestic beasts, sheep are known for their fecundity.  In a similar manner, licentiousness and sexual debauchery were an integral part of this idol worship.

In commanding every Jewish household in Egypt to take a lamb, the Egyptians' god, and slaughter it for the Pesach offering, G-d was commanding us to slaughter the physical lusts in ourselves that lead to the perversion of the holy marital union, and to the pollution of the holy, life force of our nation. Interestingly, we were commanded to tie the lambs to our bedposts, not to the door, or the window, or kitchen table, but to our beds, precisely to drive this point into our individual and national psyche, that we are to be a holy people, separated by the purity of our sexual lives from all of the other nations in the world.

This is the very same lesson of the brit milah. Only a man who was circumcised was allowed to partake in eating the Passover lamb. The removal of the foreskin both symbolizes, and physically effects, the removal of the impure physical lusts that accompany the marital union.

On the eve of our departure from the bondage of Egypt and from our servitude to its debauched and immoral culture, we were called to renew the Brit of our Forefathers, the founding Covenant between G-d and the Jewish People, whereby we safeguard the purity of our sexual lives, symbolized by the brit milah, and G-d, for His part, promises us the Land of Israel as our eternal inheritance. Thus the Zohar teaches that in the merit of the blood of the slaughtered Paschal lamb (the korban Pesach) and the blood of the brit milah, we were redeemed from the spiritual dungeon of Egypt (Zohar, Shemot, 41A).

We see that the commitment to abandon sexual transgression was the key to our redemption from Egypt. This separation from sexual immorality is the essence of the Jewish People, "a nation of priests and a holy nation." Only when we rose above the sordidness and pollution of Egyptian culture could we escape from the chains of its bondage.

So if you want to reach Pesach night with the purity that will allow you to receive the exalted spiritual high of the holiday, now is the time for tikun. Reciting the “Tikun HaKlali” will help you to break free from the bondage of physical lusts and cleanse the blemishes of the past.

May if be the will of the Almighty, that this Pesach begin a year of personal Redemption from the lusts which enslave us and estrange us from our calling as Jews, and a Redemption for all of the Nation of Israel, freeing our remnants from the Egypts of today by returning all of our scattered outcasts to our Land.

Great Firsts in Modern History

Without question, the posting of Rebbe Nachman’s “Tikun HaKlali” on the Internet with an English translation is one of the “great firsts” in modern history.

It ranks with the invention of the printing press.

Gutterberg printing press

It ranks with the discovery of the first vaccines.

Louis Pasteur

With the invention of electricity.

Thomas Edison

The telephone.

Alexander Graham Bell

The first automobile.

First Car

Air flight.

Wright Brothers

The first Negro baseball player, who paved the way for the first Black US President.

Jackie Robinson

Sir Edmund Hillary’s climb of Mt Everest.

First man on summit

Man on the moon.

Fisrt man on moon

Now, for the very first time, atonement for sexual transgression is just a click away in every home. For the first time, people all over the world can get immediate help for the plague of Internet porn. For the first time, you too can join the millions who have already discovered the “Tikun HaKlali.” To learn more about this overall remedy, click here. For the "Tikun HaKlali" itself and new English translation, click here.

You too can be a pioneer!  

Tomb of Rebbe Nachman