After a performance, a cantor, trying to impress, tells the crowd that his voice is insured with Lloyds of London for 1 million dollars. A voice from the back of the room says, "so what did you do with the money?"
It is a fascinating law, deduced from this week’s Torah portion.
The Torah states:
The Passover offering may not be eaten in two distinct places.
The logic is this. There is a physical relocation and a mental relocation. When I fall asleep in the middle of a meal, then I awake and continue eating, it is considered as though I am eating in a new location—not a new physical location, but a new mental location. It is not any longer a continuum of the first meal; that meal was interrupted and now I am beginning a new meal, following my slumber.
Just as when I go to a different home I can’t continue eating the Passover offering, the same is true even if I am in the same seat but I fall asleep in the middle of eating. The first meal has now come to an end. When I awake, I am beginning a new meal—disconnected from the previous meal. Hence, I must stop eating the Passover offering or the Afikoman.
The above law applies if a person was holding a seder alone. But what if he or she is eating the Passover offering or the afikomen with a group, then even if he or she falls asleep, they can continue eating after they awake, as long as some members of the group remained awake. The logic is clear. If I am eating in your company, then even if I fell asleep, my meal has not been interrupted. As long as you guys are awake, when I resume consciousness, I am right back in the game.
The Rebbe explained that the Passover story—enslavement followed by liberty—is the eternal story of the Jew. “For not only once did they stand up against us to destroy us, rather in every generation they attempt this again. And only G-d saves us from their hands,” we state in the Passover Haggadah.
It is fascinating to observe the prestigious place the Seder held and continues to hold in the lives of so many Jews. More Jews conduct some form of Passover Seder than attend even High Holiday services. The Seder strikes a chord deep within us. Many of our warmest and fondest childhood memories were created at our parent’s Seder table. Passover is the time we became a people, and the Seder is the time we retell the story of who we are, where we come from, and where we are heading.
We have many holidays in Judaism. But the one holiday which captures the essence of Jewish identity is Passover. The most powerful quality of our people’s story is the uninterrupted chain of Jewish life and tradition. If you think about it, it is incredible. The same “stale” matzah we ate 3300 years ago the night before we left Egypt, discussed in this week’s portion Bo, we still eat in the 21st century in New York, Moscow, Miami, London, Johannesburg, Melbourne, and Los Angeles.
Friday night, Shabbat evening, as I lift up my cup of wine to make Kiddush—I know that I am doing what my father did, my grandfather did, my great grandfather, did, over thousands of years. As my wife kindles the Shabbat candles, she does exactly what her great grandmothers have done for millennia. There is almost nothing one who lived 2000 years ago could recognize in today’s world—not the car, not the telephone, not the snacks. But the Shabbat candles he/she would recognize.
And yet, at some point, the Rebbe said—many of our people fell asleep at the Seder table. They found it boring, irrelevant, and monotonous, if not disturbing, and they just checked out mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They did what Jews do during a boring sermon: you fall asleep.
Rabbi Levy is offered and accepts the role of Rabbi of Hampstead shul. Three months later, everything is going well for him except for one thing - he's noticed that every time he gives a sermon, 60-year-old Melvin, one of his congregants, goes to sleep. Rabbi Levy ignores this because his other congregants always say nice things to him about his sermons as they leave the shul.
But then, some weeks later, as the rabbi gets up to speak, even before he began the sermon, Melvin was already snoring.
The rabbi was offended. “Melvin, I did not even open my mouth yet. I did not begin the sermon. There is no way you can know it will be boring. Why are you sleeping already?“
To which Melvin responds: Rabbi, I trust you!
At some point in our history, a major part of our people, closed their eyes to the Seder table, to the Afikoman—and what they represent. It became meaningless for them; they zoned out of Judaism, and the Jewish story.
But the Rebbe said—this belief got it all wrong. As Jewish law teaches, as long as some members of the group are awake, even those who are asleep are still part of the same meal because they are sitting in one company, and when they awake, they can simply resume where they stopped, counting the same feast. there was always the Jew who refused to fall asleep. They never forfeited their position at the Seder table.
When I heard the Rebbe shared this insight in 1990, I was moved.
I still remember the scene. That Eastern Parkway, bustling with cars all day, yet from 2 to 5 am, even Eastern Parkway was relatively quiet. At last, at 2 Am, Brooklyn went to sleep.
But then I’d take a glance at the Rebbe’s office, at 770 Eastern Parkway at 2 or 3 AM. And the lights were on… The Rebbe was in his high 80s at the time, but the lights were burning brightly.
And it dawned on me. As the world was asleep, physically or mentally, the Rebbe made sure to stay awake… He knew that even as much of the group has fallen asleep, he must stay awake. His lights must never grow dim so that when we wake up, we would find the Seder table still pulsating with life, and we’d be able to join right in, to continue the march toward redemption.
One of the Rebbe's personal secretaries related:
The Rebbe's work-days were split into two, the days when there were private meetings with people, which would go to the early morning hours, and the days when the Rebbe would leave 770 at 12 Midnight. On the nights that the Rebbe would go home "early", the secretariat wouldn't bother the Rebbe in the house; if people would call with questions for the Rebbe, they would tell them it would have to wait until the next morning. (Even though the Rebbe would go home with letters and answer many of them in his home during the night hours.)
One day, in the winter of 1966, on a day that the Rebbe went home "early," it was about 3:30 AM, and a lady called “770,” and told the secretary (who happened to be there very late that night) that her little baby just fell and was hurt very badly; the doctors are arguing what procedure to follow because of the critical situation of the baby. She needs guidance from the Rebbe on what to do. The Rebbe’s secretary told her that he's sorry but it'll have to wait until the morning, and he'll ask the Rebbe the question the first thing in the morning.
The mother began to plead with the secretary explaining that it's a matter of life and death. She needs an answer now.
The secretary could not resist her pleas. He dialed the Rebbe’s house and his wife, Rebbitzen Chaya Mushka, answered the phone. The Rebbitzin asked: who is this?
The secretary identified himself and then went on to apologize for the chutzpah of calling so late. He explained the situation and the dire plead of a mother.
The Rebbitzin responded: Why are you apologizing? I am not upset that you called. On the contrary, my husband and I were sent to this world to serve G-d’s children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By you calling us, you are helping us fulfill our mission in this world!
The secretary submitted the story to the Rebbe, the name of the child, and the dilemma facing the mother. The Rebbe answered and all ended well.
Even as some of us fall asleep, we must know that somebody is waiting for us, awake…
It was, perhaps, why the Rebbe sent out emissaries to the entire world. The Rebbe wanted in each community people who would keep the lights on. So that when all of our brothers wake up, they can just get right back into the story of the Seder.
This Shabbat, 10 Shevat 5781 (January 23rd, 2021) marks the 71st yartzeit of the sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (1880-1950), who almost single-handedly took on the Communist regime during the 1920s and built an incredible underground network of Judaism in the darkest of times and the harshest of places. “Fire will not burn us and water will not drown us,” was the motto of his Chassidim in the abyss of the Soviet Union. For 70 years of Communism, the Chabad underground network did not fall asleep. And when Communism fell, millions of Russian Jews had a Seder table to return to…
This day also marks seven decades of the leadership of his son-in-law, the Rebbe, who refused to sleep himself or let anyone around him choose a life of slumber. At the last moments of exile, we remember the Rebbe’s urge: Do not fall asleep. As the Seder is coming to an end, fight the instinct to sleep, be alert as ever, so that every single Jew around the world who wakes up will have a warm bosom to return to and be embraced forever.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Jason Bennett wrote...