Pesach is Moshe Rabbenu’s holiday. If it weren’t for Moses there would be no Passover and no Jewish people.
Moshe was the one who announced the redemption, prepared and inspired the Jews for it, personally led them out of exile, gave them the Torah and brought them to the Holy Land!
Also today; the Jews can’t stay out of exile without someone like Moshe. That is why since that first Pesach over 3,300 years ago, ‘Am Yisroel’ (the Jewish nation) has always had great leaders, ‘Tzadikim’, who, like Moshe, have had a special connection to G-d and inspired everyone to act and feel more Jewish and responsible to improve the world.
A prime example is the Baal Shem Tov who began a type of proactive Judaism called Chassidut. His followers called Chassidim placed great emphasis on these ideas and here is a story that demonstrates it.
One of the better-known figures of the Chabad Chassidim was Rabbi Mendel Futerfass. Until he passed away some 30 years ago at the age of about ninety, he was the Chassidic director of the main Yeshiva at Kfar Chabad. He was famous for his positive attitude, deep Chassidic insights, and rich history of secret daredevil forbidden ‘outreach’ activities in Stalin’s Russia. Who knows how many thousands of children received a Jewish education and how many lives were saved because of him. But eventually his good deeds got him arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to six years of harsh exile in a Siberian corrective’ labor camp.
The story is told that soon after he was imprisoned, he decided that he had to have a private audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe (called ‘Yechidus’ by the Chassidim). Of course in Siberia such a thing was ridiculously impossible.... the Rebbe was thousands of miles away! But only geographically, and the physical world was not such a barrier for a Chassid like Rav Mendel.
A few days before his birthday (Chassidim would enter the Rebbe’s office on their birthdays) he began preparing himself, and when the day arrived he imagined entering the Rebbe’s room, standing before him, asking several difficult questions and then leaving. Afterwards he felt much better.
Years later, after he was released and united with his family, his wife showed him all the replies she received from her correspondence with the Rebbe and among them a strange letter that she couldn't explain. This letter, unlike the others that were addressed to her, was addressed to Rav Mendel although he was in Siberia far from home at the time. He read it and also at first didn’t understand, until he noticed that the date on the letter was the same as his birthday six years ago, the same day he had imagined his ‘Yechidus’. When he read it again he saw that it contained answers to all the questions he asked, in the order that he had asked them. The Rebbe had been with him.
Now a Passover story I heard from Rav Mendel personally. In Siberia it was permissible for prisoners to receive parcels from home. Rav Mendel's wife faithfully sent him parcels regularly each containing, among other basic necessities, packs of cigarettes that he would barter for raw food (he didn't eat the prison food) and other favors. But the most important parcel of the year was the one before Pesach containing, as well as life-saving cigarettes, Matzos. But the first Pesach he was there, although Rav Mendel’s wife sent the package months earlier, it didn’t arrive. So Rav Mendel had no choice but to go the entire eight days on a diet of water and a few sugar cubes.
Miraculously he didn’t die, but when his package did arrive weeks later, he told me that he was so traumatized by his experience of not eating matzah, that he immediately took a piece of Matza broke it into several pieces, wrapped it in newspaper and never let it out of his possession the entire duration of his exile. It seems that the thing that affected him the most from his ordeal was not the fact that he almost starved to death but that he couldn’t fulfill the mitzvah (commandment) of eating Matza.
I heard this story years ago but only when I read an essay written over a hundred years ago by the fourth Rebbe of Chabad, Rebbe Shmuel, called ‘Mayim Rabim’, did I understand it. There (chapt. 139) he explains that Matza is called in the Zohar (Jewish mystical book) ‘The food of Faith’ because it increases and strengthens the faith of the Jews who eat it.
Every Jew, he explains, believes in G-d. This we inherited from Abraham [Even to the point of the absurd. For instance, a Jewish thief (G-d forbid), before he goes to steal, prays to G-d for success! (Ain Yaakov Brochot 63)] So before eating Matza the Jews already believed in G-d. That is why, when Moshe first approached them in Egypt and announced he was taking them out (the mission he received at the burning bush it says “And the people believed” (Shmot 4:21).
But that faith was weak and undeveloped, something like that of the Jewish thief we spoke of. After they ate Matza on the night of the Exodos, however, they reached even a higher level of faith, Then it says (14:31): “They believed in G-d .... and Moshe His servant.”
So that is why Rav Mendel specially treasured Matza; because in addition to being the Will of G-d (like all the other commandments), it also had the effect of increasing faith in ‘Moshe His servant’, namely the Rebbe and leaving Egypt.
May this year’s Matza bring the TOTAL redemption when all good will be revealed with even greater miracles than those of the Exodus. (see Micha (7:15)). It is in our ability to make it happen even one moment sooner, and not much is lacking. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish prayers, self-sacrifice, faith and suffering.
Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can bring the Geula!!
Wishing all our readers, potential and actual, and everyone else .... A Kosher and happy Pesach with Moshiach NOW!!
Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel
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