[Avodah] lirot et azmo

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 01:10:36PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: Yosef Skolnick responded.
:> Sorry while that is a wonderful idea, I can't really see it coming from this
:> idea/concept. It says kiilu hu yatza meimitzraim. Nothing about
:> comparisons. I humbly submit that it is a lesson in the power of imagery.

: I later saw similar ideas in the hagada Exalted Evening based on shiurim of
: RYBS.

: On "bchol dor vedor" he says
: Li-reot means to experience to feel to re-experience the slavery and Exodus
: It should not be an ancient event lying in the dawn of history and having no
: relevance to us.

There are two ways to make something relevant:

I could bring me to the event; IOW learn how yetzi'as Mitzrayim speaks
to me. Or, I could bring the yetzi'as Mitzrayim to me by finding
parallels between it and events in my own life.

Whether I make the focus an event in my life that YM can shed light upon,
or study YM itself to take lessons from it more directly, I am still
bringing YM from the dawn of history and making it relevent to me.

In fact, your wording "to feel to re-experience the slavery and Exodus"
is NOT finding YM in my own life, but finding my life in YM.

Perhaps a clearer raayah for the value of finding personal parallels to
YM is in the halakhos of the qorban Torah and birkhas haGomel. We draw
from Tehillim 107, which describes YM in terms of 4 kinds of salvation
(crossing a desert, a sea, recovers from illness or released from prison)
and bentch gomel in those cases even without a threat to life. Birkhas
haGomel is about finding parallel to YM in my life.

Personally, during zekhiras YM at the end of Qerias Shema, I do one or
the other depending on mood. I was laid off in Oct 2002 and diagnosed
with lymphoma a mere 6 days later. When I speak of "asher hotzeisi
meiEretz Mitzrayim" I do at times think of the months that followed, as
well as the many other times when I truly felt my life was beMitzrayim --
between a pair of metzarim. And HQBH got me out of those messes, just
as He did the Mitzriyim. And thus zerkhiras YM leads to birkhas Geulah
which leads directly to Tefillah and turning to Him to do so again...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger       Today is the 8th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org    1 week and 1 day in/toward the omer.
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Fax: (270) 514-1507              Chesed for another?