When the Heart is Open

A Rare Opportunity! 

Before Pesach there are many expenses – and also many bargain sales. We are all looking for the most worthwhile bargains so that we will be able to minimize expenses. Sometimes the enthusiasm for the cheaper prices is so great that it looks like the merchandise is being given out for free.  

A few years ago, a certain company started a bargain sale – and within minutes their website became overloaded and crashed. When the government conducts lotteries for the right to obtain cheaper housing, tens of thousands of people sign up for every one of them. 

What do all these things have in common? We are all looking for opportunities.  

Just now we had Purim. For dozens of years, I have had the Heavenly merit to instill in the yeshiva, in my shiurim (classes) the understanding that Purim is an opportunity; it is a very rare and auspicious time. Over the years, this understanding has made hundreds and thousands of my students take full advantage of this rare day! 

Why? Because, as mentioned, we naturally search for special opportunities – in spiritual matters as well as in material ones.  

What does that have to do with us now? 

Because soon a very rare window of opportunity will open, an auspicious time of a very different type, which every father and mother will certainly want to make use of! 

Amaleinu (Our Labor) – Those are the Children 

We invest so much in our children! 

The children are our very lives, they are our continuation, they are our nachat (pleasure), they are our future and the future of the Jewish People.  

It doesn’t matter what your spiritual level is, you certainly want to pass your values on to your children. You want to see them becoming moral, well-educated human beings, who believe in everything you believe in.  

In the end, if our children don’t stay on the straight path – the parents feel very bad, something between a sickening feeling of a missed opportunity and painful heartbreak.  

No matter how much we try to “train” or “educate” or teach the children mussar (morality), derech eretz (proper behavior), and emuna (faith), we don’t know how much of all this is really being absorbed by them and becoming embedded in their personalities; how much they are really internalizing, to what extent is it penetrating their hearts. 

We do not have the keys to the heart, and we have almost no way to make sure that the message has been received, and moreover, whether it will be a lasting one. 

What wouldn’t we give to have the opportunity to hold an open-hearted conversation in which we will be able to pass on to our children the things that are really important to us, the values we would so much want them to adopt as a way of life? 

Well, I have some good news for you! 

Very, very soon you will have an et ratzon (auspicious time), a rare opportunity, when your children’s hearts will be open and you parents will have tremendous power to convey to them important messages that you want them to receive, messages that will remain with them all their lives. 

When is this? 

On this coming Leil HaSeder (Seder night)! 

Planting Emuna in the Heart 

Leil HaSeder has many special segulas (special qualities). On that night, immense lights illuminate the world, and tremendous abundance comes down from Above. Leil HaSeder is an et ratzon for many things. But none of these things come close to the segula that the Ohev Yisrael of Apta says: 

He says that all year we educate our children and instil in them emuna and yirat Shamayim, but sometimes they find it hard to accept these messages for various reasons. But the great light that illuminates the world on Leil Haseder lights up the children’s souls and paves the way for their heart to open and accept the words of emuna from their parents – in a way that that emuna will be firmly installed in their hearts! And their heart will be open to understand things that they can’t understand the rest of the year.  

We must not miss this opportunity! 

Easier Than You Think  

And it really isn’t hard. 

The messages of emuna are simple and beautiful and easy to understand. Today we have Haggadas with endless parables and stories and strengthening words that are suitable for every age, and there are endless numbers of recorded classes. 

You don’t have to be a great Torah sage or work hard on creating clever messages, and you don’t have to be a great, charismatic speaker, with the ability to convince and influence others.  

All you must do is to prepare for yourself simple and beautiful messages, without overdoing it – just choose the basic points that you want your children to carry with them through life: 

That they should always have emuna, that they will know to trust in Hashem, that they should know that ein od milvado (there is no one other than Him), that they will know and feel that Hashem loves them in any situation, that He is always with them and protecting them, that they always have someone to turn to, that everything that happens to them is for the good, that they should know to always be thankful, that they should know to talk to Hashem, that they should have a peh-sach (speaking mouth), that they should know to make a blessing on the maror, that they should know to praise Hashem and sing to Him. 

Being Prepared 

We have spoken and written about all these topics, and our books and pamphlets are full of them.  

We are writing this article for this Shabbat already – a whole week before Pesach, so that you can grab half an hour or an hour from it to prepare yourself – and prepare some strong messages for Leil HaSeder. And the more preparations you make, the more you will benefit from it. 

The heart opens, the son asks his father, and he is waiting for an answer. He wants to hear more than usual, and you can instill messages in him and plant emuna in him – and you will arrive unprepared and miss out on this opportunity?! 

Imma, What Are You Doing? 

Let’s end in a small idea that with small adjustments can be suitable for every age. 

When a Jew trusts in Hashem, he is granted geulah (redemption), and yeshuah (salvation), even if he is not worthy of it.  

The holy books explain that even though the Jews were not worthy of being redeemed, they were redeemed anyway because of their bitachon (trust) in Hashem. 

How did this bitachon manifest itself? 

When they were deep in their suffering, in the depths of darkness, when they were being beaten and their children were being killed – instead of sitting and crying, the righteous Jewish women were already beginning to make tambourines and other musical instruments. 

The children looked at their mothers, astonished, trying to understand what they were doing. And the righteous mothers told them: Soon we will be redeemed. Hashem promised to redeem us. And we believe in Him and trust in Him wholeheartedly. And that is why we are preparing ourselves for the geulah, so that when the promise is honored and we will go free, we will be able to sing and play music in honor of the geulah. 

In those days, days of exile and subjugation, such words sounded completely out of place, and it was precisely then that the roots of emuna were planted in the Jewish people – to believe in Hashem and to trust Him in every situation! 

Thanks to the bitachon, we were redeemed and will be redeemed.

The well-known saying, “bizchut nashim tzidkaniyot nig’alu Bnei Yisrael miMitzrayim” (It was in the merit of the righteous women that the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt) – relates to the trait of bitachon. The geulah was thanks to the bitachon. The bitachon that they had in Me was enough for me to split the Sea for them. 

According to this it is obvious that the future geulah, the one we are all waiting for, will come in the merit of nashim tzidkaniyot – in the merit of our trusting in Hashem.