FedTalks Parshas Bo – Transcript

It’s just an amazing fact that the Seder night that is practiced by Jews, by Yieden, the world over, over across different cultures, across different continents, irrespective almost of level of frumkeit, of observance. It’s possibly the most ancient ritual that is so widely practiced in the world. We go back 3330 or so years to the events themselves, which we think to ourselves is really a long time, but if you think about how many of us will have been zocheh, will have merited, to sit at a Seder table surrounded by family and perhaps, hopefully, be with a grandparent, to sit on the lap of a Bobba or Zeida. How many of us – the statistics are at least 80 percent of us – and then think that your Zeida or Bobba would have sat on their grandparent’s lap, and so forth and work backwards. How many Seder nights therefore actually separate us on the events themselves?

If you think that the average age gap between a child and the grandparent is 50 years, the answer is an astounding 66 and change. That means only 66 Seder nights separate us from the events themselves. 66 times that a child sat on a grandparent’s lap and heard the story that they heard from their grandparent in all the different parts of the globe.

And the truth is, this is alluded to at the pasuk at the beginning of this week’s parsha.

“Ulema’an tesaper b’oznei bincho uven bincho.”

Moshe Rabbeinu was told that the purpose of going to Paraoh and warning him and subjugating him in this manner is so that we will have a story to tell –  not only into the ears of our children, but ‘uven bincho’, to our grandchildren. And the Telzer Rosh Yeshiva, R’Mordechai Gifter, hears in this, the only other mitzvah where grandchild becomes mentioned and important. Not Shabbos – Shabbos, we are told, ‘ato ubincho’, you and your child, but when it comes to Talmud Torah, ‘vehodatom levonecho v’livnei vonecho’.

We have an obligation to ensure that our legacy continues not only to our children, but is so solid that it is continued and transmitted v’livnei vonecho, to our grandchildren, as indeed the Rambam paskens in the beginning of hilchos Talmud Torah, we say in Davening every day ‘v’ani zos brisi osom omar Hashem’, says the Ribbono shel Olam, a covenant that the Torah will continue, “lo yomushu”, it will not deviate, “mipicho umipi zarecho v’zera zarecho”.

And therefore when we sit at the Seder night and we think of the legacy, we think of the eternity of klal Yisroel and it ties into the brocha that we will have made that morning, that Talmud Torah should be something for us – anachnu, vtze’etzoeinu, and our children, but also v’tze’etzoei tze’etzoeinu – also our grandchildren. And when we are successful in continuing this legacy of transmitting it through the vehicle of Talmud Torah and Seder night to all future generations, then we know that we are on solid, and safe ground.