Human nature is to be a slave.
Not sexy, but that’s how it is.
We’re all slaves,
and not necessarily to someone else.
We do a great job all by ourselves:
a slave to food, a slave to alcohol,
a slave to what people say about you, a slave to a childhood trauma
you still can’t break free from.
Everyone is a slave to something different,
and if we’re being honest, many of us are slaves to several things.
The thing is, as long as you’re a slave,
you’re not a king.
And as long as you’re not a king,
you’re not in control.
Not in control of your urges, your impulses, your reactions.
Not in control of your life.
What chance do you have of real joy??
You’re a slave!
Nisan is nitzan, a bud.
“The buds have appeared on the earth…”
That’s blossoming, flourishing, coming into bloom.
What you see in nature
is true for the human soul too.
And that’s the miracle Nisan brings (nisim, miracles!).
For anyone who wants to break free from fear,
stress and worry,
this is exactly the time
to ride the wave of spiritual energy
Passover brings
and move from slavery into freedom.
And now the million-dollar question:
how do you do it??
Summary
In this episode, Gili and Tal get ready for Passover and talk about the biggest historical lies connected to the holiday, like the belief that we eat matzah because the Israelites left Egypt in a hurry. They explain that in fact, according to the Torah, there were two weeks to prepare for the Exodus, and that chametz (leavened food) was forbidden for spiritual reasons, not practical ones.
The conversation moves on to chametz and matzah as spiritual metaphors. Chametz stands for pride and falsehood, while matzah stands for truth and humility. Gili explains that chametz is like the ego: puffed up, full of air and a sense of superiority. Matzah, by contrast, is plain and modest, like humility.
They talk about inner slavery: being slaves to our cravings, our ego and our reactions. Passover is a time to break free of this slavery and connect to real freedom, which is inner freedom. They stress the importance of working on our character traits (our reactions) and of self-control as a way to reach joy in life and inner freedom.
At the end of the episode, Gili and Tal talk about the miracles of Passover and the spiritual energies of the month of Nisan, a time of blossoming and flourishing. They mention the Releasing Guilt, Resentment and Anger workshop that was coming up at the time. The episode ends with the story of a happy song written to lift people’s spirits after a tragic event, as an illustration of how important it is to hold on to joy even in hard times.
Episode transcript
This episode of The Truth Hurts (HaEmet Ko’evet) is in Hebrew; an English transcript follows.
Episode 53. Good morning, Gili.
Good morning, Tal Tal. How are things?
Fine. Getting ready for Passover?
Of course we’re getting ready for Passover.
It’s coming right after the weekend.
Any minute now, any minute. Listen, Passover is coming our way, for the good. We already talked about the cleaning.
We’ll talk more. And I wanted to ask, what’s new that you can tell us about Passover?
Let’s start with the biggest lies in history.
Sure.
Go ask anyone why we eat matzah on Passover. What will they tell you?
We left in a hurry, because we left the land of Egypt in haste.
Right. People say the dough didn’t have time to rise, so we eat matzah.
Listen carefully. That’s one of the biggest lies they could tell us, okay? When you read the Torah, that’s not what it says. That’s the story they taught us in kindergarten and at school. They planted the idea firmly in our heads, and we don’t even bother to check whether it’s true.
Which, by the way, is exactly why you should question every “truth” you’re told. Go check it, even if everyone tells you it’s right. The Book of Exodus, the beginning of chapter 12.
The Creator gives Moses the instructions for leaving Egypt, and that’s before the plague of the firstborn, which means it’s more than two weeks before the Exodus.
So they had time to prepare, right?
Lots of time.
There you go.
So it wasn’t because we ran out of time; it was because we had been told in advance not to let the dough rise.
So what’s the deal?
You know what the deal is?
No. Okay, let’s see.
The thing with chametz and matzah is very, very interesting, because look, in the wisdom of Kabbalah they say there’s a kind of greatness here.
Think about it: you now have to bring out a whole people who’ve lived in a slave mentality for hundreds of years, after thousands of years in slavery, and now bring them out into nature, into fate, to the stars? To the constellations?
It doesn’t matter how challenging it is. The goal of Passover, and you know this well, is to take us out of slavery into freedom.
That’s well known, nice. But I admit that between chametz and matzah and all the customs, I’m less of an expert.
Here, let’s put it in order. It’s actually refreshing.
So look, the goal of Passover is to take us out of slavery into freedom, and slavery has a wide range of faces. A slave isn’t necessarily someone who’s forced to do something. Slavery is mainly about what I listen to. Okay?
We can be enslaved in many ways. I can be a slave to myself, to desire, or to what I call “my nature.” In short, no one has to force you for you to be a slave. We do an excellent job ourselves.
Now listen to this. We all came here, all of us, with a light side and a dark side, okay? We won’t get into it now, but there’s a part called the sitra achra, the “other side” of a person. It’s the dark side each of us has, the false side. Okay? The one that gets hurt and reacts accordingly, that works itself up inside, and listens to the voices telling you that just now someone said something nasty about you.
Ego?
It’s not just ego. It’s more than that. It’s very complex. The dark side is more complex than the ego.
You could sum it up as ego.
In a moment. We’ll narrow it down.
But the idea is that in the moment I have voices in my head… For example, someone turned to you, okay, turned to you rudely, even spoke rudely to you. You’re a slave only if you react to it. It doesn’t matter what a person says. I mean, in the moment I listen to them…
Exactly. In the very moment I listen to those voices, I’m a slave. Because the soul’s true desire says, “Absolutely not. Why should I get angry? Why should I put myself through hell?”
Exactly then.
There are lots of shades to it, but that’s where the principle of Passover lies. That power to reach true freedom, that’s Passover. Matzah is a means of reaching freedom.
Let’s talk about it.
Hold on. Bread symbolizes the selfish will: the more you feed it and feed it… take flour, add water and more water and more water, and it will swell. And swell and rise and rise, exactly like a person’s egoism, his selfishness. However much we take, we’ll want more, right? However much you have, you want more, and you puff up more and more.
So let’s say this: as long as we’re in the race after material things, no one will be satisfied. No one will be fulfilled as long as we’re chasing pride, chasing all the clichés of the society we live in, especially today, especially today. Because what do you have? What do you have that’s bigger? You have more, you achieve more, that’s what matters. But real fulfillment is when a person connects to their soul, connects to the light of Creation, and then…
That’s the difference between slavery and freedom. Because when a person connects to the light, to some kind of illumination, they know, and are able to understand, what true freedom is, and it doesn’t depend on anyone. It depends only on me. That’s true freedom.
Yes, the freedom people talk about.
That’s why you need to understand Passover. That’s why you need to understand why there’s a Seder night, and what forces awaken every year on Seder night. Because the same force that took us out of Egypt is the force that will be at work now, right now.
Here’s the thing: we didn’t want to leave Egypt either.
Human nature is to be a slave to food, a slave to drugs, a slave to what people say about me. A slave to emotions that were stirred up in me in childhood, that I still can’t break free of to this day.
Because that way it’s more comfortable.
Yes. Everyone is a slave to something different, and honestly, many of us are slaves to several things, not just one. As long as a person is a slave, he isn’t a king, and if he isn’t a king, he can’t be in control. And if he can’t be in control, that’s not a good place to be. I’m not in control of my urges, of my needs, of my reactions, and then there’s no real happiness.
No fulfillment, no real, simple joy. There’s none of that sweet thing called simple gladness of heart, without any outside justification.
Look, the Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria), and we’re both big fans of the Arizal, says: Pesach comes from peh sach, “a mouth that speaks.” Meaning, the intention is that I’ll reach a state where I can look at reality, and even if it doesn’t suit me, I won’t get worked up by it and I won’t react to it. The moment I stop reacting or lashing out, I’m no longer a slave, and then I’ve already moved forward. And then, once you practice it, it shows up in my behavior. I mean, I react less to what happens outside me, so I give it less power, and then I’m less of a slave. And Passover gives us a taste of this. It gives us a chance to be truly free, and that’s the great miracle Passover brings.
Freedom.
Great miracle, no?
An amazing miracle.
So look, we talk about how every period in time, every mo’ed (appointed time), every season, brings its own energy. And really, this is one of the great foundations, one of the laws, in the wisdom of Kabbalah: go learn the energy of the holiday and ride the wave.
What do they say about Passover?
Look what they say. The Kabbalists say the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, tells of tons of miracles, tons and tons. Miracles, so many miracles happened for the people of Israel, but not every one of those miracles has a holiday. And then people even ask: the Red Sea. Like, what’s so great about it that we made a holiday for it?
Let’s explain.
Hold on. There are two kinds of miracles the Creator performs in Creation. There’s a one-time miracle. A one-time miracle happens once. I’ll give you one very striking example of a one-time miracle. You know this line, you know it: “Sun, stand still upon Gibeon, and you, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” Gorgeous. That’s one line.
Those are the words of Joshua son of Nun. According to the text, in the middle of the battle, Joshua turns to God and commands the sun and the moon to stop, to halt their movement. Which immediately happens. By the way, according to the Sages and most commentators, the verse means exactly what it says. He literally stopped the whole system of the heavens. He gave the earth an order to stop moving.
A huge miracle, right? But a one-time one, so we don’t celebrate it. It happened, and that’s it.
There’s another kind of miracle, a kind of miracle the Creator sets into a particular time. Meaning, an appointed time when a spiritual abundance comes down into the world.
Like a holiday.
Of a particular energy that helps things happen beyond nature, okay? And that’s a miracle we celebrate. Because if you know how to ride the wave, and you know how to use the time to your advantage, since it’s a time unlike the rest of the year…
Why?
Because it carries the capacity to change nature. In Nisan there’s a capacity for redemption. Every holiday brings its own capacity. Nisan brings us redemption. Now.
Look, let’s talk about Nisan for a moment, because it’s really funny. Again, we talk about this and people don’t seem to get it. Here, Nisan is linked with nitzan, a bud, and nitzanim, buds. “The buds have appeared on the earth.” You know this one, nice. Everything is blooming now.
Why do we say Nisan and not Nitzan? Honestly, originally it’s Nitzan, but in the lands of the East they didn’t pronounce the tzadi. They had a samech. So in fact Nitzan is Nisan. Meaning, in the essence of this month there’s blossoming, there’s flourishing, there’s coming into bloom. What you see in nature outside, everything blooming, that’s what’s happening. It’s exactly what happens in the human soul too. A person who wants to blossom, to get out of fears, to get out of anxieties, to get out of pressure and worry, who wants to reach joy in life…
With the capacity these days carry, the month of Nisan, the month of blossoming and development, it becomes possible, even easy. But what does it depend on?
It depends on a person’s conscious decision. You decide that you want to blossom, to flourish. A decision backed by a change in my character traits. It’s not just saying, hop, the flower is blooming, so I’ll bloom too. I bloom according to my inner traits, in the simplest sense.
To say what middot, character traits, are: traits are a kind of reaction, okay? Your reaction actually reflects your trait, and in fact your reaction will become your personality trait. If I respond to everything with anger…
…I become an angry, irritable person.
Exactly. So how can a person reach wholeness, Tal Tal? How is it that some people are loved and everyone wants to be around them, while others are less loved and people are less eager to be in their company?
So let’s say it’s a matter of focus. But the moment you decide to change it, and we talked about this in earlier episodes, right, the moment you change the focus, you concentrate…
As a person…
…his focus is his point of view, and then he resonates something. That focus shapes what a person projects: their energy. Meaning, how others respond to a person depends on that person’s energy, speech and behavior.
His mindset.
Exactly. King Solomon, the wisest of men, said: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” With his speech a person can bring his surroundings to life, and he can also kill them.
Now I think we’ve all known at least one person in our lives, where you saw people who literally ruin their relationships and the atmosphere around them with their own words. Dramatic fights with their partners. Jabs at friends, conflicts at work, in general, like you said.
People… I can say it about myself, right? Let’s be honest, we’re all a bit of everything.
Right. And if my speech is the kind that puts people down, judges, criticizes, people don’t want to be around me. It’s not pleasant. And by the way, that’s also exactly what I’ll attract when I’m in that state of mind. That’s the energy.
Exactly.
Excellent. And by contrast, a person who does the work on himself and has self-control, wow. This work doesn’t only repair his soul on a spiritual level; it also makes his life better here and now. People are drawn to him. Now, normally a person can do this if he makes the effort with his reactions, his speech, his thoughts. But what we’re talking about here, Tal Tal, is a force multiplier.
Now it’s even more, because Nisan is a force of blossoming. A person can turn his aspirations from potential into reality. Reach joy in life.
We’re in Nisan, and Nisan is a month of miracles. Here’s an example, think about it for a moment, think, Tal Tal: what’s the difference between a hot-tempered person and someone who’s angry right now?
One is angry right now; the other is angry by habit.
Right, right, that’s the difference. So it’s the same difference as when I tell you someone is a worrier: you know he worries all the time. Someone who’s worrying is worrying right now.
What’s the difference between a nes, a miracle, and Nisan? A miracle happens once.
And Nisan is the whole month, Nisan is on a roll, like you’re saying.
Nisan is already a higher reality for this whole month. Miracles, it’s all miracles. Now let’s be honest, you don’t need a doctorate for this. Everyone knows what they need to fix. There’s the woman who knows she’s a gossip. There’s the guy who knows he gets angry fast and blows up. Everyone has their own shit. And this is exactly the time to do it.
Because this month gives us a chance for a plot twist, a chance for miracles.
Even now there are open miracles. Think about it. I checked: 331 missiles. How crazy is that? 331. Do you know what 331 spells? What does it spell? 331, read the letters. Look, it’s not just that. Okay, 331 missiles were fired from Iran at Israel, and what happened? Nothing.
Look at the war in Gaza, okay? The war in Gaza itself has never happened before. There has never been a war like this in history, where you’re fighting a war and there’s a whole underground city beneath the ground.
You know that armies all over the world are already studying this war. The American army has already researched it, and they claim that in a war like this there should have been 2,000 killed a day.
God forbid, and blessed be His name.
But in our war, which has been going on for several months now…
Over a year. 600 killed.
Up to 600.
We haven’t reached it yet, and may we not.
I don’t want to say the exact number either, so we don’t count it.
But we’re at fewer than six hundred killed, and of course each one of them is a whole world, and each one is missed, and the heart aches.
But think for a moment about the numbers in this war. Armies all over the world will study this war, because there are open miracles here, open miracles every single day. It’s true that we’re living through horror, but there are levels of miracles, and you know how many stories we hear, and how many books will still be written about this. So let’s talk about it again.
No, back to Nisan for a moment, which carries the capacity for miracles, and to the fact that this is the time when a person can get out of their troubles, when all of us can get out of our troubles.
So, so what’s the message? What’s the deal with chametz and matzah?
So here’s the big message. First of all, look at the words. You’ll see they’re very similar: chametz and matzah, right? Mem, tzadi. Mem, tzadi. The difference is the heh and the chet. Okay. Chametz and matzah are both made of flour and water.
Right, both are flour and water.
From the moment the flour touches the water there are eighteen minutes until it starts to rise, even without yeast. When chametz leavens, it means it rises. It stands for falsehood. I mean, it looks full and puffed up, but one touch and you understand it’s just full of…
Air. Exactly.
Matzah, by contrast, represents truth. So in fact we’re talking here about the trait of pride, in short.
This is it, the truth hurts. Exactly.
We’re talking here about the trait of pride. Why? Look at the dough, it rises upward, as opposed to the trait of humility, which is the basis of all good traits.
I’ll say something here. The basis of all bad traits is pride. The basis of all good traits is humility.
When a person is proud, he’s like the rising tide, like the swell of the sea. He feels he’s above everyone. A proud person also gets angry quickly, because he’s hurt in his imagination. His imagination shows him that he’s so important and above everyone. That doesn’t hold up in reality, so he gets angry.
By contrast, a person who has humility gets less worked up. He isn’t hurt by anything, he doesn’t think he’s owed anything. A person with humility doesn’t envy, the way the proud person does. The proud person can’t bear it if someone is above him. The humble person says, “Fine, so someone is above me. What does that take away from me? Let him be.” So we understand that the root of pride is falsehood, while the root of humility is truth.
Now.
Let’s take a second for a reality check. This isn’t a call for self-effacement.
It’s important for a person to feel that they matter and have self-worth.
Self-effacement also means feeling awful about yourself.
Right, and that’s also pride, by the way. And to people who are hard on themselves, we say: love yourselves. It’s important for a person to feel his worth and his importance, but it’s also important that he not be infected with the trait of pride, and that’s possible.
I can have the drive of a lioness without acting superior to anyone else. That will happen in reality when each of us understands that their gift is their gift, and it isn’t in competition with anyone.
It’s like imagining some kind of lights coming down from above, energy coming down from above. You’re completely in the pink light.
The pink energy?
There’s no competition here. I can’t step into the pink light and pull it away from you. I can’t use yours, and you can’t use mine. Everyone has their role in Creation. We have no reason to feel superior to one another. Everyone needs to say thank you for what they have and move forward.
I mean, whoever is the strongest should know he’s the strongest. Whoever is the richest should know he’s the richest. Whoever has the most beautiful wife in town should know he has the most beautiful wife in town. But don’t get full of yourself. Brother, don’t get full of yourself. Say thank you a million times and act from a place of modesty and humility, from the understanding that everything comes from the Creator, and what He has given you is meant for you and precisely suited to you. And the same goes for the other person. There’s no room for pride here.
So back to chametz. Chametz stands for the trait of falsehood and pride, it puffs up. It shows you itself growing and growing. Matzah, by contrast, makes no show of itself; it stands for the trait of truth and humility. Matzah is what you put in the bowl, water and flour. What you see is what you get. It doesn’t puff up.
And that’s the spiritual work. That is the spiritual work: to purify and cleanse ourselves of falsehood and pride. When we clear the chametz out of the house, the Kabbalists say, we also need to clear out the chametz in the heart, the pride and the falsehood. And right now there’s a capacity for it.
I mean, a person can go out of Egypt, Mitzrayim, out of his own narrow straits, metzarim, right now. And everyone has something they need to work on. And if it’s easy now, then if you don’t use it, it’s like…
Not using the momentum. Use it.
Of course use it. I mean, it doesn’t even cost money.
Exactly. So now let’s get to the million-dollar question, okay? How do you do it?
You know, let’s ask a question. What do you do with dough that has risen? Rising dough, what do you do with it? You work it, you work it with your hands, and all the air comes out.
Listen to this: it’s the same with people. You want to get out of the trait of falsehood and the ego?
Work on it? Don’t dwell on yourselves…
Actually, yes. Work on yourselves.
Stop picking at it, it’s like picking at a wound.
Yes, but in the example I gave I’m saying the opposite: yes, work on it. A person who wants to live truthfully and avoid falsehood and pride must keep working on himself, all the time. Learn, get wiser, grow. Work on your reactions all the time, look deep into your reactions.
Pay attention to your conversations, to the people you hang around with, to the company you keep, to your free time. What are you doing? Because if you don’t consciously choose to engage with something that moves you forward, that brings you to inner peace, then in a second and a half your mind will get busy with the usual things and go on autopilot, my usual way of running things, what I’m used to calling “me.” And from there we slide back into falsehood and pride easily.
We were slaves. Maybe that’s enough.
It’s time.
It’s time, yes. So look, I think one of the good things you can reach on Passover, once you get it precise… and I really loved this example of the matzah and the chametz, because you actually understand the inner meaning.
It’s fine to try to clean. It’s fine to get the chametz out, all fine, but we actually want to understand the higher, inner meaning.
Right. What’s the inner action I actually need to do? Like, honestly, I don’t really need to do biur chametz (the removal of chametz) from the house. I more need to do the biur chametz in the soul.
Let’s be precise. It’s not either-or. The outer action has meaning. We live in the world of action, and so it’s very important.
You know they say that even a person who keeps kosher, it’s not just taking the chametz out of the house. If you own shares abroad, that’s chametz. You need to sell the chametz. Why? Because it’s you. The moment you buy a share, you’re an owner. The moment you own something that isn’t kosher, it’s chametz, you’re chametz too.
We won’t get into those corners.
I’m just saying no. We didn’t go into the aspects of the outer actions. We’re a podcast about healing the soul, and we’re using this appointed time for that work.
One more thing: at the time of this episode, we were about to hold the Releasing Guilt, Resentment and Anger workshop (in Hebrew) for the third time. Guilt, resentment and anger can all be bound up with pride.
To wrap up, I brought a great song, and a surprising one.
What’s the song called?
“A Happy Song.” That’s what the song is called. But I want to tell the story of this song, because the story is so touching, so true and so connected.
It’s from 1954. Listen to this story, it’s something else. 1954. Moshe Sharett, the prime minister who replaced Ben-Gurion. Some event was being celebrated. And what happens is that four days before Purim, terrorists attack a bus coming back from those celebrations, and a considerable number of people are murdered. In fact, 11 of the passengers were murdered in that attack by terrorists, and the country was in shock and everyone was downcast.
And he says, wait a second, this isn’t right, this isn’t okay. We’re in a holiday. We need to celebrate. He was there, and among those present were two well-known, beloved songwriters, and he takes both of them and tells them: come, come, get in here. I need a happy song. A song to lift people’s spirits.
The story goes that he sat them down in a room and brought them a bottle of brandy. Some say he even locked the door behind him and told them: “You’re not coming out until you have a happy song.”
So that’s the song. Go listen to it. There are sad words in it. But in the end that’s the goal: to keep our joy. Happy holiday, amen, and may we sing on Passover.
Happy holiday, and may we leave our past behind. Amen.