Pesach Reveals the Secret of Jewish Survival - Rabbi Yisroel Reisman

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Yisroel Reisman’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

[music] >> One of the most famous lines in the Haggadah is the words Man Nishtana Halaila Hazeh mikol Halailos. [music] Something said by the child at the table. He asks, as it's usually translated, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" In the Gra Haggadah, he makes the following point. He says Laila ends with a kamatz hey. It's a word that ends in the manner of a lashon nekeva. Words in Hebrew are divided between words which are masculine and feminine. And typically, the kamatz hey ending is a feminine ending. If so, it should say Man Nishtana Halaila Hazeh mikol Halailos. Hazeh being the feminine form of Hazeh. So, the Gra asks why it says Halaila Hazeh. Why the feminine Laila here is expressed with a masculine description. And that is to that he answers that this night is like Yaim. He's referring to the concept of Laila Kayaim Yoyair. That Pesach night was in many ways like a day. Day symbolizes a time of liberation, a time of joy, a time of redemption. Darkness always symbolizes a time of challenge, a time where God seems hidden, a time where everything around the person looks dark. Says the Gra, "The night of Pesach is Halaila Hazeh. Even though it's night, it's described as masculine because Laila Kayaim Yoyair." This is a vart of the Gra, a thought of the Gra, which in of itself seems rather understandable and easy enough. The Turch Mima in his Perisha Parshas Ki Sisa, the pasuk mechaleleha mais yumus, in his notes, brings this Gra, and he writes that it makes no sense. As a matter of fact, the language he writes is ech tov bedavar pashut kazeh. The Gra seems to have made to have made an error. While it may be true that the kamatz hey ending is typical of words which are

Jump to a moment

1. 0:13[music] >> One of the most famous lines in the Haggadah is the words Man Nishtana…
2. 1:48Darkness always symbolizes a time of challenge, a time where God seems hidden, a time where…
3. 3:26Echad, rather. Balaila Echad in the masculine form. It doesn't say Balaila Achas. And that's true…
4. 5:04talmidim of two great people in two different centuries in two different places made the same…
5. 6:42the night on which they brought the first korban Pesach, the night on which they were…
6. 8:14There's always an element of light. There's always the growth from the from the galus, the…
7. 9:49Many years ago, about shuva from Eretz Yisrael came to us in the United States, and…
8. 11:30he mentions, "And you know, it's a funny thing. The dishes my great great grandparents bought…
9. 13:06It's these generations that bring light to the darkness of our galus. It's these generations I…
10. 14:38the masculine form of night. And so we come together on the Pesach at the Pesach…

Every second of this shiur plays inside Lehallel — a filtered YouTube library where each video was reviewed against one written standard before it could appear. No ads, no comments, no autoplay into anything unapproved.