A Real Maror Experience

Courtesy of Yated:

The following excerpts from a letter from Sholom Rubashkin to his family provide insight into how one person experiences the zman cheiruseinu with none of the emotional and spiritual “props” that many of us take for granted.

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Dearest Kinderlach,

Baruch Hashem, we are busy, even here, making preparations for our chag ha’geulah. The idea that the preparation for a mitzvah can be even more important than the mitzvah’s performance actually takes on special meaning in prison. That’s because the readiness and longing for redemption is so real and tangible here, more so than the celebration of yom tov itself, since true cheirus and simcha cannot exist in prison. These joyous states of being only exist as “kemoh” or “ke’ilu” -a reflection of the real thing.

A story my father, sheyichye, once told me when I was a child, brings out this idea of people and situations presenting themselves in a certain light, while in reality being a mere imitation of the real thing.

The city of Kotzk is famous for the great and holy tzadik, the Kotzker rebbe, who lived there. Also living in Kotzk was a righteous Yid, Reb Yisroel, a devoted chossid of the tzadik. Reb Yisroel once traveled to a distant city for a few weeks, and when he returned, his friends eagerly asked him to describe what he saw and did there. All Reb Yisroel would say was that he went to the theater.

Of course they knew this was impossible for a Yid of his stature, so they prodded him to explain.

“Well,” he said, “when I came to the shul there, I was given a tour of the building and the people said, “See! Just Like in Kotzk!” We saw people davening and my guide said, “See, just like in Kotzk!” Every time they showed me something, they said fondly, “Isn’t it wonderful? Just like in Kotzk.”

“It was like being in a theater,” explained Reb Yisroel, “where nothing is as it seems to be. The costumes and the props and the stage are all designed to create an artificial likeness. Everything is kemoh -just like–but not really.”

I remember a Yerushalayim hotel receipt we kept as a memento of the most amazing time Mommy and I spent in Yerushalayim, when Chaya Mushka, shetichye, was studying in Eretz Yisroel. We had the zechus to visit her there, to spend a shabbos in Yerushalayim and to visit many mekomos kedoshim in Eretz Yisroel where the kedusha is truly palpable.

Traveling in a car, we were always gazing out the window to steal a glance at the places we would have liked to visit but couldn’t, taking in as much as we could for the few days we were there,

The taxi driver liked to point out different sights he found interesting. When we passed a overhead rail, he called out, “Tireh shom! Zeh kemoh b’ America!–Look there, just like in America!–and he did this repeatedly at many other sights.

After a while, it became a little irritating and also comical. I asked him why he was so impressed with “kemoh b’America,” attaching so much importance to something and somewhere outside himself. Why not be impressed with himself as a Yid who Hashem has given the merit to live in Eretz Yisroel? A Yid is not a kemoh, and the Holy Land is not a kemoh.

DON’T BE AN IMITATION YID

When you think about it, kemoh is a metaphor for golus, where one is not chas v’sholom dying, but not really living. Pesach is about attaining freedom for our guf and our neshama so that we are really alive, not kemoh alive. Real life is cheirus, living out day by day who one really is and becoming the person one was meant to be.

For that, we need to be a Yid and stop being a kemoh, an imitation. It’s a truth that applies universally to every single Yid, no matter where he is. But it is especially so here.

Here in prison, everything is “kemoh” – a hollow resemblance of the real thing. A punishment facility is kemoh a “correction facility.” Solitary confinement is kemoh a place for “personal safety.” A prisoner is kemoh an inmate. Years of time wasted is kemoh time “served.” One eats kemoh food; wears kemoh clothes; a cell is kemoh a room; a hard shelf is kemoh a bed.

A walk outside in fenced areas with a sprinkling of grass is kemoh a walk in a park as a free man. The prison itself is kemoh a palace with countless rooms and doors–except no door to freedom.

The way the yom tov of Pesach is celebrated in prison follows this parallel universe of kemoh. A prisoner wears regulation clothes that are kemoh the yom tov clothes he wants to be attired in. A folding table in the chapel is kemoh a seder table; a meal together in the chapel is kemoh a seder. Reciting the Hagodoh in the chapel is kemoh doing the mitzvah of sipur yetzias Mitzrayim to your beloved children. Drinking grape juice is kemoh wine for the arboh kosos. And on and on with the imitations.

[Eating moror, however, is not kemoh, and the shiur is more than b’hidur!]

Sadly, there isn’t even a kemoh when it comes to davening with a minyan or for krias HaTorah.

So, dear kinderlach, you see why preparing for my geulah proti here is not kemoh, but all too real. Because we are all so ready and so full of longing for geulah from this place. And even more so, for our geulah shleima with Moshiach tzidkeinu.

On Pesach, we thank Hashem for freeing us from being slaves to Paroh and his avodas perech. What is perech? Chazal say it alludes to peh rach, a soft mouth, referring to the gentle, beguiling words that Paroh used in his scheme to enslave the Yidden. By hiding behind benign words and deceptive euphemisms, Paroh was able to mask his true intentions and lure the Yidden to work as hard as they could. He then used their patriotic performance to gauge their abilities, and enslaved them according to these quotas. This is the paradigm of repaying good with evil.

Seform say that perech also alludes to pirud, separation, because one of the harshest facets of the shibud mitzrayim were the decrees separating Jewish families; husbands from wives, fathers from children. We thank Hashem and celebrate for His putting an end to these cruel decrees and for uniting families that were torn apart.

Today, as we prepare for Pesach, let us all ask Hashem to make it happen that every single Yid is zoche to be happily united with his family! If we try, we can bring the unlimited simcha of Purim that is poreitz geder into the month of Nisson, the chodesh of nissim that has the power to break the shackles of all natural limitations, and usher prisoners to freedom.

Yehi Ratzon in this month of nissim that Hashem perform miracles for all Yidden, granting each and every one their geulah proti and together with the geulah kloli of our people, together with Moshiach tzidkeinu.

Besuros tovos and much love,
Tatty