Rabbi Reuven Kigel - Pesach...Are We Rich or Are We Poor?

hi everybody it's Rabbi ruen keigle from EMT Outreach happy to be giving you a few short thoughts about pesak as we say in English Passover so we say in Russian Pasa um you know we have a little bit of a dichotomy on PES on one sense we're all supposed to lean like we're Kings that's how kings used to eat they used to lean on their left someone maybe even feed them grapes we're not even allowed to pour wine for ourselves because we're supposed to feel like kings and queens we drink a lot of wine like a king queen should it's even uh brought down that all the jewelry you have you should either wear or put it on the table showing like look at me I'm rich it says even a poor person should not refrain from leaning and uh drinking the four cups of wine so it's clear on pesak we're supposed to feel free we're supposed to feel rich we're supposed to feel like kings we're supposed to be very happy now this makes sense right after all it is celebrating the us being freed from Egypt it's the holiday of Freedom makes sense we're free we're Kings we're not slaves anymore it's great however there's a small problem kings and queens and princess and little princesses do not eat eat flatbread they do not eat matah they eat puffy things they eat beautiful delicious cot they eat beautiful puffy pastries right they do not eat matah actually matah is called Poor Man's bread and we know the one of the main things of the Passover seder the pesak Seder is that we eat matah now how can this be are we supposed to be rich or are we supposed to be poor I was listening to a lecture by Rabbi brevda Z and it remind me of this point and this is what I want to share with you and I believe this is the key to happiness you see in life sometimes you're supposed to look at yourself as rich and sometimes you're supposed to look at yourself as poor and if you do this you'll be happy when are you supposed to look at yourself as Rich when it comes to material matters when it comes to your house when it comes to your car when it comes to your clothes you said I'm so rich it's amazing I have all that I need I'm super wealthy when are you supposed to look at yourself as poor when it comes to spiritual matters when it comes to spiritual matters you could always say you know what I'm learning but I could learn a little bit more I'm only learning two hours maybe I'll learn four hours only learning half an hour maybe I could learn one hour I'm praying once a week maybe I could pray twice a week I'm almost keeping Shabbat maybe I could keep Shabbat so what essentially happens is when you look at yourself as wealthy when it comes to material matters you won't be jealous of anyone it's going to be great you're going to be happy with what you have physically and when you look at yourself as poor when it comes to spiritual matters every day you're going to try harder and harder to do more and more mitzvot to do more and more Good Deeds to connect yourself to Hashem and the people around you and then you will truly be a free happy person have an awesome PES