Tasting rather than bypassing
This also returns the rav to maror. The halachah says that someone who swallows matzah can fulfill the obligation, while someone who swallows maror without tasting its bitterness does not. The rule is stated by Rava in Pesachim 115b.
In the rav’s spiritual reading, swallowing the bitterness would mean passing over it without allowing it into the story. At the Seder, maror is tasted. The difficulty is acknowledged, named, and included alongside the redemption.
He again attributes to the Arizal the idea that chewing maror brings a sweetening of judgment. Shaar HaKavanos, Derushei HaPesach, drush 6, explicitly gives that connection: feeling the bitterness and grinding with the teeth are part of the sweetening described there. His application does not mean making the herb lose its required bitter taste. The sweetness sought is a change in the person’s relationship to what that bitterness represents.
וּפְדוּיֵי ה׳ יְשֻׁבוּן וּבָאוּ צִיּוֹן בְּרִנָּה וְשִׂמְחַת עוֹלָם עַל־רֹאשָׁם שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה יַשִּׂיגוּ וְנָסוּ יָגוֹן וַאֲנָחָֽה׃
Those redeemed by Hashem will return and come to Zion with joyful song, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will attain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee. — Isaiah 35:10
The passage in Likutey Moharan II:23 reads this as joy reaching for sorrow and drawing it inside. This is why the rav wants the telling, the matzah, and the maror to be held together: the night can make room for more than the part of the person that already feels free.
What the bread of healing is meant to receive
The rav then returns to Likutey Moharan II:24 and Reb Noson’s account of joy, the ten pulses, and healing. He explicitly includes bodily as well as emotional illness, while emphasizing the inward work. He invokes research and the example of hospital clowns, and recalls the distress of isolated patients during COVID, including people spending Pesach night without visitors.
These examples express his concern that loneliness and despair can affect a person deeply. No particular medical studies are identified in this shiur, and the recording does not establish the cause of any patient’s deterioration or death. The source’s universal language about illness and joy is a spiritual claim, not a clinical finding that every disease is caused by sadness or can be cured by becoming happy.
The earlier account of Adam’s 130 years, the damage connected with involuntary emissions, and the descent into Egypt is recalled here as well. The rav follows Reb Noson in reading the exile through atzvus and the redemption through simcha. This is the kabbalistic framework attributed to the Arizal, beyond the Gemara’s basic account.
וּלְאָדָם אָמַר כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ לְקוֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ וַתֹּאכַל מִן־הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לֵאמֹר לֹא תֹאכַל מִמֶּנּוּ אֲרוּרָה הָֽאֲדָמָה בַּֽעֲבוּרֶךָ בְּעִצָּבוֹן תֹּֽאכְלֶנָּה כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶּֽיךָ׃
To Adam He said: Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. — Genesis 3:17
Bread received through the heaviness of Adam’s curse stands opposite the matzah received as food of faith and healing. The Zohar’s description concerns entering faith; Reb Noson connects this with taking life into oneself through joy. The rav also refers back to the reported physical miracle told in the previous shiur. That report remains a reported miracle, not verified medical recovery or permission to risk gluten exposure with celiac disease; the separate medical clarification in the preceding reading applies here too.
The avodah is to receive emunah through the mitzvah and let that emunah open room for simcha. Instead of being trapped within a narrow metzar, a constriction, a person can begin to feel more space inwardly.
כִּֽי־בְשִׂמְחָה תֵצֵאוּ וּבְשָׁלוֹם תּוּבָלוּן הֶהָרִים וְהַגְּבָעוֹת יִפְצְחוּ לִפְנֵיכֶם רִנָּה וְכׇל־עֲצֵי הַשָּׂדֶה יִמְחֲאוּ־כָֽף׃
For you shall go out with joy and be led in peace; the mountains and hills shall burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. — Isaiah 55:12
The food sustains the life of the body. In Reb Noson’s explanation, holy eating allows that life to be received from the place of simcha. The point is not merely to think a beautiful thought over matzah and leave daily eating unchanged. It begins a way of taking in strength for life and service.
Why must we run at first?
Reb Noson now draws a distinction between Pesach and Shavuos. At the Exodus, Israel must leave in haste. The opposing power has not yet been fully subdued. They can receive freedom, but cannot yet calmly gather every aspect of the past into it.
In the rav’s inner application, this is the first stage of the dance. A person protects the good he has found and keeps his distance from what might overwhelm it. He does not yet have the strength to confront everything that has hurt him.
The Egyptians’ pursuit becomes an image of the difficulty returning: the problem a person pushed aside comes back into his thoughts. Just as the unemployed man remembers again that he needs a job, old sadness can return after a real but temporary moment of happiness.
The rav describes the special illumination of Seder night as a gift. High levels are given before a person has fully acquired them; afterward there is a return to smaller awareness and the work of growing into what was received. He attributes this process to the Arizal. The matching passage in Shaar HaKavanos, Derushei HaPesach, drush 3, describes the illumination lasting through the first night and day, then withdrawing, to return gradually through the Omer toward Shavuos. The gift was real even though the person cannot yet hold it steadily.
This also explains a tension within the Seder itself. We aim to include the painful history in the telling, yet our capacity for doing so is still incomplete. The telling begins the work; the journey toward Shavuos develops it further.
Chametz therefore remains outside during Pesach. In Reb Noson’s reading, chametz and se’or represent the sorrow and opposition that could still unsettle the newly received joy. The laws of removing and not possessing chametz give this first stage a concrete form. The inner reading does not replace the actual laws or turn every distressing thought into halachic chametz.