Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parasha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well. Before we begin this week's episode, I want to make my yearly offer that with Pesach, uh, coming upon us very quickly, there is a mitzvah that we should not have any chomets, any leavened product in our house, and a offer as a service to the community, the Jewish community. I am happy for any listener out there. If you need help, if you'd like to sell your chomets, perhaps you never even sold your chomets before, your unleavened products. It's a free service. Don't worry, it won't cost you anything. But if you'd like to sell your chametz to fulfill the mitzvah of not having chomets in your possession, please send me an email and I would happy to walk you through the process. It's very simple. You just have to. I'll email you a special document. You sign it, I give it to the rabbi, and he takes care of it for you. And you will not have any chomets over Pesach. So before we begin, as always, if you want to say hello, you're welcome to do that. If you want to ask me a question, you're welcome to do that. And I'm adding a third caveat here. If you want to reach out to sell your chametes, feel free to send me an email. Rabbi Shlomokon, kohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:01:21] We are jumping right in to the third book of the Torah, the book of Leviticus, and this week's parsha is Parshas Vayikra. And really, just to give a quick overview on the book of Vayikra, which in English is referred to as Leviticus, it is also referred to as Toras Kohanim, which is the Torah of the kohanim, meaning to say, is what is included in the book of Vayikra, which will be the parshios, all the Torah portions for the next bunch of weeks are the rules about the sacrifices, the avodah, the service in the tabernacle, and eventually the temple, and exactly what you do and the process and so on and so forth. And the people who perform that process in the tabernacle, in the temple were the kohanim were the priests. Now, just to give a quick little overview of the parsha. The parsha really deals with the rules of the different types of offerings. So you have there's general rules of offerings. There's different types of offerings for different situations. There's elevation offerings, there's, you know, animal offerings, there's bird offerings, there's offerings that are, you know, from flour, that are bread offerings. And there's different type of carbonos for some, when someone sins, when someone makes a false oath, when a leader makes a mistake and he has to bring a special offering. And the parsha goes through the different, um, types of carbonos and the different types of animals that would have to be brought and the different rules for each carbon. Now, just to give a little quick overview about carbonose, and this is something I've discussed in previous years on the podcast, but it's always worthwhile to explain it again, is the concept of carbonos of sacrifices. Now, the first thing we have to know, just to give a quick overview, is that there's different types of mitzvos, there's commandments that are, you know, mishpatim, which are laws which God has given us in order for society to function. Do not murder, do not steal, do not rape, do not commit adultery, so on and so forth. We need this for society to keep going. That's one group of mitzvahs. There's a second group of mitzvahs, which are edios, which are testimonies, which is, for example, we eat matzah on Pesach, matzah on Passover, we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, we shake lulav on the holiday of Sukkos. These are testimonies. They, uh, attest to different facts, right? We eat matzah because it's remembering that G D took us out of Egypt. And then there's a third category of mitzvos, which are chukim, which are divine ordinances, which are mitzvos, which really we don't fully understand and comprehend the reason, meaning we do them because God told us to do them. That's it. Nevertheless, there are great sages that do try to give a reason to help us understand these mitzvos, that we should get a little understanding of what we're doing, even though ultimately we're not going to fully comprehend them. And one of those mitzvos is the mitzvos of giving these animal sacrifices. They're, you know, the carbonos that we do. Now, the first thing, though, that we want to dispel is that many people think of animal sacrifices similar, similar to the way that the ancient Greeks or the ancient Romans or these barbarians would sacrifice animals. It was that the way they did it to make a separation from the Torah is because they gave these animal sacrifices to appease, to influence the gods, right? They're false gods. Now, when we give carbonos, when the Torah gives us a commandment to sacrifice animals, to bring these different types of carbonos, we're not trying to influence God, right? But rather the process, according to many commentaries, is that when a person goes through the process of bringing up carbonos, bringing these sacrifices, bringing something that was of tremendous value to them and slaughtering it, and going through this whole process of waving and, and, you know, eating it and so on and so forth and sprinkling it would, you know, the process, this audio visual experience that a person would go through would sort of bring a person to the place he's supposed to get. Meaning that if a person sinned, and one of the standard procedures, if someone sins, he has to bring a carbon chatas, a sin offering. And the idea is that, uh, when a person goes through that experience, that really looking at it, that really he should be the one to be, you know, to be hurt, to be punished, right? He should be getting punished right now because he sinned against God, but yet he. So going through this experience of an animal being slaughtered, and it's something which is valuable to him and going through this experience of the waving and this sprinkling. Now obviously there was deeper meanings to it as well, but the point is the experience of the person going through this would help him attain a level of teshuva, of returning, of getting back to where he was supposed to be, having him gain a level of atonement, hopefully complete atonement, because he went through this experience. And any teacher today would tell you that they're all into the hand on learning that when we do things hand on, we goes into us much more, we remember it better, we're able to give it over to others as well. And the Torah really had the foresight way before everyone else that a lot of things in Judaism are hands on, that when you have this hands on experience of mitzvos, of commandments such as eating matzah on Pesach, which is coming up, God willing, very soon, or we have a whole Seder experience where we're doing things with, you know, we're experiencing things, we're eating things, uh, it brings the lesson and the experience to a whole new level. And similarly, so even though the mitzvah of a karbon is a choke, it is a divine ordinance, meaning we are not going to fully comprehend it. It is a commandment from G D that he told us to do. And that's the end of the story. But nevertheless, we have permission from our great sages to try to understand it. And one understanding of this mitzvah is that when we went through this experience, it would affect us. It would help us be better Jews, it would help us gain atonement, it would help us get closer to God. And that's actually the root of the word karbon, which comes from Karav, to come close that through this experience of bringing a sacrifice, which is really not the correct translation of the word carbon. Rather, it's to come close this offering. Maybe it's a little bit better. But the point is that through this offering, a person would become karov, closer to G D. That's just a little bit of idea of the karbonos, the mitzvah, uh, of a carbon that we have, which we're going to be discussing in the next bunch of weeks. Now, the first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha. Now, famously, Vayikra, that's the first. That's the name of the Parsha, and the name of the. That's the name of the third book of the Torah, as well as this week's Parsha. And that's the first word in this week's parsha. It says, vayikra el moishe vayedaber hashem elab me oyel moy lamor. He called to, uh, Moshe, and Hashem, uh, spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, now if you look in Echomesh, you look in the Torah, you'll see something very interesting. I've talked about this as well, that the Aleph is very small. The Aleph of Vayikra is smaller than the rest of the words. And there's a lot of meaning to it because it's signifying the specialness that Hashem had for Moshe, the love that Moshe had, that Hashem, the love that Hashem had to Moshe. And Moshe wasn't so comfortable with it. And therefore he asked God if he could get ready with a small Aleph to show that it's not about him. But what I wanted to focus on today is this idea of Vayikra el moishe vayedaber hashem elav mey omoi lemur. It says that he called to Moshe, uh, and he spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, and if you look at Rashi, the great commentator, he says that Hashem called out to Moshe, right? Hakol Holeich Umagi al'azna vachol Yisroel Loisheimen. He says the voice, this voice of. Of God came out from the tent of meeting, which is referring to the tabernacle, to the Mishkan. And it was a strong voice, but yet only Moshe Rabbeinu heard it. And really, a question that's asked is, if we know that it's brought down that the voice of God came out very loud, thunderously loud, from the tent of meeting, from the tabernacle, why was this necessary if it. If Moshe was. Was the only one that heard the voice of God, Right? If he's just speaking to God, why does the Torah have to say to us? And this is. The wording of the verses emphasize the fact that the voice was loud, but yet only Moshe Rabbeinu heard it. Only Moses heard it. Why was that necessary for the voice of God to be so loud? And we know that when God does something, he doesn't do things, you know, extras for no reason. Everything's for a reason. He could have just. His voice could have came out of the tabernacle in a normal sound or in a low voice, and Moshe Rabbeinu would have heard him. Moses would have heard him. Nobody else, you know, heard so only didn't need to be thunderous. And the, uh, sages explain that really the voice was loud, that everyone in the Jewish people, everyone in the nation could have heard this message from Hashem, from God that he spoke to Moshe, but they weren't on the level to hear it. They weren't worthy of hearing the message of Hashem speaking to Moshe. They weren't on that. That high level, or they weren't attuned to the frequency that God was projecting himself. Now, what does that mean? Is that because of God? No, it's because of the people. Now you might say. So what's the lesson? How is that practical? This. This is the practical Parasha podcast. After all, what does it have to do with me, the fact that God's voice came out very loudly from the Ulamoyd, from the tabernacle, and only Moshe Rabbeinu heard it, Right? Why did it need to be so loud? It could have been lower. And I'm answering right, because everyone could have heard it, but they weren't on the level. And I think the very important lesson we get from this is being attuned to the spiritual frequencies. There's a famous story I heard, and I might have said it before, but it's always good to say Good stories again.
[00:12:36] There once was a boy who really wasn't so good at anything.
[00:12:43] Sports. He was not good. He just wasn't very athletic. And he wasn't so doing so well in school. But one day, he was sitting in the back of his mother's car, and he must have stumbled across one of his mother's glasses. And he puts it on. He's like, ma, I could see. That boy went on to become a great football player, famous movie actor, and eventually President of the United States. And his name was Ronald Reagan. Now, when. Why am I bringing down this story? What does this have to do with the Parasha podcast?
[00:13:21] And what lesson can it teach us? I think it goes back to this lesson of having our ears on the right spiritual frequency, wearing the correct glasses to see things clearly. This boy wasn't doing well in his life because he couldn't see. He couldn't see anything. And therefore, it was causing him a lot of problems he wasn't able to perform well with, whether it be school, whether it be sports, whether it be anything. It was ruining his whole life until he realized by mistake that he couldn't see. And it changed the course of his life and history.
[00:14:00] We also have to have the correct glasses on. And really, it's not just the glasses. Uh, it's our ears as well. Everything on around us. We have to have the right frequency. Moshe Rabbeinu Moses, he was attuned to the voice of God, that he had the perception to pick up, you know, the messages. He was getting it clear. The frequency wasn't. There was no static. He heard the message loud and clear. God spoke directly to him. But the rest of the Jewish nation, they weren't on the same channel. That even though the voice was loud and they could have, you know, tapped into that and heard the voice of God, they were not on the right frequency. And I think the message for us is that God speaks to each and every one of us.
[00:14:51] God is involved in our lives.
[00:14:54] It's really just up to us if we're on the right channel or, uh, if we are wearing the right glasses. Do we have those spiritual glasses on? You know, if we all look back at our lives, there's so many things, each person. There's so many things that just happen to work, uh, out. And people you just happen to meet that change the course of your life, right? So many situations, you know, each and every one of us can think of so many things that, you know, either you could look at as a, uh, coincidence, or you could look at it as the hand of God. And the point is, is that it's very easy to miss these things if we're not wearing the right glasses or we're not, you know, uh, our ears are not attuned to the right frequency. But I think that's our mission in life, is to look at the world around us. You know, nature, quote, unquote, and coincidences. That is it coincidence or is, you know, put those spiritual glasses on, put those that, you know, that spiritual hearing aid in, and look at the world, listen to the world around you as those messages from Hashem. Because we're all getting them. It's just the question if we want to tune in or see the message that's coming to us. And I think that's a powerful message we see from this week's Parasha, from the fact that the voice of G D was loud, but yet only Moshe heard it because not everyone else was tuned in to hear it. The next idea I want to share with you takes us to the Torah's instructions regarding a, uh, guilt offering. The verses read as follows. Vayidaber hashem and Moshe. Hashem spoke to Moshe saying, nefesh kisimol maal vehota bishkaga mikdashe hashem vehaviaz hashem ayeltam minatzoyin be'erkaches hashkalam beshek lakodesh le osham. Uh, it says, if a person commits treachery and sins unintentionally against Hashem's holies, he shall bring his guilt offering to Hashem, an unblemished ram from the flock with a value of silver shekels, according to the sacred shekel for a guilt offering. Now, there's a very interesting idea that Rab Shamshin Rafal Hirsch brings down regarding this verse. The word that's used to describe the sin that was committed in this situation is ki timal maal. If a person behaves unfaithfully, right, or unloyally, that's the word that this unfaithfulness, this certain treacherous act that a person did. Now, Rav Shamshin Rafael Hirsch points out that. That the word moal, which is spelled. Which is spelled mem ayin lamid, can also is also connected to the word, um meil mem ayin lamed, which is spelled the same way, which was one of the cloaks, one of the special garments of the Cohen gadl of the high priest. And he says that's not a coincidence that, uh, you have the same letters spelled Two different words, and they have double meanings. And similarly, the word beged, which also means cloak, right? Bez gimel dalid can also spell the word bogad beyz gimel dalit, which means rebel.
[00:18:30] And he points out a connection from these two words to, to help out bring a very powerful lesson from this week's Parasha.
[00:18:38] The Talmud tells us, or Ritorski brings down that the Talmud teaches us that how do we know the difference between balaam, which was Balaam was an evil person, was an evil, uh, prophet, and Abraham? The answer, one of the answers that's brought down is that you look at their students.
[00:19:01] The question that Rabbi Twersky asks is that why is it necessary to look at the students of Bilaam and the students of Abraham of Avram as ways to determine who's righteous and who is wicked? Why don't you just look at Bilaam, look at the actual people, Bilaam, and look at Abraham, see who they are, and from that you'll know who's the righteous one and who's the wicked one.
[00:19:29] And the answer that he gives is that we know that Bilaam, um, in the Torah we're going to get later on, we're going to talk about Bilaam, um, what he tried to do, but he talked the talk from the outside. You might make a mistake and think from the way he presented himself that perhaps he was a righteous person. So maybe just by looking at the person themselves, right, Of Bilaam and Avram, you could say that they're both righteous. But if you look at their students, of their disciples, you clearly could see the difference of, you know, how they teach which one was the righteous teacher and which one was the wicked teacher. And this is a very important idea which is being brought out from the parsha, the word timoal, moal, the word miila or moal, which is this unfaithfulness, is the same as miil, which is this cloak that the, uh, Cohen Gadol wore, the high priest wore. And we know that Beged is also bogeyed, that the, you know, clothing is also rebel. But the point here is that a person can appear, you know, what do clothing do? What does clothing do? What does, um, the mil, this special begit of the kohanim, this special garment of the kohen godlah. And what do clothing do? They conceal us. They cover us. It's the way that we present ourselves to the world.
[00:20:54] And Rav Hirsch brings down that. This idea we see as well the double meaning, the connection between the Word unfaithfulness and the word which is a, uh, type of garment that a person can present themselves to the world in one way, but yet deep down underneath be another person and be not who they really are. And this is the lesson that we see with, you know, Abraham and Bilaam, um, as well, the students. Right, but the point is how we take it back to this week's Parsha that it comes down to the actions. Judaism is an action based religion. Sure, we learn, sure, we daven, we pray, we study. But it comes down to taking what we learn and putting it into action.
[00:21:42] We can talk the talk, but do we walk the walk? And that is what it's all about. To take what we learn every day and to put it into action some way. That's, uh, a very powerful lesson that we see from this double. This word which is the same letters, it has a double meaning that on one hand it can mean unfaithful, treasonous, but at the same time it could be the garment of the Cohen Gadl. It's this, you know, on the outside it's different. So on the outside everything looks all good, but on the inside it's all a facade. That's why it's important for us to be real.
[00:22:19] And also it's to be real, to be authentic, to put things into action and at the same time also to not judge another just based on how they look, to judge someone based on how they act and how they, you know, conduct themselves. And I think this is a very powerful lesson of this week's Parasha that we could take with us into our everyday life. So with that, I'm going to finish with today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email@rabbishlamocon kohnmail.com have a great day.
