Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parsha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen and I hope you are well. It's been a busy last two weeks, but I definitely have missed you all you guys at the Practical Parsha Podcast. Pesach Passover was amazing. It was great. I hope you had a great Passover as well. Had plenty of matzah and gefilte fish and charoses maror, all the good stuff from Pesach. And now we're back to the weeks of the Torah portion. And I wanted to start this week with a bang. Back to our usual routine as it's very good. Just have a good routine. And for those of you who listen to this podcast, thank you for making the Practal Parsha podcast part of your routine. I really appreciate it. And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would like to tell me how your Pesach was, or you want to ask me how my Pesach was, please feel free to send me an email. Rabbi Shlomokon Kohmil.com I'd love to hear from you. This week's Parsha is Parshas Shmini. Now, just to give a quick overview of the Parsha, the Parasha begins with the inauguration ceremony of the Tabernacle. Now, for many weeks we've been discussing the building of the Tabernacle of the Mishkan, the structures that were inside of it, the Mizbeyak, the altars, the menorah, all the different parts of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And we also discussed about the Kohanim, the priests and their special vestments that they wore. And we've had many parshios, many Torah portions that deal with the Mishkan. But now, finally, today, this week's Torah portion, the Mishkan, the Tabernacle is inaugurated. And for seven days, Moshe Rabbeinu Moses performed the service in the Mishkan in the Tabernacle. And it's brought down that he every day for seven days, he built the Tabernacle, took it down, did the service and repeated it for seven days. And the Kohanim, um, who were the sons of Aaron, the sons of Aaron, who was the brother of Moshe, who would be the individuals and the families that would perform the divine service in the Mishkan, they watched. And finally, on the eighth day, Aaron and his sons were consecrated. And the Torah describes us the process of how they were consecrated to serve in the Tabernacle and thereafter in the Temple when It would be built.
[00:02:52] And finally they took over the service in the Mishkan. In the Tabernacle. The Parsha then turns to a tragic event that occurs in this week's Parsha. The two sons of Aron, Hakohe, Nadav and Aviu enter into the holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the Mishkan of the Tabernacle, which is only entered in once a year. And they enter in there without permission. The Torah tells us how a fire comes down from heaven and, you know, goes inside of them and they die. And there's a lot to discuss here about the sons of Aaron and what they did as far as where they erred, were they righteous, what was their mistake? And there is much to be said on this week's Parasha, which I've discussed in previous years, and just to give a quick synopsis, is that the sons of Aaron were great people, and they made a slight mistake. And because of their slight mistake, they made a fatal, uh, error by entering to offer the Ketorah as the incense and the holy of holies. And because of that, they died. The Parsha continues with a prohibition thereafter that because the sons of Aaron that they had drank wine, which maybe caused their mistake of entering into the temple, there is a prohibition on the kohanim, on the priests to drink wine during the service in the temple. And actually, another interesting antidote in this week's Parsha, which we're going to talk about, is the. A, uh, little dispute between Moshe and Aaron, how Moshe gives an instruction to Aaron and his sons, his remaining sons, Elazar and Isamar, and they don't listen to Moshe exactly. Rather they change what he said. They do a little differently based on their own understanding, because Moshe, assuming that Moshe made a mistake, and Moshe gets upset at them because he didn't. They didn't listen to his command. And when they question Moshe on his instructions, instead of doubling down, Moshe admits that he was incorrect, and they move forward. The parsha also finishes off with the laws of kashris, the laws of kosher, that we know that there's only certain creatures and certain animals that a, uh, Jew is permitted to eat. And the parsha delineates for us very clearly the animals that are kosher and the animals that are not kosher, as well as the forbidden fish and the permissible fish. And the Torah also tells us about the different creepy, crawly animals and creatures and insects that are not to be eaten by a Jewish person. The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the parsha. So, as I mentioned, the name of the parasha is Shmini, which signifies the eighth day, the inauguration of the Mishkan, that today, finally, it was going to be the sons of Aaron were going to start the service. So as you could imagine, it was a tremendously happy day that the Jewish people, after the sin of the golden calf, they thought they made a mistake, that they distanced their self from God. And now, finally, when the Mishkan, when the tabernacle was being inaugurated, repaired their relationship with Hashem, with G D, that they were going to have a place where the divine presence rested. Now, the question that's asked is the parsha starts with the word vayehi, which means, and it was. Now, the Talmud tells us that when the word vayy is used to start off a verse, sometimes it has a negative connotation. And the question is, what is the negative connotation that is associated with the vayyhi of this week's parsha? In this week's parsha, we talked about a happy occasion that the Jews finally felt that they did Teshuvah, that they returned to Hashem, the Mishkan, the tabernacle was going to be inaugurated, the service was going to start. It was a happy occasion. What is the bad omen? What is the vay pretending to. What's the, you know, the negative aspect, the sad, um, thing that's going on here that the vay is alluding to. Now, the first answer to this question is that the Midrash brings down that the. The simple understanding of the vay is that the vay is referring to the death of Nadav and Aviu. So as I mentioned earlier, the two sons of Aaron, they enter into the holy of holies of the tabernacle unbidden, and they die. And the commentaries give us different understanding of why that was sad. Now, obviously, if Aaron's two sons, they were great leaders and they died, that was a sad moment for the Jewish people. So the vayiki, on a simple understanding that although it was a happy day for the Jewish nation because of the Mishkan being inaugurated, but in this week's Parasha, there's still a connotation to sadness and tragedy that we see from the word vayihi, which is referring to the death of Nadavanaviu. Now there's another understanding which I saw Rabbi Twersky brings down, and he says that the vayyhi that said in this week's parasha is not just referring to Nadav. And aviyu, but it's also referring to something deeper.
[00:08:32] And maybe this deeper look can give us insight on how we view life as Jews. Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin, the great Hasidic master, he brings down that this vay, he.
[00:08:47] The tragedy that is alluded to in the word vay, even though it's within this happiness and joy of the Mishkan of the tabernacle, is alluding to the fact that now, after the sin of the golden calf, the manifestation of the Shechina, the manifestation of the divine presence, was limited to the tabernacle, to the Mishkan. Before the Jewish people committed the sin of the golden calf, the divine will and the level of the Jewish nation was such that the Shechina would manifest itself in the entire world. But after the Jewish people made that tragic mistake of falling prey to the sin of idol worship, the sin of the golden calf, the Shechina was only contained, or I shouldn't say contained, but the Shechina would only manifest itself within the walls of the Shechina, within the confines of the tabernacle. And that is the, uh, vayhi, that word of tragedy. That's what it's connoting to us, that although it was a happy day that the Mishkan was inaugurated and there's happiness and joy, but there's an aspect of sadness because the Jewish people had sinned and fallen from their original level that they were on when. When they receive the Torah. And now they're only able to perceive the Shechina within the area of the Mishkan. And I think the message that we can take out of this idea is that Judaism is very unique. Now. It's unique for a lot of reasons. But one area which I think Judaism is extremely unique is that Yiddishkeit in the Torah gives us an avenue for joy and happiness to coexist at the same time. What does that mean? What does it mean that joy and sadness coexist? And the answer to that, I believe, is that life is very complicated. There's so many emotions. There's so many things pulling us in different directions. There's different situations that we find ourselves in, and there's different people we find ourselves around. And at a given moment, we can be dealing with one person who is crying to us and a second later be dealing with another person who's extremely happy. How do you be a good friend? How do you be sad for this person and happy for the next person? Or how do you have a bad thing happen to you and Then the next, you know, a few minutes later, a, uh, good thing happens. And maybe the bad thing that's happening is still ongoing and the good thing is going also. How do you deal with these emotions? There's so many feelings and so many things going on. How do we balance it? And the answer to that is that it's possible to be happy and sad at the same time. We know that when the prophets gave prophecy of the destruction of the temple before it even happened, they described here raising prophecies of the terror that would come upon the Jewish people. And the famous question that's asked is, these prophets, how could they have received prophecy for these terrifying prophecies? Meaning to say is we know that a prophet, in order to receive prophecy from God, he has to be in a state of happiness. Only when a person is happy can he receive that prophecy. If he's sad, it's just not going to work. The Shekinah only manifests itself on someone who's happy. So how, when a person is giving foretelling about the Jewish nation, how they're going to go through this terrible time, right? How could they be happy? And the answer is this point, that when we know that there's the will of God, so it's possible we could be sad and happy at the same moment. Joy and sadness can coexist. Us as human beings have the strength and the fortitude to divide our emotions, to give that, you know, to cry with our friend and yet a few minutes later, be happy with our other friend. To go from a funeral to a wedding. That when we know that there's a plan and a mission and. And we know that to have the right feelings when we're supposed to feel them. And so if that warrants crying, we know we need to cry. And if a few hours later, we know we're supposed to be happy, we need to be happy. And we have the ability and the strength within ourselves for those two feelings to go together. And I think that's one idea that we could see from this parsha, that Vayihi, that although there was tremendous happiness, this is the other way around. They still realized that there was an aspect that was lacking. They still had a slight bit of sadness that they had in their mind as well. So I think it's an interesting idea, this coexisting of our emotions, that in the Torah we see its source and it's a message for us as human beings that we have a very powerful will. We're able to. To decompartmentalize our emotions. To feel what we need to feel in the correct times. We shouldn't just let one emotion take control of ourselves, to rule over us, to ruin our life, to ruin our day, to ruin our week, and to just destroy everything. It could go both ways, right? We don't want sadness to always be sad if we have something bad. And we shouldn't always be happy if there are things that are challenging for us. But rather, we have to know how to decompartmentalize and to have sometimes to learn how the joy and the sadness can coexist with each other if necessary.
[00:14:38] The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to the dispute between Moshe and Aaron. The Torah tells us after the death of Nadav and Aviu, the sons of Aaron, Moshe gives instruction to Aaron, the father of Nadav and Aviu and Alazar and Isamar, the brothers of Nadav Vanaviyu, to continue the service. And he gives specific instructions to bring the sacrifices. Even though they're normally in a situation where someone has a deceased person, they're not allowed to do certain mitzvahs. But over here in this situation, the Kohen, the Koingado, they still have this obligation to bring the sacrifices in the tabernacle. And Moshe, he gets upset at Aaron, Elazar and Hisamar because they burnt one of the offerings. And Moshe believes that the correct action is to eat the specific offering. And Aaron speaks up. And based on their understanding of the law, Aaron explains in a respectful manner how they deduced that they were not supposed to eat it correctly. Moshe listens and he approves of what they did. Meaning to say is he realizes that he erred. And he does an about face. And the posse says, vayishma, Moshe, vayitav baynav. Moshe heard and he approved that even though he was upset originally of what they did. And he had, you know, said you did something wrong. He was corrected, meaning he stood corrected. And when his brother said he was mistaken, Moshe sort of admitted his mistake. He had mistakenly remembered the Halachah that he had heard from God that Moshe and that Aaron and his sons had made the correct decision.
[00:16:29] Now, the question that's asked from Rav Chaim Shmuel is that we see from Moshe Rabbeinu from this verse in the Torah, vayishma, Moshe, vayitav baynav. That Moshe heard and he approved a very powerful lesson. You know, Moshe, he was the, uh, scribe from God, right? God comes down and reveals himself to the Jewish nation. And then Moshe goes up and writes the Entire Torah down from God. And Moshe over here in this situation, he could have denied or he could have said, you know, this. The way I am telling you is what God told me. He could have just said, this is what God wants you to do. And no one would have known that he was, you know, he made a mistake. He didn't have to admit his mistake. But we see that even though Moshe Rabbeinu, the leader of the Jewish nation, he could have thought like, doesn't look good for the leader to make a mistake. Uh, you know, I used to know everything. Moshe and his humility, right? We know Moshe is the most humble of men.
[00:17:30] He realized the importance of the authenticity of the Torah, that the Torah, everything has to be true. It's, you know, there's. There's the. He didn't want any question to be in the validity and the authenticity of the Torah. And him as the transmitter of the halachos, of the laws of the Torah, he had to make sure that his actions and his speech and his lessons, the way he acted would embody that, or else people would save if this halachah is incorrect, and maybe this halacha, he made a mistake, or he's not saying the truth, maybe there's other halachos where he's not, or other laws that he's flubbing. So therefore, he had to take one and sort of it was important to him not that he had to. He wanted. Moshe was a true person. What mattered to him was truth. And what mattered to him was the authenticity of the Torah and the truth of the Torah. And therefore, Vayishma Moshe, Vayita bay'nav didn't matter about him. He admitted the mistake and it was good to him. He was happy about it because it was all about the truth. It was about the truth and the Torah being eternal and true. So therefore, it wasn't a problem for him. It was good for him that the mistake was corrected. Now, what I want to bring out from this lesson is that we live sometimes in a society where, you know, lying is the norm. People lie. They don't have any qualms about saying a lie.
[00:19:05] And, you know, it's unfortunate because I think if a person thinks about it for a moment, you know, if you lie to others and they see that. Right, that you're willing to lie to others, you could assume, probably rightfully, that others are lying to you. Now, you can't control other people, but we could always live by example, you know, and if we live by, as people who tell the Truth. So I think people will tell the truth to us. I mean, we can't always control that. But I think the way that you influence others is by serving as a role model. I think this is a very powerful lesson that we see. And the Torah tells us very clearly the truth is very important. There are only limited circumstances where the Torah permits a person to lie. And that's for peace, for, you know, shalom, um bayes, for peace of the home or to prevent a machlokes, to prevent dispute. But it's very limited. But the point is, this idea of a little white lie is not something which is condoned at all in the Torah, but rather it's a Torah of truth. That's what it's referred to as Torahs emes, the Torah of truth. The Torah is true. And therefore we have to learn from that embodiment of truth. That's the way we need to live our lives. And we shouldn't be afraid to admit we made a mistake when we made a mistake. You know, a good friend of mine, he says, shopsi, he says the best lie is the truth. That when we say the truth, it ends. But when we say a lie, it ends up with another lie and another lie and another lie until we get caught up in a web of lies. But if we say the lie of the truth, so then we don't get caught in anything. We say the truth, and we're more respected as people.
[00:20:49] We have honor to ourselves. We represent something. And we shouldn't be afraid to say we made a mistake when we made the mistake. No one is perfect. Even Moshe Rabbeinu, when he made a mistake, he was able to take the mistake, and he was happy about the person that corrected them. So when we realize we did something wrong or we need to be corrected, we shouldn't just dig into our position. We should try to look at it bigger. It's not about just us. There's a bigger picture. And Moshe Rabbeinu knew that. He saw that it wasn't about him, it was about the Torah. And most of the things that we get caught on, we can't let it be about our ego. Because as soon as we make it about our ego, then we are totally irrational. And actually, the commentaries bring down that the reason why Moshe made the mistake to begin with is because he got angry. He got angry. And because he got angry, meaning ego is also connected to anger. The Shechina departed him, the divine Presence departed him, and he made a mistake. And we see this as a common thread in The Torah that the few times in the Torah that the Torah says that Moshe got angry, he makes mistakes. You see, it connected with each other that whenever Moshe makes a mistake, it's connected to him getting angry. I think it's a very important lesson for ourselves that, you know, number one is to not be afraid to admit we made a mistake. But even before then is that when to realize about anger, that anger is connected to making mistakes and it goes together and don't let things be about ourselves, whether it be about getting angry, whether about making a mistake, just to think about the truth. Torah SMS m the Torah Shruim. We should also try to live like that as well. There's one other idea I want to share with you today. Being that it's two weeks since the last podcast, I feel like I have a liberty to go a little bit longer than usual. Don't worry, I'm not going to make it a, ah, 45 minute podcast. I know you guys like it short, but one idea I wanted to share with you today. The Torah tells us about the forbidden animals that a Jewish person cannot have. We have the kosher animals and animals that are not kosher. Now there are two different signs that make an animal kosher. In order for an animal to be kosher, it has to have chew its cud and to have split hooves. And the Torah delineates for us the animals that have only one of those signs that have either a, that chew its cut and don't have split hooves, or have split hooves and, and don't chew its cud. Now the only animal that has split hooves and does not chew its cud is the Khazr, uh, is the pig. And a question that's asked is that why is it that it's the pig that's the only animal that has completely split hooves and doesn't chew its cud. Why is that the example? The only animal that's different in regards to, uh, the signs, all, all the other one signed animals just have chewitz cut and they don't have a completely split hoof, but it's only the pig. And this is actually one of the proofs that show the Torah is divine, that it makes a statement that this is the only animal in the world, the family of the pig, that it's completely split but doesn't show its good. Why is it the pig is the example of this one that has the opposite of the rest of them, that it has a completely split hoof but yet it doesn't chew its cud and I saw one answer brought down from the Aaron Aedes that he says that we know in life there's good times and there's challenging times. You know, this is a lesson that we're going to learn out from the chazer, from the pig, which is called in Hebrew a chazer, that there's good times, things are going good and everything goes. But yet at the same time there's also challenging times. Things when you're trying to do the right thing, you're trying to go in the right direction, but yet at the same time there seems to be winds pushing you off the way and God seems to be almost working against you. You're trying to do the right thing, but it's so hard and so challenging. And it's at those, um, moments where we feel the most that we want to just give up. You know, I can say I've had those moments. I'm sure you've had those moments. We've all had those moments. And the nisoyon, the test that in life that we have is that those moments when things are challenging to overcome and keep pushing to get through them, and God willing, we're going to succeed to not give up, to keep pushing even in the hard moments, to push through and to achieve, God willing our goals in life to get closer to hashem, to serve God and so on and so forth. And, and this lesson we see from the khazir, because the word khazir, pig in Hebrew comes from. The root of the word is from the, the root of the word khazir is from khazar to go back. And I saw it brought down that the reason why the chazir, the pig is referred to as the khazir, is because a pig always goes back. That no matter how much you scream at your pig, no matter how much you try to push it away from something, it's always going to go back to its mud pit or to whatever it's doing because it just doesn't listen. It always goes back to what it wants to do. And that's it. Nothing stops in its way. And that's the lesson you see from the split hoof, from the foot, from the foot of the pig, from the chazir, that the foot always takes it back to what it wants to do. And it's not going to let anyone else tell them how it should act or what it should do, even if you try to push them away. That's the nature of a pig. And that's something, a positive aspect you can take out from everything. And this is something we take out from the pig, from the chazir that in our lives that we're trying to do good things, we're trying to stay on the path, we're trying to get closer to God, we're trying to accomplish goals. We can't let those down moments push us down. We have to realize it's a test from God that God we don't daven for tests. We pray that God should not test us. But we have to know that we have those hard moments. God's giving it to us to help us work out our muscles, our spiritual muscles, to help us be the people we want to be. And we all know those moments that we've had in our lives have made us into who we are today. But it's hard to see that in the moment. So we should learn this from the Khazir. To always keep going back, to use that foot right the hoof. To know that we should never give up and to keep going back to keep pushing to serving God to be the best we can be. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. Hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, please feel to reach out to me at Rabbi Shlomakon Kohn at gmail com. Have a great day.
