Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parsha Podcast. I hope you are well. I'm sorry I missed last week's episode.
[00:00:10] Things were a little crazy, but it's all good now. As many of you know, my wife works in a camp in West Virginia, and last week was the preparation for us, my whole family, to go there. So there's a lot that entails. A lot, you know, to make, uh, to say the least.
[00:00:31] And thank God, Sunday, we packed everybody into the cars. We packed our cars all the way up to the top.
[00:00:39] And, you know, if I could send a little picture or show you a picture of how our cars look, it would probably, uh, be out of the Beverly Hillbillies. You know, the van's packed to the brim, and the car, we split the family up into two cars. Thank God, because we got to get all the luggage and all the kids to camp. Can't take one, not the other. You got to take both of them. So thank God we packed everybody up into our little caravan, we got there safely, and now I'm back in my regular routine, and I wanted to make sure that we have episode this week before I head back to West Virginia tomorrow to spend Shabbos with my family.
[00:01:20] So if you have any questions, comments, you would like to say hello, it's about time. Send an email, introduce yourself. Don't be shy. I think you'll be happy that you did. My email address is rabbi shlomo kon. Kohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you. This week's parsha is parshas choukas.
[00:01:41] Now, parshas choukas is most famously known as for the mitzvah of the red heifer, the para aduma, which is prominently featured in the beginning of the parsha. And actually on last year's episode, or actually two years ago, but I put it on the rebroadcast for this year.
[00:02:04] I get into the enigma of the red heifer, which is one of the mitzvos, which are one of the divine ordinances that we don't understand. I mean, reasons are given, but it's part of the subset of mitzvos, which man will never fully grasp. And primarily, one of the biggest reasons that the red heifer, the paradum, is not understood is that the red heifer, this red cow, and the Torah gives us specific instructions on exactly how it looks and what, you know, it never could be worked and what should be done. And the. Basically, the red cow is burnt and the ashes of the red cow are mixed in a certain way with different. I don't want to say ingredients, but different things.
[00:02:51] And, uh, the ashes of the red cow are used to purify someone from impurity.
[00:02:57] That if someone would come into contact with a corpse, the only way they could become tahar pure again is by being sprinkled by. By the red heifer. But perhaps the most mystifying aspect of the red heifer is the fact that the person who sprinkles the ashes, even though the person he's sprinkling on becomes pure, the person that sprinkles becomes impure.
[00:03:26] And this is one of the mysteries of the red heifer that even King Shlomo, King Solomon did not understand.
[00:03:34] Maybe we will talk a little bit today about this, but I wanted to focus on some other points in the Parsha just to continue with a little overview of the Parsha. The Parsha also deals with the death of Miriam, the sister of Moshe Rabbeinu, as well as the drying up of the well of Miriam. That there was a miraculous well that followed the Jewish people in their travels throughout the desert.
[00:04:00] Wherever they went, they would have this well of Miriam.
[00:04:03] And when Miriam passed away, the well dried up, meaning it was because of her merit that the well was giving water. And the Jews come to Moshe Rabbeinu. Come to Moshe and Moshe Rabbeinu. Moses and Aaron make a mistake in this week's Parasha. This is the sin of Moshe Rabbeinu that Moshe Rabbeinu. God commands Moshe to speak to the rock. And instead of speaking to the rock, he first he hits it.
[00:04:33] And because of that Moshe Rabbeinu, God decrees upon him that he will not enter into the land of Israel.
[00:04:41] The Parsha also tells us about the battle of Amalek, that this week's Parsha as well the Amalekim, they attacked the Jewish nation.
[00:04:51] And additionally the journeys of the Jewish people that the direction that they are taken, it seems to be going away from the land of Israel. And the Jewish people complain to Moshe that they complain against the man m this miraculous food that comes from heaven every day to them. Because of that, this plague of snakes attacks the Jewish people and bites many of the Jewish nation. And the people come to Moshe to pray on their behalf. And God commands him to take a, uh, staff and to make this molten snake. And we'll talk about, you know, this idea, what it represents. And the Jewish people, they look at this snake and they're healed.
[00:05:37] And finally, the parasha concludes with the battle of Sichon. And, um, where the Jewish nation asks the king of Sichon to pass through his land and he refuses and wages war against the Jewish people.
[00:05:53] Now, the first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the red heifer.
[00:05:59] Now, I've talked about it more in depth on other years. I just want to talk about one point which I think is very, um, you know, one. You know, very one nice idea about the red heifer. Now, as I mentioned, the red heifer is a divine ordinance. We're not going to fully understand it, but at the same time, the sages, you know, they give us maybe some reasons, maybe a little bit for us to understand, perhaps, you know, a small understanding of this mitzvah. And as I mentioned earlier, the biggest mystery of this mitzvah is that it. It makes the one who purifies impure, meaning the person who sprinkles these ashes, you know, they're the one who's the sprinkler.
[00:06:44] So even though they sprinkle it on someone who becomes pure, they become impure, right? So how does that work? How does.
[00:06:52] You know when you sprinkle someone else, it makes someone pure, but if you sprinkle it, you become impure? Now, how does that work?
[00:07:00] That's one of the biggest mysteries of the paraduma of the red heifer. And I think what I wanted to talk about today is not necessarily the reason behind that, whatever reasons that are given that our sages give us to help us, give us a little bit of understanding. But, uh, what I want to take out of this is a lesson. There's a profound lesson here. And I think one of the lessons which is brought down from this is that sometimes we think about helping other people and helping other people.
[00:07:27] We like helping, right? It feels good to help others to do a good thing.
[00:07:32] But one thing maybe that's not so comfortable for us to do when it comes to helping others is that helping other people is all good. If there's no skin off our back and we don't lose anything from it, we have nothing to lose but everything to gain. What about when it comes to helping somebody when it's not so convenient? Or maybe we're losing out, or maybe we have skin of the game, or maybe it's going to cause us some pain, maybe gonna cause us some aggravation, do we still wanna help out? Do we still wanna be there for someone else? And I think one powerful lesson we see from the paraduma, and specifically this process where the purifier becomes Impure is that when it comes to helping others, you have to be willing to help others, even if it's gonna come at a loss to you, right? Even if you're not gonna be totally benefiting from it. Now, obviously, I'm not saying you have to just lose everything. You have to know your limits and you have to know what you can do. But you have to have buy in and you have to be willing to at least give up of yourself for another person. That's something we all need to aspire to and live to. Now, obviously, again, there's limits. You have to know your limits. You shouldn't do something which you're not capable. Right? The Torah tells us, person shouldn't give away all this money to charity because they'll be poor. There's limits on that. Right.
[00:08:49] But the point is we should be willing to. And we need to train ourselves to be willing to give up of ourselves to help another person. And this is something I think we see from the paraduma, from this purification process where the purifier has to lose his status in order to help someone else gain purity. And I think this is a very powerful idea we see from this week's parasha. The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to the episode in this week's Parasha that discusses the Jewish people and their complaints against Moshe Rabbeinu and Hashem.
[00:09:25] So as I mentioned earlier, G D directs the Jewish nation to take a detour around the nation of Edom, which takes them away from the land of Israel. The Jewish people, out of their tiredness and weariness of traveling, comes to Moshe, to Moshe Rabbeinu and complains.
[00:09:47] And they say, you know, why did you take us out of Egypt for all this hardship? And that our souls are disgusted by this unsubstantial food which referring to the man and because of their not having the Hakaras Atov, not having the gratitude to Hashem to God for the miraculous existence that they've had until this point.
[00:10:11] A plague of snakes comes upon them and attacks the Jewish nation. They come to Moshe Rabbeinu, the Jewish people, and they ask him m to pray to Hashem because they have spoken slanderously against God. Moshe prays to Hashem and it seems the commentary tells that his prayer didn't work. Rather, Hashem, uh, tells him to take this snake to make a snake, and he makes a snake out of copper, wraps it around a stick, and the Jewish people look at the snake and they're cured. And Actually, just an interesting tidbit. The snake that is on an EMT's official emblem is this emblem of a snake on a pole. And that comes from the Torah portion, this week's Torah portion, because the Jewish people were healed by looking at the snake.
[00:11:02] Now, I wanted to talk a little bit about this today, this idea of the snake and you know, what it represents, because obviously in Judaism, it's not the snake that healed the Jewish nation, right? We don't believe in idols. We believe in Hashem, in one God. So what's this idea that, uh, Hashem commands Moshe to make this copper snake, where he just really commanded him to make the snake, and Moshe on his own, decided to make it out of copper, which is also, you know, nechoshes, which is similar to the Hebrew word for nachosh, which is snake in Hebrew. And just to get into this a little bit, the sin that the Jewish people did, why the prayer of Moshe didn't work, and the significance of the Jewish people looking at this snake to be healed. And the Chavez Chaim explains on this week's parsha, on this episode, that the sin of the Jewish people in this situation was the sin of Lashon Hara, was the sin of evil speech.
[00:12:05] And he asks a question, or he asks numerous questions on this episode. But once he focuses on this idea that why did the prayers of Moshe here in this situation not work?
[00:12:18] What was it about this sin, specifically of Lashon Hara, of evil speech, that prevented the prayers of Moshe from working? Right? We know that every time the Jewish nation got into trouble, they did something wrong. Moshe prayed and his prayers were accepted. But over here, for some reason, when it comes to the sin of speaking badly, of speaking Lashon Harav evil speech, Moshe's prayers were not answered. Rather, they had to come onto this, you know, this idea of this snake, this copper snake wrapped around a pole, and each one of the people that were bitten by the snake had to look into it to be healed. They had to come onto something different.
[00:12:59] And the Chavez Chaim explains that Lashon Hara evil speech is different than all other averos other sins, you know, because specifically, when a person sins, an accusing, um, angel is created.
[00:13:17] And, you know, when we all come to a heavenly judgment, those angels will be there. And obviously, on the flip side as well, on the good side, for every mitzvah, every good deed we do, there's a good angel that is created. But it seems like when it comes to the sin of evil, evil speech, it seems like a mouth is created, meaning that since God works Measure for measure, everything we do, we get back. And that works on the side of good, that when we do good things, we get paid back in a similar way.
[00:13:49] But on the flip side, if we do bad things, God forbid, the way we get paid back is in a similar fashion. It's m.
[00:13:57] Measure for measure. So if a person speaks about someone else, it doesn't create an angel, uh, you know, an accusing angel of the sin that he did. Rather, it creates this mouth that talks that is much more accusatory, that could cause much more damage, that cannot be silenced when it comes to the heavenly judgment. And in fact, that is the reason that when Moshe Rabbeinu prayed specifically in this situation, his prayer was not answered. Because the sin of lashon hara, the sin of evil speech, is much more powerful. It creates this, you know, this mouth that talks negatively against us, against the Jewish people.
[00:14:36] And it's just. It's a very powerful reminder of the power of speech. And in fact, the Chavez Chaim brings down that. We know that Talmud Torah, Kenegat Kulam, you know, obviously all the mitzvahs are important, but some mitzvahs have an extra emphasis to them.
[00:14:54] And it's brought down that tama Torah, the study of Torah, is equal to the rest of the mitzvahs. Studying Torah is such a powerful mitzvah that it's equal to all the other mitzvahs.
[00:15:07] And on the flip side, um, a person who speaks lashon hara, a person who speaks evil speech, it's as if he committed all the sins. And actually, in fact, the Talmud Yushalmi brings down that if a person speaks lashon hara, it's. It's as if the punishment for that could be equal to all the sins, uh, in the Torah. All the do not do's in the Torah. And the question is, what's the connection here?
[00:15:34] How do we understand this and the way that it is brought down? The Chavitz Chaim explains that he brings it down in a deep sense. But I want to bring it to a more simple level that all the mitzvahs that we do are connected to something physical. For example, you know, if we wear a tefillin, the tefillin is made out of leather, which comes from a cow.
[00:15:55] If we eat matzah, matzah is something which is made from food, which is also physical. It's physical. And all the mitzvahs are connected to physicality.
[00:16:06] But the one exception to that is the mitzvah of Talmud Torah, the mitzvah of studying Torah, it's totally spiritual. It's studying concepts, studying ideas. It's the studying the word of God. It's not connected to anything physical at all. Maybe the words are written in a book. But the point is, when you study Torah, there's no physical aspect of it. You don't have to have the book to do the mitzvah. A person could learn Torah, uh, orally with someone else or in his own mind. He doesn't have to come onto something physical at all. And that's why it's a higher level of mitzvahs. It's knegat kulam. It's equal to all the other mitzvahs because it's on a higher spiritual plane.
[00:16:43] It's much higher spiritually. There's no physical aspect to it. And on the same, you know, on the same vein, when it comes to lashon hara, when it comes to evil speech, it's, you know, the sin of evil speech is totally a. It's not attached to something physical either. It's just speech. It's just, you know, that the power of speech, which is unique to us as human beings.
[00:17:09] So in a way, it's the opposite of Talmud Torah. It's the total opposite. It's the m diametric opposite. And that's why it's appropriate that if a person sins through evil speech, the punishment could be equal to the rest of the sins of the Torah, because it's something which is not connected to anything physical. And maybe on a deeper sense, when there's a physical aspect to it, there's always that pull because we. We're made physicality.
[00:17:38] There's different components that make physicality. There's water, wind, um, dirt, fire.
[00:17:46] These are physical aspects within us. So maybe to take this idea one step further is my own thought is that when a person sins through a physical action, it's desire, it's lust, it's these physical forces that are based in fire, water, window, dirt, which pull a person to do something bad. So maybe it's bad.
[00:18:09] It's not something we should do. But maybe there's a small, uh, understanding there. Or it's less severe. I shouldn't say understanding, but it's less severe because there's a physical aspect that's attached to it. But when it comes to speech, it's something which is totally not physical. It's just speech. It's talking. It's nothingness, therefore the sins, you know, we can't say it's something which is attached to the physicality of m man. But rather it's, you know, it's just, it's just, um, it's a higher level of, you know, it's more severe because it's really for no good reason at all. It's just us talking. And that's why it's a much more severe sin.
[00:18:49] And I think the power, the lesson that we see from this week's Parasha is that when it comes to our speech, when it comes to what we say, we have to be careful what we say actually. And in fact the Torah aside for telling us that we shouldn't speak evil speech, it's a very general term, the Torah, there's halachos in Jewish law, it's listed what is considered lashon hara, what is considered evil speech. And it's not just things which are untrue, you can't say about someone else. Even things which are true and are negative, you cannot say about other people. It's very important to know this laws, is the laws of lashan hara that are listed for us in the code of Jewish law about what a person could say, what a person cannot say.
[00:19:28] And I think, uh, it's very self understood by any person that the damages that evil speech can do. You know, how many relationships are ruined, how many marriages, how many friendships, how many families, uh, are broken apart because of evil speech. And I think especially in our generation when we live in a time and place where people speak so freely and we have freedom of speech and everyone, you know, the first time you say something that, you know, if you say something to somebody, you shouldn't say that. Oh, it's my freedom of speech. No, we do need to be careful of what we say because words could hurt more even than, uh, you know, sticks and stones. Contrary to what that rhyme says, it's actually worse. It's much, much worse. So I think that's a powerful lesson we see, uh, in the spiritual realms from the Chavez Chayyim, how lashon hara, evil speech does tremendous damage and how it's something which is held to a higher standard. And I think for us, the lesson, uh, for our level even going into our lives, we could see how we should be careful of what we say and how we say things to remember that just like we're careful what goes into our mouth, that we make sure it's kosher, we make sure it's healthy, we want to make sure it's good for us. So too we have to be careful what goes out of our mouth to make sure that it's the proper thing. To be said to not speak bad about other people, even if the other person's not there.
[00:20:59] Lashon Hara applies even if you're speaking it to someone else and they're not around to get ourselves familiar with these laws to protect, you know, to make sure that we're in the. We're doing things correctly. So we shouldn't fall into the pitfalls of this. Lashon Hara. And just to touch. One last point here, going to this idea of the snake, because I did touch upon this, is that the Talmud tells us that it. That, you know, if you look at the situation with the snake, Hashem tells Moshe to create this snake. So what's going on here? We believe that snakes can heal people, right? Moshe's prayers works, but snakes did not pray the that snakes work.
[00:21:35] And the Talmud asked this question. It says, what is it the snake that heals? Because every person would look at the snake and be healed. And the Talmud answers that it's not the snake that heals, but rather a person would look at the snake and remember what he had done or she had done. And they would direct their thoughts and mind to Hashem, and they would be healed. The that Hashem was commanding Moshe to create the snake. That the people themselves can rectify their own misdeeds by remembering what they had done. Because a snake also just comes back to this idea that the snake represents evil speech. Because by Adam and Eve, by Adam, Rishon and Chava, the snake was the one that caused evil speech, that first sin of evil speech. And that's why the Jewish people got punished with this plague of serpents.
[00:22:26] So the plague that was the thing that afflicted them was also the thing that healed them as well. Because when they realized what they had done and they sincerely repented in their hearts and directed their hearts to Hashem, they were miraculously healed. And I think just one last idea, which I could take out from this snake, is that sometimes, um, the source of our affliction is also the source of our salvation. Right? You know, sometimes the snakes have this venomous bite, but at the same time, the venom is used to create antibodies and antibiotics and special medications as well. And I think that's maybe what the emts paramedics took that for. But there's a dual lesson here, is that obviously it's not the snake that heals, it's Hashem. But it's also remembering that sometimes the, um, the thing that strikes us can really be the source of our salvation. If we just direct our hearts and our minds to sometimes. Why are things happening? What can I do to improve ourselves? What can we do to improve ourselves? And G d only when we do that, when we direct ourselves and our mind to Hashem, we get that salvation and become better people. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me an email@rabbishlamokon kohnmail.com have a great day.
