Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, Practical Parasha podcast listeners. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and before we start this regularly scheduled episode, I want to apologize in advance.
For this week's episode. We had a technical difficulty for the first 15 minutes of recording, and the audio is not as good quality as I like it to be, but everything is from divine providence.
Everything is in Hashem's plan. And I figured that this message that
[00:00:24] Speaker B: we're saying this week had to be
[00:00:26] Speaker A: said in this way, and I didn't want to just cut it out and redo it with the mic. So I hope you forgive me. Enjoy the episode, and we'll see you next week.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: 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.
For this week's episode, I want to start off by dedicating it as a merit for the Jewish people, for the people in Israel, for the soldiers, Israeli soldiers, and the American soldiers who are battling against the Iranian regime.
Hashem, uh, should protect all of us, everybody, and give us a speedy salvation.
Additionally, I want to dedicate this episode as well as a merit for a, uh, Fuwa Shalema, for Itay Benmirah. A listener reached out to me recently that his son was diagnosed with an illness.
And it was inspiring to see.
And it was inspiring to see that as a merit for his son, he is doing more mitzvahs and trying to add things to his life. That's a beautiful thing. And I was inspired from that email. And I want to dedicate this episode as a merit for his son that he should have a complete and speedy recovery, God willing.
This week's parsha is Parshas Kisisa.
Now, Parshas Kisisa starts off with the commandment that Hashem gives to Moshe Rabbeinu to count the Jewish people to have conduct a census of the population of the nation. And the way that this census is to be done is that Moshe Rabbeinu would take a half shekel from every male over 20.
There was different reasons as to why the census was done, particularly at this moment. And we see a few times in the Torah that Hashem commands Moshe Rabbeinu to conduct this census accounting.
But the way that it was done was very interesting. It was with a half shekel coin.
No one could give more and no one could give less.
And we'll maybe talk about this a little bit as we get into the podcast.
Additionally, the Parasha ah, also tells us about some of the different parts of the Mishkan. Right. We're continuing with the discussion of the tabernacle. We talk about the kiyor, the laver, the special, um, you know, special vessel that was used for the kohanim to wash their hands and feet before they would do the service.
And we talk about the different anointment oils that were used.
The parsha discusses the ketoros, how it was made, the special incense that was offered in the tabernacle and the temple, how it was done.
And specifically, the parsha designates Beitzal and Oliyev as the foreman of the tabernacle to get it done.
Parsha also discusses Shabbos importance, the commandment to keep Shabbos. The parsha also tells us how Moshe Rabbeinu receives the tablets, the first Luchos, the first set of tablets from Hashem.
And probably what this parsha is most famous for is the, uh, story of the golden calf.
Now, Moshe Rabbeinu goes up to Shamayim, goes up to heaven to receive the tablets, to receive the Torah from Hashem.
And the Jewish people miscalculate in the time in the day when he's supposed to come back. And the. The. The riffraff, the Eriv Rav of the. Of the nation, starts saying that Moshe Rabbeinu has died.
And they cause a commotion and have this idea of, you know, serving, getting a new God, getting a new intermediary. And what comes out of this whole back and forth is that the Jewish people, in their haste, they take gold and silver, they throw into a fire, and out comes a golden calf, and they worship this golden calf. Now, we've talked about in other years, you know, where did the Jewish people go wrong in this? How could they have made such a grave mistake so soon after receiving the Torah, after hearing the word of Hashem, how could they have done this to go after they were at Mount Sinai, and they get the Torah to now, such a short time later, to go commit idol worship, one of the three cardinal sins. We've talked about that in the past.
But the parasha details for us how Moshe comes down. He sees that the Jewish people worshiping this egil, this calf. He smashes the first tablets, the first set of Luchos.
And he has to, you know, he has to exact judgment on the people who have sinned. But at the same time, he advocates for the Jewish nation. So, uh, Hashem should. Should not destroy the Jewish people after such a grave sin that they have done.
He advocates for their behalf that Hashem should forgive them.
And Moshe does That successfully, the Parasha finishes off with Moshe rabbeinu receiving the second tablets, as well as Hashem, revealing to him the 13 attributes of mercy, which are these special verses that talk about these special traits of Hashem, uh, the 13 attributes of mercy, of God.
When we say these prayers, we always get answered. Um, and I'm sure if you think about the prayers of Yom Kippur, we mention them many times throughout Yom Kippur to affect that salvation for ourselves. And that is introduced in this week's Parsha. The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parasha.
The Parsha starts off with the commandment from Hashem to do this census, to conduct a census to count the Jewish people.
And the way it's done is with this half shekel, this half of this silver shekel.
Now, like I said earlier, a rich person couldn't give more, a poor person couldn't give less.
You have to give exactly a half of a shekel.
And the commentary is explained that the theme of this is very much tied into this idea of unity, that in the Jewish people, you have different. You know, you have people who are smarter, you have people who are richer, you have people who are different.
But there is this aspect which is represented in the. In the chati shekel and the half. So silver coin that in certain aspects were all equal.
And actually it's brought down that these silver coins from the Habshackel were only to be used for specific purposes.
It could only be used, um, for the service, for the carbonos, for the communal offerings that were brought in the tabernacle, meaning that the avodah of the Mishkan, this service of the Mishkan, which was, you know, for the benefit of the entire nation, had to come from the entire nation, and everyone had an equal share in it.
And I saw even more to this idea that from this census as well, actually the silver coins were used for the base of the.
Of the Mishkan. Meaning the Mishkan had these elaborate type of walls, right? The Mishkan was this portable and mobile temple where the walls and everything in it could be broken down and taken apart to be transported and then put up again and the process would repeat itself.
But it's brought down that although the rest of the Mishkan, right, and we talked about this in earlier parshios and other Torah portions from the past few weeks, people could give from their heart, meaning, if people wanted to donate for the mizbeyak, for the table for all these, for the menorah, for all the clothing of the Cohen Gado. Uh, right. It could come from any person gave as much as they wanted. There was no limit to it.
But we see over here for the bases, for these, the silver Adonim, these silver bases which the walls of the Mishkan were put into. It was like these, you know, they fit in. If you would see a picture, there was like these slots and the walls, these pieces of wall would connect into these silver bases.
And from that the Mishkan would be supported. Those silver bases were created from the silver of the half shekel coin.
Now the question is, why is it that out of all the different parts of the Mishkan, everything else could be from a donation from whatever you desired in your heart to give. You could give a million, you can give five bucks. It doesn't make a difference. But the Adonim, the supports for the Mishkan had to come from the silver coins which everyone gave the same.
Is there something significant to that?
And I saw brought down from Rabb Yosef TZVI of Salant, that the significance of the Adonim, these, these foundation blocks of silver that the Mishkan rested on, why they had to be made out of this, out of the silver coin that everyone gave the same amount in, is to teach us an important lesson. You know, there's different types of Jews, like we said earlier. There's some who are very, very scholarly, and there are those who are more simple, but they're very strong in their beliefs.
And you have wealthy Jews and you have people who are not so wealthy, but they serve God in the same way.
There's a very famous Gemara. Talmud relates that we know moshe rabbeinu. There's 613 mitzvahs. He formulated the Torah. It was given to us by Hashem. And It's. We have 613 commandments.
Now, the Talmud relates in the end of Machos that different sages and I guess great people in Jewish history came down and they subsumed these 613 mitzvahs. Not that they took them away, but they sort of categorized them in a lesser number.
For, you know, they saw the generations had gone down. Not that there's no mitzvahs, but they said, okay, you know, for example, King David said, if you focus on these 11 principles, you'll come to the rest of keeping the 613. And then Isaiah, uh, did the same concept. He saw the nation had fallen even more and said, if you do these six Principles, you follow them very well, you will come to fulfilling the full 6 13. And MI did the same thing and he brought it down to three. If you follow these three principles, you'll come to fulfill the entire Torah. Until Habakkuk came and he and he put The Torah, the 613 commandments of the Torah, on one principle.
Which is what?
Sadiq bamunasay yechia.
A righteous person lives by his emunah.
What does this mean?
It means that the foundation of the entire Torah, what the whole Torah rests on, is emunah.
Emunah is translated as faith. But it's not just faith, it's belief. It's believing in hashem.
And if a person has a sincere and unwavering, wavering faith and belief in Hashem, this will lead him to fulfilling the entire Torah.
I think the lesson here when it comes to the Adonim, these foundations, is this lesson. That's what Reb Yosef Tzi of Salant is explaining to us.
He's telling us that the Mishkan, the tabernacle, had to rest on these silver foundations, which came from everyone equally. To teach us this point, that when it comes to the foundation of Yiddishkeit, the foundation of Judaism, which is emunah, everyone is the same.
We're all the same. You could have a scholarly person, if he's missing emunah, he's missing the boat, right? And you could have a person who's not so learned, didn't grow up with much Judaism in his life, but he has that emunah. Um, he has that faith, that belief, and he's better off than the guy who's the Torah scholar without that faith. But the point is, this is something which we all have to have equally in our lives. To trust in Hashem, to believe in Hashem, to know that everything runs with divine providence. I'm m talking about emunah and talking about it as a broad term, but what does that mean? It means having bitachon to trust. It's having the realization that Hashem is running the world with our best interests in mind to recognize that he is in charge and there's nothing else. And I think this idea is a very important idea always and especially in the tumultuous times that we're living in.
You know, there's so many distractions, and it's not so easy to get to the levels that our forefathers, our grandfathers, got to.
Not saying we shouldn't try, we have to do our part and we could achieve high levels. But at the same time, with everything that's going on around us, we have to remember, we have to have that emunah. Now, that doesn't mean blind faith. It means trust in hashem.
It means realizing divine providence. It. It means all the concepts that we've heard about. It means internalizing it. And that's the significance of the mishkan resting on these half shekels to tell us that the, uh, foundation of the tabernacle, the foundation of the Torah is emunah. It all comes down to that. And specifically with this half shekel, where everyone gave the same amount of it, that everyone has to have it, no matter who you are, where you come from, what your background is.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to the story of the golden calf.
Now, we've talked in previous years about how the Jewish people could have came to such a grave, you know, avera, a grave sin. But I want to focus on today, on one point which I saw was brought down from the Siforno, from the Siporno.
And also Rabbi Fran brings down that the Ramban Nachmanides talks about this later on in Devarim, when the Torah also recounts the story of the egil, the
[00:16:23] Speaker B: story of the golden calf.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: The Torah tells us that when Moshe Rabbeinu came down after, you know, with the tablets, it says, vahikashir korav elamachanev vayar ESA egal u mecholois vayicharaf moishe vayishlach miodav es aluchois, uh, vayishaberaisam tachas hahar. The posse tells us that when, and it was when, it's referring to Moshe, when he got close to the camp and he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moshe became angry and he threw the tablets from his hands and he broke them beneath the mountain.
So the Seporno comments on this, that we see that the pasuk, the verse, focuses on the fact that.
That M. Moshe saw the Jewish people dancing around the golden calf.
There's more of a focus on the dancing than, uh, on the actual idol worship that had happened, right? Idol worship is one of the three cardinal sins of Judaism that a Jew has to give up his life for. But the first thing you know, or what the pasuk seems to be focusing on is this dancing. And then Moshe got angry, upset, and he smashed the luchos, he smashed the tablets.
So the Sepororno explains when Moshe Rabbeinu saw that the Jewish people were happy with the situation of what they had created, right?
It was only there, right, that through this.
Shiyach zeru lisamusam v' yuruyim loyza melochos.
He recognized that on that moment, he got upset and he gave up on the fact that he would be able to fix this perfectly to what they should have been able to receive. These first set of luchos, the first set of tablets, were on extremely high level. He realized from the fact that they were happy that they were not on that level. He wouldn't be able to fix it up. And. And therefore he had to smash the luchos. He realized that he couldn't just put them on the side, put them away for later, and get the Jewish people to do teshuvah to get them to repent, he had to smash them. He recognized that they were not ready for it.
They hadn't, you know, so to say, they hadn't hit rock bottom. And I think the lesson here for us is that, you know, we live in a society today where guilt is a bad thing, right? If we feel guilt, it's not good.
I think what we see from this is that feeling bad about doing something we're not supposed to be doing is a healthy thing. That means we're in touch with ourselves, right? When the Jewish people were serving the calf and Moshe saw they're happy what they are doing, there was no hope for them. That's why Moshe had to smash the tablets, right? But so the lesson here is that when we do something bad or we do something maybe that we're not supposed to be doing and we feel bad about it, we should be happy that we feel bad. That sounds a little funny.
We should recognize that the fact that we feel guilt and the fact we're upset at ourselves is a positive thing. Not if we stay in that way. Not if we stay in that ichy mood, but to use it as a springboard to improve ourselves. And that's what Moshe Rabbeinu recognized here, that they weren't on the level to take the luchos, and he had to smash it because they weren't able to. He saw he wasn't going to be able to fix it up.
So we have to remember to ourselves that when we slip and we, you know, we don't live up to our expectations or others expectations or Hashem's expectations, and we feel bad about it, we should be happy, and we should use it as a, you know, as a moment to change things around, and it can be used for good.
Another idea I want to share from this week's Parasha So many beautiful thoughts is that the Parsha tells us about Yeshua, the Joshua, and we know actually that Moshe Rabbeinu is his, uh, disciple who eventually takes him over and leads the Jewish nation into Eretz Yisrael, into the land of Israel was Joshua.
And actually Rashi brings down on a verse in this week's Parasha, um, it says in the psukim part of the verse reads as follows, Mishar, so Yeshua benun narv le yamish mitechael that his servant Joshua, son of nun, he was a lad, he would not depart from within the tent. And Rashi brings down that Moshe Rabbeinu wanted that his sons should take over the leadership of the Jewish people.
But Hashem told him that it was Joshua, it was Yeshua who would be the one to merit leading the Jewish nation into Eretz Yisrael, into the land of Israel, and take over the mantle of leadership from Moshe.
What is the reason that it was Joshua, it was Yeshua who was picked to be the leader. Why him more than, you know, Moshe's sons, I'm sure, were great people.
What did he do that he merited to get the leadership?
And the answer is really in this week's Parsha, it means that Yeshua never left Moshe's side.
He was a true Talmud, he was a true student.
And because of that, he became the leader.
So we could say from this idea that although in Judaism, in the Torah, Torah scholars, we look up to Torah scholars. Any leader has to be a Torah scholar.
But Torah scholarship is not a be all, end all when it comes to, you know, avodah Hashem, service of God and leadership. Now, what is that you're going to ask me? You don't have to be the biggest Torah scholar to be the leader. No, of course you have to be a big Torah scholar. But it maybe seems from the psukim, from the verse, we could maybe infer from the fact that Joshua was picked up is that maybe Joshua was a huge Torah scholar, but maybe he wasn't the biggest in the nation, but from the fact that he was so close to Moshe, he observed him, he was
[00:23:12] Speaker B: in his, he was in his, you
[00:23:14] Speaker A: know, his Dalet Amos, he was always around him all the time, right? He never left from within his tent. He always shadowed him.
So part of learning is learning by example.
And because Yeshua, because Joshua always was with Moshe, he was the most qualified to lead a Jewish nation. So of course he was a Torah scholar, but maybe he wasn't the biggest in the nation. But yet, since he was with Moshe all the time, he learned through example. You know, there's a, uh, concept the
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Talmud says great is there.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: You know, Shimusha is accompanying a Torah scholar more than even their learning.
And this was Joshua. That's why he merited to take over the mantle of leadership. Now, how does this tie to us? What's the lesson we can take out of this? I think we see from this the power, the influence of being around good people.
If we see from Yeshua and in general, that the end all and be all is not just Torah learning, of course we have to learn. Of course that's a prerequisite for anything. That's not everything.
It's the taking, the learning that you do and putting into action. And one of the ways of taking, learning and putting into action is, uh, observing it in real life by observing Torah scholars. So when we're around good people, when or when we're around people who act in the proper way, who go in the ways of the Torah, that's going to influence us.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: And the same could be said for ourselves.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: When we act in an elevated manner and we follow the ways of the Torah, and we're real people, will respect you for it. You don't have to go down to the gutter to try to relate to others.
You can bring them up. And when we say bring them up, you don't have to do anything to bring them up. When you live according to the principles of the Torah, it happens automatically. People will want to be like you. They'll strive. And that's this idea of being also a light unto the nations. What does that mean? Being a light unto the nations of the Jewish people is that when we as a nation, also as individuals and as a nation, we live with the principles and the ideals of the Torah, we're an example for the rest of the world that everyone wants to emulate. I think this is a very powerful idea from this week's Parasha. So with that, I'm going to finish for this week's episode. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com have a great day.
