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 Cohon, and I hope you are well. I'm sitting here. It's a few hours after Pesach has ended. I finished putting away the Pesach dishes and everything. We used this past Pesach, and it's Thursday night, and the parsha doesn't stop.
[00:00:24] This week's parsha is Parsha al Shmini.
[00:00:27] And I decided I don't want to leave you for two weeks without a podcast. Miss one of the parshios of the Torah.
[00:00:37] And I was thinking about it, and over the holiday over Pesach, I was able to look over some ideas. And I'm thinking maybe just come tonight after I put away the dishes. Everything's in order. The kids are sleeping. Share some thoughts on. On the Parasha. And maybe I was thinking maybe to share some thoughts about maybe reflections on the holiday that just passed us Pesach.
[00:01:03] So I hope you had a nice holiday. I hope you enjoyed the matzah and the moror and all the, you know, the matzo balls and all the good, enjoyable things about Pesach, the family time, the Haggadah, the Mitzvos, most importantly.
[00:01:18] So we're here tonight, and we'll share some thoughts. And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, we'd like to reach out, send me an email.
[00:01:29] Rabbi Shlomokon kohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:01:34] So, as I mentioned, we just finished Pesach, we finished the holiday of Passover, and I want to share a thought with you that I heard said over from Rabbi Byron, who's a very esteemed Torah scholar who was visiting my community, and he shared a story, and I want to share that with you tonight. And then we'll segue into the weekly Torah portion. Rav Hutner was one of the great Torah leaders in the United States in the last generation, and he was a great thinker and writer.
[00:02:10] And he used to say that it's not just us going through a holiday, that we don't just experience the holiday of Pesach, but rather the holiday has to go through us. Right? Uh, he said it in Yiddish. I'm just translating it. But the point is that we can't just go through the holiday. We have to have it go through us. We have to take something from the holiday with us throughout the year, throughout our lives, to make us a better person, to make us a better Jew.
[00:02:40] And that's really, the idea is, you know, you think about going one of the three regalim, the three pilgrimages that when the Beis Hamigd were standing, the Jewish people. We have a mitzvah to go to Jerusalem three times a year was to reinvigorate a Jew in the service of Hashem.
[00:02:56] And nowadays as well, the holidays are supposed to keep us, you know, connected and rejuvenated.
[00:03:04] And one of the ideas that he shared with us over the holiday, Rabbi Byron, he said there was a story that he heard, and a couple years ago, he was on a tour of Eastern Europe. And on this tour of Eastern Europe, he was in the city of Krakow. Krakow, historically, was a tremendous Jewish city. Before World War II, there was hundreds of thousands of Jews that lived in Krakow. Tremendous synagogues and yeshivas and just Jewish life. And when the Nazis came, they destroyed it all.
[00:03:40] And when he was in this tour of Krakow, the tour guide pointed out to an apartment.
[00:03:48] You know, as they're walking down the street, he says, to see that apartment, there were two brothers, the Brachfeld brothers, who hid from the Nazis in that attic, in that apartment.
[00:04:03] And they would just.
[00:04:04] At night, when things were quiet, they would sneak down, get whatever they needed and sneak back up to their attic. And they were able to survive there for, you know, a, uh, uh, prolonged amount of time. They were eventually, you know, caught by the Nazis and they went from concentration camp to concentration camp. But ultimately they survived.
[00:04:27] And the tour guide told Rabbi Byron this following story that he had heard from the Brachfeld brothers.
[00:04:37] One year, it was getting close to Pesach.
[00:04:39] And the two brothers, they said, you know, the older brother said to the younger brother, it's getting close to Pesach. What are we going to do for the Seder?
[00:04:48] The younger brother turns to the older one and says, pesach, Seder.
[00:04:53] We're fighting for our lives here from the Nazis.
[00:04:56] Why are we thinking about a Seder? He says, no, we gotta make a Seder. We're gonna do whatever we can.
[00:05:01] So somehow, miraculously, they were able to procure some flammable painting oil.
[00:05:12] And they were able to get their hands on some flour.
[00:05:15] And from what they had from that oil that was able to burn and that flour, they were able to create some type of matzah that they were able to make these two small matzos.
[00:05:31] And from those two matzahs, they were able to do some type of makeshift seder. Now, these matzos, how do they look?
[00:05:40] How were. They didn't look like our matzahs, but in Hashem's eyes in the time that they were in, they were sure very precious. The fact that they tried the best they could in that situation to do the mitzvah.
[00:05:56] Now, during the seder, one of the brothers asked the other, you know, the whole Pesach, the whole holiday of Passover is about freedom.
[00:06:09] It's about that the Jewish people went out of Mitzrayim.
[00:06:14] We went out from bondage to freedom.
[00:06:19] And he turns to his older brother and he says, how is it that we could be celebrating Pesach?
[00:06:27] We're under the threat of being killed by the Nazis. How is this freedom?
[00:06:32] How is this that we're living, you know, as exalted, free people? How do we understand this? How can we celebrate Passover? How can we celebrate Pesach in such a way?
[00:06:46] The older brother turned to his younger brother and said to him as follows.
[00:06:51] We daven in the Mirev prayer in the evening service. Veemuna Kozois is a special prayer, we say, that testifies to the fact that just like Hashem took care of us in the past, he will also redeem us in the future.
[00:07:07] And the words of some of the prayers are very interesting.
[00:07:12] It says, He struck with his anger all the firstborn of Egypt and removed his people Israel, from their midst to eternal freedom, Meaning he took the Jewish people out of Mitzrayim, Leche Rus Oylam, an eternal freedom that once Hashem took us out of Mitsrayim.
[00:07:40] He separated us from the impurities of the land of Egypt, from all the spiritual things that were holding us back, from the fact that our people, we were idol worshipers in Mitzrayim. We were the lowest of the low. We were on the lowest level of tomorrow, the 49th level of impurity. And the commentaries tell us, if we would have been there a second longer, the Jewish people would have been lost.
[00:08:06] And Hashem, he took us out from that. He took us out of our limitations.
[00:08:11] He took us out from the things that are holding us back.
[00:08:15] And he said to his brother, this is what Yitzchia's Mitzrayim is all about. This is what going out of Mitzrayim is all about. Sure, right now we're, you know, we're. We're under threat from the Nazis. We're running for our lives. But that doesn't change the fact that. That we're still free people, that we're still. Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim. He gave us the ability to overcome our inclinations, to overcome the things that are Going to hold us back to serve Hashem in the highest level. And that's what it means. True freedom is when we're able.
[00:08:51] It's not defined by the physical place that you're in, but rather the mindset that you have on the things that you can achieve, whether it be just decisions you make, um, or the outlook that you have.
[00:09:07] That's all from Mitzrayim that the Jewish people went out Hashem, ah, gave us this ability to overcome the things that enslave us, the things that hold us back.
[00:09:21] And there's nothing that can hold us back.
[00:09:24] So although nowadays 2026, we're not, you know, we're still in gullus, we're still in exile, we're not in our land.
[00:09:35] You know, it hasn't happened yet.
[00:09:37] But we still have this ability. We went out of Mitzrayim, this eternal freedom that a Jew has, this ability to overcome, to subjugate his evil inclinations, to break free of the things that are enslaving him. And there's so many things that we could fill in the blank for that enslave each and every one of us, our desires, the things that push us in the wrong directions. We have the ability to do that that came from Mitzrayim. I think that's a very beautiful message that we can take with us from this holiday, that this is what Pesach is all about. This is what going out of Mitzrayim is all about. One of the ideas we, of the main ideas of Pesach, and we could take that going forward to help us, especially during this time going towards Shavuos, where we are going to be accepting the Torah, to remember that we have the ability to push ourselves spiritually to overcome the desires that want to hold us back from getting closer to Hashem, that want to hold us back from getting closer to Torah.
[00:10:40] And we could use that now to be better people as the holiday of Shavuos approaches.
[00:10:46] Now, just to jump into the weekly Parsha, I'm not going to do such a big overview of the Parsha. I saw a few nice ideas in Parsha Shmini.
[00:10:56] Parsha Shmini talks about, you know, the priestly service of the Mishkan begins finally, and the Torah tells us as well. There's also the story of Nadav and Avi, the sons of Aaron, who unfortunately enter into the sanctuary, you know, in error, and they die because of that. And additionally, in this week's Parsha, we have the laws of Kashrus, the forbidden animals and forbidden birds, as well as kosher creatures and as well as the prohibitions of eating creepy crawlers and bugs.
[00:11:34] Now, the first idea I want to share with you takes us to the deaths of Nadav and Aviu, the two sons of Aaron.
[00:11:43] The commentaries explain that the sons of Aaron, Nadav and Aviu, were really righteous individuals. They were on a very high exalted level.
[00:11:52] But it's because of their exalted level that they made a fatal error.
[00:11:58] And the Torah tells us that they brought Aish Zorah, an alien fire, into the Kodesh Kadashim, and a fire consumed them.
[00:12:14] And the commentary is explained. It's very interesting. I've discussed this in past years, episodes Nadavanaviyu. Were they righteous people or were they, you know, what were they exactly? Were they wicked people? They, uh, were definitely very righteous. But it's because of their righteousness that they made a certain error and they made this mistake of going into the Tabernacle with this alien fire. Now, Rav Hirsch, he explains, just to give us a little bit of understanding of what happened, he explains that Nadav and Aviu, they were. It refers to them in the Parsha as B' Nai Aron, that they looked at themselves that, uh, they are the sons of Aaron, and they did something that they should have asked before they did it, right? They consider themselves the sons of Aaron Hakohen. And because they were sons of Aharon Hakoh, they thought to themselves in mistake, right, that they didn't have to ask. They know better.
[00:13:09] And therefore they could just do what they thought was correct.
[00:13:13] And what did they do?
[00:13:16] They made a calculation. They took a fire.
[00:13:19] They took their own fire, and they went unbidden into the Kodesh Hakadashim, the holy of Holies. And because of that, a fire came down and consumed them, and they died.
[00:13:31] Ravirj explains that the mistake that they made was that they were very righteous and they were on a very exalted level.
[00:13:42] But it's because that they were on that exalted level that they desired to get closer to Hashem.
[00:13:48] More and more, they use their own logic, and they use the service of the Mishkan, the service of the Tabernacle, as a vehicle to their own closeness to Hashem.
[00:14:01] And that was a mistake, meaning they took their own fire. And they also, it says that the Gemara brings down that they were intoxicated when they went into the holy of holies, meaning they used methods and ways that they thought was best to get that closeness to Hashem.
[00:14:20] They failed to realize that the service of the mishkan, the avodah, and really the kohanim in general, the priests in general, it wasn't a personal, um, service for them to get personal benefit out of that. Sure, a kohen, a priest who served in the beis hamikdash would. Would get to a exalted level, but it's not that it was for him to get to that level. The kohen, the priest was doing this for the sake of the Jewish nation. He was just a conduit, a messenger, um, of the Jewish nation.
[00:14:55] And this is not something that was for himself. You know, you think for a moment the birchas kohan, and we just came from the holiday. I am a kohen, and we had the priestly blessings at Ashkenazim. Ashkenazic Jews, we only do the birchas kohanim on holidays. Sephardic Jews do it every day. Outside of the land of Israel, Ashkenazim only do it on the holidays. But the kohanim, when the kohanim bless the people, it's not that the kohanim, the priests, are, uh, the ones giving the bracha.
[00:15:26] We are just the conduits, the messengers. Hashem gives the bracha, and the kohanima are the ones who. That just. It flows through them to the Jewish nation. And that's really the whole idea of the service in the tabernacle, the service of bis, hamigdish, and the kohanim in general, is that it wasn't for their personal growth.
[00:15:46] This avodah, the service in the tabernacle, it was something that it was for the nation as a whole.
[00:15:54] And this is something that they didn't, you know, maybe in their level, that their desire to. To get closest to hashem, uh, to get closer and closer, they erred and used it in a personal fashion. And because of that, they were punished. And I think the lesson here that we could take out of this is that, you know, we're all involved in things that are not just, you know, our own. We're involved with other people. We have jobs. We're in communities.
[00:16:24] And many times there's always a. Sometimes there could be a disagreement, or you could see things one way and someone else could see things differently.
[00:16:35] And there's a natural urge to, you know, say our way or the high highway. I'm volunteering my time to help to do something good, and you're in my way. Like, let me do it the way I want to do it, right? And maybe we think we know better, but the point Is we have to remember, especially when it comes to communal things and things we're working with other people. It's not about us.
[00:16:58] It's not about us.
[00:17:00] It's about the bigger picture. So when we're doing something for our shul, for our community, it's okay. It's not about. Is the goal, is the task being completed, Is the job getting done?
[00:17:13] The answer to that is yes, Then let's get our egos out of the way, right? Because it's not about us. It's about the community, it's about the shoal, it's about the Torah, it's about hashem. The point is, is that when we have this outlook that it's not about us, it lends to situations, less conflict, less arguments, less mistakes. I think this is a lesson we could take out from the, you know, the tragic event of Nadav and Avi, that as great as they were, they, you know, obviously, in their love of hashem, you know, it's hard for us to understand they were on such a great level that they made this mistake. But, you know, from that error that they made, we could learn from that, that we should remember that it's not about us always, and there's a bigger picture involved. The second idea I want to share with you takes us to the laws of kashrus, which, which, ah, are talked about at length in this week's Parasha. So the Torah tells us about the animals that are kosher. What makes a kosher animal? Right? You have split hooves, choose its cud. And the Torah lists the birds that are forbidden, as well as the forbidden insects. And there are some permitted insects. Nowadays, we don't necessarily have a, um, clear tradition. There are some people that do certain types of grasshoppers, if that know something seems enticing to you. But the point is, is that the Torah delineates for us very clearly what is kosher, what is not kosher.
[00:18:44] And, you know, when you think about the laws of kashrus, the laws of kosher, there's many different parts to it. There's the type of animals, and it's not just the type of animals that the meat has to be shechted. It's to be slaughtered in a certain type of way.
[00:18:58] Aside, uh, from being shechted slaughtered, the meat has to be salted as well.
[00:19:02] And then even past that, for food to be kosher has to be watched in a certain way. It can't just be sealed, and when it's cooked, it has to be cooked in kosher pots. In a kosher oven and so on and so forth. Uh, or even you could have vegetables and fruits, right? Although a vegetable and fruit is kosher intrinsically. But you could have bugs, infestations of bugs in foods such as lettuce or certain types of berries where it could, you know, if it's not cleaned in the proper way, it's not kosher. You can't eat it. But the point here is, when it's talked about kosher, we think about, you know, what is kosher. And a lot of times when at work and different interactions with non Jews, you know, I always, like, try to cue people, see what they think kosher is. Many times people think it's the rabbi blesses it or the rabbi makes it kosher.
[00:19:56] But the point is, kosher is, like we said, it's the Torah list for us, what animals are good. And we have the different steps along the way in order for something to be totally kosher. Now, the first reason we have to remember that why Jews eat kosher is because Hashem, uh, told us to do that, right? When it comes to a lot of mitzvahs, or really all mitzvahs, at the end of the day, we want to understand them and get reasonings for them and appreciate them as much as we can. But we always have to know that we do mitzvahs because Hashem told us to do it. Now, when it comes to kosher, the Torah does give us guidance on what, you know, why we have to keep kosher. And the idea is that a Jew's soul, we have a certain spiritual capacity that we want, that we need to reach, and we have certain mitzvahs we need to do. And Rav Hirsch explains on this is that in the world that we live in, there's a certain feeling that the material and the spiritual are separate, that the, uh, material actions, what we do, have no effect in the spiritual realms. And I've talked about this in the past in regards to mitzvahs, that when we do mitzvos, the mitzvahs, we do have an, uh, effect on the physical world that we're in. So if a person does a mitzvah, the sun is going to shine nicer, right? I'm being a little bit exaggerating, but the point is it does affect the physical world that we're in Now. Ravharj explains it by kosher in the opposite direction is that the material things we do, the physical things we do also affect the spiritual side of things as well. That in order for us to be the most refined and to keep ourselves, you know, to not clog up these spiritual pipes that we have, and to keep ourselves, you know, the most refined possible. Hashem gave us a specific diet for us to eat that, you know, the expression, you are what you eat. You know, it rings the most true here, right? The person eats bad foods and unhealthy foods, it's going to cause bad things to happen, God forbid. So the material, the physical things we eat affect the spiritual traits of who we are. And that's just a, uh, beautiful. I thought I saw from Rav Hirsch that it's not separate, that what we eat can affect the spiritual side of us as well. And that's one idea to give us a little understanding of the ideas of kosher and the Torah spells out for us.
[00:22:31] And you could go deeper of why, uh, chewing the cud or why split hooves, why these animals are the animals that don't, you know, contaminate our soul. That's for another episode. But the point is, the Torah clearly spells out for us which foods help us, you know, keep the pipes clear to make sure everything is good. Right. And similarly, we can understand, right, if a person eats certain foods, they're gonna cause, you know, could clog arteries. There's other foods that could. Each food has a certain, you know, effect to it. And in the spiritual side as well, uh, that the foods that we eat also affect us in a spiritual sense. And really, in order to harness that spirit, we have to make sure that the material, the material, the food, the things we ingest is also the proper things as well. With that, I'm going to finish for this week's Parasha. I hope you enjoyed.
[00:23:27] If you have any questions, comments, or like to reach out, feel free to send me email at rabbi shlomo kon kohnmail.com have a great Shabbos.
