Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, everybody. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen. And before we begin this episode, I want to just apologize about a technical difficulty we had for this episode. Normally, I like to give the highest quality audio experience to everybody, but unfortunately, due to things beyond my control, this time I by mistake hit the wrong mic button and we got the wrong mic.
[00:00:27] So forgive me for this episode. It's still the same great content, just not the best quality audio as usual. 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.
[00:00:44] Before we jump into this week's Parasha, I wanted to thank all of you who helped me reach my goal for this campaign. I talked about it last episode for my community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the Bethsalem Jewish Outreach Center.
[00:01:03] And I thank all of you who donated to my link. And for those of you who still wanted to do it and haven't done it yet, I'll let you do it still, if you want, I'll put the link in the show notes. But I thank you all. You should be blessed with health, happiness, and everything good.
[00:01:22] I also wanted to share a reflection that I had this past week. Now, as many of you know, I've been blessed to get to know some of you, and many fascinating, amazing people have reached out to me throughout the years. And this week, I was in contact with, uh, such an individual.
[00:01:44] And, you know, when he was telling me that he had become more religious, more observant, more connected to his Judaism, he mentioned that he started learning out Torah once a week with his mother.
[00:01:59] And he felt that immediately after he had started doing this, he felt that it changed the way he dealt with other people, meaning he became a better person just from learning Torah. And I thought it's a beautiful thought, because we know when we learn Torah, it's not just the connection to Hashem that we're getting, that we're gaining, and that's. This is our connection, our continuous study of Torah. But the Torah itself, the learning that we do, no matter what it is. I mean, obviously there's a lot of practical ideas of how to relate to people better, but any part of Torah, any area of Torah, maybe it doesn't even have to do with relations with other people. It affects us. It makes us better. It makes us more good. That's just a fact. When it comes to Torah study, I feel like that was very obvious here in this situation with this amazing fellow. So I just wanted to share that thought. Hope you appreciate that.
[00:02:58] Additionally, before we begin, if you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomokon kynmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:03:08] This week's parshas. Parshas emor. Now, for the last few weeks, we've had double parshios. That means it was a double Torah portion.
[00:03:17] And this week it's amor. It's a little bit of a breather. It's a smaller parsha. But don't worry, next week is another double parsha again. So we get a little break this week. It's not as long, but it's still jam packed with beautiful ideas and lessons for us to learn from.
[00:03:33] The parsha begins with the laws of the kohanim. Now, I'm not going to, um, bore you with my kohen joke that I think I've said in the past.
[00:03:43] The kohanim, they were the sons of Aaron Akohen.
[00:03:47] That's something that gets passed down from father to son.
[00:03:52] Now, the kohanim, like we mentioned in earlier parshios, they were the priests. They worked in the Beis hamikdash. They were sanctified from among the Jewish people, meaning they had special halachos, special laws that pertain just to kohanim. Now, just in case you're wondering, my name is Shlomo Cohen and I am a kohen.
[00:04:13] But the point is that the special halachos, the special laws that the kohanim have, is talked about in this week's parasha. And the parsha begins that the kohanim, normally a person, when someone passes away, they can go to a funeral. But the kohanim, they're not allowed to defile themselves to make themselves impure. Because when a person goes to a funeral or comes in close contact with a corpse, there is a certain tuma, certain impurity which comes onto a person. Now, even though nowadays we're all considered tameh, but the kohanim still have the prohibition of becoming defiled. Even more, they're not allowed to go to a cemetery or to a funeral unless they're a certain distance away.
[00:05:00] Now, there are exceptions to this rule. Now, a kohen, if, God forbid, a kohen, he loses a close family member, there's the seven relatives.
[00:05:10] So there, a regular kohen can become tame. He's allowed to become, you know, he's supposed to be part of the whole process, the funeral, and he becomes impure for that situation.
[00:05:22] It's actually interesting, a little bit of a side note, when My father, Yeshu, live and be well.
[00:05:27] Um, was dealing with his mother, who had just passed away. May her neshama have an aliyah.
[00:05:34] My father and his brothers went to the funeral home. They actually had to. There was another body in the funeral home. So even though my father, he's a kohen, he was allowed to become tame, to become impure for his mother. She's one of the close relatives. They still had to take the body out of the funeral home, Meaning they had to put it into a hearse and take it away so that the kohanim could go in. Meaning it's just for those relatives.
[00:06:02] Now, the parsha delineates for us so that we have the regular kohanim. Now, for a kohen gadl, the high priest, it's a little bit different for a high priest.
[00:06:10] Even for his close relatives, he cannot become defiled, Meaning he still does the service in the Beis Hamikdash.
[00:06:19] And he still cuts his hair. He doesn't let his hair grow long.
[00:06:23] There's only one time that a kohengado, the high priest, actually has to become tame. It's for a mace mitzvah. It's for a dead person who has no one else to bury him. And the kohengadol, the high priest, is the only one available. Then he has an obligation to become impure and to bury this individual.
[00:06:41] Now, the parasha also tells us about the certain disqualifications that can, you know, make a Cohen not qualified to serve in the Beis Hamikdash. There's certain blemishes on the body, and the Torah describes to us what those are.
[00:07:00] Additionally, the parsha goes into the service of how the kohanim have to be careful with the different offerings and the truma, have to eat it in the right way, in the right places, in the right time.
[00:07:11] Additionally, we talk about the carbonos, the sacrifices. How has to be. It can't be blemished animals. The animals have to be given in the proper way. There's specific laws about what type of animals can be given and if and what disqualifies a carbon from being brought, a sacrifice from being brought.
[00:07:29] We also discuss niftics, parsha, the mitzvah of kiddush hashem and chile hashem. Sanctifying God's name and desecrating God's name, meaning that's not a mitzvah, that's an aveira. That's a sin.
[00:07:41] The parsha continues with the festivals, the mitzvah. To celebrate Pesach, we have the Karban Ha omer, we have the holiday of Shavuas and counting up to it.
[00:07:53] Additionally, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkesh shminyatzeres, all of these holidays are commanded to us. In this week's parasha.
[00:08:01] The parsha finishes off with the menorah and the lechem aponen, the show bread. That's the that the show bread will be eaten by the Kohanim as well.
[00:08:12] And finally, the parsha finishes off about the story of the blasphemer, where a person in the camp blasphemed the name of Hashem and Hashem commanded Mosheh to put him to death.
[00:08:26] The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the first pasuk. In this week's parasha, the posse reads as Vayomer Hashem el moishe e' more el haoyhanim b' nai' ahroyen v' amarta aleyam le nefesh loy yitama baamov. Hashem said to Moshe, say to the Kohan and the sons of Aaron, and tell them, each of you shall not contaminate himself to a dead person among his people.
[00:08:52] So the parasha begins with a commandment from Hashem to Moshe to tell the Kohanim, the sons of Aaron, that they cannot become.
[00:09:02] They cannot become impure to a dead person. I saw it brought down from Replicken, who explains an idea from the Choize of Lublin, the seer of Lublin.
[00:09:14] And the Choza explained as follows.
[00:09:17] He says, moishe rabbeinu. Moses was telling the kohanim, the priests, you're the children of Aaron. You're the sons of Aaron, right? Look at the verse. Vayim rashem hamosha emor elakoihanim b' nai Aharon.
[00:09:34] The possext seems to be maybe a little superfluous. And the Almighty said to Moshe, speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron.
[00:09:42] It doesn't have to say the sons of Aaron. If it says the Kohanim already, what's the need to remind them that they're the sons of Aaron?
[00:09:51] So the Choza explains on this that there's a message here.
[00:09:56] Hashem, uh, was telling Moshe Rabbeinu to tell the Kohanim, sure, they're the priests, but they're the sons of Aaron.
[00:10:05] What is the defining trait of Aharon Kohen of Aaron, the high priest?
[00:10:10] It's oyv sholem um vireoi devshalom Aaron hakouin. His defining character trait was the fact that he loved peace was the fact that he loved peace and he pursued peace.
[00:10:25] And the message that was being transmitted to the Kohanim was that the Kohanim were the teachers of the Jewish people. They were the spiritual fathers of the nation.
[00:10:37] And Hashem was telling Moshe to give over the message to the Kohanim that they need to be just like Aaron Hakohen.
[00:10:46] They have to have that trait of loving peace and pursuing peace to be a good influence on others.
[00:10:55] Now, if you look at the last part of the verse, there are still some questions that remain.
[00:11:05] And what did Hashem tell Moshe to tell Aaron that they should tell the Kohan and the sons of Aaron? It says, say to them, for a person, he shall not defile himself among his people. And this is a little bit more of a drush, more of like a explanation, uh, of the posseq, not on the simple sense, but more on a. On a, uh, allegorical level that the khayza explains that even when they're going to be making peace with. Between people, they're going to be a good influence, they're going to be a force for good. They have to be careful not to defile themselves in the process to become influenced negatively.
[00:11:41] This is a little bit of a, uh, not the simple shot, not the simple understanding of the positive. But this is with the kheiza, how he understands it, there's the positive. Be like our own. And at the same time do not be negatively influenced.
[00:11:55] Right? Do not become defiled.
[00:11:57] Right. And I think this is a very powerful lesson for us, right? Not just for the Kohanim, who are the teachers. So they are getting involved to be like Aaron, to help, to be good, to be a positive force. And therefore they have to be careful not to be brought down. But I think for us as well, we could apply this message.
[00:12:18] You know, how many times are we, you know, do we try to be a positive force? We want to do good things, and then there's always this negativity that's pulling us down. And, uh, you know, I could speak for myself this past week. I was trying to deal with something, and I just felt that the. The atmosphere around me was very negative.
[00:12:41] And it made me feel negative as well. It was pulling me down, it was getting me overwhelmed and frustrated until I was able to just focus for a moment and say, no, I'm going to do what I need to do. I'm going to do the good things I came here to do, and I'm just going to go.
[00:12:58] And I worked hard to not let that negativity Influence me and get into my soul.
[00:13:06] And I think, you know, thank God that the rest of the day was a better day and the next day will be better. But I think this is a very important message that when we have good intentions, we have good ideas.
[00:13:18] Don't let the negativity pull you down. And that's an idea we see from this week's Parasha from the Choiza of Lublin. It says, be like Aaron, love peace, pursue peace, be positive, and do not let, you know, do not let anyone defile himself. Right? Do not let anyone defile himself among his people. Don't let the negativity pull you down.
[00:13:40] The next idea, uh, takes us to another idea about the Kohanim. You know, and I am probably biased. I like talking about all the special things of the Kohanim because I'm a Koh myself. Okay, what could you do? But the sukim say as follows. It says.
[00:14:04] Now, we mentioned, right, the puzzuk says, but the priest who is the greatest among his brethren, the high priest upon whose head the anointing oil shall be poured, and who has been authorized to clothe himself with the garments, the special garments of the Kohanim, right, Shall not allow the hair of his head to grow wild and shall not rend his garments. We said earlier that a regular Kohen, he could only become defiled for the seven close relatives, and a Kohengado, not even for the seven close relatives.
[00:14:32] But it's interesting. You look at the verse here, and it sort of points out this koyengadal who had the shemin hamishcha, the anointing oil poured on his head, and who wore the special clothes of the Cohen gadol, the special vestments of the. Of the high priest.
[00:14:49] He. He is not allowed to not cut his hair, and he is not allowed to rip his garments like a regular mourner. He's not allowed to do that.
[00:14:59] Now, Rav Hirsch has a beautiful thought that he brings down on this pasuk, on this verse, the Kohengado, who was he?
[00:15:10] So the Kohanim in general were the teachers of Klal Yisrael, the teachers of the Jewish people.
[00:15:15] But the Kohen Gadl was the epitome of, you know, what the Jewish people were to strive for.
[00:15:23] He was the spiritual father of the Kohanemen, the entire nation.
[00:15:29] Everyone was looking to him.
[00:15:32] And in essence, he was someone who gave over of himself to the community.
[00:15:40] So therefore, even when those who are nearest and dearest to him had passed, he is not allowed to show anybody else in the Jewish nation that he is in a state of mourning.
[00:15:53] Because since he has on him this national oil, this Shemin Hamishcha, this anointing oil, which shows it's from the whole nation, and the clothes which are these national clothes, these special clothes that are of the Jewish people, right?
[00:16:08] The community cannot stop. There's a certain, you know, there's an expression there of her springs down Ain sibor meis.
[00:16:17] The community is eternal. It never dies. And it must be continuous. There must be this continuity. It cannot stop even for a moment. And since the Koh en Gadol represents this, he embodies this by being anointed with his special oil and wearing these special clothes. And he is the spiritual, uh, father of the entire nation. He must continue in his holy work to continue bringing the carbonos as sacrifices, to continue lighting the menorah, to continue doing all the things that he does, because he's not. It's not the individual. There's the community as a whole. And he must continue it. It must keep going. But at the same time, Rav Hirsch explains that, uh, even though outwardly the Cohen Gadol is not allowed to show signs of mourning.
[00:17:07] He brings down that there was some aspects of mourning that the Cohen Gadl was allowed to observe even while he was decoying Godal, for example, that even though he had to bring the service, he would bring the sacrifices when he was an onain, when he is somebody who is a, uh, regular person would not be obligated in mitzvos. He's still obligated to bring the carbonos. But he's not allowed to eat from the sacrifices, right? He's not allowed to eat from it.
[00:17:34] And additionally that it seems like even though he doesn't rip outwardly, he rips maybe in a more private place. That's what Rav Hirsch explains. He rips lamata. And there are some, you know, maybe not exterior signs of mourning, but maybe, you know, you know, more private signs of mourning.
[00:17:56] And the way that he explains is that although the Cohengado was this figure where we had to have that continuity represented the nations, he was property of the nation. And he had to continue what he's doing, as hard as it was. We don't expect him to be superhuman, to be like an angel. He still has emotions, he still has feelings, and he just has to overpower them, you know, in the way that Chazal. The way that the sages. In the way that.
[00:18:24] And he just has to overpower them in the way. And the guidelines that the Torah commands him to do. So more than that, he doesn't have to do. And we see that the Torah says he doesn't eat from the sacrifice because I believe it's because you have to be in a certain state of happiness. And maybe he's not in that place right now and there is some type of ripping that he does.
[00:18:42] So this is a, uh, beautiful idea. Explanation from our first. Now, what can we take out of this?
[00:18:47] You know, I'm sure there are those of you that are. That are Kohanim. So, okay, maybe it's a little more applicable. But for those of you who are not Kohan emit, and even if you're a Kohen, who says you're gonna be the Kohengado? So the question is, how does this apply to us? What is the lesson we can take out from E.R. hirsch? And I think there's two beautiful ideas we can bring out from this thought from Rev Hirsch. The first one is as we are all people that others depend on, whether it be our families, whether it be the people we work with, whether it be our communities. I mean, each and every one of you can fill in that blank.
[00:19:25] Now. There are times in life where we have ups and we have downs, and hopefully, you know, hopefully our challenges are not so hard. I mean, we all have challenges. It's just the reality of life. And Hashem gave it to us for a reason to overcome them. And for each and every one of us specifically. And we all have our good days on our bad days now, the bad days that we have. How bad are the bad days? Do we totally close up shop? Are we just down we go to sleep or just don't want to deal with anything? The normal things that we do, we totally just drop and we're out. We're checked out or no.
[00:20:01] Even if I'm having a hard day today, I'm still gonna be there for my family. I'm still gonna be there for my co workers. I'm still gonna be there for Hashem. I'm still gonna do the things that I normally do because I'm supposed to do it. I need to do it right. I'm still gonna learn. I'm still gonna daven. I'm gonna push. Maybe it won't be the same.
[00:20:20] Maybe I won't have it with the same brand, with the same fire, but I'm still going to do it. Because, you know, you need to. We need to. That's our obligation. It's not just about us.
[00:20:33] It's about the Jewish people. There's a bigger picture here, it's not just about us, it's about our children, it's about our co workers, it's about our family.
[00:20:40] Everyone can fill in the blanks. And I think it's a very important idea that we can relate to Regarding the Koingado that just like the coingado, he's not allowed to show that morning because he's sort of property of the nation.
[00:20:51] So too when it comes to us, we have to realize we don't own ourselves. There's other people that depend on us, there's other people that are looking to us, and most importantly, Hashem is looking to us. And we have an obligation to keep pushing through, even on the days when it's difficult.
[00:21:12] Additionally, I think we see another part of this idea from Rav Hirsch is that just like the Coen Gado is not expected to be superhuman, so too ourselves, we're not expected to be that either. And we're allowed to have emotions. You're allowed to have those feelings and there's nothing wrong with that. And we all have different thoughts of why am I having this challenge, why am I going through it? We could have those challenges, we could have those thoughts, but. But we just have to push through them. That's the point. And I think that's the lesson with the Kohen Gadal. You could be human, but we still need to be able to push through and not let the emotions take us over and prevent us from the things we want to accomplish. The last idea I want to share with you today takes us to the commandment of sukkos. The Torah commands us to celebrate on the 15th of Tishrei Sukkos.
[00:22:05] Now it's interesting, when it comes to sukkos, there's a special emphasis on having joy. Possach says ulakachtem lohem m bayom arishaim pre eats hodar kappois tamorim va' anahaf eats avoyis v are ushem elokehem shivas yamim.
[00:22:25] You shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of the citron tree, the branches of the date palms, twigs of the plaited tree and brook willows. And you shall rejoice before Hashem your g d for a seven day period.
[00:22:37] So the sukkim as it's talking about sukkos, it's telling us about the mitzvos of Sukkos, which is the lulu of an esrog, to take the four species, to bind them together, to shake them. But there's also a mitzvah to rejoice, to be happy.
[00:22:53] And it's interesting, Rabbi Twersky brings down that the Torah brings down in two other places aside from here, to the obligation to be happy and to have joy on Sukkos.
[00:23:08] So the question is, what's the emphasis on having joy with Sukkos? What's the special connection of being happy on Sukkos? What's this joy all about?
[00:23:19] So the first thing we have to look at is what does sukkos represent?
[00:23:24] Sukkis going into a hut outside, when it's cold outside, it's cooler. It's the fall represents this idea of m that we're mortals, that we're not here forever. It's temporary. Everything's temporary. This world is temporary.
[00:23:42] We think we're going to be here forever, but it's going to end and it's not such a long time.
[00:23:47] The true eternity is in the world to come.
[00:23:52] So really, the question that begs to be asked, if sukkos is about reminding us that we are mere mortals, that things are temporary here, we shouldn't get carried away.
[00:24:09] You would think just the opposite, that it's a more solemn holiday. There's not a need to be rejoicing, and especially the Torah should need to say it three times.
[00:24:22] You know, what's this connection? Why is there such an emphasis on the holiday of Sukkis when it's talking about how man is not going to live forever?
[00:24:32] Right? There's obligation to be happy. What's going on over here? It should seem the other way around.
[00:24:38] There's a famous story that's brought down from the Chavez Chayyim that someone came to visit the Chavez Chayim, uh, a wealthy businessman. And he saw that the Chavez Chayim, when he lived in his house, was very, very simple, didn't really have much. And this businessman offered to pay for the Chavez Chaim's house to be furnished properly and to be more beautiful and so on and so forth. And the Chavez Chaim refused. He said, this is fine. And he asked this businessman, he says, in your house, you know, do you have a very nice house? He says, yeah, I have a guest room, and I have a dining room and a living room and all this furniture.
[00:25:11] And he said, when you travel, do you bring it with you as well? He says, no, of course not. I just go to a hotel. I just need a room to sleep in. He said, that's how I feel about this world. Chavatz chayim.
[00:25:23] He had the correct hashgafa, the correct outlook, that when it comes to this world, it's only a transit point. It's only a hallway for the next world. Obviously, it's this very special hallway. We have this unique opportunity while we're here to accomplish. But the point is, when you're just going on vacation, you don't get the fanciest, uh, you don't bring your whole house with you. You just get what you need, right? And that's really what the idea of Sukkos really represents. And the question really is strong, why is this focus on happiness?
[00:25:55] And to answer this, Rich Twersky explains that when we acquire things for ourselves in this world, the reason why we're happy is because we're not realizing we're in denial a little bit.
[00:26:10] We don't want to think about, you know, even though we're enjoying right now, we're not thinking about the fact that, you know that it's going to end at one point. We're in denial.
[00:26:19] And he says, true happiness for a Jew is when we realize that it's not temporary. The things that are important, the mitzvos, the Torah that we learn, are eternal.
[00:26:35] To realize that the things we are doing now in this world, that's what's going to give us eternity.
[00:26:44] And I think that really answers the question, when a person does a mitzvah where they learn Torah, there's a certain sense of fulfillment that a person gains that nothing else in the world can get you.
[00:27:00] The reason is because, you know, that level of joy is because we're tapping into eternity.
[00:27:06] And that's the connection to Sukkos, because precisely because we recognize and we realize that this world is not forever, that causes us to be happy, to realize that the opportunities that we have in this world to do good, to accomplish, and really how those things that we do here are the springboard for eternity that gives us the true joy that we truly want. And that's the focus on Simcha, according to Rabbi Torsky.
[00:27:34] So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me email at Rabbi Shlomo Konkohn at gmail com. Have a great day.
