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 Cohen, and I hope you are well before we begin this week's episode.
[00:00:11] It's different this week.
[00:00:13] What's different?
[00:00:14] It's the same Wednesday evening, but the truth is it's not because this Wednesday evening, it's already the month of El Elul, which is the Jewish month that really is before Rosh Hashanah. The first day of Rosh Hashanah is Aleph Tishrei, but it's the run up, the preparation for Rosh Hashanah for the New Year, for the Day of Judgment, for the High Holidays, and actually just want to talk about it for a few minutes. This idea, once we're in the month of Elul, it's a little bit of Jewish current events before we begin.
[00:00:52] Stands for the acronym Anila Dodi Vidodododili. I am to my beloved, as my beloved is to me.
[00:00:59] And you might ask, what does that have to do with Rosh Hashanah, Right? I know about Rosh Hashanah blowing the shofar, of course, the raisin challah. Who's going to forget that, right? But we know about a new year, a new beginning, leaving the past behind, Yom Kippur's forgiveness.
[00:01:19] But what does you know, that's not for a good few weeks. What does Elul, this month of Elul that we're in right now, have anything to do with Rosh Hashanah?
[00:01:28] So really, the truth is that Rosh Hashanah doesn't just begin on Rosh Hashanah in order to really appreciate and to take advantage of Rosh Hashanah in the best way possible. And Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in the best way possible.
[00:01:45] It begins 40 days beforehand, which is Rosh Chodesh, Elul, which is the beginning of the month of Elul, which is brought down as a time to prepare ourselves. And that's what it means. I am, uh, to my beloved, as my beloved is to me, that we say during El Hamelech Basada, that the rest of the year, Hashem is, you know, he's like, he's the king. Hashem, God is the king and he's in his palace, so to say, right?
[00:02:15] But during the month of Elul, during these days of the High holy days, as we're getting closer, Hashem comes out of his palace to his people, Hamelech Pasada, the king is in the field, meaning he's coming out of his palace, to be with his constituents, to hear from them directly.
[00:02:36] And that's what it means. Elo, you know, Hashem, uh, is showing his love for us as much as we're showing our, uh, love for him. It's an opportunity for us. It's a very auspicious time for us to prepare and to start that process off of changing ourselves, of becoming a little bit better, of improving on our. The things that we do.
[00:02:59] And maybe it's not something that can last forever, but for sure, during El, we try to fix up our ways, right? If we know that the king is coming to visit us, we're not just going to clean up our house a few hours before we're going to start way in advance. And that's this idea. And in fact, in halacha, in Jewish law, it's brought down that already from the beginning of Elul, we start blowing the shofar. The custom is we blow it every morning after davening. And the Sephardic custom is that they start. They begin to say slichos, these special supplemental prayers that are before, you know, during the whole month of El Ashkenazic Jews. We started a little bit, you know, a week or two before Rosh Hashanah. But the point is that this season is a season of preparation.
[00:03:45] It's a season for us to think, you know, we shouldn't just come into Rosh Hashanah. We should think already now, what can I be doing a little bit better?
[00:03:55] Where can I improve?
[00:03:58] And maybe just look at it as something for right now, till Rosh Hashanah, to take that with you. It's such a powerful tool when we go into the Day of Judgment with something that we're trying to work on, right? We're coming to Hashem, and we're saying, I'm trying. We're justifying our existence, and we're saying, I'm trying. I'm, um, fighting the good fight. So that's a little thought I wanted to share with you today as we're in the special month of elo, to maybe think about what you're doing, think about where we can improve on something small, something little.
[00:04:36] And there's so many areas which we can improve on. I myself trying to work on different things. Maybe you want to study a little bit more, learn a little extra Torah. It's a merit just to take it with you to come into Rosh Hashanah with some preparation.
[00:04:51] So before we begin this week's episode, as usual, if you have any questions, comments, would like to Reach out. Feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:05:04] This week's Parsha is Parshas Kitzeitze. Now, just to give a quick overview of the parsha, Parsha Tskitzeitze starts off with a very interesting mitzvah. It's called the Isha Yifastar, that if a Jewish soldier is fighting in a war, and in the war he sees this captive woman which he desires, he's allowed to take her back with him to be his wife.
[00:05:33] But at the same time, he can't just marry, uh, her. There's a process that must be followed in order for him to. To take her as a wife. And the commentaries explain in this mitzvah that during the heat of battle, sometimes, you know, the standards of morality are loosened, people's animalistic instincts take over. So in order for him to not transgress, the Torah lets him take her back. But yet we still encourage him, as the Torah lays out, that we hope he's not going to take her as a wife and he's going to send her back, right? He has to let her, um, you know, sit for a certain amount of time, and he cannot marry her yet. And the hope is that he'll realize, you know, his intellect will get the better hold of him and he'll realize what he's about to do and send her back to her family. The parsha continues with the firstborn's right, that if a person has a firstborn son, he is entitled to a certain portion and doesn't matter from which wife the firstborn is, he still gets that special portion. The next mitzvah in the parsha deals with the Bensora umore, the wayward and rebellious son. That there are certain circumstances when a son is not listening to the voice of his parents, and there's certain circumstances that he's stealing.
[00:07:03] He's living a life of, you know, depravity. And the Torah tells us that he should be killed. Now, the question is, the Talmud tells us, actually, in fact, in Sanhedrin, that this mitzvah of the wayward son never happened and never will happen because there's so many requirements that have to be met in order for him to qualify as this Ben Soramora. Now, the question you could ask is, so why does the Torah teach us about this mitzvah if it never is practical?
[00:07:34] And the commentaries deal with that. One of the answers is given is that it's to give us the zechus of learning Torah. Another answer is that this teaches us about being a parent, how to be a parent, what we're supposed to do. There's a lot of lessons in parenting from this mitzvah.
[00:07:51] There's a. The mitzvos in this week's parsha. There's many, many mitzvos. And in fact, if I believe correctly, it's the most mitzvos in the Torah are in this week's parsha.
[00:08:00] We talk about. There's certain prohibitions of switching male and female garb. There's a special mitzvah of Shiluh Chakan, of sending away the mother bird before you're going to take the eggs.
[00:08:12] We talk about the mitzvah of a Micah protective fence around your roof Tzitzis.
[00:08:18] And there's a lot of halachos, a lot of laws pertaining to the sexual purity of the Jewish people that now, uh, as Klaisro is about to go into the land of Israel, Moshe Rabbeinu is delineating to the Jewish nation that the bedrock of the nation, you know, there's certain fundamentals that have to be kept true. And a lot of those ideas revolve around family marriage, having a certain clear sightedness when it comes to morality. And it lists in this week's parsha, um, the different guidelines and prohibitions that the Jewish people are to follow in order to be able to inherit the land. The parsha also tells us about some of the laws regarding payment and financial responsibility, how we need to be considerate for those in our society that maybe don't have as much as we do. The orphan, the widow, we must be careful with them, careful with their feelings.
[00:09:24] And there's general halachos regarding special gifts to the poor that they aren't. That the less privileged among us are entitled to. Finally, the parsha finishes off with, uh, there's a, with the mitzvah, with the mitzvos of Yibum, this levirate marriage regarding a brother who died without children, how his brother in certain circumstances marries the sister in order to perpetuate the name of his brother. The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the parsha. Now the sages explain to us that when the parsha starts off, we talk about the fastoar, this woman of beautiful form, that this soldier who's fighting sees this woman during the battle, the heat of battle, and he desires her.
[00:10:16] And there's different, um, rules that are given for him to take her back to his house. But it's not encouraged. It's just that the Torah, ah, knows a person and is not going to give a prohibition to something that someone is going to not be able to handle and do anyways.
[00:10:32] So the commentators explain, actually, you know, when the halachos are given regarding this woman of beautiful form, it's set up in a way that it's trying to encourage this man to send her back.
[00:10:45] And the commentaries continue to explain that the juxtaposition of these next few mitzvahs after the mitzvah of yifas to the woman of beautiful form, which is about two wives, that if a man's gonna have two wives and he's gonna hate one and he's gonna love the other one, and he has the firstborn son from the hated wife, that the right of the firstborn goes to the son of the hated wife. So the commentaries explain that if he's going to keep her, he's going to eventually hate her. That's the connection from the first mitzvah to the second mitzvah about these two wives, the loved wife and the hated wife. And then the. The parsha continues after this. You know, the mitzvah of the firstborn, we're talking about this hated wife, we talk about the Bensore Omorer, this wayward and rebellious son, and, uh, the chain continues and what's going to happen next, after he's going to have this hated wife, he's going to have this firstborn son, and because of that whole situation, he's going to end up being a Ben Sora or Mora, this wayward and rebellious son, which leads to the next, I guess, prohibition, which is not leaving out a body overnight, that if someone is found to be guilty of a crime, there's a prohibition to leave out, uh, the person's body, that if he was found guilty and he's liable to be killed, according to the Torah, which is a standard in of itself, that for the sanctity of a human body, we cannot leave the body hanging overnight, has to be taken down and buried properly.
[00:12:14] And the sages comment on that, that eventually, if he doesn't follow what the Torah says with this wayward and rebellious son, the son is going to end up being a criminal who is going to be liable to the death penalty. And that's the, uh, sort of the flow of the events over here. Now, on the flip side, the Parasha also talks about different mitzvahs. And the mitzvahs that we talk about are also in a specific order. We talk about the Mitzvah of Shluach Hakan, of sending away the mother bird, and that you have to send the mother bird away before you're going to take the eggs.
[00:12:47] And then following the mitzvah of Shalu Hakan, we talk about the mitzvah, uh, of making a fence, that a person has a house.
[00:12:55] He has to make a fence around the roof of this house so that no one will get injured. So the idea is, number one, is a person sends away the mother bird, as the Torah commands, and he's going to merit to having a house, which he could do. Another mitzvah of making a Micah, making this special fence, because once you have a house, you could fulfill this mitzvah of Micah to make this fence.
[00:13:16] And the next mitzvah after that talks about a vineyard, about mixing species, that you're not allowed to mix species. So, uh, the commentaries explain that if he has a house, he's going to merit to have a vineyard where he can fulfill the mitzvah of not mixing the species together. Because when someone plants his grapes and his produce in a special way, he's fulfilling a mitzvah by not mingling the two species together.
[00:13:41] And finally, that will cause him, which goes to the next mitzvah, which is a stable of oxes and donkeys, which is. There's a special mitzvah in this week's Parasha which follows the last mitzvah of not pulling one yoke with an ox and a donkey. You can't mix them together.
[00:13:58] He'll merit to have oxen and donkeys. And furthermore, if he observes that m Mitzvah, um, we talk about not wearing a garment of woolen linen.
[00:14:09] He'll merit to have tzitzis, which is a beautiful garment. But the idea which I want to bring out here is that you see two things here going on at the same time.
[00:14:18] Number one, there's a concept called.
[00:14:24] That if a person does one sin, the reward for the sin, so to say, is another sin.
[00:14:32] And if a person does a mitzvah, the reward for the mitzvah is another mitzvah.
[00:14:37] And I think this is very easy concept to understand. When we do, God forbid, if we do something bad, it leads to something worse.
[00:14:47] And actually, if you think about this for a second, people who commit crimes, they don't just one day wake up and kill somebody.
[00:14:55] They don't just one day wake up and rob a bank.
[00:14:59] Very rarely does that happen.
[00:15:01] What happens?
[00:15:03] Things start small, and one bad act leads to another bad act, which leads to another bad act, which leads to someone committing something that they regret for the rest of their life.
[00:15:16] And that's, you know, when a person does one sin, it gets him another sin. And on the flip side, on the positive, when a person does one mitzvah, he merits another mitzvah. And that's the greatest part about doing something good.
[00:15:33] And really, to take this one step deeper, not, you know, we all aren't necessarily always merit to be able to do mitzvahs. A mitzvah, uh, doing a good deed is an opportunity. How do we merit to have opportunities?
[00:15:49] It's by doing a mitzvah. When we do something small that comes to us, G D sends us something. He's sending us a, uh, you know, he's sending one over to us. He's giving us an opportunity to do something. And the reward, if we hopefully fulfill that opportunity, we do the mitzvah, we do the good thing, we follow through is something bigger and better.
[00:16:10] My uncle, all of Ashalom, used to always say about the family that sponsored the art scroll Gemara, the Talmud Bavli, that the ArtScroll is a great company, and they translate major Torah works into English to make it accessible for the general population.
[00:16:31] And the family that really started them off was the Schottenstein family. They sponsored the Talmud to translate it into English.
[00:16:41] But the thing is that a person doesn't just get the opportunity to do a mitzvah like that. Sure, they gave money, but only a special person who's done something, you know, done other mitzvahs in their life, would have the opportunity to do that.
[00:16:57] And I know he always say that the fact that the company that the Schottensteins owned was always closed on Shabbos, that he felt that that was the reason why they were zocheh. Uh, they merited to have the zechus, the merit to publish the Talmud in their name. But the point is that the mitzvahs we do, uh, it's not an end to itself. It's not, we do it and we're done, but rather, it's unlocking the next level. It's like in Mario, you got to get to the next level. You need the secret key to get to the next level. And that's what. When we do a mitzvah, that's what it does for us. It unlocks the next level of great mitzvahs that we can get to. And I thought that's a very important idea, even though it's. It's a very simple thought from this week's Parasha Saw brought down in the midrashez, but it goes on both sides. G D forbid for sinning. But really, let's focus on the good for the mitzvos, and maybe especially during elul during this month, let's take the opportunities that come our way, take them, run with it. Because one opportunity we're unlocking, the next.
[00:18:06] The next idea I want to share with you takes us to the special mitzvah the Torah gives us to help out our fellow Jew, specifically when it comes to unloading his donkey. Right, but it's not just his donkey. This mitzvah could be applied in many different circumstances. What does the posse say? It says, You shall not see the donkey of your brother or his oxygen falling on the road and hide yourself from them. You shall surely stand them up with him.
[00:18:42] And this is a very easy mitzvah to understand.
[00:18:45] You're driving, you see your friend's donkey is falling down and he's trying to get him up and he needs help. You shouldn't just turn your head and keep going.
[00:18:55] Rather, you have to help him. You have an obligation to Torah to help him get his donkey up.
[00:19:00] But there's a caveat.
[00:19:02] It says, Hakeem Takim, imo, stand him up with him. And what does Rashi say?
[00:19:11] Says if he decides right. It says, Imo, ImbaLav with the owner. Aval, uh, imholach v' yoshav loy vamor lei hoyova alecha mitzvah. Uh, im ratasalitoin Toyin Potter says, if a guy says, oh, uh, you pull over, you see the guy's donkey not getting up. He says, oh, the owner of the donkey says, you know what? It's your mitzvah, so you need to do it. I'm going to sit back and relax. So in that situation, if he's not going to help you, you're exempted from helping him your patter, because it has to be, imo, with him.
[00:19:44] Now, there's a lot to be said about this regarding not being taken advantage of by people.
[00:19:49] And it's always important when you're, Especially when you're trying to improve things and you have, uh, suggestions for others to include yourself in the solution. Not just criticize, not just find problems. But the Chavitz Chaim explains this in a different vein.
[00:20:04] He says this idea of Hakim Takim, imo, aside for obviously helping out another Jew, that the owner, the person has to include himself in part of the solution, that when it comes to our spiritual lives, when it comes to our own Growth and things we want to accomplish. There's a lot of things we. We daven for every day.
[00:20:26] We say, hashem, uh, ohe renen b' sura secha. Enlighten our eyes in Torah, we ask. We want to, uh, we daven that hashem should accept our prayers. There's so much that we talk about in the davening. The Chavitz Chaim explains on this. He says, if we're not going to be part of the solution, how can we expect God to just do everything for us? It's not work like that. It's Hakim Takim, imo, right? We say.
[00:20:56] We say, enlighten our eyes in Torah. We want to learn. We want to become better. We want to come closer to hashem. We cry hashem, make us closer. But the question we need to ask ourselves is, are we sitting down to open a gemara, to open a mishnayas, to open a book to put the effort in that g d should enlighten our eyes?
[00:21:15] Are we are doing our part so that the things that we daven for to hashem that we want so badly should happen?
[00:21:24] Because it doesn't just happen by itself. We have to put in our effort. We have to do our part. We can't just expect that everything just goes by itself, right? My Rosh Hashiva of blessed memory, Rabbi Sara Pluchuk. On Purim, you know, there's this joke. It's almost a joke. But you see Bachram yeshiva boys, when they're a little bit tipsy people, we drink on Purim as a mitzvah. Um, so, Rebbe, I want to learn.
[00:21:50] So I remember he was a very straight shooter. He was just like. If a guy would come to him and say, rebbe, I want to learn, he'd say, give him like a loving whack and say, if you want to learn, go learn. Don't cry to me about it. Meaning you got to do it. That's the point. That's what the Chavitz Chaim is telling us when it says Hakim Takim, imo, im you have to do. The owner has to do it with you. That when it comes to our own rukhnius, our spiritual lives, we can't just sit back and expect that God just gonna put it all into us. We have to do our part to do our part. Now, for every person, it's different how much a person learns every day, right? Everybody is different. But the point is, we need to be honest with ourselves to do our part, whatever that is, to push ourselves so that the words that we're saying in davening, we actually mean we actually want. When we want that closeness.
[00:22:41] We're not just, you know, feeling like that for a moment. We're trying to follow through on it.
[00:22:46] That's something very powerful we see from this week's Parasha. The last idea I want to share with you today takes us to the mitzvah of Shiluach Hakan, sending away the mother bird. The Torah reads, shaleyachti tikach loch leman yitav loh va' arachto yamin.
[00:23:09] You shall surely send away the mother and take the young for yourself, so that it will be good for you and you will prolong your days.
[00:23:18] There's a mitzvah after you see a kosher bird and obviously has to be in a specific place, but you send away the mother bird and take the eggs.
[00:23:29] And the reward for that is having a long life.
[00:23:33] Now, the commentaries discuss this mitzvah, uh, at length. What's the significance of this mitzvah, you know, sending away the mother bird, taking the eggs. And the Ramban explains that this mitzvah of sending away the mother bird before you take the eggs is to implant within us, uh, a trait of empathy and compassion, that it's just cruel for a person to take the eggs of a mother bird right in front of the mother. So you have to send the mother bird away, and then you can take the eggs. You can't take it right in front of the mother. And there are, you know, mitzvahs, uh, uh, similar types of mitzvahs.
[00:24:21] You can't slaughter the mother and the child in the same day regarding a kosher animal. But either way, this is supposed to implant in us empathy and compassion.
[00:24:34] Now, the Ksav Sofer explains in this is that why is it that the Torah promises here by this mitzvah a long life by fulfilling this mitzvah? It's actually the only.
[00:24:45] There's only two places in entire Torah that discuss the reward about giving a reward. It's here, this mitzvah, and the mitzvah of honoring our mothers and fathers. The Talmud does give a reason for that, why it's here, and the mitzvah of honoring our mother and father.
[00:25:03] But the Tsav Sorrow gives another explanation as well. And he says that when a person has compassion on somebody, he feels bad for someone, truly feels bad.
[00:25:19] It hurts, it's painful. It's not necessarily the best feeling. And to really bring this home, the Talmud tells us that there are certain types of people that their Lives are not lives, which means it's hard to be them. And one of them is somebody who has, uh, too much compassion or a lot of compassion.
[00:25:40] Because when a person feels for another, it causes them pain.
[00:25:45] It actually causes them pain and, you know, makes them, throws them off. It could be for a bit. And obviously we need to control that.
[00:25:53] But over here, this mitzvah of having compassion, it's supposed to train us in this field, teaches us something very, very powerful. The KSF Sovere explains that when a person is compassionate for another person, he has that pain, which is not comfortable and not necessarily always the best. Now, it shouldn't be overdone, but the point is it's training him to be a better person.
[00:26:19] He's gonna empathize with the suffering of others.
[00:26:23] And even if he's not able to do anything about it, right, he's gonna grow from it. He's gonna want to help people.
[00:26:32] And because this pain that he's experiencing is going to be internalized and he's going to grow from it, he's going to be able to help and he's going to be able to solve people's problems. And because of this, he's going to live a long and good life and help a large number of people.
[00:26:51] So I think this is a very powerful idea when it comes to us empathizing and having compassion for others, right? This mitzvah that the Ramban brings down, this Shlu Chakan of sending the mother bird, it's training us to be compassionate even if we can't necessarily always help.
[00:27:06] But through that suffering, we feel for another.
[00:27:11] We're going to come to a point where we're going to want to solve people's problems and we're going to be able to help many, many people and because of that merit to live a long life. And that's the understanding of the Ksav Sofer. Why? Simply this mitzvah of sending away the mother bird will merit a person to have a long life because it's training him to be compassionate and caring. And when a person does that, good things come from that and merit to live a long and fruitful life. So with that, I'm going to wish for today's podcast. Hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments or would like to, ah, reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com have a great day.
