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 today.
[00:00:10] It's been a challenging day.
[00:00:13] Um, and that's because last night we got news in my family that my father's brother, Rabbi Shmuel Cohen, had passed away suddenly. And today was the funeral, and my father is actually sitting Shiva for the next week.
[00:00:31] And, um, it's been a emotionally draining day.
[00:00:37] But at the same time, I wanted to.
[00:00:42] I did not want to miss an episode of the Practical Parsha podcast.
[00:00:45] And I thought about what to say this week, and I was thinking about my uncle, who was a tremendous Torah scholar. We'll talk about, uh, him a little bit and how he was special a bit in this episode, you know, and tie it into the weekly parasha. And I was thinking about him, how much he appreciated what I did with this podcast, spreading Torah. He was always so supportive of this, uh, mission that I'm on to spread Torah, always asking me different questions and was fascinated, and it was encouraging, and I felt like he would want me to, to continue and to do episode. And in fact, I decided we know in Judaism our mission in life only while we're living on this earth do we have the ability to do, to get reward, to do mitzvahs. Once we pass on, our opportunity ends and then we collect our reward. But at the same time, our descendants, our loved ones, have the ability to give merit for us through the good deeds and the Torah learning they do. So I thought that we can talk about my uncle, uh, what a special person he was and how we can learn from him.
[00:02:03] And also it can be tied into the weekly Parasha. And I also remember it happens to be he passed away last night, which is already connected to the weekly Parasha of Bo. And I remembered the. That in this week's Parsha, there's a fundamental essay from the Ramban from Nachmanides.
[00:02:22] And I fondly remember that the first time I learned this Ramban was with him.
[00:02:30] We spent a lot of time together going through it. And actually, as I was reviewing it tonight, I could hear his voice almost reiterating certain words to me.
[00:02:42] And I figured, you know, there's nothing by coincidence.
[00:02:45] So even though I have talked about this Ramban wasn't last year. It was actually two years ago.
[00:02:51] I decided as a merit for my uncle's neshama, that we're going to do it again.
[00:02:58] And I think, you know, even the beauty about Torah is that even if you do something a second time, it's going to be a little different. The understanding is going to be a little deeper. It's going to be a little better. So even if we've discussed this before, you're going to learn something new.
[00:03:16] And it's also, I felt it'll be appropriate that this Ramban, I think, could also tie into who my uncle was as a person, and I think something that we can take out, um, from him, from the way he lived his life.
[00:03:32] So we can be the best we can be.
[00:03:35] So before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would like to say hello. Don't be shy. Feel free to send me an email. Rabbi Shlomokon kohnmail.com this week's parsha is Parshas Bo.
[00:03:52] Now, just to give a quick overview of the weekly parsha. The parsha continues with the 8th, 9th, and 10th parash plagues. The 8th plague is locusts. They come and devour all the grain and everything, all the food in Egypt. The ninth is the plague of darkness.
[00:04:12] And finally, Pharaoh is still in transient. He's refusing to let the Jewish people leave.
[00:04:18] Hashem tells Moshe Rabbeinu that this is going to be the 10th and final plague to warn Pharaoh, to warn Pharaoh that he will strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt.
[00:04:31] And that is what Moshe Rabbeinu does. He gives a warning. In this week's Parsha, we also have the first mitzvah that the Jewish people receive. You know, they become a people, we become a people in this Parsha. Someone just asked me, a good friend of mine, he asked me, when did the Jewish people become a nation? And I believe it's this Parsha, the Jewish people become a nation now that they're going out of Egypt. And this week's Parsha, we have our first mitzvah of the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh, the sanctification of the new month, as well as the mitzvah of giving the paschal lamb, the Karbon Pesach, the Pesach offering which the Jewish people did in Mitzrayim. They slaughtered a lamb together and they ate it.
[00:05:14] And they took the blood of this carbon Pesach and put it on their doorposts. And thus is the name of Passover that God passed over the Jewish houses when he struck down the firstborn of the Egyptians.
[00:05:30] Finally, the Parsha finishes with God striking the firstborn, uh, in the whole land of Egypt, all the firstborns and the Jewish people leave Egypt. And we are given the mitzvah of Pesach. And also to remember the Exodus, to remember Yitzh Mitzrayim, um, the sanctification of the firstborn. And we see here there's the commandment of Tefillin with its connection to Yitzias Mitzrayim, with its connection to the Exodus, the going out from Egypt.
[00:06:02] So the first idea I wanted to share with you today, really, you know, also ties into my uncle Rab Shmuel Ben Reb Shlomihudda Kohen, that the Parsha tells us about the mitzvah of the Paschal Lamb, the carbon Pesach.
[00:06:20] Now, it's interesting. There's different laws for different sacrifices, but one thing which is very unique about the carbon Pesach is that the carbon Pesach, the Paschal Lam, had to be given in groups. You had to do it together with a group. You can't do it by yourself.
[00:06:39] So the posse tells us, uke chulachem tsoinlemishpochoi seichem ve' Shachtu ha Pesach.
[00:06:46] Acquire for yourselves one of the flock for your families, and slaughter the Pesach offering. So the commandment is to get a group. And most commonly, people would get together with their family and they would have this mitzvah. They fulfill the commandment of the Paschal Lam. They would roast this lamb and they would eat it together.
[00:07:07] And nowadays, obviously, we don't have the temple.
[00:07:10] We have the commemoration of the Paschal lamb on the seder plate is the Zeroah, which we keep on the seder plate, the shank bone, to help us remind us about the Karbon Pesach. But in previous times, and God willing, when Moshiach comes, when the Messiah comes, we will again fulfill the mitzvah of the Karbon Pesach. And the way it's done is it's with a group of people, it's with a chabura.
[00:07:36] Now, Rabbi Twersky brings down that we see from this that the fact, the emphasis of this mitzvah is not by yourself, but rather with your family.
[00:07:49] It teaches us something very fundamental about Yiddishkeit. You know, you think about going out of Mitzrayim, going out of Egypt, and, you know, think about the miracles, the Exodus, all those great things.
[00:08:03] But another aspect that's involved in Mitzrayim going out of Egypt is the fact that we were an enslaved people for hundreds of years, 210 years, I believe. And we came out, we accepted the Torah, and, you know, we're around still for Thousands and thousands of years. We're a beautiful nation with so much contributions. Obviously, the. The biggest contribution is the contributions of the Torah that we, meaning we have the Torah, but all the scholars and the beautiful people that we are over thousands and thousands of years.
[00:08:39] And that all came from, uh, a people, a group of people, the Hebrews who were enslaved in Egypt. And we went from that to becoming this great nation that's outlived every empire.
[00:08:55] And he says, Rabbei Tversky, this, in essence, is almost a bigger miracle than the 10 plagues and the splitting of the sea. And he explains that from the fact that one of the first mitzvahs is a mitzvah that's together with our family shows us the importance of growing spiritually, how much it's dependent on your family, that the family unit is a tremendous component or powerhouse to help a person achieve what they want to, what they need to in the spiritual realm.
[00:09:32] And, you know, family members, we can think of ourselves in Judaism, we talk about family. It's so important.
[00:09:38] But there's another aspect. Obviously, family is support.
[00:09:42] Could be financially, could be emotionally, but it's also spiritually that we're there to support each other, um, in everything we do.
[00:09:51] Now, if I could just segue for a moment. My uncle Rab Shmuel Cohen, he was someone who, whenever you would call him, he would give you that encouragement. His famous line would always be, you're an asset to the Jewish people and. And a credit to the human race.
[00:10:12] Any one of his nieces and nephews knows this line that he used to tell everybody, meaning that was the first thing off of his lips. He would always encourage people. He would tell me how proud he was of me, how much he thought his father, who I'm named after, would be proud of me, would be beaming ear to ear. And it gave me encouragement, it gave me thought to that I need to believe in. I need to believe in myself. That someone believes in me. I need to believe in myself. And I think this, uh, ties back into this idea of Korban Pesach, the mitzvah of carbon Pesach, that it's the family unit believing in each other, giving each other support. This is all something which we see from the weekly parsha. And I believe that we can learn from my uncle as well, from the fact that he gave others so much encouragement and. And so much support, especially when it came to spiritual endeavors, that that was the most important thing to him. It wasn't if you know how much money you made and how successful you were in your career. It was the spiritual components in your life that was the most, uh, uh, important to him. And he would show his love and appreciation and support for all the good things that you would do. He would constantly ask me about the different, you know, projects that I was involved in working in Jewish outreach, different individuals. He loved the stories of, you know, me telling him about people getting involved in their Judaism. That was, you know, such a thing, which he appreciated. And he always would give his support and just shower and shower and shower it upon me. The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to the Ramban.
[00:11:49] Now, this Ramban is a fundamental Ramban. You know, Nachmanides was a great scholar who lived, I believe, in the 12th century in Spain.
[00:12:01] And this essay that he writes at the end of the parsha is something which, you know, everyone learns in all the yeshivas. It's. It's fundamental. People talk about it every year. They say it's worthwhile to learn. I remember he would tell me, my uncle would tell me, it's worthwhile to learn this Ramban, to learn this section of Nachmanides on, um, his commentary on the Torah every year you should look it over.
[00:12:24] And I remember clearly that at a certain point in my, uh, yeshiva career, when I was in yeshiva, I wanted to learn Ramban's. And I asked him, you know, I was learning.
[00:12:36] I was in yeshiva in Brooklyn at the time, and he was living in Williamsburg. I was in Borough park.
[00:12:41] And I asked him, can I come and I could study Ramban with you? And I came a few weeks to study Ramban with him. I came to Williamsburg. I remember I took a bus. I came there. He had an old Ramban, and we studied together.
[00:12:54] And just to get into this Ramban, the Ramban starts off as follows. He says, I'm going to tell you a big fundamental idea when it comes to, um, mitzvos.
[00:13:08] I'm going to explain you the reason for many mitzvahs. He says, there are many people, different types of people in the world.
[00:13:16] There are some people that believe in God, but he's not really involved in things. There's other people that deny God to begin with. They say God doesn't exist. But I would say the majority of people are people who believe in God, but they don't say that he's involved in the everyday affairs. He's, uh, you know, he put the world on autopilot. Now, the Ramban explains that when God wants humanity to know that he is in charge, that he created the world.
[00:13:42] He's keeping it existing. He is intimately involved in our lives. Not just putting things on autopilot. What does he do? How does he give over the message to us as human beings that he is the supreme being? He is in charge. You know, he is involved. How does he do that? And the Ramban explains. He says the way he does that is. Is by performing open miracles for humanity. That by changing nature, we realize that someone else is in charge.
[00:14:16] And that there's a God in charge. Hashem's, uh, in charge. And he could change nature at his will. And it also shows to us that he's involved in his creations. Because if nature just goes and now suddenly it's changing.
[00:14:30] So it must be that Hashem is involved in the world. He's not putting things just to go by themselves. And, you know, he didn't just create, set and forget. Doesn't work like that. So the way that Hashem lets us know as people that he is involved, he created it. You know, he's keeping the world existing. Is by changing the natural order of the world.
[00:14:50] And it becomes even more, um, of a.
[00:14:56] It becomes even more clear to us that not just when Hashem, uh, does it by himself, but rather he does it through a prophet. That when he does it through a prophet that Moshe, his messenger, when he does these miracles, the 10 plagues, as through Moshe his prophet, it shows us another aspect. Not just that God is in charge of the world, but he has people who are his agents.
[00:15:20] That he sends to us to give us his message. That he has people that are he's sending directly to give us prophecy, to tell us what to do, to keep us on the straight and narrow. So it comes out that open miracles and the performance of these miracles through the prophets, right through Moshe and the other real prophets that we have that are. That are written down in the Torah, Neviim, Kesuvim, the writings and the prophets.
[00:15:50] That it comes out that Hashem runs the world. That's why it says in the parsha, it says, in order that they should know that I am the God of the land. That Hashem tells Moshe Rabbeinu that you're doing these miracles. So that the world should know that I am in charge.
[00:16:10] And from this we see this concept of Hashkacha pratis, that there's divine providence in the world.
[00:16:17] Now, because Hashem, because G d' n perform these open miracles for any person or person who denies God.
[00:16:26] Therefore, he commanded us to write down these miracles.
[00:16:30] Not just obviously it's in the Torah. But we see that Yetzias Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt is constantly talked about in Judaism, right? We have the whole story of the Exodus, which is in the Torah. Then we have, aside from that, in Tefillin and in the Tefillin, two of the four parshios, two of the four portions or scriptures that are in the Tefillin are about Yitzia's Mitzrayim, about the Exodus from Egypt. When we have mezuzah, the mezuzah is on our door inside a ah, Mezuzah is the parchment which writes about Exodus from Egypt. When we talk about kiddush Friday night, we say the kiddush. We also say Zechar Leitzih Mitzrayim. We says remembrance, you know, to the, uh, to going out of Egypt, we have a positive commandment every day to remember the Exodus from Egypt.
[00:17:14] And we see many, many connections to going out of mitzrayim. Much more than any other event that's happened in our history. It's always going back to the Exodus from Egypt. No matter what the holiday is, it's always going back to Yitzhak Mitzrayim. It is a pinnacle point in our history. And that's why Hashem commanded. It's always written down in all, all our different places. Because Hashem, uh, doesn't do miracles for any person on demand. And, and you might say, why not? Why doesn't he do miracles for any person who wants it? When they wanted to prove himself that he is G D and he is in charge, why is it just in the past for the previous generations, why were they the only ones who saw open miracles from the Yetzias Mitzrayim from the Exodus from Egypt? Why can't G D make miracles for us whenever we need to see them to strengthen our, um, emunahr faith?
[00:18:06] And the answer to that is that if we would live in a system where miracles are performed upon demand and anytime we had a question, open miracle, uh, would manifest itself, so then there would be no such thing as free will. It would be impossible to not believe in God. So therefore we have a system here where God did the miracles, he did the open miracles to show the world that he's in charge and he's running the show. But at the same time, G D doesn't perform these miracles for each and every person. Because then it wouldn't be a challenge. It would just be. There would be no free choice for us to decide to do good or to do bad. It would be so Obvious what the truth is that there would be no choices anymore.
[00:18:53] Now, the Ramban continues, that it comes out from these ideas that when a person does a, um, mitzvah, when a person puts on tefillin, when a person puts up a mezuzah, or any mitzvah, uh, any good deed that a person does, it comes out that we are testifying that Hashem created the world and he's in charge. And the Ramban continues, and he says that this is the reason why, that God created us in this world.
[00:19:30] He put us here for us to come to a recognition and a realization that he is the Creator and He is the one who, the Sustainer, and He is involved in our lives, in our world. It's not autopilot, it's not going by itself. The world didn't just, poof, come into existence by the Big Bang. Hashem. God was the one who created the world. God is the one who sustains the world, and God is the one who guides the world and every part of it. And that's our job in this world, to come to that recognition. And when we do the mitzvahs and we study Torah, we are declaring that. We are declaring that to the world. And that's the connection back to the Exodus from Egypt, because that was the moment in time.
[00:20:19] And that Hashem, uh, demonstrated that.
[00:20:23] He demonstrated that he was the Creator. He demonstrated that he's a sustainer, he demonstrated that he's guiding the world and he's involved. And that's where we always go back to that moment. And finally, to finish off his essay, the Ramban gives over a very powerful message. And he says that the job of miracles, of the open miracles, or one of the jobs of the open miracles that Hashem created is that from the open miracles in our lives, it's supposed to help us recognize the hidden miracles.
[00:20:59] Because why is it, you know, why is it to say that the splitting of the sea is more of a miracle than a heart beating or a brain working or the human body, or just the world in general? That food comes out of the ground, you put a seed in the ground, it rots away, and then it becomes. It grows, you know, from it there's a rebirth, and from that comes food.
[00:21:25] Why is that any less of a miracle than the seed splitting? In fact, you could maybe argue it's even more of a miracle, right? Just because we get used to it. And that from the open miracles that we know God has performed for us, it helps us come to recognize all the hidden miracles in Our lives, that everything is a miracle. It's not. No, there's no such thing as nature. It's. Everything is really, you know, it's just the miracle of nature. That's the truth of it. It's not. It's because we get used to it. But really it's God who's guiding it. And I really just want to take this over, you know, saying over this piece from the. From Nachmanides, from the Ramban. And it's in memory of my uncle who really taught this over to me the first time. And just very strong in my mind how he went over it. But really, I feel like this idea ties very much into him as a person.
[00:22:21] Because there are people that in the world, special people, they excel in. In their Torah scholarship, they excel in their good deeds, they excel in the chesed, the kindness they do for others. And maybe we wonder to ourselves at times how come we are not, you know, maybe we should be like those people, but we feel like we're not.
[00:22:45] And m. Why didn't God make us all like these special people, that we're all able to excel and we're all able to do chesed, to do kindness?
[00:22:55] Why can't we just be like them?
[00:22:57] Right? So why did God make these special individuals that are able to go above and beyond in all areas of their service of God and everyone else? Maybe we're not that way. And I felt that maybe when you have a special individual who's able to excel and who's able to go above and beyond, he's there for us to learn from, to. To recognize that we can get there too, that we're able to reach that greatness. It just takes work. We have to believe in ourselves, have faith in Hashem and faith in our abilities, that with the help of God, we can get there. And just going to my uncle, he was somebody who excelled in Torah scholarship. He had a tremendous memory. He knew the entire Talmud. He would say lines from the Talmud. He would say, it's in this and this tractate, this and this page, three lines from the bottom. My father said, you should be well. My father, he said, I used to think he was making it up. Then I checked, he was right every time.
[00:24:00] And he had a tremendous memory, a vast knowledge of the Talmud and many different areas of Torah.
[00:24:08] But it wasn't just that, that he was great in. He was also someone who excelled in. In chesed, in kindness. For many years, he volunteered in this nursing home. You know, we think of a nursing home, people don't Necessarily want to volunteer there. He used to go there to help people, to feed people, to do the small things, feed people, to take care of them, to say them a good word, to give them encouragement, to help them put on tefillin, to do a mitzvah. And he was always very encouraging to people. Like I mentioned earlier. He would tell you, um, he loved you. He would express his emotion to you. He would give you the encouragement. He would tell you how proud he was of you. And I think what makes a person great is obviously Torah scholarship is great. He had a great memory. But that wasn't the reason, the only reason that made him great. Uh, what I felt made him great was the small things. The small things. He took notice of people, and he took notice of their feelings, and he didn't overlook a person. He didn't see a person how they looked or how they smelled or how they, uh, uh, spoke. He saw the neshama. He saw the soul that was under. Sometimes. Sometimes we see people, we judge them, we look at them a certain way. He saw a person for who they truly were, the neshama. And he was able, no matter even the fact that he was a great Torah scholar, it didn't belittle him to feed someone who maybe didn't have the ability to feed himself, because that was the right thing to do. And I think that's what made him great. And I think going back to this Ramban, you know, he passed away on the week of Parshas Bo, where this famous Ramban that we learned together, I just felt it was appropriate to talk about because just like God gives us this mission to use the open miracles as a way to appreciate the hidden miracles. I want to say a lesson from my uncle that maybe we could all learn, myself included, that, you know, we should learn out from the great people that are around us, that we know special people like my uncle. May his neshamaliyah, may his soul be elevated in heaven, that, you know, we can learn from them as well to be great. You know, it's not just for the other people, for the great people, for the rabbis to reach great levels in service of hashem, but we can do it too. And, uh, the way we do that is by the small things, by noticing people, by caring about people, by being studious in our studies, by pushing ourselves, by giving someone a good word. These are all things that were him, that embodied him, who he was. May it be that his neshama have and aliyah. Rab Shmuel ben Reb Shlem Yehuda Hakohein and his Neshama Shin Aven Aliyah. We're going to miss him very much, but his legacy lives on forever.
[00:26:52] And so with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. If you have any questions or comments or like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomo Kon Kohn at gmail com. Have a great day.
