Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back for this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well. Wow. It just seems like a few moments ago I was sitting back here in this seat in the Practical Parsha podcast studio.
[00:00:18] But another week has flown by and I'm sitting here with you to share thoughts on this week's parsha. Parshas Emor M.
[00:00:27] I'm excited.
[00:00:28] And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, or just would like to reach out to say hello, introduce yourself. Don't be shy. My email address is Rabbi Shlomo kon k o h nmail.comm I'd love to hear from you. This week's parsha is Parshas Emur. Just to give a quick overview of the parsha, Parshas Amor starts off with the laws of the Kohanim, the priests who worked in the tabernacle and the temple, the Mishkan and the Beis Hamikdash, and in general the priests. The kohanim had certain prohibitions that they weren't allowed to become to defile themselves to a dead person, obviously, except for close relatives, the seven close relatives, to be specific. And the parsha starts off with the laws of the kohanim, the parsha continues with the laws of the kohen gadol, the high priest, which was more stringent than a regular kohen. That kohen gadol, a high priest, is not allowed to be metame himself is not allowed to become impure to anybody, only to a mais mitzvah, somebody, a corpse that's found on the side of the road, then he has obligation to bury him. But other than that, he does not become tamey, does not become impure. The parsha continues with the, uh, mitzvah to safeguard the sanctity of the offerings. And the truma that they also as well cannot become tameh is to be treated properly, tells us about the truma, about blemished animals which cannot be offered on the Mizbeach on the altar. And we have the mitzvah on this week's parsha of Kiddush Hashem and Hillel Hashem, sanctifying G D's name, and the prohibition of desecrating G D's name.
[00:02:17] And we are going to get into that a little bit today in this week's podcast. The parasha continues with the festivals, Pesach, the Omer, which we're in the middle of right now, counting the Omer Shavuis, the holiday of Shavuis, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkesh, shmine, atzeres. And finally, the parasha finishes off with the menorah, talking about the shobread, the lechem upon him. And the story about the blasphemer, the story where a person cursed G D. And how G D commanded Moshe Rabbeinu to deal with him. The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the parsha, where we're discussing the laws of the Kohanim and the Kohen gado. Now, the kohanim, the priests, they were the spiritual teachers of the Jewish people.
[00:03:07] And the Jewish nation as a whole had different obligations to support them, right? Because they would teach the Jewish people. They would be the teachers, the Torah teachers. They would work in the temple.
[00:03:19] They didn't have a portion in the land of Israel, but rather the rest of the tribes had to support them through tithes, through different parts of every animal had to be given to the kohanim.
[00:03:33] The oil, every, all the olives that were pressed, a certain percentage had to be given to the kohanim. Wool that was sheaved would have to be given to the kohanim. So all their needs were taken care of from the Jewish people.
[00:03:46] Now, the kohanim, in a general level were a very. They were a spiritual people.
[00:03:54] They were on a higher level than maybe the rest of the nation in a certain way.
[00:03:59] And they had certain prohibitions. They were not able to become impure, and they had to be careful. They had to eat the, I guess, the truma in sanctity, the carbonos. They had to eat it in sanctity. They had to keep themselves pure so they could do their job in the Beis hamikdash and eat all these sacrificial foods. Now, the parsha continues with the laws of the Kohen gado. And the Kohengado was on an even more exalted level than the rest of the Kohanima.
[00:04:27] He was the spiritual father of the Jewish nation.
[00:04:31] Now, it's interesting. If you look at the verses that describe the Cohen Gadol, there's an interesting usage of words.
[00:04:38] The first one that we're going to read is chapter 21, Pasuk 8.
[00:04:47] Uh, uh, Kadeshka says, you shall sanctify him, for he offers the food of your God. He shall remain holy to you, for holy am I, Hashem, uh, who sanctifies you.
[00:05:05] And if you look in the verses throughout the next chapter that describe the Cohen Gaddo, uh, we see that the Torah repeats a certain phrase that refers to the Coingalo that God is sanctifying him.
[00:05:25] For example, we see in verse 16, it says.
[00:05:35] It says in the verse, thus shall he not desecrate his offspring among his people. For I am Ah Hashem, who sanctifies him.
[00:05:43] And we see again in chapter 22, verse 9, referring to the Cohen Gaddo, it says, they shall protect my charge, not be a sin thereby and die because of it, for they will have desecrated it. I am Hashem, who sanctifies them, referring to the Kohanim. And we see again in verse 16, it says, it says, and they will cause themselves to bear the sin of guilt when they eat their holies, for I am Hashem, who sanctifies them. It's referring to the Kohanima while eating the truma. So we see again and again in the Parsha, when referring to the Kohen Gadol, the high priest, and referring to the Kohanim, we see that Hashem is the one that sanctifies him and sanctifies them.
[00:06:52] But if we go back to the beginning, the first verse that we read, there's something interesting about, says Kikadosh, ani Hashem mekadishchem.
[00:07:09] You shall sanctify him, the Kohen, for he offers the food of your God. He shall remain holy to you, for holy am I God who sanctifies you.
[00:07:20] Again, he shall remain holy to you, for holy am I God who sanctifies you. It's interesting.
[00:07:27] Everywhere else we refer to the Kohanim, to the Kohengado that AH Hashem is the one who sanctifies him.
[00:07:37] So wouldn't it be appropriate here for the Torah to say, to finish the verse, who sanctifies him? Right. Why is it saying here he shall remain holy to you, for holy am I God who sanctifies you.
[00:07:53] Right. Everywhere else it says, who sanctifies him? Right.
[00:07:58] What's the difference? What's the lesson that we can learn out from this? We know that the Torah tells us to make for ourselves a teacher, right? Perkei avos. It says Ethics of the Fathers. It says, asei, uh, l' harav. You should accept a teacher upon yourself. You need to have a Rebbe, a rabbi, a teacher, someone who could teach you Torah could lead you in the right way, someone who could mentor you to make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Now, at the same time, when it comes to having a rabbi, having a rabbi, having a mentor, the Torah gives us guidelines on how we should look at the people we look up to.
[00:08:40] Do we look at them like we want to be them?
[00:08:43] Do we look at them as they are, the ones who are giving us our, uh, connection to spirituality?
[00:08:50] The Torah tells us that there's a proper connection we're supposed to have to our spiritual mentors and teachers.
[00:08:57] Sure, it should be a strong connection. We should. You know, you want to make that connection to have someone who's a mentor to you, who could show you what to do, who could even tell you when you make mistakes, and you want to have a healthy sense of attachment.
[00:09:15] But from this week's parsha from the Pasokir of how the Torah refers to the Kohanim, there's a distinction that has to be made.
[00:09:27] Now, before you say, oh, uh, I'm saying against, you know, keep your distance from the rabbis. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you have to have a strong connection with your rabbi. With your rabbi. You know, I personally, I'm blessed to have a very strong connection with my. My Rebbe m Yeshiva and my rabbeim. Actually, not just one Rebbe, many teachers.
[00:09:51] And one thing I've seen, though, is that sometimes people look at their teachers and they want to be them.
[00:10:03] And that's not what the Torah wants us to do. The Torah wants us to be ourselves.
[00:10:09] You know, there's a phenomenon out there called hero worship.
[00:10:13] You have a baseball player and the kid wants to be the baseball player. You know, when they play ball with their friends, they pretend, I'm, um, this player and you're that player.
[00:10:24] Because in their mind, that's who they want to be.
[00:10:28] And Rabbi Torsky brings down in his commentary, uh, on Chumash, that hero worship, you know, which is also found in cults, comes from a lack of self esteem.
[00:10:41] That when people feel that they are not good enough and they're not worth anything, the only thing that they can do is to try to find someone who is worthy and who is great to attach themselves to them. Right? That's why you find many times that these cult leaders are people who are. Who just, uh, try to convince people. Very charismatic.
[00:11:07] And by these people who worship this hero worship, when they have the person they're looking up to, since they don't feel so good about themselves inside.
[00:11:18] So they latch on to the person they're trying to look up to and become totally attached.
[00:11:25] But really what they're missing out is that they themselves have a tremendous worth.
[00:11:33] They themselves could be great. And the lesson of this week's parsha from the fact that the Torah tells us that it's I, Hashem, who sanctify you, meaning the only reason that the kohanim are sanctified is because G D has sanctified them.
[00:11:54] But ultimately it's Hashem who's going to sanctify you.
[00:11:59] And every person has to recognize and realize that their connection to Hashem and the true potential they can reach is not necessarily fully dependent on a rabbi, is not fully dependent on hero worship.
[00:12:21] But rather it's a healthy connection to a rebbe, to a mentor.
[00:12:28] But it shouldn't get to a place to a point where it's this thought in our minds that it's the mentor, the rabbi, this hero, is the one who is going to be making us holy, is going to be making us great.
[00:12:49] And I think the practical lesson that we can take out of this is that in the end of the day, we need to have a connection to a Rebbe. We have to have a rabbi, and we have to have a mentor. And it should be a strong connection. And it should be someone we should look up to. We should have people that we look up to spiritually. We should have those spiritual mentors. It's something we must have and we need to have.
[00:13:14] But the distinction that I'm making is that the connection to that person is not the ends. It's just a means to an ends. It's to help you become the best person you can be.
[00:13:30] Just by having that connection alone is not going to make you or, you know, it's not going to make you the person you could be. You have to realize within yourself that you can take the attributes of. Of your teachers, take all the good things from your mentors, and apply it to your own life to become the best person you can be. And I think that's the healthiest way to go about it. You know, many times when I was in yeshiva, I used to see people where they would, you know, they had a strong connection to a rabbi, and they would try to be that person. They would try to really just like, copy everything that that rabbi was doing.
[00:14:11] And it always bothered me because, you know, everybody is different, and everyone has different things, that they have their strengths and their weaknesses.
[00:14:22] And really, you know, you don't want to copy someone else. You can take aspects of your mentors. You know, there's a certain thing that your rabbi does, and you want to apply it to yourself. That's great. Or something that this mentor does, and you want to also do that. That's great.
[00:14:36] But just to copy Somebody else. That's not. It never struck me as the right thing to do. And I think that's what this idea is over here, that Rabbi Twersky is sharing with us, that when it comes to growth and spirituality and mentors in general, we have to have that self esteem and we have to have that sense of self to realize that we're our own person.
[00:15:03] Now, obviously, you have to follow the guidelines of the Torah. You can't just say, I'm my own person, I can do whatever I want. No, it doesn't go like that. And you have to have a Rebbe to keep you in check and to keep you in bounds. But there's a certain realization that you are yourself as well.
[00:15:20] And the spiritual connection that you have to your Rebbe, your rabbi, your mentor has to be a strong one, but has to be a healthy one with the recognition that you want to try to gain what you can gain from a person. But ultimately it's inside of each and every one of you, me, you, to determine how we're going to get to our spiritual potential.
[00:15:48] And that's what we see from this week's Parasha. And the fact that the Torah changes the wording from you shall sanctify him to who sanctifies you. It's helping us remember that ultimately it's our relationship with Hashem.
[00:16:03] It's God who sanctified the kohanim. It's God who has made, you know, the teachers of our people, the teachers, and has raised them up spiritually.
[00:16:14] And therefore it's also God who can make us holy as well, to realize our self worth, to help us get to our true potential. So this is a little bit of a tedious idea.
[00:16:26] It's realizing that we need to have mentors and it needs to be strong, but at the same time to realize that it's we're our own person as well, that it's up to us to really get to where we need to be. A person could have the most m holiest rabbi and mentor in the world. But if we don't do what we're supposed to do, we'll never get to where we're supposed to be.
[00:16:52] The second idea I wanted to share with you takes us further into the Parasha where the posse reads as Veloi sehalu hashem kochi vinikdashti be' soich b' ne yisrael ani uh, hashem mikadeshem um, you shall not desecrate my holy name. Rather I should be sanctified among the children of Israel, I am Hashem, who sanctifies you.
[00:17:15] Now, this is the mitzvah and the prohibition of Kiddush Hashem, which is sanctifying G D's name. That's the mitzvah and the prohibition of desecrating G D's name, which is Hillel Hashem. Now, what does that mean exactly? What is a kiddush hashem and what is a chill hashem?
[00:17:37] Now, I'm sure we all know kiddush, a kiddush and shola, uh, kiddush is great. Now, I'm not referring to that type of kiddush. I'm referring to a kiddush hashem.
[00:17:45] A kiddush hashem is sanctifying the name of G D.
[00:17:49] And the most easy way of understanding that is that if a Jew acts in an elevated manner, does what he's supposed to do, and people look at him or, uh, her that, ah, wow, a Jewish person acts in such an elevated and esteemed way, that's a kiddush hashem, right? When the Jewish people act in a way that the nations of the world look at them and say, wow, what a special people.
[00:18:19] That is something which is sanctifying the name of G D. Because what makes us special is that we listen to God, we have the Torah, we follow the mitzvahs. So when people look on the people of God and say, look how special they are, how they treat each other, how they treat people, what they do, that's a, uh, Kiddush hashem. That's sanctifying the name of G D. It's bringing honor to Hashem.
[00:18:46] Because we're doing his will, and we're showing the rest of the world of what, of how a person can live, how a person can be when they follow Hashem.
[00:19:00] On the flip side, if people look at a Jewish person or the Jewish nation, G D forbid, and they say, uh, that's how a Jew acts. That's how the Jewish nation acts.
[00:19:10] And that's how God's people act. They could do X, Y and Z, those horrible things.
[00:19:15] That's a chill hashem. That's a desecration of G D's name.
[00:19:21] Now, the biggest sanctification of G D's name that a person can have is giving up one's life for Hashem, giving up one's life for God.
[00:19:35] Now, in Judaism, there's a stress. We always focus on life.
[00:19:39] We want life, we want to live.
[00:19:42] We value life. We treasure it.
[00:19:46] And normally, if someone would come to you and say, eat not kosher, or else I'll kill you, the Torah tells us, you should eat, not kosher, right? You do that sin to save your life in normal circumstances. Meaning to say, as if it's regular times.
[00:20:09] But there's three Averos where we are commanded to give up our life, that if someone says this to you, to me, to either murder someone, commit adultery, or, uh, to do idol worship, we have to give up our lives for the sake of God and not do those sins.
[00:20:32] Those are the three cardinal sins which every Jew has to be willing to give up their life. And in fact, in the Shema, every day, we say we have to love Hashem, our G D, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our resources.
[00:20:57] And the commentaries tell us that when it says with all our soul, it's referring to the Mitzvah of Mikadeshem Shemayim. And over the centuries of Jewish existence, thousands of years that we've been around, there have been Jews that have given up their lives to be Jews, to die as Jews.
[00:21:18] And the great, uh, philosophers say that if someone's not willing to give up their life, if there's not something that a person is willing to give up their life, then, uh, there's nothing that they're willing to live for as well, right? The value of life is the fact that you have something to die for as well. And that's the ultimate Kiddush Hashem, to die for the sake of hashem. Now, obviously, we want to live.
[00:21:43] We want to, you know, go on for many, many years to be around, to do mitzvos, to have the connection to Daven.
[00:21:51] But there's an aspect of Judaism that we have to think about every day. We think about it two times a day in the Shema, this idea that if it is ever presented to us, we would be willing to do it. It's not something easy, but we say it every day in the Shema, Something to think about.
[00:22:09] But what I also want to do today, I want to talk about this idea of Kiddush Hashem, of sanctifying G D's name and chile Hashem, desecrating G D's name when it has to do with no one else.
[00:22:22] So I just explained before how Kiddush hashem, sanctification of G D's name, and Chiddel Hashem, desecrating G D's name, has to do with other people, the non Jews, looking at us, you know, giving up our life. But what I want to talk about now, that there's a level of Kiddush Hashem, part of it as well, of sanctifying God's name and Desecrating God's name has to do between you and God, nobody else has to know about it. And when is that? When you do something because God told you to do it, you're sanctifying the name of God. And if, God forbid, you decide to do something that you're not supposed to do and you do it even though G D said not to do it, that's a khilashem that's desecrating God's name. So it comes out from this that this mitzvah of kiddush Hashem and chil Hashem is not just when we're around other people.
[00:23:16] It's when we're by ourselves as well.
[00:23:20] Because when we talk about giving honor to Hashem, it's our own actions as well bring honor.
[00:23:29] Or could, God forbid, desecrate the name of God as well?
[00:23:34] So the next time we're presented with an opportunity of to do something or to not do something, to do a mitzvah or to not do a mitzvah, and maybe we need that push to do it. We need something to get us over the hill, to get us to the finish line.
[00:23:50] We should remember that it's not just us doing that mitzvah, but it's also the fact that after we do the mitzvah, we're bringing tremendous honor to Hashem.
[00:24:02] We're bringing glory to him because we're doing his will. We're not doing it for any other reason. Right? We're not shaking a lulav and Ezro because it's cool, it's stylish.
[00:24:13] We're doing it solely for the, um, honor of Hashem. And that in of itself brings honor to God's name.
[00:24:21] Because now you yourself internalize.
[00:24:25] You're doing an action that's no other reason than that God told you to do it.
[00:24:31] And that's a beautiful thing, because people only think about this mitzvah as something has to do with other people, but it has just as much to do with ourselves.
[00:24:43] 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 an email at Rabbi Shlomo cohemail.com have a great day.
