Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohon, and I hope you are well for this week.
[00:00:10] I'm not going to be giving a overview of the Parashas Parashatz Ki Tzeitze.
[00:00:15] For that, you're going to have to, uh, tune in to last year's episode or the year before to get a quick overview. But I wanted to lead off this week with a special introduction because this episode is episode 100 of the Practical Parasha podcast.
[00:00:34] And, um, it's a little bit emotional for me, this episode, just to think about it.
[00:00:40] I was looking at some stats before I recorded, and a staggering number hit me.
[00:00:47] I saw online that there are many people that start podcasts, and I'm not criticizing. It's a great thing. People want to start something, they should go for it.
[00:00:58] Of the people that start podcasts, 44% don't make it past episode three, and only 11% ever make it to episode 50.
[00:01:09] And I didn't see any stats about 100, but I'm sure it's significantly less to make it to this point, to make it to episode 100 of the People who start it.
[00:01:19] And I just want to thank Hashem, I want. I want to thank God for giving me the ability to sit down to share Torah thoughts with you every week.
[00:01:33] A lot of times it wasn't easy, and not necessarily was it a easy, uh, week, but sat down, put some ideas together in a clear, meaningful way, and I shared it with you.
[00:01:50] So I want to thank, uh, you, the listeners, for getting me to this point, because, uh, what would a podcast be without listeners? Right? So thank you, thank you, thank you.
[00:02:03] And I really appreciate all the feedback I've gotten throughout the years of podcasting. It really means so much to me to keep me going, to keep pushing me, to hear how this podcast has affected people, inspired them, and it's given them a lift in their Yiddishkeit. That really means a lot to me. And I also have to give a honorable mention to my dear wife, who without her, I would not be here at episode 100. You know, like I've mentioned before in the past, Thursday night, when I usually record, I mean, I wish I could do a little earlier, but God willing, I will. But usually I release the new episode on Thursday night. It is the busiest time of a week in the Jewish home. Thursday night, Friday, getting ready for Shabbos. And I'm sure my wife could use my help to be home to help prepare for Shabbos to make sure that Friday is not such a hectic day. But she wants me to sit down and share the Torah thoughts with you. That's important to her and I really appreciate her support and the encouragement and all the weeks when I maybe was, you know, it's easy when there's no, like, obligation, right? I'm not being, uh, paid to give this podcast.
[00:03:19] It's easy for me to say I'll take a break, but it's really my wife, she should be blessed. That pushes me every week, doesn't let me give it, get a week off to make sure I get the episode because she knows how important it is and appreciates that.
[00:03:35] So before we begin this episode with some beautiful thoughts, if you would like to say hello to Wish me mazel Tov on episode 100.
[00:03:46] Tell me how this podcast has influenced you, has inspired you.
[00:03:52] Please feel free to reach out to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:04:00] So this week's Parsha is Parshas Kitzeitze.
[00:04:04] Now, as I mentioned earlier, the overview you'll have to go to last year's episode, but there are many mitzvos in this week's Parsha, and just the famous ones that I'll just talk out quickly are the woman of beautiful form, the Isha sefastoar that if a Jewish soldier sees a woman he desires in battle, there are permitted circumstances when he could bring that woman back home with him and make her into his wife.
[00:04:37] Additionally, there's also the Bensora u moreer, the rebellious son. The Torah teaches us how to deal with him. Now, the first idea I wanted to start us off with today takes us to the Eishes Yifastoer, this woman of beautiful form, this woman who is captured on the battlefield that this soldier desires, this captive woman. And the Torah tells us how he has to bring her back to his house and there's a process for him to marry her, to make him, to make her into his full wife. And the Torah tells us that he brings her back home and he has to change her from the beautiful clothing that she was wearing, because that was the. The way that the these enemy armies would entice to distract the soldiers by dressing their daughters in beautiful clothing. He would take her out of that fancy clothing and she would grow her nails long and he would have to see her as she really is, not with all the adornment.
[00:05:38] And the hope is that his mind will get the better of him, meaning his desires will subside, and he will not just marry her because he desired her. And if he still desires to marry her, he's allowed to marry her. But if not, he has to send her back to her family. And the psukim read as kisei sei la mochama le vecho nosna y hashem elokecha biodecha vishavisa shivyo. When you will go out to war against your enemies, and hashem, your g D will deliver him into your hand, and you will capture his captivity.
[00:06:17] And you will see among the captivity a woman who is beautiful of form. You will desire her. You may take her to yourself for a wife.
[00:06:31] You shall bring her into the midst of your house, and you'll shave her head and let her nails grow.
[00:06:46] She shall remove the garments of her captivity from upon herself and sit in your house. And she shall weep for her father and her mother for a full month thereafter. You may come to her and live with her, and she shall be a wife to you.
[00:07:02] Uh, um, but it shall be that if you do not desire her, then you shall send her on her own, but you may not sell her for money. You shall not enslave her because you have afflicted her. Now, the question that's raised here is that the tense that's used when the Torah describes that if he does not want her, and it will be if you did not want her, it uses a, uh, past tense.
[00:07:39] When the Torah is describing this whole situation about Eishas yifas Torah, until now, we're using a future tense, right? It says, and you will desire her. But over here, when it's referring to him sending her away, it switches to the past tense.
[00:08:02] You did not want her, right? So the, the terms, the tenses should be the same. It should both be in the future tense, and it shouldn't be off here. So the question is, what's the difference? Why everywhere else in this, uh, paragraph are we using future tense? And here when he's sending her away, it uses past.
[00:08:22] And the answer to this is that there's a fundamental difference between wanting and desiring.
[00:08:30] When the Torah describes the woman of beautiful form, the Eisha siphas Torah, the Torah says, and you will desire her.
[00:08:40] But when the Torah describes this situation of him sending her away, he says that you will chafets you do not want her. It's brought down that the difference between wanting and desire is that desire comes from a place of lust, of passion, which is the term, and he will desire Her.
[00:09:09] And when it says imloi chafatzta bo he doesn't want her, it means it's something which you didn't want for a rational reason.
[00:09:18] So the Torah is giving us a very big insight here to the difference between desiring and wanting, right? So this soldier, he's on the battlefield and in the midst of battle that he has this desire for this woman that he sees.
[00:09:34] And he takes her, he brings her back to his home.
[00:09:38] And after that month where the Torah describes a certain process that he has to wait in order for her to become his wife, he decides he sees her as she really is, and he decides he doesn't want her anymore, right? So it's something which is thought through. It's for a rational decision.
[00:09:54] And I think the lesson that I think we could take out from the parsha is that when it comes, we have to know the difference between our desires and our wants.
[00:10:06] Now, the commentaries use this as an example for marriage, that people marry for the wrong reasons. You know, maybe somebody's only marrying somebody because of their looks. Um, that's not the right thing to do. You're just. That's. That's getting married because of desire, because of passion, because of lust. Obviously, you have to be attracted to your mate, but you shouldn't. A person should not be getting married just because of looks. And it has to be a deeper relationship, a more real relationship, a relationship that is where there's chafatz taba, where a person wants the relationship, there's something deeper than that, right? There's a rational decision going on. That's the, uh, classic example that it's used for. But I really believe that this concept, this difference is something we need to apply to ourselves in all areas of our life.
[00:10:54] Do we want that new car or do we desire that new car? Right? Are there the decisions that we make to get something, to acquire something? Is it because it's a rational decision, it's something we need, it's something we want, or it's something we desire, right?
[00:11:12] Are we trying to keep up with, uh, the Joneses or the Cones? Or is it something that we need?
[00:11:18] In a funny way, this reminds me of a conversation sometimes I have with my children. They say, oh, I love pizza.
[00:11:25] And I always joke around. I say, you don't love pizza. Because if you love pizza, you take care of it. You give it a shower, you feed it. I say, no, you like pizza. Just maybe a little bit of a, um, a step away from, you know, this thought. But the point is Is that our needs, the things we want, the things we desire, we have to know the difference between desires and wants. And when something is pushing us to just get something and it comes from a, uh, place, maybe it's not so good, we have to be in tune with ourselves to know is it a desire or is it a want? And to know when to give in and when not to give in. And I think that's a very important idea when see from this week's Parsha. The second idea I want to share with you takes us to the mitzvah in the Torah to help your fellow unload his animal. If you see your friend's animal overburdened with packages, you have an obligation to help him unload the animal. And the psukim read as lo sira es chamor achicha yishoiroi neuflim baderech v' salamta mehem hokem tokeim. Imo, you shall not see the donkey of your brother or his ox falling on the road and hide yourself from them. You shall surely stand them up with him.
[00:12:45] Now, this is a commandment that we have to help our brother unload the donkey, unload the ox to make sure it's not going to fall over.
[00:12:58] Now, I saw a beautiful idea that gives us a powerful lesson from this mitzvah.
[00:13:07] The Rav Simcha Zisel of Kelm. He tells us, if the Torah tells us, gives us a commandment to help our friend's animal, that this animal is under, it's overburdened and there's weight on it, and it might fall over and it might cause the animal to be damaged or to be hurt.
[00:13:25] There's obligation for you to help your friend unload the animal. Now, if you think about this for a second, this helping that you're doing is, uh, a temporary thing. This animal is not going to be like this forever. It's a temporary situation, but yet you have an obligation to help him.
[00:13:44] So all the more so when it comes to, you know, things that are more permanent, things that are, you know, or even something that's going to cause permanent pain to somebody else, how much more so is the obligation for us to help our friends, to help our brothers, to help our brothers and sisters, to make sure we don't hurt anybody else.
[00:14:04] And Rav Simcha Zisa of Qalm writes that we know that the positive aspect of good is 500 times more than the aspect of bad. Right? That whenever we. The power of, uh, good is 500 times more than the power of bad. So if there's a commandment to help somebody, if there's a commandment to help someone, to prevent damage to his animal, even if it's a temporary damage, so all the more so how great is it for a person to help people out with good things, to help people with material matters, and even on top of that with spiritual matters? So we see from there that if the Torah takes care even for the pain of an animal, that's a temporary pain. So then take it from there to the next thing. So how much more so do you have to be careful to not cause pain to people and to help people in spiritual matters, material matters, all the more so if we do these things, it's going to be good for us. And. And actually, it's very interesting. The Chavez chaim brings down on the last few words of the posse. It says, hakem Takim, imo, that he has to do it with you, that the owner has a responsibility to unload the animal with you, Meaning the obligation goes away. If the owner says, if you come to help this animal get unloaded, and he says, okay, it's your obligation. I'm going home now. Your obligation. You're absolved from your obligation, and you can go home, that he has to do it with you. He can't just walk away. Chavz Chaim says from this that we know, uh, that if we have an obligation from the owner to do it together with you, to unload the animal. So, m All the more so when it comes to our relationship with hashem. And I always like to say sometimes that our relationship with hashem, our relationship with g D mirrors our relationships with other things in this world. The relationship of a parent, parent to a child, um, a husband and wife. And a lot of times the obligations in the Torah, the mitzvahs that we have in the Torah, also can mirror our relationship with hashem. So if hashem gives us a commandment to hakim Takim, imo, to be with the animal, that if we're the owner, we have to stay with this person who's helping us in order for him to help us. So, Hashem, so God, who put us into this world to do a job, to perfect ourselves, to be the best we can be, right? So, Hakim Tokkem, imo, that if we want hashem to help us, right? We dive into hashem. Please help us. Give us that connection. Inspire us, you know, uh, you know, we want to see hashem's hand in our lives.
[00:16:44] We have to do our part as well. It's Hakim Takim, imo, that, you know, we could daven for these things. We have to daven for them. It's important. We have to ask Hashem for them.
[00:16:55] But at the same time, we have to do our effort. We have to take that first step to show Hashem that we're doing it together with him. Because if we want all the blessing, we want all the good, we want Hashem to help us with all the different things that we're asking for, we have to do it together with him. We have to take that step. And that's another understanding of Hakim Takim, imo, that we have this obligation to do it together, that if we can't just walk away and say, hashem, take care of me. And, um.
[00:17:22] And I'm not going to do anything. No, Hashem will take care of you. He will take care of you. But we have a responsibility to do it together with him, to take that one step, to do whatever it is to show Hashem we are trying. We are taking that one step forward to show that we are also doing it together with him, and we are not trying to absolve ourselves of our obligation.
[00:17:43] And the example that the Chavez Chaim gives to help bring this point home is that, let's say for a moment there is a fellow who needs to borrow money.
[00:17:51] And he goes to this, uh, rich person and he says, can I borrow $10,000? And this rich individual, he wants to help him out. This guy wants to start a business. He wants to do something. Sure, I'll loan you the money. No problem. Come to my house tomorrow to pick it up, and I'll give you the check. The next day comes, he doesn't show up. And then the next day, same thing happens. He's like, can I borrow money from you? He says, sure. Come to my house, pick up a check. Doesn't happen. And the same thing repeats itself numerous times. And the fellow, you know, gets upset at him, says, you ask me for money to borrow. Why don't you come pick up the check? And I think that's the, uh, lesson.
[00:18:31] The lesson that we learned from this parable is that Hashem, he's ready to give us the money. We just have to come to the house to pick up the check. And, you know, I'm thinking about this now as we're talking. Now is the month of Elulse. It's the month before Rosh Hashanah. It's a special time, um, during the year where we say Hamelech basada that the king is in the field, that Hashem is coming out to greet his subjects. You know, it's going to be Rosh Hashanah is the time of divine judgment. But we have to prepare ourselves beforehand. We have to prepare ourselves before Rosh Hashanah comes.
[00:19:05] And I think this idea of coming to pick up the check, of just checking in to get the money that Hashem wants us to have Elul, is a special time for us to tap into that, to be able to. It's easier to get to the house. Maybe the other. Other times of the year, it's more difficult to pick up the check. But during El, Hashem is ready to bring the check to us. He wants us. He makes it easier for us to come back, to return. Normally during the rest of the year, we have to go to the house to pick up the check. But during Elul, it's a special time for us to, you know, have that introspection and to take it and put it into action.
[00:19:45] You know, the things that we can do to become better people, to become better Jews, to learn a little more, to daven a little more, to increase our Mitzvah observances.
[00:19:55] And God willing, when we do that, we're going with some, um, I guess leverage, uh, hopefully into the new year where we come to Hashem m and say, I'm trying. I'm working harder. And this ties very beautifully into the parasha. I believe that this idea from Hakim, take, imo, how important it is to help people in spiritual matters, to help other people, to have the greatness of that, being able to do that as much as we can. And additionally to remember that we have to do our part. God is ready to give us everything we need to succeed. But we have to take that first step forward. And. And especially now during this month of Elul, it's a very special time for us to do this. And it's brought down that when we do it this time, it's easier to accomplish our spiritual goals. And we're able to, God willing, use that to be signed and sealed for a good and sweet new year. The last idea I want to share with you today takes us to the prohibition of a man wearing a woman garments and a woman wearing a man's garment. The Torah says, male garb shall not be on a woman, and a man shall not wear a woman's garment. For anyone who does so is an abomination of Hashem.
[00:21:19] And the Targum Yonasan explains on this pasuk that obviously Aside from this, on the face value understanding this verse, Rashi explains that this is an abomination because it leads to immorality. The Targa Yonasin explains that the garments of a man include the mitzvah of Tzitzis and the mitzvah of Tefillin. Time bound mitzvahs generally only apply to men.
[00:21:46] That means the mitzvah of Tzitzis is a man's mitzvah. And similarly the mitzvah of Tefillin is a man's mitzvah as well.
[00:21:54] And women at the same time have mitzvahs that are just for them. Rab Chaim Shmuelevitz explains on this verse that this pasuk and this prohibition teach us a very important lesson about our outlook in life. Sometimes it's very easy for us to look at other people and to wish maybe we could be them. We could have their abilities.
[00:22:18] We, we could be as smart as them, we could look like them, we could be as strong as them, you know, and have the different skills they have.
[00:22:27] We have to realize that if we don't have those things, those abilities, then we're not meant to have it. Meaning, not that you shouldn't work and you shouldn't try to be better and improve yourself. Certainly we want to do that. We want to try to do that.
[00:22:42] The lesson here that we're trying to bring out is that every person has their unique role in life, and there's no point in trying to be something that you're not.
[00:22:56] And we have to realize and remember that Hashem made us who we are. Hashem put us into the situation that we find ourselves in and everything around that, and the abilities that we have, the circumstances that we find ourselves, they're all tools for us to get to our perfection.
[00:23:16] Meaning taking something that's not us is not going to help us get closer to our goals. And the way that he speaks it out, Rabbi Shmuel, is that one person's holy of holies is another person's abomination. And that's the example of the pasuk that what a man does, that's for him, and what a woman does is for her.
[00:23:38] And a man shouldn't be dressing in a woman's clothing and vice versa as well. And the lesson that we can take out from this is that we all have our mission in life and the circumstances that we find ourselves in and the abilities that we have are the tools that Hashem gave us specifically to get to our unique mission, to fulfill our unique goal in life to fulfill our potential, and we should embrace it and not run away from it. And it's an important thing to remember. Hashem gave us this situation, and Hashem gave us the ability to maximize who we could be, to be the best we can be. So with that, I'm going to Finish for today's 100th episode. Thank you again, and I look forward to God Willing speaking to you at episode 200. We're going to make a big party and everyone, God willing, will be invited. And again, as always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me at Rabbi Shlomo Cohn kohnmail.com have a great day.
