Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back for this week's episode of the Practical Parsha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen and I hope you are well this week it's a jam packed parsha, so we're going to just jump right in to try to, uh, accomplish as much as we can in the short time that we have together.
[00:00:20] So before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, say hello, introduce yourself.
[00:00:28] My email address, as always, is Rabbi Shlomokon Kohn dot com. I'd love to hear from you. This week's parsha is Parshas Shoftim.
[00:00:39] And the parsha is really a lot of halachos, is a lot of laws that Moshe Rabbeinu is telling to the Jewish people. He's giving them commandments that they're going to have to fulfill once again to the land of Israel. The first commandment that the Torah is giving to the Jewish people in this week's Parasha is to establish a court system.
[00:01:09] Um, judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities which Hashem, your God gives you for your tribes.
[00:01:19] And they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. That there's a commandment. The Torah Hashem is commanding the Jewish people to set up a system of courts when they enter the land of Israel. The parsha continues with the laws for a blemish sacrifice, as well as the death penalty for an idol worshiper, as well as the halachos of a zakayn mamre, a rebellious elder.
[00:01:42] The Parsha continues with the mitzvah that the Jewish people have when they come into the land of Israel. A second mitzvah is to establish for themselves a king, to have a king rule over the nation of Israel. The Parsha also tells us about the mitzvah to give the Kohanim the priestly gifts that there were certain gifts that the Kohanim and the Leviim, who were the priests and the Levites, they would have to be supported by the rest of the nation. All their needs were taken care of them.
[00:02:12] All their needs were taken care of. And instead of getting a portion in the land of Israel, the Kohanim and the Leviim, they received their sustenance through the rest of the nation.
[00:02:24] And the Kohanim and the Leviim were the teachers of the Jewish people. They the ones who spiritually supported the rest of the nation. So although they didn't have a portion of the land, the rest of the nation supported them physically so they could support the rest of Claudia Yisrael, the rest of the Jewish Nation spiritually.
[00:02:40] The Parsha also tells us about some of the rules of prophecy, how Hashem comes, sends his prophets to his people. In this week's Parasha, it's also given the Mitzvah of Orei Miklat, cities of refuge. And if someone kills someone inadvertently, someone kills someone by mistake, he has to run to a city of refuge until the death of the Kohen Gadot. It is also listed in this week's Parasha. A lot of mitzvos, a lot of commandments. This week's Parasha tells us about what happens when the Jewish people go to war. There is a kohen meshuach Mohamma, a kohen who's anointed for battle and how he sort of weeds out anybody who's not qualified to fight, who's maybe not up to spiritually on par to be a soldier in the Jewish army.
[00:03:26] And the Torah tells us how the Jewish army, when they would go out to fight, first there would have to be overtures for peace. But before making battle, we always have to offer the opposition a choice for peace as well as the preservation of fruit bearing trees that you pers, I guess as a city was being besieged, it was the custom that the way that they took over a city was destroying their food supply. And the Torah tells us that you're not allowed to destroy the fruit trees.
[00:03:58] Finally, the Parsha concludes with the, with the special mitzvah of Egla Arufa, the axed heifer. And we've talked about this mitzvah, this mysterious mitzvah in previous years, how a person, if someone was found dead between two cities, the city, the elders would come out and this whole, the Torah describes to us this whole ceremony where they would bring out this calf and they would hack it, uh, they would exit from the back of its neck and it is a choke, it is a divine decree. But some commentators give us maybe a little bit of understanding that it may be through these process of doing this mitzvah, hopefully the murderer would be found.
[00:04:41] The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the Mitzvah that the Torah commands the Jewish people that when they get into the land of Israel, they need to set for themselves to appoint for themselves a king. And actually the three mitzvahs that the Jewish nation had once they would conquer the land of Israel were number one to establish a king, number two to eliminate the offspring of Amalek, and number three to build the Beis Hamikdash, to build the holy temple, the Pesukim Read as follows. Kisava al' aretashir hashem elokecha nosey lokh virishta viushav teba va marta asimo alai melech.
[00:05:25] When you come to the land that Hashem your g? D gives you and possess it and settle in it, and you will say, I will set a king over myself, like all the nations that are around me.
[00:05:37] And, uh, the.
[00:05:40] You shall surely set over yourself a king whom Hashem your g D shall choose for among your brethren shall you set a king over yourself. You cannot place over yourself a foreign man who is not your brother. Right? And the Torah continues with different restrictions that a Jewish king has. So one of the first mitzvahs that the Jewish nation has when they enter into the land of Israel and conquer and they're settled, is to appoint a king.
[00:06:09] Now, it's very interesting. The psukim here are alluding.
[00:06:14] They're, you know, prophetically alluding to an incident which didn't happen yet, which. Which is going to happen in the future.
[00:06:23] And that's in Shmuel Aleph, the prophet Samuel. He was the one. He's one of the early prophets. After the Jewish nation enters into the land of Israel.
[00:06:34] And the Jewish nation, after they conquer the land, they come to Shmuel Hanavi, they come to Samuel the prophet, and they say, give us a king like all the other nations of the land. Just like other nations have kings, we also want to have a king.
[00:06:53] Uh, and Shmuel actually chastised them for asking in such a way.
[00:07:01] He criticized the Jewish people. He rebukes them for requesting a king in the way that they did.
[00:07:08] And really the question is what they do so bad. We see over here in the Torah, there's a commandment that the Jewish nation need to establish a king. They need to have someone to rule over them.
[00:07:20] And in fact, it's brought down in the commentary in the early prophets that certain tragedies that happened to the Jewish nation could have been avoided if there had been a king that was appointed earlier.
[00:07:34] Right? A, uh, king, you know, keeps a kingdom in check, that there's one person in charge. You know, sort of like a shul without a rabbi. It's like the Wild west shul's got to have a rabbi in order to keep.
[00:07:45] Keep things, keep everyone on the straight and narrow, to keep things proper, to make sure that there's a sense of unity. There's someone bringing all the points together. Bring. Bringing everyone together in a shul. That's a rabbi, right? And for a Nation for the Jewish nation, It's a king. So why is it that Shmuel Hanavi criticized the Jewish nation for requesting a king? And what does it have to do with this week's parsha? How is it foreshadowed in this week's parasha of Shoftim? So if you look at the psukim, maybe we could read into the pasuk and we could sense what the issue is. It says, when you come to the land that, uh, Hashem your g D gives you, possess it and settle in it. And you will say, I will set a king over myself, like all the nations that are around me.
[00:08:38] Like all the nations that are around me.
[00:08:42] Why did Shmuel Hanavi, why did Samuel the prophet rebuke the Jewish nation for how they asked for a king?
[00:08:49] Was it because they asked for kingship? No, that wasn't it. Because that's a mitzvah. That was something that they were commanded to do. That's a good thing to have a king.
[00:09:00] But the reason why he rebuked them. And what's foreshadowed in the parasha to that incident, that the Jewish nation, that's their first instance of establishing a king over themselves, right? Which led to Shol Hamelech Shoal Saul being established. And eventually his kingship did not last. It was, you know, dovra melech took over for shoal his line. King Saul. His line did not last. It went to David because of this incident, because of the source of why the people asked. Because the reason why the people asked wasn't because they wanted kingship to have a role model, to have someone that could unify the Jewish nation, to have someone that they could look up to.
[00:09:44] Rather, it was to be like the other nations of the world, to be like everyone else, to be similar to the goyim to all the other nations of the world.
[00:09:56] And the reason that you have a king is not to be like the other nations of the world. That's not what we aspire to as Jews. You know, sure, we realize that there's nations around us, and we have the proper respect for everyone else. But the reason why we do things is not because the other nations of the world do that. And that's what they do. They have a kingship. The reason why we do things is because Hashem told us to do it. And if Hashem is setting us up for a kingship to give us a king, the Jewish king, uh, you know, uh, is, you know, the Jewish king was someone who had to be a tzadik had to be a righteous person, had to be a benevolent ruler. He wore a Torah scroll on his neck at all times, and he had to be proficient in all areas of the Torah. It wasn't just the person who was a strong leader. Sure, in history, in Jewish history, we do have kings that were not up to that standard, but the kings that we look up to, King David, King Saul, King Shlomo, all these were righteous kings who ruled the Jewish nation, um, from righteousness and with Hashem. And they got to this point that people served Hashem out of unity, and they had a role model. And that's the reason why the Jewish nation should have wanted a king. Not because everyone else had kingship. Everyone else has a king. And I think this, the lesson for us here, two points, is that, you know, the reason why we do things. Why do we do what we do? There's always this expression, keeping up with the Joneses. Sometimes for Jewish people, it's keeping up with the cones. I mean, not. Not me, I saw my name with a K. But kidding aside, the point is that why do we do what we do? The reason why we do what we do is because Hashem told us to do it. Right? We shouldn't just do things because it's out of routine because everyone else does it. We should do things because it's the right thing to do.
[00:11:51] And, you know, I think it's. Obviously, there are benefits of, I, uh, guess herd mentality, being in a social setting where people do things, uh, in a certain way. You're part of a community. It does help people. It can help, you know, peer pressure works in both ways. It could be negative, but it could also be positive for people. But the optimal thing that we want to get to is a place. We're doing things because it's the right thing for us to do and because Hashem wants us to do it. And if we would be able to live our lives on that plane, I think a lot of decisions we would have to make would be a lot easier for us, because we wouldn't care about what someone else thought. We wouldn't care about. You know, how is this going to make me look? We would care about, what does Hashem want from me? I think that's a very important lesson which we see from this week's parsha. The reason why we do things, and I would just add one more point, which I think we could bring out from this lesson in this week's parsha, is that when the Jewish nation requested a king, they wanted to be like the other nations of the world. So it's really similar to this idea that we're just expressing just on a more general level as Jews, you know, we do things different.
[00:13:02] We're just. We're different, right? We even. We eat different, we talk different, we do everything different.
[00:13:08] And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think we should embrace that difference to realize that we are different than the Qayyim, than the nations around us. And there's nothing wrong with that. And we don't necessarily want to be just like the nations of the rest of the world. And I think that's something idea from this week's parsha that we could bring up from the way that the Jews asked for a king, they wanted to be like the other nations. And I think the lesson for us is that we're not supposed to be like that. We're supposed to be who we are and be proud of that. The second idea in this week's parsha takes us to the mitzvah of the priestly gifts.
[00:13:47] So, as I mentioned earlier, the kohanim and the Leviim, the priests and the Levites were, you know, they were the teachers of the Jewish people. They had certain responsibilities to obviously to do the service in the temple.
[00:14:01] And they spiritually supported the Jewish nation.
[00:14:05] And instead of the tribe of Levi, Levi getting a portion of land of Israel, they didn't receive one, but rather the Jewish nation would supply them with. With all their needs.
[00:14:16] So every animal, a portion of it had to be given to the Kohen. Different tithes have to be given to the kohanim and the Leviim. Um, the first shearings of wool had to be given to the kohanim as well as the first pressing. The different pressings of oil had to be given to them as well.
[00:14:32] And the posseq reads, there shall not be for the Kohanim, the Levites, the entire tribe of Levi, a portion and an inheritance with Israel. The fire offerings of Hashem and his inheritance shall they eat. So it was the obligation of the rest of the Jewish people to support the kohanim and the Leviim.
[00:15:04] So aside from me liking these, uh, psukim a lot and having yama kohen. But there's a very powerful lesson here which I want to bring out, which I think could maybe help us give a significance to the things that we do, the Chavez Chaim explains a beautiful idea. So as we've been saying, the kohanim and Leviim spiritually supported the nation.
[00:15:29] So therefore their needs had to be taken Care of.
[00:15:32] Now, nowadays there are no, you know, kohanim and leviim that are working in the temple.
[00:15:41] And it's not exclusively the kohanim and the leviim who are the teachers of the Jewish nation.
[00:15:47] So who, you know, is taking the place of the kohanim and leviim in this generation who are the quote unquote, kohanim and Leviim? I mean, obviously there's still a concept of kohanim. They're the ones who have to bless the nation.
[00:16:03] And God willing, when the Beis hamikdash, when the temple is rebuilt, it will be the kohanim that work in the Beis hamikdash. But this idea of this, um, leading the nation spiritually, which they did in those times, who was doing that today?
[00:16:18] And, uh, the Chavitz chaim explains that today the kohanim and leviim, the people who are spiritually supporting the Jewish nation, are the laimdei Torah, are the people that study Torah.
[00:16:32] Now, obviously, hopefully, we all are studying.
[00:16:36] We all are studying Torah, and we all are supporting the Jewish nation.
[00:16:43] But there's a special emphasis on the Torah students, the yeshiva students, the kolau rabbis, meaning these fellows that are full time giving their life to support Torah. There are thousands of people in the United States and in Europe and in Israel, all over the world, people who could be pursuing careers, very lucrative careers, who have decided with their wives blessings, with their family's blessings, to study Torah for the sake of studying Torah. And these people, these individuals, they are supporting the entire Jewish nation spiritually. And thus the chavitz Chaim says it's our responsibility to support them physically, to support Torah scholars, to make sure we give money to institutions of Torah study where there are people that are studying Torah, to support them, to make sure they have what they need. Something very important. The gemara tells us all the praises about if a person is mahana atam al chacham, a person gives pleasure to a Torah scholar, uh, it's a huge reward.
[00:17:49] That's the idea that the Chavez chaim brings. But I wanted to add one more point to this, which he brings down, which I think is very special for each and every one of us, because we all are Torah scholars. We all are studying Torah. We all are tapping into this. We're all machziki Torah. We all are supporters of the Torah. You know, maybe we're not studying all day, right? But we're making sure to put aside time every day to learn the word of hashem, to learn the word of God. And that puts us as uh, someone who's a machsik Torah. So obviously there's people who are learning Torah all day. There are people that individuals who study some part of the day, and then there's also supporting Torah financially, which makes a person a partner in uh, the endeavor as well. But one thing we have to realize is that just like in our generation though, if you think about it, you know, how many percentage of the Jewish population are involved in Torah study?
[00:18:50] Not so many, you know, and just like, you know, a guarantor, uh, when a person is a guarantor on a loan, there's a responsibility that they have. They feel a certain sense of responsibility.
[00:19:02] So we have to realize that we're the guarantors, that we, the people who are studying Torah, you listening to this podcast, have a certain sense of responsibility to the rest of the Jewish nation.
[00:19:13] Because think about it, the percentage, unfortunately we live in times where the state of the Jewish nation is not like it once was. And God willing, we pray that we should be brought back to those times.
[00:19:25] But percentage wise, how many Jewish people, uh, uh, how much of the Jewish nation is studying Torah and how many people are studying Torah in a consistent base basis?
[00:19:41] It's minuscule to the actual population. And I think if we have that in mind, you realize that you're the one who is keeping the tradition alive, that you're the one who's keeping the Torah, keeping the nation going. The Jewish nation is all from the Torah. The existence, the continued existence of the Jewish nation is all based in the Torah. If no Torah, we would be gone already. And you should think to yourself that when you're doing a mitzvah, when you're studying Torah, and it's hard, think about it, that you're guaranteeing the continued existence of the Jewish nation. The fact that there's not so many people in this generation doing what you're doing to study, to learn, to daven, to do all these good things. It gives the actions that you do an extra power and an extra sense of, um, responsibility that we have to fulfill the mitzvahs and to see it through because it's all dependent on us. We're the guarantors. We are supporting the rest of the Jewish nation. The last idea I want to share with you takes us to a famous verse in this week's Parasha, you shall be wholehearted with Hashem, your G D. And the commentators explain that this is referring to trusting in Hashem, to trust in God, that to not have to like, look into the future with these uh, like the idolaters do, to have faith that Hashem is going to take care of us and everything is going to work out for the best.
[00:21:12] Now, this concept is called having Pitachon, having trust in G D. And we've discussed on this podcast the benefits of having pitachon. How you live a more serene life, a more peaceful life.
[00:21:27] At the same time, it's not something you could buy in the grocery store. It's something which is sort of like a muscle. You develop it over years and years and years through the challenges, the ups and downs of life. But there's one point which I think is very important to bring out. And I'm not saying it's easy to always strike this perfect balance, but this is what we have to strive for. So Tomim tiyem Hashem lokeh. We should be wholehearted with Hashem. We should have trust in Hashem.
[00:21:52] At the same time, there's a fine line between doing our part and having bitachon. Now, a person sometimes can't say to himself, uh, I'm going to walk across a highway blindfolded, because if G D wants me to get hit by a car, it'll happen, and if not, it won't happen. Person can't do that because that's not having bitachon. That's just being a fool. And obviously, when we have to do something, when we have to, whether it be to treat ourselves or whether it be to look for a house or to look for a new job, we have to strike this balance of doing our part, doing our diligence, doing the stadtless.
[00:22:34] But yet, at the same time, after we do our part, to recognize and to realize that it's not the doing the shtadlas that's causing us to get the job. It's not. And it's, you know, that's just something we have to do. And it's not, you know, the actions that we do that are going to get us closer to that. It's something we have to do. It. It's Hashem, uh, is going to get us to the finish line. And we have to trust. We have to realize that once we do our part, Hashem is going to take care of us. And that's a very powerful lesson. This week's parasha. To strike this balance, that we do have to have this bitachon, very strong, trusting God.
[00:23:09] But at the same time, we still have to realize that there's also, uh, a threshold that we have to do our part to do our shtadlas, to sort of activate the Heavenly assistance. Now, obviously, the higher level a person's on, the less they do. But this is where it's, uh, a little bit of a balance. And sometimes it's always good to speak to a rabbi, a mentor, about what is the correct balance of what you should be doing or should not be doing. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. Hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, please feel free to reach out to me at rabbishlamokon kohn@gmail com. Have a great day.
