Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends. We are back for this week's episode of the Practical Parsha podcast. I hope you are well, and as always, if you would like to reach out to say hello, to introduce yourself, feel free to send me an email@rabbi shlomokon k o h nmail.com I love meeting all the listeners in this audience.
[00:00:27] Before I begin this week's podcast on the Parsha, I just want to share with you a story that happened to me yesterday. You know, we know that there's no such thing as coincidence. Everything is part of the divine plan, and we're just part of it.
[00:00:43] And I wanted to share something with you which I experienced, and maybe we can take a lesson. So in my day job, you know, all the time that I don't spend podcasting, I have a job, and I work as a rabbi. I'm not the rabbi of the community, but I am a rabbi. I help out with the different programming at the synagogue I work at.
[00:01:07] And the rabbi of the community, my boss, called me up and said, you know, Shlomo, I'm out of town. Someone who was affiliated with our synagogue years ago, over 20 years ago, um, is not doing well. His daughter called me up, and she wanted someone to come over to say special prayers with him. She wasn't sure exactly what to be said, but there are special prayers for a person who is about to pass on to the next world. It's called the vidoy prayer, the vidoy confession. And, um, you know, this is something that I never did before. I am also a kohen. So I, uh, I can't go into a situation where there's someone who is a deceased person or someone who's close to deceased. So we try to. We got to picture the situation. It wasn't something that didn't seem that this person was going to pass imminently, but things seemed to be getting progressively worse. So he asked if I could go to this ICU not too far from the shul, and say these special prayers with Jerry. And he told me that Jerry has not been responsive. I spoke to his daughter, and his daughter said that he has not been responding. I, uh, said we would go over there, but I went over there and I said the special prayers with Jerry. Meaning I said the prayers out loud. And I talked to him. I told him, you know, I talked to him like he would be awake. I spoke to him. I said, jerry, I heard such great things about you. The rabbi told me how you helped start the minion in Bucks county, where I live. And now, because of your efforts, there's a minion every day that he was one of the original people that helped start the minion, which now has mushroomed into a whole community. And I said, what a merit that you have. And I just went on to say. I said, you know, we're going to say a special prayer right now. And I read the introduction in there that, you know, many times people get nervous when they confess, right? But at the same time, many people have confessed and lived, and many people have not confessed and have died. And it's always good to say these prayers if, um, a person is in a precarious situation which could maybe have not the best outcome. So I said, we're gonna say these prayers. And obviously it doesn't necessarily for sure mean anything, but it's always good to say them. And I said it. And I said to him, just, you know, just say in your mind, listen to these prayers and say amen in your mind when I'm finished. And I went on to say this special vidoi prayer in Hebrew and then in English. And then after that, together, I repeated with his daughter, Shemai, yisrael hashem elokinu hashem echad. And we said the first paragraph of Shema, and I left. And I didn't think too much about it because Robert Chavitzky, when he got back the next day, was planning on going to be there as well, to go visit him as well.
[00:04:07] Later in the day, I received a phone call from the rabbi telling me that Jerry had passed on that a few hours later, after I said the special confession prayer with Jerry, his soul had moved on to the next world.
[00:04:23] And in my mind, you know, there's nothing that's coincidence.
[00:04:28] And I was thinking that maybe his neshama, his soul was waiting for those prayers to be said before it could leave this world to go to the next. And the two lessons that I took out of this story, and I wanted to share with you, is that, number one, when we have an opportunity to do a mitzvah, to do something good, and it comes to us, don't pass it up, don't let it go by you, because you might not have the chance later over here. You know, it's not something I usually do. I don't handle these type of situations. Usually it's rabbi, the rabbi, the senior rabbi.
[00:05:12] And here, uh, he was away.
[00:05:15] But I grabbed the situation. I didn't have to do it. But I decided, you know, it came to me, um, and I'm going to do this Mitzvah. And because of that, Jerry was able to pass on from this world with Vidoy, with this special confession, hopefully with teshuva, with a full returning as well.
[00:05:37] Another thought that I got from this story that happened to me is this idea that when a person is in a situation where there's a loved one and the loved one's not doing well, and maybe they're not even responsive, they're in a coma, they're not hearing anything, we should always talk to the person as if they would be awake, because we don't know what's going on inside of the person's mind. Could be their cognitive. Maybe they're hearing what we're saying, they just can't respond. And surely, even if the person can't hear the neshama, the soul definitely hears, and the neshama for sure hears the prayers that you recite with them. So don't despair.
[00:06:25] Speak to the person. Speak to them like they would be listening to you and awake, because you never know what's going in. And even if it's not going into their physical body, the nirshama is for sure hearing them. This week's parsha is Parsha's Tazria Mitzorah. It's a double parsha. Some years we read it separately, but this year the parsha is going to be read together. Parsha's Tazriya deals with a woman who gives birth, that after she gives birth, there's a certain amount of time she needs to wait before she becomes pure again. And there's a certain process of purification that a childbearing woman has to follow in order to be ritually, uh, pure, meaning to eat carbonos, to eat sacrifices, and to be permitted to her husband again. Pashas. Tazria also tells us about the symptoms of tzaras, which is translated as leprosy, which is not necessarily the correct translation, but it was a spiritual ailment that manifested itself in a physical way upon people. And. And this parsha tells us how a person gets, um, tsaras. What are the signs of tzaras? How does it look? What do you do if it's questionable?
[00:07:42] And that's what this parsha of Tazriya primarily tells us. Parsha's mitsorah, which literally is referred to as mitsora, as someone who has tzoras has this disease of leprosy, tells us the purification process. What does a person need to do in order to become pure again? How does it work? Do they have to give a sacrifice? Do they have to shave certain parts of their body.
[00:08:07] What are the halachos regarding the purification of a person who is a mitzorah, who is afflicted with tzaras? The parsha finishes with the laws of tzaras on houses and clothing, that it wasn't just possible for a person to get saras on their body, but also on their houses as well, on their belongings. It could also happen that they would be afflicted with tsaras. The parsha also tells us about the um, zav and zavos, a different type of tumah, a different type of impurity, a balkere, which is another type of impurity that a person could have, and the different halachos of tumas nidda, the laws of a woman who. Who menstruates, and the different purification processes as well for them. The first idea I wanted to share with you today is about tuma. You know, both of these parshios, there's a big focus on impurities on this tuma, different types of impurities.
[00:09:06] And the question that begs to be asked is, what is tumah? What does it mean? Impurity? What does it mean to be impure? You know, what is it exactly? And how do we understand it? And two different answers I heard hopefully can help us, you know, wrap our minds around it and get a little clarity in this concept of what is tuma? Uh, what is impurity? Are these spirits? Are these forces? What is it?
[00:09:35] And the first explanation that I wanted to share with you today is that tuma is something that comes from a lack of a vacuum, so to say. And the way we understand that is that whenever there is a spiritual vacuum, when there's a spiritual vacuum, the spirituality is lacking. So then there's tumm, there's impurity. The biggest example of tumah, the most impure thing, and it's referred to as aviya vosa Tumah, the father of all. To most, the father of all impurities, is a corpse, a dead person.
[00:10:16] That a dead person, aside from making someone tame, if they just touch a dead person, if someone's in the same room as a corpse, they become tame.
[00:10:29] And it's actually interesting.
[00:10:32] Nowadays, even though we are all considered tame mais, we all have this, um, this type of tumas mace. It's referred to the mace of a dead person upon ourselves. And the only way that we could be purified from this tumas mais, the tuma of a dead person, is by having the red heifer, which we don't have. But even so, kohanim priests, amicohen, are not allowed to defile themselves. They're not allowed to come in contact with. With a dead person, with a corpse, obviously, unless it's a close relative. But other than that, they are forbidden from being even in the same room as a dead body. And we're gonna see how this ties into our explanations of what tuma, um, is. But if you look at a corpse, a dead person, what is it?
[00:11:27] You had a person who was living a little bit while before that. And a person represents potential.
[00:11:35] A person can do, a person can accomplish, A person can do mitzvahs, right? As long as the neshama, as long as the soul is within a person, you could do more, you can accomplish, you could be better. But once the neshama leaves, once the soul leaves the person.
[00:11:52] So now what's left.
[00:11:54] What's left is spiritual vacuum, is a lack of potential.
[00:12:00] All is left is this shell of dirt, skin, bones, blood. When you had potential here, right, this person was living. It wasn't tame. But now that this neshama is gone, there's a loss of potential that equals tuma. It equals impurity. And maybe we can understand the tuma of nida as well. The tuma that's emanated from a woman's menstrual cycle, that when there's a egg that's lost, the egg represents potential, and now the egg is gone. So that equals tuma, it equals a certain state of, uh, impurity, which a person needs to go through a purification process to be back to their original spiritual self. And I heard this explained a little bit differently, which also can help us understand specifically why a woman who gives birth also has a certain level of tumah on herself. But it's not just a woman. A man could have tumah as well. If a man emits zav or carry, uh, different emissions, different seminal emissions cause a person, Cause a man to become tummy, to become impure, because, again, it's potential that is gone now, and that equals tuma impurity. And just to, uh, help us a little bit more with this understanding, the anytime there's a situation where it looks like the physical has overpowered the spiritual, that equals tumah, um, as well, right? When you have a body, it's living. There's an ashama there. But when the body is dead, it's not living anymore. It looks as if the physical is overpowering the spiritual.
[00:13:46] And I saw it brought down that when these situations happen, the neshama sort of enters a state of confusion. And I think this could help us understand why a woman who gives birth also has a certain level of tumah on her. Because a person gives birth, it looks like the physical has given birth to this new person. Right? It looks like the physical is overpowering the spiritual. And the way that you become pure is by going to a mikveh which has to be from a natural source, has to be from rainwater or a spring, because that represents the, uh, part of nature which is sort of closest to creation, which is helping us get back in touch to our spiritual side again. That's why part of the process of becoming pure again, of the purification processes with all the tumos, all the different types of impurities requires mikveh. And now some many impurities, many tummose don't apply today, but some do as well. And there is different processes that are required for each type of tummo, for each type of impurity. Some of them require shaving, some of them require, um, bringing a carbon. Some of them require just going to the mikveh. But I think these two thoughts help us understand a little bit this concept of tumah, this concept of impurities.
[00:15:08] Second idea I wanted to share with you today focuses in on the first pasuk of Parshas Tazria. It says in this week's Parasha Vedabar hashem hamosha lamor daber el b'nai Yisrael, lamor isha kisazriya vilda zochar vertuma Shavas Yamim kimei nidaz di titma hashem spoke to Moshe saying, speak to the children of Israel, saying, when a woman conceives and gives birth to a male, she shall be contaminated for a seven day period, as during the days of her separation infirmity shall she be contaminated. The Torah goes on to tell us the laws of tum of impurities about a person, spiritual impurities that a person has and lists it in the following Parsha, Tasria and Mitzorah and Rashi. Right away notes it says, says that just like the creation of man only came after the creation of beast, animal and fowl, be'mai, sebration and creation of the world, Kach toy rosa, nesbarasha, acher toyras, Behemachai, voyv. So too the Torah of impurities are listed after the impure animals, birds and fowl. So too the halachos of unclean and impure animals are listed first. And only after the animals and the birds and the wild beasts are the halachos of human contamination. Listed. And the midrash brings down on this week's parsha im zakha Adam oym ramloi at ha gadamtolokhomai sebratious. If a person merits, they say on him that you preceded the creation of the world because g d planned even before he created the world that he would create man and he would do his will.
[00:17:09] But if a person is not on the correct level, they'll say that a gnat, a bug came before you. And really the idea that Rashi is bringing out and we see from the medrash is that there's a reason and there's a lesson why the animals were created before us. And just in the same vein that the laws of impurities about impure animals and unclean animals and not kosher animals are listed before the laws of impurity for us as human beings. Now, if you think about it for a minute, a person is very fragile. You look around at, ah, creation, any other mammal, Most other animals, uh, within a few hours they could walk, they could do things on their own. Within a few months they could be on their own totally. An animal doesn't need clothes. They could live in the wild with just the skin and fur they have on their back for food. They could find it anywhere. They don't have to work hard to find food. Compare that to a person.
[00:18:15] We're totally dependent upon our parents for all of our needs for many, many years. We're fragile. We need houses, we need clothes.
[00:18:25] We can't find our food in the street. We need our food to be prepared and cooked. We're much more, um, gentle. We can't handle anything like animals can. We're much more fragile.
[00:18:40] And if you think about it a little bit more as well, an animal only eats what they need to eat. After that, it doesn't kill. It won't kill another. A lion doesn't kill if it's not hungry, doesn't do it for fun. Obviously, if there's a threat, it will protect itself.
[00:18:56] But it doesn't killed because of its ego. We know that man is the pinnacle of creation. We are the crown of everything that Hashem made that the whole world was made to serve man.
[00:19:11] And we have a job to do. We're different than animals. We have seicha. We're able to serve God. We have ego.
[00:19:20] And our job is to work on ourselves till we conquer our animal instincts, our bad traits, to push ourselves to become better and better, to become closer to Hashem. And when we do that, so then we're the first of creation. We're worthy of the title, to be the crown of creation, the pinnacle of creation, that the whole world was created for us. And you know what? We're even higher than the level of angels, because an angel has no choices. An angel is created in the way that it is. But a person who works on themselves and pushes to change their nature, to serve Hashem, to serve G D, to do mitzvahs, to be good to other people, to do what's right, to conquer their bad traits, is higher than an angel, because they're getting to that place of like a malak, to do the right thing, to do what Hashem wants, uh, out of their own volition, as opposed to a malakh, an angel which was created like that. All they were created to do was to do what Hashem wants. So a person has the ability to be higher than that. But on the flip side, a person can also be beneath than animals, because, like I mentioned before, an animal doesn't kill for fun. It doesn't mate, you know, for pleasure, help sustain itself, to help itself survive, to continue its species. And a person has the ability, uh, to also sink to a level which is lower than an animal.
[00:20:56] And that's the, uh, lesson that we see from this week's parasha, from Rashi and from the Medrash, that if a person realizes what they're put in this world for, that we are the pinnacle of creation. So then we're able to be the first in creation, as the Medra says. But if, God forbid, we slip and we don't follow what we're supposed to be doing, we'll end up even lower than the level of animals. And that's what the parshios, the setup of the parshios, is teaching us, that the animals were listed first to tell us this message, that it's up to us to decide, up to us, for us to push ourselves to be what we're supposed to be, to get to the level we're supposed to get to. And really, a lot of times, you know, thinking about this concept, I feel like it's not talked about enough, this idea that we need to overpower our instincts to work on ourselves, that it's not always about how you feel and the traits you are born with, but rather it's about working on yourself to get control of those natural traits that are inside of you. Everyone has bad traits, everyone has different desires. But the idea is our job is to get them under control, to sort of put them into submission, to make our will. The will of Hashem. And when we work on ourselves this way, we make ourselves higher than the level of angels. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. Hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me at ravishnomakan with a kmail ah.com have a great day.
