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Parsha Perspectives

by OZER ALPORT

והקטירם הכהן המזבחה לחם אשה ניחח כל חלב לה

“The Kohen shall cause them to go up in smoke on the Altar, the food of the fire for a satisfying aroma, all the choice parts of Hashem.” (Numbers 3:16)

Last week we ended the book of Exodus, which revolved around the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and the construction of the Tabernacle. This week, we begin the book of Leviticus, which deals largely with the laws pertaining to the Tabernacle and the Kohanim (Priests) who served therein.

Parshas Vayikra introduces us to a number of the various Korbanos (sacrifices) which were offered in the Tabernacle and their pertinent laws. One of the sacrifices is the Korban Shelamim (Peace-Offering). In discussing the laws of a goat which is brought as a Peace Offering, the Torah requires the Kohen to burn all of its choicest parts on the Altar in the Tabernacle.

Interestingly, Maimonides writes that this requirement wasn’t specific to the Korban Shelamim. He derives from our verse that for the performance of every mitzvah - from the selection of which animal to offer as a sacrifice, to the food and clothing donated to the poor – a person should use his finest possessions. Rabbi Avrohom Mordechai Alter (1866-1948), known as the Imrei Emes, served as the Rebbe (leader) of the Gerrer Chassidim. He was once approached by one of his followers, who lamented that he had lost his tefillin. As tefillin are quite expensive, the man was also worried that it would take him quite some time to save up the money to purchase a new pair. Much to this man’s relief, Rabbi Alter immediately took out a pair of tefillin to loan to the man until he was able to locate his lost tefillin or buy a new set. After giving them to the man, Rabbi Alter asked him to take extra precaution in protecting them. He explained that he had inherited this pair of tefillin from his saintly father, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter, who was known as the S’fas Emes and had served as the previous Gerrer Rebbe. After he left, ecstatic about the change in his fortune and his merit to use the tefillin of the S’fas Emes, one of the close disciples of the Imrei Emes asked him why he was willing to part with such an irreplaceable and holy family heirloom when he could have easily attained a simple set of kosher tefillin. Rabbi Alter responded by quoting the words of Maimonides, who teaches that we must be willing to give up our most precious possessions for the sake of Hashem’s mitzvot.

After studying the inspiring stories of our forefathers in the book of Genesis and of their salvation from Egypt in the book of Exodus, many people find it difficult to relate to the esoteric subjects discussed in the book of Leviticus. Although Maimonides rules that this concept of using our choicest possessions applies to all mitzvot, perhaps one of the reasons it is taught in reference to the Peace Offering is to remind us that these sections of the Torah can be equally applicable to our daily lives. Just as we wear our nicest clothing to a wedding and set the table with our finest china when hosting important guests, so too does the Torah teach us that this approach should carry over to matters of the soul, as we proudly use our most precious possessions to serve Hashem and do His mitzvot.

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Parsha Talking Points

by RABBI ELAZAR MEISELS

1. ASK AND YE’ SHALL RECEIVE

“And G-d spoke to Moses and to Aharon, saying; ‘Take the count of the sons of Kehos…’” 4:1,2

Parshas Nasso is the largest of all the portions in the Torah, containing 176 verses. It also features a larger number of midrashic interpretations, and discussions in the Zohar, more than any other parshah.

Chiddushei HaRim (Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Rothenberg, (1799-1866) explains that this prolific and disproportionate amount of verses and commentary contains a deep symbolism related to this time of year. Parshas Nasso is traditionally read in the weeks immediately following the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai and a renewal of our commitment to its study and practice. When we accept upon ourselves the monumental task of Torah study, we are in return, granted the gift of inordinate quantities of Torah, far beyond what we would imagine ourselves capable of absorbing. Parshas Nasso, with its vast amounts of Torah, is a symbol of that newfound aptitude.

2. NO BLOATING ALLOWED

“Instruct the Children of Israel and they shall send forth from the encampment any person afflicted with Tzaraas, any person contaminated with Zav, anyone contaminated by a dead body.” 5:2

Any Person Afflicted With Tzaraas…Contaminated With Zav – Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught: When the Children of Israel stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai and declared their allegiance to G-d and His word, they were healed of every illness and blemish and there stood not among them a Metzora (someone afflicted with tzaraas) or Zav. It was only once they sinned that there was among them Metzoraim, and Zavim etc. What sin caused these illnesses to surface once again?

• They spoke negatively toward their leaders and accused them of criminal behavior.
• They cast aspersions upon the Holy Ark and claimed that it was lethal to those who serviced it.
• The sin of the Golden Calf caused an outbreak of Tzaraas.– Medrash Rabbah, Vayikra 18

Yet another Medrash [Devarim 7:4] maintains that the sin that brought these dastardly illnesses upon them, was their disrespectful and ungrateful attitude toward the Mannah which sustained them. In order to ease their plight in the unsanitary conditions in the desert, Hashem sent down Mannah that was fully absorbed in the body and produced no waste matter. Ordinarily, this would be recognized as a tremendous blessing and kindness to a people stranded in the desert with inadequate facilities. Instead, the people grumbled incessantly about how dangerous it was, and how they feared that they’d perish from bloating. For failing to appreciate their munificent gifts, they were visited with true illnesses that isolated them from the masses and lessened their potential to damage the morale of the nation.

3. NO OX TO GRIND

“Moses took the wagons and the oxen and gave them to the Levites…He did not give any to the sons of Kehos because the sacred work was [incumbent] upon them, which they had to carry on their shoulders.” 7:6-9

Because The Sacred Work Was On Them – The carrying of sacred objects – the ark, table, etc. Therefore, “they had to carry them on their shoulders.” – Rashi

Rav Menachem Mendel of Kotzk explained that in matters of kedushah [sanctity], one cannot delegate, or utilize shortcuts. To employ the help of oxen in carrying the less sacred items of the Tabernacle was entirely appropriate. Their status did not demand more than that. For carrying the Ark, however, which symbolized the Holy Torah itself, and the other exceedingly sacred vessels, one could not expect assistance to lighten the load. This lesson here is that one who wishes to ascend in matters of holiness and carry the banner of purity, must be prepared to do all the heavy lifting himself. In these areas of life, nothing ever comes easy. Torah is acquired only by one who gives his very last breath for it. Shortcuts and time-saving tricks are inexpedient means of developing our spiritual selves.

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Partner Talk

OTHER WORLDLY QUESTIONS

by RABBI LEIBY BURNHAM

Dear Rabbi,

My uncle Sol recently passed away. Ever since his funeral, I find myself thinking about life after death. What happens to the soul exactly? What is the Jewish perspective on the next world? I know that we believe in it, because the Yizkor prayers talk about people who have “Gone to his/her world,” but what exactly is that world like?

David K.

Dear David,

Questions about what will happen in the next world are challenging to answer as we have very few eye-witnesses to rely on. Most of us understand that images of boiling hot, fiery places or beautiful homes in the clouds are more of a child’s image than a discerning adult’s view. A spiritual soul can neither feel heat nor open the door to a home in the clouds! Having said that…let’s discuss some of the things that we do know about the Next World, and hopefully we can create a more accurate picture of some of what happens in the Next World.

There is a polarity in human knowledge, with the two extremes known as bechira and yediah. Bechira is free-will, our ability to choose right or wrong. Yediah is a comprehensive knowledge of reality. These two cannot fully coexist. If one has complete knowledge of reality it would be impossible for one to disobey G-d, even more than it is impossible for you and I to put our hands in fire, because we know what that would do to us. The ability to choose wrong, one facet of bechira, is the purpose of our existence, as it provides us with the challenges that make our lives meaningful and allow us to grow. In order for us to be able to have bechira (free will) G-d hides himself from us and denies us yediah (complete knowledge). The reality that it is often so hard to see G-d in this world is our very raison d’être, as it gives us our free will, which enables us to grow.

When someone dies, his soul leaves a world of bechira, and enters what we call Olam HaEmet – the World of Truth – the world where one sees everything with perfect clarity, with full yediah. Once they are in this world, they can no longer change, grow or develop. There are no longer any challenges, so there is no more free will. For this reason the Sages refer to a living person as a holech (one who is traveling) and the deceased is called an omed ( one who stands still) as they can no longer advance themselves.

What this means is that once someone dies, he is frozen wherever he is, and he cannot change anything. But, he sees everything with absolute clarity. He now sees the ramifications of every good deed he ever did and the chain effects of any negative actions. He see how missed opportunities affected him, and he sees how every right decision altered the course of his life for the good. He sees it over and over again for all of eternity without being able to change anything. Depending on how one lived his life, that is either Heaven or someplace else quite the opposite.

There is a relevant Talmudic statement that is very instructive. The following was a familiar lesson in the mouth of Rav: The World to Come is not like this world. In the World to Come there is no eating, no drinking, no propagation, no business, no jealousy, no hatred, and no competition. Rather it is the righteous sitting with their crowns on their heads, and delight in the Radiance of the Divine Presence. (Berachot 17A)

This indicates to us that in the Next World, all the forms of pleasure we are accustomed to in this world will not be present, as it is a world devoid of the physical. The crowns on people’s heads are their spiritual accomplishments, their “crowning glory.” All the pleasure we receive will be of the spiritual nature, the ecstasy of seeing how their spiritual actions affected the cosmos, described as basking in the Radiance of the Divine. Any descriptions of a fiery Gehinom (which is actually a purification process for the soul), refer to the burning shame and humiliation a soul feels when seeing the effects of his actions or inactions. As an aside, it is extremely important for us to develop a taste for spiritual pleasures and not just physical pleasures, because they are all we will have for eternity. The World to Come is the place where we relive our lives with perfect clarity, the world of yediah, the World of Truth.

There are actually some important exceptions to this rule, but I didn’t want to leave you with too much to digest. Please feel free to let me know if you’d like to learn more about these concepts in the future.

Regards,
Rabbi Leiby Burnham

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Soul Talk

There are many reasons presented for the Torah’s twelvefold repetition of the offering brought by each nasi (leader of one of the tribes of Israel). The Alter of Kelm (Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv), in his Darchei Mussar, offers another lesson that can be gleaned from this.

He explains that the Torah wishes to teach us how Hashem treats an individual who acts as part of a larger group. When, for example, a group of people act together to perform a mitzvah, we often view the act being accomplished as one that was done communally, and do not recognize or think about the act of each individual who makes up the group. The Torah’s repetition of the offerings of the nesiim (leaders of the tribes), he says, teaches us that when Hashem regards us, this is not the case. Hashem does not view the public simply as a mass — rather, He addresses each individual act and deed as if it were the only one taking place. Thus, Hashem did not rejoice with the offerings of the nesiim as a whole — He accorded every single nasi the rejoicing and honor that he would have received had his been the only offering. The joy was not lessened one iota by the fact that eleven other nesiim brought identical offerings.

When Hashem wrote six verses in His Torah to describe the components of the offering of Nachshon ben Aminadav, He expressed His great happiness with that offering. And He then expressed identical joy with the offering of Nesanel ben Tzuar on the next day, by writing another six verses. And He did so once again for the nasi of the third day, and so on.

This, says the Alter of Kelm, highlights the difference between the ways of Hashem and those of human beings. When a person has an only child, he lavishes on the child all the love and care he is capable of giving. If his family grows, he does not love any child less, but the amount of care and love that he can lavish upon each one is perforce lessened somewhat. This is not the case with the love that Hashem shows us. He gives each Jew the same love and attention regardless of our numbers, as if each of us were the only Jew that He had to love.

An important corollary to this lesson is that we must always remember that every Jew is precious. Whenever a single Jew can be saved, or assisted, we cannot excuse ourselves by saying, “It is only one person!” The passage of the nesiim teaches us that to Hashem, every single Jew is the most important person there is, and this must be reflected in the way we conduct our lives.

With permission from Artscroll’s Daily Dose

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Table Talk

FOR DISCUSSION AROUND THE SHABBAT TABLE

א) Rashi writes (5:10) that a person who fails to give the required tithes from his produce to the Priests will be punished in that ultimately, his fields will only produce ten percent of their original capacity. If this happens, not only will the original owner suffer, but so will the Priests and Levites, as even if the owner chooses to repent and give the required tithes, they will come to only ten percent of what should have otherwise been received. What wrong could the Priests and Levites have done to justify their inclusion in this punishment? (Rabbi Yechezkel Sarna quoted in Peninim MiShulchan Gevoha)

ב) Why is the Priestly Blessing, which is only recited in the presence of a minyan, worded in the singular and not in the plural? (Darkei HaShleimus by Rabbi Shloma Margolis)

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Hey I Never Knew That

Amazing Insights About the Weekly Parsha

by OZER ALPORT

1) Q: The Talmud is replete with laws and teachings derived from seemingly superfluous words and even letters used in the Torah, based on the concept that the Torah doesn’t write even a single letter unnecessarily. It is therefore difficult to understand why the Torah repeats at excruciating length the offerings brought by each of the 12 tribal leaders, when they were all identical one to the other. Wouldn’t it have been much more concise to list the offering brought on the first day, and to add that each subsequent leader brought the same offering on the succeeding days?

A: The Ramban explains that although on a superficial level, it appears that their actions were identical, Hashem knows the inner thoughts and intentions behind every action and recognized that every leader had a unique intention behind his selection of the items brought in his offering. Because their inner motivations were unique, the Torah wrote out each one separately as if their offerings were completely different. Rav Reuven Leuchter notes that because the Torah is the blueprint of the universe, the expression of any true concept can be located in the Torah. He suggests that the source for the idea of creativity may be found where one would least expect it – in this parsha of the offerings of the leaders! The explanation of the Ramban teaches us that although the Torah may require us to perform specific actions, we are still able to infuse them with our own unique perspectives and intentions and to find in them an expression of our own distinct personalities and experiences.

2) Q: In this week’s haftorah, we read the story of the miraculous birth of Samson. After an angel came to inform his father Manoach and his wife that they would finally give birth to a son and to teach them the special status their future son would have, they were in doubt as to whether this had been a person tricking them or had indeed been a Divinely-sent angel. The Haftorah continues (Judges 13:21) to resolve their question by stating that as a result of the fact that the angel no longer appeared to them, Manoach knew conclusively that it had indeed been a Heaven-sent angel and not a human playing a trick on him. In what way does the angel’s disappearance provide a proof regarding its identity?

A: Rabbi Shalom Shwadron answers that human nature is such that when someone happens to inform his friend of good news (e.g. the birth of a child), he subconsciously expects to be thanked for his good deed of delivering such happy tidings. When Manoach realized that the angel who had come with the tremendous news of the birth of his son (who wouldn’t be just any son but a holy nazir who would save and lead the entire Jewish people) didn’t appear to him even once, not even “by accident,” he knew that no human being could restrain himself so, and concluded that it had surely been an angel!

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Parsha Summary

Parsha Summaries are coming soon!