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Kohanim and the Concept of Death
The emphasis that
the Torah places
on the location – Mount
Sinai – where
Moshe received the Torah and
its commandments, and
the particular commandment regarding the observance of a sabbatical year, has been
an issue of much interest to the commentators on the Torah over
the ages. Rashi,
quoting the famous
rabbinic dictum, states
that the words
“Mount Sinai” indicate to us that
just as this
particular commandment of the
sabbatical year
was taught to Moshe on Mount Sinai
so too are
we to understand that all of
the commandments of Judaism emanate from the revelation at Mount Sinai.
But perhaps there
is another nuanced
lesson here in the mentioning of Mount Sinai,
as being the location where this commandment regarding the sabbatical year was first uttered
and
delivered. The Sinai
desert is one
of the most barren and
inhospitable geographic areas on our globe. The Torah
itself describes it as a great, awesome
and frightening place, parched of water and
short of sustenance, a place of snakes and
scorpions.
To speak of a sabbatical year in this
context, where and when fields
and crops are not to be
tended to, seems at first
glance to be incongruous, to say the least. We could understand the statement of such a commandment when the Jewish people stood on the brink of entering the Land of Israel or, even more
so, when they
actually entered the land.
Hearing
the command of letting one’s
fields lie fallow
for a year while living
in a trackless and arid desert
certainly seems to be strange.
But the Torah,
which is eternal
and not bound by time or place, comes to teach us an important lesson regarding life generally and Jewish life particularly.
I had a friend and
congregant of mine
during my years
as a rabbi in Miami
Beach fifty years ago. He was a Holocaust survivor, a man of material wealth
and clever intellect. He once told me
that he was
a very wealthy
man in Hungary before World
War II. In the very
late 1930s
he visited the Land of Israel and on a whim purchased an apartment here in Jerusalem.
In late summer 1944, together with hundreds of thousands of other Hungarian Jews, he and his family
were deported to Auschwitz His family could
not survive the ordeal, though somehow he did remain alive,
and eventually he rebuilt his life and once again
created a family
and material success
in America.
He told me that every
night in the
barracks of the labor camp,
to which he was assigned, lying on the wooden
pallet that served
as his bed, in his mind he furnished the apartment
that he purchased in Jerusalem. In his mind, he bought the finest furniture and wall coverings and arranged them so that
the apartment shone
in splendor, good
taste and elegance.
He said it was this
imaginary scene of the better
tomorrow that kept
him alive and gave him the spiritual and
mental fortitude not
to give up completely and
just pass away,
as unfortunately so many others did. To survive the desert of Sinai the Jewish people had to imagine the lush fields
of the Land of Israel
and a sabbatical year that
would bring blessing and prosperity upon those fields
and their owners.
The Torah emphasizes to us that
the sabbatical year
was commanded to Israel in a
forbidding and
dark place because
of the fact
that it would
give hope, optimism and vision for the great
blessings of the Land of Israel that
they would yet live to experience.
Shabbat shalom Rabbi Berel Wein
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Just Follow the Leader
Posted on May 5, 2011 (5771) By Rabbi Label
Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner And
HASHEM said to Moshe: ‘Say to the Kohanim, the sons of Aaron, and
you shall say to
them: “To a (dead) person he shall not become
impure among his people…”‘ (Vayikra
21:1)
Say to the Kohanim…and you shall say to them:
The Torah uses
the double expression of “say” followed by “and you
shall say” to caution the
adults with regard
to the minors.
(Rashi)
We understand that the Kohanim-The Priestly cast are to play an important role as living examples of holiness and purity for the entire
nations. Therefore, they
are saddled with extra restrictions and responsibilities. Now we also
discover here that
the Kohain parents must make it clear
to their children and see to it that they maintain
their spiritual innocence as well. How are the Kohanim
to accomplish this
second task? Where
is the manual
for success in relating the holy work of one generation to the next?
The Gemorah (Yevamos
114A) indicates that
the first “say”
is directed at the adults
to remain pure and
be distant from
contaminants while the
2nd “say to them” is a directive to the elders
to see to it that the young
also abide. How is that
at all helpful?
Whenever
a statement in Pirke’ Avos is introduced with the words,
“He used to say”-“Hu
Haya Omer” the Rav
Bartenura, explains it to mean
that he said it frequently and repeatedly. It was not a one-
time statement, a quotable moment
at an inaugural address.
Another explanation can
be gleaned from
the opposite of the following bizarre example:
A young doctor
gave an amazingly clear presentation about
the dangers associated with cigarette smoking. Everyone left the auditorium so inspired, informed, and impressed that
it would be hard
to imagine that
anyone who witnessed the talk could
ever touch one
of those tobacco sticks.
Yet the very next day that same doctor was spotted in the street
dragging shamelessly
on a cigarette.
When approached and reproached with
both shock and dismay he responded in a cavalier fashion, in much the same way Bertrand Russel
the world famous
ethics professor did when
he was caught in an uncompromising situation with a co-ed,
he is reported to have
retorted, “If I was a math professor, would
you expect me to be a triangle?” So said this
doctor, “What do you want from me? That
was a lecture!” Whenever the Mishne says,
“Hu Haya Omer-He used to say”
it may be read more
literally, “He was what he spoke!”
In the 1st paragraph of “Shema” we recite twice
daily, “and these
words that I command you today you shall place
on your heart”,
and then it states, “and
you shall teach
them to them to
your children…” Why
in that order?
Children read the heart! They
know if we are whole
or half-hearted in what we preach.
How else can they know
whether we have
first internalized the message we are delivering besides through the
tone?
In the 2nd Paragraph of “Shema” which is also on the post of every door in a Jewish home it states,
“Educate them to speak in them (words
of Torah)”, and
now comes the “how”, “with your sitting in your
house and with
your going on your way, and with your lying
down and rising
up.” How do we teach
them the way?
The way
we go about our business speaks louder than any lecture.
Children can instruct
us more than
adults on this
subject. When asked,
“How do you know
whom to marry, 10 year
old Alan answered, “You got to find somebody who likes the
same stuff. Like, if you like
sports, she should
like it that
you like sports,
and she should
keep the chips and dip coming.” A middle aged
man I was learning with
decided that to honor his son’s Bar Mitzva
he would begin
to put on Tefillin. His son turned
to him with
all earnest and said, “Dad, I want to do just like
you! When I’m 46 I’m going to start putting
on Tefillin too.” We are all teaching
by what we say and do and they just follow the leader.
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