Ki Sisa - 6th Portion

Join us as we learn the sixth Torah reading for Friday Pares Kisa verse 10 chapter 34. Yesterday we learned the the 13 attributes of mercy that God said he forgave the Jewish people and Moshe asking for the forgiveness and taking the Jewish people as his possession. Today we learn about this renewing of the covenant and God giving us the mitzvah of the three major festivals and of kosher as well showing that God continues to have the covenant with the Jewish people. Verse 10 and God says he behold I hereby make a covenant before you and all the people before you and all the people I will make wonders. that have never happened occurred on in the earth or with any nation and all the people of whom you will see and all the people that will see that you are amongst them that you are part of them the wonders of God that they are awesome that I will perform with you I make a covenant on that I'm going to say that I'm going to make the wonders I'm going to make wonders meaning wonders means that you will be separate you will be uh specific and will be special for you that you are going to be different than this from all the nations that I will only pres have my divine presence on them answering Mosha's request that he requested of God that the Jewish people should be different and special with this regard Verse 11. Mark well and what I command you today because I'm going to drive out before you canites. There's only six nations here and we know that the land of Israel had in it seven different nations because as we mentioned previously the Goshites on their own left the land of Israel. Verse 12. However, be aware le be aware for yourselves, lest you make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land that you're coming there that you're entering because they may become a sneer in your midst. Verse 12, verse 13. Rather, you shall shatter their altars. And you should demolish their pillars, and you should cut down their defiled trees. What is an a tree which is used for idolatry? Verse 14. Because you must not bow down to any other god of any other nation. Because the very name of God is zealous who he is a zealous God. He is zealous. That means he demands respect and therefore he will punish those and take revenge from those who don't. And he doesn't acquit. He doesn't give up. He doesn't let go on them. Whenever the word the Torah uses the word, it means that God holds and is zealous and wants to make sure he is victorious and takes revenge from those that leave God. Verse 15. Be aware that what happens if lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and you then you will go after their gods and you will bring sacrifice to their gods and they and then you and they invite you and what happens and you eat from their sacrifices. You think what would I do wrong just by eating from their sacrifices? And I'm going to consider it as if you ate from their sacrifices because the very fact that you're eating there, that means you're acknowledging in their idolatry by the very fact that you're taking from their sacrifices and you're going there eventually. What's going to happen? That's going to cause intermingle into marriage and it's going to be that their children are going to marry your children and that's going to cause them to ultimately serve idolatry as well and follow the ways of their gods. Verse 17, you shall not make for yourself molten idols. Verse 18, you should observe the Passover festival of matas for seven days. You should eat mat that I commanded you at that appointed time which is in the month of spring goes in the month of spring you have gone out of Egypt the word as we're going to see though we translate it as spring as Rashi explains it's the month where begins the grain ripening verse 19. All firstlings belong to me. Meaning every firstborn, the one who opens the womb, the one who opens the womb belongs to me. So too of your livestock of the male that opens the womb or she for a cow or a sheep or goat are also mine. talking about first by the firstborn by humans. So to the first womb male of a cow and a sheep that the male will be the first that male that comes first of its womb is going to belong to me. What does it mean? The word means to open as we find also in other places in proverbs the one who opens the water is the first one to have it. That's we begins the the begins the argument that means the beginning of the argument is as if uh opening a water that all of a sudden you started and there's no way to stop it that's what's discussed in the book of proverbs rashi explains then over here when we talk about why does it have a tough therea it's like a hidden female meaning why does it say the one who's with the male going on the female her first womb is what causes to be a firstborn verse unto you. And you shall redeem every f um the first ling of a donkey shall be redeemed with a lamb. If you would not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem every firstborn amongst your sons. You shall not appear before me empty-handed. Not the firstborn of any other impure animal. only impure animal are the donkeys. You will redeem it with a sheep. How do you do it? You're going to give a sheep to the coen. And now the sheep is considered not holy by the cohen. And there's not considered any laws of holiness. Once you give the sheep to the coen, then this firstborn dunkey is allowed to be used like any other animal by the by the by the owners of the dunkey. What does it mean? You break its neck with a hack. The reason is because you cause the you cause the a loss of money. Therefore, we make him lose money as well. How you going to redeem him with five coins? It's a set amount in the Torah. As we read, we're going to read in the book of numbers. Whenever you have to redeem a person from a month old is going to be the amount of five silver coins, you should not see me empty-handed. According to the seemingly simple interpretation of the verse, this is a statement on its own. It has nothing to do with the firstborn because there is no mitzvah for a firstborn to come up to the holy temple. Hello. What is this telling me? It's coming to tell me another law. When you come up to the holy temple three times a year to bring us to come to the holy temple, don't come empty-handed. There's a mitzvah to bring an ascent offering for the actual mitzvah of seeing God bring coming to the holy temple. The way the medish explains this there's an extra verse over here and therefore it's used to for means that whenever there have a similar verse a similar word in a verse I can utilize it to be able to tell me one law and apply the laws the other one and this comes to tell me the two similar laws that when you allow the Jewish slave to go free you have to give him a you have to give him a gift. How much is the gift you have to give him? So too, you should give him five coins from every kind from the three kinds that the Torah talks about. The same way we learn out when you redeem a firstborn, you have to give five slime, you have to give five silver coins. So too when you uh allow your free when you free your slave so too because it says over there you should send them reikum empty. So too over here it says the word reikum and it's telling me about a firstborn. So therefore I use the two verses the two letter the two words in both verses. Same way over here by the firstborn you give them five co silver coins. So two by the slave he has to get five silver coins. Verse 21. For six days you're going to work and on the seventh day you will rest. From plowing you will refrain from plowing and reaping you will rest. Why from all the 39 cardinal laws that have to do with chabas does it only mention plowing and pruning? plow plowing and reaping. Some rabbis explained really that this verse is coming to tell me about the sabbatical year that one is not allowed to plow on the eve of the sabbatical year for the year that's going into the sabbatical year. and about reaping about the uh reaping from the from the year of the sabbatical going into the year after the sabbatical to teach you to increase on the holy meaning to add from the weekly on the holy even though the sabbatical year only starts on the beginning of the year but you start a little bit before that you don't plow even for the sabbatical year and you don't reap even after the sabbatical year as well and this is the way you will read a verse six days you will work and on the seventh day you rest and these f the work that I allowed you to do during these six days of the week there's going to be a time of year that the plowing and reaping is not allowed even those six days of the year week I don't even have to tell you about not plowing or reaping during the seventh year at all because we already learned it in the book of Leviticus to plow your field. That's one way of learning it. There are some rabbis that explain it as follows. That this has nothing to do with the sabbatical year that this is talking about. And why then does it mention plowing and reaping to tell you? The same way when it talks about plowing that's mentioned here, the Torah doesn't say you have to plow even though you need to get food. So to reaping which is prohibited on Shabas, it's not something which you have to do meaning as follows. There are certain times where you have to reap. For example, if the omare if the second day of pes comes out on chabas and you have to then cut the omare over here the Torah tells you regular plowing and reaping is not allowed to done on chabas. But there is going to be a case where you allowed to do it on chabas and that is when it comes to cutting the wheat for the um that that super seeds the shabas. So we have the two interpretations of this verse. One is that the six days is talking about yes the six days of the week but it's also referring to that there's going to be a time of reaping and plowing is not allowed even during the six days of the week which that's before and after the sabbatical year and the second interpretation is that it refers to telling us there yes you're allowed to uh plow and reap during the six days however and on Shabas you're not allowed to however there will be a shabas that you're allowed to when pes second day of pes comes out on chabas and the cutting of the omr has to be done and it's allowed to be done even on chabas Verse 22. The festival of festival of weeks. You should observe when is it going to be? It is going to this is the produce of the wheat harvest and the festival of gathering that's at the turn of the year. Verse 22. That's the holiday that you're going to bring. Two breads. Two breads from wheat. That is the first bread of meal offering that's comes which comes from the first crop of grain and it's brought to the holy temple. However, the meal offering that comes from the om that is came from barley. So the first from first one from wheat was on meaning the festival that you do is when you gather the tweet the wheat from the field to the home. This gathering means doesn't mean that you're just gathering some pieces from all over, but it's something that you're bringing into the house. You bring it into your home means at the turn of the year, the beginning of the new year. The word comes from the same word as to go around. So when the year completes its cycle, verse 23, three times a year, every male should appear before me, the master of God, the God of Israel. What does this mean? All males amongst you. And this we find many times in the Torah. It's mentioned, you're going to ask, why is the mitzvah repeated constantly? Why do we find many mitzvah that are mentioned many times? There are those that are mentioned three four times. Why is that? To uh obligate a person and to punish an individual who transgresses the mitzvah and any time that mitzvah is mentioned. So if there are negative commandments mentioned on each one of those, it is considered a negative commandment a prohibition. And also concerning the min the account of the positive commandments which are mentioned. So a person can be punished number one for the negative commandments that he did not do as well as the positive commandments that he was meant to do as well. Verse 24. Because I will expel the nations before you and I will extend your boundaries and no one will coveret your land when you go up to see and to be seen by God three times a year. I will chase them out. The wordish means not only inherent but in this case it means I will chase them out. I will broaden your boundaries and you're going to be very far from the holy temple and you're not going to be able to be seen there all the time. Therefore, I'm setting for you these three festivals that you should be able to come there at least three times a year. Verse 25. You should not slaughter my pass my Passover blood sacrifice with with leaven bread that possesses leaven bread. Do not allow it to be overnight into the morning referring to the passal offering. Rashi explains, "Do not slaughter the P while you still have this is a warning to the people who are either slaughtering, sprinkling the blood or any of the people that are participating in the pascal offering that all their has to be already not in their possession when the pascal offering is brought. Like the explains, one is should not leave it until the next morning. However, the actual staying overnight will not make it actual invalid for a sacrifice that's already on the altar. The only time when we say that it becomes invalid when being staying overnight if it's there at the morning that if he's there before morning then it however if he brought the sacrifice before the morning star rise meaning even if it's after midnight it's still considered valid and it will not be considered an invalid sacrifice. Even over here it's only talking about the pascal offering. But from here we learn all these laws pertaining all other sacrifices as well with which is the fats and the limbs of all the other sacrifices that one should not leave it until the next morning and should burn it that night. You should bring the first ripened fruits bring it to the house of do not slaughter. A you shall not derive pleasure from a young animal cooked in its mother's milk. Verse 26, we're talking about the seven kinds of that the land of Israel is blessed with as we enumerate in the land of wheat, barley and grapes and figs, pomegranates and olives and dates and this these things and honeyash when we talk about honey is referring of date honey. What is this time? It's telling us this is the second time where it tells us about not mixing, not cooking a coat in its mother's milk. This is a warning to not to mix milk and meat. It said three times in the Torah. One, the prohibition of eating. One is prohibited to even have any pleasure from it. And one is that you're not even allowed to cook it even if it's not for you. Why does it say a goat? doesn't necessarily only mean a goat but any young uh animal refers to even a calf and a sheep. The very fact that in other places when it says a goat it says specifically and over here it only says it teaches us any nursing animal is part of this prohibition in its mother's milk. This is an exception to a bird because a bird does not milk. Not cooking or mixing milk with chicken is a rabbitic commandment, not a biblical one. This concludes the sixth Torah reading of Parius Kisa.