Rabbi David Kaplan - Weekly Torah Portion: Ki Tisa - Part 1

okay uh so pirates of casey's begins on page 484. vyomira hashem al-mosha laymar is rosh bernays when you take a head count of the jewish people each kofir nafsha shambhi focus on each person should give an atonement when you count them below you have a negev there will not be a plague we've got oh so that's a strange thing you know if you count them there might be a plague see what that means in a second um let's see the one one more apostles they call over allah those who are going to be counted will give mahathir shekhar bashar they will give a half shekel coin estrin gera sheikho makhati sashako truma trumalasha now what's going on over here is that first of all there's a count and jewish people do not count one two three four we don't count a room by pointing counting what we do is the standard way to do it is hoshia essamero which has ten words in it you could also make a mozilla if you want they're also got them but then your piece of bread so the the uh so the standard way of counting to see if we have a minion that's usually where you get it in shul see if you have a minion now the reason we use that possible which incidentally has ten words coincidentally is because that apostle says save your people oshiya and bless your people which is the opposite of the curse or the plague that could happen if you count so like everything else in judaism there's nothing coincidental in judaism so we use a passage that says deliver your people elevate them and promote them forever now why is it why is it that a count you have to count the jewish people and then they have to give an atonement for their souls when you count them and there shouldn't be a plague and what's so bad with counting one two three four what's what's so bad about it so there are a couple of ideas a couple of ideas that are that are contained over here first of all the idea of the idea of a census anytime there's a census account account is a result of a change in population a change in population comes out because one of two things either people are born or people die now you realize remember we go back to what we said previously that the mahathir shekel is going to be used for the mishkan according to many commentaries this takes place this parsha this idea takes place after the sin of the golden calf remember we talk about how there's no order in the torah in mukdam um there's no chronological order based on how it's written the colonotic order sometimes is reversed so many commentaries said i told you that several times of the fundamental much locus did this take place before or after the uh the the the the golden calf so according to the commentaries that say it took place before the golden calf it's very easy to understand you see i'm sorry after before uh after the gold calf it's very easy to understand before when the jewish people got to harsinai they reached a point where there was no more death in the world they had reached the point of perfection of the world they brought the world back to the original state of what's called other marisha and kodam they reached a state of perfection of adam before the original sin where there would be no death in the world adam before the original sin there was no death in the world everything was fixed up after the aveira of adam then god said okay you're going to have to die and go return to the earth from whence you've come and then the jewish people go through history they get to the to the red to the golden calf at that point there's no more death in the world what restores death to the world worshipping the golden calf at the point they worship with god they brought death back to the world and therefore they have to atone for it because the only reason we need to count you or at least half the reason we need to count you is because there's death in the world the population changed for two reasons they change is because of birth which would have happened and it changed because of death which would not have happened so half the reason for the population change is because uh uh the sin of the golden calf therefore what coin do you give not coincidentally a half shekel coin everybody gives a half shekel coin because that's half the reason for why there's a population change that becomes an atonement for the jewish people number one number two uh um the half shekel coin represents what else happened as a result of the great diego what else happened as a result of the golden calf what did martial do smashed the tablets he broke he broke the tablets they we call it breaking them in half he didn't break them in half they broke into pieces they broke into pieces but the broken coin the half shackle coin represents the luchos which are now broken as a result therefore that becomes the atonement for kind of the atonement for jewish people now even more than that even more that you see what the idea of a count is when you count something anytime you count something one two three four what are you showing when you count by number one two three four you're showing that something is important showing that something has prominence because that's why you're counting one marble too i watched my kids used to count marbles you know i mean you know they count you know thousands of marbles they could say there's a great way to keep your boys active by the way get them a big bucket of marbles let them count them you know they're always counting the marbles you know they they come to marbles and every once in a while a sister walks into him tips over the bucket you know and every day guys start to count again sister gets hit yeah which is also part of the fun you know and then they uh then they got it so account when you're counting hundred dollar bills in your wallet one two you know you're you're careful how you count it as you count it out so the uh the israeli cab driver once uh sitting in the cab with the guy and the guy says to me uh how much it was to my neighborhood so i gave him he told me your toes 70 shekels whatever it was so i paid him i was on the way there and i gave him a 200 shekel note so he takes the 200 chuckle now he puts in his pocket and he says no sorry i don't have change and he gives it back to me okay i'm holding tight then he looks at me he waits a second he goes look at look at the build i just gave you so i look at the 200 shekel note and look at it's a counterfeit 200 shekel now he had a counterfeit one in his pocket which somebody had passed to him so he gave me the counterfeit note and he was just i made his day because i looked at that you know and he was able to show something to get somebody to think that they got the twitter's like oh said he gave me back my regular 200 shekel note you know when i got home i paid him but i think myself one second you know this guy's got i don't know what he's going to do with that counterfeit 200 i don't know if i should say something or not so i said do you want me you want me to take that into the house i could destroy it for you he goes no no no i'll uh you know no no i'll find a good use he says don't worry i'm i won't use it on a haredi but so when you cut when you're counting money you know you're looking every time you give somebody a hundred dollar bill these days you know they hold it up to the light you know one it's prominent now anytime anything is prominent anytime anything is prominent you are subject to an iron horror you could be subject to an iron horror you know what the iron heart is the evil eye the a person should never be too uh ostentatious because people could give you the eye and they could actually people are the the eye means they're they're somewhat jealous or resentful of your good fortune that's why jews are always very very guarded about their finances if you say that you know how'd you do this you're in business it says well you know i was okay that means he had a booming gear and if he says well things are tough that means he's making upwards of seven figures and if he says you know it wasn't such a good year that means he's down to about six hundred thousand dollars a year and if he really looks bleak then you know that he's only earning an average salary you know that's how jesus jews are very guarded because you're worried about the evil light now what the evil eye is you know you always hear about this einhar even though the svardis have the uh the the hams of the high five that they have you know that they're supposed to award it doesn't have it though that's a sweaty uh there's a farty thing yeah it's it's based on some kabbalistic tradition or or other oscillators don't have it but the sardine often have it in their cabs they have in their houses it's called the hamsa what we call the high five you know if you're supposed to ward off the evil eye uh i'm as is this better but uh they have they have a uh you know they have that's actually a mitzvah you know but all these things what is the idea by the way by in the arab neighborhoods what color is most prominent when you go through arab neighborhoods it is green off green off blue it's almost like a turquoise color they believe that that word words off the evil eye that's what you say in also there's a lot of that color they believe the herbs believe that they're wards off the light so there's a concept of a new life what let's understand what it is what does it mean an ioha how could it be that i buy a new i buy a new maserati and you looking at my maserati you know you're you're you can you could actually cause me some sort of some sort of harm so the answer is like this it's not just that like you know you gave me the eye from some sci-fi movie what it means is like this who is it that you generally are resentful of you're generally resentful of people who are ostentatious people who are gloating people who are showing off that's what triggers off a guy who you like somebody who's humble you know the swarm say the only trait nobody is jealous of is humility everybody loves a humble person everybody loves our person everybody wishes good for a humble person we're happy for him because he's not flaunting he's not putting it in other people's faces so to speak so what rev destler explains is that if you do something ostentatious people look at you and there's a certain resentment what that resentment does is it causes your file to be open in shaman in heaven they open up your file and they recheck so to speak to see does he really deserve such good or not in other words when you trigger off the resentment you're doing something that's triggering it's not just that i'm a resentful person you're actually doing something to trigger the resentment and by you triggering the resentment causes your file to be open and then there's a review up there well you you got good do you really deserve such good therefore we always try to keep it we try to keep it low-key we try to keep things low-key do i hear something remarkable you know it says michel nicholas you've heard everybody's been singing which by the way it's a that's a tune i don't think anybody really likes by the way and it's kind of like happy birthday you know i don't think it's anybody who really likes a happy birthday nobody really likes that just the person whose birthday it is because they know there are gifts coming other than that there's oh nobody likes the in itself now there but that comes from a statement a statement in the gemara the gomorrah says michel nicholas other marvel it's a tough music statement it's interesting the talmud also says that when the month of of comes the month of of comes we reduce our simcha now what's interesting here and i had i wondered about this for years i only got an answer to this question a real solid first solid answer i ever got i got this year i saw in a safer this year when it comes to the month of of the gemara is very clear about how to reduce your simcha you don't listen to music and for three weeks you don't shave and you don't then you have the nine days and during the nine days you don't bathe and you don't eat meat then comes tissue above you you know there's a down a downward uh slide when it comes to our symptoms very very clearly prescribed what it is that we're supposed to do to reduce our sympathetic when it comes to other it says all it says doesn't say what you should do they'll say okay day one amusement park day two amusement park with vodka day three all of the above plus ecstasy it doesn't say that and it doesn't say that executive just tell me how to do it i'd love siblings because so it could be that the gemara just trusts us you know when it comes to sadness the guard has to tell us how do you say what comes to symbol we'll figure it out on our own it could be it could be the dance that's right there's the you know typical we never have a problem with so there's there's a deeper idea the idea is like this you see during the course of the year when a person is too happy you know what are you so happy about you know somebody's happy it's like what are you so happy about you know again you could trigger off a little bit of resentment you're walking around you know just say with a with a song on your lips happy is a lark you know yeah hey what you know what do we have what have you got that i ain't got you know they could trigger a resentment but the month of ador you know what the you know what the constellation of other is there 12 council you know the cancellation is a sign for others fish what's what are the fish called in there what are they called pisces pisces okay so they're called they've got pisces like i'll call them fish and then the the uh the the the the fish the gemara says that rabbi yochanan was a very beautiful man very handsome man very beautiful tomorrow says used to go and he would stand by the mikvah when women immersed in the mikvah so when they come out of the mikvah they could look at rib yochanan and then they would have beautiful children like him that's what he warner says that's what i did that's what they weren't no that's what says so they said to her aren't you worried about the evil eye aren't you worried about an iron heart and people are looking here beautiful man aren't you what you're worried serbia and said no because i come from the tribe of yosef the tribe of yosef is not prone to ayan hara because they're compared to fish it says the gula road because it says afraim and menasha will be like fruitful like fish remember the brachayakov gave them they will fishify in the land the yid gulorov becarevs and since they're like fish fish are not subject to the evil eye fish are multiplied in abundance they're covered by a layer of water so you can't get a real direct look at the fish and the fish are above the evil eyes everybody said i come from the tribe yes they are immune to the evil eye so when it comes the month of adar you can show your happiness you don't have to worry about anybody you are protected in the month of other from the evil eye you could walk around you could be happy and upbeat and smile and then anything we do externally affects the internal mood do you know that they tell airline stewardesses who are in a bad mood they tell them to start smiling smiling affects your mood they tell airline stewardesses if they're in a bad mood when they go to work start smiling an hour before your job before you get on the plane start smiling because a smile actually affects your internal your intolerance when a person walks around smiling it actually affects you until you get on an all plane with a bunch of jews then the smile goes away no matter what you do but but up until then you know you know they once had a they once had a uh a way to call it plane was landing here i think twa or delta one other planes was landing and was landing in israel right around hanukkah time so they said uh to all of our non-jewish customers we would like to wish a merry christmas and to all the customers standing we would like to wish um happy hanukkah the jews are up already you know you know so the stewardesses you can imagine what the stories go through but they say a smile affects when you laugh smile and you do something externally that affects your internal mood that's the idea that's why they give the uh the uh what he called the uh democracy the sheckle now i think i don't remember if we pointed this out last time take a look at the second line kisi says rosh bene shalif i think we mentioned this vinasana and they shall give take a look at that word vino second line third word take a look at the word vanessa do carefully say anything unique about it look at that word vanessa second line third word vanessa they shall give same letters backward for do you know what that what's your name scott you know what that's called in english grammar close what do you say a palindrome it's called a palindrome palindrome is a word that reads backwards and forwards the same way the word vanessa is they shall give so over here is the lesson remember the giving mahathir is a sheckle coin this is a form of tsudaka vindasanu they will give and when you give you get remember we spoke about that so when you give it comes back towards you enough still goes one way and you're going to get back the other way part of the part of zucka is the promise from god you won't lose out by giving sadaqa number one number two look at the word mahatsi's in the second passage they give the word mahatsis okay look at the word monk it's the fourth line the fourth line from the top fourth word on the line mahatsi's now take a look what's the middle letter of the word mahadasis sadiq which stands obviously for what's the first word that comes back with saudi arabia sarik it's all the same word okay now look at the two letters on either side of that sonic look at the two letters nearest to it what do you get on one side the other side there's a year which spells what which is life look at the two outside letters tough which is death right so it's dhaka brings life closer stalker remember we spoke to stokka tatsumi mother stucco saves from death right stuck up brings life closer and it pushes death away all the way to the ends right another one of those interesting coincidences in torah but just one second now turn on ahead to parshas pintos look at the letter before it and the letter right afterwards fourth line fourth line the fourth word i'm looking at the word but where's the fight there's a hess in front of it in front of the tsarik there's a look at the letter right afterwards i think that's the wrong thing what is that word market means they have shekel coin which they're about to give but the tsarik is sadaka are close to the tsunaka hess on one side in judah and the other which is kai and mace which is death is on the outside okay now okay now turn to parches pitches for a moment to departures it's on page oh i wanted to say it h876 876 okay now on page 876 we begin with the parsha of pinchas now if you remember the story of pinchas uh the uh the the prince of the tribe of shimon a man named zimri ben solo was consorting with a midianite woman and as a result of what he was doing there was a plague in the jewish people people started dying fourteen thousand seven hundred jews started dying until pinterest came along with the spear and he made his point uh pithas came along phillips came along and he killed the two of them and there put an end to the plague okay pimco has put an end to the plague by killing those two people that's the end of the last parsha now look at the top of page 876 vaidabra god speaks to pinchas everybody see that 876. he turned back my wrath he turned back my wrath take a look at that word hamasi fifth line fifth word on the second line look at the word wrath look at the two middle letters mace look at the two outside letters that life is farther away when god's upset when god's in a state of wrath so their death is closer and life is farther away you see that mike and when god is you see where that is on on 876 876 second line fifth word fifth word on the second line pinterest he turned back my wrath look at that word hamasi the two middle letters are mace death death is close together two outside letters are high is life when god's in a state of wrath so to speak so then death is closer life is further away then you give tzedakah sadaka tatsu me maves sukkah saves from death mahatsi's when you put sadaka in there that is uh that's something i noticed during the torah reading last week just kidding uh just kidding that was something that the bill mcgowan says just wanted to see if you're paying attention yeah there's a tour reading i'm lucky to notice the door reading itself the the uh that that is that is the idea that the villenegon points out that the the word mahatsi said you see life and death are closer together and farther apart depending on depending on what we're doing but what does rock mean makatis means half that's the half shekel coin that they're going to give they should give a mahatsi sashekel the shekela kodesh okay now even more than that even more than that the uh the idea of giving a uh the idea of giving a a coin everybody's going to give the same coin here everybody's getting when they make a census everybody give a coin this is an extremely important idea everybody gives a half shekel coin that means the rich man can't come and say well count me with a 10. no no you get a half shekel coin and the other guy gives a half shot right everybody gives a half shotgun they count the coins and then instead of a head count which could bring a plague sorry they count they count the coins now part of the idea here is part of the idea here is and this i think is vital for us to remember there is uh let's call it an objective standard and a subjective standard again this is a this is something that people have a lot of trouble with in judaism there's what's called an objective standard so for example if there's an honor to be given out let's say the third aliyah to the torah who gets the third aliyah to the torah the most prominent torah scholar atam khacham gets the third aliyah he gets the honor if there's an honor to be given a talmud gets the honor if somebody has to lead the benching and there's no cohen around so who leads the benching again the top of them if there's only enough seducka in the communal fund and there are two families that needs dhaka well we have to have some way of determining who gets it so that says takes takes precedence that's the pinnacle of success in the jewish world is to become a tamil in the secular world perhaps to become a doctor to give an athlete with a performer whatever whatever the society considers the pinnacle of success in torah life the pinnacle of success is to become atomic and therefore on a subjective le on an objective level we give the time the precedence okay however in the presence of god that's only because we need to know how to run a society you need to need to run the practical implementation of societal rules so we need to know who's at a higher who outranks who on a societal level okay but in the eyes of god we don't know who's doing their job better in the eyes of god it could be a simple jew who will get more reward than a torah scholar because if the torah scholar was born with a certain potential and he fulfilled 80 percent of his potential and a simple jew was born with less potential but fulfilled 90 percent of his potential he occupies a higher place in the world of truth because ultimately we're graded on potential a guy who's about shiva and then he pulled himself out and became a torah observant jew so objectively he's going to know less than a guy who's been born and raised in may asharam is going to panovich and he's you know he's he's okay just just share ours he's accumulated more and in a societal level he outranks you because we have to go with an objective standard but in the eyes of god you don't know who's doing better in the eyes of god you you don't know because in the eyes of god if you fulfilled your potential you overcame your challenges in roads to where you've risen to so then you occupy a front row seat or at least a seat in front of that person in the world of truth so there are two standards so tar says you know what give a half a shackle coin when we count you give a half second coin because right now we're counting each individual jew each individual drew right now is worth the same amount you could be wealthy you could be prominent you could be a hawker you could be everything in the eyes of god each one of you is a half shekel you don't know who's worth more so everybody gives a half shekel coin over here then in the world of truth gotta let us know who occupies a higher position okay now there's a there's an interesting idea here that one that rashi brings down in possible in the rashi it's the right the right column the right column it's four lines from the top and the right column okay four lines on the top and the right column of rashi it says no this is what they should give says rashi hair alo everybody say it's the right column of rashi four lines from the top hair alo like a coin of fire um he said because they know this is the coin they should give he showed bonjour being a coin of fire now you know i understand i understand that that that when it comes to the menorah moshe roberto didn't understand how to make the menorah if you read the torah's instruction of the menorah it's very elaborate very complicated very difficult to make the manure hashem had to show him the menorah and then he said okay you know what just throw a block of gold into the fire and out came the menorah okay because the manure is difficult to make okay a majesty is a shekel coin it's not that difficult to know everybody's running around with half charcoal coins what does god have to show them this is the coin shows them a coin of fire this is the coin this is what they should give why do they need a well you don't know the remake of these are shocking coins give me something sorry listen my old guys everybody should give ten dollars here here's a ten dollar bill you know that we know from day one we know what a ten dollar bill looks like who's on the ten dollar bill who's anthony hamilton hamilton who's on oh franklin frankenstein 100. you should know i'm sure i was once in england my first trip to england and i had some dollars and i said to the guy you know can i go into i need to change the dollars into into english pounds could i go into into i said no nobody's gonna change dollars or pounds for you and to me it was a big shock because in israel you go anywhere you pay dollars anywhere you know that was a very big shock to me that the english don't worship the dollar you know that they think the pound is worth more in the diet but nobody's going to change dollars we had to find a money changer that was that was a there was a a a cultural uh wedding shock for me this is anybody in the world it who doesn't absolutely worship the dollar so uh uh but we know what the dollar looks like i know what the pound looks like i did make a faux pas once when i was speaking in england i was trying to give an example i said imagine you have a 100 pound note and your wedding god they don't have hundred pound nuts in there and i'll go up to 50. they only have 50 pound nuts i just went imagine you have a 100-pound note you know the audience was politely just looking at me like this you you american fool you know you can read it in their eyes so the the uh the but but everybody knows so why does the champion have to show charleno go a fiery half shackled what do you say maybe hashem was emphasizing that this shackle only this half shekel coin they can't get more no less okay okay then but that that he could say that he could just say half shekel and no more than half shotgun why did they have to show him the coin okay pictures speak louder okay okay but mosher albano is pretty sharp if he musher bait was pretty sharp if you say motion blade a half shackle not more than a half shackle and nothing but a half shotgun he'd get it what does this show have a half shotgun coin on fire i guess maybe it's like more symbolic that it's not just money like why would money at tone for your sins it has to be like uh close spiritual version in other words the money should be given where fire always represents what represents some sort of enthusiasm give it like a coin of fire give it enthusiastically like you have a fire give it like you want to give them give it because somebody's twisting your arm over here to give i told you a story of the rabbi whoever gets up in the show he says ladies and gentlemen we have to build a new a new wing to the shoal we've expanded i've got some good news and some bad news the good news is we already have the money the bad news is it's in your pockets right you know so so you know you know you know sometimes to get people to give to get people to give is a little bit difficult so here the torah saying they should give it with enthusiasm you realize that this is for the midst of building the mishkan it's going to be used in the michigan and it should be a coin of fire that's what the commentary suggests yeah my god so um is this all happening in the desert in between egypt and right so when they're talking about a shekel they're probably it's not talking about an actual currency he's probably talking about some sort of unit of silver or the shackle was the currency that was being used in egypt it was a good question the cabinet in the old days in the old days coins were a combination of coins work energy the gemara talks about this coins were actually a combination of a denomination and a weight it had both factors the gemara even talks about if you get like let's say you've got a half shekel coin but it's been scraped down and it doesn't weigh as much and the guy doesn't want to take the guy i'm not taking this it's like almost like a torn bill a torn bill that's been sigmar talks about a guy who isn't willing to accept the coin that's slightly shaved uh shiva he has the right not to accept it but the gemara calls him a nephesh raw he's a he's he's what we call english spartans he's a jerk you know he's making he's making a big deal out of it but he has the right because it's not the weight that it should be i think the united states moved off the silver standard isn't that true that they move off the coins used to be silver and they moved off because people were shaving coins down so they moved on to whatever this whatever the coins are made out of now the silver silver became worth more than the that for sure it is the the penny the penny rate it costs more to make a penny than a penny is worth you know which order from 1969 or something like that the last time they used silver was worth like four dollars or something what in on the so and the actual silver right yeah so they moved off the silver standard because of the and the coins because people were saying but that's what these coins were definitely that's clear from the gemara the coin was a combination of a denomination but it had that denomination apparently had a certain range of weight i guess so the reason i asked the question is because like the shekels the you know jewish currency but how could they have already minted currency you know like uh don't know don't know technically how they did it assuming it's just a measure of a certain point well apparently apparently it's stamped uh you know i can't answer that i can't answer i don't know i don't know exactly exactly how the it certainly has the weight component that's for sure it has as opposed to nowadays it's certainly got the wake of money it could be its pure weight it could be its pure weight it could be but the other the alternative is that then otherwise that the shackle was the currency used in egypt uh and then hard to see otherwise where would they have gotten you know you know it says by it says by abramovino it says by abramovino when he bought the cave so i think it says uh he says he gave to can they ephron the golden silver in the desert it says by it says way before this it says it says that whenever it paid arbameo's shekel kesseth however he paid ephron and that was in the land of kanan when he bought the cave and that's way before that this is our biome so apparently that shekel coin was around already you know what it whatever it looks like whatever it is it's interesting because i'm just thinking now the word shekel the word shokel in hebrew chocal means to weigh so there's probably no coincidence that shekel and chokel are the same uh are the same word they're not coinciding and i never thought of it before but shekel is chokel it's gotta weigh a certain amount a certain amount don't know don't know in any event that's what they have to uh that's what they have to bring and this will be an atonement for the jewish people now take a look at uh um um uh page four uh periclamider aleph pasuk alef skipping on ahead god gives the command of uh well by the way i just want to show you something i just showed on page 486 just take a look uh uh because uh uh uh there uh if you take a look in the middle of the page this has to do with the uh with the um oil that they're going to make and what the oil started out with incense the way they made the oil is they took a certain amount of certain incense certain uh uh spices or what's the other word uh what's the word for spices in other words for spices the flowers that are spicy uh peppery no there's a word like basamine what does he call it spices now they're okay so take a look i guess spices will have to use that so what they made is they took spices they took spices and they took these spices ground them together and they poured in the oil and they soaked it and then they uh they wetty quality the oil out they uh they they put in water and they burnt the water they set it on fire so the water boiled out then they're left with this oil that has a very good fragrance to it this was the oil that was used to anoint the people annoying the caleb anoint everything now i just want to show you one thing over here by omar hashem on moshe laymore god says to moshe it's in the middle of page 486. take various spices more deroar outside which the art scroll translates as pure meyer i'm not sure what mir is or meyer i'm not even sure if i'm pronouncing it right but it's called mordor okay now take a look right next to it go parallel across into uncles into uncles uh translation and if you find it it's over here it's impossible in the translation of uncles over here possible in uncles okay if you find it show the person next to you he gets very interesting uncle says translates like this take for yourself boostmin ratia take certain spices look at the next two words mordecai this is an allusion to mordechai in this week's parasha merudakia mordechai isn't that interesting purim comes out and the gemara says that here is where morocco is alluded to in the torah because mordechai is merida and it just so happens to be that departure comes out in the week of purim so this is an illusion i mean obviously there's a deeper idea here about why it refers to mordecai morocco is alluded to here okay tomorrow we'll go back tomorrow we'll continue with the uh with the building of the michigan itself and how who builds it and how they how they go about building it all right you