Parshat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim | Rabbi Baruch Taub

learn today for Flema for Barl Ben Fagga and uh Mashem our learning will help. Okay, welcome back everybody. We're going to try to focus I think more on Kadoshim a little bit. I want to talk about uh the mitzvah of Kib. I'm sorry. Is it it's what? It's what? It's it's Moscados. You're not a Bori. I hope so. You'd be in big trouble. It's Thursday. I was up to All right. That's very impressive to hear. Okay. Keep it up. Okay. So right at the beginning of the para uh you you have a we have a puk is uh a person should fear his mother and father and should keep shabas keep my my shabas theor is speaking right Torah speaking. So um what's the nexus between honor father and mother and keep my chabas right? What is it? Honor father mother do honor father mother keep kosher. What what what is this relationship between um shabas and uh kib kiba? Okay so somehow we're going to we're going to get into that a little bit. Um let's see what he says. So this is from the this is the meshma the meshma for those of you who've never done a meshma the meshma was um the rov of dinsk in leita. Um he's called the mesh because the name of his was the mesh but he also was known more in the world of Torah as the or um he didn't found the yeshiva right that's much later but he wrote a his no on on the raam and shas is called it's interesting uh because he wrote the mesh on the Torah when he was 16 years old and his father didn't let him publish it Because in those days in Letha in Lithuania even a balagola a taxi driver could write a safer onish the scholarship the level of scholarship in in Leita was extraordinary. So his father told him you wait when you put out your on the Rambam then we'll publish the and that's what happened and it became it's a it's a mass it's a masterpiece the meshma and this is a piece that he has on uh this this question right and uh it's a tiny little bit technical but I think we'll get through it and I'm going to give a mush at the end which will kind of tie it together uh for make it a little bit easier for me and for you. So he right away Rashi says she brings this you have to honor mother and father. So you might think that even if mother and father tell you, you know, you know, by the way, you're all you're all obligated to honor me, right? You have to honor your mother, you have to honor your father, but every child has to honor me. That's what Shabas is all about, right? misphorel. So the question he's asking is why didn't he he just simply say there's there's a logical there's maybe a logical idea about about these things here he gives another another situational ethic his father says bring me a cup of tea and his mother says give me a cup of tea the den is it's not very politically correct today but the den is his father comes first because both the wife and the child are obligated to give honor to the husband father now that by the way I have to you know say to you very clearly the Rambam is very clear about the fact that not only does a wife a husband a wife have to honor a husband but a husband have to has to honor a wife even more than himself is the language of of the Rambam okay but in from a pureic thing here. So there's a logical thing here. You know, we decide logically, you know, you got a choice. Just go to Why don't Why don't simply say this is God? You're talking about God. What do you have to make a big deal about? You know, you're both obligated to honor him, dude. Just a uh he's got a problem. Zavari. What's he talking about here? Again, I have to fill in the blanks. That's why it's a little bit complicated, but it it's really not. Uh we're not supposed to make Nadar vows. We don't make vows. It's a dangerous thing to make a vow. We we take it very seriously because in fact, if somebody makes a serious ne it becomes like a 614th mitzvah for him or her, right? Very serious. So, we we try not to in fact you don't hear about Nador. what you do here in our regular parlons very often and we all say it bleeder bleeder bin neter it's part really part of our our speech because of this this in our DNA we're afraid to make a net so we say bleeter I'm not making it right but when someone makes a neter and he has karat he's sorry he wants to get out of the net can he get out of the net so one way of getting out of the net is to go to betthin you can go to betin and bthin will examine you and under certain circumstances they will cancel the net. So they it's called they open him up and they ask him right um right they say to him if if your mother and father were to know about this would would you be happy about this is it is you're you're kind of a Russia making a net no that's a terrible thing I I would if they don't know about it so that's cancel the better. But the question he's asking is why don't they first why isn't the first question would you would you do this right if you knew that this is not a cav to the rabbon right why did they start with why didn't they start with God right why start with the parents right something something is is a foot here that maybe the honor to parents maybe should come first right um okay um so he says what does what does it mean it's let's say right if a person makes a suki um I carry a lul of sha I I put on I put on right many things that we do for ourselves are really covered for the raon Right. So why do we start why don't we start with it seems like a no-brainer. Why are we starting by with with parents? Um so there he says it sounds like he quotes a from here. I'm not going to go through it and go to the next line. Um he says it seems here too in our so he could ask a question. Listen my father has to eat and I have a mitzvah to honor him. So my father tells me to cook on chabas doesn't hurt the bon if I do if I do it right not I might think I should do what my father says right just like we go we go to the honor of the parents comes first then the honor of the so maybe here too I have to feed my father he asked me to do something so let me cook I have to cook he asked me to cook make him something so maybe Maybe I have to do it. Right. It's no there's no conflict. Right. Right. There's no conflict. Right. He says, "No, not so simple." Now, he goes to another problem here. There's a rule of thumb in Torah. We have two kinds of mitzvot, right? We have positive mitzvah and negative mitzvah. Mitzvah and mitzvah lo. If you're confronted with a mitzvah and a mitzvah, which comes first, a positive mitzvah trumps, Forgive me for using that verb. I really don't like to use it, but that it trumps the negative commandment. Right? Okay. There's a whole discussion though. So, here you go. Kim is a positive mitzvah. Shabas dealing with negative mitzvah, right? Uh not to be mal shabas, right? It's a serious offense. So maybe maybe you should honor parents for that reason. And then the gamorrah he again, I'm not going to go through all of the stuff he brings here, but the gamorra talks about um what if you have a a a negative mitzvah that is much more serious? It has a serious consequence, a serious punishment. shortening one's life, skiila, like paveas, stoning, right? Um uh and incidentally, the reason why the Torah gives these these severe punishments is really writes in a certain place. He says it's not because the wants us to receive these punishments, but to let us know how severe this mitzvah is, how important this mitzvah is to him and to to us. So what if you have a negative mitzvah with a very serious consequence like shabas, right? So maybe there's an exception to the rule here, right? Maybe the the negative commandment, right? Um should should trump the the positive commandment, right? And he brings all kinds of examples here and uh I'm I'm not going to do go through the whole thing. Um but he says here the third line in the middle he says he answers a whole thing in the Gmorra I'm not going to go through shin mitzvah but no the the the negative the negative mitzvah is really preparatory for the positive mitzvah. What does he mean? Gives an example from the bin mikdash. Okay. Fourth line there's a mitzvah one of the first three mitzvah we're supposed to do when we come into Israel right is to build a mikdash right but that's he says even though he says leave not even though it is one of the 613 mitzvah it is only mitzvah now in other words It's because it's all about because the purpose of the mitzvah of building the mikdash to put up the mishkan the tabernacle or the mikdash so that we offer the sacrifices we do and is is feared there we have a that it it creates that that's the real purpose so it's mitzvah now this is not the way Russia understands this gamorrah but um he's quoting really from a rash but he might mention another rishan so so therefore you might think that building the now we know that building the ba mikdash we stop building the b mikdesh shabas the mitas trumps mikdash to the extent not even that but we're familiar with the fact that all of the of shabas all the things that we are not allowed to do and shabas are based upon the 39 categories of work in building the basikt. So there's an intrinsic relationship here between shabas and and and beta mikdash. Shabas is really the the positive mitzvah. So you might have thought that well maybe it should trump it should trump uh you know the the building the bita should trump shabas. We should be because it's such a right. We should we should right maybe. Okay. So, so but it's not about the building when it's built. That's called mitzvah. And now he brings it brings us to cover of mitzvah is also preparatory for what? Foroku for honoring Hashem, right? And it's just logical, right? Nobody would would think for a moment that between man and man should cancel out a a mitzvah in the Torah. Okay. honoring mother and father is all about honoring the right of course the mitzvah of honoring mother and father by the way you know there are certain mitzvah that do not have a braha one of them is honoring mother and father right many certain number of positive mitzvah don't have a braha right is a very important mitzvah right but it doesn't have a braha Now there are many reasons why the rashba gives a reason because maybe the person won't take it. If he doesn't take it it's a blessing in vain right? What about that's another category and mitzvah something that is so logical and obvious not even before right that one should honor his parents right so you don't that's that you don't you don't there's no braha for it right you don't even it's a mitzvah that could be done even without the Torah right so uh so that is uh more than that is what he's saying here The mesh um we honor parents because basically they they give us are the three basic needs that we have you know physical needs food shelter clothing and then and love and right and affection and and so on direction. Well this is all this is the this is the raon auaya. So honoring parents is is to bring us because the the entire purpose of our involvement in our lives as Jews with Torah as we mentioned many times the the end game is having an intimate relationship with a keshbu. So you see that clearly with a it is to bring us to that re realization of the reality of having an intimate relationship with right everything that happened when we received the Torah this was given what was given we at Hari was given by Moshe to Israel dar and it was handed over from generation to generation until it came to our generation from parents to children right parents to children to their children right remember that the time that we stood on right we say at the end of doning in the sitter u there's a minute to say it's written there at the end of doning people sometimes you know there's a lot of stuff that many people don't say but there are the certain there are things seven things six things in the Torah that you're supposed to remember one of them is the experience of right again he what he's alluding to is this is also the relationship of parent to child but it's that relationship parent have the obl obligation to give over their children what gave us at so the two are interrelated and a hashem the mitzvah of a hashem right why there's no mitzvah fore maybe we'll come to in a minute if if we would not do this if parents would not give over to their children if there be no relationship between parents and children, right? Then that would be the end of of Torah, the end of Jewish life. And in fact, we see that the terrible assimilation that we see in in certain places in America, for example, is because there's no there's the Jewish education is is there's a there's a tremendous vacuum here. So you see this this relationship this nexus between the whole Torah. So therefore I would but I I might think right parents are so important they lead it leads me to serving Hashem. Maybe I should you know Hashem will understand right doesn't work that way. Now let me give you the Marshall which I think can crystallize this for us. And the army the army has rules. There's there's a there are social classes. You have generals, right? And then you have a private, right? So you are the rules of the army are that a private has to listen to the general. If the general tells you to do something, you have to do what he says. If you don't do it, you're court marshal. You're out of the army. Right? What if the general tells you to do something that's against the rule of the army? The general says you have to do this. It's against the law, but you have to do it, right? You don't have to do it. And not only that, but the general is court marshaled. The general loses his stripes and he's no longer a general. Now, how does it work in Torah? It's not the same. If a parent tells a child let's say be shabas and you know all kinds of things that we see at our generation our chuva generation the tension that exists between parents children when someone is is becoming from um so you don't have to one does not have to listen to a parent when they tell the child not to you know to be however the parents don't lose their stripes they that you one is still obligated to honor the parents in every other way in this particular regard. So it has to be done with sensitivity. It has to be done with love. It has to be done not with withah and I can't do it. I I just can't do it. Right? But everything else everything else applies. Father asks you to do this and that and everything else. You have to do this and that and everything else and a mother and a father. Right? So you don't they don't lose the mitzvah of doesn't go out the window. Right? But in this particular regard, right, one does not have to listen. Now, by the way, why is there no mitzvah um there's a mitzvah to love Hashem? Why is there no mitzvah to love children? Why isn't there no mitzvah to love children? Now, you can say to me, well, it's so natural, right? Well, maybe that's why there's no braha, but we see that loving parents, loving children is so so natural. But let me tell you an a thought from thought from the Ostroba who was an absolute genius was a Rob in Poland the early the first half of the 20th century and um he said like this uh there is a tremendous difference between the love a parent has for a child and the love that a child has for a parent. It's infinitely stronger. Anyone who's a parent and has been as a parent and a child understands clearly that the love that a parent has for a child is almost an uncommon denominator. The love that a child where does that come from? This is in our DNA. It's in our DNA. In our DNA DNA, we come from Adam and Kava, right? Adam and Kava were born right as what? As parents. They were not born. They did not come into this world as children. There was no mother, father. There was no nine months. There was no this. There was no they they came into this world as parents. We originally in our original DNA are parents, not children. So we have to we don't have to work on you know on uh parenting as much as we have to work on loving our children. there's no need for a mitzvah but we have to work right on on loving on loving our our parents right it's a challenge for us right and maybe the worship doesn't give it to us as a mitz because of the difficulty right and you know I had a m I I've mentioned this in the past uh perhaps not here I once had a ma there was a mother and a daughter who were so they were so they didn't talk to each other she moved out of the house and oh terrible as a teenager it was a terrible situ situation. Anyway, fast forward, they she got married. Uh the marriage wedding was also problems, but she got married, she became pregnant, she had a child from the hospital bed. When the nurse delivered the baby to her, she broke out in tears and called her mother and asked forgiveness. How could I do this to you? Now I know how I hurt you, how you feel. That's like an hour of being a mother, right? So that's the point. That's the point we're making. Okay, let's go to the next piece over the page. Now this is from Riyaka Kamineski also on kib. Okay, same is a man should fear mother and father should fear the isho. person has to fear. There's two myths, by the way. There's a andically they're they're very different. There there's certain things that we do because of of fear. Um we don't interrupt them. We don't contradict them in public. Um co is is doing things for them. You know, that cup of tea or at the very least, right, the very minimal, right? So, there are all kinds of um distinctions, but they're two separate mitzvah. I want to also talk about the strange relationship in this honor father and mother. Fear father and mother and keep my right. If the people who believe in now he's talking about is evolution, right? people who subscribe to evolution like many people in the in the general world and unfortunately some uh some some lost Jews as well. So what really happens after a period of time you come from monkeys we come from monkeys who then become gorillas or gorillas who become monkeys who become this and become that and eventually they become human beings right if that's what one subscribes to the theory of evolution that the longer the distance is of the new generation from the old generation. The farther we are away from our grandparents who were monkeys and gorillas, right? So the younger generation has to be honored, right? The it's not the older generation, it's the younger generation. I mean without the theory of evolution tragically you know just to make a social commentary here this is what's going on in the world today too I mean you know kids are are running the roost there's no discipline no has become a you know uh not only is he and she become we've just taken out of the English language but but no also right uh people are afraid to discipline we see what's going on in the world right this is a world without spiritual values that's that's that's what hurts us so much, right? Um anyway, they they feel that the the new generation, the old generation has to honor the new generation, right? But we we who believe that man is is created the creation God created us, right? Uh from that moment of the farther we are the generation. So we're farther away from that that intimate relationship of the raon creating us personally creating us and the right [Music] um we're so far removed from the the influence the spiritual influence of the greatness We we really should be honoring the past generation, right? They were greater than us, right? And you know, you don't have to be a brain surgeon. You know, you see you see in in assimilate in assimilation process with grandparents who were religious children who started to lose it and then afterwards you know things. So how does he tie this into this question? The relationship between Shabas and the relationship and parents, right? He has to re he has to revisit the reonam has to revisit the creation of the world he has to revisit the creation of shabas right it's connected to honoring parents to fearing parents right keep my shabbat who shabbat is the remembrance, the oath, the sign of remembrance of the creation of the world where it all began. That relationship we had with directly within with God six days of of creation. So that's the connection here. You have to understand what this is all about. When I tell you to fear mother and father because you have to you cannot this generation is not nothing compared to the past generations going all the way back to the rea himself. Now he's asked a PS here. I want to mention something that I heard from rebel. Reasserman was a great rashiva great god in in Europe. He was uh the the chief student of the Kim and he actually was in America when the war broke out. He was here collecting funds for yeshivas in in Europe and he he they begged him to stay. He went back and he died alkish hashem uh whole story about his death and kadeshm but but he said like this darwin if Darwin would have seen the face of the right the angelic face of the right he would never have said he would never have said that man comes from monkeys. He would have torn up his entire thesis. Unfortunately, tragically, Darwin only saw people like Darwin. He came to this uh this this terrible mistake about uh about uh about the creation of man. Okay. Um a word about uh Mosha perhaps we sorry how we going with time wise. No let me go let me go to the third the third final piece here. Okay, the third piece page three is from Kayona which happens to be my safer on the para in Hebrew and um but we bring here an interesting an interesting thought um we're talking about the kaducat ao the something about a kohhane right the kahuna is all the parha is al all about kohuna this week so something interesting about kohuna Okay. There's a that brings it kind of cast a shadow on uh the greatness of a koi, right? uh veranim he's talking about a m blemish that if the somebody comes to bait and wants to check out is this a proper blemish is the animal not allowed to be used for a carbon right so if it's a shepherd of regular Jews you can you believe him a shepherd of kohanim you you can't you don't believe them right the cohen says it's a blemish right neo No, he's believed for someone else but not if the Cohen comes himself, he's not believed. So what's going on here? So the Bartonura says the next paragraph uh is Israelite shepherds are believed even a a a Israelite shepherd of a coen is believed alto that there's a a blemish on this it cannot be used and it happened by itself the coen can eat it right that's what happens let's And that's what we're getting to. A firstborn animal kaducor has to be given to a coen if it and if it and it's used for if corbin but if it if it has a blemish it the coen can eat it. Right? So kohanim were suspected of making a blemish in the animal cutting a little cut in the animal so that they could eat it. Right? This is what the Gomorrah tells us. Okay. So we we don't believe a cohen if he says this this is suspect that he actually put a blemish right I don't want to go through the whole thing it's late also next paragraph who what's the what's the suspicion The coin wanted to put a blemish in the so he doesn't have to bring it to the base of mikdash and he can eat it. Right? By the way, there's a whole sh today about ornata. There are certain things you have to give to the coen from an animal which still apply today in Israel which is a big sh how do Jewish butchers do it. So, I'm not going to go into the the but ideally the Jewish butcher should have a non-Jewish partner and in the contract he gets the certain parts of the animal that go to the coate, right? But okay, now here's his question. What's going on here? How do you We're suspecting the How do we relate to generally who we consider them to be on a much higher level religiously and spiritually? You know the only that we have that says I'm doing this mitzvah of Hashem with love is the mitzvah of when the cohen blesses the people he says I am commanded to bless the people with love. Why? Because it's very hard for the cohain. The cohane in in idllic times he deals with the lowest of people in society. He deals with suras people who are mits with all kinds of shilas of people who are not up to up to mustard right so it's he has to be challenged with the fact that he has to do this out of love he has to love everybody so you're dealing with a very high level individual right many times the the Torah says the gmorrah says kohhanim kohanim kohanim are pontilius They're careful. They're in the things they do, right? In other words, they're very careful with right therefore. So therefore, what's this business cannot? So therefore, we don't have to there's certain things we don't have to have extra rules for a to be careful about this and careful about that. keep people away from doing an a right they're above that right how come here that here we question their their honesty what's here right it's a good question right so here's the answer we're suggesting let's let's suggest a question an answer to this question generally speaking principally in Judaism or Jewish stay away person should stay away from from gifts should try to avoid taking gifts from people if a person hates gifts he will live right because really life is about what I can accomplish on my is giving me do something not to get it a free something from somebody else right that's a philosophy of life for us from proverbs is telling you know it's very natural a person likes to have presence right I mean if I would show of hands here if everyone was honest here they'd say yeah everybody Everybody likes to get a present. Everybody likes to be feel feel that they're cared for, right? So from somebody else, you know person has to train himself that he's not interested in presence, right? In in a general is a life's philosophy, right? He should be concerned about his own accomplishments. Whatever he can accomplish on his own. So how does that answer this question? Very simple. With regard to taking presence, there's a problem for the is has a handicap. The Torah gives the Cohen an enormous number of gifts by the corbanut. Every day there are corbanut. The kohanim are getting food. They're getting gifts from people constantly, right? Jewish people have an obligation to give the cohen these things and they has to accept them. And he actually lives from these uh from these gifts from these matn. Now this is a handicap that makes it very difficult for a cohen right to adhere to this philosophy of life of son it's it's a sort of the cohen's personality he's weak in that particular area when it comes to to presence right therefore the rabbis are suspicious they there's a suspicion here they'll do take a little bit of a cut in the it's not doing anything wrong it's not going to me it there's a choice of what happened right so he doesn't have to go to the beta mikdash so this kind of handicap makes him sort of uh suspect in this particular area so that's why We have this strange inhal. Okay. Thank you all for your patience. Hashem next week. Okay.