The Jew the Kohen Gadol and the Mitzvah of Mechiat Amalek | Rabbi Moshe Snow

Personal Privilege um it is my great scoots to welcome back to OU Israel um my distinguished father-in-law Rabbi mosha snow Rabbi snita of course served for nearly four decades as the marra of the youngest othl of bar Park and sered for more than five decades as a beloved rebi in the in the mifa of rites Elizabeth New Jersey he's a world-renowned speaker and educator with thousands of tal across the globe and for us as a family it's a greatus that Rabbi snow is now our neighbor just a few blocks away from us in Arona and it's ose to have him back with us in good health back with us here Israel without further Ado like to give to my sonin-law and uh sometimes it's not how much you know it's who you know but just just to uh follow through on something I heard the last year that was so beautifully presented we had in our family we had a most unusual circumstance my son H lives in elazar which is English ET and on a per Mish on a Friday night his wife said to him I know I'm not due until Monday but I think we have to go into jeruselam to the hospital I'm about to give birth so here was someone who was going to be all set to celebrate for M with of course the Milla was read on Friday and shabas was was not supposed he didn't have to celebrate because he Liv in and now they're going into what do you do I've just become a resident of on chabas he drove into yusem on chabas you had to you had to go to the hospital and she gave birth on chabas what do we do now we're in Jus we already had a sud on Friday what do we do now that we're in y do we now become part of thei and have a on that sh it's a very unusual circumstance it's almost never didn't heard of but here was the situation what do you do and of course they right after shabas called their and he said buy a tuna fish sandwich and make a sauda tomorrow very interesting very interesting you never know has ways of doing things I have a rather strange title for the she today the title of the she is Jew to God and the Mitzvah what what does what does the Jew and the co God have to do with each other concerning the Mitzvah it's a very strange situation but this shabas we're reading I hope I got that right reading and we're we're also going to have talks about the the and the garments of the and is one of the three mitzvas that need to be accomplished when it comes to remembering at the very end of almost the last few Mitzvah in the Torah has mitah number 603 604 and 605 the three Mitzvah are of course number one that you have to have remembering of both you have to remember it in your heart and mention it that's why we read we read the m and you have to also have a remembrance of MIT 6 for one must accomplish if they can how do how do you how do you do that how do you wipe out amik you have to know who's the family the descendancy and so on how do you get to the point where you're able to do today and I know it would sound very simple to most of us we have to almost do nothing more than turn around and look at some of our neighbors you know and and and get the idea of what would be like but really we don't know that that's really the case as we're going to point out and finally there's a mitah you're not allowed to forget so remembering and forgetting is very very difficult you know I must remember and I cannot forget if I'm remembering of course I won't forget how do you go about and manage to accomplish all three of these things I should be noted uh for those who are interested you know when you when you look at par a lot of times you take a look at the very back of the par it says the number of that there are in the para and anybody know the number of that there are in wow that's good that's good very good 101 terrific okay what's what's the significance of that by the way there is a fascinating thing about that also some people are aware of what's the fascinating thing missing inu's name it's the only sedra from the beginning of shos on almost till the very end of which's name is not mentioned but the V fascinating Von which is brought down in a in a safeer called yanova was a lived in an area in pin not far from vilna and in fact ultimately moved to to Villa he wrote a safer called and by the way it's an interesting thing that it is published in ER Isel but almost can't find it here in AR Israel it's unbelievable in America you can find it but in Israel it's very hard to find I finally checked down the the people who sell it because I wanted to have a copy here has a quote of Theon of what's going on with moshe's name is missing and yet it has 101 equal to the name fascinating moshe's name moshe's name is not in the par but the vong came along and he told us that it is it is in the par the question is how where is it that Moses name is in the par so the vill explained MOS renu's name is not mentioned in the because he said wipe me out from from your book if you're going to wipe out Israel take me out of the book and of course hasem wanted to ful fill the request to some degree he took his name out of but he didn't take it out completely moshe's name is missing only in one part but another part it's there and listen to what the villon said this is this is so brilliant that's why he was the villon the vill came along and he said take the name Moshe and spell it out you have three letters you have a me you have a shin and you have a ha me is spelled the the word me is spelled me me that the open part of that name is a me me of Moshe but the hidden part is also a me because the letter me is spelled me Shin is spelled Shin the shin is missing because his name was not put into the parion but is equal 60 and the men that we already had from before 40 and he is spelled hey alive the hey is not there because mosha name is not there but the AL is there because that gives us a total of1 and that's how many there are in the Torah in this week's SED and his name is hidden why is it hidden because the essence and the inner core of what moshu represented is his inner core what he taught us his Nish is what is remaining maybe the open outside name is not there but the Nish is there because the name Moshe is hidden in the fact that there 101 this is a fascinating introduction to that his name is really there and so much of is hidden you know when we come to the par everybody goes H boring now till now I had had all kinds of stories and all of a sudden I'm reading about the clothes of the Coen God and how many colors it had in this and how many pieces of this and the a the the itself is a fascinating thing with the pomegranat all all over the bottom and why did you have to have bells on the bottom of the of the of theill because you had to announce that you coming into the Coen God when he wore it only the Coen God wore wore the wor the ill with the pomeg grants and the Bells on the bottom and what's the point of the Bells okay the pomeg represent the T Mitzvah how do we know the pomeg grant represents tag mitz you know how many pits there are in a pomeg grant 63 now don't take my word for it but I want to tell you when I was teaching in the yiva so I taught I taught this I taught seniors in high school I don't know if you ever taught a whole group of seniors in high school very interesting group of people and I taught it and I said that there were 613 pits in a pomeg and one of the guys says I'm going to path park right now and I'm going to buy a powerg and I'm going to sit and count it I said you need five hours to start counting all those BS he says I'm taking off this after so he took the pagr he he bought he went to the store he bought a pomeg grant and he sat for 4 hours him and a friend of his sat and counted the pits in that pagr guess how many bits he ended up with 612 yeah yeah it's only it's only symbolic okay but but but it had 63 pits in it and had Bells what so sobly me understand you know REM mind you of the 63 misses but what's the purpose of the Bell s what's the person that Bells so the Torah tells us the purpose of the Bells is so he has to announce his coming into The KES kadash who's there who do you have to announce knows he's coming in why does he have to go announce he's coming in hasem knows he's coming in he's coming theod what's this business of announcing I'm coming in to the to the Cod K it's not that someone else it's not for someone else it's for him it's for the for the purpose the person you know the brings down that one of the before you would come to the house he would knock on the door why would he knock on the door even if there's no one home because he had to know I'm coming into my house I'm coming into The KES kadash I have to prepare myself I have to be ready the Coen had to prepare himself so the clothing of the Cain God is crucial it's not only for the cohain godo it's for every Jew wait a minute the cohain and the Jew have a tremendous relationship because the Coen is there to teach the Jew of how the Jews should act you know why where is the first place in the Torah that we find the word cohain said who said it oh you want to give the that's that's very good right what does the word mean over there is he a priest what does the word CO mean who so brilliantly analyzes the sources and when you go to the source of something you always find that there will be an idea that will teach you what the nature of the word means now the word cohain where does it come from what's the origin of the word Cohan and what's it related to s in his eological dictionary and in his par in his par explanation on which has been translated by the way so beautifully by his his great-grandson or his grandson uh the the the concept of cohain has a number of Origins one of them is the letters orav intent the purpose of the cohain is to show a direction a kavana an intent a cohan's job is to teach how one should act the Jewish people are called Kahan the P says you're gonna be a kingdom of that means just as the cohain so is the Jewish people I was when I was in Yeshiva in the low side I learned in the by so right next door to the Yesa so first there was the wine Factory which not many people knew about but it was you I I I worked when I was a kid in the wine Factory when I was a teenager to prepare for PES I used the bottle MOS wine but right next to the wine Factory there was a funeral home I don't know what the connection is between the Yeshiva and the wi fact I mean the funeral home but anyway their Funeral Home was just two doors down and it had an awning as many funeral homes do in yeah and there was an awning coming out of the funeral home and so when they were coming to the Yeshiva if they walk along Eastward way they would come to the Yesa they have to walk around the awning so that they wouldn't walk under it in case there was a tumor coming out from the from the funeral so I had a friend who I used to walk to Yeshiva with and he was not a Cohen but he would never walk Under The Canopy he would always walk around I said M you're not a you're not a Coen how come you walking around he said what's good for the cohain it's good for the Israel I'm not but he was right on the mark because the says what the Coan is to the Jewish people giving an example of how clausel is supposed to conduct themselves that same thing is what Claudia is to the rest of the world we are a and our responsibility is to to go and set a standard a cavana and say the word can which is also related to to be and to intend to do things the right way because we are a so in terms of our our introduction to the title of this particular sheer it's showing us that there are certain things that are related to the Coen that are absolutely necessary for all of us to keep in mind and maybe that will give us an insight into how we're supposed to conduct ourselves on a regular basis this of course has a lot of import uh in many many areas it doesn't only doesn't only pertain of course to wearing the G governments and so on but it has it has it has very very wide application now I could spend the entire time here talking about the big day Kahuna and how they're related to all of us I already gave one example with the pomegranat and with the Bells but I want to focus on the two main begod at this point that the cohain god war that might have a very deep meaning and importance as far as we're concerned when it comes to p the two the two garments that I'm referring to were you know there were every Co had four regular garments every Coen wore the pants and the tunic and the every Co wore hat right and a belt so those those are the four garments of the regular cooh in addition to those four garments the cooh God had four other garments the the we already spoke about there was the sits the golden headband that theoh God say KES LEM and there were the two other main garments the A and the kosan the aold was basically an apron and theen was the breastplate and the A and theen the says the A and the had to be constantly tied together the apron had shoulder straps which came around and it had a skirt so to speak the tunic that was worn by the king God and the bottom of the apron had attachments and the straps of the apron had attachments and the bottom attachments and the top attachments were eventually attached by the which he wore around his chest and you can never detach you cannot detach the aold from Theos the apron and the breastplate had to be attached all the time if the A and the Kosen were not attached according to the gar this is a love it's a it's it's a fault that that if you if you do it if someone actually does it to Gar Yuma brings down that if someone actually detaches Co or non and they detach purposefully for the purpose of detaching the Kosen from the a of malus they're supposed to get lashes because they detached these two objects they've detached Theos and the a which we're going to get a little bit into to help us understand what's going on here explains that the aone the aold connected a number of different parts of the body all for the symbolic representation of what those parts of the body represent for instance the chest and the back represented the feelings and the will of an individual the shoulders which was attached represents the action of the person and the major organs which are covered by the apron so there there are Parts the entire basic makeup of the Coen God had to be totally AB absorbed in the wearing of this a and theen of course rep was uh was representing the urum and the tumin the urum and the tum was what the breastplate were called but the words Ur and T are also crucial because the word Ur comes the word or which means light and tumim is a plural of tone completeness of representing Perfection when one is a t so there had to be a connection between light and Perfection which was the Kosen and all the other crucial Natures of a human being the action the feelings the strength the power and the very essence of the person had to be attached between the Perfection the UR the light the UR and the T the Perfection that the co God represented there is a there was a statement by a commentary on the Torah known as Lu ER this this is a this is a commentary excuse me it's it's not so it's not a very well-known safer but uh it it is it is quite popular amongst those who are interested in investigating deep Concepts relating to the paros and LU was was written by by a rabbi y conat it was about about a 100 years ago uh in in Europe and it's still available and he makes a fascinating points out a fascinating Insight uh about the uh about theur and the a there are twoin in this week's SED which talk about the way that the these garments were put together in one p the famous p is called M what does maave mean it's it's the work of a it's someone who is an artist they're thinking about it means it has to be made with thoughtfulness and in other P these garments are referred to ad M roame the work of an embroiderer what's the difference between M and M the work of an artist and the work of a embroid perz comes along and he explains now I don't know if you ever seen this there is a there is a safer it's it's really a safer but it's a picture book uh about the mishan it's a it's a big beautiful uh publication that was put out by people who wanted to make sure that people could have an insight into what the mishkan looked like what the bodm look like and so on it's called The Tabernacle you seen this publication it's really beautiful but if you notice there when it came to the to certain parts of the mishkan especially the curtains and the big day Kahuna so they were able to show that when when it was what when something was woven the outside of the Artistry that was shown on one of the curtains and on the aold the outside look like a lion and I read the inside exactly the other side of that particular garment instead of looking like an AR it looked like a neser like an eagle the main m n e of the lion turned into the wings of the eagle on the other side so someone who knew how to knit crochet embroider if someone did it with kav if someone did it with intent they would have on the outside a lion on the inside they' have a ner that's the difference between M and M roain says the when it was done with intent and thought and planning on the outside you had a lion on the inside you had the picture of a eagle while if it was just Mar ran if it was just an embroiderer who didn't put much thought into it he was just interested in getting the outside picture which was the lion on the inside was nothing was nothing so the intent what you're thinking about what you're trying to accomplish is tremendously different when you put your cavana into it when you take your essence of a CO of a if you put it into it you're gonna have a reflection on both sides you're going to get the outside of the name and you're G to get the inside of the idea and the name well if you're only thinking about making the picture but you're not concerned about what the essence is you're going to be missing mosha ab's name from the par you're going to be missing the the the eagle that's on the inside that you don't see but really you should be able to if you would only put your mind to it so we have the difference between a M and say R and now I want to show how these are related to our issue of the Cain the Jew and the I have a question for you anybody here know the series of dates the dates and the months and the and the day of the months in which the Milla unfolds I'm sure you all have some idea I think we have a Milla here I want to show you some I want to show you something from the Milla that is a fascinating presents a fascinating question do you know when the Lots were cast what what what month did H horia by the way I don't know if you noticed I don't know you no oh you was so good when when I when they asked me about the title of the she and I said the Coen the Jew and M the wiping out of am did you see that I had am crossed out you I try to fulfill a little bit okay okay but but what was the what was the month the month in which the Lots were drawn all right well we'll take a vote how many say how many say it was drawn in Nissan right Nissan's the winner right it was drawn it was drawn in the month of niss the pet the pet the PK says it openly I have have listening the PK I actually actually wrote it down but you can take a look in it's in pay giml I believe here it says it says over here and they it was the first month it's [Music] in on the 13th day of that month and they that's that's when they drew the lots and the month of Nissan they drew the Lots in the month of Nissan and when did the Lots come out for what month did it come out forar how many months away from Nissan isar 12 months right Nissan other right 12 months later and what is what does what what does hman plan on doing he plans on wiping out all CL Israel how many months later 12 months later 12 months later right and he tells Esther that what she has to do she has to go into the king and beg for her people when does he tell her to go to the king and beg for her people what was the date that he asked her to go in and beg to the king for her people it was PES that same month in which it was drawn it was drawn in Nissan right and a few days later because we drawn on the 13th day in Nissan a few days later 14 15 P night he tells her she's got to go into the king and risk her life now what's why is that a risk of a life because we know that the P says later on unless the king extends the one then you're gonna get killed and I didn't ask permission to go into the king for 30 days that means like this if you have 30 days before and you make an appointment to go in you're okay everything's fine but if you didn't make an appointment and he doesn't stick out the golden scepter then you're gonna have your head shopped off so Mor tells Esther I want you to go into the king a I want you to go into the it's not it's not acceptable you don't know about it he doesn't know about it there's no there's no date of 30 days in which you had made an appointment to to see the king I want you to go in and risk your life and ask the king to come to a that you're going to make for him which is go going to be PES night serve some wine right I want you to go in and go risk your life and my question is and here's the question you are probably all asking to yourselves right now also wait a minute if the lottery was drawn in Nissan and it didn't come out until the month of AD 11 months later what's the easy solution no risking life here make an appointment it's it's not like maab you might not be able to get one you know make an appointment you'll get in you'll get in before the 30 days what right did morai have to risk Esther's life after all she goes in and he doesn't extend the golden scepter off with her head and that's why she said and therefore I'm telling you I'm gonna risk my life and if I lose I lose and she is afraid she's going to lose anyway because you know until now when she was forced to with the king so maybe according to thear in Milla where she was really married to M she could go back to live with him because it was a force and when someone is forced you're not considered to be unable to go back to your husband but if she's going in on her own she's losing everything there's a big discussion there actually three different opinions as to whether or not a Esther was able to go back that's not for today's discussion but it's fascinating fascinating that morai was risking her life and the question is why why don't you just make an appointment has this ever bothered you it bothered me I I what why didn't she make an appointment and why does morai insist that she do it now what what was the urgency don't risk her life don't risk the opportunity that this thing is going to be finished and and there's going to be no way to resolve this problem why does he do it why did morai do this morai knew something that we all have to know CL Israel got into trouble because they went away from the D hasem because in the first two program the Jews partook in every that the that the culture had to offer that AOS offered them and they became just like the pers Persians there was no distinction between any and if they have someone on the inside maybe they have the president of the most powerful country on Earth as a friend who knows why do we have to we have nothing to worry about we don't get to do do anything we've got an inside man or woman or whatever and knew that's not going to help anything knew that in order for them to be successful you have to have I'm also gonna fast and I'm also gonna pray I'm also gonna because if we don't do that then we're in big trouble and because everybody realized that there's only one hope for them to be able to get out of this mess which was to stop what got them into the mess and they did the the cha that was necessary that ended up with the miracle of per that ended up being like came to because they recognize that that is what is absolutely necessary we spoke about the aold and Theos there's a fascinating comment by R mosha which is brought down by the way interestingly enough in a safer that was written by also young Isel Rabbi young is Young Isel of Williamsburg believe it or not Dove Weinberger sa called he quotes rash in which he explains that the a represented all the because there were no longer any idol worship and theen which is aen mish and Mish meant Justice among fellow men represented all the Mitzvah they know and as we mentioned in the introduction theen and the a could never be detached what was the reason why it would be a to detach them because the and the are absolutely crucial one for the other you can't separate them you know there have been societies where people went around saying oh we're the most wonderful people on Earth We're going to have everybody equal everybody's G to be wonderful communism and it was evil it ended up being nothing but evil and there were others that were considered nice people used to call them the Germans and we know where that ended up and cl is here to teach just like the co God teaches that the and the a can't be taken apart they're Inseparable because in order to be able to accomplish what a Jew needs to accomplish you need both the and the aold you need you can't get along one without the other they're both absolutely crucial who's aik who's today so I know we already discussed at the beginning how we're going to do this I want to remind you of something this is something that's in my mind quite often and I'm sure in yours too but I want to I want to review something that I I wrote down about this just by a show at hands how many people have heard of the Struma the strumer yeah you've heard of the ship the boat the Struma okay Stu M A okay let me read something to I want you to know the Struma was a cargo barge was built in the year 1830 and in order for the Jews of Romania to escape from the onslaught of the Nazis they outfitted it in December of 1941 with a a motor to be able to go across the Black Sea to escape Romania and it took four days to travel to Turkey where it normally is in 10 to 14 hour trip this took four days because of the great seaworthiness of this particular barge which had a total of 769 Jewish passengers tried to escape the Nazi death camps and they landed in Constantinople Constantinople in Turkey the British under the influence of the riotous Arabs in the Holy Land refused to allow them entry to Palestine there was no food or water and only one bathroom facility for 76 69 people the Turkish prime minister said and I quote turkey cannot be expected to serve as a refuge or surrogate Homeland for people unwanted anywhere else on February 24th 1942 after 70 days the barge was towed out of Istanbul Harbor to float on its own because it had no fuel it had no motor it had nothing except the Jews that were on that ship on February 25th just a few days later it was sunk in Istanbul harvor by the Russians a Soviet sub who I I'll put this in close who mistook the barge for an enemy vessel one Jew survived all other the 769 perished now I want to ask you a question all right who is amake here was it the Turks was it the Arabs was it the British was it the Soviets or was it the world that stood idly by when the onec conference was put together and six million Jews were sentenced to death and no one lifted a finger to help who's on mik who's on mik so the answer is we don't know we have some inside feelings and we're certainly extremely upset over it all who's amalik when you have hostages chained in dungeons for over a year and there doesn't seem to be any outcry on the public but on the contrary it's the opposite who's am here so the answer is we don't know we have ideas but an order for the Jewish people to be victorious when you have harm when you have large groups of people who are out either actively or just passively or maybe or maybe it's maybe it's directors of enlightened universities who can't come out and say that there's something wrong when 1,200 people are killed they can't say there's something wrong when murderers are let loose who's am and what's the only hope to overcome am so the answer is the Jewish people are theah the Jewish people we the a we theen we have the mitz some of us are experts in L we make sure that there's a certain amount of water in every cup that we wash with we make sure that the wine glass is full to the top5 we make sure that we could see boror constantly and we make sure we have the most beautiful C and the most beautiful M and the most beautiful and then there are Jews who are experts in and they put their Liv on the line for the sake of Cl Israel whether it's young soldiers or fathers leaving their home to go fight or it's people who open the door or as you know all right I'm not a I'm not a longtime resident yet of er Israel but one of the things that overcame me when I started when I made Al just a little over two years ago was when I walked on a bus and I saw in the front of the bus on the side next to the window was sign which said and young boys and girls who are not in appearance so-called fies get up for every adult person that they can have a seat the Ben is beautiful may be missing a little bit but the is outstanding and cl needs both the A and the and theen we need the need we need to improve and what is it that we have to improve I don't know each of us knows ourselves each of us knows what we have to improve do I have to improve let me get to work on it because as Mor said if you don't do it now we're going to lose out you have to it's a to your life let's get a little bit better let's do a little something let's do what we can let's answer let's open the door for somebody let's befriend somebody let's Swit a good shabas shabbat shalom let's be friendly let's bring people together let's bring Claudia together because if we have those two things we are capable of accomplishing that woman is going to go with garbage around his head into his house before his ultimate demise and that's what we want to accomplish and that's why the Coen goo and the Jew and are inexorably intertwined because we have to be and we're capable of doing it we are cap of doing it because we have a Torah and we have a tradition that outshines everything very difficult to remember sometimes remembering sometimes brings about some very very negative feelings after you remember all the difficulties that happened all the tragedies that occurred all the loss that took place all the all the all the children that that were kill the faces of the's family stand in our heart and we cry out no they weren't from so what my brother my sister that's what they want and therefore we have a possibility by being a for bringing about the end of amik I don't know how it's going to happen I don't know against who it's going to happen but I know that if CL and that's what the Torah is telling us we know that if clel makes its mind up that it wants to accomplish it's going to accomplish we should get together at great times of as the upcoming it happened then which it happened again the your amen