If the Anointed Priest Shall Sin He Shall Provide Atonement for Himself with Rabbi Aaron Poston

Heat. Heat. [Music] Shalom everybody. Welcome back to the mash. Welcome home to Torah. A warm welcome back to Torah. As you know, those who follow us, we use the clear as the basis of of our discussion. for the para to shua. Okay, it is usually highly spiritually oriented, textheavy. We get to learn Hebrew and I encourage those who are watching, go to the link below and you'll find the original Hebrew and we encourage you to follow along. We deal with fundamental issues here in the midash and this is no exception. So we are in Parhat Schmini and we're in Leviticus 9:7. We're going to deal with one point, one verse, and then all of a sudden we're going to shoot off and talk about other verses, but it's all based on one verse, just a few ver a few words. And in Leviticus 9:7, we'll start with the English. And Moses says to Aon, he said to Aaron Moshe Aon, he says or actually commands him, I want you to come close. You need to come close. Come close to the altar. And what does Moses want him to do? What God commanded him to do? He wants Aaron to bring a sin offering and a a burnt offering. Now, this let's just discuss this a little bit. We're talking about the initial week, right? Maybe even initial day, yashmini. So there was seven days of preparation or inauguration of the tabernacle where Moses was basically acting as the coming cuddle the high priest and he took the parts of the tabernacle and he built every single day and he took it apart every single day which it's part of the inauguration he himself with God's help of course because it's a miracle built or constructed put together the tabernacle and took it apart for seven days. And the eighth day, he left it up. And that eighth day is what we're talking about. This is a special day for Aaron, the high priest, the new high priest to act as the high priest, the anointed one, the Messiah. That's what he's called, the Messiah, the Cohen Mashu Messiach. And um he has to bring these offerings. Now, just think about a second. We're going to focus in on the golden calf. Aon made the golden calf. Did he? The Torah says he did. We saw somewhere else where he did everything he could not to. And in fact, he was trying to buy time. He believed Moses was just delayed. The people were itchy. They were agitated. And they felt And we're talking about the people. Who are the people? The Aravra, the mixed multitudes, the non-Jews that came along out of Egypt were agitated to a great extent. They wanted some kind of physical intermediary. If Moses ain't coming back, then who we going to have? And I'll just give you a little bit of a secret. The clearar explains why a calf. Why an a why an ael? Why a calf? Why a of the cattle variety, right? You know what happened on the night the 10th plague? Moses told everyone, "Go and ask your neighbors for gold." All the Jews were going around asking to borrow from their neighbors the gold. Right? God promised Abraham that when you left, when your progyny is going to leave Egypt, they're going to come out with wealth. So on the n on the night of the 10th plague, that's where they went. But Moses went down to the Nile and he says, "Alleshure, right? He wanted to bring the bones. They couldn't leave without bringing the bones of Yoseph. Yoseph made them promise, the children promise. They're not going to leave Egypt without his bones." Moses kept that promise. Okay? And he went down. He brought up the bones. But what did he say? Allesure, the ox should rise. Yseph, Yoseseph is called Ashure. Just think about it a second. So if I was an Egyptian, I would have said, well, what really merited us? What allowed us to leave Egypt was Yosphones, something to do with the shore. And so therefore, in their minds, the next best thing if Moses wasn't coming back was to bring back the spirit of Yseph. Okay, that's on the side point. The main point here is that Moses is telling Aaron to come close to them as Bak as Rashi says because he was himself embarrassed that he involved himself in making this ox in making this calf. Sorry. And why was he trying to delay? He says go take the gold from your wives. You know the women would not participate. He thought that would be a good way to just push it off. But in the end, they ripped the earrings out of their wives ears and stole the jewelry. Took the jewelry by force and Aon threw the gold into the fire and it came out as an ax. What did he do? Did he really was he really guilty of making? So from all appearances, all appearances he certainly was. So he had to bring a sin offering for himself as an ago. That's what it says. And Moses says to Aaron, "Approach the altar and perform your sin offering and your burnt offerings, atoning for yourself and for the people and perform the people sacrifice, atoning for them as the Lord had commanded." But if you notice, it's very strange. He It says you have to bring your sin offering and your burnt offering. And this sin offering that he's going to bring is going to be an ael specifically an ael because that is going to atone for his involvement with the sin of the ael. So an aigel for an ago so to speak. But the clear card is going to point out that it says atoning for yourself and for the people. You see the words and for the people. We'll just look a few words few words later and perform the people sacrifice atoning for them. That's a separate sacrifice he's bringing for himself. Believe it or not, when it says atoning for yourself and for the people, that's the first time it says and for the people, that's his sin offering because he caused the people to sin. So that's for him causing the people to sin. And the second time it says, "And perform the people's sacrifice atoning for them." That is a sin offering that is brought for them by them for their participation in the sin of the golden calf. I know it's a lot of information to to take in, but as we go through the kakar, it will become clear right away. If you look in the Hebrew says right to atone for yourself and for the people that's the first part of the verse and the clear points out notice that there is a double atonement going on. Aron needs to be atoned for two things or more than one. means double, more than one. What was one of these uh atonements for? for his own sin, for what he did, for what Aaron himself did in his involvement with the making, producing, production, manufacturing of this golden calf. And the sheni, the second thing that he had to bring a an atonement for that he caused the people to sin. I mean, could it could he have held back? They already killed. They killed his nephew, Miriam's son. Uh he was doing everything he could to delay their um their involvement with idol worship or in this case finding an intermediary for Moshe. Okay. So the clear card brings a a text proof from Exodus 321. Look what it says. As Moses says to Aaron, this is going way back by the sin of the golden calf. Moses says to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you brought such a grave sin upon them?" The proof text is that he caused them to sin. The the the verse clearly says that you were the one that brought upon them the sin. your involvement not holding back as much as you could. You could have done better perhaps. Right? Okay. So that is the first part of the clear. Then on the third line down he says when it came to the atonement for the people the notice in the second part of verse 7 it says right and performed the people's sacrifice atoning for them that was their that was for them what does this mean that they are hanging on him the people needed the coenle to perform atonement for them to be but apparently He is not dependent on their um atonement. Their atonement is dependent on our own but our atonement was not dependent on them. That's the first statement. But furthermore, the truth is, if you really listen carefully, the atonement of Aaron itself in truth in essence is acting as the kapart for the people as an atonement for the people. Why is that? Listen to this fundamental principle. at the time that any one of the Jewish leaders right it's plural any right when the Jewish leaders the Jew the leaders of the Jewish people are are let's say proper and fixed so they're good leaders they're honest they're not corrupt then the people will be fixed and proper in a in in in a good condition however the When the leaders are corrupt, when the leaders are ruined in some way, this is going to bring guilt to the people. And how do we know? He brings another nice uh proof text in Leviticus 4:E3. It's number three on the source sheet. It says specifically, now this is a little bit complicated. We're not going to get too much into it, but if the coing guttle sins and what is this talking about perhaps when the Sanhedrin makes a wrong a incorrect decision that actually has to do with idol worship and the people follow it and they sin or when the coal himself makes a mistake. Okay. So if the Cohen, if the anointed Cohen in Hebrew, Cohen Hamashiach, when this anointed Cohen sins, bringing guilt to the people, it's very strange. When he sins, he's bringing guilt to the people. Can we understand that? Right? It's like actually it's like so much the opposite of Christianity, right? I don't want to get into Christianity, but it's all it's all the the coen god sins and he's going to make the people guilty of something. Okay, what does he have to bring? Okay, he has to bring then he shall bring for his sin which he has committed an ael. It says in Hebrew. Now a par is usually an adult cow but it says benbakar so it means it's a young a relatively young uh it's not an adult. Okay, let's now look at what Clearar continues to say. He brings that verse, right? If the anointed Cohen sins, he's bringing guilt to the people. There's a very interesting concept in peravote in the ethics of our fathers chapter 4 Mishna 13 rahuda said I'll read in Hebrew first when someone is involved in study they must be very careful not to make any errors. I do want to mention that the real concept of studying is actually teaching. We've discussed this many times, right? The source that only the Rambam brings but many others. How do I know that learning is so important? We say it every day in the Schma. That's the source for learning Torah. You shall teach your sons. If you hear your own ears, you hear what you're saying. that what that the source for learning is teaching. We're obligated to teach. We are the priests. The Jewish people are are aim, right? A kadosh. We're a we're a a nation of priests, a nation of preachers. We're teachers. So, how can you teach if you don't learn? Learning is really a prerequisite to teaching. You cannot teach if you don't learn. So we think learning is so important. True, learning is important, but teaching is important. So be careful when you're teaching that you know what you're talking about, right? Be careful in Talmud, right? That's what it says. Whether you look at it as learning or in teaching, it's irrelevant. When you make a mistake in your learning, this is if it's deliberate. I'll give you an example. Not all of us are great learners. If we pick a rabbi, we choose a teacher who's unqualified. Guess what happens? All the decisions that he make that we follow, we are negligent. We're the ones who are guilty. In other words, if you pick a good rabbi and we're all human and they make a mistake, you're not accounted. It It's not going to be on your shoulders. It's on his shoulders. Right? But if you are the one who chose the wrong rabbi or teacher, it's going to be on your shoulders. You know, we we were discussing this idea of really what we are are teachers, right? They ask the rabbis, who do you learn the most from? Have you heard this? You would think they would say from their professors, from their rabbis, from their mentors. That wasn't the answer they gave. In fact, far from it. So they said, "Who do you learn the most from? your teachers, your colleagues or your students, they all answered unanimously that they learn more, they learn the most from their students. We talk about this many times, but that's even shows you that if you really want to learn properly, you got to find students. Figure out a way. Make make yourself a Rav. When it says in Perkyavos, make yourself a Rav, people think it means find yourself a rabbi. I think it means make yourself a RV. Make yourself learned so you can be a teacher. Okay. The clear card continues in the last two lines of that paragraph. So we're talking about the time that he sins even inadvertently. Inadvertently means he's lacking some information. It's the very reason that remember he's not a sinner. He's a righteous person but he's human being. So the times that he is inadvertently sinning he also is causing on some level guilt to the people and it sounds from the clear that this is going to be raised up a level from inadvertent sin to me means intentional sin. Therefore, he needs atonement. One of the big ideas here is that he should atonement for himself first. Once he's clean, then he can atone for others. And that is also clear in the order of the verse we're dealing with. Therefore, his own atonement is going to have an effect on the guilt of the people. It will remove the guilt from the people. Okay. The next paragraph meaning it's whenever the clear I believe says it's not always alternatively it's another level another level the very fact in the latter part of our verse where it says it's atoning for the people that literally is going on the corbin the um the sac the sacrifice the offering that is given for the people. But what was mentioned in the earlier part of the verse that was referring to his atonement? What is it teaching you? Because it's in the same sentence that believe it or not his atonement is somehow dependent on them on their atonement. If the if he's going to end up atoning for the people, right? He's going to bring an offering. It's going to cleanse them. Then ultimately himself or the in any generation would also find atonement. However, if he fails to uh somehow atone for the people, then ultimately he is not fixed. He will not find atonement for himself either and um and and be fixed. And the reason is that anyone and we're going to see in peravote this is in peravote as well chapter 58 anyone who causes the masses to sin which obviously teachers make mistakes would be doing but anybody who entices or causes people to sin the sin of the masses is on his shoulders or her shoulders. They're taking responsibility because they caused other people to sin. It's not just them sinning. It's it's like a quantum leaps. It's it's it's um multiplying and as a result according to there is not sufficient or sufficiency there's not enough power within his own within his own power to do chuva let's say completely. Uh look at number six on the source sheet. Uh it goes the other way too. It's number five on the source sheet in the English. Whoever causes the multitudes to be righteous, sin will not occur on his account. We'll talk about in a second. Whoever causes the multitudes to sin, right? They do not give him the ability to repent. Why does it say they would say God? Well, I'll give you an example, right? We don't speak Lashinhara, right? We try not to speak Lashianhara. There was a story a man, he goes to the rabbi, he says, "Rabbi, I spoke a lot of lashhara. I want to do chuva. What can I do?" So the rabbi says, "Take a pillow full of feathers. Go to the top of the mountain. Rip open that pillow. Throw all those feathers. Let them go in the wind." So he did what the rabbi said. He comes back. You said now rabbi am I did I am I toone for? He says, "No, you don't get it. Now go collect every feather." That went, "Are you kidding me? It's impossible. See how hard it is to do chuva when you do certain sins that cause other people to Right? So this may be an example. It's not impossible to do chuva. It's just not easy." Right? They do not give him the ability to repent. You have to like let's say for example, right? There's certain sins that it's like this. It's almost impossible to fully repent. But there are eight. You go to a and you go to a wise person and let's say for example, you know, let's say a man or a woman was not keeping, you know, the the laws of mida, family purity. Well, guess what? What can you do? First of all, you can learn the laws. You can practice them now. Commit. It's like the laws of Chuva, right? You admit you you you you sinned. You made a mistake, right? And you commit yourself not to do it in the future. you have regret, right? All these uh these processes. Well, guess what? This doesn't seem like it's enough. So, go out and donate money to a mikvah or build a mikvah or host a rabbi who's going to teach about the laws of family purity. Teach or spread, right? You want to reignite all the stuff that you cause damage to. you want to somehow find rectification for that. So there are always always ways but it says very difficult. In other words, if we read the words differently, whoever caused the multitudes to sin, they do not give him the ability to repent because the people were set in motion. And you need to go out and set the people in the opposite direction back towards uh like it says in the beginning, anybody who causes the masses to be righteous, right? You're teaching. You're a teacher. You're teaching people to be righteous. What does it mean sin will not occur on his account? What I think it means is that Hashem will send you a special desay, special assistance from heaven to either cause the situation not to happen, right? You set out for some reason to sin, but because you are trying to be righteous and trying to bring other people to righteousness, the opportunity will dissipate. the the opportunity is not that Hashem will give you assistance. Um that's how I understand it. There's obviously many many levels to this. It could be that um because we pray in the morning that we shouldn't have the control our lives that you that that's already giving you the ability because you had the teaching others that you get the of overcoming your Yates as well. Okay, back into the clear. So, the last thing we said was just think about this. The rabbi, he's trying to teach people to be righteous and his students, I almost said children, his children are his students, students are his children. Um, are going to the the world to come. They're going to the Garden of Eden. And what he's going to go to the henim. So the last thing we said was that anyone who right would cause god forbid sin to the masses. So the sin of the masses are somehow depending on they're leaning on his shoulder. He's carrying the sin of the people and there wouldn't be enough um you know opportunities or energy for him to do chuva. And I'm going to read it literally and I'm going to tell you what I think it means in order that the RV won't be the the teacher is not going to be in heaven when the and the students are going to be in in gehenn in hell. But it's really saying the opposite because we're saying that of course that it wouldn't make sense for the students if he's um what's the word I'm looking for? He he's causing the people to be righteous. That's the that's the goal. It wouldn't make sense that if he's making the people righteous as we said in the beginning, right? Whoever caused the multitudes to be righteous, sin will not occur in his account. That I'm going to read in the other way that it didn't make sense that his students would go to heaven and they're going to say, "Where's our rabbi? Oh, he's in hell." It's not going to be because there's going to be extra special protection keeping them together in heaven. Therefore, there's not going to be any atonement for him unless these conditions are met that he's he's also going and needed needs to atone for the people which he caused to sin that they shouldn't be separated. He made them righteous and they're going to be righteous and they're all going to be in Gaden together. Now, we're going to start the last paragraph, but I need to give a little bit of a background because I didn't bring chapter 9:15. I did bring chapter 9:2. Aon brought an ael, that's a calf, an ago benbachar, as a sin offering. Now, in chapter 9:1 15, he brings for the people and he brings as a sin offering a goat. So in other words, for his own sin offering, it's a calf. And we mentioned he's atoning for his own involvement in the golden calf. When he brings their sin offering, he's bringing a goat just like all the other um sin offerings. And that's what it says at the end, kamishpat according to all of the the laws there. Um okay now keeping that in mind we're going to also discuss the different type of corban notes right we don't have a temple and it's very hard for us to relate but a a sin offering is brought for actions wrong and mistaken actions actions that were sinful an ola offering which is a burnt it's totally burnt is brought for bad thoughts mak Not necessarily actions. So can you repeat that? Yeah. The sin offering, a sin offering is brought for actions. And ola, a burnt offering is brought for makshava. Aon only made, it says he made it. He didn't worship it. There were 3,000 Jews. That was it. 3,000 Jews that worshiped the golden calf, they were killed. And of course, the Arav, but otherwise they had two things. They did thought, they said, "Hey, these are your gods, O Israel, that brought you out from the land of Egypt." And they danced around it and they offered things. They made offerings to it. So they had thoughts and action. Aon only had action. No thoughts. He was pure. He was had pure intent just to delay. So because Moses was late. Okay. So this last paragraph says some say that Aaron did not need atonement except for it's double negative. He only needed atonement for the sin of his action but not for a sin that involved thought like we discussed earlier in chapter 9 verse two it says now look at number six on the source sheet and he said to Aon take for yourself in Hebrew ago benbakar This is a young one-year-old calf as the burnt offering. Okay, I'm sorry. And a ram as a burnt offering. So, this was a sin offering. Okay. So, the ago was for the sin offering cuz he made an ael. Look at Rashi. Take for yourself. This was to inform Aaron that the holy one, blessed be he, had granted him atonement through his this calf for the incident involving the golden calf which he made. which means it was just for doing not for worshiping not for his thoughts. So the clear second line down in that last paragraph. So not only did need sin sin offering I'm sorry sin offering for the action the people also did. That's why in the first part of the verse where it says right to atone for yourself and for the people to teach you this teaches us that the people needed yes an atonement for the action. Okay. Just like a needed atonement for the action, but when it came to the atonement for the people, they had to bring ael for a burnt offering because they had additional thoughts for idol worship. And that's why it says to atone for them and for them alone for the thoughts not for our own. Aon had no need for atonement for the thoughts because he never sinned with his mind with his thoughts. only action the the act of participating in the construction or production or manufacturer of it shalom lashimut he had absolutely no there's no doubt that he had no intent involvement on a thought level for any type of deity okay so that was very very important see how we can just construct from one statement. I I thought about this to myself. How in the world do the They call themselves Samaritans or Carites. They have no oral Torah and they tell me you just look at the verse and you you you should know what it means. I think it takes a great amount of humility to say I have no idea. Every word needs a definition. I have to become extremely knowledgeable if I want to be a carite and know the whole Torah and everything about it before I can begin to even understand it. Right? We only have 120 years here on the planet. How would I know so many of these things had it not been for what we call a direct msara, right? A direct transmission of divine information, right? concerning a burnt offering, a sin offering, what it's for, right? And we actually had a temple, we had the kanim, we had a msar, we had a tradition and this is the richness of our own Judaism. Um, but more than that, just to talk about what it is to be a leader, right? I mean, in many, many countries. I mean, I only grew up in America. I've been here most of my life. I have to say there's a lot of similarities that you, you know, politicians are generally corrupt, leaders are generally corrupt, but when it comes to Torah sages and the we have a tradition these people are righteous. I mean these you know the anchess gdola they were they were prophets and sages right the original original um tanoim right all the way back and uh it says we have a tradition that every tana could have resurrected the dead forget about the fact that every prophet could right we had six million prophets throughout history the the number usually given is 1 million prophets only 48 made it into the book, right? But the tradition is we had at least a million prophets throughout history. Every single one of them could resurrect the dead, right? And that's what they say about the Tanim. And there are stories in the Talmud of Tom of the sages resurrecting the dead. These are people completely righteous. Okay? People in the Sanhedrin and whatnot. Okay? So with that, I just want to give you the encouragement to keep learning. Right? one verse, one word at a time. You could pick up vocabulary. You do a review. There's so many words here that we use on a daily basis. You can learn Hebrew. This is a great way of learning Hebrew. And I wish you the best of luck and a great shabas. And we'll see you next week. Have a great [Music] life. Heat. Heat. [Music] He shing. [Music]