Tag Archive for Parshat Emor

Decisions That Impact Many

August 30, 2013 MUSSAR HASKEL/ A Lesson No comments

This week’s portion of the Torah we read about “If a Cohen’s (Priest’s) daughter has an adulterous affair, she defamed her father’s name, she should be put to death by burning”(21;9). We learn from Rav Henoch Leibowitz z”l who quotes the mainstream commentary Rashi, as he explains the verse above, she defamed and embarrassed her father’s honor, people would say on him ‘curse is the person who gave birth and curse is the person who raised such an individual’.

 

As we know, it was King David who laid the blueprints for the Bet Hamikdash (Temple). However, it was under King Solomon’s leadership that it was built. When King Solomon was married to the daughter of Pharaoh, one of his many wives, on the day of the inauguration of the long-awaited Temple, she caused him to oversleep. The entire nation was waiting for their King on this momentous occasion to lead the ceremony, not knowing that he was out of commission. Apparently, his mother, Batsheva, had a grasp on what was taking place. She had a sixth sense that mothers possess which led to her uneasy feeling. Mothers have a certain intuition about their children. (If I sneeze, my mother, who happened to be on the other side of town, will call me up and demand that I should put on my sweater.)

 

So Batsheva storms the King’s bedroom with the heel of her shoe in hand. She hits her son, King Solomon, scolding him ‘What are you doing? People would say I’m at fault for not raising you properly. They wouldn’t blame your father because he was a tzaddik. If you’re a rasha, they’ll blame me that I was the cause of your actions’. Perhaps we can deduce from the words of Batsheva. If the people did not believe David was a tzaddik, they would blame him for Solomon’s actions, even though David had been dead many years before the inauguration took place. Regardless, apparently the people would say that David did not give Solomon the proper education and this is the cause of his misstep. But the fact that David was a tzaddik, the blame would fall on his mother. The Gemarah deduces from what happens next during the inauguration ceremony; that whatever wrong King David did, G-d forgave him. This is evident from the mysteriously locked Temple doors, which would not open. Every effort was made by Shlomo and the sages to open the Temple, but it was to no avail, until Shlomo cried out to G-d ‘do it for the sake of my father, King David.’ With this cry, the doors opened.

 

Rav Leibowitz asks, why would anybody blame David or Batsheva for their son’s wrongdoings? At what point does an individual take responsibility for his own actions? Don’t you think at this stage of his life, he can make his own decisions? After all, he runs a kingdom; the Israelites at this juncture were considered a super power. We have to say this is human nature. People always link an individual’s negative and positive attributes to one’s parents. Even though one can argue that Shlomo didn’t do anything maliciously, David and Batsheva still would have felt slighted by their son’s actions, which would have been magnified in peoples’ eyes and would cause them embarrassment.

 

I know of an individual who was seeing a girl whom he was interested in marrying. Apparently, as the relationship got closer to the very serious state, it was disclosed that she had a relationship with a non-Jew. This was an issue; considering this person was a Cohen who cannot marry anyone who had such a relationship, he ended the relationship rationalizing, what would my ancestors say ‘you broke the family chain of Cohanim that goes back three thousand years because you’re in love’. This individual took tremendous pride of his Cohen status and of his family tradition. Today, he is performing his Cohen duties in synagogue along with his sons right by him.

 

Rav Leibowitz points out that Batsheva was more concerned in adding a sense of responsibility to Shlomo, than to her own personal pride. If one feels he is alone in sinning, he should think again. Many of his ancestors will be affected.

 

We conclude that any of our wrongdoings could be a violation of ‘honoring your father and your mother’ because it causes people to look negatively at our parents. Perhaps, if we are tempted to violate any laws, we should think twice because our parents’ honor is at stake.

Modesty

August 23, 2013 G-d and Us, Tzniut- Modesty No comments

The following are excerpts from the lectures of Rabbi Isaac Oelbaum.

          A man waltzes into synagogue one Sunday morning grinning from ear to ear, boasting that “I just came here with my brand new Lexus, it’s parked right in front”. During the course of the services while everybody was standing with their siddurs open, he was busy describing to them how he had bargained with the car dealer and how he got his price, and eventually startling the man by putting all the money down up front. “You should have seen his face when I wrote the check” he said with a snicker. One sure knows how to feel good when purchasing a fancy shmancy car!! Perhaps that is why G-d created friends, just so that one can show off in front of them!
          However, as they all walked out of synagogue, he was horrified to discover that someone had carved and scratched on to his front windshield the words MAZAL TOV!!
          In tractate Brachot, the Gemara relates an unusual story about Rav Nachman who approached a community eulogizer after he eulogized one individual as being modest. Rav Nachman asked “was he modest when he went to the bathroom?”
          Is covering up ones nakedness and being low key in the bathroom a barometer for being modest? That’s news to me! What about reading the New York Times in the bathroom for an extended period of time, is that considered violating the modesty laws in the lavatory? How about just the sports section?! Torah cannot be learned in the bathroom, so one has to read something, No?
          In order to properly understand the meaning of the Gemara’s statement, we have to explore modesty-TZNIYUT a little further.
          The commentaries say that modesty is extremely important and is actually a form of intelligence, because it resembles G-d’s traits. The Torah discusses an incident regarding Moshe after he saved Yitro’s daughters from the nasty shepherds by the well. Yitro’s daughters came to their father and informed him of what had happened and how they were saved by this unknown and mysterious man.
          Yitro’s response was AYO HAISH- where is the man. The fact that the man didn’t come to claim a reward, not bragging about how he protected the damsels in distress, means that he must be from the genealogy of Sarah. Sarah was the Jewish matriarch who modestly stayed in the tent while her husband Avraham hosted the guests, the three angels. In that incident, the Torah uses a similar word to the one Yitro used. The angels asked, “AHYEY SARAH ISHTECHA- where is Sarah your wife?”. They then blessed Avraham and Sarah that, G-d willing, by next year you shall have a boy.
          Yitro, knowing this, exclaimed, “don’t leave this man outside, bring him in quickly!!. Perhaps one of you may marry him. After all, the bracha comes from the modesty that Sarah, had shown.” As a side, this is one of the reasons Sarah merited having a son. The Sages emphasize that on Yitzchak’s behalf the whole world stands. And he only came into existence thanks to modesty. That’s the power of modesty.
          The Torah teaches us that the whole essence of a bracha is the fact that it’s hidden and modest. To prove this, one can simply observe that God himself remains not revealed. One cannot see G-d and no one ever did, at least not his face. Additionally, we know that there are no open miracles anymore. So too, bracha is best not revealed. The most holy and spiritual things are PNIMI-inward, hidden. Anything that is open and outwardly, one will not find a bracha there. Astonishingly, the Sages say that there is no bracha unless something is under the radar, in other words away from the eye, for perhaps it is the evil eye. A human, every human, has a bracha attached to it, and it is conceived in the confines of a private place. No eye sees the conception of the seed of bracha.
          But shouldn’t a bracha (on a fruit, for instance) be said out loud and not concealed?
          Yes, the bracha should be recited out loud, however it doesn’t go into affect until the fruit is swallowed, because that part is concealed and only then will the bracha kick in.
          In this week’s parsha  we read again about Kohanim. In Tractate Yoma the Gemara tells us about an extraordinarily modest woman named Kimchetuh. She was asked, “how did you merit to have seven sons and all served as High Priests? That’s quite an accomplishment!!”
          She answered, “I did not let the walls of my house see one speck of my hair uncovered”. WOW! As her reward, her boys will enter the holy of holies, where no one can enter and no one can see. Again, tzniut, modesty. It’s so important. The Kohen Gadol speaks to G-d privately, again in the most modest way. Tzniut, modesty, PNIMIUT, it’s crucial.
          The bathroom is the antithesis of PNIMI. It’s the most external act one can experience. Still, Rav Nachman was trying to emphasize that if one is modest  and private even in the most external act that a human can do, then and only then he can be labeled modest.