5771 פרשת אמור

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah begins by discussing the special laws that apply specifically to the Kohanim. These include the special laws that relate to which people a Kohein can marry, which people a Kohein can make themselves tamei in order to be involved in their burial and others. The Torah when explaining these laws states that the Kohanim are holy to God and should not profane the name of God since they are the ones who bring sacrifices to God they must be holy.

 The Siforno explains that the reason for this is that the honor of the Kohanim is in truth the honor of God and when the Kohein gives up on the honor he is profaning the name of God.

 If we look at the Siforno a little more closely we can ask the following question. I can understand that the Kohanim are meant to be holy and therefore have additional Mitzvos that keep them in that state. However, it is difficult to understand the interpretation of the Sifrono that transgressing these special commandments would be considered to be a desecration of God’s name any more than transgressing any other commandment.

 In order to answer the question we must ask a question on an earlier Siforno who explains that the reason a Kohein should not involve himself in the burial of someone who is not a family member is that the Kohanim are the teachers of the generation and he needs to act with a certain amount of royalty in order that the people will listen to him. When the Kohein forgoes his work in the Beis Hamikdash to involve himself in the burial of a non relative it reduces the respect that people previously had for him.

 It is very difficult to understand how the fact that a Kohein will go to involve himself in someone’s burial thereby not being able to do the Avodah in the Beis Hamikdash for about a week would cause him to lose respect in the eyes of the people thereby reducing the impact his teachings will have on them?

 The answer might be that if a person has the opportunity to serve in the Beis Hamikdash which is God’s resting place in this world and he takes an action that even though it is meritorious prevents him from doing the Avodah for a stretch shows either a lack of appreciation for how special doing the Avodah in the Beis Hamikdash is or shows that he has his priorities mixed up. Either way when people see this it inherently causes them to think less of the Kohein.

 This may also be the reason that for a Kohein not to keep these special Mitzvos would be a greater desecration of God’s name than a person not keeping the other Mitzvos. When a person sees the Kohein doing actions that prevent him from serving in the Beis Hamikdash it shows that the Kohein does not view the Avodah as something that special and inherently they will feel that the Avodah is not a special thing which will lead them to not viewing God as incredibly special and great which is a huge desecration of God’s name.

פרשת אמור 5770

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the incident that occurred with the son of Shlomis bas Divri whose father was an Egyptian who cursed using God’s name and was punished with death through stoning. The Pasuk when describing the argument between him and the other Jew does not mention the name of the other Jew rather just calling him the son of the Jewish man.

 The Ohr Hachayim explains that the reason the Torah did not mention the name of the other member of the Bnei Yisroel was since it was through the argument that the son of Shlomis bas Divri had with him that caused him to curse God and God did not want to embarrass the other member of Bnei Yisroel by mentioning his name in the Torah which will be learned forever.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little more closely, we can ask the following question. In this case why is there any embarrassment for the other Jew? The sin of Shlomis bas Divri was upset that he lost a decision in Beis Din and he cursed using God’s name. The person who took him to Beis Din would not seem to have done anything wrong that should cause him to embarrassed, so why did the Torah leave out his name to protect him from embarrassment?

 The answer could be that we don’t truly appreciate our responsibility to ensure that other people don’t sin because of us. A person must understand that he must understand how his actions might impact his fellow Jew’s actions. For example, if you know that a person has a temper you shouldn’t do something that would instigate his temper in a situation that his temper can lead him to son. This could be what the Torah is teaching us here. This person in Bnei Yisroel should have understood the personality of the son of Shlomis bas Divri and due to that he should have been more careful how he interacted with him even though his claim was right as he was victorious in Beis Din. There might have been a better way to have gone about it. It is this lack of thought that would have caused this other member of Bnei Yisroel to be embarrassed leading the Torah not to mention his name.

 We see from here how careful we must be with all of our actions. We not only have to ensure that we don’t sin but we also have to ensure that our actions do not cause another member of Bnei Yisroel to sin. However, this idea also works the other way. If we are held responsible if our actions cause someone to sin then we surely will merit if our actions cause someone else to do a Mitzvah. We should try to be aware of our how powerful our actions are and how they can impact others both for good and for bad and use our actions to influence others for good.

פרשת אמור 5769

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah tells us about the sin of Chilul Hashem. The Rabbeinu Bechai, in his description of the severity of the sin of Chilul Hashem tells over the famous Gemara which says that unlike most other sins where repentance, Yom Kippur and possibly Yisurim (for severe transgressions) will enable a person to receive forgiveness, the sin of Chilul Hashem is not fully forgiven until a person dies even though he had already repented and suffered afflictions. However, the Rabbeinu Bechai adds one caveat to that seemingly grim prognosis which is that if a person creates a Kiddush Hashem it can serve to offset the damage done by the Chilul Hashem he had originally created.

 Let us try and understand why it is that a sin that is so bad that it is not fully forgiven until a person dies ,can be removed through repentance and creating a Kiddush Hashem.

 On the surface the reason would seem to be that when a person creates a Chilul HaShem he is minimizing the way Hashem is viewed in the world, so when a person creates a Kiddush HaShem he is bettering the way that Hashem is viewed in the world hence putting things back the way they were.

 There are however two problems with this understanding. The first is that the Kiddush Hashem and Chilul Hashem are not necessarily of equal magnitude. For example, a person can do an action that creates a Chilul Hashem in front of one thousand people and a Kiddush HaShem in front of 10 people. The impacts would not seem to be equal and the Rabbeinu Bechai does not say that the Kiddush Hashem has to be directly correlated to the Chilul HaShem rather just to do a Kiddush HaShem to put against the Chilul HaShem.

 The second problem is that right after the Rabbeinu Bechai mentions the fact that Kiddush HaShem offsets Chilul HaShem, he says the same thing applies to other sins also. For example, if a person talks Lashon hara he should learn more Torah, if a person sins with his eyes he should shed tears over the sin, if he ran to do sins he should run to do Mitzvos. The Rabbeinu Bechai feels that the same reason that applies to Kiddush HaShem offsetting Chilul Hashem applies to all these cases also and the reason we suggested for how Kiddush Hashem offsets Chilul HaShem certainly cannot apply to all these other cases.

 This being the case, what is the common denominator between all these potential offsets? The answer can be that when a person really feels bad for the sin they did, they inherently try to rid themselves of the sin and will want to do things that are just the opposite of the sin they committed. Why is this action so important that after a person repents it is this type of action that guarantees total forgiveness? The answer is that this is true repentance. When a person actively pushes away what brought him to sin and actively looks to focus his life only on God this will prevent him from sinning in the future which is what repentance is all about. Furthermore, one of the ways for a person to truly change after repentance is to actively change since actions have the ability to impact the heart more than thoughts and feelings alone. This is why if a person actively goes and tries to make a Kiddush HaShem this will cause him to truly change which is a complete and total form of repentance which can even cause a horrific sin such as Chilul Hashem which will normally not be forgiven until a person dies to be forgiven earlier.

פרשת אמור 5768

 At the end of this week’s Parsha, the Torah tells us about the sin of the ”Mekallel” – the person who cursed the name of God and his punishment. When the Torah describes this occurrence it says:

 The son of a Jewish women and an Egyptian man went out amongst Bnei Yisroel and argued in the camp with someone who was born from two Jewish parents and he cursed God.

 The question asked by many of the commentaries is; from where did the ”Mekallel” go out from?

 One explanation brought by Rashi is as follows:

 Rabbi Berachya said: The ”Mekallel” came from the Parsha above – the Pasukim describing the laws of the Lechem Hapanim. He made fun of the laws and said, “how can you only put fresh bread on the Shulchan once a week, does a king not eat hot bread every day.”

 From this it seems that the fact that the ”Mekallel” poked fun at the Mitzvah of the Lechem Hapanim is what caused him to curse God in the end.

 The question that could be asked is what is the connection between poking fun at a Mitzvah and cursing God?

 In order to answer this question, we first need to understand why the ”Mekallel” was poking fun at the Mitzvah of the Lechem Hapanim. The reason a person would poke fun at something is due to his lack of understanding of the purpose of the Mitzvah. This caused him to question why the loaves of bread were only put out once a week. This being the case, why would this cause the ”Mekallel” to curse the name of God?

The answer is that there are two ways for a person who doesn’t understand something in the Torah to react to it. The first way is to realize that the concept is above his current level of understanding and he will respect it and strive to understand it. The second way is to make fun of the concept and say if I don’t understand it, then it must not be worth anything.

The person who chooses the second way and feels that Torah concepts that he doesn’t understand aren’t worth anything can easily reach the level of cursing God since if he doesn’t have a problem degrading concepts he knows are from God and doesn’t understand, he will inherently feel a certain lack of fear and honor for God since he feels that some of God’s laws are worthless.

 This is a very important idea that we must inculcate in our lives. There are always things that we learn, or ideas we hear from a Gadol that we won’t be able to understand. Our reaction to this lack of understanding must be that it is a lack in our level of understanding not in the Torah or the shiur that we heard. If a person takes the second track it could Chas Veshalom lead them to lose a level of fear of God and Gedolim which can greatly impact their Mitzvah observance.

 If we can always remember that the Torah and God are perfect and that we must strive to understand it, we will merit having a true Kabbalas Hatorah this Shavuot. 

פרשת אמור 5767

 In the beginning of this week’s Parsha, the Torah discusses many of the laws that pertain specifically to the Kohanim. One of the laws relates to the prohibition of a Kohein to become ritualy impure through going to funerals. For a regular Kohein this prohibition does not include his immediate relatives.

 The Pasuk when bringing down this law uses the following very interesting language:

 The one who is a leader of his people should not become ritualy impure which will come to cause him to be desecrated.

The Sipurno explains this Pasuk in a very interesting way:

 The reason that the Kohein should not become ritualy impure except to his relatives is that the Kohein is the one who is the teacher of Torah to Bnei Yisroel and he should act with a certain leadership so that the people will listen to him. Therefore he should not become ritualy impure where he will not be able to go into the Beis Hamikdash in order to honor the dead, except for his relatives since their honor is his honor.

Let us examine this Sipurno a little more closely.

The Sipurno seems to be saying that through honoring the dead and subsequently becoming ritualy impure and losing some of his level of honor, his ability to teach will be lessened.

The question is that the opposite would seem to be true. We know Aharon Hakohein was known as someone who loved peace which is why when he died all of Bnei Yisroel mourned. He was involved constantly with people to try to make peace between friends and between husbands and their wives. This would seem to imply that Aharon Hakohein did not have this level of leadership from the interaction he had with the people. However, from the Sipurno it would seem that in order to be able to teach the people you would need to have a certain level of leadership but from Aharon Hakohein it would seem to not be the case.

The answer would seem to be that there is no inherent contradiction between having honor on one side and having a personal relationship with people on the other.

 In order for a person to be successful in teaching Torah and especially in giving Mussar he must be respected by his students. On the other hand, that same person also has to be involved on personal level with his students and to do what he can to help them in every way and to be there for them always.

This doesn’t only apply to a teacher and a student but to all of us. In our daily lives, we many times have interactions with people to whom we have the ability to impact their Torah observance. In order to have the best impact on people we need to have both aspects. We need to always act and dress in a way where when people look at us they will see us as people worthy of respect. On the other hand, we should also always be willing to help people and be there for them when they need. If we can use both of these aspects together we never know the effect we can have on bringing people closer to Torah and Mitzvos.