5771 פרשת שמיני

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the events that occurred surrounding the deaths of the Nadav and Avihu who were the two oldest sons of Aharon Hacohen. There are several different reasons given for why the sons of Aharon died when they were doing the Avodah in the Mishkan. However, the Torah does tell us that Moshe had told Aharon that God told him that the Mishkan would be sanctified through those who were close to God and I thought it would have been either me or you but it turns out that they were even greater than us. The Torah then tells us that Aharon was silent and did not complain about the death of his sons.

 The Siforno explains that the reason Aharon was quiet was that he was comforted by the fact that a Kiddush Hashem came about through his sons’ death.

 If we look at this Siforno a little bit closer we can ask the following question.

 What was it about the fact that the death of his two sons created a sanctification of God’s name that comforted Aharon? It is certain that Aharon fully believed that everything that God does is for the good, so why would the feeling that his sons’ death created a sanctification of God’s name make their deaths easier to deal with?

 The answer can be that even when a person fully recognizes that  everything that God does is for the good, there is a certain amount of sadness that comes about from the fact that a person they were close to is no longer with them and there is a change in their life that they need to adjust to. In a regular situation even one of the greatest Tzadikim in the history of Bnei Yisroel would have felt pain due to the loss of his 2 sons who were also great Tzadikim. However, when Aharon learned that their deaths created a Kiddush Hashem that immediately comforted him as their death enabled them to accomplish something great (in Ruchnius) that could not have ordinarily been accomplished in their lifetime and was something which was necessary for Bnei Yisroel at the time and would obviously help them to acquire an even more special place in Olam Habah which is the purpose of our sojourn in this world.

 The concept of a person dying in order to sanctify God’s name is one of the central tenants of the Torah. It is no question that one of the greatest Mitzvos a person can do in his life is to sanctify the name of God through his actions and on the other hand the sanctification of God’s name through death is a merit that is reserved for only a select few who are closest to God.

 Unfortunately over the last several years we have seen too many members of our holy nation who were called upon to make a Kiddush Hashem in their deaths as well as in their lives. Even though there is no question that we should feel anguish for the families that were taken from us in such a brutal manner, we should try to be somewhat comforted in the fact that they like Nadav and Avihu before them were able to accomplish something in their deaths that Bnei Yisroel needed which could not be accomplished in life and the tremendous merit they will be receiving in Olam Habah.

 In addition we should try to learn from these occurrences how important it is to sanctify God’s name through our actions. If we can sanctify God’s name on a daily basis through our actions we should merit to no longer hearing of any tragedies amongst Bnei Yisroel and only Besuros Tovos.

5770 פרשת שמיני

In this week’s Parsha, the Torah discusses the untimely deaths of the two oldest sons of Aharon who died when they committed the sin of bringing a strange fire on the Mizbayach. The Torah then describes the conversation that Moshe Rabbeinu has with Aharon immediately following the deaths of Aharon’s sons. Moshe said to Aharon “this is what God told me that He will be sanctified through those that are close to Him. When Aharon heard what Moshe said he immediately accepted the judgment of God and was silent.

 The Ohr Hachayim explains what Moshe had told Aharon. The explanation is that Moshe told Aharon that God had told him when they were at Har Sinai that in the future the Mishkan will be sanctified through a great man I thought it would be me or you but in the end it turned out to be your two sons who sanctified the Mishkan. It was this that gave Aharon the comfort to accept the judgment of God.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little bit more closely, we can ask the following question. The idea that Moshe told Aharon, that his sons were perfectly righteous and died to sanctify God’s name gave him great comfort. The question becomes if a person dies young and is an evil person it would logically be understandable why they would die young as a punishment. For example, when a gangster is killed it is understandable that the way he lived his life caused his untimely death. However, when someone is an incredibly righteous person and they die young it would logically be much more difficult to deal with the loss.

 The answer could be that on the surface when a tragedy like that occurs it appears to a person that it is so awful that their life was cut short. This was potentially the immediate emotion that Aharon felt. However, when a person focuses on what the true purpose of a person is in this world he realizes that it is only to serve God in the utmost fashion. If this is the case, we can now understand why Aharon was comforted when he heard Moshe’s words. Of course it hurt him tremendously that his two incredibly righteous and special children were taken away from him but when he realized that they were taken away in a way that enabled them to reach the highest levels in their worship of God he was instantly appeased as he understood that they accomplished what they were put in this world to do.

 From this Ohr Hachayim we can learn two very important lessons. The first one is that we must constantly strive to focus on what our true purpose is in this world. Since we live in a physical world it is natural to look at our lives through that lens and sometimes forgetting that our true purpose in this world is our spiritual growth and service of God.

 The second and possibly even more important idea is that when we go through or see other people going through difficult times and even suffering we must realize that even if on the surface it might look bad that if we can force ourselves to look past the physical and focus on the spiritual we might just realize that the suffering that God is sending a person is truly for his benefit to help him reach great spiritual heights in his service of God which is the true purpose of every person in this world.

פרשת שמיני 5769

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the death of the two oldest sons of Aharon, Nadav and Avihu due to a sin. The commentaries debate what the sin that caused the two sons of Aharon to die was.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai explains that when burning the Ketores the Kohein is supposed to use the fire from the Mizbayach. However, instead of taking the fire from the Mizbayach, Nadav and Avihu brought in an external fire to use to burn the Ketores. The Rabbeinu Bechai further explains the reason why Nadav and Avihu used the external fire was that they thought the fire on the Mizbayach was needed to burn the Korbanos and that it couldn’t be used for the Ketores. This was considered to be a sin since the fire on the Mizbayach was a heavenly fire and the fact that Nadav and Avihu felt that the fire should not be used for two different things appeared to be a lack of faith in the power of God which was considered to be a partial desecration of God’s name.

 If we look at this Rabbeinu Bechai a little more closely we can ask the following question. Normally, when we discuss the concept of Chilul Hashem, we understand it as an action done by a Torah observant person which is looked at by the nations of the world or even other Jews as improper which would make the nations of the world say that God’s nation and by extension God is not so great since his people do not do the proper thing. If this understanding is correct, how would the actions of Nadav and Avihu be seen as a Chilul Hashem?

 The answer is that in truth Chilul Hashem has another aspect to it, which is any action that a person takes that causes the power of God to be diminished in the world. This was the sin of Nadav and Avihu. Their action of not using the fire of the Mizbayach minimized the power of God in the eyes of Bnei Yisroel. That is an aspect of Chilul Hashem and that sin caused Nadav and Avihu to be punished.

 In our lives we must realize that this is something that has the potential to occur to us on a daily basis. When a person acts in a way that he feels and shows that he is in control of his life and is not relying on God then he is potentially reducing the power of God in our lives which can be viewed as a Chilul Hashem. The opposite is also true. When a person shows people that he recognizes the hand of God in his life from his health to his livelihood and especially when something out of the ordinary occurs then he is increasing the power of God in the world and inherently creating a Kiddush Hashem.

פרשת שמיני 5768

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah describes to us the events surrounding the setting up of the Mishkan. Part of what the Torah describes is the anointing of Aharon to be the Kohein Gadol and his sons as the Kohanim. The Pasuk describes this as follows:

 “It was on the eighth day (of the Miluim) and Moshe called to Aharon and his sons and the elders of Bnei Yisroel.”

 On this Pasuk, the Tanchuma comments:

 “Moshe said to Aharon,” God told me to appoint you to be the Kohein Gadol .” Aharon responded that you worked so hard on building the Mishkan, you should be the Kohein Gadol to which Moshe replied even though you are going to be the Kohein Gadol it is as if I was the Kohein Gadol, since just as you were happy for me when I became the leader of Bnei Yisroel even when you were older than me, so too I am happy for you becoming the Kohein Gadol.”

If we analyze this Midrash Tanchuma a little more closely, we can ask the following three questions:

1. What is the connection between the fact that Moshe put in effort to build the Mishkan to his being the כהן גדול? On the surface they would appear to be two different positions. Why would it be any different then a construction company that builds a building, but doesn’t manage it.
2. It seems from the Midrash that Aharon was correct and Moshe should have been the Kohein Gadol so how can Moshe say that because I am happy for you it is like I was appointed Kohein Gadol how does being happy for Aharon make Moshe feel that he has the position of Kohein Gadol?
3. The Midrash seems to compare the joy of Aharon when Moshe became the leader to the joy of Moshe when Aharon became the Kohein Gadol. On the surface though, they do not seem to be comparable at all. The reason they are different is that when Moshe became the leader of Bnei Yisroel, Aharon had not done anything specifically to receive that position. He was a great Tzadik as was Moshe but he could be happy for Moshe, since the position wasn’t coming to him necessarily, however by Moshe it appears from the Midrash that because of all the work he did in building the Mishkan he truly deserved to be the Kohein Gadol, so how could Moshe have said to Aharon that my joy is like your joy and therefore I feel like I am the Kohein Gadol, the joy of Moshe would have to be so much greater to effect that feeling?

Let us try to answer the first question. The building of the Mishkan is different from a regular building in that a regular building’s purpose is only to house tenants and therefore the builder has no connection to the building once it is complete; while the Mishkan was built with the sole purpose of being used for the service of God. When Moshe was building the Mishkan, he was building it so Bnei Yisroel and himself can worship God and get closer to Him. It is therefore logical that the person who was involved in every stage of building the Mishkan should be the one who is allowed to complete the job and be the intermediary of Bnei Yisroel in their service of God.

Now let us move on to the next question.  How was it that Moshe felt that because of his joy for Aharon that it was as if he was doing the service in the Mishkan? The answer can be that the reason Moshe was able to feel this way is that when you feel true joy for another person’s achievements, you can actually feel that you are “living” through that person since you feel so good for them.  The reason that a person normally does not feel that way is that our trait of jealousy blocks us from it. We feel that I should have been the one to get the job. If a person is truly happy for another person’s successes then he will inherently also feel the successes the other person is achieving.

With this we can answer our last question. The reason the Midrash compared the joys of Moshe and Aharon even though it would seem that it would have been more difficult for Moshe to feel happy for Aharon since he truly deserved the position as we explained earlier, is because once a person can remove the jealousy from their heart then the joy he will have for another person’s success will shine through even if the other person took a job away that they really felt he deserved.

The question then becomes, how can we work on ourselves to be able to really be happy for other people’s successes and not bitter or jealous of them? The answer is that we must constantly remind ourselves that there is a God who runs the world and there is nothing that we are supposed to have that someone else can take away from us. If we keep this in mind, and work on ourselves to only feel joy for other people, we should merit to have God merit us a life filled with joy and to see the true happiness with the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash in our days.

 5767 פרשת שמיני

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah discusses the deaths of Nadav and Avihu the sons of Aharon. There are many commentaries that discuss what was the sin of Nadav and Avihu. However, all the commentaries agree that their sin was very small.

However, the reaction of Aharon to the death of his 2 sons can teach us a very important lesson. The Pasuk tells us the following:

And Moshe said to Aharon this is what God said in those that are close to me I will be sanctified and to the face of the nation I will be honored and Aharon was silent.

The midrash tells us the conversation between Moshe and Aharon when Moshe was consoling Aharon as follows:

Moshe said to Aharon, my brother at Har Sinai God told me that in the future the Mishkan will be sanctified and through a righteous man I will be sanctified. I thought that it would be either me or you and now your 2 sons are greater than me and you. Since Aharon heard that his sons were God fearing he was silent (and did not mourn). Aharon then received reward for his silence as God gave him the Mitzvah of not drinking wine when doing the service in the Beis Hamikdash directly and not through Moshe Rabbeinu.

When we look at this midrash there is a question that we can ask:

1. It seems from the Midrash that if it wasn’t for the fact that Aharon heard that his sons were  God fearing he would not have been able to control his emotions. Who are we talking about here? Aharon was the second greatest tzadik of the generation that reached tremendous levels of holiness and closeness to God. Would Aharon not be able to control his emotions without hearing this news about his sons?

The answers to this question can truly give us a tremendous insight into how we need to approach our service of God.

There are two aspects to every person. We have our intellect and our emotions. Our emotions are our most basic instincts; fear, love, hate, anger etc. If our emotions are allowed to control us, there is no chance for us to succeed in our service God. The sign of a great person is someone who uses their intellect to control and channel their emotions properly to serve God. The Baalei Mussar explain to us that the longest distance between to points is between the brain and the heart. Even though we know intellectually that certain actions and character traits aren’t good it is difficult to get that knowledge to our heart to change. Aharon was a great Tzadik who was able to master his emotions, however even the greatest person when subjected to an emotional upheaval will find it difficult to control their emotions even if it is only for a very short time. This is why the Midrash tells us that it was only through hearing that his sons were God fearing which reduced the emotional force was Aharon able to continue his complete mastery over his emotions.

In our lives we battle every day with emotions like anger and haughtiness and hate etc that have the ability to take us further and further away from our goal of perfection in our service of God. The question is how do we work on ourselves to be able to control our emotions better? One of the ways is through learning mussar. If we spend only 15 minutes a day learning mussar we will see how much greater our control over ourselves will become. I once heard from one of my Roshei Yeshiva that different period during the year are advantageous for certain things. For example Elul through Yom Kippur is advantageous for doing Teshuvah. He said that the days of Sefirah from Pesach to Shavuos are advantageous for changing our charachter traits. If we can start now, God will surely help us to grow and God willing we should merit the redemption.