Month: April 2018

Yismechu B’Malchusecho

What would you say is the theme of this week’s parsha of Emor? You would remember that the parsha discusses the laws of the kohanim that they may not approach a deceased person and the physical blemishes which render a Kohen unfit to participate in the service of the Beis Hamikdash. Other halochos of ritual impurity follow and after that, details of Shabbos and all the Yomim Tovim. You would probably say that there is no single theme, but a wide range of topics which happen to be in the same parsha. Perhaps, though, we are missing something … the theme which ties everything in the parsha together.

A number of mefarshim find it difficult to understand the rationale of tumas meis. A Kohen may not approach a corpse except that of a close relative. If he is in a house where somebody dies he becomes tomei. The ramifications of these halochos are quite significant. A Kohen may not participate in a funeral unless he stands under a different roof or outside, well away from the niftar. As a Kohen about whom the posuk says, “They will seek the Torah from his mouth,” (Malachi 2:7) he is just the person to direct the tzibbur how to give the correct kovod to the niftar by quoting the Chazal that “The loss of even one neshomo is like the burning of a Sefer Torah” (Moed Koton 25a) but he is excluded. As the head of the community, he should be giving the all-important hesped in honour of the deceased and the bereaved, but he is relegated to a side room, if he is there at all. Also, the concern that a person might suddenly be niftar prevents the kohen from visiting a patient who, in his last moments, may be in need of spiritual guidance and encouragement which the Kohen might be the most qualified to give. How can we understand this?

It is also difficult to understand the prohibition of the Kohen with a physical defect from participating in the service in the Beis Hamikdash. It seems unfair. He is already suffering from his defect and now he receives another blow, disqualification from performing the avoda. Despite his broken heart or perhaps because of it, he yearns for closeness to Hashem and longs to participate in the avoda in the Beis Hamikdash. There, in the holiest place on Earth, he would be able to plead with Hashem to heal him. His tearful tefilos would surely reach the kisei hakavod but his path is blocked. “Kohanim with blemishes must stop here.” He can only look from the distance. Where is Hashem’s mercy for this person in need?

“My income does not cover my expenses. I struggle to make a parnoso six days a week. What could be a better idea than taking advantage of a long Shabbos or Yom Tov afternoon to say Tehilim that my situation should improve? Or an obituary of a good friend is printed in the paper and Shabbos is the only time I have to read it. What could be wrong?” And yet the halocho does not allow it. Why?

In the Book of Ezra ( due to non-Jewish influence, it is found in Nechemia Chapter Two) we read, “It happened in the month of Nissan of the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes that wine was brought before him and I carried the wine and gave it to the king. I had never before appeared downcast in his presence. And the king said to me, why is your face downcast?” Why was Nechemia always careful to appear happy in the king’s presence until that day?

A king was visiting different provinces in his kingdom. In the first province the people took advantage of the king’s presence to cry out to him about their woes and plead for help. Although there was justice in their claims and the king truly wanted to help, he did not enjoy his visit. A second province heard that the king was coming. They decided to say nothing about their problems but rather prepared a banquet in the king’s honour. The food was excellent and a band played joyful music throughout. The king enjoyed his visit very much and when the people of this province later wrote to the king asking for his help in certain matters, he was only too pleased to respond generously.

Nechemia was always careful to appear happy in the king’s presence in honour of the king. A king wants his subjects to be happy. It is a sign of his success. There is a time and place for requesting his help but except for those occasions, it is kovod malchus to be joyful in the king’s presence.

Hashem gives us six days a week to attend to our needs and request His help but on Shabbos, when Hashem’s Shechina comes to our homes, the halocho requires us to radiate happiness. On Shabbos we must show kovod malchus by expressing our thanks to Him for all His help and by rejoicing in His presence with three sumptuous meals, singing and joy. We are not allowed to daven for our earthly needs or read something which might make us upset. The same applies on Yom Tov when we have a specific mitzva to be besimcha.

“Hashem is close to the broken-hearted” and hears their cries from wherever they come. No-one is more merciful than Hashem. But just as it is not appropriate to cry at someone’s simcha, it is not appropriate to cry in the Beis Hamikdash. There the Levi’im sang, accompanied by live music (Succah 50b). This created an atmosphere of simcha to enhance the kovod malchus . Were those with physical disabilities allowed to participate in the Avoda, they might well be tempted to cry out in prayer at a crucial point, disturbing the simcha and detracting from the kovod malchus.

Certainly a kohen’s presence would be helpful and educational at a funeral but more important for the tzibbur is to associate Hashem’s earthly representative only with simcha which creates kovod malchus. Unless it is a moed, a Kohen does not do the Avoda when he is an onen, on the day his close relative is niftar, because he is lacking in simcha. The Kohen Godol, who should be on the highest level of emuna, has the status of moed  the whole year and even if he is an onen he continues to do the avoda because he should always be besimcha. (Moed Koton 14b)

This, then, is the theme of the parsha; to be besimcha because it increases kovod Malchus. Now, unfortunately, we have no Beis Hamikdash. But we have our mikdash me’at, our shuls and our homes. There we can honour Hashem by being besimcha, enjoying our Shabbos seudos, speaking about our many blessings and singing songs of thanks and praise to Hashem. As we say in Shabbos Musaf, “Yismechu b’malchusecho shomrei Shabbos.”

Home Sweet Home

In the parshios of Acharei Mos and Kedoshim we were warned several times not to follow the customs of the Canaanites. They were guilty of the worst immorality and it would seem unnecessary to warn us so many times not to follow their example. We, the descendants of Avrohom, Yitzchak and Yaakov, should stoop to such depths? Surely not. So why does the Torah keep repeating this warning?

In the parsha of Metzora we read that if certain white blemishes were found on the wall of our house we had to destroy the wall. And if the blemishes returned or spread further we might have to destroy our whole house. The meforshim say that these blemishes, and similar blemishes on our clothes or body were a punishment for speaking loshon hora and transgressing other mitzvos of the Torah. Rashi brings a very surprising medrash that when the Jews destroyed their houses following inspection by the kohanim, they would find treasures left behind by the Canaanites, when they fled from the invading Jewish army. Thus  Jews, who were guilty of serious aveiros, became enriched by their find. Does this seem fair or just? As the Gemara often says, “vechi hachotei nischar?” “Should a sinner be rewarded?”

One of the most mysterious epochs in Jewish history was in the days of Ezra shortly after the second Beis Hamikdash was established. The Babylonian Emperor Koresh and later the Persian Emperor Darius, son of Achashveirosh and Esther, gave permission for all the Jews in their empire to return to Eretz Yisroel and rebuild the Beis Hamikdash. These amazing proclamations by the most powerful rulers of their day should have been greeted with tremendous joy by the Jewish exiles. A mere seventy years after the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash and subsequent exile to Babylon, the Jews were given the opportunity of returning to their homeland, rebuilding the Beis Hamikdash and starting afresh. Both these kings gave the Jews all the money they needed to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash and even promised that those Jews who could not afford travelling expenses would be subsidized by the non-Jews from whichever town they lived in. Surely it was an opportunity to be seized with both hands. Yet the Book of Ezra tells us that a paltry forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty decided to go. Why so few? How can we understand this?

To add to the mystery, we have to know that two hundred years earlier, Yeshaya Hanovi had prophesied explicitly that a king by the name of Koresh would be aroused by Hashem to allow the Jews back from their golus in Babylon to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash (44:28). So it should not have been a surprise. Furthermore Yirmiya Hanavi (29:10) had also said explicitly that after seventy years in Bovel they would be allowed to return. He even told them that Hashem told him to buy a field but to be sure to keep the relevant documents because he would need them when everyone returns. Surely the Jews would have been counting their years in Bovel – sixty years to go, fifty years to go … just as we count the days of the Sefira as we look forward to the giving of the Torah. With five years to go, surely they would have already packed their suitcases ready for the big day. But apparently this didn’t happen. Ezra appealed for more to come but the people didn’t respond. He punished the Levi’im (Yevomos 86b) who wouldn’t come by denying them maaser rishon which the Torah says is to go only to them, with little effect. How can we understand this? Only seventy years before, the first exiles, with superhuman courage, refused to sing in front of Nebuchadnezzar and bit off their thumbs so that they could not play their harps, saying, “How can we sing in a strange land?” Now their children and grandchildren preferred to stay in Bovel! And let us remember that the time of Darius was after the Purim story when the Jews all accepted the Torah anew. Reish Lachish (Yuma 9b) said that if the Jews had responded and come with Ezra, we would never again have gone into galus, the second Beis Hamikdash would have been permanent and this would have been the final redemption. Why didn’t they go?

Melachim II (2:19-22) tells us that Elisha was once in Yericho. The residents told him, “This is a very good place to live, but the water is poisonous and it causes people to die. Elisha then put some salt in the water which miraculously purified it, (to the annoyance of local youth who were making money bringing clean water to the city!) Chazal ask “If the water was killing people, why was it such a good place to live?” They answer that people like the place where they live. (Sotah 47a). Rashi says that even a bad place seems good to those who live there.

Kesuvos (110a) says that there are three parts of Eretz Yisroel and a man cannot force his wife to move from one section to another even if the new place is very similar to the old place. People like the place they know. They are used to its customs. They are comfortable with the climate and the people. Why move to a new place which they don’t know? “Home Sweet Home” is not a new concept.

Rashi (Kiddushin 69b) says that the residents of Bovel were living in peace and they were reluctant to lose that security (this was just before Homon came on the scene!) to move to Eretz Yisroel with all the challenges such a move could bring. They were happy where they lived.

(This could be why the Anshei Knesset Hagedola who wrote down the text of the Shemone Esre shortly after this time, inserted many references to the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash to try to maintain our connection with Eretz Yisroel and to keep in our hearts the desire to return so that we won’t squander future opportunities.)

Before the Jews moved into the land of Canaan they had to be warned time and time again not to follow in the ways of the Canaanim even though most of them would not be there any more. It is easy to be influenced. Don’t English Jews like their cup of tea and their Marmite? Don’t French Jews wear berets and American Jews love their apple pie?

The one who had to destroy his home but found treasures left behind was not being given a reward but was being warned that if the Jews continue the customs of the Canaanites and don’t follow the Torah they too will exiled, leaving everything behind just like the Canaanites who fled, leaving their treasures behind.

Our homes should be sweet. With Torah they are even sweeter.

Yisgadal Veyiskadesh Shemei Rabboh

We come again to the parshos of Tazriah and Metzorah with their descriptions of white blemishes of various shapes and sizes on people, clothes and houses. We listen respectfully to the baal koreh who tries valiantly to remember whether the word is supposed to be hu or hi (easier for Chassidim) and return home to eat our cholent usually none the wiser. Is there no way we can be inspired by these parshos? Or is this our annual kaporoh for enjoying our Pesach matzos smothered with eingemachts too much?

In the Shacharis Kedusha of Shabbos and Yom Tov, we implore Hashem to rule over us. This is a very strange request. Haven’t we all already accepted Hashem as our King? When we say the Shema we affirm that Hashem is our King. He is, was and always will be our King, as we repeat many times especially on Rosh Hashono when we crown Him as we hear the resounding tekios? What do we mean when we say and often sing ‘Vesimloch oleinu ki mechakim anachnu loch – Rule over us because we are waiting for You’?

Three times a day we say the two paragraphs of Oleinu. The first paragraph emphasizes how much we must thank Hashem that He has chosen us to be His People, mentioning also that He rules over Heaven and Earth. We can never thank Hashem enough for our beautiful inheritance. But why do we say the second paragraph, that the all idol worshippers should acknowledge Him, so often? Of course we want Moshiach to come. But why do we repeat this request every time we say Oleinu?

The Rambam writes that it is a mitzvas asei to build a house for Hashem, ready for us to visit three times a year and bring korbonos in it. If possible it should be overlaid with gold. (Hilchos Beis Habechira 1:1 and 11) Later he writes that it is a mitzvas asei for the Beis Hamikdash to be guarded even though there is no fear of enemies. (ibid 8:1) The Rambam explains that guarding the Beis Hamikdash is a way of showing honour to Hashem: “One cannot compare a palace with guards to a palace without guards.”

All this is the minimum honour we can give to Hashem our King. Any powerful king has a resplendent palace which is a symbol of his power. His subjects will visit him regularly to pay homage to him and do there whatever he commands them to do. How much more so should we honour Hashem who is the King of Heaven and Earth.

This is indeed how things were in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, especially the first one. Shlomo Hamelech built a beautiful Beis Hamikdash in Hashem’s honour. Kohanim, Hashem’s hand-picked representatives, served there doing the prescribed Avoda. Three times a year all the People left their farms across Eretz Yisroel to come and pay homage to Hashem, bringing with them a sample of the blessings Hashem had granted them during the year.

During Pesach, my wife and I visited our family who live in various communities in England and we saw new shuls, new mikvaos and many Yidden davening, learning and living like loyal Jews. We were impressed. There are other beautiful communities in America, Australia, South Africa and many other places over the world. We are apt to be happy and proud of all these different communities in the “four corners of the world.”

However we may be forgetting our true lowly position or more accurately the terrible chillul Hashem in today’s situation. We have become used to Jews living mefuzar umeforad bein ho’amim – scattered among the nations. This is, for us, normal. But Hashem is King of the Heaven and Earth and His People should be living in honour in the special land which He gave us. Anything else is a chillul Hashem (Sotah 49a). Where is Hashem’s Beis Hamikdash, the symbol of His Kingship? In ruins. As the prophets bemoaned, “Where is His strength, where is His might?” Instead of doing His Avoda we have to suffice with learning what used to be done. As the malachim ask, “Where is the place of His glory?”

This is a shocking, intolerable chillul Hashem. We believe that Hashem is all-powerful but the facts on the ground seem to indicate otherwise. Modern idol-worshippers abound. Atheists invade our schools and tell us how to educate our children. We say that we are in golus but we forget about the golus of the Shechina. Our lives continue as though all is well. Where are the signs of our shock, our disgust and our misery at this spiritual catastrophe?

Fortunately, however, the siddur, reminds us not to be satisfied. We speak of Hashem’s glory and might in the first half of Oleinu. But then, in response to our realization that the world which we see hardly reflects Hashem’s glory, we immediately express our hope that this horrible contradiction will soon be rectified; that all these ancient and modern idol-worshippers, will soon “bend their knees to Hashem” in an acknowledgement of their error. In Kedusha after proclaiming Hashem’s great Holiness we immediately plead, “Mimkomecho Malkeinu sofia, eineinu sir’eno malchusecho.” Of course we believe that You are the King of Heaven and Earth, but ’eineinu sireno malchusecho’ – we want to see Your Kingship and we want the whole world to see Your Glory. As we say in Yom Tov Musaf, “Galei kevod malchusecho – Reveal the honour of your Kingdom in the eyes of all humanity, bring in our scattered ones and enable us to perform Your service. This is not because we are tired of golus but because we want Your Name to be glorified and sanctified – Yisgadal veyiskadash Shemei Rabbo. Our Oleinu should not be said as we take off our talis or as we walk out of shul but in a way which shows our heartfelt desire to see imminently “the glory of Your strength.” Our mimkomecho should be said or sang with great passion as we implore Hashem to reveal His greatness and sanctity.

As we listen to the details of Tazriah and Metzora we should ponder how Hashem’s glory once revealed itself through special signs which reminded each individual that he has sinned, as an encouragement to better behavior, Sadly, as the Seforno (13:47) says, now we do not merit such an open display of Hashem’s love for us. Instead of wishing that the krias HaTorah would end already, we can silently yearn for a return to such wonderful times, when Hashem’s glory will be revealed to all and He will be publicly and universally acknowledged as the King of Heaven and Earth.