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A refreshing and clear review of each Parsha in the Torah presented by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe
00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Good evening everybody. Welcome back to the Complete Bible Crash Course. We are now in the book of Leviticus, the third book of the five books of the Torah. We spoke previously in Exodus, about the nation of Israel, the people of Israel. They become a nation In the first book of the Torah, in Genesis, they become a family, then they grow to a nation. But now in the book of Vayikra and Leviticus, we're going to talk about building our relationship with God, keeping God in our midst and living holy lives.
00:49
There are 10 portions in the book of Leviticus. There are 27 chapters and 859 verses. It's not a very big book of the Torah but a very rich book of the Torah, as we will see in the presentation tonight. Now, the first eight portions are talking about the use of the Tabernacle, the sacrifices and the holiness that's required in the service of the temple. The first two portions are introducing the offerings. So the first portion, vayikra, talks about the people's relationship to the offerings and that is involving rules of offerings, the different types of offerings the Ola, the Mincha, the Shlomim, the Chathas, the Asham and if you look at your addendum, at your extra notes, you'll see what they each represented and what their purpose was the prohibitions of eating mixtures of blood and chalev, the different fats that were not permitted to be eaten and are not permitted today. The process of the offerings the animal is brought to the Mishkan entrance, to the entrance of the Tabernacle, the Semicha, which is when the person bringing this offering would put his hands on top of the animal. They would slaughter the animal. Then they would sprinkle the blood, they would skin the animal, they would wash and burn all of the remaining parts of the animal. This was the offering process, and offerings were always brought with salt.
02:20
It's very important for us to note here what is an offering anyway? What's this whole offering business? So let's focus for a second on a sin offering. If someone sinned, in a world of judgment, what would need to happen is that this person would be put to death. You know, in Iran you only steal once because your hand is cut off after the first time, so you'll never do it again. That's a world of judgment, but in a world of mercy, we have ways to fix it. God is a mixture of mercy and judgment.
02:59
Now, if a person wants to repent, so what does he do? He brings an offering. He says ay, ay, vey, I sinned, I did something that was against the will of Hashem. What do I need to do to atone for this? He'd bring an offering, and the offering was an atonement. Instead of the person being brought as a sacrifice, himself and his life be taken away for the sin, now it's the animal that would be brought as an offering instead of the person. So by Smi'cha is that you put your hands on top of the animal. You say, god, take this animal instead of me, instead of me being a sacrifice for my sin, let this animal be a sacrifice for the sin. You also have to remember that an animal costed a lot of money, so today would be equivalent to your car. Imagine you did a sin, god forbid, and now you wanted to atone for that sin. You'd bring your car to the temple, to the tabernacle, and you'd say God. You put your hands on the hood of the car. You say, god, I've sinned, take this as an offering, as an atonement for my sin. And the wrecking ball comes and smashes your brand new Tesla, and that's your atonement. And you're so happy that at least it's the Tesla, it's not me, okay. So that's so that we understand these were not simple things. And it was, it would also elevate and bring us close to our Creator.
04:32
The second portion Parshah's staff, my Bar Mitzvah, parshah was the priest's relationship to the offering. So last portion of a Yikra was the people's relationship to the offering. Now it's the priest's relationship and how the priest dealt with the offerings so he'd bring we talk about the altar, the ashes more offerings, gifts to the priests, because the priests just an interesting thing the Kohen and the Kohen families were pretty well off because they got a lot of meat from all of the offerings that were brought. There was never a shortage of food there because every offering that was brought, whether it was a Thanksgiving offering, whether it was a peace offering, whether it was a guilt offering and the various other types of offerings many of them, the gifts of the meat was given to the Kohen. The Kohen, who is holy, the Kohen, who is at a very high level of holiness and purity, would be able to eat it, and only in the temple grounds.
05:34
The ritual purity of the Kohen is discussed, moshe oversees the entire process and Moshe dresses an annoying Aaron. Moshe dresses Aaron's sons. The difference is that the Kohen, like we mentioned last week, the Kohen Gadol, the high priest had eight garments, while the simple priests had four garments. The consecration of Kohen and the priests, the inauguration of the Mishkan and its vessels happened in that portion. Then Shmini talks about the priests. Aaron consecrated again as a high priest, it's reviewed again and the priests begin service in the temple. Then we know of the famous tragedy of Nadav and Avihu. Nadav and Avihu were the sons of Aaron who were very, very excited to serve in the temple and they entered without permission. They brought an offering without God's say so and their lives were taken. Aaron is silent, vayidom Aaron. He remained silent when he is told about this news, meaning he accepts God's decree.
06:44
And we have the detailed laws for Aaron and then the famous laws of kosher. So if anybody asks you, what's this business with Jews keeping kosher? Where do we learn it from? It's Leviticus 11, and we have the laws of kosher. You are what you eat. This is a very fundamental principle for us to know. We mentioned this this morning in the Partia Review Podcast and in the Prayer Podcast. It's important for us to remember that we are what we eat. If you eat healthy, you are healthy. You eat holy, you are holy, and what the Torah tells us is not only stay away from filthy animals, stay away from unhealthy animals, but also stay away from unholy animals, and that is all.
07:38
In the portion of Shemini in Leviticus 11, the permissible and the forbidden foods are declared Land animals. You can see this in your notes as well. In more detail Land animals. As long as they have split hooves and chew their cud, they are kosher. The only exceptions of animals that have one feature but not the other is the camel, the hyrax and the rabbit and, of course, the pig. The pig is the only one that has split hooves but does not chew its cud. The others chew their cud but do not have split hooves. Those four all not kosher. Any of the other animals that do not have any of these simanim, it's called the signs are not kosher Fish.
08:22
Fins and scales A fish must have fins and scales. Salmon, tilapia kosher. Other fish not kosher. If it doesn't have fins and scales, it's not kosher. Now there is no fish that has scales without fins. So if it has scales, it's a sign that it has fins. That fish, not kosher.
08:43
Birds no birds of prey. It's a very beautiful idea that the animal that the bird that's called a chassida chassida is kindness is not either kosher. It's one of those that are specified in the Torah as not being kosher. And our sages go about and asking how is it possible that an animal which is named for its kindness is not considered kosher? Our sages tell us, because its kindness is very, very exclusive kindness. It only does kindness with its kind. Kindness with your own kind only is limited kindness, true kindness. You do kindness even with those who are not your flavor, not your type, not your race and not your family. Insects and earthly creatures, the creepy crawlers almost none are kosher. There are few exceptions, a specific type of grasshopper, but we today, in practical terms, don't know which that is and therefore we don't need any of those.
09:48
Now, just so that you understand, all fruits and vegetables are kosher. There is no fruit or vegetable. You can go anywhere on planet earth and eat a fruit or vegetable, except if they have little buggies in them. If you go to any of the magnificent supermarkets or wholesale stores that sell beautiful lettuce, you look carefully, you'll see little dead bugs in the bag. You've got to really wash them, rinse them. Well, the lettuce is kosher, but the bugs in them are not. And the same with any other animal, any leafy animals where the bugs love to live in. So you've got to be very careful. You can eat them, but you have to first rinse them well. Strawberries all berries I love berries, but you've got to check them and rinse them really, really well to ensure that there are no buggies in them.
10:42
The laws of purity and impurity are detailed in the end of the portion of Shmini the animal contamination by touch you're not allowed to touch a dead, un-kosher animal because then you're contaminated by its impurity. Objects receive contamination as well. And then the mikvah purification. And then we are commanded to be holy. Holy means to be dignified, holy means to be separate, holy means to be special, and that's what we're commanded. The next two portions are talking about the holiness of the body. We talk in tazriah about the laws of purity and purity, human contamination, childbirth and its purification. The bris of a baby boy on its eighth day, tsaras, skin affliction. There are four different types of skin affliction and of course we know what the Torah tells us is that these leprosy some called leprosy, some called it just a skin affliction comes from negative speech.
11:47
We need to be careful, we need to be so careful about our words, and this we mentioned in our prayer podcast this morning the importance of our words. Words have so much power, words. The entire world was created through the letters of the Yalaf bet. The words that we utter in our prayer rearrange those letters to build this world and to perfect this world and therefore we have to be very careful that when we say negative words about our fellow man, we're bringing about destruction in God's world. God doesn't like destruction, so God doesn't like when we speak negatively about others. Just so that we understand what that means, the Chavachchaim goes into great detail of the laws of Lashon Hara.
12:37
Lashon Hara is speaking slanderously and negatively about our fellow. So if your friend did something to you and you go over to another person and say, did you see what so and so did to me, or did you see what so and so did in general, you're talking about another person. Did you hear what they said? Did you see how they acted, etc. Etc. These are all negative things about our fellow that should be avoided at all costs because the punishment for it is very severe. There are, in fact, the Chavachchaim enumerates, I believe, 17 prohibitions in the Torah against speaking negatively about our fellow man. So it's a pretty serious thing and we try in Judaism to be very, very careful about our words and not speaking inappropriately about others. The best solution to this is to just avoid talking about other people. If you can avoid talking about other people, you'll definitely avoid speaking negatively about other people.
13:42
Then we talk about this inflammation, different burns, baldness and the Mitzvahra's isolation which was part of the process of his healing, and then blemishes on garments were also part of the indications of this affliction, this saras affliction In Parshis Mitzvahra. We continue talking about the holiness of the body and again, the mouth is a very important part of our body. If we talk negatively, we're bringing about impurity into our lives. There are three stages of the purification. We talk about the arrogance of someone who talks negatively about other people, which leads to humility, and when the person is isolated from the community and nobody can come into contact with them, it's very humbling. But why did you get to this place and begin? To begin with? You were arrogant and you talked about other people. The Torah is going to humble you in a way that's not so pleasant. We know that someone who has this affliction. Before they become purified, they need to shave off all the hair on their body. They bring offerings, offering of a poor Mitzvahra is delineated in this fifth portion of the book of Leviticus the impurity and purification of a house, bodily impurities, and then we talk about male and female discharges. And the laws of Nida are at the end of this portion.
15:11
Now the next two portions, ahrimos and Kedoshim, talk about the holiness of the nation. We see that the death of Nadevanaviu were a significant story in our Torah, teaching us to follow rules. Hashem loves that. We want to be close to him. Hashem loves our passion, but misguided passion has detrimental effects and we see that here with Nadevanaviu, it was misguided passion for their service of Hashem. Hashem says there's a right way to do things, there's a proper place and a proper time where your service is loved. But just doing whatever you want whenever you want is not appropriate and for that they suffered a severe punishment of death.
16:04
Aaron accepts the judgment with love, which is so important for us to always remember that every single thing that happens in our lives is handcrafted by the Almighty, Handcrafted by the Almighty especially for us. And recently, as recent as today, I was talking to someone who went through a very, very serious challenge and they said, rabbi, but why me? Why me? Why did I need to go through this? And the answer is obvious because God loves you, and when God loves you, he challenges you. That's the way it works. God loves us and therefore he challenges us so that we can be elevated from the experience, so that we can learn and grow from it and, hopefully, become better and more holy because of it.
17:01
Continuing in the parasha of Ahare Mos. The sixth portion is the Yom Kippur service. We talk about the confession of someone who sins the incense that were brought, the Higot, the eternal commandment of Yom Kippur, where Yom Kippur is a day that is instilled forever as a day of atonement. You see what happens if we look a little bit into our history. Moses went up for 40 days to receive the Torah. He comes back down. What happens? He sees the golden calf. See, instead of bringing the tablets to the people, he breaks the tablet in front of the people. What does God tell him? By the way, ye'iashir kohachah, alashir shibartah, good job for breaking the tablets, you did the right thing.
17:52
So Moses stays down on earth for another 40 days, till the beginning of the month of Elul, and he says guys, I'm going back up, I'm going to try to negotiate another deal here on your behalf. But do me a favor, don't mess this one up. And that's why we blow the shofer throughout the month of Elul. Every morning in synagogue, we blow the shofer to awaken us. Be careful. If you want that atonement on Yom Kippur, this is the time to prepare for it.
18:19
40 days later, after Rosh Chodesh Elul, the beginning of the month of Elul is the Holy Day of Yom Kippur. Now, back in those days it wasn't yet the Holy Day of Yom Kippur, but because God's mercy overcame him and he forgave the Jewish people for the sin of the golden calf, on that day God says forever. This day will be a day of atonement, and if you ask and you confess for your sin and you accept for the future and you distance yourself from sin, you can't come. It's like the Talmud says it's Ha'tov El Vasharit's biyadah.
18:58
We mentioned that uncorpsured animals like a rat. If you're holding a dead rat, you become impure from it. But what happens if you hold a dead rat and you take it? While you're still holding it, you go into the mikvah to purify yourself. Well, you're not going to be purified because you're still holding onto it. Or say this tell us, you can't remove yourself from sin if you're still acting in a sinful way. So if a person is not removing himself and distancing himself from that sin, they will never be able to atone for it. But that is the special day of Yom Kippur.
19:31
Yom Kippur is a day that, no matter how far a person has gone astray, no matter what the sin is, no matter what the challenge is, when we ask Hashem for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, hashem says by Yomer Hashem, salah di kidvorah, I forgive you because you asked. You asked for atonement, you'll get it. This is a special day where the power of atonement is so high. Then we talk about the service outside the tabernacle, where we learn not to eat the blood of any living being or not living Blood. It says kya dam hua nefesh, because the blood is the soul of the animal or the living being, us. By the way, it is forbidden for us. If you have a cut, you can't lick or stop the bleeding with your mouth, because you're going to end up swallowing blood, which is a prohibition. If it's in your mouth, that's a different story. If you have an injury in your mouth and you're bleeding, that's inevitable. You can't stop that. But also in our food.
20:40
The Torah teaches us that in order to have kosher food, it's not enough that it be slaughtered. That, we know, is one of the seven al-Qaeda laws it has to be slaughtered. You can't just take a limb off a living animal and throw it on the barbecue grill. Animal has to be dead first. But in order for it to be kosher, it doesn't only have to be slaughtered properly. It doesn't only have to be a kosher animal and slaughtered properly. It also has to be soaked and rinsed and salted and washed down, Because the salting process removes all of the blood that's inside the body. So that's also part of it. But now, after an animal is slaughtered, a chicken is slaughtered, you've got to cover that blood. You've got to cover the blood because it's the dignity of the animal. You don't just let the blood just stay there. So that's called kisui hadam, which is a biblical commandment to cover that blood.
21:39
Forbidden relationships no relations with your. A man is not allowed to have relations with their mother, sister, daughter, etc. If you look at the addendum, I listed all 24 of the prohibitions. They include mother, stepmother, aunt, aunt depending where you're from wife of father's brother, sister, half-sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, wife's mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, step-grandmother, father's half-brother's wife, mother's half-brother's wife, great-granddaughter, sons, daughters or grandsons, daughter-in-law. It's pretty extensive, the biblical prohibition of relations we are not allowed to have Additionally. A man is not allowed to be with another man, and a man or woman are not allowed to be with an animal. So bestiality and homosexuality are biblical prohibitions. A married woman and a menstruating woman cannot either be with any man.
22:46
And the portion then concludes with do not defile yourselves. And we learn about the holiness of the people, the holiness of the land. Now the next two portions are unique portions in that they have so many mitzvahs. Kedoshim has 51 mitzvahs and Amor has 63 mitzvahs. So we begin different commandments of how to conduct ourselves.
23:12
We have many commandments of how we conduct ourselves. Among them are giving of our crops. So when someone has their field and they have their crops, they have to give 10% to the poor. But then any lekketh, shikhah and payah, anything that is forgotten on the field. So if you go, you collect all of your wheat and you forgot a bundle. You can't go back and take that bundle, why? Because there may be a poor person standing at the edge of the field waiting for you to forget your bundle and he's like so excited yes, yes, he forgot one bundle. Then you're going to come back and he's going to be so disheartened. It's always says leave that bundle for the poor person. Additionally, if it dropped from them, they shouldn't either pick it up, they should just leave it for the poor.
24:02
Additionally, we learn about being honest. We learn about justice tzedek, tzedek, tirdov. We learn about holiness. Holiness means to be distinguished, to be separate. We learn about not taking revenge or holding a grudge. We talk about love your neighbor as yourself, love your fellow as yourself.
24:27
I know many people think that this is a Christian teaching. It's actually a biblical teaching. In our Torah, forbidden mixtures are discussed, forbidden mixtures of the land. So you can't grow your grapes together with your wheat and vice versa. You can't do two different. You can't grow two different types of produce together. There has to be a separation between them. Additionally, mixtures of wool and linen need to be removed. So if you buy yourself a brand new wool coat because of this frigid weather here in Houston where it got below 60 degrees this morning, so you're pulling out your wool coat, you got to make sure that that wool coat does not have any linen mixed with it. In Houston we have a couple of shotness labs that will check it. It takes a few minutes, it costs about 10 bucks and you ensure that you fulfilled a biblical commandment not to mix wool and linen.
25:28
Then we have the mitzvah of Orla, which is Orla is the first three years of a fruit tree You're not to take from its fruit. So we had this. When we moved into our new home about five years ago, we realized that there was a beautiful lime tree in the back, but we didn't know it was. The home was previously owned by a non-Jew. We don't know when the tree was planted. So the first year we moved in till Rosh Hashanah was the first year. Then that Rosh Hashanah till the following Rosh Hashanah was the second year and then that third year I believe it was till Tubeshvat that we had to limit our use from that tree and then enjoy those limes and my son loves limes and then, till the freeze, it was producing beautiful, delicious limes and then it went to another world.
26:23
Alright, the Torah prohibits us from having tattoos or making any type of markings on our bodies. What people would do is that after someone would die, they would want to commemorate the deceased In Houston. You see that in the back of people's cars they have like a whole museum rest and peace, so on and so. But what people used to do is that they used to mark their bodies and etch into their bodies a memorial for someone who passed away. The Torah says this is prohibited. You're not allowed to do such a thing. Just an interesting thing to the world. That says my body, my choice, it's not your body, it's Hashem's body. Hashem says don't desecrate my body and therefore tattoos are prohibited and also killing babies is prohibited.
27:11
Shabbat we learned about the commandment of Shabbat. We learned about honoring our parents, not serving idolatry, giving charity, being honest with weights and measures. Punishments that befall a person who goes against the will of Hashem, the penalties for forbidden relationships and the land and its immortality and the holiness and laws of kashrut are mentioned at the end of the portion of Kedoshim. But Kedoshim also tells us the most important thing is be holy. You've got to be holy, holy. You know there's a famous story that's told about from Rebnach Weinberg.
27:54
Rebnach Weinberg was the leader and founder of Eshatorah, which is the great Yeshiva right opposite the western wall in Jerusalem, and was once a student, a backpacker, who was brought into his Yeshiva and he asks him so how was your backpacking experience? He says, listen, I've been across the globe, all through the far east, and I came to Israel. Everyone calls Israel a holy land. But he says, to be honest with you, I don't see much holiness here. He says, really, you went to all of these great places, you know the holy cities in Israel and you didn't see any holiness. He says, no, I didn't see any holiness. He says, okay, so at least did you enjoy the famous buffoon sticks? He says buffoon sticks, what are buffoon sticks? He says what do you mean? You're telling me you went to all around Israel. You didn't see buffoon sticks everywhere. You see them everywhere. He says I don't know. Maybe I saw them, maybe I didn't, but I don't know what that is. You've got to tell me what it is first. I'll be able to tell you if I saw them. He says so tell me.
28:52
What is holiness? We're convinced holiness. There isn't any For sure. I didn't see holiness in Hebron. I didn't see holiness at the western wall in Jerusalem. I didn't see holiness in Sfat. But what is holiness? That needs to be defined very, very carefully. What is holiness? And that's what we have a Torah for to teach us that.
29:16
Then we go to the eighth portion in the book of Leviticus, and that is Emore, the holiness of the priests and the holidays. There are 63 commandments, 63 mitzvahs in this portion and we learn about the laws of the sanctity of a Kohen, the disqualifying blemishes of a Kohen. There are certain aspects of a Kohen that, if they weren't perfect, you would not be able to serve in the temple as a Kohen Gadol or as an acting Kohen. It can be a supportive Kohen. Now, safeguarding the sanctity of every person, we have to safeguard ourselves and keep ourselves holy.
29:58
This is something which is, I think, in our generation, something so simple, so easy for us to do. You know, my wife and I made a commitment, blynedr, without promise, that we don't want to ever go to Vegas. We don't want to ever go to Vegas. What's wrong with Vegas? Come on. Well, any place that calls itself Sin City, I don't want to be there. Right, you give it fun city, okay, that's one thing. You call yourself Sin City, I don't want to be there. I think that this is part. I'm not saying that it's prohibited for someone to go there, but when the Torah tells us to safeguard our sanctity, to safeguard our holiness. Perhaps it's something for us to note in our you know where we go, what we do?
30:46
Additionally, I believe that the internet is a very, very, very powerful tool. We have today on our cell phones, at our fingertips, at any given moment, any concept, idea, influence at our fingertips. So if we know that we're wasting time with a specific app, we're watching too many YouTube shorts of cats flushing toilets and stuff like that, you know what? If our time is precious and our time is holy, maybe we should remove the app or limit it. You can today on all apps. You can limit it yourself. You don't need to have a parent do it for you. You can do it yourself and you can say you know what, I only want to spend 10 minutes on this app, and why, so that I protect myself. Or no minutes, remove the app completely. But that's. Every person needs to decide what is their way of safeguarding their own sanctity, their own holiness.
31:47
We also talk about Turuma in Parshis Amar, a blemished animal. If an animal has five legs, it's not a kosher animal. If an animal's limping and has a broken leg, it's not a kosher animal, etc. Etc. Those are the animals you can buy at Purdue and Tyson non-kosher suppliers, but in the kosher market you will not find those animals. They're not kosher.
32:13
The secretion and sanctification of God's name. We are implored by the Torah to keep Hashem's name holy. Don't use Hashem's name in vain. Don't curse with God's name. Don't use Hashem's name to say negative things about people. We're taught we'd learn about the Shabbos, the festivals, pesach, the Omer, shavuot, rosh Hashan, yom Kippur, sukkot, shmini, yatseris, the Minora, the Shoebred, the blasphemer, the story of the blasphemer and that he is put to death by Moshe. Moshe asks Hashem what do I do? Someone went against you In public. He was warned. Hashem says take him out and kill him. And the punishment for murder and damages.
32:59
We have to be very careful about human lives and, additionally, we need to be careful with people's possessions. So if you drive your car over your neighbors' front lawn, you have to repay them, and the Talmud goes into great detail, based on the verses in this portion and in several other areas in the Torah, of exactly what you need to pay them. They have a manicured lawn. You have to pay them now, the top of the top, or you just have to give them some seeds so they can regrow their grass. Well, that's what the Talmud will teach us.
33:39
And then we have the final two portions of the Book of Leviticus where we talk about the holiness of the land. The holiness of the land begins with Shemitah. Shemitah is the seventh year, the sabbatical year, where God says work your field for six years, but rest on the seventh. And if you do, I will give you a triple crop on your sixth year, so you'll have enough for the sixth year, the seventh and the eighth. While you get back in order and you get to get start working your land again, you'll have enough for that as well. And this is, by the way, the gift of Shabbos as well. Shabbos and Shemitah are both parallels where God says work six days, work your tail off Sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday. Shabbos is a day of rest, and if you do so, we'll have a blessing on the sixth day that will last for Shabbos and Sunday as well. Additionally, one other thing we can't talk about Shabbos without understanding the importance of Shabbos being our vacation, our respite, our day, which, it says kihimikor habrachah. It is the source of all blessings. All blessings that one seeks in this world are rewarded through Shabbos.
35:05
And a woman who came. I was sitting with a rabbi. She came to get a blessing and she says to the rabbi I opened up a new clothing store in Tel Aviv and I want a blessing that my clothing store be successful. So the rabbi said is it open on Shabbos? She says, of course it's open on Shabbos. What do you mean? I have to sell clothes Friday. Shabbos is the only day that we really sell a tremendous amount. He says how can I go against the Torah, which says kihimikor habrachah, that the observance of Shabbos is the source of all blessing. And now you're expecting me to give you a blessing when you work on Shabbos? Close the store on Shabbos and I promise you will have the most incredible success. So this is part of the promise of success.
35:48
God says. It may seem to you very difficult Me not work on Shabbos, me not run my errands and do my things On Shabbos. It's my day off. That's the day where we invest. That's your day on, where we invest in our relationship with Hashem. It's a day not to do, it's a day to be, it's a day to exist in your relationship, invest in your relationship with the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth.
36:18
We also learn in the portion of Baha'ar we learn about the Yovel, the Jubilee year, which is the 50th year. We talk about the redemption of the land of Israel and we talk about the prevention of poverty, how we prevent people from being poor and how we take care of one another. We talk about Jewish slaves that we are obligated to free and no idols, statues and pillars in front of Hashem. Hashem says don't make idols, don't erect statues or pillars. Think of those big Greek pillars that Hashem says. Those pillars are not what I want from my people.
37:04
Observe the Shabbos, it's again reminded. We see this many, many, many times, not only in the Ten Commandments that we spoke about in the last of the Bible crash course on Exodus, but we see it constantly, where God is reminding us again and again and again to observe His Shabbos. And then, finally, at the end of Partius Baha'ar, god tells us revere my sanctuaries, and this doesn't only refer to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, but any place of holiness, a synagogue. A synagogue is a place of holiness. It's a place where people come together to connect with God, to talk to God, to build their relationship with God, and therefore it's critically important that we ensure that we conduct ourselves with dignity, with proper reverence in these places.
38:00
And then finally, in Partius Bichucosai, the last portion in the book of Leviticus, we talk about the miracles of the blessings and the curses. When someone does good, they will get good. They will have unbelievable bounty, they will have unbelievable blessings. They can have so much blessing they're not going to know what to do with all of their blessings. But what happens if God forbid? Someone sins against God and distances themselves? Then God lists off the admonitions, the punishments. They are severe and frightening, where God hopes to never need to exercise them. And then we talk about the gifts to the temple, the census, the counting of the Jewish people, the tithes of the animals. And if we conduct our lives properly, we will live with prosperity. This is the bottom line of the Torah.
38:53
We have many, many, many mitzvos that are in this week's part in this, in this Chamesh of ours in the book of Leviticus. But notwithstanding all the mitzvos that we have in the book of Ayyikur, we have 247 mitzvos, 95 of them are performative and 151 of them are prohibitions. It is extremely important for us to realize that the Torah doesn't want us to be robots. The Torah does not want us to be. Just do, perform, act, be a robot. No, hashem wants us to build a relationship with him. More than anything else, hashem wants our heart. Hashem wants us to feel the connection and Hashem is constantly waiting but also testing us to see our devotion, our commitment to him. So the book of Ayyikur is a lot talking about the offerings, and the Leviticus is about the Levites. But that's just the first couple portions where we talk about the offerings that were relevant to each and every one of us but performed by the Kohane on our behalf, where we ask the Kohane please, I've come for atonement for this sin, please bring this animal as an offering to Hashem. But also we see how we need to sacrifice ourselves, our own desires, our urges, our wants, our wishes, for the will of Hashem. That too we have to sacrifice for Hashem. Hashem wants us to enjoy, hashem gives us this world to enjoy. But we'll always need to choose Hashem or our own will. And if we're able to merge the two, make our will the will of Hashem, then that's the absolute best place to be. So, my dear friends, this concludes the summary of the book of Leviticus and, god willing, next week we will continue with the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. Any questions Right? So it's a great question that you're asking, rabbi Feinstein, that I love to quote and mention.
41:16
In our classes dealt with a lot of those issues with modern-day technology and science where they're using. I personally am terrified. Whenever I look at a product. Now I look if there are bioengineered ingredients. I want to stay away from them. I don't know. I don't want scientists feeding me food. I prefer God feed me food and I'm really terrified. You know, today almost every single cereal box has bioengineered ingredients. This is one that I found that doesn't. That's regular plain Cheerios. Everything else has bioengineered ingredients, which is frightening. This is coming from some lab. So I wish us all well that we stay healthy and we stay strong, because I'm terrified by what comes out of these labs. I don't even know what we can, what our bodies can or cannot produce from those chemicals that they put in our food. So excellent, excellent question what's the significance of bringing and offering with salt?
42:24
Salt is a preservative, and what salt does? That's why every meal in Judaism has salt. You're supposed to have salt on the table and you say the blessing of Hamotzi. You better make sure you have salt on the table. Why Salt is a preservative, and what we're saying is that we recognize and want to preserve our relationship with God. Salt preserves our relationship with God. Also, our sages tell us that salt pushes away the demons. So when someone eats, the demons come and say oh, we don't want this food to be healthy for them. Our sages tell us of modern day. I heard a rabbi say this a few months ago. He says make sure you never have a meal without salt on your table. Whenever you're eating, make sure there's salt on the table, because then the demons can't approach you.
43:21
A little something about salt. That's why we dip our challah on shabbos into salt. We dip it three times. Very interesting, some people don't know this. If you are eating in other people's houses, you may see that they cut the challah and sometimes they just sprinkle salt on top of the challah. That's not what the challah says. Allah says you should dip the challah into the salt three times. So you dip it and then you pass it, and if you have a lot of people, you dip a lot of challah into the salt. That's fine, all right, now you know the rest of the story. All right, my dear friends, have a terrific evening. Thank you so much. God willing, next week we may divide the last two books of the Torah into two and we'll have six weeks of the five books in five weeks. All right, yeah, you'll forgive me. We'll see how much we can fit into next week's class and you're welcome to take home these notes, review them. If you have any corrections, please let me know. I appreciate all feedback.
44:26 - Intro (Announcement)
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